Chapter 12
Lyle Carpenter was frantic.
Now that he was a man in the fullest sense of the word, capable of giving complete satisfaction to any woman he went to bed with, the woman who had made a man of him had turned her back. She was seldom at home when he tried to reach her by phone; when she was, her attitude was cool and evasive. He threatened and pleaded, but this did no good. She refused to meet him.
Finally one night when he couldn't stand it any longer, he drove to the Wells' apartment house. Paula had let it slip that Joe was going to be away, and Lyle hoped this would mean that Paula would be at home alone.
He was wrong.
She was at home, but there was a man with her. Lyle didn't know him, of course, and Paula herself hadn't known him until that morning when he had happened to stop by selling cemetary plots. She had suggested that he return in the evening.
When Lyle, having observed shadowy figures moving behind the lightly draped windows, moved up to a window on the outdoor walkway and peeked between the edges of cloth which did not quite meet at the bottom, he witnessed the shocking sight of his beloved Paula, half-naked, moving into the embrace of this strange man who wore only a pair of striped boxer shorts.
Paula's luscious large breasts spread against the man's torso, and his possessive hands slid down her back to palm and squeeze her melon-like buttocks through the sheer black nylon briefs she wore. Garters, also black, emerged from below the briefs to travel down her white thighs and grip the tops of her-black stockings. It made for a very erotic scene, particularly with the man holding and rolling and squeezing her bottom as he was, but Lyle was not so much stimulated as angered. Still, he watched.
He seemed to have to watch everything that happened in the bedroom, although the farther course of the activity should have been clear to him from his first glimpse.
The man finally released Paula and allowed her to move to the bed where she stretched out to await him while he shucked his shorts off and removed his shoes and socks.
Then he went to her, kneeling and bending, holding her in his arms and kissing her all over as he gradually slid her panties away. Now the area available to his lips was larger and more intimate and he made the fullest possible use of it until Paula writhed in heat, her thighs scissoring against the sides of his head.
That's just the way she was with me so many times, Lyle thought. She told me the truth when she said she could react that way with any man who knew the right techniques to turn her on.
And I love her!
That makes me out some sort of fool. How can a man with any pride love a woman like that?
He continued to watch as the unknown male moved over Paula on the bed. Lyle's eyes were opened in more ways than one. Paula didn't love anyone, except perhaps herself ... and he wasn't sure of that. What he was sure of was that he could not afford to go on loving her.
Are all women the same underneath? he wondered as he watched the man on the bed insert his stiff rod into Paula's welcoming vagina. How about Jill? Would she welcome another man's pecker as eagerly as she used to welcome mine?
Is she, perhaps, with another man right now, doing what that slut in there is doing with that bastard?
He continued to watch as the man stroked up and down inside the pussy which Lyle had thought he loved. As he watched, a decision was forming in the back of his mind:
He would visit Jill tonight.
She had returned to their home and had been waiting these several weeks for him to come back to her, she had said. But was she waiting for him really? Or was she playing around with other men? He would have to find out.
If she was waiting-if, by chance, she turned out to be different from Paula-perhaps she was the woman for him, after all. But he-would have to make sure. He was going to make sure tonight.
Paula and her lover completed their copulation and Lyle was about to leave.
Then he thought:
I can't just walk away like this. I've got to let her know I saw it. And I want to let that guy, whoever he is, know what a jackass she will make out of him if he isn't careful.
Lyle walked to the front door of the apartment and found it unlocked. He opened it and entered. The couple in the bedroom didn't hear him as he walked stealthily down the hall. Only when he burst in upon them did they realize they were not alone, and then they broke apart, staring wildly up at him from the bed. "What are you doing here?' Paula demanded.
"Who-who's this?" the naked man asked frantically. "Your husband?"
Lyle answered him: "No. And I'm mighty grateful. As for you...." He turned to Paula who lay with legs parted, wholly exposed, her sensibilities having eroded to the point where she didn't even think of shielding herself. "I realize you were right. We aren't any good for each other. The truth is, I'm too good for you. So thanks for everything-for teaching me a few things physically and for letting me find out for myself what kind of person you are."
He turned and left the house.
Paula's lover scrambled off the bed and began to snatch up his clothes.
"Wait a minute!" she said. "You don't need to go yet. My husband won't be home until late."
"No thanks, honey. This place is a little too busy for me."
He quickly got dressed.
She lay back against the mattress and wondered seriously, for the first time, where all this was leading her. Lyle's verbal abuse had stung, and now there was the attitude of the man who had just been making love to her, grabbing his clothes and running as if he were in a whorehouse that was being raided.
No one seemed to have respect for her any more.
Perhaps even Joe didn't.
The big question was-did she have any respect for herself?
Lyle quickly covered the short distance from the Wells' apartment to the house where he and Jill had used to live together and where, if the statements contained in her notes to him were correct, she was waiting for him to return.
He parked in front of the apartment complex and followed the walk around the pool to the outdoor stairway which led to their front door. He hesitated for a few moments outside. Should he ring and wait for Jill to answer or should he just open the door? Even if it was locked, he carried a key.
He resolved the question in favor of entering the place unannounced, as he had entered the Wells' apartment.
He tried the door and found that the lock was set. He got out his key and quickly inserted it in the slot, turning it to open the door.
He walked into the darkened living room.
He eased the door closed gently behind him.
A tremendous fear gripped him that he might walk into the bedroom and discover Jill in a man's embrace, perhaps with his organ inside her body at that very moment. A cold sweat broke out on Lyle's forehead as he crept along in the darkness, feeling his way down the hall.
He hadn't realized that Jill meant this much to him any more, but now he knew she did. With Paula finally banished from his mind and his life, Jill was all that mattered. If he found that she was unfaithful, he didn't know what he would do.
The bedroom door was ajar and he pushed it fully open.
The glow from a street lamp mingled with moonlight to cast a shaft of medium brightness into the room. It fell across the large double bed. Lyle saw at a glance that Jill was alone, wearing a frilly pink nightie and curled up on her side.
A great warmth came into him at the sight of her, and he knew that he had to have her right away.
They had been separated for too long.
He couldn't wait another minute.
He threw his clothes off and drew the covers back, his penis already high and stiff with anticipation. Jill stirred, rolling onto her back. This left her sweet legs adorably parted, and she wore no pants underneath the short gown.
Lyle fell forward.
Jill awakened with his head pressed avidly between her thighs, his lips on her pussy, his tongue invading its satiny crevice and turning the membranes slick. . She gasped and writhed and then she cried out in fear because she thought she was being violated by a prowler. This couldn't be Lyle, doing this!
When he heard her cry, as if from far away, and he felt her hands pawing at his head, Lyle lifted his face and grinned at her. "Hello, darling," he murmured.
"Lyle! For heaven's sake! I don't know what to say!"
"You don't have to say anything," he told her as he moved forward, completely on top of her. "Just feel the love I have for you!"
And then he drove his slick cock deeply into the lubricated channel of her loins.
She really expected him to begin thrusting rapidly right away, as he had always done in the past, in spite of what Paula had said about the recent improvements in his sex technique. But even this would have been welcome. She gloried in the presence of his long stiff organ within her.
However, he did not move rapidly right away.
He began to stroke her slowly and deeply, maintaining perfect contact with her tingling clit. What he said, as his penis swelled with passion and his entire being swelled with pride, added to Jill's new-found conviction that he was indeed a changed man, for he had never spoken to her this way before:
"Jesus but it feels good to get my prick back into you again, where it belongs!"
"Oh, I do love your prick!" Jill cried and her hips began to go crazy, bobbing and grinding and twisting all at once.
As hot as she was, Lyle could have been his old fast self and still satisfied her. But he kept his cool. He stuck to his steady, deep-probing rhythm while Jill squealed and climaxed, her pussy contracting around him; When he was certain she was through, he stopped stroking and rolled onto his back, carrying her with him.
"Oh, Lyle!" she cried. "Oh, darling!"
He held her ass in his hands and moved it as he bumped gently up into her. He twisted his head and nipped at her dangling quivering breasts.
"Can you ... take me there again?" she asked breathlessly.
His answer was, "Baby, we've just started," and he rocked her with his bristling manhood in tiny jabs while he remained deeply embedded in her wet cunt. Each slight motion, and they came one right after another, rubbed her clit perfectly. Soon she was blissfully alive with excitement again and she started to move with him.
They finished exactly together in a pounding flurry of pumping strokes which sent her reeling into a never-never land of ecstasy, and afterward she could not kiss him enough.
"Oh, darling, I'm so happy!" she said as she still lay straddled atop him, his pin still linking them together. "And today I had almost given up hope. I was afraid you weren't ever coming back to me."
"I had to work something out of my system, I guess, but it's all gone now."
Jill debated whether she should bring up Paula by name, and she decided that she should. If their recent experiences had proved anything, it was that a married couple should be entirely frank with each other. Whatever was wrong or stood between them should be thrashed out in the open and perhaps, in the case of Paula, this was the best time to do it.
"You have no feeling for Paula any more?" Jill asked.
"Darling, remember a long time ago when we talked about her-before you and I went on that swapping date with Paula and her husband?"
"Yes," she said.
"I said she had the soul of a slut, didn't I?"
Jill nodded as she looked down at him earnestly.
"Well, I've changed my way of looking at a lot of things in the last few weeks, but I still agree with that judgment ... only more so. And now I'm in a position to know. I never want to see her again."
"Darling, I'm so happy," she said as she leaned forward and snuggled close to him.
He embraced her and, miraculously, he felt his penis begin to grow again within her humid embrace.
Jill felt it, also.
"Lyle!" she cried, sitting up and wriggling around him. "Are we going to go again?"
"You know it, angel! Again ... and again ... and again!" They rotated blissfully together.
Several miles away, in the city, Joe was lifting himself from the sated form of a blonde who worked in the engineering department of his company. He was in her apartment and, five seconds earlier, he had been in her cunt.
It had been a good place to be, but it was neither better nor worse than his wife's or a dozen other females he had screwed in the past several weeks. It was getting so they all felt the same to him.
They weren't the same, really. There were subtle differences. But somehow the differences had become blurred and had merged into a great sameness of female sensuality which seemed to have swallowed him up.
What was he doing, rushing madly from one to the, other, trying to make every one within reach? What was he trying to prove?
He supposed that a man was expected to regard sex as a mountain climber regarded Everest-you screwed them because they were there. But was that sensible? Was it realistic? Was it meaningful in any way to him?
He said his good nights quickly and left the blonde's apartment.
He felt tired, but the tiredness was not of bone and nerves and muscle. It was a tiredness of the soul.
He drove home and, when he walked into his apartment, he found his wife asleep in bed. He turned on the overhead light and it blazed against her closed eyelids, waking her up.
She'd had difficulty falling asleep as it was, and she reacted with anger.
"Shut up!" Joe said.
She sat in the middle of the bed, one shoulder strap in place and the other falling down, one tit in and one tit out, and blinked at him in surprise. He didn't usually speak to her that way.
"We're going to have a talk," he announced.
"About what?" she asked.
He said, "About us."
It was so simple and direct that it caught her off guard. They were the couple who were so well adjusted and so mature that no manner of hijinx could affect the stability of their marriage or their psychological closeness to each other. And yet, during the past few weeks, they had found it increasingly difficult to communicate. Lately they hadn't tried very often.
Joe was determined to communicate with his wife tonight, and on the most direct and personal basis.
"Are we having fun?' he asked.
"What a silly thing to say!" she told him.
"No, it isn't. It goes to the heart of the way we're living and the kind of relationship we have. Tell me this-are you happy, really happy, with the way we're living, with what we have made of ourselves? If you are, it's all worth it ... from your standpoint."
"And from yours?" she asked tremulously.
"I want to hear your answer first."
She considered. "I'm not sure."
"Yes, you are. Don't evade the issue in your own mind. You're either happier than you were before or you're not. Now., which is it?"
"Well...."
"Yes?
"Oh, Joe!" she cried. "What are we going to do?"
He stood and gazed at her anguished face and at her bare breast standing out. She needed his strength, his guidance. He had to take charge.
"We're going to quit," he stated firmly. "No more swaps. No more playing around. From now on, any pleasure that we want we will get from each other. And if I ever catch you so much as flirting with another man...."
"Yes, Joe? What will you do?" The old brightness returned to her eyes.
He said simply, "I'll beat you to within an inch of your life."
"You don't mean that. You've never beaten me. You couldn't beat me. You don't have what it takes to...."
He lunged and threw her over onto her belly. She screamed, but he paid no attention. He yanked her black nightie up, and there exposed was her lovely round ass. He raised his hand and brought it down smartly across both buttocks, making a terrible splat and causing the arcs to shake and wobble.
"Joe ... oh, Joe!" she squealed and kicked as his arm held her against the bed.
He lifted his hand and let her have it again. He realized that he deserved punishment as much as she did, but he perceived also that this particular demonstration was necessary right now. He had been entirely too permissive in the past, and he had to let her know that he was in command.
"You're going to love me!" he yelled and he spanked her quivering butt.
"You're going to respect me!" He spanked her again. "Most important, you're going to obey me!" He spanked her and spanked her, turning her bottom pink and making her bawl into the bedclothes. Then he rolled her over onto her back and knelt on the bed beside her with all his clothes on. He drew her into his embrace.
"I love you, Paula," he said. "You're the only person in this whole world I love! And you're going to be my wife from now on in every sense of the word-my woman and nobody else's. Understand?"
"Yes, darling," she blubbered. "I will."
"And any time I don't please you, for any reason at all, you're to tell me and we'll have it out. One thing these experiences of the last few weeks have done is to broaden us. That can be a benefit in the long run, provided we stop now ... before our marriage and our lives are ruined."
"I want to stop, Joe. If I'm ever tempted to go back to it, spank me like you spanked me tonight." She gripped his back with her sharp nails as she added in a roughened voice: "But harder."
"Don't worry," he growled. "Next time I'll fix you so you won't sit down for a week."
She gripped him and shuddered and then he had her wet mouth clasping his, her tongue twisting, a low moan sounding in her throat.
Later, after she was asleep and he lay in the dark listening to her steady breathing, he wondered about the couples they had swapped with-the Carpenters, the Richardsons and the others. Would they ever be the same again, or would they go on and on down the road which he and Paula had started to travel until there was no point in going any farther with life itself?
It depended on them, he supposed.
Perhaps swapping was good for some people. It offered momentary pleasure, undeniably, and perhaps some people could handle it without letting it get out of hand. Perhaps it even could help a marriage.
In the case of Paula and himself, the real trouble might have been that they didn't restrict themselves to swapping but started to play around individually on the side. Perhaps that was the destructive factor.
But could a couple practice one form of freedom without eventually insisting upon the other? Once the sanctity of marriage was set aside, what consideration was to keep them from going as far as they could?
They were good questions but, as far as Joe was concerned, they were academic. The delights of swapping no longer represented a lure. And he would see that they didn't lure Paula, either.
A few blocks away, Lyle and Jill lay awake in the darkness, talking. They had screwed themselves out, but there remained a few things to say before they surrendered to sleep.
"Thank God for that swap with the Wellses," Lyle said. "If it weren't for that, I wouldn't have found out what a jerk I was."
"Yes," Jill admitted. "I think it served a purpose. And I suppose I should be grateful to Paula, though up until an hour ago I wanted to cut her heart out."
"It was an educational experience," said Lyle. "That's the way we ought to consider it."
His wife glanced at him in the dark. "Do you want to try it again?"
"Never," he stated firmly.
She snuggled against him and said, "Amen."
"Good night, darling."
"Good night, lover."