Chapter 9
On a warm spring morning about eight months later, Barbara awoke slowly and stretched luxuriously, like a cat, savoring the soft comfortable feeling of the satiny sheets that covered the king-size bed. Sleepily, she opened her eyes, reaching for the spot where Ralph's body should have been.
He must have gone downstairs already, she thought, finding his side of the bed empty.
Yawning, she slipped her feet into the backless slippers on the floor at the side of the bed and, wrapping the sheet around her naked young body, moved across the room to open the windows that opened onto the Hudson. Letting the sheet slip from her lusciously contoured body, she stretched again, closing her eyes and letting the bright spring sun play over her sleep-laden limbs.
For a moment she felt like a child again, waking in her own room, fresh from a dewy dream. A look around, however, jolted her back to reality.
Although it had been almost six months since she and Ralph had abandoned their dark East Side apartment and moved into the Life Unlimited House, she still found it hard to adjust to her new surroundings.
This morning, she felt vaguely depressed, "I did have a dream," she murmured aloud, picking her way around the large, Victorian room through the maze of clothing and overflowing ashtrays, mementos of the previous night's debauch. "But I can't remember it. Something about Ralph and me...."
She went into the adjoining bathroom and splashed water on her face to wake herself up. Catching a glimpse of herself in the mirror, she was amazed that she looked as fresh as she did. Not a single line or shadow betrayed the excesses to which she had subjected her ripe young body the night before, although the "session," involving Annette, Mara, Frank, a young boy named Koky who had only recently arrived at the House, as well as herself and Ralph had lasted well into the early morning hours.
She smiled, remembering Koky's slender, hard frame pressed strongly against hers. He had definitely been the high point of the evening. "Really, Barbara," she addressed herself in the mirror, "I never thought you'd get around to seducing children! He couldn't be more than sixteen!"
Slipping into a pair of brief cutoff shorts and an old shirt of Ralph's which she tied under her firmly swelling breasts, she padded downstairs to the kitchen, where she found Ralph just finishing his breakfast.
"Morning, sweetheart," she said, leaning over him and nibbling lightly on his ear.
"Hi, baby," he replied, patting her absently on her buttocks as she moved to a chair across the table. "I'm glad you're up. That guy Callahan is coming this morning."
"Callahan? Who's he?" Barbara asked, pouring herself a glass of orange juice from the pitcher on the table. "Damn! The juice is warm," she said petulantly. "How many times do I have to tell Annette that I can't stand orange juice when it's not ice cold!"
"Don't worry about it now," her husband interrupted as she was about to storm into the kitchen and unleash a furious tirade at Annette, who was on kitchen duty that week. "Callahan's the guy who's suing Rick for alienation of affections. I thought you might be able to ... reason with him, know what I mean?"
"Ooooooh, now I remember. His wife took exception to Frank's classes didn't she?"
"Exception is not the word!" Ralph replied. "He's suing for a very large amount of money and threatening to blow the whole operation wide open."
"Frank really is getting to be a bore isn't he?"
"Yeah. I think I'm going to talk to Rick about him next time he's here."
"Well give me a rundown on Callahan, and I'll see what I can do."
"He's a truckdriver, about twenty five, very angry, and he'll be here in an hour."
Having finished her breakfast, Barbara hurried upstairs to change into something appropriate for dealing with outraged husbands. Finally she settled on a pale blue backless dress of soft jersey that clung to her lushly rounded body like a second skin, but somehow managed to look demure at the same time. She arranged her long mane of blonde hair in a crown of braids around her head, and decided against any makeup except the merest trace of pale pink lipstick.
"God I wish I could shake this depression!" she muttered as she made her way back down the stairs to the main reception room. Everything seemed to make her blue. Even Ralph's request to deal with the outraged Mr. Callahan. "Outraged husbands are a bore," she thought, with unusual anger.
"Barbara ... can we speak to you for a minute?"
Koky's young male voice stopped her on the way down the hall. He was standing in the doorway of one of the classes, and inside, Barbara could see that Annette was hovering behind him.
"Of course," she replied, smiling and feeling a sudden spark of desire at the sight of his thin adolescent face, ringed with long curly hair that made his dark eyes sparkle like dark jewels. Playfully she reached out and stroked his fuzzy cheek with her long tapering finger. "What is it?"
"Annette and I think we want to move on," he said hesitantly.
"What do you mean?" Barbara frowned.
"We think we want to leave for awhile, go out on our own, and we just wanted to know when it would be convenient. We don't want to leave you shorthanded or anything."
"Well, this is a surprise," Barbara replied sternly, "Especially from you, Annette. Do you think you're ready to go out into the world again?"
"I ... think ... so ... if Koky's with me. Oh Barbara, I'll never stop being grateful for everything the house has done for me ... please don't think that, its just ... well ... Koky and I want to try to make a life of our own! Together!"
A stab of pain seemed to go through Barbara's brain at the young girl's words, and suddenly she remembered the dream she'd been dreaming when she woke up. It was she and Ralph, making love passionately, ecstatically-but suddenly they were torn apart by grasping hands pulled away from each other, and she remembered calling to him and reaching out her arms as they drifted further and further away.
"Very well," she said sharply, striding briskly to the window and looking away from them so that they couldn't see the sudden tears that rose uncontrollably in her eyes. "Leave whenever you want!"
"Will ... will the end of the week be ok?"
"Fine." Turning, she watched the happy young couple run down the hall, hand in hand, talking animatedly to each other. She watched until they were out of sight, then, forcing her head high and all signs of regret from her face, she continued down the hall to the reception room.
"A truck driver ... about twenty-five," she murmured through her tears. "Well that's fine! Just fine! If only I could stop ... feeling ... so ... depressed!"