Chapter 3

The morning dawned bright and clear, with the crisp nip of the mountain air which promised to invigorate the most slothful of humans. Yet young Suzie Halford lay transfixed under the bedcovers, quivering from anguish, rage, and shame. She glanced up as Jim padded naked into the bedroom from the bath, and stared momentarily at his heavy-chested, taut-muscled form before turning away, tears welling in her eyes.

As she moved in the bed, she accidentally brushed against her breasts, and she winced in sudden pain. She touched the spongy surfaces again with her right hand, discovering the tenderness extended all along her chest and belly to the soft white skin of her inner thighs. Jim's rapacious attack had been more viscious than she'd assumed, and she looked once again at him, thinking he was handsome - but a beast. A course and vulgar jungle beast, bent solely on hurt and cruelty...

Jim was, at the moment, more concerned with the pain over his left eye. He'd washed his face in cold water and taken three aspirin, but still he clutched the bureau with one hand and his forehead with the other, waiting for the elves with their pick- axes to stop drilling through his brain. "Oh shit," he muttered, closing his eyes. "Oh my fucking head. I need some coffee."

"I would imagine so," his bride said in a quiet, prim tone of voice. "Is that all you need?" she added, tight-lipped.

"No, I could go for a nice piece of ass," Jim replied with halfhearted lightness, "but that'll have to wait until after the coffee. Come on and join me down at the cafeteria."

"I'd rather rest awhile longer, if you don't mind."

Jim laughed at this, despite the pain it caused. He reached for his clothes, donning a striped polo shirt and trousers as he said: "Really wore you out last night, eh? Well, you'll get used to it, don't worry."

"I sincerely doubt that," she whimpered abjectly.

Jim frowned slightly, then walked slowly over and sat down on the side of the bed. He gently began to stroke his quivering wife as she huddled forlornly under the sheets, and he tried to think of some way to comfort her, to tell her how much he loved her... but his mind was thick as cotton from his hangover. Faltering, he said:

"Rosebud, listen to me..."

"Go have your coffee, Jim Halford. Leave me alone."

"I will, but... but listen to me. What you experienced last night is typical."

"Is it? I thought all the girls were supposed to love your sexy ways, and be ready to fling themselves at you."

Jim blushed slightly at the mention of his previous conquests. "I... didn't mean them, Suzie. I meant that it was a typical wedding night for a straitlaced girl around the turn of the century. My mother told me so, told me how even when she married Dad during the World War, it took some getting used to. She said it was worse for her mother; that she - my grandmother - cried all night and threw up twice. But after awhile, she became enthusiastic for sex. You will too."

He got up then, kissing Suzie lightly on the cheek, and deciding he'd said enough and really did need that cup of coffee, he quietly walked out of the bedroom...

... After she heard the front door of the cabin close, Suzie began to weep in small, shuddering sobs. She'd wanted to reply to Jim, to call him back and tell him it was her fault that things had gone badly the night before... but she'd been speechless. It frightened her too much, the realization she understood what Jim had explained to her and that she was indeed a Victorian girl shackled by prudery and myth. It frightened her to know that from such gruesome beginnings, sexual enthusiasm could grow and grow...

Verna Monroe woke up with a start. She sucked in her breath as if she'd just come out of a nightmare, a feeling of icy apprehension creeping over her naked flesh. She looked over at her husband of one day, and feeling safer with his presence, smiled fondly at his smooth torso as he lay on his back, his breath short and fetid from all the liquor he'd consumed last night. She caressed him with her fingers for a moment, and then not wishing to wake him, she slid out silently from under the covers. She didn't want to face him just yet, to see the crumpled expression in his eyes and be forced to verbally relive the happenings on the couch. Later she'd have to talk things over and suffer the shame and anguish she knew he'd heap upon her... but later she could probably handle it. Now it was simply too much to bear.

Shaking her head sadly, Verna began rummaging through her suitcase for some clean clothes. She found a pink velour sweater and wriggled into it without the benefit of a brassiere. She was proud of how her firm, full breasts still did not need any aid to remain high and wide, and she enjoyed the soft caress of the stretchy fabric over her sensitive mounds. The sweater was not a see-through, and covered the full view of her breasts as well as if she had the additional covering of a brassiere, but there was something erotically stimulating in the way she gently jiggled whenever she moved, the distended tips of her nipples bobbing like undulating pointers under the tight fabric.

Then she slipped on a pair of very light pink panties that had rosebuds sewn at the corners, and a darker, rose-colored miniskirt which was so short that its hem was almost halfway up her tanned thighs, showing off the creases in the front where her legs joined her hips. With sudden awareness she realized that she - or anybody - could see her panties, which in turn gave a rather lewd view of the tightly pressed lips of her vagina. A small forbidden thrill tingled through her loins, and she knew that if she had any sense, she'd quickly change into something more covering and modest. This was too daring and suggestive, and Carl would never approve! She was courting a worse scene than ever, once he took a gander at how she was displaying herself!

With a small, disheartened sigh, she crossed her arms to remove the sweater... then paused and dropped her hands. Her impulsiveness with Carl last night had probably set back their marriage adjustment a goodly time, and she should act the meek and repentant wife today for both their sakes. But Verna was a strong-willed and prideful girl, and as dangerous and flaunting as keeping these clothes on might be, there rose in her a strange and quixotic rebellion which she could not deny. They would stay on... at least until her point was made!

I've got a good body, she thought as she turned toward the door. A damned fine body... and Carl is simply going to have to appreciate it... as I and my lovers before him have...

But how?

She didn't know. She had vowed to control her carnally amorous nature long enough to gradually teach Carl all the tricks she'd come to adore. She wasn't ashamed of the way she was, and certainly her slender, lovable, handsome young husband had shown his own desires to the best of his limited ability. There... that was the problem in a nutshell: limited. Carl was limited not only in technique, but in his very outlook toward sex and bodily satisfaction. She'd scared him last night... she knew that... scared him as a lover; demoralized him as a man; and lowered his esteem and affection for her. And it was this which she felt acutely mortified over, and the humiliating fact that she could no longer trust herself. It was obvious that she couldn't stop from following her lewd desires once the evil urges were started. Her promises had not been able to endure for longer than a few short minutes when faced with the obscene temptations last night, and Lord! What would happen the next time with Carl? And the time after that? Would she end up killing his love and their marriage before it had a chance to begin... ?

She started down the path to Fredag Lodge, her head hanging low and her spirits dragging. But with the crisp morning air and the faint caroling of the birds around her, her hopes and dreams soon became invigorated. A brightness and warmth lifted her morbid thoughts, and the recollection of her prurient actions faded from her consciousness. It was useless to chastise herself for last night's weaknesses... she couldn't go back and erase her obscene wantonness, and surely her love for Carl was strong enough for her to become the good wife he desired. Take things as they come, she told herself, the problems would certainly sort themselves out! They had to... !

Fifteen minutes later, Verna arrived at the Lodge, and taking a deep breath, she entered the door to the restaurant. The restaurant was separate from the dining room - which wasn't open until noon - but it was a part of the dimly lit cocktail lounge with its warm, real fire forever crackling in the large hearth. She took a far booth, away from the bright morning sunlight streaming in through the large plate-glass windows, and close to the flames which lept up from the pitch-heavy logs. As she ate a light breakfast of bacon and eggs, she constantly glanced at it as if the fire somehow comforted and reassured her that all would be well. Just as she was about to wipe up the last of the yolk on her plate with a crust of toast, she heard a familiar voice.

"Mind if I join you, Sis?"

Verna glanced up then, and saw her twin brother Jim grinning down at her. "Oh, good morning," she said, smiling in return. "I didn't see you were here."

"I know. You had your face buried in your breakfast as if your mind were a million miles from here. Where's Carl?"

"Asleep," Verna said, her smile fading.

"Uh-huh." Jim slid into the booth across from hers. "Suzie is still in bed, too. A casualty, recuperating."

"A what?"

"Never mind," Jim sighed. "I've been down here awhile, but over in the lounge part. Damned good thing the booze never stops flowing around here. I needed some hair of the dog that bit me last night."

"Don't tell me you're drunk already today!"

"Not by a long shot, but I'm not feeling any pain."

The waitress came over, and Jim ordered a cup of coffee. Neither he nor Verna said anything until the girl returned, and even then there was a long pause, only the sound of stirring spoons cutting the silence. At last Jim asked: "Well? How'd it go?"

"How did what go?"

"Last night! How was it?"

Verna blushed slightly at his blunt question, and said uneasily, "Oh, fine, just fine."

Jim caught the lack of heart in her response, and knew she was avoiding the issue. His early-morning cocktails had loosened his tongue enough to pursue the subject. "Come on, Sis, this is me asking. Ol' brother Jim, who knows all about your wild times. Remember that weekend in Monterey when we had motel rooms next to each other? The walls were so thin we could hear every move everybody made, and I don't know who was screaming the loudest - Maybelle with me, or you with what's-his-name."

"Shannon. Steve Shannon," Verna said tartly.

"Yeah, Steve Shannon. Never figured out why you didn't marry him. He was bonkers over you, as I recall."

"I didn't love him, that's why."

"Uh-huh. Sex is sex, but love is love."

"Jim, please..."

"I know, I know," he said, taking a sip of coffee. "You're married now and a regular straight-arrow."

"No, it isn't that, Jim. We're too close to have silly secrets between us, especially over things like that. It's just..." She lapsed into a weak silence, unable to voice the sadness dwelling in her heart.

"Let me guess," Jim said quietly. "It was a bust."

"Jim... ,"

"A bust, Verna, like mine was last night. A damned disaster."

"Was it?" Verna leaned forward, her breath hitching in her throat. "Was it really?"

"Might as well have fucked a Barbie doll," he explained morosely.

"Suzie'll learn in time, Jim. I was scared the first time, scared pissless, and must've been the world's all-time worst lay."

"Yeah, you're right. She'll learn in time... I hope!"

"But if you're a little rough with her now, that's to be expected, Jim. I mean, you're a man, but with a woman it's different." Unable to contain herself, the dam of her emotions having been cracked by her brother's candid remarks, Verna blurted out: "It's inexcusable for me to have acted like you probably did. I... I really blew it last night."

"Blew it? Well, what's wrong with that?"

"I don't mean it that way, Jim! I mean, well... I got carried away by things, only Carl... didn't. He wouldn't even speak to me afterwards, and I'm not sure I'll be able to take what he does say when he finally gets around to it. I feel like... like some old whore who's seduced an innocent high school kid!"

Jim, seeing the tears welling in his sister's eyes and the trembling of her breasts beneath her thin sweater, reached across the table and fondly patted her hand. "Easy, Verna. It's not all that bad."

"I don't know what to do about it, Jim. He knows, Jim, he knows all about what I was and still am. Maybe not the facts, dates, and names... but the general idea. I'm not sure I can act the sweet and naive girl around him any longer, or if I can, that it will patch up the mess I made of it last night."

"Sweet and naive? Why can't you just be yourself?"

Verna couldn't help laughing at that, though the laugh came out mirthless and bitter. "Don't you understand? I was myself, and that's what caused the trouble!"

Jim shook his head. "Don't you believe it, Sis. Take it from me - and I should know - a guy may want his woman to be a lady in the living room and put up a big front about her decency and propriety, but he wants a slut in the bedroom."

"No, not Carl."

"Yes, including Carl." Jim leaned forward, looking earnestly into his twin sister's eyes. "Listen, I'll tell you a story. When I was at that nudist beach summer before last, I was talking to this married chick - hell, she was about our age now - and she told me her sex life had improved greatly since she and her husband had become naturists. She said she had a good figure, and he was glad everyone knew it belonged to him! Men are funny that way, and Carl's no different. He just doesn't know it yet."

"All right, assuming you're correct, what do I do about it?"

"Same kind of thing I'm going to do about Sue. I'm not going to say I'm sorry, and I'm not going to reverse myself and suddenly become humble and contrite. It's up to me, and to you, to show Suzie and Carl, that they're the ones who're all bent out of shape! In other words, don't try to be sweet and naive, but be even a wilder lover than you were last night! Bowl him over with sex! Do it with him the way you want to, and do it and do it and do it... until you've shown to him how much fun it is, and how much you love him for it! Fuck your way to happiness!"

Verna laughed again, this time with genuine pleasure. "Well, if it doesn't work, it'll be great while it lasts!"

"That's the idea!"

For a moment, he and Verna lapsed into silence again, and he studied her voluptuous beauty over the rim of his cup while he drank the coffee. The first inkling of a wickedly lewd idea came to him then, and as he sat, he mulled over the plan to see how it might be worked. Thoughtfully he shaped and molded the details, for if he were successful, it would be one of the wildest afternoons he could have ever dreamed of!

He'd always harbored a secret desire to watch his twin sister being fucked... to see her writhing and moaning beneath a lustful man... and her conversation about last night with Carl had sparked the obscene and perverted wish into a full-grown demand., And if Suzie were along with him, as she more than likely would be, the sight would blow her prudish mind! Of course, Suzie might object to the point of ruining everything... but Jim believed the advice he'd been giving Verna, and he had the notion that spying on another couple having intercourse might be just the ticket to set his bride on fire with passion!

The more he thought about it, the more he was eager to try his scheme. He knew that there was a good chance it would not happen, there being too much coincidence and luck attached to it for any guarantees, but he was determined to give it a try. What the hell, there was nothing to lose... and a lot to gain! His penis throbbed with depraved excitement, his mouth twisting in a smile of sheer lechery.

"Tell you what, Sis," he said smoothly to Verna. "I'll host a party tonight over at our cabin. You know, turnabout for the celebration you and Carl gave last night. Only you see to it that hubby drinks like a fish, until all of his stupid resistance is flooded away."

Thinking about how Carl had acted while inebriated with the brandy and champagne, Verna saw that her brother had a good idea. Liquor short-circuited inhibitions better than anything she knew about - as well she should know from the times she'd gotten boiled and then been fucked by her dates! "But," she told her brother sagely, "you better be the one who feeds the sauce to Carl, not I. He'll be on his guard with me, and you're a man he'll go along with."

"And maybe listen to," Jim added. "If it comes around to the subject, I'll try and set him straight." Then, leaning forward more intently, he said: "Don't rest on your laurels until tonight, though. Get him to bang the crap out of you as soon as you go back to your cabin!"

"Not a chance, Jim," Verna sighed unhappily. "That bed is strictly off-limits for sex, at least until he cools down."

"Then take him out in the woods."

"Up in the hills?" Verna's mouth opened wide with surprise. "You mean get him to lay me right out in the open?"

"Sure! A little picnic, maybe, nice and innocent. Once his guard is down, sock it to him! He loves you, Sis; he won't be able to say no, not once his juices start flowing. And Christ, I know how you operate! You could get a corpse stiff if you put your mind to it!"

"How the hell do you know so much about me, anyway?" Verna snapped, nettled by her brother's obvious education in her sexual affairs. "I wasn't that open about my men, was I?"

"No," Jim answered, winking good-naturedly. "No, but your men liked to talk to me, since I'm your brother. Or didn't you know you were called The Well... ?"

"Jim! If you ever told Carl that, I think I'd kill you!"

"Don't worry, I won't! But just between you and me, Sis, I like you wild and woolly! Face it, you're better than all the girl's I've known, and if they like getting screwed, why shouldn't you? Isn't that what love's all about - seeing that the one you love is happy? And Verna, I love you more than anybody else, except Suzie, of course."

"Thanks, Jim," Verna said softly, smiling tenderly at her brother. "That's sweet of you to say. And I... I think you're the greatest, too - outside of Carl. Maybe... maybe I will try and get him to go on a picnic with me like you suggest; I think he needs a little outdoor recreation!"

Young Carl Monroe studied his black-haired bride, and despite his mixed and seething emotions, he couldn't help admiring Verna's magnificently proportioned body. She was sitting in a relaxed position on a striped blanket, their picnic lunch spread around her like an offering, and her hand was slightly stroking the stem of her wine glass. Golden noon sunlight filtered through the surrounding pines and gilded her already tanned form like an admiring spotlight from the Gods. From where Carl stood at the other side of the mossy clearing, the twenty-two year old girl was the ultimate he had ever desired in a woman, and his leanly muscular thighs throbbed with a defiant desire to once again possess all of her ripely curvaceous flesh.

But as much as he wanted to touch her, kiss her, make love to her - as much as he knew she wanted him to - he couldn't seem to make that first move. Not after last night. One half of him cried out that he was a man, her man, her husband, and should therefore enjoy all of the sweet taste of her... but the other half shouted that he was also a man of pride and integrity, and should have nothing to do with a warm sweetness that was like poisoned honey. He didn't know what to do any longer. He had hoped that coming up in the hills as she'd suggested would somehow provide the direction he should take, for having spent the morning alone in the cabin had only left him confused and wretched.

She'd tried - oh God, how Verna had tried to be nice and cheery and wifey to him! - but he was still stymied, unable to fathom the situation, much less how to handle it. The whole affair was so damned alien to him, so utterly foreign to anything he'd ever had to encounter before in his life! He'd stare at Verna and know he loved her with all his heart, and then his whirling mind would envision his lovely bride in the arms and bed of another man, and he would grow cold and sick in his soul.

Carl's inexperienced mind continually swirled with lewd pictures of Verna and her previous, unknown lovers... her curvaceous naked body displayed abandonedly for them; her svelte, tapered legs spread and her warm, moist thighs pulsing; the hair- fringed lips of her pink vagina quivering with fires of unrefined lust... Her premarital lovers were faceless in his mind, for all that Carl imagined were their hard, erect, cocks standing out from their loins, their sacs of sperm-bloated testicles swinging down between his wife's welcoming thighs as she reached out to grasp their great throbbing penises and lead them in toward her soft, urgently demanding cunt... and then the wet sluicing sounds as the no-name men wormed their virile cocks inside the spasming hair-fringed mouth between her wide-splayed legs, her pussy clasping around their meaty shafts with its own volition... the deep throbbing... the incoherent babblings as their desire-convulsing bodies reached for the magical apex of climax... and then the lewd cascade of cumming, with white-hot semen pooling in his bride's belly with her own sexual secretions...