The Oak Tree estate and grounds were as typically lovely and idyllic as ever in their late summer garb of fading green meadows and mellow, wilting flowers. The undergrowth of the heavily-wooded area was dark with knobbed shrubs and the oldest trees stood gnarled and sprawling, like old men colored brown with age. Glistening dew drops of rain splashed down on the leaves and dribbled earthward through the thick networks of foliage, finally to fall on the rich black soil below. And yet, strangely enough, the sky was a bright clear blue that seemed somehow separate from the woods, which languished obediently under the inexorable rules of the season's end.
The Hartley home, a large rustic house with an ample amount of partially-cleared acreage surrounding it, nestled cozily in a small shallow valley running on a rocky irregular level between two gently sloping ridges on either side. Behind the house, off to the right and slightly downwind, there was a spacious modern dog kennel with half a dozen central shelters and a maze of long fenced runs in which a number of handsome German Shepherds, of varying sizes, ages and colors, could be seen either dozing quietly or pacing nervously to and fro, whining and occasionally barking at some barely perceptible movement in the nearby underbrush.
In one of the longest runs, an immense black-and-fawn-colored male stood by himself, completely motionless and at the alert, as he stared upwards at a tiny rag of grey sky that was framed overhead by a small circle of evergreen branches. The imposing thoroughbred dog gazed longingly, almost defiantly, at a bird flying in a cramped orbit far above the treetops, its spread wings catching flashes of yellow and silver light from the sun. The bird drifted around and around, seemingly fixed to some invisible track in the air. After a while, the magnificent German Shepherd's strong legs began to tremble, his massive muscular body tense and straining with his natural instinct to somehow, impossibly, snag the feathered creature from the safety of its lofty circling and destroy it with one crushing swipe of his forepaw.
"Jesus, look at Wolf out there. The bastard looks better than ever," Bill Hartley enthused proudly as he stood gazing out the living room window at the kennels. The good-looking twenty-four-year-old young man did not wait for his young wife's reply and added, "If I'm lucky enough to buy Pete Sangler's prize bitch up in New Hampshire, just think what a beautiful litter she and Wolf will produce. We'll make a Goddamned fortune out of the pups!"
Diane Hartley, his wife, an extremely pretty twenty-one-year-old blonde, sat in haughty silence across the room, sipping daintily from her whiskey sour cocktail as she fought down the impulse to say what was really on her mind. She resented the fact that she would be left alone again while Bill was off on another of his frequent business trips, selling some of their own valuable dogs and negotiating for new championship breeders to upgrade their stock at Oak Tree. As usual, she would be left in charge of running the kennels by herself, a demanding responsibility that both intimidated and frightened her. God knows, the voluptuous young blonde thought bitterly to herself, her wealthy aristocratic parents had socially-groomed and educated her for far more important things than playing hostess to three dozen hairy brutes, no matter how valuable and expensive they were, while her thoughtless husband deserted her for days… sometimes weeks… at a time.
"What's the matter, honey?" he asked suddenly, interrupting her thoughts. "Now don't tell me you're going to start complaining again just because I've got to make a business trip."
"Oh no, not really," the satin-skinned blonde answered in a sulky, slightly hurt voice, her full lower lip pouting out to give her the appearance of a beautiful little girl who has been unfairly treated. "It's just that… well, we've only been married for eight months, and you've been gone almost half of that time, while I stay home and take care of the dogs… You know they frighten me."
"But honey, dogs are our living… a damned good living, too… and someone has to handle the business end of things," the handsome dark-haired husband protested, shrugging his shoulders in a gesture of helplessness. "I've got to travel and visit other breeders. We're in a highly competitive business and need the best dogs available to keep our line where it is – at the top."
"Yes, Bill, I know, but…"
"And that means scouting around," he continued, ignoring her attempted objection. "Unless, of course, you'd rather we just sat back and lived off your parents, always dependent upon them and without any real say about our own lives."
"No, darling, I-I didn't mean that at all," Diane assured him weakly, hating herself as she felt the last of her self-righteous indigence fade away in the fact of his solid common sense and logic. Despite how lonely and deprived she always felt when he was gone, she could think of no effective way to communicate her feelings to him about the task of caring for the dogs and the sense of loss she experienced as a young bride when he was not home with her. As conscious as she was of her social background and upbringing, it was true that she also wanted independence, not to be enslaved by the large sums of money her mother and father would gladly give them if only they would abide with the older couple's wishes. The exquisite blue-eyed girl felt her irritation waver and finally topple over altogether as she faltered helplessly in her own rising sense of shame and guilt.
She felt a flood of relief as he crossed the room to where she sat on the plush sofa and eased himself down beside her, his brawny right arm automatically encircling her shoulders, enfolding her. She dropped her head against his firm chest, her breath quavering as he drew her closer against him, his warmth mingling with hers. Gently he rubbed up and down along her bare arms, craning his head forward to nibble softly with his lips at her slender neck and sensitive left ear lobe.
"Ummmm, you certainly feel nice," he whispered hotly into the tender tingling flesh of her ear, sensing her anger and resistance flow away to nothing as he touched her with his breath. The light fluttery warmth relaxed and yet exhilarated her, causing a maddeningly light throb of anticipation in Diane's loins and at the small, bud-like tips of her full breasts. Without thinking, she began to rotate her rounded flaring hip against her husband's sinewy male flank, pressing the softness of her still-clad flesh against him.
"You feel nice, too," she purred, wiggling even closer to him on the sofa.
"You know, I've got to leave in less than an hour," Bill reminded her huskily. "Maybe we ought to use the time for action instead of words." Feeling herself slipping further into the intoxicating warmth of his touch, she nodded her head in wordless agreement and ran her fingertips tremblingly across his cheek, her long red nails tracing the distinctive contours of his strong masculine face. In a corner of her passion-dimmed mind, she could hear the tempo of the falling rain increase, the drops now pattering on the roof and in the trees with a steady staccato sound that seemed to match the pulsing beat of her blood. Suddenly, she felt him shift beside her and ease himself off the couch and down to his knees on the floor. He knelt forward then and caught her long smooth legs, his palms eagerly clamping against the soft insides of her thighs as she giggled and struggled halfheartedly in an attempt to free herself. She could see him hunched down on his knees between her open legs, grinning up at her through the deep valley of her upstanding breasts like a conquering warrior about to partake of a feast as he pressed outwards against her with his hands.
Slowly, he reached up under her short skirt and hooked his fingers into the elastic waist-band of her silk white panties, tugging gently downwards on the flimsy garment until the sheer, flimsy material slipped softly over her slightly-lifted buttocks and down over her shapely, well-tapered legs. The pink moist flesh of her naked vagina was presented up to his searching eyes in an almost lewd, sexually inciting position of sacrifice. She lay back against the cushions of the couch and reveled for a moment in the delicious languor of her young husband's exciting touch. She watched his tongue slowly circling his lips in rapt anticipation of the ravishment about to take place. He moved closer, placing his thumbs on the soft fleshy edges of her cunt. With a deliberately slow, torturing outward movement, he pressed the blonde hair-lined lips of her pussy apart and pressed his mouth forward against it, his long slippery tongue darting snake-like into the throbbing warmth of the smooth inner walls. Her tummy twitched and she felt a convulsive spasm of delight course up and down her spine as he began to suck slowly, teasingly, at first, nibbling at her erect clitoris with the sharp tips of his teeth. It was almost more than she could bear. Despite the thought that what he was doing to her down between her legs with his tongue was shameful and obscene, her nerves were ablaze with rising lust and she made no effort to prevent him from continuing to lick her there and give her this exquisite pleasure.
"God, it's too bad we can't manufacture and sell this feeling," Bill rasped as he pulled back from her naked loins a few inches. "Hell, we could make a mint."
His crude words sent a sudden jolt of alarm through her, one that gradually changed into a heavy sinking weight of depression. The stiff arch of excitement in her spine gave way and she collapsed back on the couch cushions as though in defeat. It was the same as always, the same thrill-shattering attitude he had had towards their sex-life since they had been married. Like everything else, he looked upon sex as a kind of commodity, something that could be used and sold, as though their deepest, most intimate emotions were mere products that might be turned into profit. She realized that it was important to Bill, as well as to herself, to be self-sustaining and not to have to rely on the money and advice of others in order to succeed as a newly-married couple. But God, he carried it too far! Sometimes she thought she would go crazy with self-doubt and frustration as a result of their crippled sexual relationship. Not that she wanted him to make love to her constantly – nothing like that – but she desperately needed to believe that he desired her as a woman more than just a vehicle through which he could prove his personal sense of worth and his ability to succeed. After all, she mused inwardly, she was a woman, a wife, and deserved to be treated with consideration just as much as he thought he deserved to be respected as a capable man.
He seemed oblivious to her lack of response and continued to nuzzle his face between her tantalizing loins. She groaned suddenly, watching with fascination as his head bobbed hungrily back and forth down between her thighs with the effort of his assault. She whimpered involuntarily and threw back her head on the top of the sofa, her hands clutching unashamedly at his face to pull him tighter against her now hotly squirming cunt as the lewd wet sucking noises of his tongue swirling deep in her vagina filled her ears.
As if sensing her sudden unwilling submission, Bill reached up and placed both of his hands over the front of her soft woolen sweater, cupping his work-calloused fingers around the roundly rising mounds of her heaving, nipple-hardened breasts, while with his wide shoulders and brawny upper arms, he forced her delectably-shaped legs even further apart. As his mouth and tongue worked hungrily in bestial subjugation of the throbbing wet moistness of her widely flowering vagina, his excitedly bulging eyes remained open, ogling with vulgar excitement the impassioned contortions of her lovely young face.
"Come on, honey, make it good," he grunted encouragingly from between her splayed-open loins as he kneaded lustfully at her heavily palpitating breasts through her clothing. "When you cum, pretend we're getting a dollar for each little tingle."
With a tiny guttural cry, Diane involuntarily ground her ivory-like hips forward against his face, burying his hotly flicking tongue all the way to the roots again as he renewed his lewd attack up between her open thighs. She was powerless now to struggle anymore against the unrelenting wonderful thrill that rocked her very soul, even though she felt a simultaneous quivering of distaste at the lewd, inconsiderate meaning of the words he had just uttered. A wildly rising erotic fire replaced her sense of revulsion and wounded dignity… replaced everything. Seldom in their still-new marriage had she ever so quickly felt so utterly wanton with him, so wild to be shamelessly and deeply satisfied.
"How many dollars have you got now, honey?" he asked abruptly, once again pulling away his pussy-moistened mouth to grin lewdly up at her. "Would you like to earn more?"
"Ohhh, yessssss, Bill," she crooned responsively, hardly conscious of what she was saying. Spreading her long legs wider and wider to give him greater access to her cuntal crevice, she begged without thought of shame. "Hurry, darling, hurry. Kiss me… kiss me down there. Faster! Oh, God, I'm almost there!"
Every young muscle the silken-haired girl possessed was alerted as she strained her naked, creamy-white buttocks upward towards the exciting red probe swirling deeply and wetly up between her legs. Her up-drawn thighs opened and closed tightly around the tormenting face that was sucking and licking gluttonously at her eagerly responding cunt. She kicked her heels hard against his back, spurring him on to suck her harder, harder, until a loud rushing sound rose to fill her ears, a great resounding and echoing torrent of sound. The tensed cords of her long graceful neck stood out under her golden skin as she pulled with all her strength against the tangled dark hair of her husband's head.
"Oh, darling, I'm almost ready to cum! Don't stop licking me, please!" she pleaded. At that moment, just as the hot sweet flow of emotion and sensual abandonment was nearing its crest, she saw a self-satisfied, smirking grin light his face, the very same expression that he often wore after closing a particularly profitable deal for one of his prize German Shepherd pups.
"Cum, baby, cum a million dollars worth," he urged with a gloating smile.
Suddenly her excitedly writhing body switched off automatically as though someone had pushed a button in the center of her aroused senses. She was instantaneously swamped with a feeling of loathing at the idea that her handsome young husband, kneeling with his face buried between her wide-split legs, could actually have said something so horribly insensitive, like comparing her own blissful orgasm, so near now, to the filthy thought of dollars that seemed to preside over their life together. Was nothing sacred in their marriage, she wondered bitterly, afraid that she already knew the answer. She was beginning to suspect that Bill, her own husband, was more attached to his stupid account books than to his wife.
"Oh, Bill, stop it, stop it right now!" she sobbed, fighting to loosen his fierce grip on her still brassiere-clad breasts and squirm away from him. "How can you be so revolting? How can you be mean enough to say something like that? Don't you love me at all…? Or do you want to get paid for that too?"
"Aw, I was only kidding, honey. Come on now, don't be such a baby," he said between breaths in an irritated tone of voice, struggling to spread wider her now tightly-clenched thighs and continue his lurid tonguing of her still visibly throbbing vagina. Then, mustering all of her female strength, she jerked violently away from him and rose to stumble to the other side of the room, trembling from head to foot with rage as she pushed her rumpled skirt back down over her whitely exposed hips. Bill remained a few moments longer in his kneeling position on the floor, then sighed heavily and climbed up to seat himself in the place on the couch that she had vacated. He stared wordlessly down at his trousers where, beneath a dark wet stain of seminal fluid, his erect penis was rapidly deflating, finally curling up limply in his trouser crotch like a small wounded creature. After what seemed an eternity, he raised his head and opened his mouth to speak, but said nothing and lowered his eyes again in an attitude of distant thought.
From where she stood stiffly near the far wall of the living room, staring out miserably at the steady autumn drizzle outside, Diane began to feel the first stirrings of real guilt, and she imagined how painfully humiliated Bill must feel after her indignant outburst and the abrupt halt she had brought to their love-making. Despite the annoyance she had often felt at his coarse, thoughtless comments during sex acts, she had never actually dared to follow her immediate impulse and walk away from him in plain disgust. But now that she had done it, she felt her heart swell with pity for the young, dark-haired man whom she really did love with all her being. She ransacked her unsettled mind for something comforting to say to him.
"I… I'm sorry, darling. I guess I'm just not in the right mood today," she finally said, her honeyed voice gently breaking the long embarrassing silence between them. But he seemed not to hear her and continued to peer down disconsolately between his legs, his gaze fixed on something secret and known only to him. Then, without warning, he straightened up with a wry, almost sardonic smile illuminating his face.
"Now don't worry, Diane. After this trip, we'll have enough money to buy you a big bed with velvet draperies and gold tassels on it, whatever it is that royalty like you and your family need to sleep on… Maybe then, you'll feel better about my terrible preoccupation with dirty, disgusting money. Who knows," he went on dryly, "you might finally turn into a decent fuck for your husband, despite yourself."
"Oh, Bill!" she cried out in disbelief, shocked by his lewdly cruel comment. Refusing to acknowledge his sadistic sarcasm further, she turned quickly away and stomped off toward their bedroom. As she slammed shut the door, and leaned her unsatiated young body back against it, she heard him call out in a contemptuous voice: "Could you please stir your aristocratic little tail long enough to hand out my suitcase before you lock yourself in? I've still got a business trip to make – if you don't mind too much."