It was Saturday and Mark had left early to play golf at the country club. There had been no kiss good-bye nor tender love-pats such as a young, new wife might expect from her husband, not even a word when he'd left her; but then, already she had grown accustomed to such treatment.
Dianne Coleman lay stretched out on their large, luxurious bed, a voluptuous, golden-haired Venus, the soft rounded contours of her breathtaking loveliness veiled enticingly by the diaphanous negligee she wore. Her wide-set; deep hazel-eyes bore an expression of sadness; her perpetually pouting lower lip trembled… her mind had suddenly conjured up the semblance of Phillip Gates… Too often, lately, that had happened… too often.
She struggled with her thoughts, forcing out all others but those of her husband. He would be soliciting support for his campaign from business and professional cohorts, the purpose of this rare day of leisure; at least, that had been what he had told her last night… one of the unusual occasions when she had been granted the pleasure of his company during the full month of their marriage. My God… it was unbelievable, wasn't it? A nightmare…? No… no, simply a deception.
Tears clouded her eyes; she bit at her full lower lip and subconsciously reached for the book on the stand beside her. Something… anything, to absorb her attention momentarily.
We are never deceived; we deceive ourselves…
She read Goethe's words blurringly from the small volume of quotations she had taken from Mark's study. Good Lord, how appropriate, she thought. Then, she found herself wondering if her handsome attorney-husband had ever taken the time to read this, or any of the other dusty works that lined the walls of that room. She doubted it; there was hardly time in Mark Coleman's ruthlessly ambitious existence for anything that didn't have to do with his quest for political power… even his wife.
Dear God, how was it that she hadn't detected this from the very beginning, she wondered for the thousandth time. How could she have been so utterly blind… his secretary for six months, yet know so little of his personal traits?
Again, she forced her eyes to the printed page, and the words of Moliere seemed to leap out at her in answer to her question.
One is easily fooled by that which one loves.
She closed the book and sat up, disconsolately surveying the splendor of her surroundings as she contemplated the wise, philosophical words. Suddenly, a bitter smile caught at her pretty mouth as she thought: the first sight of love is the last of wisdom.
Who had made that brilliant quote? It had just popped into her mind, but good Lord, how well it pertained. Mark Coleman had simply overwhelmed her; she had fallen in love with him the moment she had first laid eyes on him seven months ago, but never in her wildest dreams had she even dared believe that one day he would ask her to be his wife.
It had all happened so fast… his sudden, almost spontaneous invitation to dinner… candlelight and champagne… bubbles up her nose… her head swimming giddily… his proposal… their elopement that very night… and then… oh God… the horror! No, she didn't want to think of that…! No, she didn't want to think of that…!
Was she living in some appallingly distorted dreamworld? Under the influence of some weird drug, perhaps? She shook her beautiful head, causing her long blonde tresses to flail wildly about her shoulders, then fall neatly and softly back into place. No, there were no artificially induced cobwebs distorting her mind; she had simply deceived herself!
She arose from the bed and slowly crossed the large, plushly carpeted bedroom on the huge draped window overlooking the spacious grounds of the Coleman mansion. The midday California sun cast cooling shadows beneath the cypress and pepper trees, giving the velvet-like lawns a bluish hue, broken only by the myriad beds of flowers, Eduardo, the gardener, kept so trim and beautiful. Her own domain, Dianne thought wryly; she was mistress of the realm… and like the forgotten princess, its prisoner.
Staring off at the small sprawling city below, she recalled the slim volume of Coleman history she had found in the study. For a century, it read, the palatial, grey-stoned mansion had stood, housing three generations of the politically successful family, their vast land holdings throughout the county and in this city of Rio Lado itself, the source of their comfortable wealth. All had been lawyers such as Mark, and all had begun their political careers as state senators, just as he was attempting to do now. But the wealth, the power, the name… none of these had mattered to her, nor even interested her; she had only been concerned to learn if all the Coleman males had been as coldly indifferent to their women as Mark had been to her during the one short month of their marriage… and she hadn't found out.
It was so awesomely unbelievable! She thought of how little she had even seen of him… actually, she had shared his bed only a half-dozen times, and each of these occasions absolute drunken horrors she had tried to blot from her mind. It was near impossible for her to believe that this handsome, thirty-three-year old man who had easily won her heart could treat it so brutally, so ignominiously. My God… it was almost as if she were some kind of tool he had purchased for a particular use, to discard when he was through with it.
Still, she felt certain that once the election was over, it would all be different. She had tried to understand the strain he was under with his campaign, while still endeavoring to handle his practice… a grueling combination for any man… especially the man one loved… and she did love him… she did!
She felt sure the tremendous draught he had placed upon himself was the cause of his heavy drinking, and why he had been so short tempered with her when they were together… plus the fact that one did not domesticate an active, handsome man who had spent better than a third of his life as a bachelor, overnight.
Anyway, she loved him… regardless of all else, of all his failings… She was his wife! Till death do us part, she repeated softly to herself, tears once more glazing her eyes.
Abruptly, Phillip crowded into her thoughts again. She sighed and turned from the window, refusing to welcome his mental presence. She walked slowly toward the bath, deliberately filling her mind with other things.
She remembered the dance at the country club ahead of her this night and pondered on that. Their weekly social ritual. God, how she'd come to dread them. She'd never regarded herself a prude, but measured in this elite circle there was little doubt but what she was. Her conception of the envious country club set had been more or less founded on the stories one reads in the women's magazines, never the hard-drinking, promiscuous, mate-swapping group her prominent and wealthy husband had introduced her into. Although she had seen only the superficial side and not the actual orgies she'd heard took place in different member's splendid homes, it was still difficult for her to believe that couples truly exchanged husbands and wives for purpose of sex… God, she could never…! Nor could she understand why Mark had sneered at her when she'd told him this. But then… there was very little she had been able to understand about her learned, ambitious husband since the moment they had exchanged vows in the home of a Reno Justice of the Peace.
Now, gracefully, she slipped out of her negligee and caught the reflection of her twenty-three-year-old white nakedness in the full-length wall mirrors. It pleased her to admire her flawless body. Good God, someone had to… She thought of the bestial expression of lust that had contorted Mark's drunken face each time he had taken her and a cringing shudder coursed over her soft sensitive flesh. She didn't want to think of that either. Instead, she gazed appreciatively at her high-set, rounded, wildly spaced breasts whose pink-tipped nipples had distended from the cool rush of air caressing them, down to her slender, girlish waist that gently swelled into round, provocative hips, a flat, smooth stomach and long, full, well-tapered thighs, curvaceous calves and nicely formed ankles. She caught at her shoulder-length honey-colored hair and lifted it in back to the top of her head, pinning it there, the movement causing her erect, rotund breasts to jut forth in full bloom. Then, narcissistically, she smoothed her hands down over them and along her slightly delineated ribs to the smoothness of her belly and through the soft golden down that verified her natural complexion… Again, she trembled and felt the flush in her cheeks at her wanton stroking of her own body.
Quickly, she stepped inside the glass shower-stall. What she needed was a cold spray to lower her temperature… No! No, what she needed was a gentle and understanding husband who would make warm, passionate love to her and truly consummate their marriage…! Oh God, what had she done?
Phillip… Mark… Mark!
Finally, she wept, even as the shower sprayed against her upturned face and her brain filled uncontrollably with memories she could no longer surprise…
Carrying their blessings, Dianne Lovell had left her parents' home in Concord, New Hampshire to join her fiance with all intentions of marrying him immediately. Phillip Gates was twenty-five, tall, brainy, and delicately handsome. They had known each other a lifetime, were childhood sweethearts, and now he was studying law at the University of Rio Lado with two years left to finish; they hadn't wanted to wait.
When she'd arrived, there had been no one to meet her. Frightened in the strangeness of the bigger city, and three-thousand miles from home, she had nervously taken a cab to the address she knew by heart from writing it on Phillip's letters, only to learn from his landlady that he was in the hospital and had just undergone surgery for a collapsed lung.
Of course, she'd found him, but it would be weeks, maybe months, before he was on his feet once more. Phillip had been so happy to see her, and she him; yet, it wasn't long before his good, levelheaded reasoning had taken command. He'd insisted she go back home until he was well again, then, he would send her the money to return, but she wouldn't hear of it. She would get a job and stay right there with him, even help nurse him during his convalescence, until he was well enough for them to be married.
She hadn't been at all worried about finding employment having had three years experience as a legal secretary to an attorney in Concord, and had quickly located a position with Coleman, Wright amp; Davison through a placement bureau. From the beginning, she had been in love with the job. Although she was the legal for all three gentlemen, she was the personal secretary of Mark Coleman… and shortly she found that she was nourishing an unwanted secret infatuation for him.
The mere thought of her childish, rattle-headedness nauseated her. That was when she was alone, or with Phillip. When she was within view or earshot of Mark Coleman, she was a love-struck girl. She couldn't help it. Just the sight of his tall, handsome physique, his dashing smile, his keen laughing dark-eyes, sent tingles through her whole being. She found herself wearing special things she thought he would like, choosing her perfumes with him in mind, arranging her hair a particular way because he had once told her it looked becoming. Yet, weeks dragged by and their relationship took no decisive course other than professional. Factually, she had not known what she would have done if it had; she'd been that frustrated.
Phillip had left the hospital and was recuperating beautifully. He was back in his apartment, attending a few classes, and in the evenings they took long walks together. She'd found a place only five blocks from his with an understanding landlady who allowed her to prepare dinner for the two of them, as long as he left before midnight. Sometimes, they went to a movie or play, but more often Phillip left early to study. It was during that period Dianne had felt their association straining, while her dreams were filled with the face of Mark Coleman, and her frustrations grew proportionately inside her.
Then, abruptly, she saw less and less of her employer. He had entered the political race for state senator, a challenge which seemed to take up a great deal of his time. She found herself hating it because it kept her from seeing him, and accordingly, she grew irritable, an emotion she subconsciously took out on those around her… especially Phillip.
"What is it, Honey?" he put to her one night at her place. They had just finished a light meal she'd prepared and had fallen into a senseless argument over the quality of different brands of wine. "I mean… no matter what I say anymore… you're right down my throat."
"It's not that at all, Phillip, and you know it," she'd snapped. "It's, it's simply that you think you know so damned much. Since when have you been a wine connoisseur?"
He smiled, she remembered… smiled in that inimitable touching way of his. "You're haggling pennies, Dianne… holding back the dollars and haggling pennies. Can't you tell me…? Maybe I can help…"
"Oh, for cripes sake, Phillip," she'd countered almost disgustedly, getting up, going to the kitchenette and picking the dishes up from the table. "And… and you're building mountains again. God, you'd almost think we were married."
He'd stood and came into the kitchen. "I think we should be… and right away."
"Wh-what?" She had stared at him, the dreaded words she'd anticipated for weeks… yes, months, ricocheting in her brain… words she had not wanted to hear, or had she…?
"I mean it, Dianne," he said, coming close and slipping his arms around her waist, drawing her against him. "I want us to be married right away… this very week…"
"This week!" she'd exclaimed, forcing a smile. "Well… you don't give a girl much… much of a chance do you…?"
But he hadn't smiled. "Much chance for what, Dianne?" he questioned levelly.
"I… ah…" she stammered, laughing and pushing free. "You… you just took me by surprise, Phillip. I mean… you've been so ill and everything…"
"And everything," he repeated. "The secret word… everything." He had turned away from her, then, swung back, his slender face drawn grimly. "What're you trying to say, Dianne? You don't want to marry me? Is that it? Well…?"
For one long, solid moment she had stood as if frozen, debating whether to tell him all… the truth… the whole bit… then: "Listen to me, Phil, I've got a problem…"
"You mean, a man?"
"I mean, a problem!"
"Nicely put."
"Better now than later, isn't it?" she had snapped at him.
"What's his name?"
"There is no name," she lied. "It's a problem and I must solve it, first."
He had shoved his hands into his trouser pockets and walked with slumped shoulders back into the front room… she could see him now. My God, how forlorn he had appeared. Then, he had turned to her, raised his head and said: "One question, Dianne… do you still love me?"
What could she say? What could she say? "Of course, I love you…" And then, she had gone to him, her eyes brimming with tears, and they had kissed, kissed, kissed… falling back onto the davenport… God, it had nearly happened, it had been that close… and now as she thought about it, perhaps she had wanted it to… known deep in her heart that it was the only thing that could bring her to her senses.
She had felt his warm, wet kisses all the way to her very soul, expressions of physical love her body had craved so desirously in her dreams. She had closed her eyes and offered herself, her being suddenly enflamed with mounting tongues of lashing excitement surging through her… as if all of her frustrations had been unleashed within her at once. She wanted to laugh and cry, pity and love; her warm, soft, passionate body vibrated with its overflow of sensations.
In all the years of their courtship they had never gone all the way; somehow, she would gain control of herself and the situation, holding him back, pacifying him with semi-intimate caresses and promises, begging him to help her bring her virginity to their marriage bed, but this time she sensed even her own self-influence waning fast… His hand was beneath her blouse on her breasts outside her bra… and then he had unfastened it and was massaging the exposed firm, full spheres into maddening hardness. She gasped as he took one of the nipples into his mouth, sucking gently, his playing tongue driving her near out of her mind… blinding her even to the touch of his excited, warm hand slipping upward beneath her skirt caressingly, between her creamy white thighs.
"Oh, Phillip… Darling… no, no… we mustn't," she breathed hotly down into his face kissing and sucking at her breast, while her arms embraced his head tightly to her.
But it was as if she hadn't spoken and his hands continued to fondle and graze her tingling flesh, exploring the full length of her soft, smooth body, roving over her flat white belly and downward to the nylon concealed suppleness of her pubic mound. He touched her there gently, his strong sensitive fingers stroking and fondling, until she was aware that he had slipped his middle finger inside the leg band of her white nylon panties and into the moist, virginal slit of her vagina. Again, she had gasped aloud as never-before electric-like sensations surged through her, causing her to writhe feverishly beneath his hand.
"Darling… Darling… we mustn't… No… No… not now," she pleaded raspily, his hot breath against the soft flesh of her breasts coming in ever increasing gasps. "Oh… please, Darling…" Then, she heard the metallic whisper of his zipper… and suddenly felt the hard, hot fleshy bluntness pressing against her upper thigh… My God! It was his penis! Automatically, her body recoiled at its alien touch, even as his finger probed deeper between her legs into the warm wetness of her vagina, causing greater intoxicating waves of inner excitement to ripple through her, nearly disarming her completely. She lay as if mesmerized, physically entranced by the pleasurable sensations soaring about wildly within her… and then he had taken her hand and placed it on his hardened penis, his own hand covering hers and enclosing her fingers around it.
She had compulsively squeezed tight, feeling its hot rigidness give slightly beneath the pressure and heard and felt him gasp excitedly against her breast, the sounds of her own breathing filling the room as she realized the enormity of its size. Momentarily, it frightened her. She had never dreamed they were so big… so long… so thick… her fingers would hardly go around it…! And, suddenly she realized that she was stroking it… massaging the thick outer layer of skin back and forth to the same rhythm he had established with his finger deep inside her moist, young vagina.
Oh God… there was no stopping him now! She had let it go, even encouraged it beyond the point of no return. Her whole body vibrated passionately, hungrily, in the rapture of the moment, as did his pressed tightly against her and in her hand. She squirmed responsively beneath his finger sinking ever deeper into her cunt so wet from the juices he had stimulated there. She felt it seeping from her vaginal lips, moistening her entire crotch even to the cleft between her round full buttocks; and then, even through her excitement, it struck her that he would destroy her still intact hyman the way he was stretching her virginal channel, but she didn't care… didn't care… didn't, didn't care…!
His prick jerked in her hand at every stroke, and as he increased his maddening pleasure-inciting thrusts up into her, so did she quicken and lengthen the pumping of her tiny hand clutching tightly at his throbbing, fleshy, shaft, feeling it grow and grow into unbelievable male hardness.
Perhaps it was his sudden rolling on top of her between her legs that helped restore her reasoning, or maybe it was simply the reaction of a strong religious upbringing thrusting its way through the delirium of forbidden pleasure clouding her brain, whichever, she found herself fighting him, clamping her long naked legs tightly together, her thighs clasping his stiff, throbbing cock between them, as he struggled savagely on top of her to get the hardened tip of his prick into the moist opening of her excited and dilated vagina.
"Oh God, no, Phillip, we can't," she hissed up at him, her teeth clenched as she squirmed and struggled with every ounce of resistance she could muster, clenching his rock-hard cock tightly as it strained inside her panty leg, its nozzle splaying the lips of her throbbing cunt, inching even forward from the weight and force of his near insane attempt to penetrate her. "No! No, Darling…!" she half cried, and as she squeezed and writhed furiously she felt it lurch within her clutching fingers and heard his uncontrollable gasp of frustrated ecstasy.
He groaned and grunted as she felt the thick, hot stream of his sperm shoot from its jerking head, saturating her still tingling vulva, the palpitating open lips of her vagina and the surrounding golden pubic hair, until she was drenched with the warm, viscous liquid, even to the inner sides of her soft white thighs, dribbling wetly down between her legs to moisten the davenport beneath her lust dampened buttocks.
She had lain perfectly still and held him tight all through it, feeling his body convulse on top of her while his penis pumped spasmodically in her grasp, heard him emit his final groan of release as he seemed to collapse over her, his shaft rapidly growing limp in her hand, and it was then that she sensed an indescribable sensation of being cheated; yet, she said nothing, only held him, running her hand through his hair while he began to whisper apologies in a choked, almost shamed voice.