Cathy smoothed the skirt down over her thighs toward her knees, again reminded of the utter nakedness of her softly-haired little cunt just beneath the thin material. Then, bracing herself with a couple of low, deep breaths, she opened the door and walked out and down the hail. She walked slowly, conscious of the friction of the dress over her still peaked nipples and the gentle brushing-together of her sensitive inner thighs. She heard unintelligible conversation coming from somewhere near the other end of the house, followed the sound of it, and arrived at the entrance of a tastefully furnished, sunken den with a hard wood floor decorated by an enormous and luxurious bearskin rug.
Pausing, Cathy looked at her husband and at Jack Bailey, seated now like old friends at a mahogany table situated before a large picture window looking out on the darkened, stormy sky. Between them was a bottle of Bourbon and a bucket of ice. From the look on Bob's face she could tell that the tall drink in his hand was not his first. They weren't going to be getting the car out of the ditch now, it didn't appear, and she couldn't imagine they could have already done that during the brief time she'd been in the bath.
Cathy listened, still unnoticed as Bob finished what seemed to have been an explanation of their present situation:
"So now the honeymoon's over," he was saying, "we were on our way up to Eureka. I've got a clerk's job up there, with a logging company. And I guess Cathy will try to find something,, maybe part time."
"Looks like a nice kid," Bailey said.
"Yeah, I got myself a real winner with Cathy," Bob said with a possessive pride that somehow she found not the least bit pleasing now. "She's a real doll. I guess I was pretty lucky to land her."
But now Cathy hardly heard. Jack Bailey, as though sensing her presence, had turned suddenly to stare straight into her eyes. Then, his face almost expressionless, that steel gaze somehow at the same time detached and ruthlessly penetrating, he let his eyes drift slowly down the length of her body. They lingered with a humiliating, almost clinical interest on the teasingly revealed swells of Cathy's proud young breasts, taking them in fine detail. Then his gaze moved slowly lower, down over her belly to focus right between her thighs, now so intent Cathy couldn't help wondering if somehow he could see that she wasn't wearing her panties. And by the time he looked back at her face, the desire to tease that had supported her when she'd left the bathroom had completely deserted her. She felt instead, frail and vulnerable, a little silly and, in the presence of this strange and compelling man, dreadfully overexposed.
Then Bob turned to see what Jack Bailey was looking at and his eyes almost bugged out of their sockets at the sight of his beautiful young wife standing there in the doorway. Somehow, her husband's surprise lent Cathy a faint semblance of composure. She ignored Bailey, met Bob's stunned and gawking gaze, and walked slowly forward.
Bailey rose as she neared the table. "Whiskey, or something else? We got nearly anything you might want."
"No, n-nothing now," Cathy said, passing him to sit down across the table from Bob and kitty-cornered to the place he'd occupied at the head of the table. Outside there was another flashing of lightning, followed swiftly by thunder that was much closer than before. She stared at Bob, who was still gawking back at her breasts. "What are you doing? What about the car?"
"We're not going back out in that," he said, nodding out the window. "Anyway, Giulio must have sold his tractor before Jack bought this place, because he doesn't know anything about it. So it's gonna be a neat little trick getting the car out, even when things do clear up."
Bob stopped, shrugged, took another drink. Again Cathy experienced that vague sensation of being on the "inside" while Bob was locked Out. He was drinking with and calling by the first name a man who had just made the crudest sort of approach to her. She knew it, Bailey knew it; Bob did not know it and she felt no inclination to tell him, though in the back of her mind she knew that was exactly what a good wife would do. But Bob was obviously getting a little drunk. He was naively unsuspecting. It made her feel slightly contemptuous, and it was a feeling that now, for some reason, she relished. None of which, of course, solved the real problem of how they were going to get back on the road.
"So what are we going to do?" she asked finally, still cautiously avoiding Bailey's eyes. "We can't just sit here getting soused all night."
"Why not?" Jack Bailey asked.
"Jack and Sylvia have offered to put us up," Bob went on.
Cathy didn't even try to conceal the alarm that flashed on her face, yet beyond the alarm there was another emotion manifested in her initial silent reaction to this new development that should have only added to her anxiety. But in a curious, almost perverse way, she found the idea appealing. Moments ago, as she'd emerged from the bathroom, the memory of Jack Bailey's mouth on her lips and hands on her body still a vivid presence in her mind, she'd thought that she would now enjoy a brief game, which shortly would end, and she and her husband would go on their way. Now, according to what Bob had just said, she was going to be forced to play her game a lot longer than she had expected. And though deep down inside she knew she was baiting the devil, she was still highly tempted by the idea.
"Sylvia's got a ham in the oven," Bailey said. "And there's plenty of room. We built the house big."
From his eyes, now that she did look at him, Cathy could learn nothing. Now his expression seemed to deny even the memory of what had happened before.
"But…" Cathy began, and didn't finish.
"You might as well have a drink," the gray-templed man went on.
Cathy hesitated momentarily, then nodded. "Yes."
"Vodka collins," Bob put in.
Again she hesitated. Bailey was waiting. "No," she said, shifting slightly in her seat. "I'll have a… dry martini."
"Make that two." Sylvia Bailey, her smiling face beaming, walked briskly into the room. She took brief note of the slight change in Cathy's mode of apparel; she looked Bob over, obviously pleased; and when she turned back, Cathy couldn't help but notice, Sylvia was watching very closely to see where his attention would go. It went, after a brief exchange of thoughtful glances on their part, to Cathy.
Self-conscious, secretly thrilled, Cathy waited as the older man brought her drink. She accepted it and drank eagerly of the almost straight glass of gin. Almost the moment the burning aftertaste had left her lips she felt the first faint lightening in her head. Now, she knew, she was really playing with fire. She could drink vodka and control herself fairly well. But gin was something else.