breasts with warm sun color, displaying her womanly hips, exhibiting the darker smudge below her rounded belly, thoroughly piercing the frothy material, and Pat was so shockingly beautiful, so much a part of the night, framed, as she was in the doorway, the night behind her, the light ahead. The short, black slip hid little of the lithely graceful body. Her sharply tilting breasts rose and fell gently under the bodice. All she wore under the slip was a pair of brief, black panties. Her expression was bland, but her vivid eyes were cat's eyes, alive, aware, hungry. She didn't speak, but, when Karen continued to stare mutely, she detached herself from the doorway and walked towards Karen.
Her movement was swift and sure. One moment she was part of the darkness, the next, part of Karen, their bodies pressed together, their lips moving against each other, their tongues locked before either could caution herself.
It was over in an instant. Karen's moist mouth and her pulsating body felt the loss of the contact even before she was aware that Pat was no longer in her arms. A fire was roaring hotly in her red-tinged ears. The fury of it drowned out most of Pat's soft good-night. She watched the black slip float lazily back into the darkness.
Even when Karen heard the soft protest of the couch, as Pat sank into it, she could not believe that the girl was really gone, no longer in her arms.
If this was love, Karen thought miserably, abnormal love, she amended, she wanted nothing to do with it! But even as she thought the words, Karen knew that there was nothing she could do about it any longer. It was like a drug, a powerful narcotic. She had toyed with it, played with it like a greedy kitten with a ball of wool, and now it was too late.
Karen hurried through the living room, this time not looking at anything but the door that led to her husband and safety. She slipped into bed with the soundless care she had so carefully cultivated. She descended into sleep with almost as much ease.
Allen opened his eyes with a sudden start. He blinked sleepily, and wondered what had awakened him so abruptly. Then he felt the arm over his chest, recognized an immediate, foolish hope that somehow the strange, dark girl was beside him, and looked down into his wife's pretty face. Karen turned again, this time moving her weight to the other side of the bed and away from him. Allen sat up in bed. He was suddenly too aware of his senses – the desire for a woman other than his wife had stirred him, had made his body restless and his throat dry. He remembered the beer in the refrigerator. It was, he thought grimly, either the beer, or waking Karen.
Karen groaned softly in her sleep. Allen looked again at her valentine face, and felt a sudden tenderness for her. Drawing a deep breath, he got off the bed carefully, so as not to disturb her. Better settle for the beer, he decided.
He tiptoed through the living room, looking through the darkness for Pat's sleeping form as he walked. He closed the door to the kitchen quietly, then turned on the light. Allen thought again about Karen and his marriage as he got out the beer and poured himself a glassful. He took a quick sip and shook his head. His marriage was not right – he could see that as well as Karen could, and although he could not put his finger on the trouble, of one thing he was sure – it wasn't his fault. He had done nothing…
Allen remembered with a fleeting twinge of guilt the thing Karen had wanted him to do to her that night, that one wonderful night when at last she seemed to be liking it, wanting it as much as he. What had stopped him? He gulped down some more of the beer. There was nothing wrong with the act. He knew that. Yet, there was something about doing what she asked – all his childhood his parents had been on his back to be man… A man didn't cry – a man didn't bend – a man didn't crawl. Maybe that was it. A man didn't crawl, in the deepest sense of the word. He couldn't, not even for her.
Allen thought about Pat as he took a final sip of beer. Now, there was a woman! Allen was sure that Pat would not need any exotic stimulation to make her act like a woman. He rinsed out his glass mechanically, his thoughts blurred and irritatingly exciting. He flicked off the light before opening the kitchen door. He didn't want to wake anyone. He was, Allen thought with a wiry smile, a model husband and boy scout.
He was halfway to his bedroom when he thought he heard the voice. He stopped and waited. Was this a wish taking on the substance of reality? Or had he actually heard Pat's low voice whisper his name?
'Al!'
The whisper was louder this time. He walked to the couch quickly, not wanting Karen to hear, somehow feeling nervous and guilty although he had done nothing, nothing at all. He was over the couch and could barely make out the girl lying under the covers. Then two slim and shapely arms snaked out from under the blankets and went out to him. He could see a flash of white as Pat's lips parted and her perfect teeth gleamed eerily at him. Then she was plastered against him, kneeling on the bed. The bit of black slip and panties she had been wearing were tangled around her calves, her naked body burning against him, her wet mouth covering his, her tongue darting between his teeth frantically. Her full breasts dug into his chest and the soft pillow of flesh between her thighs caressed him intimately.
Allen was pulling her even closer to him, cupping her ripe buttocks in both hands, moaning somewhere in his constricted throat as she slipped down from his embrace, a powdered, satiny-fleshed snake, her nakedness grazing his chest, belly and thighs in a loving caress of skin against skin. Her hungry, animal-like mouth nibbled wetly as her body receded from his. Just as Al thought he must grab this wonderful creature and push his throbbing hard flesh inside her, he felt the almost liquid kiss as it landed bird-like on his outstretched manhood for one brief, ecstatic second. Desire, like a ravished floodgate, obliterated caution, made him forget everything except Pat and her wonderful body. He pulled her against his frantically pounding chest, searching in the dark for her lips, her fantastic breast with its puckered tips…
But she was suddenly evasive, no longer soft and pliable and there. He didn't understand. He could only feel. He could only ache with the need for her… He felt the hands working now, pushing him away from her, but he didn't understand their meaning.
Pat had slipped down to the bed again, easily evading Allen. She smiled confidently in the dark.
'But…' Allen was very aware of the wild staccato of his heart beat. 'But… I… need…' He could barely hear his own whispered plea.
'Not now! Not like this,' Pat whispered back. She patted his thigh, liking the way his flesh trembled under her touch. 'I'll come to you… when you're alone. I'll find a way… and soon!' she promised.
He understood, and felt guilty and absurdly cheap. He understood, but he didn't resist or tell her, as he knew he should, to forget it. Instead he grasped her hand and brought it to him. 'I… I can't wait!' he complained miserably.
'Soon, darling, soon,' she whispered soothingly. Then, fluidly, Pat turned on her side, removing her hand gently, and, to all appearances, went to sleep.
Al stood by the couch a moment longer, feeling impotent in a way he had never felt before. Finally he went back to the bedroom which was his and Karen's.
His sleep was fuzzy and permeated with stabbing and constant pain from the pit of his tortured loins.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Pat opened her eyes and shaded them with her fingers. The morning light pushed through the tightly draped windows, revealing every crack and flaw in the plastered walls. She reached down and smoothed the slip which had hiked up around her waist during the night. She heard sounds in the kitchen, breakfast sounds mingling with the sweet sound of Karen's clear, untrained, yet appealing voice. Pat tried to identify the tune Karen sang. Then the voice drifted closer and Pat decided to close her eyes again and let Karen wake her.
'Pat?' Karen coughed apologetically. She was sure that Pat would be up by the time she had finished making breakfast, and now she didn't know whether to let her go on sleeping or wake her up. The cooling eggs she had whipped so carefully and the wilting slices of bacon decided her. 'Pat?' she called a little louder. She saw the eyelids flutter in the still face. The girl was so beautiful and composed, even in sleep, that she made Karen feel like an adolescent with a crush on her teacher.
