The Cross-Bronx Expressway, the Throgg’s Neck Bridge, the Clearview Parkway and a short stretch of the Long Island Expressway, and less than forty minutes later Reggie was pulling into the driveway of his home in the Bayside suburb of Long Island. He noted that the light was on in the upstairs bedroom. His wife Harriet must be up there watching TV.
Maybe he’d go up there and play a little “Gaslight” with her, Reggie thought viciously. About the only kicks his wife could give him any more were the ones he got by tormenting her. She was such a slovenly bitch! He wondered why he’d ever married her.
Or maybe he’d be magnanimous and throw her a quick one instead. Hell, how long had it been, anyway? Then he could let her know subtly what a lousy lover she was. Yeah, it might be more fun that way.
“Hello, Reggie. Have you eaten anything?” Harriet Ivers raised up in bed to be kissed.
Had he eaten anything! Kay-rist! Didn’t she ever think of anything but food? Reggie kissed her and wrinkled his nose just enough before he turned away so that he was sure she’d notice it. “I had a bite downtown,” he told her. “What’s new?” Immediately, he was telling himself that he should have known better than to ask.
She proceeded to tell him, although she half-guessed that he’d already tuned out. “Bobbie’s teeth . . . ” and “Suzie’s dancing lessons . . . ” and “the new maid doesn’t know how to iron . . . ” and “my mother called . . . ” and “my back’s been bothering me . . . ” and an endless amount of other trivia — such was Harriet’s litany and she covered it in detail.
As she went through it, Reggie took off his clothes and got into his pajamas. He threw her a grunt now and then, more to let her know how boring he found her than to indicate his interest. About the time she ran down he climbed into bed beside her.
His hand inadvertently encountered the bulge of fat at her hip and he recoiled. God! Why did she let herself go this way? She was three years younger than he was, and she looked old enough to be his mother. He studied the wrinkles at her neck until she noticed his stare and flushed.
“What’s the matter?” she asked, automatically raising her hand to cover the spot at which he’d been staring.
“Nothing, honey. I was just thinking you work too hard. It’s beginning to show.”
“I really don’t, Reggie.”
‘Well, if you say so. Still you should take better care of yourself. Keep your hands out of hot water and things like that.”
Harriet self-consciously slipped her hands back under the covers. I guess they are getting a little red,” she admitted meekly.
“And you should watch your diet. I don’t want you getting sick.”
“I’m really very healthy, Reggie. Don’t I look it?“
“Well, now that you mention it, you have been looking a little pale lately, Harriet.”
“Oh, dear, maybe l should try a new make-up base.”
Or a new face, Reggie thought viciously. “I think it’s just you should be more careful about what you eat,” he said aloud.
“I have been’ getting a little plump,” she sighed.
Plump! That’s a laugh! Fat! Gross, obese, fat, that’s what she was. “Yes, I’ve noticed,” Reggie told her. “You’re beginning to waddle when you walk.”
“Oh! Reggie, don‘t be unkind! It’s not that bad! Is it?”
He let his silence serve as an answer. Her eves filled with tears as he’d known they would.
“You don’t find me attractive any more,” she wailed. I know you don’t.”
Will you look at the waterworks, Reggie mused. “Sure I do, honey.” He calmed her, putting his arms around her and stroking her back.
“Really? But you never seem to want to make love to me any more.”
“Now, Harriet, it is just that I work hard and I’m tired.” Yeah, he’d throw her one tonight all right. And then he’d make sure she was devastated by her realization of her own sexual inadequacy. He slipped his hand under her nightgown and caressed the side of her breast. Flab and sag — and I’m married to it! he thought. He deliberately squeezed her breast harder than was necessary.
“Ouch! Please, Reggie, be more gentle,”
“Come on, Harriet, don’t be so sensitive. It spoils things.” Reggie pushed his leg up under her night-gown so that his knee was poking hard against her bare thighs. “I’m a man and you're a woman,” he added, “so let’s act that way.”
“Not tonight.”
“For God’s sake, Harriet, when you act coy, I really don’t find you attractive. I’m just plain repelled.”
“I’m sorry.” She started to cry again. “But we can’t tonight. I have my — my—"
Now wasn't that just like her? Out of the goodness of his heart, he was going to overcome the nausea she roused in him and make love to her and she hauls up the flag! That was typical of Harriet, all right! No appreciation! Well, that would teach him to be generous! “I should have known,” he said.
“H-How?”
“From the way you smell. Like stale fish,” he told her brutally. He turned over on his side, away from her, and stared at the wall.
Harriet kept sobbing, but Reggie ignored her. Damn it! Pig that she was, she’d still managed to arouse him. And now here he lay, all hung up! His groin ached, and the frustration turned his mind from Harriet to his secretary, Shari, and the excitement he’d shared with her that very morning . . .
Shari was built like an Amazon. Truly, that was why Reggie had selected her from the agency secretarial pool. Her ballooning bust and generous hips had outweighed any considerations as to her skill at typing or shorthand. And the buttock-bouncing way her long legs carried her around the office, the hot-eyed aquiescence peeping out from under her ebony bangs, labeled Shari as a swinger.
Reggie hadn’t been disappointed. She’d been working under him less than a week when she found her way under him for pleasure as well. It had happened more than once over the past few months, but this morning had turned out to be the wildest.
Reggie had buzzed for her, and when she had answered and was standing alongside his desk, he’d slipped his hand up under her skirt and squeezed her silk-panties nether-cheeks. Shari had giggled low in her throat in that sexy way of hers and wriggled her hips. When Reggie took his hand away, she stepped back and pulled her skirt all the way up, enticing him with her legs. She pulled it over her garter-belt and panties and then did a little bump-and-grind that showed off her womanhood as if it was trying to escape from her panties.
Reggie hadn’t, been able to control himself. He’d gone over to her and bent low to kiss the creamy surface of her thighs over her stocking-tops. Her fingers had grasped at his hair, tugging his face higher. A tremor swept her body at the pressure of his lips, and Reggie clawed at the elastic waistband of her panties in response.
“Wait!" Shari whispered. “Not this way. My knees are too weak. My legs won't hold me.” She went over to the swivel chair behind Reggie’s large, kidney-shaped desk. She pushed her panties down over her hips and legs, picked them up from the floor, and tossed them into the top drawer of his desk. She closed the drawer and sat down, her knees spaced wide apart. “I’m ready now, lover,” she said, rocking back and forth in the chair.
Reggie hunched under the arch of the desk and knelt in front of her. His hands pushed her thighs farther apart and his eyes devoured the pulsating redness of her aroused womanhood. Then his head moved forward and Shari gasped with delight at the contact of his mouth.