was determined not to let her take over his life, no matter how many times they got in bed together. He walked back into the bedroom already dressed and stuffed his gym clothes into the satchel. She was smiling at him from where she sat still stark naked in the middle of the big bed, her ankles crossed and her knees spread wide apart, exposing to his view the dilated pink lips of her cunt.
She turned her lips up into a lewdly seductive smile as she followed his gaze and opened her thighs wider and farther apart. 'You won't change your mind, lover,' she insinuated. 'Will you?'
He looked at the sumptuous feast her body shamelessly offered him and knew that she was right. He wondered briefly how his friend Fred Furness had turned his wife into such an insatiable woman, wishing he could do the same with his young bride – the sooner the better. 'How did you get so turned on to sex?' he asked, combing his fingers through his hair to straighten his appearance a little before leaving.
Grace rose and slipped on the scanty mini-length sheath dress she had removed so hurriedly only a few minutes ago. 'I'll tell you all about it, with a demonstration, on Thursday when you come,' the provocative blonde promised. 'Deal?'
He hesitated before answering, anxious not to let her get the upper hand again before finally answering, 'It's a deal. And I'll tell you then how things stand – whether I can make it anymore after that.' She led him toward the door and let him out after looking cautiously into the hallway for neighbors.
'That's good enough for me,' she said. 'Good-bye, Tommy. Thanks for a wonderful afternoon. I'm looking forward already to Thursday.'
'Good-bye,' he replied, kissing her lightly on her upraised lips. He felt a slight tinge of regret rising from his decision to leave and go home as her tongue delved playfully into his mouth, causing his battered penis to jerk slightly in his shorts.
Then she closed the door behind him, smiling to herself. She knew Fred would be pleased when she told him how the plan was working, and even though she had felt like a cheap two-dollar whore seducing the innocent young husband, she had really enjoyed herself while doing it. To top it off, she reflected, Fred would really give her the fucking of her life that night for going along with him and pretending she hadn't been satisfied for a long time because he was impotent.
Impotent! She chuckled to herself. It was hard to imagine anything farther from the truth than that.
CHAPTER THREE
Linda sat dejectedly on the living room couch staring thoughtfully into a glass of gin and tonic. She knew next to nothing about drinks and drinking, but she had seen her husband Tommy mix so many of these since she had known him that she had automatically made one for herself after deciding she needed something alcoholic to help calm her nerves. Her head was slightly dizzy from the second one she had drunk in the last half an hour since she had tried to call Tommy at school.
Once again she reassured herself that it was Thursday and she hadn't made a mistake. This was the day that Tommy had promised faithfully a week ago he would leave school early and take her shopping in the city. He should have been by to pick her up long ago, and she had impulsively called the school to find out if something unexpected had come up to prevent his leaving. Though the secretary had even gone to the trouble of sending someone down to the gym area to look for Tommy, he was nowhere to be found. His office was locked, the secretary said, and his car was not in its usual place outside the gym.
By now Linda was lightheaded from her inexperience in drinking, and she tried again to rationalize away her fears. She had noticed a strange change in her new husband since that Sunday at the Teachers' Country Club but had tried to ignore it, hoping it would work itself out. First she had perhaps foolishly denied him her body that night because she had accused him of giving Grace Furness too much attention, and the following morning Tommy had left for work without waking her with a kiss as he usually did. Then he had come home later than usual on Monday, and she was sure she had detected a slight fragrance of perfume and what might have been a touch of lipstick on his mouth. He had not greeted her with his normal attempt to get her into the bedroom the first thing, instead acting a little off-handed toward her, saying only that he wanted to take a shower before supper.
She was sure he had consciously avoided her eyes as if he had a reason to feel guilty, and immediately she had begun to suspect something was wrong. She told herself she had only been married to him for a few weeks and had not had time to get to know all his moods and feelings in spite of the fact that they had seen a lot of each other for a whole year before that. And, she had reminded herself, dating a person was one thing, but living with him was another. Later, the worried young wife had tried to persuade him to confide his problem to her over supper.
That had only seemed to make him worse, and then when they were in bed later that night, she had thought maybe he needed very badly to make love to her and that was why he seemed upset. But when she had begun to give him the tenderly inviting caresses she knew he liked, he had first pushed her away angrily as if she were some cheap slut he had met in a bar and then, when she had persisted, thinking he was angry for her refusal the night before, he had attempted to do some awful things to her and tried to make her return them. This was a more subtle change in him that had been happening since their wedding night twenty-four days ago. The things he wanted her to do were things she had heard about but didn't really know normal people did. They were perverted acts and she had only heard some of the bolder girls in college whisper about them in dirty jokes or in insinuating giggles about the boys they had been out with.
Tommy had become even more angry with her when she had refused to let him do those perverse lewd acts and ended up by shouting at her with impatience and frustration when she had refused to do them to him. It wasn't that she hadn't wanted to try. God knows she wanted to make him a happy husband the way she had thought he would be, but she just couldn't force herself to go through with it. The thought of that horrible scene in the bed when he had tried to put his head down between her legs and the coldness with which he had treated her afterward when she had refused to let him brought tears brimming to her eyes. She sobbed softly and took another mouthful of the gin and tonic, wincing slightly as it burned its way down her throat.
And now this! His mysterious failure to pick her up was the crowning blow. She had tried to remind him that morning before he left for school, but he was vague and non-committal. At the time she had thought he was just preoccupied with himself and had been sure he was aware the shopping trip she had planned meant a lot to her, but now she was no longer sure of anything.
The troubled young bride finished the last drop of her drink and went to the kitchen for more ice to make another, secretly hoping that Tommy would come home and find her half drunk for the first time in her life. That would show him just how much he had upset her by his negligent actions!
Her mind ran to another possibility that also may have caused his sudden indifference, but she quickly dismissed it as too silly to even consider seriously. This was the nagging thought at the back of her mind that he might have been seeing some other woman before they were finally married and that she had allowed him to make love to her: a woman who perhaps would do all those awful things he had tried so desperately to get her to do.
Well, the lovely blonde murmured to herself, if that was the reason he was acting so strange, it was still no justification. She couldn't help it if she was what everybody called an old-fashioned girl. She hadn't been about to let him make love to her in bed before they were legally married, and now that they were, she wasn't going to allow herself to be degraded into doing those disgusting things he wanted. She didn't want to lose him, but she had her pride.
Linda returned to the couch, setting her drink on the coffee table and dropping her head into her hands. Tears began to well up in her eyes as she recalled how well things had seemed to be going up until the night they were actually married. She had turned down the opportunity to become a guidance counselor with her recent college psychology degree in order to marry Tommy, giving up the career she had worked so hard for. It had been the best position she could have hoped for with her lack of experience in the field, and it would take her years to work up to that level if she started off at the bottom the way most people had to.
It just didn't seem fair, she complained to herself through the haze the gin was causing in her mind. She gave up everything else she ever wanted for Tommy's sake when he insisted that no wife of his would ever work, and now he was treating her like dirt under his feet. She just didn't understand it – why did the world have to be
