Respectable married ladies do not go out on-the-prowl at night. Linda Fortune discovered this social stumbling-block all too soon, and her desperate hope to find other men as turbulent as Brad Grogan had only ended in more anguish and frustration for her. There was no sane method for her to recruit exciting sex-partners without suffering even more humiliation than she had during the degrading episode with Brad. And yet, this beast of a man had stirred up a sensual unrest within her, so how could she simply wait to be sought-out or discovered by a likely prospect? If only wife-and-husband-swapping were as prevalent in the suburbs as everyone thought, it might somehow alleviate the tension. Except that she didn't really want anyone from her own set, anyone familiar to her. Brad had been out of the local picture just long enough for her to find him as new and alien as he was pompous. But of course, seeing him again was out of the question.
It would be a blessing if that interlude had never occurred. Perhaps then she might still be the safe, controlled housewife she'd been before Brad had forced her to realize certain truths about herself she'd always been able to evade. And to make matters even worse, there was no one in whom she could confide. As cynical as her dear friend Joyce had become lately, even she would be shocked to hear of her sorority-sister's lascivious discontent, which Linda thought she might somehow be able to impart to the woman without having to mention Brad.
She tried to concentrate on bridge-clubs and luncheons and somehow fill her life once more with the demands of her children. However, their old nurse Flora was doing a splendid job of taking care of the baby, and Janice and Larry were now involved in their full-time pursuits of school, homework and television.
For want of a more vital distraction, Linda actually found herself attending the Great Books Discussion Group which she'd mentioned to David. But it was after only two dismal sessions that she knew emphatically what she had to do-and, perhaps, had known it all along. She should have realized that in situations like these it's always the man who holds the upper hand, with the woman's position as low and menial as that of any slave. Especially when the man in question is as free and callous an agent as Brad Grogan.
She drove to a nearby phone-booth one afternoon and called him at work, after first stopping for a potent cocktail to whip up the courage.
"Well, if it isn't the assaulted and outraged Mrs. David Fortune," said Brad. "How come you haven't had the FBI on my tail by now… it's been weeks…"
"Brad, for once in your life…"
"What would the charge be, by the way, Salutary Rape?"
"Now listen, this is your business-phone, Brad, so I really think you should watch your language. I'm calling about that… I mean, I've been giving a great deal of thought to that station-wagon…"
"I'll bet you have!"
"… and perhaps we should be thinking of getting a new one. Could you… possibly show me one like it?"
She heard his soft, low chuckle. "All right, Linda, I'll play the game. Yes, Madam, I could show you our very latest model."
"Fine," she said crisply. "Where's the best place to meet?"
"My apartment." He gave her the address. "Of course, it's a little small to hold a station-wagon, but I can let you see my samples. How about tonight at seven-thirty?"
"No, we'll have to make it tomorrow," she told him. Tonight was one of David's rare nights at home, and Linda felt that the least she could do was keep the dear soul company. And besides, tomorrow she was due to attend one of her Great Books meetings, and it was also one of David's class-night. Hadn't they planned this together, the dual-attempt to add culture to their lives? Oh God, she felt like such a traitor… cuckolding that sweet, sensitive boy, and with his very best friend! But what else was she to do? She couldn't very well go out and scrape a stranger off the streets, just to preserve old loyalties. And, at any rate, it was mainly because of David's unswerving faith in her that he would never suspect her of this betrayal. He was a poet-husband of the old school and saw only the good in her. There need be no overt reasons for this pattern to change-if she was careful.
The next afternoon Brad gave her a brief call to confirm their date for that night.
After first making sure none of the servants were listening on an extension, Linda murmured: "Yes, I'll be there, Brad. Why? Has something come up?"
"Yes, Linda. But it's something that means we'll have a lot more fun than you expected."
"Explain that, please," she said testily. "And discreetly, if you don't mind."
"All right. A three-way traffic tie-up, Linda, how's that sound?"
She was silent and confused for a second. "I don't follow you…"
"Three in the driver's seat, Linda. One more chauffeur than we expected. I've been trying that a lot lately, and it's wild…"
Linda's heart started pounding, and she knew this proposition was out of the question, but wondered why in heaven's name she wasn't telling him that. "Who is it, Brad… anyone I know?"
He laughed. "Now why don't you take a gamble and wait until you get here before you find that out?"
"No, no, Brad. Forget it."
"Oh hell, Linda, that's exactly why you'll be here right on time-am I right?"
She hung up. That smug, complacent bastard! So positive he knew everything that would excite and disturb her. Well, she'd show him how very little she needed all those thug-delights he offered… and if need be she'd take reverse hormone-shots just to keep herself neat and self-sufficient and away from him!
And that evening, after seeing that the children were fed and put to bed, Linda allowed a full hour to dress and apply her make-up. A third party to join them! Would it be a stranger or an old acquaintance? Oh… what matter, as long as the rampaging Brad Grogan was part of the charade, and as long as it was fresh and untried flesh despoiling hers? But dear God, how she detested that man… a hatred and repugnance that remained very dear to her heart as she showered and sprayed for him.
Linda arrived at Brad's apartment that night looking almost too sleek and impeccable in a black Matte jersey body-dress with tight long sleeves, although this chic ensemble did absolutely nothing to flatten her billowing bustline. She found Brad alone, and he fixed the door so their friend would have no trouble entering later in case they were already indisposed. Despite her insistent questions, he refused to disclose the identity of their guest, although he assured her this extra added ingredient was due any minute.
"Ahh, but look at you, Linda, the average housewife making her first average house-call," he chided her, looking raunchier than ever in a chest-tight white T-shirt and bulging dungarees. After taking her hat, he watched as she primped nervously in the mirror, stealing up behind her and lazily running a big hand up and down her bodice. "Ummm, you've got those babies packed so tight, I may have to set off a little bomb to get at them. But first I'll have to light your little wick, won't I, honey?"
Linda cringed at his words and his touch, feeling both revolted and excited by his casual acceptance of her desire for him. "I… I really don't know what I'm doing here," she said, moving aimlessly about his apartment, pretending to study the shoddy decor and pictures. "I'm acting against my own better judgment, and that's something I've never done before in my life."
"Hmm, that sounds like you've been going to seed, Linda; but knowing how devoted and virile David is, I can't really buy that."
She turned and eyed him shrewdly as he went to mix some drinks at his dilapidated portable bar. "How well do you know David, Brad? Oh, I know you two have been close buddies all your lives, but how two such distinctly different men can have anything in common is quite beyond me. How can you even begin to understand his sense of loyalty, his inherent goodness?"
Brad fought back an impulse to tell Linda the truth about David's cocky new pursuits, mainly because he didn't want her feeling justified or absolved from the extramarital acrobatics in which she was about to indulge. Oh hell no, he'd rather let her go on believing David was a saint. That way she'd keep behaving like a depraved and sinful transgressor whenever he stripped her down. One of his greatest kicks in screwing this high-toned lady would be to keep her thoroughly ashamed of herself.
"I understand David better than you think," he said, bringing her a drink and motioning for her to have a seat on the divan. "For instance, if he knew you were here in my apartment tonight, he'd probably cut his throat…"
As he sat near her, he glanced quickly at her face and saw the desired result: in her eyes, that added fillip of being able to make one man suffer while she degraded herself with another. If she had the slightest suspicion that David was too busy to care right now, she might lose all her incentive, which, from Brad's standpoint, would be quite a drag. Let her go on seeing herself as the scarlet woman about to be stoned in the public square. She'd taste a whole helluva lot naughtier and sweeter that way-a grand mock-rape scene every time he had her.
"Oh yes…" She heaved her suffering sigh. "It would utterly ruin him if he knew about us." She took a tiny sip of her highball. "And yet, if you know that much about him, Brad, how could you ever have been so unscrupulous as to let this happen?"
If Brad answered this truthfully it would imply telling her about David's sloppy behavior with Joyce, and to pass on this bit of intelligence was also off-limits in Brad's present scheme-of-things. "What David doesn't know will never hurt him, Linda; so together, you and I will keep our little secret…"
She turned and stared at his big, square-jawed face. "You promise you'll never tell him, Brad… never be the one to plunge the dagger in his heart? Oh, I know how cruel men can be to one another when a lone woman is the pawn…"
… Jesus, thought Brad, is she gonna sit here and talk like daytime television when my nuts're getting hotter every minute? "Linda, I swear on a stack of Popes that David will never find out about us."
Linda let out a small grunt. "Brad, if you go on talking like that, I shall leave."
"Wrong," he said. "If I stop talking like that you shall probably only have two orgasms tonight instead of five."
Linda let out a small gasp. "Brad, I felt those words as if you'd lifted a hand and struck me… so that does it, slob! I never want to see you again! You don't even know the meaning of romance…!"
But his hand went quite unromantically to her knee and she didn't budge. She watched the hand travel upwards, watched the thick knuckles and black curling hairs on the wrist, and kept trying to make noises like Emily Dickinson… "Any man who wants me must first give me his heart," she murmured, as his fingers slid up her flared skirt.
"Oh balls, honey!.. if it's a transplant you're lookin' for, you're gonna get it where you need it most…!"
"No, no, Brad… you don't begin to know me! To be won I must be gently wooed. It can't be brutal and coarse, the way it was when you tied me up in the station-wagon…
"I didn't tie you up."
"Yes you did… I have Total Recall!"
"All right, have it your way."
"… so this time there must be poetry for us, gentility…"
He flicked his fingers inside her panties and started tickling the dry quivering lips of her vagina… "Ooooh!.. damn you, Brad, don't jab those ham-hocks at me like that, like… like some brawling skidrow bum… oooh… No!" but flipping her thighs apart as the thick probing fingers inserted and rummaged. She started to breathe pretty fast now, Brad's eyes glued to her tightly caged bosom as he slipped in another wanderlust finger, and Linda wailed: "Ahhh!.. you'll be the noose around my neck, my judgment day… oh God, sentence me and drag me to the scaffold…!" She felt the moistening tremors begin as he ruthlessly massaged her clitoris, hating herself for her own squirming animal-girl reflexes, as he now formed four fingers like a steeple and tunneled them deeply inside of her… then the swirling circular movements, the insistent joggling of her rigid thermostat, Brad tensing his elbow-muscles and beginning a steady sawing rhythm with his arm as he rammed his knuckles into the gulping sweets of her, grinning appreciatively at her fatuous flow of dialogue: "Dear Gawd!.. I'm the Devil's Plaything!.. oomgf!.. his maiming horns and tail are in there… ahhh grinding, chastizing… tearing me on the rack for my transgressions…!" Suddenly requiring even more punishment, she reached up and pulled his head down to hers, fitfully kissing and biting his warm mobile lips, her tongue a wanton girlish dropout as it slid in to find his, her hands gripping him by his shaggy unruly hair, groaning… her body weaving back and forth on the divan as he raked her with his fanned-out fingers, toured up her honeyed dips… scoured and lit the fuses. Brad managed to unzip the back of her dress with his free hand and slip it down around her shoulders, his eyes adoring those bunched-up bulges inside her bra… as now he lifted the full skirt up about her waist, Linda's mouth still rapturously clamped to his, her arms about him in a fierce head-lock. Then she raised up her bottom to give his hot rough hands more leeway, nuzzling intensely on his big flaring mouth and vaguely wishing she had the courage to seek such kisses from David… but oh so afraid of losing him, as she heaved a lingering sigh and felt Brad slowly pulling her panties off… And now, oh dear God, the crude and thigh-spread exposure as she looked down and saw that she was totally naked below the waist, saw his big burly fingers re-enter and jab… and with a groan she wildly dug the back of her heel against his elbow, wanting to cram more of that tentacled invasion up her juice-laden crotch… oooh! how stretched and distorted she felt under his prowling thrusts!.. flinging her legs up and hooking them around his arm, pushing him in, moaning and kissing and deepening the gourmet-feast she was making of his lips and tongue…
… Then the door opened quietly.
From the corner of his eye Brad saw their playmate stealthily enter his apartment, but kept Linda's head turned in the opposite direction to make sure she wouldn't notice. The number three candidate for their party was, in every sense of the word, a stranger to Linda.