“Then you don’t think I should notify the sheriff or anything like that?”
“No. You’ll just leave yourself open to a lot of gossip and embarrassment for no reason. After all, nothing really happened. Take my advice and just forget it.”
Wilma had been tempted for a moment to let Glory take action so that Rafe might suffer the consequences. That bastard would deserve anything he gets, she thought to herself, remembering the indignities and pain of the previous day. But Rafe might prove useful again, and so Wilma resisted the temptation. Her revenge on him would have to wait until she was sure the threat to her father had been removed.
“Ooh, it’s late,” Glory said, noticing the clock on her dressing table. “Daddy will be home soon. I’d better get dressed for dinner.”
“And I’d better get back to work,” Wilma said, “before Mrs. Henshaw comes looking for me.” She left Glory and went down the stairs to attend to her kitchen duties.
Meanwhile, Don had gone back to the plant and straight to the office which had been placed at the disposal of Preston B. Dawes. “If you’re free, I’d like to talk to you alone for a few minutes,” Don said.
“Of course, Don.” Dawes waved the secretary out of the office. “What’s on your mind?” he asked when they were alone.
“Glory.” Don paused, obviously having some difficulty in finding the right words.
“Yes? What about Glory?”
“l want to break our engagement,” Don blurted out.
“I see.” Dawes’s eyes narrowed. His face resumed its habitually cold expression. “This will hurt her very much, you know,” he told Don in an even, precise tone of voice.
“I don’t think so.” The words came out clipped and bitter.
“No? I do. May I ask why you now wish to break your engagement to my daughter?”
“I’d rather not say.”
“I see. You don’t feel you owe me—or, rather, Glory—some explanation of this sudden decision?”
“No sir. I don’t.”
“And you don’t think you owe her the courtesy of informing her of it in person? Or me the courtesy of not being put in the position of inflicting this hurt for you?”
“I don’t want to see her again. Ever!”
“Really? Then you leave me no choice but to do as you ask,” Dawes said icily. “I shall inform my daughter of your decision.” He gave Don a curt nod of dismissal and turned his attention back to the papers on his desk.
But Don didn’t leave. “Sir,” he said, “I just want you to know that this decision in no way affects the respect and gratitude I feel for you.”
Dawes frowned. “I’m afraid, Corrigan, that I cannot reciprocate that feeling. I am not inhuman, however I may appear. What you are doing to my daughter and the way in which you have chosen to do it, both, have decidedly affected any respect I may have granted you.”
“Then perhaps it would be better if I resigned, sir.”
“I would rather you didn’t. Unless, that is, your loyalty to the company has vanished along with the loyalty I should have thought you owed my daughter. The truth, Corrigan, is that your familiarity with the situation here is an asset at the present time. My own loyalty to the firm keeps me from letting my personal antipathy toward you affect my sense of what is best for business. We both owe it to the company to see this situation through. Bitter as my feelings are toward you, I would prefer that you do not resign at this time.”
“Very well, sir, if that’s the way you want it. I’ll stay on here in Glenville until the job is done.” Don left Dawes’s office and went back to his desk.
He worked well into the evening. Then he left the plant, had some dinner, and went into one of the local bars for a few drinks. Finally, he glanced at his watch, judged that it was late enough, left the bar, and got into his car. Fifteen minutes later he pulled the car off the road near the grove of trees where he’d met Wilma that morning.
She was waiting for him. “Here, darling.” She took his hand and led him into the woods.
“Did you have any trouble getting out?” he asked.
“No. They all went to bed early. Here’s a good spot.”
She indicated a clearing and sat down on the soft earth. She wrapped her arms around his legs and settled her head against him. “My, we’re all ready, aren’t we?”
“Yes.” Don was breathing hard.
“You like what I do to you, don’t you, baby?”
“Yes.”
“It’s not like anything she ever did, is it?”
“No. Nothing I’ve ever known makes me feel the way you do when you do that to me, Wilma. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to enjoy regular sex again after this. Just since this afternoon it’s been like an obsession. It’s all I’ve been thinking about, all I’ve been waiting for.”
“My greedy boy. I told you I’d make you forget all about Glory. Come on now. It’s dinner time and Wilma’s hungry. Feed Wilma. Give her that delicious nectar she craves.”
Like a bee come upon a pollinating flower, Wilma ravaged his genitals. Pure sensation swept over his brain—but not hers. The pleasure she was giving him was really being given mechanically. Throughout, her mind was busy, considering the uses to which she might put this hold she had established over Don, how he might best serve her purposes, what he might be able to tell her, and what he might be able to do for her.
She punctuated the throbbing thrust of his release with her sharp little teeth. He was hers now, hers to hurt, to use, to destroy if necessary. She bit down again, as if to affirm her power. She felt the surge of hot jizzum flowing down her throat.
Don felt the mingling of agony with ecstasy, never guessing the thoughts going through Wiln1a’s mind. He was as innocent of her intentions as a lamb. A lamb being readied for slaughter.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Glory Dawes removed two of the ice cubes from the ice pack, raised her skirt, pushed her panties out of the way, and squeezed them between her burning thighs. She screwed the top back on the ice pack and replaced it on her forehead. She tossed about on the bed for a few moments, unable to get comfortable, then opened her blouse and put the ice pack against the heat of her bare breasts.
None of this helped. Nothing did. This feverish hunger consuming her body would go on forever. There was no relief from it. There seemed no way she might find relief. The week since it had begun seemed a lifetime. The lifetime stretching out before her seemed an eternity.
It started the night her father had told her of Don’s decision. Her lack of comprehension had deepened into a daze which wasn’t washed away by the tears she shed that night. The numbness had remained even after the tears had stopped and been replaced by these uncontrollable waves of desire sweeping over her body.
.Somehow, the knowledge of having lost Don for some inconceivable reason, had made her burn with frustration. More than ever, now that she could no longer have it, she wanted the sex satisfactions to which he’d introduced her. It was as though her body was reacting to his rejection of her by screaming out its womanliness, its need for fulfillment, its proof that it was still alive and eager to receive love despite the rejection.
This unfulfilled yearning had been the thumbscrew of her week of torture. She had fought it with sleeping pills, cold showers, hot baths, long walks, busy work, and now ice cubes—all to no avail. She still could think only of Don, of their making love together, and she would have to bite her hands to keep them from sliding down her body and beginning the rhythmic caresses which contained in the ultimate satisfaction they provided the seeds of still more-insatiable-desire. Glory began to worry that she would indeed drive herself mad—just as her mother had once warned her she might if she continued playing with herself.
Now, frustrated and feverish, but determined not to give in, Glory forced herself to get up off her bed and go downstairs. Perhaps, she thought, talking to Wilma might take her mind off Don -- and sex. She found Wilma out back, hanging up some wash.