Late that night, the snug rustic Hartley home in Oak Tree had an almost festive appearance from the outside, little blazes of light shooting out through the windows to brighten the clearing surrounding the structure. Inside, however, Diane Hartley paced around like a caged tigress, opening and closing doors as she manufactured one excuse after another to search through the rooms, reacting to some undefined fear that had lodged in her unsettled mind after the sun had set over the forest.
Having made what was probably her twentieth tour of the house since darkness had closed in around her, she sat down at the kitchen table still heaped with Bill's clothing that needed mending. She picked up the needle and thread from the floor where they had fallen when she had thought she heard some peculiar sound outside a few minutes before, and went back to work repairing a torn pocket on one of her husband's wool shirts.
It was silly to be so nervous, she admonished herself, for, after all, she had spent many evenings alone in their house and not been afraid. But that was before she knew that the dense woods out there harbored other creatures more menacing than the gentle deer and shy rabbits that occasionally she had seen there. She strained her ears for any sound from the kennels but the German Shepherds were evidently peacefully asleep and no other sound interrupted the woodland quietness.
She knotted and cut the thread she had been using, then tossed the mended shirt beside her on another chair. After several soundless moments had passed, she rose and walked back toward the living room. She winced slightly as she entered the room and glanced at the red velour couch on which Jack Green had crawled between her wide-spread legs and fucked her into submission that morning. A dull ache still throbbed in her bruised loins and she tried vainly not to think about the cause of it. The memory was impossible to evade, though, and she found herself realizing all over again that she had actually betrayed her own husband behind his back. She had allowed another man, a low class stranger, to seduce her and had actually responded to the debasing experience like some cheap whore whose existence depended upon the presence of a hard male penis between her legs. The slight soreness in her ravaged genitals was a small enough price to pay for the adulterous way that she had behaved that morning.
"Don't think about it, just don't think about it, or you're going to start crying again," she said aloud, finding comfort in the sound of a human voice, even her own, in the house. She had spent most of the afternoon weeping as she lay stretched out on the bed, reliving her shame and guilt over and over again, but not even that great flood of tears could soften the horrible memory of what she had done, had allowed to happen to her young body in the throes of her own desire.
Later that afternoon, she had dozed off, exhausted by her racking grief and by the intensely emotional and physical ordeal itself. When she had wakened, she had felt relieved at first, certain that it had all been nothing but a bad dream. She a risen from the bed, in which she had been cowering like a criminal for hours, and felt the tender soreness of her harshly-used breasts. Even the soft nylon nightgown that she had put on sent sharp pangs of pain running through the firm white mounds as the material rubbed against the raw, tooth-marked tips. And yet, worse than the pain, there was the awful knowledge that she, a formerly faithful young bride, had truly enjoyed the caretaker's fiendish rape of her succulent young body. There would never be any way that she could justify the wantonness that had over-powered her, had caused her to lurch and writhe toward her own vulgar fulfillment under her attacker's pounding body. Before today, she would never have believed that she could have behaved like such a common slut and now she could not help but be terrified as she wondered what was to become of her and her marriage after this. It was an ominous and frightening thing for her to face by herself and as dusk had fallen around the house, Diane had felt her fear building to unmanageable proportions. Irrational as it seemed, she was terrified that there might be someone outside the house, someone waiting for the right opportunity to slip inside and… and… well, she didn't know exactly what might happen, but she was no longer so self-assured that she could handle any difficult situation that confronted her.
Prowling through her home, Diane considered turning on the radio or television, anything for company, but she knew she would not be able to sit still long enough to listen or watch. She knew she wouldn't be able to sleep tonight and made no effort to try. A night-owl's mournful cry outside the house made her shudder and, when she realized that there was really nothing to be afraid of, she sat down in the kitchen again, wearily brushing a blonde curl away from the side of her pale, worried face. She knew that she would have to calm down soon or go out of her mind with fear and irrational dread.
She picked up one of Bill's sports-jackets that had a button hanging loosely from the side pocket and dropped it on the breakfast table, but not even her guilt could make her like the prospect of repairing the garment. It seemed so useless now, as though everything had changed forever and it was senseless to even think of her husband's wearing clothes that she had mended. If only he were here, she thought somberly, somehow she might be able to explain everything that had happened and he would understand, comfort her. He would somehow know that none of it had been her fault, not really, and he would kiss away her wretched unhappiness and tears of shame.
In the next moment, her gaze fell on the blue wall beside the kitchen sink and lingered thoughtfully on the telephone receiver hanging there on its cradle. Maybe… maybe she would call him… She rose abruptly and walked to the bulletin board on the wall beside the telephone. As she flipped through the tacked-up notes that Bill always left there each time before he left on a business trip, she smiled with the anticipation of hearing his deep masculine voice. At last, she found one of the business cards with the address and telephone number of the kennel he was visiting. If she got in touch with the owners, perhaps they would know the name and number of the nearby motel where Bill was staying.
She lifted the receiver and began to call the long-distance number but when she had finished dialing the area code, an unexpected stab of doubt caused her outstretched hand to stall and then finally drop to her side. No, there was no way to explain this, she suddenly realized; at least, she could never make everything sound right and true over the telephone. He would probably be all the more upset by her sketchy emotional account of the affair than if he heard it first-hand from her in person.
If he had not taken their only car, maybe she would have driven up to see him, even though it would mean that the dogs would be left alone for a whole day. But there was no car and, now that she thought about it, she would no doubt have just as hard a time telling him what had happened face-to-face as over the telephone.
The hopeful smile drained away from her pretty youthful face as she realized the true futility of her position. God, how do you tell a man that his own supposedly-faithful wife spent the morning groaning and writhing adulterously, legs spread shamelessly wide under another man's hard-driving penis? Even to her, it sounded too shocking and insane to be true, and even if she were able to convince him that it had all happened as it did, why should he ever forgive her? Even she was not certain that the horrible episode had happened as she remembered it now. Maybe her own mind was playing cruel tricks on her now and she had been far more responsible for the obscene interlude than she dared to realize.
Well, it was her responsibility to protect Bill from the ghastly truth, she decided, because she loved him too much to cause him suffering simply for the sake of clearing her own conscience. She would try to stick this out in silence and suffer alone for her terrible mistake. And yet, it would be hard. She knew that she would never be able to curl up in his lap again and nip playfully at his ear in girlish innocence without remembering Jack Green and how she had actually submitted to his filthy rape of her shamelessly-willing cunt. It would be like a penance that she would have to bear by herself, a scar that she would have to hide for the sake of her husband. Yes, time might dull the memory but it would never completely erase it.