things. She could sense a lesbian's interest in her without even touch, sometimes even a word that indicated deviation from the norm.
There was the teacher in Brussels for instance, the tall, strait-laced creature who dressed as formally as a nun. Her history class was conducted with military discipline. Everyone had to address her by her title. And yet she had convinced Mara she was gay by her intense looks, her expressions. One night she had invited several of her best pupils to her home near la Grand Place and given them some excellent food and wine. Mara had suddenly become quite drowsy, the others had not. So she had accepted her teacher's offer that she sleep over. She had accepted with a feeling of uneasiness. Those strange, intense looks at her when she crossed her legs, when she wore thin, tight sweaters emphasizing her firm breasts bothered Mara very much.
Still she had gone to bed. Suddenly in the middle of the night, she felt something warm touching her vulva. At first she thought it a dream. Then it became stronger. Was it some vision of Wendy sucking her vagina in Burma, she wondered. Then a low moan awakened her. It was her teacher, the proud, haughty history instructor, aflame with desire, her tongue flicking madly at Mara's pubic area, her lips laving her inner thighs. Mara stared, transfixed as the older woman took her entire labia in her mouth and began to savor it between her lips. Mara had felt deeply disturbed not just at the sex act but because she felt so dirty down there. The teacher was sniffing at the pungent odor that came from Mara's vagina.
'But Madame Prodesseur!' Mara had cried, ashamed because she had not showered. It did not matter. The academic lesbian had devoured her pussy and then still unsatisfied, had lifted her own nightgown and masturbated. She was obviously drunk and out of her mind with sexual desire… It had all been there in her eyes before Mara realized as she watched incredulously. The teacher had attacked her sexually with her eyes and now had lost control. Mara tried to shake off her drowsiness.
'You put something in that wine,' Mara had said.
'Yes, my darling Mara,' the teacher had said. 'I had to make love to you. I had to. You must have known.'
When Mara shook her head vigorously and told her she refused to make love, the woman had stunned her. Drunk, full of a lust she could not control, she had dug her lips and nose into Mara's vagina and then, spreading open her own legs had plunged her thick forefinger into the labia of her own genitals. Mara watched unbelievingly as the woman's finger moved in and out of the pink pussy lips with their large overhang of flesh. The woman kept sucking and kissing Mara, then masturbating until she came.
Mara suffered through the assault helplessly but she swore that the next time she saw desire like that in a woman's eyes, she would flee if she possibly could. She had seen it in Wendy's eyes and in Ruth's eyes, but in each case, she was caught like a fly in amber, unable to escape, unable to leave the place with Ruth especially she had needed the job and her surrender, though frightening at first, had delighted her. But here again she was seeing it in Patty O'Hare. The teen-aged girl was a lesbian. She was as convinced of it as she had been with the teacher in Europe.
Noticing Mara's strained face, Ruth pulled her aside.
'Are you all right dear? You look very upset'
Mara brightened as much as she could under her strain.
'Just a little nervous, I think. All these new people. I'm never sure quite what to say. I'm terrible at small talk with strangers!'
'Don't sweat it dear,' Ruth said. 'You've done your part by coming and saying hello. And after a few more drinks, you'll loosen up. And so will they.'
Mara smiled gratefully as Ruth Peter refilled her glass. She could not help notice that the drinks had already brought a deep red flush to Ruth's cheeks.
'Better slow down Ruth,' Mara warned.
'Listen darling I'll let you in on a secret. I loathe these get togethers as much as you. And several drinks pull me through, especially when some of the men play sex games or what is known in locker rooms as 'grab ass.'' She sighed. 'It's a damned dilemma. I don't want to get loaded. J[f I get any more tickets from traffic cops, my insurance will go flying upwards. But as a departmental chairman I've got to stick around another three hours at least. God I wish I could go somewhere and hide till it's over.' Her face brightened suddenly. 'Hey that's a capital idea. Let's go hide.'
'Where?'
'In the woods, silly.' Ruth's eyes blurred as she continued in a low tone and she staggered slightly. Her voice took on a slight but definite slur. 'Look honey. Pick up a blanket and follow me at a distance. Don't arouse suspicions, you know. We'll have our own little love fest… ' She grabbed a bottle, tucked it under her arm and started off. 'Literary love fest… call it, Desire Under the Palms. '
Mara looked nonplussed as Ruth wandered off into the thick copse of trees and bushes nearby.
'Care for another drink or a sandwich?' a male voice asked behind her. She turned to look at Tom Leonard. The young history instructor, his camera strapped around his long neck, stared at her with the kind of built-in leer she remembered seeing on the face of Clark Gable in old TV films. 'I'll bet you can drive a guy out of his mind with that gorgeous body of yours. You've got fantastic curves, Mara. Fantastic.'
As Mara looked startled, not sure how to respond, he raised his hands. 'Just speaking as an amateur sculptor… I do some statues now and then. How about coming and modeling for me some Saturday afternoon? Then we can have some dinner. I'm a great chef and I have a lovely place up in the hills that overlooks the whole city. We could sit and look at the scene-it's terrific and maybe have a nice long chat over some good brandy. Okay?'
His eyes stared hungrily at her breasts and the supple curves of her hips. You horny bastard, she thought. I'd be raped the minute I entered the door. She could see a thick, powerful looking bulge in the crotch of his swim trunks as he talked.
'Perhaps one day,' she said smiling, not wanting any enemies in the school. 'Right now I'm going to change. I'd like a blanket.' She leaned over the pile of blankets a few yards away. As she bent down, she could feel his strong penis, hard and demanding, thrust against her thin shorts. The feel of an extended penis in her backside was so astounding that for a terrible moment she thought she was being sexually attacked. She fell down on the pile of blankets. On top of her, his cock still thrust at her, was Tom Leonard. They struggled together on the unstable hill of wool.
'Oh damn… I'm sorry, Mara. I was trying to get you a blanket,' he apologized. 'Let me get up. It's easier.'
Somehow he had trouble getting over her. As he tried to move away from her on the pile of slippery blankets, he seemed trapped in his efforts to pull himself free of her body. As the onlookers laughed aloud, his crotch remained glued to her fanny.
'Sorry… damn, this is hard,' he apologized.
He kept trying to get off her but his cock moved against her backside for another moment until finally she yelled at him. Deliberately or not, his own movements ran counter to hers.
'Just lie still and let me get away from you,' she cried.
'Sorry I'm so clumsy,' he said as he pressed once more against her as the blankets, loosened from the hill by their struggles, fell over their faces.
She knew he was lying and she wanted to strike him with her fists as she felt him ramming his cock against her. When he finally stood up a moment later, she saw that his swim suit was wet by his crotch. The bastard had come against her backside! He looked at her with bland innocence that combined a good-natured smile and somehow the rueful expression of a small boy who has made a boo boo. She looked at him with undisguised anger and hoped the others would see that he attacked her buttocks like a stupid, oversexed schoolboy. The white splotch of semen spreading over his crotch-piece would tell them all the kind of vulgar beast he was.
But her look at his lower parts had alerted him too. Pivoting quickly, he ran toward the lake and leaped in. Mara, ignoring the leers on the other men nearby and the peculiar looks on the women's faces, seized a blanket and moved hurriedly toward the woods. She was sorry she had come. She should have pleaded a cold or some backache and simply visited with them in the faculty lounge. She would not have been subjected to the ordeal of a grown man, a scholar, pumping his stiff penis into the deft of her buttocks like a dog in heat.
As she moved further away, she heard laughter and realized with horror that Tom must have stained her light blue shorts with his wretched semen as well. She would have to get it off somehow after she reached Ruth.
