During the next few weeks David and Linda were each too preoccupied with their own private upheavals to observe any marked changes in the other. And now they both saw the imprint of what they expected to see in one another, instead of what was actually there: the new softness, the sensual lassitude in their movements and demeanor. Too separately involved to be suspicious, they still let themselves take it for granted that, like furniture, love-on-the-hearth never really altered, it just grew more comfortable.
Before contacting the third girl on his computer-list-Valerie Hudson, how that name stuck and beckoned in his mind! — David, wanting to plant some legitimate excuse for remaining in the city one or two nights a week, went to the trouble of enrolling for an evening course of music appreciation at U.C. He made a point of discussing this with Linda, even filling out the registration forms in her presence.
"Sweetheart, next to you, music was always my first love," he told her. "You won't be lonely those nights, will you, Linda? Because I'll… have to stay in town for dinner, and then rush right on to class."
"Oh David, don't be silly, I'm very proud that you're still hungry for education." She put down her crochet-needle and gave him a bright-eyed smile. They'd been watching Family Affair on Television, which had the same appeal as wallpaper that told a story: soothing, but you didn't really have to follow it. "As a matter of fact, darling, I too have been thinking of things cultural…" Linda paused here and swallowed a large slice of her conscience. "Joyce Grogan has joined a… a Great Books Discussion Group, and she's been urging me to take part in it. Now I think I'll just do that little thing!"
"Oh great, Linda… I think that's…" Then he stopped and recapitulated. "Did you say Joyce…?"
"Well yes, she… and several others in my bridge-club, they've all been telling me it's a very stimulating group…" Why did he look up so sharply, she wondered… Was there something in my voice? I happen to know there is such a group in town, and he can verify it… although I'm not too sure poor Joyce has become that rehabilitated these days. Then why did I use her name… why not one of the others? Was it because I was thinking of Brad…?
"That's marvelous, Linda," David said now, trying to recover from the shock of seeing Joyce as a bookworm, and thinking what an expert that woman was at juggling her double lives… even managing to fool her best friend. "I'll feel much better about going to school if I know we're both being students at the same time…"
"Yes, it is a progressive idea, isn't it, David?" she said, more at ease now as she noted that he was genuinely pleased. "Perhaps we can even manage to be away on the same nights. That way neither of us will get the chance to miss the other…"
Linda felt his eyes probing her face again, and wondered if she'd overdone her eagerness for them to find outside interests. After all, David had always been terribly fond of music, so it was a godsend that he should decide to pursue that ambition now, when she so desperately wanted some time to herself.
David, on the other hand, was thinking what an incredibly beautiful and understanding wife he had, for she hadn't even questioned his shabby ruse, nor asked him why he didn't choose Stanford University instead, which was nearer their home and wouldn't necessitate his remaining in San Francisco. Trust, thy name is Linda!
He got up out of his contoured patriarch-chair and went to her; and as he lowered his head to kiss her, he glanced at the untroubled prettiness of her mouth, wishing he might part those lips with his own and show her how deeply consuming a kiss could be. But, not wanting to frighten the darling with such untoward passion, he gave her the brief, filial salute, his lips neat and dry in keeping with their contract-terms. "I have a perfect wife," he cued her with a wide grin.
"Perfection breeds perfection, my love!" she threw up the litany to him. And upon hearing these oft-uttered phrases, David was fully reassured that all was right with their world, the sealing still hermetic.
Then, as he resumed his seat before the TV, he was suddenly shocked to remember exactly where and with whom he'd most effectively sampled the tempestuous sort of kiss he longed to give his wife. Good God, without knowing it, he'd been recalling the fiercely sensuous necking-session he'd had with that freak, that acrimonious bitch-boy called Hazel! Even though he'd been convinced he was kissing a woman at the time, with his passions definitely female-based, there was no denying that the "soul-kiss" brand of foreplay he now wanted to try on his wife had been taught to him by a man.
David gave her another quick glance and felt a sickening wrench of shame to think how eager he'd been to defile that exquisite face. Teach her the fluent hot gulping kiss of a cocksucker… oh Jesus, I went out of my mind making love to a female impersonator! And even now, the soft-feeling memory of it could give him a hard-on, sitting right there while Linda crocheted and watched all her favorite detergent-commercials in living color!.. David Fortune, at home in his living-room with a big fruit-inspired erection!
Well Goddammit, his next sex-experiment would be healthy and normal. Not like Joyce, who'd rejected him, or big-mouth Hazel-Harry, who'd made him feel like an emasculated hunk of garbage. Oh please, Lord… something in-between? Someone womanly and wild and free who wanted what he did: to be together, to open up…
And yet, for more than a week David's primary impetus for masturbation had been the feverish wet-cameo vision of Hazel's mobile, passionate mouth clutching his. And when he shot, he was tasting her tongue and feeling her full hot nudging underlip. But afterwards, David would sigh and grope desperately for the balm of consolation: in reprising that unsettling interlude, he'd been letting his mind's eye see only the mouth of a girl, which, dammit, is what Hazel had been until that fatal, gendered moment. Consequently, it had been Hazel alone who had been the star of his fancies. Freaky-Harry had been left on the cutting-room floor.
Nevertheless, as soon as he finished registering at U.C. to establish an alibi-although he planned to attend only the first session of class-David again concentrated on his Master Plan for Comprehensive Sensual Enlightenment. Next on his menu came Valerie Hudson, and she had to be a girl. Just to make sure, this time he'd give her a physical before he enlisted.
Valerie Hudson turned out to be a soft, cuddly silver-blonde with a mole on her chin and a cute lisp which made every word that came out of her velvety rosebud lips sound like an offer of fellatio. After one glance at this slightly overbreasted bundle of curves David felt reasonably certain there'd be no gender-problems here. Even with spike-heels she couldn't have been more than five-two, and he decided the foam-rubber industry would never be able to duplicate those round and hefty bazooms of hers that wobbled and dipped every time she moved.
They met for Irish Coffee at the Buena Casa Cafe in North Beach. Her choice. Which David thought was strange, since the place was always overcrowded, literally bulging with local tom-cats and students and plastic-hippies and their girls, all steeped in a raucous aura of tension that was pure amphetamine.
T like to see how a man stands out in a crowd," she told him, as they stood there slowly edging their way towards the bar in that crushed maelstrom of bodies. "That's my acid test, David." She gave him a fetching upward grin. "What's yours?"
"You just passed it," he returned her grin, gazing straight down her V-necked bosom-expanse. Their bodies were bunched so closely together and he was so much taller than she, he tried for as deep a bird's eye-view as possible, wanting positive proof that all that rippling flesh down there was strictly female. He was also able to nudge a knee at the base of her abdomen and feel the warm pressure of a girlish dip and bush. No nuts on this one, he thought; unless she tucked them back and shoved them up her keester. This idea made him nervous, and he knew he'd need more conclusive evidence before giving vent to his wildest desires. Except that David was already carrying a rather painfully hard package-deal in his briefs, standing there like that, all jocked-in by a torso-to-torso hookup. And if she wanted to know how he stood, out in a crowd, all she had to do was lean on it a little bit and she'd be getting him at his peak.
Now he peered more closely at her-short straight perky nose, wide grey eyes-and then studied the stylish swept-up puffs of her hairdo, thinking what a lousy first impression he'd make if he tried to yank it off and it didn't budge. He could always say he'd seen a baby bat fly in there and he was trying to rip it out for her. No, better to be a little patient and wait, and have some faith in his fellow-man, or woman as the case may be.
Someone pushed passed them, shoving the girl even closer against him, the firm draped bulge of his erection jabbing against the vicinity of her diaphragm. She gazed upwards in mild surprise. David's eyes met hers. Oops!.. She just got my message down there… dammit!.. If only it didn't throb like that when it got hard. Blame it on my youth, or nerves, or my condition… He wanted to tell her that thing would stretch all the way from her navel to her heart, if she was the kind of girl who was hooked on dimensions. But he sensed she was much too well-bred for such libidinous talk. "Well, what's your verdict?" he asked her. "Have you decided for, or against?"
"Pardon?" Wide, baby-grey-flecked eyes askance.
David tried out one of his raconteur chuckles. "Could you point me out in a crowd, or would I just hang here and dissolve?"
She grinned, and he watched her pushy little lips lisp: "Silly!" as he felt her belly nestling and undulating against his trapped and crunched-up prick. If only they could shove their way to the bar and order drinks. That way they'd both have something to hang onto. "You're as handsome as a prince, David. But I suspect girls have been telling you that ever since you were twelve…"
One girl, he wanted to correct her…
"Have you ever thought of modelling?" she asked, her tummy hot and nudging at his stiffness.
"No, not really," he laughed. Modelling what?… he wondered, his member swelling, growing.
"I have some contacts," she said, squirming afresh.
… You sure do, he thought. Three of them, to be exact, and right this minute…
"You have a very distinguished air about you, David. Something about your eyes and the way you keep thrusting out your chin-as if you were daring somebody to sock you, but if they did, you might kiss them for it. Rather sweet! Although deep down I don't really think you're distinguished at all. No. You're basically an alley-person, just like me…" Then she reached up and pulled his head down to whisper in his ear. "Have you ever been naked in an alley?… just standing alone and stripped in a dark doorway, waiting for whoever came along first and then stepping out like that, showing yourself?"
"No… uh… I've never tried that…" His wedged-in knob pulsating with these words.
"I've done that, David," she said, and then giggled charmingly at her own wayward foibles. "Many times, in fact, since San Francisco's just teeming with little alleys. Oh, it can be an enthralling experience! One feels so very alive in a moment like that. You know what I mean?… Really alive!"
He smiled at her and swallowed and nervously licked his lips and knew what she meant, although he didn't know whether to feel flattered or written-off by that schizoid picture she'd painted of him. Why would she think he'd kiss whoever socked him? That could make him either very humane and religious or queer!
"I used to live in New York," she was saying, "and I had experiences like this practically every day on the subway. I was a public relations expert in those days, a real career-girl. How those daily subway tangles used to spark my morning-trips to work!"
She had to shout this out, but the surrounding cacophony was so deafening, no one heard but David, who was trying to decipher her words so fast he grew a little addled.
"I find it so thrilling like this, David," she said, edging her compact little body in for a soft landing, as his erection now throbbed blatantly against her and steamed there.
"Thrilling like what?" he asked, pretending he didn't know that she knew what a thick rapport was blooming up between them.
"I go out of my way to find places like this," she said, "crowded shoved-in bars and bistros and busses… And those over-flowing cable-cars can be priceless in a rush-hour! White-collar workers can be such a treat to squeeze at the end of the day, when they're so tired and unfulfilled. Some of them haven't been touched there in months-a girl can tell…"
… Jesus, listen to her, he thought… She's gonna do something awful to me, right here in public… I can feel it!
"Look at all these well-dressed, civilized people, David, standing within inches of us, and they haven't the slightest idea what's going on, right under their noses and highballs…!
"Uh… what do you mean, dear?" he chuckled down at her. "What's going on?"
"This is," she lisped sexily; and then David drew in his breath as he felt her fingers slowly pulling down his pants-zipper, farther… farther, right down to the crotch-seam, and he felt a little draft and said: "Hey there!" but couldn't think of a thing to add to this.
"Slip your arm about my waist as if we were having a very intimate conversation," she instructed him. "Then… just keep smiling and chattering like everybody else."
His face suddenly felt very hot, but he put his arms about her and hugged her in closely as he kept grinning and listening to the crazy pumping of his own heart, for he couldn't believe what was about to happen to him… Oh wow!.. Not here… in full view of all these eyes and voices and laughing social drinkers and before he could decide it was all a nightmare and wasn't really happening, she had him completely unzipped and her soft precious fingers were tugging expertly inside his inflated briefs. Now David couldn't move or think, just kept smiling idiotically, and tried to go on chattering as she'd instructed him. But oh Jesus, hold the phone here! He knew he'd have to stop her if she tried to yank that naked cock fully out for all these bright young lushes to see and be appalled and call the Vice Squad. Ahh, but no, she left it in there, all fat and sweltering and curved upwards against his belly. He felt her hot tenacious fingers gripping his taut, caught shaft of flesh, and he gasped with the delicious dirty thrill and danger of what she meant to do and where! He'd never known such a surge of terror and exhilaration… All these people! Bankrobbers must feel just like this during their noon hour holdups… (ooh be careful, man, they're watching!.. don't blow this hoist…!) Then he softly whispered as she edged a fingertip relentlessly back and forth across the tip-opening at the head of it, deliberately rubbing there until she'd produced the slippery hot moisture she was seeking. This she artfully used to lubricate the whole length of his penis… wetting down his hatches, so to speak, as David kept grinning and shaking his head and conversationally saying: "No, no. I strongly doubt it… Wallace'll never run again… And wincing through his smiles as she fluidly worked her hand up and down on his sweetly trapped and aching cock, unnn!.. a lazy masturbating pace, to make sure his instrument was seminally drenched enough to fit in with her plans…
"Now we go for broke!" she shouted up at him, as he began to weave back and forth a little bit, but no one saw or cared what she had in her hand, or how pale he looked or how tickled he felt with those tiny beads of perspiration popping out all over his belly and ass and thighs.
Valerie had a special technique, and when she began it, David was certain everyone could hear the little groans that escaped his lips. She gripped his member firmly in her hand, and then moved nothing but her drizzly-wet thumb… steadily up and down at the underside of his weapon, right beneath that thick-boundaried ridge of his circumcision… oooh softest, most sensitive spot on his prick, and man, did she know it! Now and then she'd let her thumb trail back up around the hefty flaring knob to re-moisten itself where David trickled the most… then back down again to get him damper, her thumb the prodding delicacy there… unnnn!.. Swimming, swirling, rubbing her the jutting hot ridge of his cock… aw faster now, all satiny hot-wet strokes…!
"Unnn baby… no, please!.. stop movin' that thumb… ooh please, just stop that thumb!" pleading with her through his grinning clenched teeth.
"Keep smiling, David," she said. "Nobody can see! Isn't it fantastic? You're having an experience… all dressed-up and right in the heart of humanity, and nobody knows! God, how I love to look at a man's face when I do this to him. Darling, you should see your eyes… they're on fire… they're maniacal! Oh honey, if it feels so yummy you wanna bite your lips, it's okay, because they'll think you're smiling tensely… and look at them, they're all smiling tensely…!" Her thumb slippery and busily rubbing under the moist expanding knob of his prick… then suddenly opening her hand again to clutch the whole stiff wet slab of him… oooh Christ! Did it ever feel wet and close and tremulous, more searing and inflated with every stroke… like a frantic hard-core beehive taking root between his legs as she conducted all that ambitious action inside his briefs with absolutely no external movement… because she was a seasoned sex-offender, this baby… a jaggin' artist…
"AwmyGod… Wait, honey… listen… oounnn!.. Something's gonna happen if you don't stop!.. Real messy aftermath, know what I mean?… ooh Jesus… no!.. take that hand away or, so help me, if I ever get you alone I'll bite it off… and I'll bite those poppin' knockers of yours too… oooh, wait…!"
With a quick and angry jab, she suddenly dug in deeper and pulled his prick and balls fully out of his pants. "All rightie. Would you rather I walk away this instant and leave you dangling here?"
"Aw no, no… for Christ's sake, don't move!" he said, still trying to smile. "Put it… uh… put them back in… yeah, like that… and… and… oh WOW!.. there ya go again… that Goddamned thumb feels just like a tongue… lickin' and diggin' up and down… ummmm…!" And he knew that just a few more of those hot swimming strokes would turn him into a public disaster-area, because his restraint was running out and he couldn't hold it back… aw Jeez!.. feel those jaggin' fingers, feel them…!" Now her rhythms were furious and vehement, full of slashing and methodical determination… not playing with him any more, but seriously masturbating the boy right there at the ever-popular Buena Casa Cafe on the shores of sparkling San Francisco Bay… the wet clammv pressure of those educated fingers sliding fully up and down that whole loaded flexing throb of his penis… now squeezing it harder… ummmm!.. now pinching the fat mushroom head of it to get it squirtier… and then… oh God… oh wetter and faster and up and down and ooooh! baby… no…
"Tell me I'm unforgettable, David… I love that word," she said, watching his eyes and softly panting groaning mouth as she worked on him.
"You're… oooh!.. unforgettable," he muttered, suddenly hating and adoring her for what she was putting him through… standing here at this tipmost point of his first public climax. Had he ever known a moment so shattering and beautiful?… Unnnn!..Right on the crest of the flood and it felt so Goddamned wildly naughty and glorious David had to close his eyes and sigh and gulp and not care who saw or detected this foamy crescendo she was building and molding and pumping inside his pants, his muscles now aching like hell just from holding back all those streams… his habitual warning-juices spurting out more danger-signals with each caressing stroke. Aw damn her, how could he let it happen like this? How could he hold back the gasps and moans or keep his knees from giving way? Because postponing it was only making it hotter down there, which meant he'd probably shoot right up to the ceiling… big spray of man-juice fallin' in everybody's Irish Coffee…
He decided on another small cry for help: "Hey… I can't keep it from coming unless you stop right now…!"
"Kiss me when you come, David," she said, and looked utterly delighted by his uptight sensual agony. "Kisses are perfectly acceptable here, and that way you can even lean on me a little, in case you feel a little infirm…"
Christ, that meant it was gonna happen. Oh David, she's got you by the balls, so dammit, you've gotta let go and empty 'em both!.. yeah, right here and now… (Hey look, all you pretty psyched-out swingers!.. get a load 'a me!)… He let his eyes drop down between her plunging bodice again, felt the snuggling heat of her body, his cock feeling all floaty and wetter and hotter as she jagged it… as he nudged in closer to her and tried to speak… "Aw Valerie, listen, we can't… we shouldn't… oooh boy!.. honey… oh honey, it's gonna blow… and I'm dyin' here in front of all these witnesses… oooh dyin'!.. watch it… ahhhhh!"
"Kiss me now so I can gag up all those horny sounds!" she ordered him. Quickly, David lowered his face to hers and let her lips stop his erratic whimpers… resting his weight on her a little bit as he relinquished and let flow and… ooooh!.. sighed and shot it all… thudding gushing wads of the stuff, full and spraying inside his bombed-out briefs… and he knew at once that it was the most powerful orgasm he'd ever had in his life. And thought that possibly the thrill-danger of getting arrested was the same sexual pull for all criminals… whew!.. with his mouth still glued to hers as he wondered how the excitement of getting "caught" for committing an act of pure hedonism could make a guy spout out the fullest prime-grade load of his career… still keeping his mouth down on hers until the last echoing sperm-tears drained out of him. And damn if her little fingers didn't stay right down in there with the whirlpool she'd so obsessively created, aw, the chick dirty girl, wading barefingered in his spent privates… idyllic caprice…
"I think I'm in love with you," she said, as he finally lifted his lips from hers, "just because of the desperate way you kiss a girl when you come in public."
Breathlessly, he gazed down at her, feeling deflated, peeled and exposed but still fascinated by what they'd done. "I think I'll have you locked up and put away for my own protection," he said. Then added: "In about fifty years." Her eyes met his and suddenly they were laughing fitfully together, their faces flushed and perspiring with the shared joy of a couple of trailblazing pioneers. "But hell, what do we do now?" he said. "Swim out of here, or ask the manager to lend us a surfboard?"
"Press in closer," she said sensibly, which he did. She reached into her purse, a shoulder-strap model, and pulled out a hanky. This she shoved inside his briefs. "Now, we'll just zip you up and let it blot. That should stem the tide long enough to get us out of here." And then in a louder voice: "My, but it's hot in here!" After which she slipped out of her thin, but full-length coat and handed it to him. "Will you hold that for me please?" Which David did, draping it over his arm and letting it hang in front of him, while she left the hanky clogged-in where it was and zipped him up again, whispering: "It hasn't gone down very much, David…"
"Ah, you're a cruel and evil bitch," he said with a tired and helpless laugh.
"You're so right, darling! Now let's go over to my cute condominium and really get acquainted. There's an awful lot about you I feel I could use, David. I have a sixth sense about things like that…"
David wondered how she'd meant the word "use," and in exactly what context, as they edged their way through the mob. He also recalled his plans to give her a physical and realized that she'd beat him to it. Another aggressive female? Oh no! Look how diminutive and petite she is…
"David, quick… look over there!" she said, as they passed a couple who, at first glance, seemed only to be frantically necking. But now that David's eyes had been trained towards other areas, he noticed the girl's arm lowered between the two bodies and saw that she was quite definitely, and rather clumsily, jerking the man off.
"But my God, they're so obvious about it!" he exclaimed. "Look at her elbow go!"
"And you see, nobody cares or stares, David! What did I tell you? It's the lewd tension of these times, darling… It's the Pepsi-Generation wherever you go… It's where it's at!"
Laughing, he glanced down at her, drinking in her striking, elfin beauty, utterly enchanted by the lithe vivacious movements of her body as she walked. "Honey, you've turned a rather sticky situation into a fairly graceful interlude, did you know that?"
"Purely a public relations gambit," she giggled. "I was taught by experts."
Outside they nailed a cab, and as the driver whisked them away to Russian Hill, David pressed her pretty tweed coat tightly between his legs. He felt a little soggy, but tranquil, as thus he began his full descent into a bit of fluff and bondage called Valerie Hudson.