Pat feigned a sleepy grin. 'Morning, baby.' She yawned authentically. 'Where's your husband?'
'At work. He won't be back until evening.' Karen tugged nervously at the plain robe which completely covered the wispy nightgown. She pretended to pluck imaginary lint from a sleeve.
'Leave him, Karen,' Pat swung her legs over the side of the bed, sitting up as the blankets fell from her body. Her voice was intense, yet her face was clear and undisturbed. 'Leave him,' she repeated. Her head came to Karen's breasts. She nuzzled between them softly, like a child, then dropped a kiss lovingly between the jutting globes. The faded-blue robe smelled of sun and woman perfume.
Karen looked down at the seated girl. The head between her breasts looked so right where it was. She wanted to touch the dark strands. 'How can I?' she asked, instead. 'Even if I wanted td, I couldn't. Don't you understand? I couldn't. Don't you understand? I couldn't do that to Al. He really doesn't deserve to be treated like that.' Karen wanted to explain, make Pat understand, but the girl's kisses were lightly skimming over her bodice, and she couldn't think, much less argue convincingly.
Hardly taking time to look up from the softness of Karen's well-covered chest, Pat contemptuously repulsed the blonde's sentiment. 'Al's a nice enough guy, baby, but he's like any man. He'd make love to another girl in a minute, if he got the chance. The same as any other man, doll. If that sort of fidelity is important to you…' Pat ducked her head and kissed a button which sealed the cloth over Karen's navel.
Karen closed her eyes and fought to keep her breathing and her head clear. She didn't have the strength or desire to push the lazily circling head away. 'Not Al. He… he's not like that. Really. I know that…' The dark-haired head was back between her breasts. 'Other men are – like that, but not Al. I know.'
'I could prove it, you know,' Pat challenged, dropping a final kiss under one breast. She threw her head back and looked up at Karen, her lips spreading into a warm, almost innocent-looking smile.
'I've got breakfast on the kitchen table. Will you eat with me?' Karen wanted to change the subject. It was getting out of hand.
'I'm starved. I'll just be a moment.' Pat got up and made her way to the bathroom. When she came out she looked much more awake.
Over their second cup of coffee, after Karen had removed their empty dishes, Pat resumed her argument. 'I could prove it, you know. Are you afraid to find out that Al is like any other man?'
'Of course not!' Yet, Karen admitted to herself as she stared into her coffee cup, she was afraid! She was afraid that she was about to be tricked, about to commit herself to something she might regret, something she even now did not understand.
'Well, then, darling,' Pat paused, her eyes suddenly slitted and looking dangerous, 'shall I prove it?'
During that moment of hesitation, as Karen stared back into her empty cup for an answer, Pat moved cat- like to her side and silently coaxed Karen to her feet. This was the understanding, the sensitivity Karen knew was missing from her marriage and it made her weak all over. Everything was happening so fast, she was convinced it was all a dream. They were kissing. They were naked. They were on the bed in the living room. She felt her hot breasts being caressed by delightful, feminine hands, followed by tender wet kisses. A hot moist tongue traveled down her stomach and circled her navel, on its way down… down… down! Though Karen heard the animal-lust sounds escaping from deep in her own throat, she couldn't believe it was happening to her!
Afterwards, smiling into each other's eyes, Pat repeated her question. 'I must have you as much as you need me. About Al – darling,' Pat kissed each lip separately before finishing, 'let me prove it… men… It's no good. Us, we're right… for each other. Al's like the others.' She pressed her lips to Karen's pointy little chin. 'Let me show you, darling. I'll prove his…' she fished around for a word that would cover a concept she did not, in any case, value, '… faithlessness. Then you'll come away with me.'
Karen sighed against Pat's breasts. She felt right there, pillowed by strong, yet feminine arms. Al was a blur in her memory. He didn't matter. Nothing mattered, save this moment, this happiness. 'Yes,' Karen whispered. She would consent to anything, anything, just as long as this wonderful moment did not pass too quickly. She plunged her lips deeply into the naked flesh.
Her last guilty thought, before again finding oblivion in Pat's embrace was of Allen. She found herself hoping that he would fail her, and, in that way, force her into a decision she didn't have the strength to make by herself.
Karen felt Pat's amused eyes on her as she unpacked with her usual efficiency and orderliness. She had done what she wanted to do, what she felt she had to do. She belonged to Pat now, in just the way she had wanted to, and had imagined she would, belong to Al. But he had let her down, first on their wedding night, and now, again, with Pat.
Karen welcomed the memory of the evening that had passed. It had been painful at the time, but it had served not only to chase away the fear and doubts, but also finalized her decision to leave her husband.
She had felt stupid and petty in agreeing to help Pat pull off her plan, her grand proof. She had felt like a thief and a sneak, first, while writing the note that Al was to find when he returned from school, again, when she had hidden like a Peeping Tom in the bushes alongside her own house. Like a spectator who undertakes an intricate part in some bizarre play, Karen watched her husband return tired to their home, unlock the door, switch on a light, find her note and read it.
The view from the window was all Pat had promised it would be. Pat, on schedule, appeared at the front door moments later and then Karen watched the play, which would determine her future, progress. It came in splotches of exaggerated emotion. First, Al's face; surprise, welcome, hunger and awkward doubt. She knew the words Pat spoke, the game of pretending to seek Karen, as planned, in Pat's being invited inside to wait, the slow unfolding of raw sensuality. The final act, that of adultery, was observed and overseen by the playgoer held trance-like at the windowpane.
Pat was on her back, her naked loveliness spread out on the bed, their bed, while Allen, her husband, was fitting his thin body tightly between the outstretched limbs of the girl under him. Pat's face, eyes closed, was a precious mask of sensuality, and yet, remoteness… Al's narrow buttocks were poised and ready to shoot his piston-like flesh into the soft cavity of the girl pinned under him.
Then the first thrust… the involuntary reaction of totally feminine legs shooting into the air as the hard flesh of the penis pinioned deeply within her opened vagina.
A desperate battle was taking place on the bed; woman, warm, soft, open, the passive vault into which the man, driving, steel-fleshed and frantic, labored to release the terrible burden building in his loins. He was like a crazed machine, ramming himself into the girl, seemingly helpless beneath him. The tempo of lust increased, the slamming buttocks a blur of motion, the limbs flailing underneath… until, finally, convulsively, a last wave of staccato thrusts culminated in body-racking, belly-quenching release.
Then the emotion was all on the part of the observer – shock, the sting of faithlessness, the acceptance of betrayal, the faint stirrings of desire inspired by the blunt sexuality. Reaction set in, rationalization, conclusion. The interpretation was the finale. The man's disloyalty… the water-eyed girl's sacrifice in the name of reality… and love…
It seemed appropriate that this union of man and woman should give birth to a new life. Karen's new life.
'Why don't you leave the rest of that stuff for later, baby?' Pat suggested, dropping a kiss lightly on Karen's ear.
Karen jumped slightly. 'Oh! I didn't hear you come in.' Karen turned to the girl, her intended smile a grimace. Be sweet and kind, Pat, please, she pleaded silently.
But Pat was filled with an impatient exhilaration. She couldn't keep from showing it. She had won! After all, she had won! She knew she would, but the actual accomplishment of it was heady.
'Let's go out, honey. Let's go to the coffeehouse. Let's celebrate! Let's go now, huh? Please?'
She's like a child, Karen thought. Does that make me a new toy? The cynical thought alarmed and surprised the girl. She repulsed it and again tried to smile. She was only slightly more successful. 'If… if you want,' she
