Cindy lay beneath the comforting warmth of the bedcovers for some time after her husband left for work. She gazed at the square of diffused light which lit the window shade, knowing she should get up and start the housework, but not wanting to.
She just wanted to huddle there and think miserably of her troubles. Again and again she played over the events of the previous evening: the evening with the Taylors where it became all too apparent to Cindy that they knew of the photos she had allowed Howard to take of her that first night – knew and snidely made comments, mortifying her to the quick!
She moaned involuntarily, momentarily reliving that horrible scene with the Taylors. Were Ralph and Norma as hedonistic as they appeared to be? Was their Polaroid being used for the same immoral purposes? It must be so, for hadn't Ralph given Howard those awful pictures and the newspaper – the ones which had so aroused her own cravings that she had played with herself? The sweet, mentally tortured wife rolled her head back and forth on the pillow. Yes, yes, the answers were all yes.
And worse was the way that Ralph, the manager of her husband's job, was now seemingly becoming a manager of his private life as well. His influence seemed to seep more and more into what she and Howard were doing and enjoying, and this was intolerable. Before… before that horrid camera had been given, her husband had been so kind and gentle in his ways of love, had seemed to understand that she wasn't some salacious glutton, but a sensitive, moral wife. But no longer! She seemed to be unable to keep up with his growing needs, to expand into the world of abandoned, licentious sex where nothing mattered except debauched eroticism.
Only the liquor, that never-ending torrent of alcohol which she had drunk last night, had loosened her to the point where she too was aroused by lewd pictures – though, she now decided with a shudder, nowhere near as strongly excited as her husband was by them. And the drinking had also made her able to participate with Howard, to actually be naked and be made love to before the camera!
The pictures… the pictures… everything seemed to center around them. Howard had been more interested in them last night than he had been in making love to his own wife! His constant running back and forth to set the Polaroid, his snappish answers to her pleas for understanding and patience at her ignorance, of his still more angry response when she refused to take his penis in her mouth…
Oh, God! The whole mess was getting completely out of hand! What could she do? How could she once more garner her husband's attention? She dwelled on the subject, lying there in bed, brooding over the loss of his interest in her, over the way he was turned on by the pictures, over the way she was excited by them… She suddenly sat upright, her hand across her mouth.
No! I'm not like that! I don't like seeing others in private displays of sex acts… of seeing myself do them… no, it's my husband who's like that now, thanks to Ralph Taylor… not me! No, not me! Yet the more her conscious mind rejected the idea that she was incited by such photos to almost overwhelming passion, the more her subconsciousness admitted it. Deep, deep down, underneath all the excuses and rationales she could muster, beat the emotional heart of a truly pagan woman of lust.
All it would take to strip the layers away and bare her soul was the right combination… a combination that her husband and Ralph and Norma Taylor were busily working on, and one which fate would soon take a hand in as well.
At the moment, though, Cindy Jamison was in the throes of agony over her inability to please her husband. What could; she do? The pictures… she had the feeling that in them lay the answer.
It was no good, she said to herself with a sigh, and got up. She padded to the kitchen after throwing a robe around her, put on the coffee and then idly ambled into the living room. There, strewn before her morose, anguished eyes, were the evidences of last night's crime. The camera… still where her husband had left it, the scattered pictures of them in living color performing like two animals, the other pictures and the newspaper on the coffee table. Guiltily she scooped up the photos, averting her eyes from them lest they be offended in the light of the sober morning after, and wrapping them in the paper.
The kettle whistled, and she went back to the kitchen with her bundle. She poured herself a cup of hot coffee and sat on a stool beside the counter and glanced unavoidably at the paper. Inside were the pictures… and outside, staring back at her in black and white, were the little ads she and Howard had read to each other last night.
She re-read them, sipping her coffee, and two distinct things happened. One, a growing, almost gnawing tingling started again down between her legs as she cast her thoughts momentarily from her own grief and into the homes of the advertisers. The average Mr.-and-Mrs. Joneses who were posing naked on their beds and rugs, happily cavorting before the film of the camera and anxiously waiting to swap their experiences for others…
Her subconscious was at work again, building the fire of prurient desires faster than her consciousness could bank the flames. She tightened her inner thigh muscles, wishing away the featherlike proddings of her sensual nature… and, of course, was unable to.
The other thing which happened was the sudden emergence of an idea. The images of the advertisers enjoying themselves in this fashion once more reminded her of Howard. Was not her own husband like the ones in the ads? Didn't he receive a special thrill from exhibiting his sexual passion in front of a lens… and seeing the very same of others? Yes!
And in that instant, the perfect answer burst in her mind. The innocent young wife, so less worldly than other supposedly bolder and more swinging people, suddenly considered exchanging photos… of becoming one of the multitude of members of the Polaroid Club!
The thought made her gasp! She couldn't! That would only be going yet deeper into the pit she was now finding herself falling into. But… the situation as it was certainly was unbearable. She had to find a solution… even if it meant lowering herself. She viewed the blatant, shocking step the way a mountain climber might look down into a chasm while dangling at the end of his rope. To her, the exchange of lewd photographs would be like the climber dropping to a ledge where he could find room to breathe and a way back to the top; something he couldn't do while holding onto the rope where he was.
Still, the whole concept boggled her imagination. Trembling, she downed the coffee and then poured herself another cup. Could she? No… no!
But what other alternative was there? This way she would be pleasing her husband, wouldn't she? Yes, and not only would the pictures themselves make him respond, but she could learn from them as well. She knew that she had much to learn about the techniques of sex-play, that she was inexperienced in the arts of loving a man physically; Howard's reactions were proof of that. She could study the positions – as one would a textbook illustration, of course, she hastily told herself and be a better wife for it. The third reason for "taking the plunge" was actually not a conscious thought at all, but perhaps it was the strongest motivation of all. It was the fact, which she would have hotly denied, that she was excited by the pictures as much, even more, than her husband. She wanted to see others making love, and only the ingrained prudery instilled since birth by her narrow-minded parents prevented her from seeing this and recognizing the emotion for what it was.
The more she mulled over the solution, the more firmly convinced she became that it was the best and only way out. Now excited over the idea, she pored over the ads, looking for one which sounded as though written by sensitive, understanding persons who were suitably a long way away. No, no, not that one… nor this one… perhaps… wait, here's one! She read it carefully:
"Good looking man, mid 30's, well endowed, and beautiful wife would like to exchange intimate photos with similar couple. Varied poses, all good and detailed. Discretion assured. Box C123, Chicago, Illinois."
Yes… about the same age and same background, married and everything, Cindy thought. And they'll keep it a secret, and they're all the way in Chicago…
What harm could be done in trying? What could go wrong? Who could get hurt, and it just might be the one thing to wring Howard and myself back together. I've got nothing to lose except a few cents worth of postage!
Now fired with seal to carry out her plan, Cindy rapidly dressed in a bright yellow silk blouse with a blue antique design across the front and a pair of matching stretch pants. She hummed, smiling as she combed her hair and applied the little makeup she used. Then she returned to the kitchen and got the photographs of herself and Howard, took them to where the wrapping paper and twine was kept, and in a few minutes had a wrapped and addressed little package to send to Box C123.
She didn't put on a return address yet… she didn't know what it would be. Although Cindy was pretty sure that the couple at Box C123 would be trustworthy, she wasn't going to take any chances. That would be disastrous! Instead, she got the idea from the box number to get one of her own. There wasn't time to rent one from the paper… so she'd take out a post office box, right at the main station in downtown Morriston. That way there'd be no chance of anybody finding out where she lived.
The main post office was situated on Second and Market Streets, a large graystone mausoleum of a building built back when authority was measured in how thick the walls were and how high the ceilings. Inside were the operating rooms of the post office, as well as rooms for the few state and federal agencies of which Morriston could boast, such as the Marine and Army recruiting offices. The ground floor, though, was all for the post office, one entering a long, ill lit but wide marble corridor through either side of the building. There were windows all along the hall, some for stamps, others for money orders, still others for a combination of things, and most of them closed. In the middle was a large bank of post boxes in three sizes; the small ones running along the top half, then a few rows of medium sized ones, and then a series of large ones at the bottom. Beside the bank was a window which, by its sign, handled parcel post and the post boxes.
Sitting on a worn wooden stool, his arms lazily draped on the marble counter, was the window's clerk, Steve Samuels. He was bored, not feeling well from drinking too much the previous night, and his bad leg, two inches shorter and smaller than normal because of a birth defect, ached. Besides which, he had read all of the comic books and men's magazines that were scattered around the back of the post office, and he had nothing to do until quitting time. He sighed and rubbed the leather shoe, alleviating for the moment the heaviness of his extra thick built-up heel and sole.
When Cindy Jamison hesitantly approached the window, he suddenly perked up, leering over at her and smacking his thick, rubbery lips. Hey boy! Was that one hell of a woman there… He smirked, noting the twin wedding bands on her finger and knowing full well she'd been fucked and fucked and fucked by her husband.
He couldn't keep his beady eyes off her, his brain fermenting with lascivious thoughts. Her slacks were the tightest pair he had ever seen on a woman, highlighting her rich thighs and pert young buttocks as she walked towards him, and for a crazy instant the clerk thought he could make out the narrow line of her cuntal split. Her breasts strained against the thin blouse, moving rhythmically as she came, and again the afflicted postal clerk couldn't help his erotic thoughts. Is she wearing a bra? Is that all her flesh and was that faint ridge the seams of her bra…? Or tight, berry nipples, swaying without hindrance? He licked dry lips. That lucky bastard of a husband, sliding into that luscious body every time he wants it… Too bad I ain't fucking it on the side.
Cindy Jamison saw the clerk, felt his burning gaze on her body, almost blushing at the blatant way he all but undressed her. She had lost much of her original courage and conviction by the time she had parked her car nearby, and it was only with the desire to do something to save her marriage, even as drastic as this, which kept her going into the post office and to the window. The blatantly leering clerk was almost the last straw, almost sending her running out of the building and back to her home.
It was terrible the way he kept staring at her, as though she was some sideshow freak. And him, so small, so ugly, so… so creepy! He wore thick glasses with an odd green tint to the lens which magnified his eyes until they looked frogish and bulging. His skin was the color of oatmeal, yet there was a Mongolian cast to his features like the half-caste Indians of the Amazon or the south-of-the-border mulattos of Tampa's Ybor City. His sparse black hair was greased flat to his narrow skull.
"Yes?" the postal clerk said to her, and his voice matched his looks. It was thin, bitter, raspy… and Cindy could only think of the word, dark, to describe its hint of malice.
"I…" she faltered, her throat parched and tight. "I… want to open a post office box."
"What size do you want?" Samuels asked.
So simple a question, yet for the life of her Cindy couldn't think clearly enough to answer. She was tongue-tied, gripped by panic and indecision now that she was faced with actually going through with the operation. The postal clerk leaned forward and repeated the question. Finally she managed, "A small one. Yes, that's it, just a small one, please."
"Fill out this card," the postal clerk instructed, bringing out a three-by-five printed card. "Name, address, and…"
"Address?" Cindy asked, "but I don't want…"
"Have to have the address down, Ma'am. Postal regulations. We're not allowed to rent boxes unless you have a permanent address. We even have one of the mailmen confirm that you live there, too, so don't put down a false one."
"Oh, I wouldn't dream of that!"
The postal clerk chuckled. "I'm sure you wouldn't." He leaned forward again. "Here, use my pen." He studied the twin globes of her magnificent breasts as they moved while she wrote out the information on the card. He could tell she was nervous, that there was something the matter… and his tricky little brain started considering possible reasons.
Cindy handed the card back. The clerk picked it up and squinted carefully at what she had written, memorizing her home address. He grinned intimately and asked, "I see you only want the box for yourself. Don't you want your husband to know?"
The unsuspecting wife reeled with the impertinence of the question. It was almost as if this little, gnarled gnome across the counter could read her mind! Could see the obvious state of her confusion and embarrassment and was capitalizing on it for his own sick, perverted amusement! He continued to stare at her from behind his thick lensed glasses, and for one horrid second, Cindy almost blurted out the truth: that she wasn't going to let Howard know what she'd done because he might think ill of her… or other things might happen between now and when Box C123's pictures arrived which would make this whole questionable idea unnecessary. Then she would simply forget she had done this, never return to the post box, let the rent run out on it and the memory fade…
She hoped the latter would be the case, that nobody would ever know what depths she had been driven to… and now this smirking postal clerk was prying where he had no business being!
"It's a… personal reason," she said, trying to sound curt but knowing that there was a weakness, a dread in her voice.
The clerk nodded and took the card away for a moment, then returned with another slip of paper. He handed the slip to Cindy. "You now have Box 34004, near the end. That'll be three dollars and fifty cents for three months."
Cindy dug into her purse for the money and paid. The clerk made out a receipt. "The combination for the box is on the first slip I gave you; the second one is for your records." The way he said it made Cindy think that he could tell she wasn't going to keep the receipt, but was going to throw it away at once.
"Thank you," she said in a low voice. She stuffed both papers into her purse and then brought out the thin package of pictures. She used the clerk's pen to write her new return address on the wrapping, then handed the parcel to him. "I want to mail this."
Samuels didn't reply, but weighed the package, put on the stamps and a first class sticker and threw it on the table behind him. "Forty-three cents, please," he said, turning back to her.
She paid, waited for the change, and then with chin held high, she walked away. As she neared the post office entrance, she couldn't help experiencing a sudden, uplifting of the spirit. She'd done it! She'd actually gone through with it, renting a box and mailing the pictures! Elation and giddiness swept through her as she realized that she had found the courage to follow through with her idea. Although still not completely convinced as she had been at home about the wisdom of her move, she was proud of her determination.
Steve Samuels, the postal clerk, chuckled to himself as he watched Mrs. Cindy Jamison's trim buttocks pass from his heated view. He rubbed his thin, rough skinned fingers together. Yes sir, he now had an idea what was upsetting that sweet little housewife so much. Now to confirm his suspicions! He got off his stool and limped over to where a large, thick postal directory was kept. He took it down from the shelf, thumbed through its pages until he found what he was looking for. With a triumphant grin across his face, he slammed the book shut and dragged himself back to where he'd put Cindy Jamison's envelope.
The postal book, the size of a major city's phone directory, does not exist in the eyes of the federal authorities. It's existence is hotly denied – but it does, covertly, in every post office in America, and every day it's used by postal clerks like Steve Samuels. It is a private, insidious invasion of each citizen's rights, a direct refutation of the first amendment to the Constitution, and a callous disregard by the government for the right of legal hearing. It lists the names and addresses of whoever the government considers a pornographer or a user of pornography, as well as of other "anti-state" dangers.
The terror, the horror of such a book is the fact that the government authorities who carefully compile this ever-expanding list decide themselves on what is pornography and dangerous and immoral for the public to read. It has no bearing as to court decisions, on the law's definition of what's good or bad, but on some narrow-minded, blue-nosed bureaucrat bent on stamping out his own prejudiced views of prurience. This is why it is kept a secret, for it is highly illegal.
Yet it's there, sitting on some shelf.
And it's used. Used as a powerful stranglehold over the freedom of the individual to live in his own "pursuit of happiness".
It is a prime example how the incompetent, sometimes dishonest and oftentimes ignorant public servants, in Washington D.C. have covertly expanded their power so that we, the PEOPLE, now serve THEM.
It served the weaselly postal clerk, Steve Samuels' evil purposes now. For in it was listed the name and address of the Polaroid Club in Chicago. He slapped the package Cindy had mailed against his thigh and scrambled back on his stool. He fondled it, feeling the hard squares of the pictures, and grinned. Then he slipped the package into his coat pocket and wished it was time to go home.
He could have opened the package then and there – the post office has the power, granted by the Congress of course, to open and search any piece of mail it so desires. It can read the most secret letters an American citizen wishes to write; do so, and without fear of legal action against it. Even the police cannot infringe on the private lives and possessions to this extent – they require a search warrant to enter a house, and a damned good reason for doing so beforehand. But the post office can, at will, invade this privacy, for whatever reason they choose to fabricate.
But the clerk didn't open the package then. He was going to wait until he got home that night, for he had his own, dark plans for the contents…
He didn't bother with dinner that night, but hurried to his dingy, weed-choked clapboard house set in the industrial section of town. He set out food and water for his German Shepherd named Ringo, patting the large animal's head at the thought of what might be in store for the dog as well as for himself, then went inside the house, his thoughts constantly on the package which was burning its way through his pocket. And now he was ready to act. Carefully he slit the paper and withdrew the pictures with palsied, talon-like fingers.
Yes, yes… he drooled as he thumbed through them. God yes, they were every bit as obscene, as lust-provoking as he had thought they might be. He snickered loudly to himself. In just a few days, that lovely girl who now writhed in sexual abandon in the pictures he held would be doing the same for him. Yes, yes, he could hardly wait… and he mentally put himself in the place of her husband in the photos, spearing the sweet, tender cunt of Mrs. Cindy Jamison with all his perverted desires. Ohhhhh, his testicles already ached with the steam of wanting to fuck her! To fuck Cindy Jamison… and more! Other, exciting and lascivious things which weren't shown in the pictures!
Feverishly, he took the set of photos into the bathroom. He pulled the black colored window shade down, then drew the curtains closed. Then he opened a cupboard near the toilet and took out his photography equipment, set a piece of plywood across the bathtub, turned off the regular light and the small red one on instead, and set to work. He soon had a duplicate set of the pictures.
He examined each one meticulously, poring over the details of the naked young Cindy Jamison and her husband fucking until each pose was imprinted on his brain. His bulging eyes followed the contours of her smooth firm buttocks and the soft rounded spheres of her beautiful breasts, their turgid nipples rising high with excitement. He trembled, his thin, venous penis turning to a rock hard rigidity. He could hardly wait to get his hands and mouth on that snooty little bitch who had obviously dismissed him as so much dirt today. He had forced many a woman to be fucked by him, but never anything like her… never anything so pure, so innocent, so sheltered.
He groveled at one picture after another, staring at the sweet, unsuspecting wife's nude reclining figure. One photo which held him particularly was where she had drawn one knee up even with her hip, the smooth white flesh of her inner thigh gleaming faintly in contrast to her husband's darker body. The soft blond hairs of her vagina were plainly visible around the outer lips, and he involuntarily drew in a shuddering breath at the lovely sight. The thought of her helplessly mewling under him in the same position goaded his organ into greater throbbings. He silently opened the fly of his pants, easing the pain slightly. He slowly massaged the heavy thick foreskin back and forth over its jerking head, tiny droplets of white seminal fluid already seeping from its tip.
The rod he held in his hand was his great equalizer for his shriveled, ugly body and short stump of a leg. He'd soon be seeing if this Mrs. Jamison would treat him like a dog when he rammed deep between her open thighs and buried it far up inside her aristocratic little belly…
He stood there, staring at the second set of pictures, stroking himself into a hardness which threatened to explode into streaming torrents of hot spurts at any moment. For a second, he considered it, but then thought of a better idea. He stopped his manipulations, not wanting to risk losing the building load of sperm, and went into the living room and the telephone.
He dialed the number of a nearby garage. The head mechanic answered, and the now wildly excited postal clerk asked for Jack Reagan, another of the mechanics. There was a pause, and then a young, firm voice came on the line. "This is Reagan."
"Hello, Jack," the clerk replied. "This is Steve Samuels."
There was utter silence for a moment. Then: "What do you want?" Reagan said in contemptuous tones.
"Now, you shouldn't talk like that, Jack," the clerk said, grinning. "After all, I'm only trying to help you, you know."
"The hell you are, you son of a bitch."
The clerk suddenly flared up in anger, his face a hot red. "Don't call me names, Jack. You hear me? Never!" He calmed down after the outburst, knowing he controlled the situation. "If it wasn't for me, you'd be fired by now, and that would be terrible, what with a six-month-old baby and everything. Think about it, Jack."
"I am," came the trembling response.
"You wouldn't find another good job so easy, either, Jack. The postal authorities would see to that… They don't like men like you; men sick and dirty of mind who are helping destroy the moral fibre of our country."
"Save the lecture. What do you want?"
"Your wife."
"No!" came the horrified gasp. "Not Sally, not again!"
"Yes. Sally, and again!"
"But… but you promised!"
"That was before, Jack."
"Before what?"
"Before the authorities raided a pornographer's house over on the south side of town. Before they found a letter of yours…"
"God! No!" Reagan moaned.
"I went to bat for you again, Jack. All they had was the envelope actually with your address on it. I told them that it must have been a mistake, that I know you and that you're a good, clean, all-American patriot, the pillar of the community. They aren't going to do anything to you… yet! But if I should say something…" he left the threat of what the postal authorities might do to Reagan unsaid, only snickering triumphantly into the mouthpiece.
Reagan's voice was leaden. "So now you want to get paid."
"That's right. I want my little, ah… reward and I want it now. I'm waiting at home. Call that sweet little wife of yours and get her over here fast. I won't be waiting long."
Again there was a long, deathlike pause. Finally Reagan, his voice indicating the surrender he felt, said, "Okay. I'll do it. I'll send her over in a cab, but please be gentle with her this time. And… this has to be the last time."
"Heh, heh," Samuels chuckled. "Of course, Jack. Of course it'll be the last time. And I promise that soon you'll get back those pictures of you and your wonderful wife you tried to send through the mails." He chortled some more, then rang off.