Helen shuddered and groaned now, hearing Art's tuneless humming from beyond the bathroom's closed door and remembering the incessant hunger she'd felt the rest of that summer. She'd slipped away from her parents again and again to give herself to the Indian, and she'd known within a week of reaching home that she was pregnant.
Grandma Farrell had died when she learned of Helen's pregnancy. She'd raved at Helen, cursing her for being so much like her mother. "Her that's made a lecher out of a fine boy!" she'd screamed. And the old woman had succumbed to a stroke that very night. Ruth and Abe had been grim, making no secret of the fact that the stroke had been the direct result of Grandma Farrell's anger and shock over Helen's actions.
To Helen, her grandmother's death had been a two-edged tragedy. For the first time, she realized how much she had loved the cantankerous old woman. Her sense of guilt was a tangible, oppressive burden that failed to lighten with time. And her parents' attitude toward her, formerly trusting and permissive, and changed to one of bitterness and suspicion. They had abruptly curtailed her free time and her freedom of choice and movement. What little time the baby left her, they had taken care to see she was well supervised.
Not that it would have mattered, she told herself, listening to Art's tuneless humming through the closed bathroom door. They didn't have to worry. She had privately committed herself upon her grandmother's death. Having taken the old woman's life (she had believed) she had determined to give her own. And she had done it by becoming the old woman in her beliefs and actions. She had sealed her former lustful, passionate self away and turned into the woman she believed her grandmother had been. It had been as simple as that.
Danny had been born, a big, beautiful boy baby, and Helen had grimly rejected her parent's urging to give him up. She had felt no lingering affection for his half-civilized father – there was nothing for him but revulsion – but it had seemed a fit punishment to look at the fruit of her wickedness, reminding herself daily of the way she'd killed Grandma Farrell. To her own confused amazement, Danny had captured her love. Until Art had married her, the boy had been the center of her universe, and when Art had insisted on adopting Danny, the act had deepened her emotion toward her new husband to an unbelievable pitch of devotion. His only flaw in her eyes was his apparent insensitivity and animal appetite for sex. But she had persisted in the private vow she'd made to the memory of her grandmother, and she sighed now with self-approval for the way she'd met and conquered temptation.
She heard Art turn off the water and stop singing. A sharp tingle assailed her and she tugged the blanket up to her chin, annoyed at this evidence that she was still not free of her baser nature. Still a wicked, wretched creature! she told herself. Just like Grandma said! Lustful and crude! So crude and lustful, she remembered, that she tingled like this when Barry looked, heavy-lidded, at her body – or even when Danny tilted his head to one side and pretended in his adolescent way to leer at her. Wicked! Wicked! Wicked! she thought.
Art came out of the bathroom without his pajamas. He stared at her with an expression of hunger, his cock jutting boldly at a forty-five degree angle, rising steeply from the thick, blonde mat of his pubic hair.
Helen gasped, furious at her own involuntary surge of interest. "Art!"
"Yeah!" He crossed to the bed and threw back the covers.
Too late, Helen snatched at the edge of the blanket. She shrieked. "ART! For God's sake, what's gotten into you!"
"It's getting into you that's got me worked up right now, puss."
"Oh, damn it, Art! That's disgusting!" She turned her back to him.
The mattress sagged beneath his weight and she felt his hand on her shoulder. He bent over her and tried to kiss her, but she buried her face in the pillow.
"Aw, come on, sugar! What the hell!" His voice sounded pained.
"Not when you're acting like an animal," she replied, the pillow muffling her words.
"Come on, baby," he said softly, his hand passing lightly over her body.
She stiffened, habit quelling the instinctive thrill that touched her spine.
"Come on! It's not that bad!" Art coaxed.
With a resigned sigh, she let him roll her onto her back. He fingered her belly through her nightgown and touched her forehead with his lips.
"Pull the covers up," she said, her eyes tightly closed.
In a moment she felt the weight of the blanket on her body.
"And turn out the light."
She heard the socket snap and the glow on her eyelids turned to darkness. She held herself motionless, enduring the awkward caresses and blocking the tendrils of pleasure that threatened her reserve. Art thrust his hand inside the front of her nightgown to paw at her breast. She bit her lips and clenched her fists, proud of her ability to resist temptation and miserable because there was a part of her that was like her mother – hungry for her man's touch. That, she'd not succeeded in stifling, although maturing had enabled her to control her reactions outwardly.
She gasped. Art was turning back her nightgown – pushing one side of the front away – and she felt his breath on her suddenly puckered nipple.
"Art! Art, stop that!"
His hand, cupped around the bulge of her breast and squeezing it upward, went slack and she felt the welcome pressure of nylon covering the sensitive mound again.
"Good God, Art! After all!" She fumbled at the material on her hips, inching it up and gathering it in her hands until the hem lay across her belly. Teasing, she let her bare thigh touch Art's, then spread her knees and waited for him. He made a muffled sound and rolled onto her, his cock resting at her cunt.
Despite herself, she shivered at the wave of desire that swept through her. "Mmmm!" she moaned under her breath. She felt her hips twitch.
Art pressed his cockhead into her slit so it nudged her labia. She pushed her fists against her hips and struggled against the urge to meet his thrust with one of her own. His body hardened and his hips drove downward, his cock plunging into her twat. She startled herself by jabbing upward buttocks clamping together to raise her ass from the mattress. The bony hardness of his root crushed her clitoris and sent an unexpected jolt of pleasure inward.
"Mm…! Unh!" She jerked her head into the pillow. It's because he's bare! she thought wildly. It's because the hair on his legs feels the way it does! It's because his skin's so hot on mine! "Mh…! Mh…!"
Art's hips stroked, his flesh rubbing silkily over her thighs and his cock pumping in the grip of her pussy. Excitement surged in her belly and she realized she was moving her body to his rhythm. She gritted her teeth and stilled her motion, but Art's hand slid past hers and his fingers curled under her ass. She held her breath while he squeezed, closing her fingers around his wrist. He worked his palm around her asscheek and his fingertips probed into her crack. She wrenched her hips convulsively, enraged at the explosion of excitement the act had produced in her.
"No! NO! Stop that, Art! Goddamn it, you're nothing but an animal tonight!"
"Oh, horseshit!" Art heaved himself off her, his cock jerking at her pussy rim with a force that made her wince. "You don't know what you're talking about! What do you mean, an animal?" He flung himself away from her, his breathing harsh and rapid.
"I mean, not like a civilized human being!"
"Shit, shit, shit! That's what makes man different! He's got a little imagination! Let me tell you how it is with animals, baby! Know what that'd be like?"
"What do you mean?"
"Getting screwed by an animal."
"Art! That's not what I was talking about!"
"The hell it wasn't! Every time I go for a handful of tit or rub your ass, you make out like I'm being an animal! And I say that's horseshit! I'll tell you what it would be like if you had an animal screwing you!"