'Well… it's about time,' Kate said, coming, out of the kitchen drying her hands. 'I expected you home almost an hour ago.'
'Honey… the boss was really bending my ear. I couldn't get away from him,' Mark told her, silently praying for a little understanding.
'Not even to call me and tell me you would be late?' She raised her eye brows, and Mark could see that he was headed for a confrontation.
'Come on, Kate, have a heart. He's the boss.'
'And he's more important than I am, right?' she said. Her voice was cold, low and almost threatening. Mark regarded her as though he were looking at a total stranger. She was staring back at him, looking at him right in the eyes, her own lovely gray pools seething with an anger she had been developing all day. 'I tried to call you at the office, but some woman kept telling me that you were busy.'
The secretary that had been assigned to me, Mark thought. An efficient lady, and all business, just like J.R. Mark didn't even remember her name.
'How about a drink before we have dinner?' Mark suggested, hoping that by changing the subject he could calm her down.
But Kate was pissed. She had been sleeping all day. The way Mark had just walked out on her like that had really set her off, and she was not about to be appeased by the fact that he had such an old hat excuse as a hard day at the office.
'Dinner is ruined,' she said, never taking her eyes off his. 'And we don't have anything to drink in the house. Besides, you smell as though you've had plenty to drink all ready.'
'Just a little. Honest honey. J.R. was really putting them down. I was just pretending to hold my own against him.'
'You mean… you mean you were spending the entire day drinking?' Kate shrieked. 'I don't believe it. You were drinking all day, and you couldn't even slip away to give me a call. That's all I wanted. Just a phone call to let me know you remembered I'm alive.'
'I told you… I couldn't get away,' Mark said. He was feeling desperate now. He had never seen his wife acting like this. Right from the day he had met her, she had been warm and understanding. He couldn't believe that one day after their honeymoon, she was turning into some kind of a whining bitch, trying to bend him to her own will.
'You could have gotten away if you wanted,' Kate said, determined that she would hold her ground. 'You just didn't want to get away. Why won't you admit it?'
They stared at each other, each thinking that a terrible mistake had been made in their getting married.
'I don't have to stand here and take this, that's for sure,' Mark said, picking his coat up from the table next to the door where he had set it down. 'I put up with an incredible amount of shit at the office. I don't have to put up with it here.'
After giving her a steely gaze, he spun around and walked out the door, slamming it behind him in a repeat performance of the morning. Kate opened and closed her fists, staring at the door as though she expected that Mark would just come right back in.
She couldn't believe what had happened. She had been pissed all day, and she was convinced that she was justified at being angry at her husband. All she wanted was what any normal woman wanted. She had become very aroused in the morning, and Mark had failed to even attempt to satisfy her. She had wanted to finger her vagina all day, but she held off, preferring to wait until Mark came home and let him take care of her. As the day had worn on, she had become more and more frustrated with just thinking about his long thick cock. And when he hadn't called, she had felt even worse.
And now this. She wanted to cry. This wasn't what she had wanted at all, but the mounting of her sexual passion had put her nerves on edge, until she had to lash out at someone. Mark had just been there… the very person she didn't want to make angry.
But if Kate was angry, both Niven and Martin were feeling on the top of the world. Martin had explained as much as he could to Niven, and he was pleasantly surprised to learn that she shared in his excitement for adventure. Things had been getting pretty dull, she told him. Maybe what he had in mind would liven things up. When Mark finally came home, they had their ears pressed to the wall that separated their apartment from the Hutchs'. They were all ready when Mark stormed out of the apartment.
'Okay, love,' Martin said, putting the leash on Siegfried. 'I think he's about as ready for you as he'll ever be. Go out and get him. Just play it cool.'
'Don't worry about me,' Niven said as she slipped into a light jacket. 'I just hope he doesn't wander all over town.'
'He won't. I've seen things like this before. He'll head straight to the nearest bar. He should be easy pickings for you.'
He gave her a little wink as she opened the door. Giving her a little time to leave the hall, he looked at Siegfried.
'Well, friend, looks like you and me are going for a little walk. Would you like that?'
Siegfried perked up his ears. He had been a little confused when Niven walked out of the apartment without him, and while he liked Martin, he wasn't sure what was happening.
Taking the dog's leash, Martin led him to the door of the apartment next to his. He knocked on the door and waited patiently, not certain about what would happen, but knowing that as long as he played things by ear, everything would turn out. Siegfried was his ace of trump!
Kate opened the door with a beaming face, hoping that it was her husband. When she saw that it wasn't, her expression fell.
'Ooohhh… hello,' she said, gazing long and hard into Martin's dark black eyes. Then, feeling something rubbing against her leg, she looked down to see the huge German shepherd.
'Hi,' Martin said, smiling in as friendly a manner as he could. 'I live in the apartment next to yours. I've been walking Siegfried here, and I thought I would be a friendly neighbor and drop in. I'm Martin Delany.'
At first Kate thought of telling him that she just wanted to be alone, but she thought the better of that. She really didn't want to be alone, and getting to know the people in the building might be an interesting diversion.
'Come in,' she said, smiling sweetly… innocently. 'I'm Kate Hutch, by the way.'
She almost told him that she was married and her husband was out, but for some reason, she decided against it.
Martin entered the apartment and looked around automatically. Siegfried found a place in the middle of the floor and sat there, eyeing this woman. His keen nose told him something that even Martin, with all his experience in dealing with women, didn't notice. This woman was aroused, and Siegfried began thinking that he had been brought here to lick the vagina of this lady. He liked her right away for that, but he knew that he would have to wait until he was told he could sniff her cunt.
'I'd offer you something to drink, but… I've just moved in, and I haven't had time to get anything but Coke.'
'Coke is fine,' Martin said casually, watching her as she entered the kitchen. He knew right away that he had hit gold with this one. She was being really friendly, and she was actually acting as though she didn't want him to think she was married. She had never mentioned her husband. That was encouraging!
And the way she walked was also encouraging. She was deliberately swaying her lush, firm ass back and forth, the tight skirt she was wearing clinging to the fleshy orbs of her buttocks, showing him the outline of her ass. She was really a lovely woman… more so than hearing her voice through the wall would have indicated, and he could feel his cock growing in his pants. As she stood in front of the refrigerator, she offered him a profile of her ripe body, and Martin's eyes went from the graceful swell of her hips to the generous out-thrusting of her breasts. He could tell that she was not wearing a bra, and her breasts were both large and firm, their nipples strangely swollen and straining against the thin cloth of her white cotton blouse. He loved the way her bright red hair fell lushly to her softly rounded shoulders and bounced as she walked from the kitchen back to the dining room. Her breasts jiggled as she walked as well, and she took a seat at the other end of the couch from him, turning full to him as she offered him an opened can of Coke.
'I like to think that someone has to make the first move when a new person comes into the building,' Martin
