Paula knew she was dreaming. But even this knowledge did nothing to help. It was hot, it was hard, it was male, and, most importantly, it was in her. She lay helpless, caught up in the throes of passion, hating it, loving it, unable even to make a token gesture or croak a hoarse "No!" as he pushed it in her, pulled it out, pushed it back in again, churning her insides into a passionate pudding of pink-frothed lust.
God damn him! She knew who it was-knew just as clearly as if she could see his face. It was the most vivid dream she could remember in years. Damn! She hadn't felt this turned-on since-since something she didn't like to think about.
This goddam job was getting the best of her. She ought to quit-but out and go back to something safe like teaching, preferably in some all-girl school. Lately she'd been turning positively paranoid. It was bad enough having to deal with them all day, to look into their burning eyes and know exactly what they were thinking, feeling, planning for her. How could she have not known what they were thinking-after all, what could they be thinking after months or years in that place, locked up and away from even the sight of a woman?
But could they really see it in her face too? Could they read her mind, read her lush, unused body and know how long since she-how she ached and burned, lusted in the lonely silence of her darkened room?
God damn him! God damn the dream that was racking her empty body! God damn a god who created a full-blown woman's body with full-blown desires-and then dumped her into a place in society where she could not gratify those desires.
Oooooohhhh god damn it all-god damn everything! She could feel that great hot thumping lump of maleness humping her, driving a dick indefatigably in and out, in and out, filling her to bursting, leaving her panting and empty for a brief instant before once more stuffing her-like a sausage-like a Christmas goose! God damn it! She wasn't a sex object-something to be fucked and forgotten. She was a woman-an intelligent, sensitive, needful woman. She had a college education. She had looks. She was still young and had her health. She had everything she needed-job, home, car-everything except a man's hot, hard hammer sliding tirelessly into her, out of her, back into her every night.
Something had to give. She couldn't put up with this insomnia forever. And when she did finally manage to sleep it was worse. All she could dream of were those hungry eyes with their naked need that made her feel naked as they studied her statuesque blondness, mentally peeling off her severely tailored clothes, pulling hairpins from her chignon to send a cascade of blond hair almost to her small taut waist.
In the dream those hungry lusting eyes never looked into hers, looked only at the full firmness of twin peaks that peeped through a cascade of blond hair, pointing outward like twin headlights, their rigid pink nipples betraying her need, her shame, her inability to stop thinking about those hungry men with the hungry eyes, with the hungry insatiable need that raged in their bellies.
God damn it! She was a modern, educated woman. Liberated! Liberated-shit! What did liberation mean if her body, her belly remained in some dark, prelogical era where all it asked for was not intellectualizations or rationalizations-all her belly wanted was that prodigious prod sliding slowly in and out, in and out, pumping her full of pregnancy, pumping her full of male chauvinism, pumping her full of the peace-piece-pumping her full of the joy that passeth all understanding.
God damn that dream! Her whole body was reacting-reacting to a goddam dream-and she wasn't even fully asleep. She knew she was dreaming. After all, hadn't she been having the same goddam dream every night, the same goddam faceless man crawling silently into her bed, not even coming manfully in on top of her like a conquering hero, but sneaking stealthily up under the covers from the foot of her bed, slinking along with his head between her legs, between her thighs, doing his bungling, stiff-pricked best to sneak up on her and get it into her while she slept…
It was degrading. Without ever even seeing her face or exchanging a word, civilized or otherwise with her, he was just sticking his maleness into her body like some animal-using her with no more compunction than he'd use a piece of Kleenex. A piece of toilet paper, she decided, would be more apt.
And what good was her college education doing her? He wasn't raping her mind. He wasn't raping her body either. That was the humiliating part of it. She could live with a rape fantasy, Paula knew. That was something outside her, not a part of her. But to lie there passive, ready, waiting, willing, just to lie there while he crept into her bed like a thief in the night, lie there without a struggle. She ought to kick, scream, fight. Instead, she was not even offered the consolation of terror.
If only she could lie there too frightened to move, paralyzed by the sudden presence of a man in her narrow bed… But even that small consolation was denied her. Modern, college-educated, thoroughly liberated Paula was nightly subjected to the ultimate humiliation in her fantasy world. Instead of being assaulted and abused by some stiff-pricked King Kong, she lay there passive and waiting, not at all the master of her body nor captain of her soul, lay there waiting for some timid sneak-thief to scurry into her bed, up between her legs, to work ever so carefully at teasing her drowsing body into missionary position, knees flexed and thighs spread wide so that he could slip it gently into her, holding his frightened breath and struggling to perform the impossible, to fuck a lusting, deprived woman without waking her up. For Christ's sake!
And night after night she burned, ached, raged at her weakness, at her shame as night after night she felt her thighs spread, felt her body quiver and burn in anticipation of this shameful concession to her femininity. God damn it-why must she be so weak?
A vacation? She'd just gotten back from one only five weeks ago. It hadn't helped a bit. She'd gone fishing, clad herself in flannel shirt and Levi's, hip boots, every masculine, unglamorous accoutrement she could think of. She had stood ass-deep for hours in near freezing waters trying to catch a big fish, knowing somewhere deep in her mind even before she had decided on this abortive fishing expedition that a big fish-pesce grande, her grandmother would have called it-was old-fashioned Italian slang for a king-sized cock. And thank you, Hen Doktor Freud.
Vacation-shit! She was going to have to quit this job, throw her career away, forget about emancipated woman and new frontiers, stow herself safely away in some comfortable woman's hole of a job and leave those haunted, lusting eyes that saw through the severe tailored suits she wore, saw through jacket, saw through blouse, saw through bra, saw the rock-hard, throbbing nipples on that pair of full firm thirty-nines that had been her cross to bear, that had turned heads and had turned off minds, making her rage because all the time she was trying to argue a point and make somebody listen to sweet reason all that person could see was a pair of tits, full, firm, appealing, totally unliberated behind that bra, totally nonverbal and convincing that person not that she had a mind, only that she had a body, that it was a sin not to use, exploit, that body.
And she had a body, Paula knew. Damn, did she ever have a body! She was tall for a woman, almost five eight. She was a little on the heavy side too-a hundred thirty-five. But it was distributed with a totally non-intellectual symmetry above and below a twenty-four-inch waist-a full firm ass atop long straight legs, balanced by a firm bust and a pair of jugs that would have made an ordinary girl seem top-heavy.
Paula had stopped swimming years ago, only too aware of the effect of her body on others. Once a man had caught an eyeful of her in a bikini she knew he would never listen to her again without a mental image of that superb body superimposed on anything she might say, like a double-exposure blotting out any argument, any common sense, fogging his mind with a pink-tinged hint of patronizing prurience. Aw, you're too purty to bother your little head about things like that.
What in hell would the world be like if supreme court justices were interrupted in mid-argument- "But your honor, all that groovy white hair and all those deep thoughts inside such a handsome old head!"
And still that goddam little sneak of a man was slipping his great big sneak of a cock, his big fish, into her, out of her, moving so unobtrusively he probably thought he was stealing a cheap thrill from her sleeping body.
Even though it had been half an eternity since last she had sensed a man's magic working inside her, Paula could tell it was a very respectable-sized fish for so small a man. And it was coursing so steadily in and out of her cunt, poking her titillated pussy with the regularity of a metronome, of a heartbeat.
Whenever she stopped raging long enough to breathe she knew that no matter how she might hate it, her long-deprived body was loving it. Her cunt might be liberated but she could feel a faint flutter as of untried wings, like some bird too long in a cage and confused, frightened at the prospect of a liberty too free, a world too wide for weakened wings.
God damn it all, if she gave in to this fantasy she was going to be sopping in another minute. Already she could feel her prurient pussy pulsating in time to that steady thrust, could feel tiny drops of love's lubrication preparing her for something that was not happening, was not going to happen as long as she had anything to say about it!
But it was happening. Against her will she felt her rage soften until she could sympathize with him, whoever the poor bastard was, sympathize with his need, with the wild, throbbing rage of his long-deprived body. It seemed as if his honker had been sliding slowly and steadily in and out of her for at least an hour, moving with the calm regularity of a pendulum, uncaring whether that slow steady eroticism were to melt her will, melt her mind, turn her liberation into bondage and wipe its ass on her diploma.
Then he changed his rhythm slightly, stopping at the bottom of each deep stroke to grind his pelvis against the lush fur of her pubic bush, sending his rigid rammer around inside her, stirring her in deep circles, mixing her brains and her cunt into a passionate pudding of instinct that gave not a shit for all her preparation, her education, her liberation.
Oh god damn it! Was she ever going to get back to sleep? If only she could go one way or the other: either wake up all the way and go have a shower, douche the stickiness out of her crotch and go back to bed or, for Christ's sake, forget all this prurient foolishness and go back to sleep. Did she have to spend the whole goddam night mooning here half-asleep, half-awake?
She had a responsible position. She made decisions involving the lives of other people. She needed a clear head for her job. If this went on all night she would be so sleepy that tomorrow she would look up unexpectedly, would catch a pair of eyes devouring her, unable to conceal their naked hunger and if she were to look long enough into those eyes, Paula knew she was in danger of falling in.
Christ! It was easy enough to understand their need. They might be imperfect, incomplete, not especially likeable, but that naked need was not, at least not directly, their fault. But Paula… whose fault was it that she had gotten herself locked into this crazy situation?
Nobody's but her own, she knew. There was no real reason why she couldn't have a discreet little affair, providing she didn't flaunt it about or rub somebody's nose in it. But the trouble with having an affair was that somebody she really worried about might find out. Paula might find out.
And all her colleagues, all her friends, they wouldn't be shocked or mind-blown. Nobody would ostracize her any more than they did now. She would not be asked to resign from any professional societies. No; the penalty would be more subtle, more lasting, more totally and completely unbearable. They would all smile and be tolerantly amused. Amused, god damn them!
And god damn this sneaky son-of-a-bitch who was fucking her! God damn this indestructible dream! Sneaking in through the foot of her bed, up between her legs, and slipping it to her ever so slowly as if he thought he could get away with fucking a full-grown woman in her right mind, in full possession of her faculties, as if somebody could fuck the daylights out of Paula and not even wake her up. Still she struggled with that dismal half-awake, half-asleep sensation.
There was only one way to come up out of it, she guessed. She would let herself slip deeper into the fantasy, imagine him banging deeper, harder, faster until finally he provoked a trembling spasm and then she would be awake, humiliated and cheapened but awake and away from this denigrating fantasy. She kicked at the covers and threw her legs in the air, she closed them in a loving erotic scissors over a dream man and oooohhh wow!
It wasn't a dream, Paula abruptly realized. There really was a man between her legs. He had his cock in her and he really had been fucking her!