Exactly a week had passed since Tom Woodling's trip to New York, and it had been a difficult one for both him and his brunette wife. Deeply mortified at his failure to achieve successful union with beautiful Rachel on the night of his return, he had occupied himself with many an hour of overtime at the office to prepare the preliminary campaign for the newly acquired New York account, and as a consequence he hadn't come to bed with Rachel at all.
Meanwhile, seeing their father's preoccupied behavior, both young Tim and Heather took every opportunity on the sly to remind the mature brunette of the infamous bargain to which they had compelled her. Just this last Thursday night, as Rachel was doing the dishes in the kitchen, Heather had slipped in on the pretext of wanting to help wipe. And as she did so, she had cattily whispered, "Dad's sure been looking down in the dumps all week, Rachel. You've got just three weeks left, and don't you ever forget it. And from what he said, he has to go back to New York next week to see that new account, so you can expect another visit from little brother and me, remember!"
Rachel had turned scarlet, bent her head and then meekly nodded. "I'll keep my word, Heather," she had finally managed to say after regaining her self-control. "Just you keep yours."
"Okay, okay, but it's down to three weeks, Mummy. Come on, you're slowing me down," the taunting redhead had mocked her crestfallen stepmother…
This Friday night, Tim Woodling had determined to try again. He just couldn't understand what was happening between himself and Rachel. There wasn't any question about his not desiring her; she had a beautiful body and such a lovely face, and she was so sympathetic and gentle and understanding. Lots of women would have laughed at him for all these signs of impotence so early in the marriage. Damn it all, it wasn't as if he couldn't get it up at all; with that girl Eleanor, he had felt like an adolescent full of endless sap and juice, wanting to set a record. And even the next night, even in bed with lovely Rachel, he'd had an erection and a very satisfying one and there was still plenty of juice left in him to satisfy her. Only everything had gone wrong and it was beginning to worry him.
He'd thought half a dozen times of having a private chat with young Tim and Heather, trying to make them understand that he loved their new mother very dearly and that he wanted them to try to show a little more affection even if they had to force it for the time being. But of course with sophisticated kids of this generation, such an appeal would be much too square and it might only make them lose respect for him and deride Rachel all the more.
Tonight, he had watched TV with Heather and his son, Rachel having excused himself about an hour ago on the grounds of a headache. He'd tried to look pointedly at Heather, because she was the older and the one who could probably control young Tim, but every time he'd done that, she'd just smiled and looked back at the TV set. At last the movie ended, and he yawned and walked over to the set and turned it off. "I'd better hit the sack, you kids, because I've got to get down to the office tomorrow. I'll be going to New York probably right from the office on Tuesday, looks like. But I ought to be back by Friday night anyway, so maybe the four of us can plan a weekend together. How'd that be, Tim, Heather?"
"Sure, fine, Dad," the gangling blond teenager had nodded, glancing at his red-haired sister with a curious little smirk in his face that made his father want to slap him. "Maybe we can go to the zoo or something."
"I can think up something better than that for both of you," he forced back his impulse to rebuke the boy for his sarcasm. "Well, good-night. There's just one thing-I wish you both would be a little nicer to Rachel."
"Did she complain about us or something, Dad?" Heather quickly asked, rising from the couch and eyeing him with watchful interest.
"Of course she didn't. She's a lady, Heather. The sort of lady I'm hoping you're going to be one of these days. You know, it's sort of strange that with your good looks and your quick mind you aren't out dating tonight instead of staying home with your old father and watching TV."
"I happen to like being with you, Dad," Heather instantly flared back, her nostrils dilating and her face coloring. "And I suppose because I'm twenty, you're already marking me down as an old maid. I just haven't found the right guy, that's all. Now if you don't mind. I think I'll go to bed. Come on, little brother, you could stand a good night's sleep for a change yourself."
They both swept out of the living room and he shook his head despondently. What was getting into them both? There was an undertone of hostility he had caught, and he didn't like it one little bit. But that wasn't the real problem. And he was going to have to solve the real one all by himself before this marriage went on the rocks…
Rachel had taken a quick shower and pulled on a black satin lounging robe, determining to read herself to sleep. The book wasn't really too interesting, but she hadn't been able to take the sly little glances which both young Tim and Heather had sent at her all through that dreadfully boring movie. She shivered as she remembered Heather's threat last night, and now that Tim was going back to New York next week, she knew the girl and her brother would force her to keep the bargain.
They were both of them so insecure, relying on their love for their dead mother to carry them through as a weapon against her, when all she wanted was to be friends. It would be so wonderful for all four of them if they would only get over that Irrational hatred for her. But then, it might as well have been the same for any other woman whom Tim had brought into this lonely house.
She laid down the book with an impatient gesture on the little table beside the bed. and reached for the bottle with the little red pills. But again she shivered, remembering how those pills had been used last Friday night And yet they had served to soften the incredible, harsh, even astonishing sex to which young Tim and Heather had forced her.
Indecisively, she held the bottom in her hand a moment, and then set it back down on the table. And at that moment, the door quietly opened and then closed, and she looked up to see her husband in his bathrobe and pajamas.
"Darling! It was sweet of you to look in on me. Honestly, it wasn't much of a headache, so you needn't worry.
"I-I'm glad to hear that, Rachel Would it be- could we talk a few minutes?"
"Of course, dear. Come sit on the bed. You look awfully tired. You've been working much too hard. you know."
He chuckled as he seated himself and leaned to her to kiss her eagerly offered mouth. Her hand stroked his cheeks and she gave him a gentle kiss on the mouth, then shifted herself to be closer to him.
"I thrive on work. Besides, It's what's sending the kids to school and keeping up the taxes on this old house," he bantered.
"Are you just possibly hinting that you'd like me to give up my shop? I will, you know, any time you say. I'd like nothing better than to be your full-time wife. Maybe even a mother, Tim. You know, I'm not too old to have a child and rye never had one."
He flushed a little, lowered his eyes. "I-I hadn't really thought about that, to be honest with you, Rachel darling. But I think I'd like it a lot. But not right now. You know as well as I do, I've got to get those kids of mine in line so they'll accept you. No, that's not the word either. I mean, love you. I didn't like the way they acted downstairs, and I haven't liked the way they've been acting ever since I brought you here. I feel rye let you down."
"Shhh, dearest, you mustn't say anything like that!" she whispered, drawing her soft fingertips across his forehead…
Heather, a finger at her lips, beckoned to her smirking brother as they stood a few feet away from the door of Rachel's bedroom. "Dad just went in there. So you'd better forget it tonight. Besides, you heard him say he's leaving Tuesday. So that gives us a couple of nights with Mummy if we want. Now let's go to bed."
"Okay, I guess I better. Just when I was hoping I could bang her again, Heather," young Tim disgustedly whispered back as he tiptoed down the hall and back to his room…
"Mind if I smoke?" He took a pack of Pall Malls from the pocket of his bathrobe, expectedly looking at her.
"No, not at all, and in fact I'd like one too, Tim dear."
He lit hers, then his, and puffed at the cigarette, considering the smoke rings for a long moment. "I-I'm letting you down, Rachel, and it's been bothering me," he finally said in a hoarse, unsteady voice.
She patted his knee. "That's exactly the wrong thing to do, Tim, brood about anything like that My goodness, I told you before, even very young men have an accident once in a while. It's from being too tense, or trying so hard to succeed that you concentrate on what should be perfectly natural and beautiful between two people. That's why I say, you've been working too hard."
"No, it's not that either. And don't think just because I've hit fifty I'm ready to consider myself used up."
"I should say not! I've already had evidence of that, darling, you remember," she playfully chided him. All the same, her cheeks had a lovely rosy flush.
"I suppose, in a way," he was fumbling for the right words now, "both of us ought to have sat down and talked things like this over. I mean, about our experience before-you know what I'm trying to say, Rachel. Everybody has a different hang-up, one way or another. Like for instance, girls who are brought up strictly think that sex is something nasty and sinful and has to be submitted to with one's husband."
"I never had that sort of upbringing," she giggled now and patted his knee again. "Of course, I told you all about my first husband. He was just a Don Juan in the stalls, and he thought of himself as a super male stud. Maybe I don't know all the words this younger generation uses about sex, but I think I'm pretty tolerant."
"You're a wonder, that's what you are.
"Maybe," she confided in a low soft voice as she moved still closer to him, "since I am that way, I can even understand it if-well, if you were to have a very quick affair with some other woman, just to give you back your confidence. Maybe that's all it would take."
He almost dropped the cigarette stub, and hastily crushed it out on the little tray on the table. "I'd never cheat on you, Rachel"
"It wouldn't be cheating if I told you to do it. Of course, I wouldn't want it to be with any of my friends or some of the cute girls I have working for me at the shop. But if on your trips to New York, you found some nice woman who was lonely-well, perhaps it would help."
"You must really have radar, Rachel," his voice was unsteady again. "I-well, since you brought the matter up, and since I believe in being honest, I guess I'd better tell you now than have you find it out later. I-I did have something in New York last week. But-well, it was with a call girl. And I did it-you may as well know the truth about it-exactly for the reason you were suggesting. To find out if I was still a man, after making such a fool of myself with you. Love didn't have anything to do with it, darling."
"I'm sure it didn't. Come on, get into bed and stretch out and tell me about it."
"You-you mean you want to hear about a thing like that?" he stared at her wide-eyed.
"Certainly I do. Anything that concerns you concerns me too. Isn't that what marriage is for?"
He shook his head wonderingly. Then he took off his bathrobe and got into bed beside her. He lay on his back, his head pillowed on his arms, looking up at the ceiling and avoiding her intent gate as he tried to gloss over that incredible experience.
"Was she young and pretty? Was she very expensive?" Rachel softly prompted.
"Yes to both questions. Extremely attractive. Red-haired like-" he caught himself just in time, and scowled at the realization of what he had almost been about to say.
But Rachel apparently hadn't caught it. "She had her own apartment, I suppose. Now go ahead and tell me."
"Not all the details, for God's sake!" he gasped.
"Yes. Maybe it'll help relax you. A teacher I had back in high school once said to me that the best way to get over something you were afraid of was to talk it out and actually to face it. I thought it was pretty good advice, Tim darling. Now you go right ahead. And I promise you won't offend me. I know what sort of man you are, and you're not at all like my first husband-which is exactly why I was willing to try marriage again. Not to try, but to make it last, I mean. Go on, dearest."
She had turned to him on her side now, one hand on his chest, the other hand gently stroking his thigh. He cleared his throat: "Well, she had quite a setup. Something you might read about in one of those French novels, I guess. A revolving waterbed, mirrors on the walls and the ceiling no less, music and incense. Oh yes, and changing colored lights."
"Wow!" Rachel giggled again, and her hand moved up his thigh very near his groin. "It sounds exciting already. Sounds as if that young lady had a college education and did some reading herself."
"She had and she did. Her father went broke in the stock market or something like that, and so she took to doing the next best thing. Only she seemed to like it."
"And you liked it too, hm, darling?" Now, very daringly, her hand had neared his penis, just brushing the side of the still dormant shaft. And at that evanescent touch, he suddenly felt himself surge and throb with carnal awareness. Awareness of the warm smell of her hair and flesh, of the pressure of her body against his, and of the intimate rapport which this in almost darkened room had brought about between them.
"Go on, don't be bashful, dear. How did she start? I'm really curious," Rachel smilingly persisted.
Tim Woodling's face was crimson now and he averted his gaze from his wife's. "Well, if you must know, she started me off with a bath."
"That was a lovely idea. It relaxed you, didn't it?"
"Uh huh. But not entirely-I mean-" he turned to look at her, and she giggled softly again like a girl, then kissed him on the mouth. Boldly, her hand now slid under the waistband of his pajama pants, and then her eyes widened: "Good gracious, she gave you a shave there too, didn't she?"
Under her touch, and with the recollection of Eleanor which his own wife had thus evoked in him, Tim Woodling felt his penis achingly swell to full erection. He turned to her now, on his side, his left arm round her shoulders, his right hand caressing her svelte, alluringly voluptuous body through the thin lounging robe. The glossy-smooth satin was so thin that it seemed as if he was feeling her naked flesh, so clingingly did the garment shape out the fine firmness of her swelling breasts and the supple curve of her haunch.
"Do you want me now?" she whispered.
"Oh God, yes, Rachel! Hurry-"
"Oh no, young man, that's exactly what you're not going to do," she whispered, giving his stiff penis a loving squeeze. Then, wriggling away from him, she unfurled the lounging robe and let it spread about her to bare her warm satiny nakedness. "Come to me, gently, my lover," she urged.
Her hand had not relinquished its grip of his penis, holding it between thumb and forefinger, with tiny little squeezes of the glans. With a groan, Tim Woodling mounted her, and nimbly her knees arched up to receive him as she offered herself, her eyes wide and humid with expectancy.
He was summoning up the images of that apartment in New York, the music and the lights and the incense and the revolving bed and the euphoric sensations of Eleanor's languorous preparations. He felt himself press between the warm quivering lips of Rachel's vulva, and his hands clutched her naked breasts as his mouth came down on hers. With a whimpering sight of acquiescence, she locked her calves over his, thrusting herself to meet his charge. He could feel the clinging enclaspment of her vaginal sheath against his delving penis, till all of him was enfolded- within her warm moist gloriously tight depths. And he closed his eyes and held himself immobile so as to gain full control. It was too wonderful at this moment to lose it at the very start!
"That's my dearest, slow and easy, I'll be here as long as you need me, you know that, Tim," her voice was husky now with desire as her hands moved over his flushed, twisted face, then to his shoulders, holding him eagerly against her palpitating warm olive-sheened nakedness. Even the fierce delight of feeling herself fitted to him so snugly, flesh to his flesh, was saddened by her despair for him; she knew all too well what a blow to his pride and his own self-esteem his repeated failures meant to him. She knew too, more than she could ever dare admit to him, how complex the problem had become because of the enmity of his own children towards her. And suddenly she found herself wanting to be whore and concubine to this gentle, considerate man who had such love to give and who had been denied so long. Well, if that meant adapting herself, against all the moral issues which could certainly be raised against it, to the vengeful, even contemptuous lust of young Tim and Heather, so be it!
Her hands moved down his sides, assuaging and steadying him, as she lay motionless, waiting for his sign, lest her slightest movement undo all the triumph he had thus far managed. Yet her own deeply latent womanly needs were upon her now, as she felt the quivering contractions of her womb intimate to him to take full possession of her flesh. With his fingers still clutching her swelling breasts, she could feel the nipples hardening and the very rhythm of her breathing quickening in her fierce carnal hunger.
But even beyond this, there had come a sudden blinding revelation from his admission of this one transgression, which was really no transgression at all. He had said that the call girl who had made him a man again was red-haired like-yes, and now she could clearly understand Heather's vicious resentment of her. Even by accident when she had bravely told Heather that she herself loved Tim as much as Heather did, she had unwittingly come to the very crux of things. Now It was transparent; Heather was at least subconsciously in love with her own father, that was why she had no dates, no steady at the age of twenty. And he in turn might well be subconsciously in love with her.
Now she could begin to cope a little better with both his children. Now she could take a more active part in directing how this secret bargain between them was to be wrought. And a new eagerness made her tremble against him, made her fingertips dig into his thighs as she huskily whispered, "Love me, Tim, do it to me, do it the way you wanted to with her!"
He shuddered, as if to silence her so that she would not again renew his torment by summoning more of those images which could be so destructive now. He drew himself back to the very brink of her vulva, and this time he could feel the quaking urgency of her burningly tight and eager sheath. His fingers left her panting breasts to thrust under her hips, to elevate them so that he might clutch the satiny globes of her velvety behind, almost ruthlessly. Almost as he would possess a woman for hire, indeed. And then, thrusting to the hilt. inside of her, he put his tongue between her lips to urge her to take part in this same illusion.
And Rachel Woodling understood. Her arms locked tightly round him, mashing down her swelling breasts as she strained up against his shuddering chest Her bare legs shifted and ascended to his lower thighs as she clamped avidly him into her matrix.
"Oh God, yes-Rachel-oh God, it's so good-is it for you too?" she heard him gasp.
"Oh my darling, yes, don't stop, oh it's wonderful- it's the way I knew it would be when you first asked me to marry you-oh Tim, give it to me good and hard!" and her own voice was strangely new to her, wanton and eager as it had never been before.
He quickened his thrusts and withdrawals, feeling the clinging moist sheath of her woman-core reluctantly ease its grip upon him. Yet when he thrust back home again, it was to find her marvelously receptive, and as passionately possessive. And now the tip of her own tongue met his, and he writhed as he felt himself being drawn towards that heavenly abyss of total release and shattering culmination.
With a hoarse cry, speeding his thrusts, he bladed himself within her, and Rachel, her legs locked over his buttocks now, arched and twisted, feeling her own dam released by the burnt of his furious and finally masterful conquest.
They cried out together, kissing hotly, and there were tears in her eyes as she strained to him to share this climax…
Heather straightened outside the door of her stepmother's bedroom, her face a mask of anguished rage. "Damn the bitch," she hissed to herself as she moved back down the hail to her own bedroom. "She's going to pay for that one good fuck she gave Daddy. Yes, Mummy, enjoy it tonight while you can. One swallow doesn't make a summer, and one fuck doesn't make a marriage."