strangers today had had the same physical effect on him.
He realized Ralph was speaking to him. '… do you think, Howie boy?'
'I'm sorry, Ralph. What did you say?'
'I said,' Ralph repeated, 'what do you think of the idea of the Polaroid Club?'
'Well, I… I suppose it's all right,' Howard said hesitantly. 'For other people, I mean.' He averted his eyes.
'But not for you, eh boy?'
'No, I… I don't think so, Ralph.'
Ralph smiled knowledgeably. 'Sure now? I can tell by your face that you're interested, Howie.'
'No… no, I'm not, really, Ralph… I'm not.' Howard got quickly to his feet, conscious of his sweat-sheened face and neck. 'I… I think I'd better get to work. There are some contracts that have to be drawn up…'
Ralph also stood. 'Okay, boy,' he said. 'But think it over, will you? We'd be mighty glad to have you aboard; it's really a wild bag.' He chuckled. 'And if you're worried about Cindy going along, I've got just the remedy.'
Howard had turned toward the door. Now, without conscious thought, he found himself turning back to his superior. 'What kind of remedy?' he heard himself ask.
'Take these pictures with you when you go home for supper tonight,' Ralph said, pushing the photos and the manila envelope across the desk toward Howard. 'And on your way, stop and buy a copy of that newspaper I was telling you about — the Polaroid Club News. I'll tell you where you can pick it up. Then you leave the paper and the photos where Cindy will be sure to find them…'
'No, I couldn't do that,' Howard said, shocked. 'It's… not right! Cindy would never forgive me…'
'I think you're underestimating not only your wife but women in general, my boy. Why not give it a try? You're interested, I know you are. You can't fool old Ralph. Take it from me, all you've got to do is put the bug in the wife's ear, get her on the track. Once they see the kicks involved, they're only too happy to go along. I know, boy; Norma was the same as Cindy, shy and retiring, when I first heard about the Polaroid Club. Now she's open and much warmer — and hell on wheels in the rack, let me tell you!'
Howard felt uncomfortable in the face of all this candidness, the unexpected admissions and ideas and concepts which he had been subjected to this morning. He wanted to get out of there, get to work so he could think more clearly. 'I… I don't think so, Ralph, I don't think so…' he managed, groping his way to the door, opening it, walking swiftly toward his own small cubicle.
He did not realize until he had entered it and seated himself at his desk that he held the photos Ralph had shown him in his right hand…
Howard left the Auto Circus at five that night, for his hour-and-a-half supper break. The lot stayed open until midnight seven days a week, and this was his week to close up five of the seven days.
He had not had a good day. He had bungled two sales, unable to keep his mind on the demanding task of promoting a customer's confidence in himself and the vehicle he was selling, and had fouled up a contract for a regular volume buyer. He hadn't been able to get his mind off Ralph's words of that morning and of the photos which seemed to be burning a hole in his jacket pocket.
At four-thirty, he had known that there was no use in kidding himself any longer; he was going to take Ralph's suggestion about leaving the photographs and a copy of that newspaper where Cindy would be sure to find them. He had gone in to see Ralph, taken a deep breath, and asked where he could buy a copy of the Polaroid Club News.
Ralph had winked boldly at him, saying, 'I thought you'd change your mind, my boy. And you won't be sorry, either; no sir, you won't be sorry at all. Now the place you want to go is Winkler's Used Books, over on Shafer Avenue…'
Feeling a strange combination of guilt and mounting excitement at what he was about to do, Howard drove over to Shafer Avenue and found Winkler's Used Books, a small neighbor hood secondhand store set midway in the block. Somewhat self-consciously, for he had never so much as purchased a girlie magazine in the past — although he had managed to sneak a look at some of them from time to time — Howard went inside and asked the grizzled, bald-headed old man behind the counter for a copy of 'a modern swinger's newspaper', as Ralph had instructed him.
The old man didn't even glance at him twice. He reached under the counter, produced a small, six-page, roughly printed news-sheet, and demanded a dollar. Howard gave it to him and, clutching the paper tightly under his arm, he hurried back to where he had parked his car.
He sat inside for a time, his heart beating rapidly in his chest, a curious fluttering sensation in his lower belly. He glanced over the paper, marveling at some of the ads there, growing excited by them; it was as if he couldn't get enough air in his chest. Jesus, but I'd like to send away for some of the photos mentioned in here. If they're half as good as they claim, they ought to really be something…
With trembling fingers, he took the manila envelope of pictures from his coat pocket and glanced through them again. His prick seemed to jerk spasmodically in his pants as he once again saw the lewd, tremendously stimulating acts being performed in the full-color splendor of the Polaroid snaps. The ones that really turned him on the most were those depicting oral love: soft feminine mouths closed eagerly, hungrily over the lust-hardened cocks of their husbands; masculine lips and tongues paying devoted homage to the warm, secret, tender cuntal valleys of their wives. These he would put on top, so that they would be the first ones Cindy would see when she opened the envelope; maybe they would convince her of the beauty, of the rightness, of oral love…
He started to fold the newspaper around the photos when a sudden frown creased his forehead and he stopped. Some of the other photos, besides those depicting oral by-play, were pretty raw for the uninitiated eyes of his naive young wife; instead of being turned on, being interested and excited by the newspaper and snaps as he intended, mightn't she become repulsed and sickened by viewing such blatantly carnal acts as sodomy and seance a trots and bestiality? Yes, yes, of course she would! He couldn't include those pictures, not now, not at this early date just the milder ones, the ones showing a man and his wife making love in all the possible ways…
Quickly, Howard sorted out the photos, putting those he deemed too blatant for Cindy's eyes into the glove compartment; the rest he inserted inside the folded Polaroid Club News and put into the manila envelope, sealing it. Then he started the car and, with hot blood pounding in his temples, he drove directly home.
Cindy met him at the door, wearing a thin hostess gown and holding a freshly made martini in her right hand; her hair was carefully combed, as it always was when he came home. Even after three years of marriage, she never failed to greet him with a drink and a kiss and an alluring outfit, as if they were still honeymooners. This was one of the reasons Howard loved his beautiful young wife so much, one of the reasons he had always felt himself to be very lucky…
Cindy kissed him warmly, handing him his martini. 'You're late, Howie,' she chided in a mock pout.
'I… had to stop off on an errand for Ralph,' he told her.
'Well, dinner's in the oven. A casserole. Okay?'
'Fine, honey.'
She kissed him again, and then her eyes fell on the manila envelope which he carried in his right hand. 'What have you got there?' she asked. 'Something for me?'
Howard was momentarily tongue-tied. Of all the stupid things! He had come into the house carrying the envelope out in the open, instead of under his coat where Cindy couldn't see it; what was the matter with him? He just wasn't used to this kind of thing, he supposed, not used to it at all…
He took a long swallow of his drink, and that seemed to oil his throat muscles so that they worked again. He said, 'Well, uh, they're pictures, honey — pictures Ralph gave me. He says they, uh, are ones some friends of his took with their Polaroid and he wanted us to, uh, see what could be done with ours.'
'Oh! Well, let's look at them, Howie. I'm kind of anxious to see them, after that buildup.'
'Uh, I'd rather not, if you don't mind, honey,' Howard said lamely. He was fouling things up, fouling them all up and he knew it and he kept getting himself in deeper; Christ, why couldn't he be as blase as Ralph was about these things? He laughed nervously. 'They're not, uh, my kind of pictures — or yours.'
Cindy frowned slightly. 'What do you mean, Howie?'
'Well, they're sort of… sort of like the ones I took of you last night.' Howard's face flushed. 'You know, daring and… and like that.'
'Have you seen them?'
