Chapter 2

Larry Johnson stood beside the Smith's white imitation- leather sofa, a bottle of Johnny Walker in one hand and a towel filled with ice cubes in the other. His usually self-assured, darkly handsome face was twisted into an uncharacteristic caricature of confusion as he gazed down at the lifeless form of his best friend's unconscious wife, and though he made a brief effort to concentrate on his injured partner who lay paralyzed from the waist down in a Kansas hospital, his granite-grey eyes gradually began to shoot out sparks of lust.

When he'd lifted Sandi Smith's limp body in his arms and carried her in from the doorstep to the living room couch, her transparent orange nightgown had bunched up around her slender waist. Now, as she lay sprawled on her side, her ripely-rounded, snow-white buttocks were completely revealed to his ardent gaze. One full firm breast swelled out over the edge of the couch cushion, and the young motorcyclist had to fight back an impulse to lean down and gently lick its satin-skinned, ruby-tipped surface.

"Jesus Christ," he muttered under his breath, taking a quick gulp of the whiskey with which he'd intended to revive the stunned young wife. Then, without allowing his eyes to leave the tantalizing spectacle spread out before him, he poured some of the amber liquid into a glass and set it on the glass-topped coffee table. In a moment he'd give it to her - but first he'd allow himself to feast his eyes upon the sensual but forbidden female flesh of his buddy's wife.

Whoever would have thought that Verne's goody-goody wife ran around the house in a get-up that even his own uninhibited wife Clare would have thought a bit risque? It just didn't go along with the prissy way Sandi had of wrinkling her nose and frowning when someone told an off-color joke, or the shocked looks she'd shot at Clare when the older girl had come over one hot afternoon in a skintight T-shirt sans brassiere. In fact, the only way he could figure it was that she must have a lover - why the hell else would she be wearing such sexy underwear when her husband was gone? Well, she'd sure had him fooled - and obviously old Verne too!

A low moan followed by a babble of incoherent words rose from the figure on the couch, and Johnson's face quickly reverted to a mask of concerned friend as the curvaceous blonde wife opened her hazel eyes and attempted to pull herself up to a sitting position.

"Verne! Wh-what h-happened to him?" she whispered. "He's not... not..." Then her voice choked in her throat as tears flooded into her fear-glazed eyes.

"Take it easy, Sandi," Larry murmured soothingly. He handed her the glass of whiskey, adding, "Drink this, it'll make you feel stronger. You sure gave me a scare when you toppled over like that on the steps."

Sandi ignored the proffered glass, instead grasping her husband's partner's other arm and imploring, "Is he all right? Larry, tell me! Tell me!"

As the half-hysterical blonde touched his arm, the dark- haired man felt his blood quicken in his veins, and the long shaft of his penis gave a sudden lurch against the tight material of his jeans.

"Calm down, honey," he reassured her, moving his arm around her quivering figure and holding the glass against her lips until she automatically gulped down the stinging alcohol. "Verne's had a little accident, but he's going to be all right. Everything's going to be all right."

Even as the words left his mouth, Larry felt a twinge of disquiet at deliberately deceiving the distraught young woman. In his mind's eye, he saw her husband flying through the air to land with a sickening crunch upon the track, his virile, leather-clad body crumpling on impact like a cricket crushed under someone's heel. Then, Larry's memory skipping forward a few hours, a vision of the small hospital's antiseptic white-walled corridor flashed across Larry's brain. He'd been nervously sipping at his third cup of wax-flavored coffee from the hall vending machine when a plump, white-frocked doctor who looked more like an extra in a low-budget television western than a surgeon had approached him.

"Lucky to be alive... doubt if he'll ever walk again, though we did save his legs... but paralysis has set in... no life at all below the waist... but no brain damage, luckily... yeah, he was pretty lucky."

Just the recollection brought back a flash of the horror and disbelief he'd felt at that moment. Lucky? When he'd never again be able to walk or even make love to a woman, much less dazzle the crowds with his stunt-rider skills? Larry wondered if Verne wouldn't have been better off if his brain had died along with his body. And what about the Motorcycle Circus, into which they had both thrown their entire savings, counting on Verne's extraordinary prowess as a rider? He himself was ruined too, financially if not physically.

When the grey-faced, weary-looking doctor had thrown out a grain of hope, he'd grasped at it like a drowning man catching hold of a chance bit of driftwood.

"... no facilities here in Kansas, but there is an operation... very expensive... 50% chance of success... very delicate, intricate... know of a specialist in Indianapolis..."

Now, as he stood in his partner's living room trying to comfort his buddy's tearful wife he wondered why he'd not told her the truth. On the drive from the airport, he'd been full of schemes to raise money for the operation, and he'd fully intended to discuss this with Mrs. Smith. She'd have to get a full-time job, of course, and he'd put on some special benefit shows or something along that line. Anything at all, just so that Verne got the best possible medical care and recovered at least in time for next summer's opening of the real money-maker - the opening of the permanent Cycle Circus here in Indiana.

It was kind of ironic, he reflected, that he found himself depending so heavily on the slightly younger man. He, Larry, had been the one who taught Smith all he knew about bikes, starting when he'd been a skinny little freckle-faced freshman who'd hang around while his older neighbor polished and repaired his big cycle. Larry had taken a liking to the kid who so obviously adored him, and he'd eventually let him try out the bike. Within months the youngster had far outstripped his teacher in skill and daring, and by the time he graduated from high school, he was proficient enough to be able to make a living by the prize money he won. Even after he'd become a success, however, he'd still looked up to Larry Johnson and had asked his advice about a great many things other than motorcycles. In fact, probably the only decision he'd made entirely on his own was when he met Sandi on a tour in Florida and married her three weeks later.

Larry had been prepared to dislike the new bride even before he met her, simply because he'd have preferred to have handpicked the star motorcycle rider's wife himself if Verne insisted in tying himself down at this inopportune point in his career. Hell, the guy was only twenty-one, for Chrissake, and it wasn't like he was hurting for sex, what with all the "cycle groupies" who liked to hang around the track and had no compunctions at all about putting out for the muscular, personable young stunt rider. Although the Cycle Circus had not yet become a reality at that point, the dream had been germinating in Johnson's brain for some months and most of the profits from his repair shop were earmarked for this project. The last thing he needed was some stupid broad coming along and seducing Verne away from a life of constant touring for fear of the danger involved.

When Larry had met Sandi, his worst suspicions had been justified. Granted, she never nagged at her husband to give up his career in favor of a stable nine-to-five job, but he could read in her plaintive brown eyes that this was exactly what she would have liked. At least he'd managed to persuade Verne that it wasn't a good idea for her to hang around the track; he'd told his partner that guys were making passes at his wife, but the real reason was that it was essential for Verne Smith to retain his image of virile, available hero if the Circus was to become popular with women as well as men.

Now, for the first time in a year, the ambitious manager found himself looking at his partner's young blonde wife in a new light - that of a sensuous female rather than as an obstacle in his path toward fame and fortune. The curvaceous, apricot-lace- draped figure now clinging to him was obviously that of a woman, and a woman whom he suspected of having a lover as well... and that made her seem much more alluring to him, and available, as well.

Wonder how come I never really noticed her before? he asked himself as he caressed the soft blonde head leaning upon his shoulder. Ain't like me to ignore a sexy-looking chick!

"Oh Larry, Larry," Sandi murmured, hugging him more tightly than ever in her relief that her husband was neither dead nor seriously injured. "You're sure he'll be all right? You're sure?"

"Stop worrying, baby," Larry's normally loud voice dropped to a soft croon as a definite plan began to formulate in his scheming mind. "He'll have to be in the hospital awhile, but we'll get him the best doctors and everything'll work out."

"When can I see him?"

"They're flying him in from Kansas tomorrow afternoon, and I'll drive you into Gary to see him," Larry replied, pouring her another glass of whiskey as he spoke. "Don't you worry about anything - I'll be taking care of you just like Verne asked me to. 'Help Sandi out, ' that's what he said to me after the accident. Yeah, you can count on me!"

This was a blatant lie, seeing as Verne hadn't even regained consciousness by the time the show manager left the hospital to catch his plane, but it had the desired psychological effect on the young wife. Her large amber eyes flooded with tears of gratitude, and a tremulous smile hovered on her child-like face.

"Th-thank you, Larry," she murmured. She'd never before seen her husband's partner acting so gentle, and decided that she'd been unjust in her estimation of him as an insensitive wheeler- dealer. Until now, she'd half-suspected him of exploiting and manipulating Verne, but certainly his reaction to this tragedy proved how deeply he cared about his friend.

"I... I just wish I could be there with him, or do something to help him," Sandi sighed. "It's so awful to think of him lying all alone in some awful h-hos-"

"Now don't go on like that, honey," Larry interrupted as the blonde girl's voice began to grow unsteady. "And you can help - you can get a job so we can give him the very best care there is. You won't mind doing that for awhile, will you?"

"Mind? Of course not, Larry. I want to help. Anyway, it'll be better to be doing something than sitting around here worrying."

"That's a good girl," the conniving manager murmured, moving his hands an imperceptible inch closer to the full-swelling mounds of her almost naked breasts. "Here, have some more of this," he pushed the refilled whiskey glass toward her, and was pleased to see her gulp it down obediently. "You're still shaking like a leaf."

And no wonder! he thought to himself, considering that she's running around virtually naked on a cold night like this! But he restrained himself from speaking, for the last thing he wanted was for Sandi to notice that she'd neglected to cover up her resplendent body.

Yes, she was trembling, Sandi realized belatedly. Glancing down at her bare thigh as she sipped the burning alcohol, she saw that her ivory-white flesh was puckered up into goosebumps. For a long moment she continued to stare at herself, feeling sure that something was not as it should be, but not quite being able to grasp just what the matter was.

"Yes... I guess I'm cold. Maybe I should get-" Then her voice broke off in a low, horrified gasp and her face turned a shade of fiery red as she realized that all she was wearing was the wanton orange nightgown her husband had bought her.

Oh God, what's Larry thinking of me? she agonized, pulling away from him as she also noticed the overly familiar way she was snuggled up against him. How could I have been so stupid? Thank goodness it's not somebody else who wouldn't understand that I'm just too upset to know what I'm doing!

"Excuse me," she mumbled, feeling exceedingly awkward and not daring to meet her husband's best friend's eyes. "I... I better go get d-dressed... ,"

She rose to her feet, then collapsed in a heap upon the couch as her left leg buckled beneath her. Glancing down in bewilderment, she noticed for the first time that there was a jagged scratch running along the soft white flesh of her upper thigh. The moment she became aware of the red droplets of blood oozing down her leg, the cut began to throb with pain.

"Sandi! What happened to your leg?" Larry exclaimed. "Just lie there - I'll go get something to put on it."

"I ran into something when... when the doorbell rang," she gasped as she settled weakly down against the cushions. "But it didn't hurt till now."

The three-inch abrasion wouldn't usually have bothered Sandi in the least, but tonight she was already in such an emotional state that the sight of blood made her feel as though she were about to faint again. Gulping down some more whiskey, which made her head spin more wildly than ever although it did help to deaden her nerves, she focused her glazed eyes on Larry Johnson's tall, broad-shouldered figure hurrying toward the bathroom.

I have to get something else on, even though Larry's been too nice to say anything about the disgraceful way I look, she told herself; but somehow she couldn't summon up the energy to move from her prone position. At last, just as she spotted her husband's friend returning with towel and Merthiolate bottle in hand, she reached up to pull the afghan throw rug from the back of the sofa over her exposed loins. The violet and blue shawl, which she'd crocheted herself from an easy-to-sew pattern composed of more empty spaces than threads, made her feel less obscene without hiding any of her sensual charms.

"Now how am I going to get at that cut with that blanket over you?"

Larry flicked away the flimsy token of modesty and with an eagerness he tried to disguise ran his hand over the satin smoothness of the girl's wounded upper leg. Kneeling down so close to the sofa that he could detect the heady, feminine odor emanating from her blonde hair-trimmed pussy, he began to dab methodically at the angry red scratch with a dampened washcloth. At the same time, he placed an unnecessary hand upon the taut plane of her girlishly flat belly. Beneath the thin apricot- colored nylon, he could feel her muscles first quiver, then grow tense, at the unexpected contact.

She's a hot little bitch, he thought. I'm sure of it. The question is, is she hot enough that I can get her turned on even when she's all upset about her husband's accident? Well, I damn well intend to give it a try! And I do know a few tricks for getting broads into the sack!

A half-forgotten conversation he'd had with the blonde's husband flashed into his memory, making him pause for a second with the antiseptic bottle poised in the air above Sandi's full- fleshed thigh. They'd been standing on the side of the track, over by the bleachers, and watching the buxom blonde he'd set Verne up with saunter across the field toward them.

"How'd you make out with Sherry last night, man?" he'd smirked.

"She's wild, really wild," Verne had leered back. "You sure do know how to spot the winners, Larry. Honest to God, I never thought a girl would want to do all those kinky things! Sandi would freak out if I even mentioned trying stuff like that!"

Somehow this remembered conversation just didn't relate to the image Johnson was forming of Mrs. Sandi Smith tonight. Surely this sophisticated-looking female in her lurid lace nightgown wouldn't be shocked by a few harmless perversions! And surely her supposed lover couldn't be contented with a steady diet of missionary position.

This wasn't the time for idle speculation, however; all that mattered at this moment was the intoxicating perfume of the young wife's voluptuous body and the satin sheen of her unblemished white flesh beneath his roving hands. Just the innocent act of dabbing antiseptic on her firm-fleshed upper leg was sending electrical tremors of arousal shooting from his fingertips out to every nerve-ending in his body, and he felt his cock expand and pulsate in eager anticipation. Was the girl feeling the same surges of desire? It was hard to tell from the way she lay motionless except for a slight flinch of pain from the stinging antiseptic.

"Am I hurting you, Sandi?" he whispered huskily, bending still closer to the blonde's lewdly exposed body so that he could speak directly into her ear. Strands of honey-gold hair brushed across his cheek, and the hotly aroused motorcycle circus manager knew that he had to have this succulent young girl, had to get to know every inch of her lushly rounded figure, had to explore her blonde-fringed pussy. Most of all, he longed to hear his partner's formerly aloof and uptight wife begging for more of his throbbing male flesh, imploring him to still the fires that he suspected raged through her healthy young body.

"I'm not hurting you, am I?" he repeated when there was no response to his first question. "I don't want to hurt you, honey."

The dark-haired young man set the bottle of Merthiolate down on the coffee table, but an instant later his left hand was back on the warm softness of the young wife's upper thigh while his right hand gradually began a persuasive massaging motion upon her smooth belly that eased the diaphanous orange nightie all the way up to Sandi's slender waist. Much to his gratification, he felt her stomach muscles ripple beneath his suggestive touch.

"You feel so tense, Sandi," he breathed into her ear, letting his lips linger longer than necessary in the silken strands of her naturally blonde hair. Most of the women Larry knew, including his wife Clare, favored wigs, hair pieces, and dyes which made their hair rather coarse to the touch. In contrast, his best friend's wife's shoulder-length curls felt as fine and soft as those of a child, and this plus her clean-scrubbed face and slim- hipped, girlish figure gave her a certain vulnerable, almost virginal quality which the older man found extremely exciting.

"Verne wouldn't want you to be feeling all tensed-up like this," he continued, his concerned, soothing voice betraying nothing of his lewd intentions. "He'd want you to relax, Sandi. Why don't I give you a massage?"

A massage? Just what did Larry mean by that? Sandi asked herself a little uneasily. It was a loaded word, for her sole conception of a massage was derived from a recent Chicago Tribune expose of that city's scurrilous purge of massage parlors. But the stinging pain from the Merthiolate was making her feel more disoriented than ever, and it seemed too much effort to question him.

In any case, Larry slid his hand up underneath the skimpy nightgown and began to knead the pliant warmth of her naked flesh without giving her a chance to voice any objections. His hoarse breathing echoed loudly in his own ears, and he hoped that the quivering young wife had not noticed his growing lust.

Although Sandi knew that her husband's best friend was just trying to help her feel better, his lingering hands were making her feel most uncomfortable.

"N-no, Larry..." she sighed at last. "I... I think maybe it's b-better if I just try to s-sleep..."

Her voice was so low as to be nearly inaudible, and there was a tremulous quality to it which told the conniving manager that she was indeed feeling a reciprocal arousal. In fact, she sounded so timorous that he anticipated no problem in accomplishing his adulterous seduction. In spite of her innocent face and prim mannerisms, she'd be just as susceptible to the lure of a long, stiffened cock as the peroxide teenyboppers who hung around the Cycle Circus.

All broads are the same, he reflected as he inched his eager hands farther up toward the inviting mounds of Sandi Smith's high- set breasts. Horny bitches, the lot of them. Only difference is that it takes longer to get into some cunts than others. Never had one say no to me yet!

"Awh, don't be silly, Sandi," he insisted. "You'll never sleep a wink if you're all muscle-bound like this, and you know it. You'll just be having nightmares about Verne!"

The slender blonde gave a slight shiver at the prospect as visions of blood and flames and prison-like hospitals haunted by ghost-like, white-frocked doctors and echoing with screams of anguish ran through her alcohol-confused mind. So frightened that she momentarily forgot her embarrassment at having Larry this close to her wantonly revealed body, she clasped her arms around his close-leaning back in a childish gesture of fear. The last thing she wanted was to be left alone in the dark, silent house with such terrifying images floating through her dreams.

Yeah - she wants me bad, all right, the egotistical older man gloated. I bet she's been wanting me all this time when she acted so high and mighty. Weird chick - but sometimes they're the wildest fucks of all!

The provoking sensation of being clasped so intimately by a female who was as weak and defenseless as she was beautiful was almost too much for the hotly aroused male. As his penis leaped to full blood-hardened erection, he had to fight back the overwhelming urge to rip off his jeans and ram his aching thickness deep into the tight little cunt that he knew lay hidden beneath those gently curling strands of pale gold pussy hair. That's exactly what he would have done if he'd been with most of the girls he knew - and in his profession, he got to know a lot - because they wanted to be fucked, not persuaded. Half the time, in fact, they'd been the aggressors, and the whole idea of seduction became a bit absurd. As a rule, this suited Larry just fine, for he preferred his adulterous adventures to be brief, uninhibited, and problem-free.

But with Sandi Smith, he instinctively realized he had to play a different game, and an oddly pleasant one at that. He was sure she didn't regard lovemaking as a healthy physical activity or amusing pastime; if she had indeed taken a lover, she was doubtless very guilty about it. No, the naive nineteen year old still hadn't accepted the fact of her basic sensuality... and the real kick, as far as he was concerned, lay in proving to her that she was just another cunt with no control over her body's lewd desires.

"Don't get all upset, Sandi," he whispered to the quivering young bride. "I'm here to take care of you, and I'll fix you up so that you don't have any nightmares."

As he spoke, he continued his subtle massaging of her shaking flesh, pressing into her smooth, pliant skin with his fingertips and then stroking its silk-textured surface, moving higher and higher up along her rib cage. At last he reached her firm young breasts and grasped one in each of his eager hands, teasing their rose-pink tips with his palms.

A strong shudder surged through the innocent blonde wife at the unexpected titillation of her ultra-sensitive nipples. Her hands shot down from Larry's strong-muscled back to cover her naked breasts with the orange lace nightgown, which somehow had crept up around her neck without her noticing it. What on earth was her husband's manager doing to her? Surely he wasn't trying to... but no, that was completely impossible.

"Wh-what are you d-doing, Larry?" she stammered, her whole body tensing as if she were about to jump to her feet and run from the room. "D-don't do that, please!"

"Calm down," Larry said in the smooth voice he usually reserved for selling impossible schemes or unusable objects to recalcitrant clients. It was a tone of unquestionable honesty and sincerity which, along with his driving ambition, was largely responsible for his financial success. Never lost a deal or a woman yet! he often boasted to his friends.

"A massage is mental as well as physical, and if it's going to do any good at all you have to feel my energy vibrating on your bare skin. Now what I want you to do is think about Verne, pretend he's here with you now. That's what he'd want you to do! And you'll be sound asleep in no time at all!"

Sandi's shock-widened amber eyes stared back at him in confusion, and she continued her feeble effort to push away Larry's relentlessly kneading hands. Her mind was whirling so wildly that she just didn't know what to think, and all she could do was slowly shake her head at the handsome older man bending over her.

"Didn't anyone ever give you a massage before?" the sly manager inquired. "You're acting like I'm trying to do something wrong - do you really think I'd do anything to my best friend's wife that he didn't want me to do? And I know what he'd want is for me to relax you, honey. You're being silly - childish."

Was she? the naive blonde wondered. She had, after all, never been given a massage and had no idea of the usual procedure. And Larry had been so kind to her that it seemed insufferably rude to act as though he was trying to do something bad. Maybe she was being childish, still acting as though she was home with her puritanical parents. And what he'd said about thinking that Verne was here with her made sense; she'd actually been doing that already, for the two friends had very similar athletic builds and strong, capable hands.

"Here, have a little more of this scotch. It'll help you sleep, too," she heard Larry say, and as the glass was pressing right against her lips there seemed nothing to do but gulp it down. The clear brown liquid tasted nastier than ever, but it blurred her tangled thoughts to the point where it seemed unnecessary to do anything but close her eyes and try, as Larry had instructed, to pretend that her husband Verne was here beside her on the couch instead of in a hospital bed miles away.

Strong, gentle hands seemed to be caressing every curve and crevice of her nerve-tensed body, and she allowed herself to fall into a semi-trance where there was no remembrance of motorcycle accidents, lewd lace nightgowns, or vague suspicions and guilt about what her husband's friend was doing to her. Verne, her wonderful husband, had magically arrived home safe and sound to calm the flames of desire that had been plaguing her for the past two weeks while he was away on tour. He was making her whole body vibrate in the most pleasant way imaginable, and instead of the nervous, undirected energy that had burned inside her, a flowing honeyed current of pure relief was humming through her veins. All she had to do was keep her eyes shut tight and not let her mind think of anything but Verne's handsome face with its lopsided grin and his sun-bronzed, virile body... that was all she need do to feel happy again...

"Ummmmmmmmm... oooohhhhh..." she purred low in her throat, letting her hands fall limply to her sides as all vestiges of guilt vanished from her conscious mind. "Oh, Verne, Verne... ooooohhhh!"

Above the half-unconscious young wife, Larry Johnson was marveling at the ease with which his plan had succeeded. Even taking into consideration the whiskey and the shock of bad news, Sandi had allowed herself to be manipulated into this situation with the ease of a key slipping into a well-oiled lock. It was really incredible - if someone had told him last week that he'd be feeling up his star stunt-rider's prissy, conceited wife, he'd have laughed in their face.

Still moving cautiously so as not to jolt the crooning blonde out of her propitious trance, the lust-driven older man untied the small satin ribbon which served as the only fastening on Sandi's obscene lingerie and eased the translucent orange nylon away from her body. Jesus, was she a gorgeous chick! Johnson couldn't remember when he'd last seen such a cock-stirring figure, and now that her unblemished skin was coated with a thin sheen of perspiration, she might have been a polished sculpture created by a master craftsman. Inside his tight jeans, his impatient cock was throbbing in wild anticipation.

Massaging now with increasingly fervent strokes, the amoral motorcycle show manager tweaked Sandi Smith's tiny pink nipples into taut, swollen buttons. From the way she whimpered, Larry was certain that the little nerve-filled tips were shooting hot, tingling waves of desire throughout her unresisting body.

"Yes, Verne, yes!" Sandi breathed.

A warm, melting feeling identical to the one she experienced whenever her handsome young husband caressed her was now building up inside the young wife's frustrated body to a point where she required more stimulation than gentle strokes, and she gave a low mewl of relief when the strong male hand slipped down over her churning belly to brush teasingly across the curl-covered "vee" of her pubic mound. Without realizing what she was doing, Sandi wriggled her rounded hips and eased her soft full thighs a few inches apart. There in the rapidly moistening crevice between her trembling legs, a hungry, undeniable pressure was building... an even more urgent pressure than she'd felt in bed an hour earlier as she'd rubbed her yearning thighs against one another in desperate search for relief.