David Fortune was having a wet nightmare. To wake up shrieking and ejaculating at the same devastating split-second was petting rather wearing on the nerves. Luckily, he and his enchanting blond wife Linda believed in the militant hygiene of twin beds. Consequently, she never got a peek at his swimming sheets until the next morning, by which time both the Fortunes and the sheets were comfortably dried-out and starchy looking.
But tonight the sweet agony of his cries had awakened her, which meant that he had to be ready with a few consoling lies: sweat plus anxiety, old paranoid fears about losing their magnificent home, his brilliant career as an insurance executive, neither of which were the product of his own initiative, but had been generously forced on him by an overloaded father-in-law.
"Oh David, don't tell me you're having that same nasty dream again," said Linda, slipping out of her bee and rushing to his side. Her high, pendulous breasts wobbled gorgeously beneath her silken nightie, and as David eyed their crests, he wearily wished she hadn't sworn such fervent allegiance to the Health Department on the day they'd taken their vows.
"Yes, it was the same dream, dear," he said as she switched on the small lamp near his bed. "Same old hobgoblin threats to our future…" He gazed up as the light reflected on her face, and at once felt the deep sense of relief which his wife's sculptured beauty inevitably brought to him. With a sigh, his trembling ceased, and the hidden mound of his erection, which had been bulging like a covered-dish under the sheets, now sank slowly downward. Once more the atmosphere in their bedroom reflected the safe limbo-plateau of a suburban marriage: David and Linda, those bright young neuter-weds up the block. Two pals bunking together in the night, two campfire chums rubbing their fungus-repellent Ids together to build the fires of caution.
Nevertheless, for David there was never a tonic so potent as the sight of Linda playing nursemaid in the middle of the night. Even with the golden ripples of her hair caught up in those atrocious pink rollers, and her pretty, sensual features gleaming with skin-cream that smelled vomitous and sweet, the over-all repugnance still meant security to David Fortune, meant 'home.' He now decided that at twenty-seven she looked just the same as the day he'd married her. How accommodating of the dear girl to have frozen his original image of her, although he knew that deep inside Linda couldn't really be just the same-not after giving him three exquisitely-formed children, all of whom had been beautifully scented and deodorized since birth. He had to be fair about it; aside from producing off-spring, there'd been many other changes during their eight years together…
… Name one, said the nightmare-voices…
Well, their fantastic five-bedroom, four-bathroom house had been given two pictorial displays in Town and Country and was all paid for. And only last year he'd studiously watched those workers put in his pool and patio, with only the most minimal assistance from his filthy-rich in-laws. At twenty-seven, he was a junior executive at All-Planet Insurance Company, the best known firm of its kind in the world, and everybody knew it was by the sheerest coincidence that Linda's father happened to be the president of this corporation. Of course, going into the insurance business had never been his most burning ambition. As a kid, the world of the jazz musician had always been his special goal; God, how hungry he'd been to study the French Horn! He'd hoped to go on tour, giving recitals, concerts. Brand-new concept in sound.
David and Linda met in the third grade and, at first sight, fell passionately into a habit-pattern that was to anaesthetize them for nearly twenty years. Despite the marked difference in their parents' bank-balance, these two children of the Fates remained as constant to one another as Damon and Pythias. And to David, it had ah ways seemed so "right" to be seen with the spectacular-looking Linda Montclair, that he never had cause-or the good common sense-to search elsewhere.
"You dreamt the house was on fire again?" Linda was saying now.
"Yes," he said, preferring this lie to the shattering truth; but also welcoming this chance to tease his wife, who never knew it was happening, that sweet, sheltered frau. "ft was ghastly. There was this enormous epitaph in huge blazing letters across the roof: 'Here Lie David Fortune and Family. They Couldn't Wait to Die, So They're Decomposing Now!' "
Linda listened and shuddered. "Oh for heaven's sakes… Did you ever hear such nonsense?" Then forced a chuckle. "And what of the children, dear? Were they involved again too?"
He nodded grimly. "And in exactly the same way, dashing out the back door to their playpens, screaming little fireballs in the sunshine. I think it's all that damned aerosol stuff you use on them, Linda. It's inflammable, you know."
Linda stared quite seriously at him; and then, with a frown and a lovely pouting underlip, she staunchly closed her eyes and transcended the whole grisly picture. An instant later she gazed with pleasure at her husband's handsome face and smoothed back the moist blond ringlets that had fallen over his forehead. They were both natural blonds, the shades so identical that an outsider might swear they wore matching wigs. Linda had always felt properly grateful to have married a man as stunningly attractive and husky as her David. She'd never seen a man who could look so beautiful and rugged at the same time. He had the bluest eyes and most classic aquiline nose, and lips that were much too full and perfect for an insurance executive. He could have been a model, she thought, or a superstar, or anything his heart desired.
Gently, she placed a hand on his big broad shoulder, taking a proprietary air in the feel of it. The two had often played tennis together in their teens, and Linda was proud to note that his sturdy chest and biceps were as hard and muscular as ever, due, of course, to his rigorous weekly work-outs at the gym. On the other hand, it had never once occurred to Linda that about nine-tenths of all this male pulchritude and largesse was going to waste under her limited care and feeding.
"Well now, David, a dream like that only proves how very much you love your home and family," she said cheerily. "You're afraid of losing everything we have here…"
… Or I'm afraid of keeping everything we have, he thought, taking her hand and pressing it to his cheek; afraid of maintaining this gilded status-quo, this sky full of riches and premeditated ease, this world I never built.
Vividly, he now reviewed the true spectral imagery of his nightmare, wondering if he'd ever have the guts to describe the gory details to Linda. Even now with the touch of her cool hand on his cheek, he could hardly bring himself to recall the dream, for it seemed so disloyal to him, so grotesque and utterly senseless. He'd been in bed with Linda's mother and father. The three of them, stark naked and tumbling, as they bandied his body between them while he alternately fucked and sodomized first one and then the other. Oh good God, would he ever forget the shame of it, the demoralizing descent into lunacy and filth! Mr. and Mrs. Wilbur Multi-million-dollar-Montclair of Hillsborough, in their proud, disdainful fifties, and there they were, those royal highnesses, flipping and twitching in their king-sized master-bed for every throbbing inch he gave them, until they began squawking and haggling for his ample stiff favors, clawing and tearing to get at their daughter's most prized home-appliance of all… this husband-fixture which they had bought and paid for. He was their property to apply or dispense at will…
David's trapped penis had felt so very alive and dimensional in the deep nagging recesses of his mother-in-law, and he could still hear her exalted shrieks as he thumped all the airy elegance right out of her. The old man knelt beside them and watched, furiously beating his big barnacled peter up and down… "Oh sweet Jesus!.. Does anyone know what this Sexual Revolution is doing to the Elderly? It's like giving Medicare to the Ancient Greeks… mythological treats instead of iron-tonics and physics! Me next, boy! Get off her… She's spoiled enough as it is…!"
Too snarling and impatient to wait his turn, the old dragon kicked his writhing empress out of bed and promptly sat down hard on his son-in-law's rigid thick identifier. "Ooumghff!" said the white-maned patriarch, grunting out his excruciating joy as David's stout bombardment surged up against his weathered colon. And while David bitterly shunned the thought later, at this moment he had to agree with the rangy old guy… because ooohWOW!.. did it ever feel wild and tight in there as he banged and popped his hips like a madman, jammin' right up Linda's ancestry… Aw, up your old dynasty, Dad… up it!.. And oooh!.. Aw man, what a generation-gap!.. Oooooh!.. The King is in his counting-house and I am in the King… Li'l David blow up your in-laws, Li'l David Blow!
And dammit-all, he just hated to think about that part of it later, because it was during that blistering ecstasy of screw-punishing his own nobly-born father-in-law that David screamed, awoke and came all in one horribly delightful instant. If only he'd reached his climax with Linda's mother instead of her father (his boss!), the portent of these dreams mightn't seem quite so harrowing to him.
Lately, all of his dreams had involved sex. If not with his in-laws, somebody else's. And always someone in high authority, someone he could maim or cripple or topple with his hard, steam-driven appendage. Show'em what-for, David!.. You've got the weapon!
He preferred to see these bestial fantasies as a pageantry of protest, an adolescent attempt to escape the rigid conformities that had been thrust on him by his elders. But he refused to believe the dreams had any real sensual significance in themselves. Since Linda had a beautiful and exciting body, it was impossible for David to consider that he, of all people, might be sexually repressed. Who among his contemporaries could boast a more appealing or curvaceous young wife? Everyone envied him this dazzling creature, she with the entrancing, full-bodied figure, the winsome smile that had gotten her everything she'd ever wanted out of life.
How could any man married to such a healthy, busty beauty be plagued with sex hang-ups? With Linda there'd never been time to feel lonely or unwanted. She'd always been there and pretty and blooming whenever he'd needed her. Why hell, he couldn't even remember their first date. All through high school and their first year at Stanford-during which term they were married-it had been like one long continuous date. And, as Linda was so fond of saying: "David and I each married our best friend. That's why we're so compatible!"
It was during the late 'fifties that these two tender comrades quite self-consciously described themselves as "courting." David, the more socially advanced of the two, preferred to think of it as "going steady." He stuck her only with his fraternity pin. And yet, in view of the standards still prevalent in the 'fifties, theirs might have been considered a rather daring engagement, if some of the lurid details had been made known: they'd indulge in flagrant premarital kissing and fingerplay, though never to climax, except for David, who wended his way swiftly home to masturbate in the cellar, praying that the gossamer-Linda would never suspect him of such gross excesses. Linda always looked so fastidious and neat, and his semen looked so messy, how would he ever be able to get the two of them together?
Once she'd let him slip his tongue between her lips while kissing. But afterwards she'd given him a fierce lecture on the perils of mononucleosis, so it had never happened again. As for the more primary penetrations, Linda remained adamantly chaste until their wedding-night. And for a tussling ten nights thereafter she was still, technically speaking, a virgin. Despite their having been intimate buddies all their lives, these two adoring youngsters hadn't gotten around to measuring their respective diameters and circumferences. David possessed what Linda insisted on calling an overly inflated and quite untenable penis, a description which almost made him feel ashamed of his eight-and-one-quarter inches, although until then this part of his architecture had given him a sense of smoldering power. But, alas, Linda's main freeway seemed to be barred to him by a bit of a taut buttonhole, from which narrow viewpoint his mammoth hunk of adoration must have seemed destined for nothing but breeding bulls. Since it stood to reason that his dimensions were not going to shrink in order to fit an hysterically tightened bride, David realized there was only one alternative-an exhaustive course in advanced anatomy; i.e., his anatomy advancing into hers. And if he could divide and conquer without killing her, he was game to try.
Finally, after a great deal of faith, tenacity and coitus-abortus, David managed to dig the full wedge of his tool straight up the shrieking pores of her sub-deb vagina. Habitually well-mannered, the girl retained a polite, sophomoric smile right in the middle of a scream. From the beginning, David sensed that she merely pretended all this sexual revulsion for fear she might lose his respectful friendship if he found out how much she enjoyed it. But he could never be sure of this; and, indeed, if his wife really was on the frigid side, far be it from him to become a rampaging beast in bed just to satisfy his own violent lusts. It was one sure way to lose the greatest pal of his life, so he policed himself accordingly.
However, for months afterwards Linda looked as if she were on her way to the dentist whenever they made love. Yet, when he thoughtfully suggested a dash of novocaine, she vehemently declined: "Not on your life, darling. This is what I was made for, to lie here while you take your rightful pleasure…" So, guiltily, David let her suffer in his heat, his rampant member usually so afloat in lubricant, it was often like having intercourse with a tiny jar of hormone cream.
And now, seated on the side of his bed, Linda slipped an arm about his waist. "You poor dear, you look so tired and spent. These dreams are beginning to sap your energy, David. Perhaps you ought to see a doctor. I mean really, darling, it's a little ridiculous for a man who has everything to be having nightmares…" Then her eyes fell on the extensive dampness of his sheets. "Why, good heavens, dear, you've been sweating like a horse! Even the bedding's wet, Here… feel it?"
He let her guide his hand along the sticky moisture, going shaky again with quavering thoughts of his father-in-law, but grateful that the perspiration oozing from his upper portions made his general outpouring look quite legitimate.
"You get out of those wet jammies this instant and you…" she paused and took a deep breath, as if about to make a radical decision… "well, you… come over to my bed, David." Bravely thrusting out her chin. "Mommie's got just the cure for her sensitive, handsome sweetie!"
David couldn't believe his ears, and for a minute he thought he was having another drenched, erotic dream. Then his heart started pounding and he shot up in bed, his eyes bulging with surprise. "But honey, wait!.. I mean, listen, it's Thursday!" He thought it only fair to remind her she'd gotten her wires crossed.
He and Linda usually made love at eleven o'clock every Sunday evening, right after watching 'Mission Impossible.' They had chosen this time-slot several years ago, ever since the Weekend News Roundup had become so bloody. They found this familial act as comforting as renewing an expired subscription, and each time it happened, Linda christened it with the same coy label, gaily pretending it was a purely spontaneous bon mot: "How about it, non?" she'd twinkle. "Do you feel like being convivial?" This preamble never varied, with the result that David became so programmed by the word "convivial," he got an unthinking hard-on whenever he heard it.
"Now dearest," she said, "in an emergency like this, who's to say we can't be convivial on Thursdays as well as Sundays?"
David felt the instant-mushrooming between his legs. He sat up in bed and tore swiftly out of his pajama-tops. Then he peeled off the bottoms and leapt to his feet, standing there before her in all his rearing hot-tipped majesty. Ahhh, but easy does it, he cautioned himself… easy, boy! Sure, she's your own wife, but don't muff it!