Susie had been sitting in front of the typewriter all morning pausing only briefly to peruse the Sunday funnies. She was dressed in a loose-fitting housecoat with nothing on beneath, and she felt sloppy and unkempt.
Ever since she had begun to write professionally, she had been careful to keep day-by-day notes on projects and assignments. She had no memory and if she didn't write an experience or a phrase down.on paper as it happened or occurred, it was lost forever, So she was grateful to this persistence for the fifty-odd pages of typewritten notes she had accumulated since beginning her two jobs-her "real" employment as a magazine writer, and her "camouflage" job as a sex-therapist at the Clinic.
Before she had spent an hour on the proposed outline of the article, she realized that she could do two versions. One, the length of a book, could tell the whole, unadulterated truth about the Clinic-perhaps it could even be told in novel form. But the other, the struggle of the moment and the reason for the task in the first place, was harder to accomplish. What to tell? And what to leave out? The gentle housewifely readers of Woman could hardly be expected to swallow whole the story of what really was going on inside "the nation's leading sex laboratory," or "the successor Kinsey," as a national new weekly called it.
Besides, Chiver and Talma were in the process of becoming cultural heroes to the women's liberation groups, who found their studies on the nature of female orgasm direct proof of their own precepts. With the clitoral orgasm-if the origin of every orgasm was in the clitoris-that would half eliminate a woman's sexual dependence on the male's penis. The idea of a "vaginal orgasm," currently outdated, made digital massage of the vaginal area a poor second to actual penetration. The restoration of the woman's sexual independence among other things, the ability to satisfy oneself through masturbation, as did the male-was welcome to these ladies.
Susie had called Tony at home. He spoke to her soothingly because, with his hangover, loud talk was painful. She had wakened him and she was sorry; still, she felt panicked. She had two more weeks before the story should be sent to the printers. In any case the editing of the text would be down to the wire.
"All you have to do is get a peg. Do you have a peg?" A "peg", in editorial terminology, was the central idea that tied all the information in an article together. Sometimes it was the point the writer was trying to prove, often it was just an approach, like one that tied a certain phenomenon to the other phenomena that at first appeared totally unlike it.
"No, nothing at all," she confessed.
"Well, listen, I've got to go to sleep. You call tonight or tomorrow. Try to think of something." He paused, thinking. "How well do you know them?"
"Who? Talma and Chiver?"
"Yeah. "
"We can't do any expose stuff. How would we prove it?"
"Not personal stuff. Ask them what they're doing, what they think they're doing, what they're trying to prove." She agreed, but as soon as she hung up the phone she was glad that the story would be written by the anonymous "Miss M." She had decided on that after her first week at the Clinic. Even without going into the more sordid details, it was clear that she would be telling far too much about herself. And what she would have to tell would be painful to her parents and even disgraceful to the rest of the Giver family.
She responded eagerly to Libby Talma's invitation for dinner. "Just so we can chat, y' know-girl talk. I don't get to see enough of you at the Clinic, what with our both-" here she giggled-"working so hard."
Susie was napping in her small apartment at the Clinic when five o'clock came. She had had an exhausting day. She rose sleepily and opened the door. In the first moment she was surprised to see Mrs. Talma there, but then she remembered about dinner. "I just wondered if you needed a ride."
"Oh, that would be fine," Susie answered, "'cause I took the bus today."
"Oh, good," the older woman smiled with genuine pleasure. Susie wondered whether the matronish researcher was attracted to her for her body or out of loneliness for companionship. Well, she thought, I'll find out soon enough.
Once they seated themselves in Libby's small compact car, the driver mentioned that Dr. Chiver "might drop in a little later, just to say hello."
That brought up a subject of more than mild curiosity. Susie couldn't ask her outright if her relations with Dr. Chiver were more than platonic, but she could edge toward a question and let the lady volunteer if she wished.
"How long have you known Dr. Chiver?" She affected a tone of complete innocence, and apparently Libby Talma suspected nothing, for she answered without thinking.
"About ten years." She paused, and Susie was surprised and delighted when she went on.
"The Clinic was Dr. Chiver's idea. He hired me as a secretary. I have a bachelor's degree in psychology, and he thought that would be useful in the office. I have no medical degree, but I gradually grew more and more important to him in the day-to-day administration of business."
Susie wondered how personal that dependence was. "Dr. Chiver seems like a wonderful man," she said, hoping to elicit a revealing testimonial to the man from his partner.
"Yes, he truly is," Libby answered without missing a beat, but without great feeling as well. "He is the guiding genius of the research activities. I tend to be a better administrator-I think women always are, don't you?"
Susie nodded, smiling, although she wasn't that sure she agreed. She didn't, in any case, want to interrupt the flow of valuable information.
"I'll bet I know what you're thinking," Libby Talma said as she turned her car into a quiet suburban street.
"Huh?" Susie certainly hoped she didn't.
"You're wondering why Dr. Chiver directed your activities at first."
"Well, not really-though I did wonder why you seemed to take over a couple of weeks ago."
Mrs. Talma jerked the wheel and the car glided up into a open garage. She turned off the purring engine and looked straight at Susie. There was, in that garage, in the intimate space of the automobile, an eerie feeling of almost oppressive privacy. "What would you say," she began her tone confidential, "if I told you that the doctor and I some times compete-you know what I mean-for the attention of our co-workers?"
Susie was all too sure of what she meant, and therefore it was easy to conceal surprise and simply nod-though she was amazed, rather, at the candid way Mrs. Talma had brought the matter into the open.
"I see I was right about you."
"Right?" Susie was playing straight-man; the conversation had gone just where she had hoped it would-and more quickly than she'd expected. She felt like bolding on to her advantage.
"Yes, you're not shocked." She reached down into her purse for a pack of cigarettes. She offered one to Susie, who declined, then lit one for herself. She inhaled, then continued. "You see, some of our therapists tend to put us on a pedestal. They tend to think of us as parent-substitutes, and you know how hard it is for people to realize that their parents, as little children say, do it."
Susie laughed; this was the first sign of the woman's sense of humor. "No," she said, shaking her head just a little. Her hair brushed against her shoulders, and she ran her tongue tip over the center of her upper lip, then pulled it back. "No, I'm not shocked at all."
She raised her head and stared into Libby's eyes. The woman had removed her glasses and though her naked face was not beautiful-probably never had been-she looked softer. Susie had never made love to a woman much older than herself; she found herself looking forward to the prospect.
"And Dr. Chiver? You said he might drop over tonight. "
"I can tell him not to, if you'd rather he not."
In truth she'd rather he would not, but journalism was, after all, journalism, and she had to scrounge for facts in whatever ways she could. "Of course," she stuttered, "I'd like to see you both." She was aware that the awkward sentence really said, "Yes, I'll let both of you make love to me."
The dinner was chicken breasts on rice, with a wine sauce. Libby Talma cooked well. After dinner the two sat before the glowing living room fire and drank liqueurs from coffee cups. The heat made Susie sleepy.
All it took to arouse her was Libby standing up before the fire, poking at the burning wood with the rod, and then turning. The heavy body was outlined in red-orange, and her large chest was thrust out. The nipples, inside the bra, seemed to point sharply. Susie watched avidly as Libby unbuttoned the tweed one-piece.
Her bra was pink lace, an extremely complicated bit of underwear. She wore a girdle as well, and the pressure marks on her slightly flabby skin made Susie wince with sympathy. Her thighs were fat, but the body was not unattractive. "Help me out of these things, will you, Susie? We can lie in front of the fire," she promised.
Susie pressed her chest against the bra while her arms encircled the middle-aged woman. She unhooked the straps and then moved back. The cups slid off the jugs. The nipples were already erect, and they were deep brown in color.
The girdle, however, was removed with almost comic difficulty. Libby pulled in her too-large stomach while Susie tried to yank the foundation garment past the spreading thighs. The two squirmed, and when the fabric rustled down Libby's legs to her ankles, they both heaved sighs of relief. Susie chuckled, then looked up to see if she had hurt her boss' feelings.
"Don't worry," Libby told Susie, and the latter noticed how kind the voice was. "Nobody's perfect." It seemed to Susie precisely the right thing to say as she surveyed the body again. The labia looked discolored and worn but still, she wanted to touch the sagging breasts, make‹ them live again as the fire-blood raced to the tits.
"Let me undress you, dear." Susie waited primly while Libby slipped the zipper to the base of her spine. The woman rubbed her fingers into the small. "Hmmm, that feels good," the younger woman said, and it did. The fingers moved lower, to the fleshy ass-cheeks. Susie, embarrassed by her flabbiness there, tried to push the buns together. "Relax," she was told, "women are supposed to have soft asses."
She slipped out of her dress. Libby kneeled and then sat on the rug before the fire. She reached up and hugged Susie, pressing her fingers into the back of the girl's upper legs. Susie kneeled too, even though her breasts were still enclosed by a bra and her panties still covered her crotch.
"I'm going to go down on you," Libby Talma said breathlessly, "like no one's ever gone down on you before." With that, she tucked her head into her chest and pushed her naked body against the rug. Through the synthetic fabric of the panties Susie noted the pressure of Libby's jaw. Then the tongue wet the V of the crotch, and soon the moisture seeped onto the hole itself. The garment protected her from the edges of Libby's upper teeth, which sizzled over the clit. The button became puffy, and a few strokes of the tongue later, the lubrication started to flow inside Susie's quim, answering the saliva outside the box.
Libby raised her buttocks and held the genitalia to her face. Her nostrils flexed against the septum as she breathed in the smell of Susie. Her thumbs moved up the sides of the girl's body and pulled in the panty waistband. Susie raised her hips while Libby pulled the fabric down her stomach and past her thighs. She walked backwards on her knees and took them off over the slim ankles, but she couldn't resist first passing them under her nose so that she could smell the scent that remained.
She tossed them away then and slipped her face between the outstretched legs. Susie turned her head from side to side against the floor. She lifted her legs and rested them over Libby's shoulders. That made it easier for her lover to squeeze the rump-cheeks until they were raw with finger prints.
Libby had incredible strength. Each time her tongue swept over the clit and then down to the hole she lifted Susie's butt off the floor and made her 'feel as though her torso was soaring on the power of the single tongue and the pair of wet, probing lips. Mrs. Talma's lipstick smeared and gave the whole beaver a faded red glow.
Susie smashed her crotch against the turning, churning lips. Spit trickled inside her pussy, melting into the warmer fluid that lined the twat. Libby's thumbs pushed the buns apart, and both of the short, broad fingers stretched the skin around the ging. The woman's tongue moved lower. Susie was ticklish, but she gasped out in pleasure when the end of the tongue smacked the sphincter.
"Your pussy tastes so good… so good…! I love to suck you!… " were the endearments she spoke as she snapped her head back to take in air. Her lips were almost colorless now: the vaginal mist had washed the paint off her mouth. Susie's knees ached because the pumping made her tired. Still, she could not keep herself from moving up to meet Libby's mouth as it sucked her.
Susie was shocked by the way her whole body snapped under the fierce tonguing; she was as out of control now with Libby going down on her as she had been when she'd gone down on Sandy, that mindless little dyke! She tried to grab the rug, but her fingers just slid through the pile.
Libby separated the cheeks wide. She rolled her tongue in a circular fashion over the clit, then cut a straight path down to the smaller of the two holes. She pushed against the anus, then grazed the labia with the side of her tongue before starting the tour again. While Susie's stomach bobbed faster and faster with each new pressure on the button, Libby teased her by moving more slowly. Susie stretched her arms out, sitting up halfway, and pulled on Libby's flabby biceps. Her assbones hit the floor as she wiggled her butt like an impatient child in a tantrum.
Libby helped her. The woman's fat index finger pushed up her friend's rectum. The dry, warm walls of the anal cavity tightened around it as if to spit the finger out. At the same moment she was sucking the clitoris between her teeth.
Susie rolled her lower body up against the thirsty, hungry mouth. Her arms hit the floor, and she started to come. Libby locked her finger inside the asshole and kept it in there while. Susie groaned and thrashed. She did not move her mouth away nor pull out her finger when the orgasm was over and Susie lay silent.
"Would you like a cigarette?" she asked, and Susie surprised herself by saying she would, for she seldom smoked. Awkwardly, Libby disengaged herself-awkwardly because now that the sexual excitement had been drained from the girl's body, it seemed incongruous for her finger to be buried in the constricted anus.
While the two rested, naked and relaxed, smoking before the fire, a car drove up into the large garage. There was a sound to the way Chiver slammed the car door and ambled to the front of the house that suggested he was a frequent and intimate visitor to Mrs. Talma…
"That's Wil," Libby said, petting Susie's shoulder, reassuring the younger woman of something the latter had expected anyway. She went to the front door and stood behind it, drawing it open so that Chiver did not see her-this way, of course, she concealed her nudity from the neighborhood at large. Chiver sensed the reason for the seemingly magical opening of the door, but he was transfixed at once by the sight of Susie's nude body in the far comer of the living room. Her swelling curves were bathed in a satanic red-orange glow.
He stepped forward, looking at Libby-who sprang to his side-nervously and without interest when his eyes met those of the young therapist, his face attempted the features of a kindly uncle. He admired her nudity as though it were merely an aesthetic commodity-indicating that he himself was not aroused by it And Susie could tell that wasn't true. His cock stuffed his underwear and pressed overbearingly at the stomach of his trousers.
He sat down on an overstuffed chair near the fire. Susie looked up at him with a placid expression. The firelight made him look even older and somehow more foolish than he really was.
Libby Talma, her tits hanging toward her diaphragm like a cow's hovered over him from behind the chair. Her fingers undid the top buttons of his shirt and pulled at the flaps of his regimental striped tie. His hands clasped hers and then quite tenderly, he kissed the backs of her bloated-looking fingers. He licked one of the knuckles. Laughing shyly, Libby pulled back and stepped around to watch him complete his undressing.
Susie felt called upon to help, to show her interest in him. She unclasped his belt and pulled his cock out from cotton briefs. It was smaller than she had expected; the pleated pants he wore had given it a kind of tent effect, and the fabric had billowed around it.
In a strange way, she was glad that he had arrived. She liked getting sucked off as well as any woman, she figured, but there was nothing comparable to the feel of a hard penis inside her quim. Maybe the experts-including Talma and Chiver were right about there only being one kind of orgasm, but somehow they didn't go far enough.
She ran her fingers up the column of stiff pink flesh. Men's cocks, she thought to herself, were the parts of them that stayed youngest the longest. She couldn't have told whether this pecker was a young man's, or whether it belonged to someone middle-aged-as it did.
She pulled the pants off his legs, or rather helped him do it. Libby, kneeling, had rid him of his shirt. He took care of the undershirt himself. His feet were bare also, and now only his shorts covered his stomach. Half covered, really, because the pillar had burst forth. He would have shoved it up against his stomach and then pulled the undershorts down had it not been for the way Susie was jacking him off. He closed his eyes, and his heart beat madly.
He turned to Libby. "Can we go in the bedroom, dear?"
"You and Susie?"
"No," he chuckled in a grandfatherly way, "all three of us," and Mrs. Talma looked both relieved and embarrassed at the reassurance. In the bedroom Chiver was the first to spread out on the king-sized bed. Susie lay back gently as if testing the mattress. She wondered how quickly the tangle of flesh would begin. She turned over on her side and grabbed Chiver's prick. Her movement was almost unconscious; she had seen it, she wanted it, and so she took it.
Libby was hugging her. The woman's large palms brushed her breasts and rubbed the tits into solid erections. They way that Libby, on her knees, was thrusting her pud forward, told them both how much she wanted her own satisfaction. Susie took pity on her and moved under the pubic altar. She licked the distended labia, washing them in spit, and then Chiver was beside her, teasing the rising of Libby's hipbone with the edges of his perfect white teeth-so perfect, thought Susie, that she was sure they were dentures.
Mrs. Talma spread her arms behind her and threw her weight down on the palms. Her legs were parted wide enough for Susie and Chiver both to push their mouths against the opposite sides of her purplish-pink pussy, covered with coarse brown hairs and coated with a moist colorless film.
Susie felt her cheek get hot and flushed as she rubbed it up and down over Libby's privates. Her tongue almost met, over the chasm, the tip of Chiver's tongue, which was manipulating the matching labia as he stared at Susie. He put his hand at the back of her head and then shoved his mouth closer. Suddenly the two were kissing with open mouths, and Libby showed her enjoyment by rolling her pud against their cheeks while they trenched. She massaged their necks, the fingers of one hand kneading the flesh above Chiver's collarbone while the fingers of the other prowled as low as Susie's shoulders.
She lost her balance and stumbled back on the bed. Both partners followed her down. Susie's mouth opened wide on Mrs. Talma's quim, while Chiver took her breast. He kneaded it with both hands, and when the tit pointed sharp as a diamond he took it between his teeth and licked it furiously.
It didn't take much to make Libby climax Susie found, but when the woman's whole body rocked with the waves of orgasm, the end of one climax blended into another. Susie counted three separate orgasms in a row, each distinct from the other. Obviously all that she had learned from her research had not been for pure science. Susie's throat was dry from using so much of her saliva to suck and tongue-kiss the other woman's pussy.
She came up off the crotch when at last Libby appeared sated. She 'looked into the woman's eyes, and their noses almost touched. Libby's lips parted and the two exchanged tongues. Susie delighted in the softness, the coolness, of her lover's tongue.
Chiver was at their side. He had raised her arm as though it were the limb of a machine. His tongue was massaging the armpit, and he was so excited that he kept jamming his prick against the side of Susie's knee. He was startled at the words that next came from Mrs. Talma's lips, when the latter drew her mouth away and ended their kiss. "Blow Wil," she said, and she did not miss the smile of understanding that passed between the middle-aged couple.
So, while Libby rested, Susie took the shaft in her hand and opened her mouth. With her hand still circled around the instrument, the doctor pushed deep inside, across her tongue and up against the roof of the orifice.
"Slower," she said, and her lips pursed around the dick. She stuck her tongue out, but it was her whole head that moved, as she tracked the cock up and down with the edge of the soft muscle. She followed the glans until a trickle of new dog-water required cleaning. She pulled down on the skin that covered the penis and then smashed the bulb on the inside of her left cheek. Her tongue now tasted of his sweat and his premature semen.
"Oh, please," he said, and he repeated again and again the word please. The rest of his body felt bone dry; it seemed to wheeze and squeak, so parched was the skin and unlubricated the joints. But his cock was washed in tide after tide of spit provided by Susie's tongue. When she drew the skin down toward the base and raised her lips past the head, he groaned and tried to shove the stick back in her mouth.
"No, I want you to tuck mc. I want… I need you." She had to force herself to say these last words, but they were true. She needed him to end the aching in her twat, the longing, the emptiness.
From the corner of her eye, she saw the concern in Libby Talma's face. It gave her a feeling of unease, but not half so intense an impression as the one Chiver's own expression caused. It seemed to be a look of fear.
Yet her body was moving without the direction of her mind-it had even outdistanced her senses. She was climbing onto the stick, shoving it inside. It went in easily.
Then the revelation came.
From the second it touched the lining of her pussy, the cock started to wilt. It grew smaller and weaker; the hardness disappeared. Chiver s phallus was thawed and impotent the second she spread her twat-lips and thrust her pud down invitingly on the cock's head.
She could not conceal her puzzlement; both her lovers read it on her face. Oddly, both seemed relieved. The thing they feared had happened-but for that very reason, they no longer had reason to fear it.
She had stopped moving. The cock was limp but completely inside her. Her pubic hairs twined into Chiver's. His lips were tensed against his front teeth as though he wished to say something but couldn't. Susie's glance turned to Libby Talma.
"I should have told you, shouldn't I, dear?" The tone was maternal, as if it had been the facts of life she were concealing from a shocked teen-aged daughter.
"Told me what?"
Later Susie would, realize that she should have caught on much earlier in the game. But right now she was genuinely confounded.
"Wil and I discovered the identical nature of all female orgasms… " She paused, as if to part with this secret were the ultimate sacrifice. "… Because we were both unable to achieve orgasm except through oralism. All my life I had worried that I wasn't achieving the ultimate climax, the vaginal orgasm. I wanted so desperately to prove there was no difference." She was moving relentlessly on, illustrating the soundness of the adage that confession is good for the soul. "And Wil-" She turned her gaze on Wil Chiver, and looked at him lovingly. "-helped me prove there was no difference… "
The diet pill had made her intolerably jumpy, as diet pills always did. But without it she could not have stayed up all night.
Now it was six-thirty in the morning, the hour when her neighbors would rise and go to work. All day long they would be immersed in their jobs, hardly thinking for a moment about sex-unless a pretty or handsome stranger passed them on the street. They would not, in any case be thinking of what awaited them in the marriage bed.
She had completed the first draft of the article in one frantic sitting. It would need work, a great deal of work, and she would have to sleep before she could attempt the revisions. It had not been the time factor-she was well ahead of deadline-but rather her excitement that had made her sit down at this desk and type through the silent Connecticut night. She longed for the relief that always came when she had solved the handling of a major story.
Connecticut. Too quiet. She had been away from New York too long. She wanted to trade the sounds of the indolent birds for the squawls of cabs and trucks and the underground hum of subway trains.
Trains. She called the station. She would leave that morning on a commuter train; she could be packed and out of the temporary apartment in an hour.
The thought of a warm bath crossed her mind, and that sounded so good! Her brain raced through wild and exciting thoughts, and.she reconsidered the warm bath-that might calm her, and she was enjoying the excitement too much to want to be calmed.
She would have to pack, yes, she would have to pack. God! The thoughts were coming a mile a minute. New York. New York!
She had copy to write! Female orgasm! Indeed! Nobody, but nobody! even knew what the fucking thing was all about! How would she write it?
… She put her fingers on the typewriter keys, and by themselves they found the words.