Linda felt his eyes probing her face again, and wondered if she'd overdone her eagerness for them to find outside interests. After all, David had always been terribly fond of music, so it was a godsend that he should decide to pursue that ambition now, when she so desperately wanted some time to herself.
David, on the other hand, was thinking what an incredibly beautiful and understanding wife he had, for she hadn't even questioned his shabby ruse, nor asked him why he didn't choose Stanford University instead, which was nearer their home and wouldn't necessitate his remaining in San Francisco. Trust, thy name is Linda!
He got up out of his contoured patriarch-chair and went to her; and as he lowered his head to kiss her, he glanced at the untroubled prettiness of her mouth, wishing he might part those lips with his own and show her how deeply consuming a kiss could be. But, not wanting to frighten the darling with such untoward passion, he gave her the brief, filial salute, his lips neat and dry in keeping with their contract-terms. "I have a perfect wife," he cued her with a wide grin.
"Perfection breeds perfection, my love!" she threw up the litany to him. And upon hearing these oft-uttered phrases, David was fully reassured that all was right with their world, the sealing still hermetic.
Then, as he resumed his seat before the TV, he was suddenly shocked to remember exactly where and with whom he'd most effectively sampled the tempestuous sort of kiss he longed to give his wife. Good God, without knowing it, he'd been recalling the fiercely sensuous necking-session he'd had with that freak, that acrimonious bitch-boy called Hazel! Even though he'd been convinced he was kissing a woman at the time, with his passions definitely female-based, there was no denying that the "soul-kiss" brand of foreplay he now wanted to try on his wife had been taught to him by a man.
David gave her another quick glance and felt a sickening wrench of shame to think how eager he'd been to defile that exquisite face. Teach her the fluent hot gulping kiss of a cocksucker… oh Jesus, I went out of my mind making love to a female impersonator! And even now, the soft-feeling memory of it could give him a hard-on, sitting right there while Linda crocheted and watched all her favorite detergent-commercials in living color!.. David Fortune, at home in his living-room with a big fruit-inspired erection!
Well Goddammit, his next sex-experiment would be healthy and normal. Not like Joyce, who'd rejected him, or big-mouth Hazel-Harry, who'd made him feel like an emasculated hunk of garbage. Oh please, Lord… something in-between? Someone womanly and wild and free who wanted what he did: to be together, to open up…
And yet, for more than a week David's primary impetus for masturbation had been the feverish wet-cameo vision of Hazel's mobile, passionate mouth clutching his. And when he shot, he was tasting her tongue and feeling her full hot nudging underlip. But afterwards, David would sigh and grope desperately for the balm of consolation: in reprising that unsettling interlude, he'd been letting his mind's eye see only the mouth of a girl, which, dammit, is what Hazel had been until that fatal, gendered moment. Consequently, it had been Hazel alone who had been the star of his fancies. Freaky-Harry had been left on the cutting-room floor.
Nevertheless, as soon as he finished registering at U.C. to establish an alibi-although he planned to attend only the first session of class-David again concentrated on his Master Plan for Comprehensive Sensual Enlightenment. Next on his menu came Valerie Hudson, and she had to be a girl. Just to make sure, this time he'd give her a physical before he enlisted.
Valerie Hudson turned out to be a soft, cuddly silver-blonde with a mole on her chin and a cute lisp which made every word that came out of her velvety rosebud lips sound like an offer of fellatio. After one glance at this slightly overbreasted bundle of curves David felt reasonably certain there'd be no gender-problems here. Even with spike-heels she couldn't have been more than five-two, and he decided the foam-rubber industry would never be able to duplicate those round and hefty bazooms of hers that wobbled and dipped every time she moved.
They met for Irish Coffee at the Buena Casa Cafe in North Beach. Her choice. Which David thought was strange, since the place was always overcrowded, literally bulging with local tom-cats and students and plastic-hippies and their girls, all steeped in a raucous aura of tension that was pure amphetamine.
T like to see how a man stands out in a crowd," she told him, as they stood there slowly edging their way towards the bar in that crushed maelstrom of bodies. "That's my acid test, David." She gave him a fetching upward grin. "What's yours?"
"You just passed it," he returned her grin, gazing straight down her V-necked bosom-expanse. Their bodies were bunched so closely together and he was so much taller than she, he tried for as deep a bird's eye-view as possible, wanting positive proof that all that rippling flesh down there was strictly female. He was also able to nudge a knee at the base of her abdomen and feel the warm pressure of a girlish dip and bush. No nuts on this one, he thought; unless she tucked them back and shoved them up her keester. This idea made him nervous, and he knew he'd need more conclusive evidence before giving vent to his wildest desires. Except that David was already carrying a rather painfully hard package-deal in his briefs, standing there like that, all jocked-in by a torso-to-torso hookup. And if she wanted to know how he stood, out in a crowd, all she had to do was lean on it a little bit and she'd be getting him at his peak.
Now he peered more closely at her-short straight perky nose, wide grey eyes-and then studied the stylish swept-up puffs of her hairdo, thinking what a lousy first impression he'd make if he tried to yank it off and it didn't budge. He could always say he'd seen a baby bat fly in there and he was trying to rip it out for her. No, better to be a little patient and wait, and have some faith in his fellow-man, or woman as the case may be.
Someone pushed passed them, shoving the girl even closer against him, the firm draped bulge of his erection jabbing against the vicinity of her diaphragm. She gazed upwards in mild surprise. David's eyes met hers. Oops!.. She just got my message down there… dammit!.. If only it didn't throb like that when it got hard. Blame it on my youth, or nerves, or my condition… He wanted to tell her that thing would stretch all the way from her navel to her heart, if she was the kind of girl who was hooked on dimensions. But he sensed she was much too well-bred for such libidinous talk. "Well, what's your verdict?" he asked her. "Have you decided for, or against?"
"Pardon?" Wide, baby-grey-flecked eyes askance.
David tried out one of his raconteur chuckles. "Could you point me out in a crowd, or would I just hang here and dissolve?"
She grinned, and he watched her pushy little lips lisp: "Silly!" as he felt her belly nestling and undulating against his trapped and crunched-up prick. If only they could shove their way to the bar and order drinks. That way they'd both have something to hang onto. "You're as handsome as a prince, David. But I suspect girls have been telling you that ever since you were twelve…"
One girl, he wanted to correct her…
"Have you ever thought of modelling?" she asked, her tummy hot and nudging at his stiffness.
"No, not really," he laughed. Modelling what?… he wondered, his member swelling, growing.
"I have some contacts," she said, squirming afresh.
… You sure do, he thought. Three of them, to be exact, and right this minute…
"You have a very distinguished air about you, David. Something about your eyes and the way you keep thrusting out your chin-as if you were daring somebody to sock you, but if they did, you might kiss them for it. Rather sweet! Although deep down I don't really think you're distinguished at all. No. You're basically an alley-person, just like me…" Then she reached up and pulled his head down to whisper in his ear. "Have you ever been naked in an alley?… just standing alone and stripped in a dark doorway, waiting for whoever came along first and then stepping out like that, showing yourself?"