"Hmm, that sounds like you've been going to seed, Linda; but knowing how devoted and virile David is, I can't really buy that."
She turned and eyed him shrewdly as he went to mix some drinks at his dilapidated portable bar. "How well do you know David, Brad? Oh, I know you two have been close buddies all your lives, but how two such distinctly different men can have anything in common is quite beyond me. How can you even begin to understand his sense of loyalty, his inherent goodness?"
Brad fought back an impulse to tell Linda the truth about David's cocky new pursuits, mainly because he didn't want her feeling justified or absolved from the extramarital acrobatics in which she was about to indulge. Oh hell no, he'd rather let her go on believing David was a saint. That way she'd keep behaving like a depraved and sinful transgressor whenever he stripped her down. One of his greatest kicks in screwing this high-toned lady would be to keep her thoroughly ashamed of herself.
"I understand David better than you think," he said, bringing her a drink and motioning for her to have a seat on the divan. "For instance, if he knew you were here in my apartment tonight, he'd probably cut his throat…"
As he sat near her, he glanced quickly at her face and saw the desired result: in her eyes, that added fillip of being able to make one man suffer while she degraded herself with another. If she had the slightest suspicion that David was too busy to care right now, she might lose all her incentive, which, from Brad's standpoint, would be quite a drag. Let her go on seeing herself as the scarlet woman about to be stoned in the public square. She'd taste a whole helluva lot naughtier and sweeter that way-a grand mock-rape scene every time he had her.
"Oh yes…" She heaved her suffering sigh. "It would utterly ruin him if he knew about us." She took a tiny sip of her highball. "And yet, if you know that much about him, Brad, how could you ever have been so unscrupulous as to let this happen?"
If Brad answered this truthfully it would imply telling her about David's sloppy behavior with Joyce, and to pass on this bit of intelligence was also off-limits in Brad's present scheme-of-things. "What David doesn't know will never hurt him, Linda; so together, you and I will keep our little secret…"
She turned and stared at his big, square-jawed face. "You promise you'll never tell him, Brad… never be the one to plunge the dagger in his heart? Oh, I know how cruel men can be to one another when a lone woman is the pawn…"
… Jesus, thought Brad, is she gonna sit here and talk like daytime television when my nuts're getting hotter every minute? "Linda, I swear on a stack of Popes that David will never find out about us."
Linda let out a small grunt. "Brad, if you go on talking like that, I shall leave."
"Wrong," he said. "If I stop talking like that you shall probably only have two orgasms tonight instead of five."
Linda let out a small gasp. "Brad, I felt those words as if you'd lifted a hand and struck me… so that does it, slob! I never want to see you again! You don't even know the meaning of romance…!"
But his hand went quite unromantically to her knee and she didn't budge. She watched the hand travel upwards, watched the thick knuckles and black curling hairs on the wrist, and kept trying to make noises like Emily Dickinson… "Any man who wants me must first give me his heart," she murmured, as his fingers slid up her flared skirt.
"Oh balls, honey!.. if it's a transplant you're lookin' for, you're gonna get it where you need it most…!"
"No, no, Brad… you don't begin to know me! To be won I must be gently wooed. It can't be brutal and coarse, the way it was when you tied me up in the station-wagon…
"I didn't tie you up."
"Yes you did… I have Total Recall!"
"All right, have it your way."
"… so this time there must be poetry for us, gentility…"
He flicked his fingers inside her panties and started tickling the dry quivering lips of her vagina… "Ooooh!.. damn you, Brad, don't jab those ham-hocks at me like that, like… like some brawling skidrow bum… oooh… No!" but flipping her thighs apart as the thick probing fingers inserted and rummaged. She started to breathe pretty fast now, Brad's eyes glued to her tightly caged bosom as he slipped in another wanderlust finger, and Linda wailed: "Ahhh!.. you'll be the noose around my neck, my judgment day… oh God, sentence me and drag me to the scaffold…!" She felt the moistening tremors begin as he ruthlessly massaged her clitoris, hating herself for her own squirming animal-girl reflexes, as he now formed four fingers like a steeple and tunneled them deeply inside of her… then the swirling circular movements, the insistent joggling of her rigid thermostat, Brad tensing his elbow-muscles and beginning a steady sawing rhythm with his arm as he rammed his knuckles into the gulping sweets of her, grinning appreciatively at her fatuous flow of dialogue: "Dear Gawd!.. I'm the Devil's Plaything!.. oomgf!.. his maiming horns and tail are in there… ahhh grinding, chastizing… tearing me on the rack for my transgressions…!" Suddenly requiring even more punishment, she reached up and pulled his head down to hers, fitfully kissing and biting his warm mobile lips, her tongue a wanton girlish dropout as it slid in to find his, her hands gripping him by his shaggy unruly hair, groaning… her body weaving back and forth on the divan as he raked her with his fanned-out fingers, toured up her honeyed dips… scoured and lit the fuses. Brad managed to unzip the back of her dress with his free hand and slip it down around her shoulders, his eyes adoring those bunched-up bulges inside her bra… as now he lifted the full skirt up about her waist, Linda's mouth still rapturously clamped to his, her arms about him in a fierce head-lock. Then she raised up her bottom to give his hot rough hands more leeway, nuzzling intensely on his big flaring mouth and vaguely wishing she had the courage to seek such kisses from David… but oh so afraid of losing him, as she heaved a lingering sigh and felt Brad slowly pulling her panties off… And now, oh dear God, the crude and thigh-spread exposure as she looked down and saw that she was totally naked below the waist, saw his big burly fingers re-enter and jab… and with a groan she wildly dug the back of her heel against his elbow, wanting to cram more of that tentacled invasion up her juice-laden crotch… oooh! how stretched and distorted she felt under his prowling thrusts!.. flinging her legs up and hooking them around his arm, pushing him in, moaning and kissing and deepening the gourmet-feast she was making of his lips and tongue…
… Then the door opened quietly.
From the corner of his eye Brad saw their playmate stealthily enter his apartment, but kept Linda's head turned in the opposite direction to make sure she wouldn't notice. The number three candidate for their party was, in every sense of the word, a stranger to Linda.
THIRTEEN
The stranger's name was Darlene, and she was an exquisite young mulatto girl, her skin a smooth and creamy light tan, her body as supple and lissome as that of a dancer. Which she was, part-time, a topless North Beach Go-Go girl on weekends, and the manageress of a kindergarten day-nursery during the week. Darlene had a great spiritual love for all children, and a driving sensual need for most adults. A need that quite suddenly included Linda Fortune, as the lovely red-haired Negress stood there and gaped hungrily at the semi-nude woman writhing on the couch.
With some difficulty. Brad finally extricated his swallowed lips from Linda's, hugging her to him so that her eyes remained focused away from the door, over his shoulder. Then he gave Darlene a meaningful shrug of his head, and she caught his eye. Feeling a swift surge of excitement, the girl knew exactly what he wanted.
Giggling softly, she slipped out of her tight-fitting sweater and bra, letting her fat, tawny breasts jounce freely as she crept over to the couch and got down on her knees. Brad crushed his mouth against Linda's once more, as he slowly removed his jabbing hand and fingers from her gulping vagina. "No… no, oh please," she mumbled against his lips, "It's such a lovely torment in there… oooh!.." Brad raised his seminal-tipped fingers to his lips and let her watch him kiss them to keep her further distracted; then he deepened their kiss, and with a quick pointing finger, he aimed Darlene towards her target. Tonguing her full and hungry lips, the girl spread Linda's thighs as wide as they would go. Then she let out a low, frenzied moan and dove head-first, sucking and nibbling and gorging herself like a starved and scrounging jackal…