such things just seemed silly to Tommy. His strange behavior of the last few days told her something was wrong, and yet she wanted with all her heart and soul for it not to be so.
She couldn't help it if she was old-fashioned and her own husband ought to be able to recognize that fact and treat her accordingly. She felt a sudden welling of angry tears and was relieved to see Fred Furness get up and go back into the bedroom where the telephone was. She didn't want her gruff neighbor to see her crying, to start asking all sorts of embarrassing questions. She couldn't bear the thought of admitting to the coarse Furness that she too was having problems similar to his.
In the bedroom, Fred Furness smiled crookedly at himself in the mirror. He put his head down close to the telephone and listened for a moment, but his wife and Tommy must have finished with their private orgy, for their voices came from a great distance. He removed the suction-cup microphone from the receiver and put the phone back on the hook. Then he ran back the tape on the miniature recorder, listening from time to time until he found what he was looking for – the beginning of their love-making session on his bed.
This'll blow little Linda's innocent mind sky-high, he chuckled to himself. Carefully he packed up all his equipment and stuffed it into his sports coat pockets before returning to the living room. Now I've got to play this thing right, he warned himself. He was tempted to run the tape for her then and there, but he restrained himself. It would be infinitely better to do it the way he had originally planned and to get her over to his apartment. When he caught sight of Linda on the couch in the living room, he was sure she had been crying while he was gone, but she immediately straightened herself up and acted perfectly calm for his benefit.
'This time I've got Grace dead-to-rights,' he growled as he walked toward the drink he had left on the coffee table.
Linda had made herself another drink, and she nervously took a small sip. She couldn't help noticing the bulges in his pockets and assumed correctly that Furness had what he had come for. She wondered vaguely what he had on the tape-recording, but something in the back of her mind told her she wouldn't really want to know. This was the first time she had ever been so closely involved in such sordid goings-on, and she was sure that just to hear the tape would cause her to go to pieces. She didn't have the slightest idea of what the voices on the tape would be saying and she was afraid to let her imagination fly. With difficulty she tore her eyes from the over- stuffed pockets of his jacket and looked fleetingly at Furness' face.
The poor man was obviously hard-pressed to control his outrage. She was glad she wasn't in Grace's shoes; there would be quite a scene in their apartment later if the tape revealed in detail what Fred until now only suspected was true. Involuntarily, Linda shivered as she pictured Fred taking out his anger on Grace, and she wondered briefly if she shouldn't warn her pretty neighbor. But the injustice of being unfaithful to husband or wife forced her to feel more sympathy for Fred Furness than for Grace, and she decided it would be better to keep out of the whole thing. Already she had done enough in letting him make this recording in her apartment, and she wouldn't be able to help feeling guilty if anything really bad happened because of that.
She watched Furness throw the last of the gin and tonic down his throat and head for the door. He stopped before opening it and turned to her, his face twisted in a good imitation of an injured husband's.
'Linda, I can't thank you enough for helping me like this. Things just couldn't have gone on the way they were, and I was at my wit's end until I thought of confronting Grace with something solid like a tape-recording. She's been denying all along that she's been playing around, and I haven't been able to catch her in the act. But this time the clever little whore has tricked herself right into a pile of trouble,' he said in a coldly contemptuous tone. 'I hope to God you never have to go through anything like this. It's more than anybody should have to take.'
Linda involuntarily sucked in her breath at his words. Little did he know that she was suffering from similar suspicions about Tommy. It was all she could do to keep from blurting out her feelings, in spite of the fact that Fred Furness was the last person she would have chosen to tell. But she forced herself to keep quiet, and then he was opening the door to leave.
'I-I hope things aren't as bad as you think,' she told him as she got up from the couch.
Furness patted the lump inside his pocket. 'They're worse than I would have imagined,' he said in a grim voice. 'But with this, it'll get better fast – or else.' With that he said good-bye and closed the door behind him.
As soon as Furness had gone, Linda shook her head sadly, suddenly almost dizzily intoxicated by the gin, and headed for the kitchen. She stopped in the doorway indecisively, not wanting to eat alone again while her husband was out running around. Finally she made up her mind and went instead to the bedroom, for she felt very tired and not at all hungry. No sooner had she felt the pillow under her head than she dropped off into a heavy dreamless sleep. She didn't know it was the last time she would sleep the untroubled sleep of innocence.
CHAPTER FOUR
A little nervous and unsure of what would happen when Fred Furness showed up, Tommy Singleton sat at the desk in his office in the gym. It seemed hardly possible that only twenty four hours ago he had been in bed with Fred's wife Grace, having the best time he had ever had with a woman. Although it was Fred in the first place who had suggested that Tommy make out with Grace Furness, the younger man was a little uncertain what he would be expected to say when he met Fred again face-to-face. He really felt sorry for the poor bastard – to have a wife as turned on to sex as Grace was and not to be able to do anything about it was just about the worst possible fate that Tommy Singleton could think of.
The young husband heard a car crunch to a stop in the gravel outside the back door of the gym, and got up to open the door. He hoped and prayed that Fred Furness would not now be angry that Tommy had taken advantage of the offer to fuck his wife Grace, especially now that he had had a taste of the delights she had to offer. He didn't want to give that up until he had gotten his fill and explored her talents to the fullest.
He was relieved when he had opened the door to see Fred approaching him, beaming from ear to ear and waving in his same old friendly fashion.
'Hi, Tommy,' Fred greeted him warmly.
'Hi, Fred, how's it going?' Tommy replied as he closed the door and double-checked to see if it was locked from the outside. He didn't want any of the kids he taught to come in and surprise them in conversation. The rest of the teaching staff was gone for the day and he was pretty sure they would be alone, but he still felt a little uneasy.
As an extra precaution, Tommy closed the door to his inner office before seating himself behind his desk. Fred Furness turned a chair around and sat with his arms crossed on the back, his legs straddling the chair.
'Grace gave you high marks on your performance yesterday,' Fred began. 'It might be a crazy thing to say, but thanks for helping me out. She was happier and easier to get along with last night than she had been for months.'
'I, uh, the pleasure was all mine,' stammered Tommy. He felt very awkward and at the same time proud of the fact that Grace had liked him in bed-and that was only the second time they had been together. Just wait, he thought to himself, until she really gets to know what I can do. 'I think it might relieve a lot of tension between Linda and me, too,' he went on. 'It was really exciting to be with a new and different woman.' He paused for a moment and then asked, 'Was Grace always like that? I mean, did you have to train her into doing all those things in bed? Or is she just naturally into sex so much?'
'There's nothing natural about it, pal. I gave her a careful two-year course in how to enjoy herself and keep me happy at the same time. It was a lot of work, but it was worth it,' Fred told him. 'Hell,' he snorted, 'when we first got married, she thought she was supposed to lie down on the bed on her back and close her eyes while I got my kicks. But she's come a long way since then.'
You're not just whistling Dixie, Tommy thought, unavoidably going back with relish to the day before. Grace had shown more ingenuity and interest in all the forms of sex play than Tommy would have believed possible.
'I'm interested in what you said about being with a new and different woman, Tommy. Do you mean that despite the fact that you've only been married for a little over three weeks to Linda, you were more excited by my wife Grace because she was a different person?' he asked, his face composed in an expression of serious interest. Furness saw a chance to force Tommy into what he wanted – a chance to get to his innocent young wife Linda – but he felt he would have to move carefully for the moment.
