Chapter 2

A gentle early morning breeze blew in the half-open window of Betty and Kent Howard's bedroom. The brilliant sun streamed through the opened curtains, casting a wide shaft of light on the thick carpet. It flooded over the bed where the couple still lay in deep slumber.

Betty awoke slowly. She squinted her eyes and raised her arm over her forehead as a shield, then turned to her side on the bed in an attempt to escape the glittering yellow light. Her arm curled around her husband's naked waist, her fingers trailing through the hair on his flat firm stomach.

Kent is home, she thought with a start. He must have come in during the night and I didn't even hear him.

Her eyes opened to confront a smooth tanned patch of her husband's shoulder. She opened her eyes completely, rolling over on her back, and glanced at his sleeping form. His face was buried between uplifted muscular arms, leaving visible only a chock of thick black hair. His strong inner sinews strained from upraised arms through round muscular shoulders and over his tanned hardened back barely covered by the sheet. Betty readjusted the loosely slipping thin strap of her white diaphanous nightgown back over her shoulder and sighed with displeasure. Kent had forgotten to wear his pajamas again though she had told him it ran up laundry bills. Especially when he drank, because he sweated so much. She could tell he had been drinking again by the loud jagged snores that shook periodically through his otherwise perfect, almost statue-like body.

She pressed her head back into the pillow and her green eyes blinked painfully through the sunlight at the ceiling. She wasn't so sure now that she wanted to wake up. Not if it meant facing the sad worrisome thoughts that were already lumbering through her heavy stupor. She turned on her side, a sense of anger growing in her chest, and once again studied her husband's methodically heaving back.

A deeper fear underlay her irritability. Where was Kent last night? The question throbbed persistently through her brain. Kent's new job at IHT Marketing was a demanding one and his ability to meet its challenges had brought them worldly success. But IHT just didn't require that its men work 'til three of four in the morning. She knew he was being unfaithful to her! She was sure! But she couldn't ask him, and she continued to watch his deeply breathing back, her anger mounting as he slept peacefully while she worried. She felt like digging her nails into his tanned skin until he woke up with a loud scream of pain. But instead, trembling with fury, she rolled over and drew herself slowly up on the bed.

She sat on the edge of the bed, still groggy with sleep, and slid her feet into white satin slippers and pulled her robe over her shoulders without putting her arms in the sleeves. She hesitated a moment, trying to decide whether she should shower now or later. Outside the window the Clark kids, home from school on a Saturday morning, were riding their bikes up and down the driveway and it looked to be about nine o'clock.

What was the window doing open in the middle of the summer? she wondered with suspicion.

Suddenly the events of the previous evening... the overheard debauchery between Bob, her brother-in-law, and Shirley, his new young wife, after she had turned off the air-conditioning, her own disgusting fingering of her vagina... came back to her with all the painful abruptness of an electric shock, filling her brain with an overwhelming shame and humiliation, and she raced to the window and slammed the frame closed with a loud force that seemed to reverberate through the entire house, causing Kent to mumble and pull the pillow over his head. He had been so intoxicated he hadn't even noticed the air-conditioning was off, she thought with a feeling of dismay. But her own degeneracy was much worse, almost unspeakable, she shuddered. She stepped to the window and drew the heavy drapes closed with a jerk, enveloping the room in darkness, then dressed as quickly as she could and hurried to the kitchen with tears brimming her eyes.

"Oh!" she started as she walked into the kitchen to find Bob drinking a cup of coffee over the sink.

"Good morning Sister-in-law," he choked in surprise, then turned and leaned his back against the sink. His eyes glittered with amusement above the cup as he took another sip of coffee.

"Oh... I thought everyone was still sleeping," Betty said in an embarrassed rush.

"Not me," he finished off the coffee and set the cup and saucer in the sink. "I'm going to paint my new apartment."

He smiled at her, and once again Betty experienced the strange feeling of being ill at ease in familiar territory, this time her own kitchen. She couldn't for the life of her remember what she had intended to do when she rushed into the room. She looked at her handsome brother-in-law: yes, he was dressed in old jeans and a sweatshirt suitable for painting. She knew she looked flustered and she moved quickly to the stove, but his eyes followed her. She could feel them traveling a slow burning path up her firmly molded thighs and the smoothly rounded outline of her buttocks as she stood facing the stove, and a blush began tingling warmly along her hairline.

"You know, you look awfully good," he laughed warmly behind her. "Maybe too good for a sister-in-law."

Betty reached for a copper pot and headed for the sink. "Thank you," she said in a thin dry voice that sounded cold even to her. "You look well also. And Shirley is a real beauty."

She came to a start in front of the sink hoping he hadn't caught the unconscious sarcasm in her voice. God, what was the matter with her? Everything seemed to be falling apart and she was losing control of her own emotions. "She has lovely hair," she tried to add in a more enthusiastic tone. "She's so tiny. She reminds me of a little doll."

God, there it was again, that ugly note of bitterness and resentment, she thought guiltily, and poured just enough water from the tap for a cup of coffee. Yes, what she needed now was a cup of coffee, and at this rate it would have to be "instant", or she would break out in helpless crying. But he didn't seem to notice at all. She wouldn't look at him, but she could hear him open a cupboard door on the other side of the kitchen, taking out a cup and saucer for her.

"Yup," he said goodnaturedly enough. "I'm already going crazy over the idea of being alone with two lovely young women in the house."

"Well, you're not alone," Betty said in a more confident voice and leaned against the stove, smiling at him for the first time.

"Kent?" he said and shrugged his shoulders. "I heard what time he came in this morning. That's no competition."

"I'm sure he thinks he is," Betty blurted out. Then the flood of tears she had been holding back all morning broke through as though a wall had given on a dike. In one quick moment, Bob had crossed the room and wrapped his arms around her heaving shoulders. She pulled away at first, but the touch of his hand sympathetically patting her blonde hair sent her into renewed bursts of sobbing. She didn't know what had gotten hold of her but she still felt uneasy with him pressing his warm body close to hers.

"I I don't think you're such a nice person as you used to be, Bob," she choked. "Or you wouldn't joke so lightly about such things... and you wouldn't criticize your brother."

"Oh, gosh, Betty, I'm sorry," he said, and stroked her shoulder. "You know I admire Kent more than anyone in the world. He's my ideal. And I wouldn't hurt you for anything... I know I seem different, and in some ways I have changed. But that doesn't change anything between us. Remember those days when we were back in college and you'd tell me all your problems and I'd tell you mine?"

"Yes," Betty smiled wanly as Bob lifted her chin in his hand. A faint glimmer shown behind her long wettened eyelashes as she did remember. "Well, what is your advice now?"

"It's not that easy to explain. I mean, we are young people, and we have to be influenced by modern ideas."

"I'm not sure what you're getting at," she said curiously. Bob was always the more reflective of the two brothers, and he had a way of putting things that was often quite obscure. "Are you suggesting that I'm a bit old fashioned?"

"No," he said flatly. "You aren't old fashioned, but perhaps some of your values about marriage that you've been saddled with are."

She looked petulantly across at him and said: "Bob, I still don't follow you exactly. You put things too abstractly sometimes, I think."

"Don't take things so seriously," he said in an even concerned voice. "All I'm trying to say is you've got everything in the world. Relax and enjoy it."

"You take your advice not to be serious awfully seriously," Betty giggled suddenly.

"I guess I do!" he agreed and smiled, and she stepped away.

Still laughing, Betty walked over to the kitchen sink and turned on the tap, splashing her face with icy cold water. Behind her, she heard Bob open the refrigerator, then a loud clicking as he popped some bread in the toaster. She dried off her face and hands with paper towels and turned from the sink. "OK, I will try to enjoy life," she repeated and giggled again.

"And if you get tired of enjoying things by yourself, remember you've got a damn good-looking brother-in-law that would be more than willing to help you out."

"Oh, you're just impossible," Betty shook her head and opened the refrigerator door for the butter.

"No, I've just learned," he kissed her on the cheek and drew quickly away. "Well, I'd better get at that new apartment."

"I hope I never learn that much," Betty said dourly, but he hadn't heard her; he was already out the door. The screen door swooshed softly closed and she heard his footsteps shuffling across the patio before she raced to the window to watch him jump into his sports-car. She stepped back quickly so he wouldn't catch her in the rear view mirror as he pulled out the drive. She pulled her toast out of the toaster, buttered it, and sat down at the kitchen table in front of her coffee. What was Bob talking about? she asked herself. It all seemed so confused, and she had found herself reading significance into words that probably hadn't been meant the way she interpreted them. First Shirley had suggested she satisfy herself... and even that was unclear... then both Shirley and Bob had insinuatingly invited her to take part in their raucous love-plan, and now... now Bob, of all people, seemed to be volunteering himself as a possible lover! It was all hints and insinuations, and she knew they didn't mean she should do any of the wild things they kept talking about. Yet she couldn't help wondering... were they one of those modern couples she had read about in magazines who freely exchanged husbands and wives to participate in wild orgies? The idea sickened her, all the more so as the mere thought of it sent her tummy tingling and made her realize totally what kind of exotic pleasures they were indulging in.

She stirred uncomfortably in her chair. They must have gone very far afield, she decided, for Bob to talk so lightly of sexual relations between a sister-in-law and a brother-in-law. Yes, one thing was certain and that was that Bob had changed from the reserved and sensible young man he had been in college. His jeans and sweatshirt and the sports car suddenly reminded her of the happy days when his fraternity and her sorority had sponsored many social functions together. She and Bob were in the same class and had been the same age, but she had been in love with Kent who had graduated and already made a big success of himself in the business world. Or, at least she had thought she had been in love with him, she bitterly reminded herself as her thoughts jumped back to the present and Kent's heavy drinking and possible infidelity.

A knot formed in her throat but she swallowed it painfully as Shirley walked into the room. Shirley had entered the kitchen just at the right time. Betty sighed with relief and formed a thin smile, two seconds later and there would have been the embarrassment of Shirley finding her crying. She motioned lamely to a chair and stood up to get the girl breakfast as she knew she must. Lord, the girl dressed like a professional prostitute, a high-class one but still a whore. This morning she had pulled her long dark hair back into a pony tail and her sun dress was so short it looked more like a long blouse.

"You certainly went to bed early last night," Shirley plopped into a kitchen chair and yawned luxuriously, stretching out her long tanned legs for a moment and studying them with an air of casual self-satisfaction.

"Y yes. I I was tired," Betty's blood froze.

"We didn't even realize you had gone to sleep. We kept hoping you'd come back and we sat up for quite awhile waiting for you in the living room. Just talking and generally messing around," her voice drifted off and she bent her leg in the chair, hugging it to her chest like a small child. The long tapering leg dropped to the floor and she chuckled oddly as Betty's eyes caught on the brazenly exposed strip of panties. "I can see now why Bob is so crazy about you," she smiled and added in a level voice.

"Thank you," Betty said tartly, drawing to a close the discussion for a moment.

The girl made no moves to help her at all, although Betty was obviously preparing a lavish breakfast. Betty moved to the refrigerator, taking out oranges for orange juice and bacon and eggs. She had heard Kent stirring in the bedroom and now that he was up too, she thought, she might as well cook one large breakfast. She hated playing the servant to this little slut, but on the other hand it gave her something to do and gave her an excuse not to talk with Shirley. Besides, she had to drop by at the sewing lady's house at one o'clock, and a large meal now might suffice for Kent's lunch since Shirley obviously wouldn't bother to prepare one. The elderly seamstress was making a lovely formal evening gown for her; Kent's job required that they attend so many social functions and Betty felt it was her duty as a wife to always have a new dress ready in case of any sudden unexpected gatherings.

Betty brought the girl coffee and she accepted it without so much as a "thanks." Shirley sipped on it contentedly and stared silently out the back door as though she hadn't yet woke up, indicating to Betty that she had a lethargic disposition, if she were not downright lazy. A good quarter of an hour passed with an unfriendly silence between the two women, and Betty prepared bacon and eggs and squeezed out a quart of orange juice before Shirley's soft voice again cut into her thoughts.

"Shall I go wake Kent up for you?" she said.

"Why... no!" Betty replied and furiously scraped the scrambled eggs into a serving bowl.

"I just thought it would be an amusing way to meet him," the girl yawned.

"There's no need to do that," Betty said. "Why, he's already up. I heard him in the bedroom. He'll be here any moment... Aren't you going to give Bob any help painting the apartment?" she heard her words rise with a definite note of irritation in her voice.

"No. He likes to do that sort of thing," Shirley stretched her arms, lifting her dress as high as the bottom of her panties again. "I think I'll just loll around the swimming pool."

God, the unmitigated selfishness of the girl was astounding! Betty thought and lifted the drained bacon piece by piece onto a platter. There was no denying that Kent kept Betty in good style but she certainly tried to do what she could to help him.

"Besides, I think it's best to give him some time alone," the girl went on, chuckling in an almost lewd way, and then winked at Betty. "You've got to give a man a little rope."

Betty's blood curdled at Shirley's presumption in giving her advice and the intimate tone she had assumed that made Betty feel suddenly like they were two streetwalkers exchanging cheap confidences. But Kent stumbled into the kitchen before she had time to react and she searched uneasily for the mood his hangover had put him in. He stood moodily at the door in bermudas and sandals, scratching his unshaven chin before his gaze caught on Shirley.

"Well, well, well," he exclaimed loudly and lifted his voice. "I'll be damned! So this is my new sister-in-law!"

With one quick leap, the lethargic Shirley had crossed the room and was spinning like a small dangling child from his neck. The two hugged and kissed and kissed again while Betty leaned back against the counter, a smile playing over her lips at the relatives' spontaneous affection and the general uproar. She grinned as she felt herself slip through Kent's gaze as he put Shirley down.

"You don't look like Bob at all," Shirley exclaimed, panting and stepping back to look Kent all over. "Of course, I've seen some pictures."

"Christ, and you don't look like anything Bob would pick," Kent said and smiled thickly as he appraised his new sister-in-law with obvious approval. "He never had any taste at all. But I guess he finally learned something from his older brother... I approve."

"Oh, you do?" Shirley smiled flirtatiously.

"Very strongly," Kent laughed and kissed her again. "The first thing I thought of was a goddamn Geisha."

"I am a Geisha. I was born to please," Shirley said demurely and pulled out a chair for Kent at the kitchen table.

"And how the hell does Bob like working for Damon Construction?" Kent asked more out of a sense of politeness than through any real interest.

"Kent!" Shirley giggled. "Do I look like I know anything about computers?"

The pair laughed again and sat down at the table, and Betty stood over them, smiling again for a moment, before she began serving the breakfast she had prepared. Now that Kent so obviously liked Shirley, she felt relieved. He had made it clear to her what she should have known all along: the girl was a member of the family and her vacillating attitude towards her new sister- in-law was silly. It would be like having a new sister, or, at least, a friend.

"Hey, aren't you going to eat, honey?" Kent interrupted her thoughts as she stood over the table between their two chairs.

"No, I made this for the two of you. In fact, I've got to leave pronto for the dressmaker's."

"But you've got to eat some breakfast," Kent protested grandly.

Betty smiled at his unexpected good mood. "I've had some toast. Let me run or I'll be late. But I'll be back in three or four hours. You and Shirley have a nice talk."

"Well, I hate to see you go," he said and slapped her buttocks playfully as she left the room.

Betty went into the bedroom for her purse, then exited through the sunken family-room porch that jutted into the backyard off the living room. She walked past the pool and crossed the flagstone patio, stopping a moment. She scratched at the screen that covered the large window over the sink to say one last goodbye to Kent and Shirley in the kitchen. They were already arguing good-naturedly, like brother and sister, over a strip of bacon. Kent reached forward and Shirley swatted his hand, causing a fork to jump off the table and clink to the floor. Shirley bent over to pick it up, laughing gaily, and they waved happily to Betty who hurried down the patio and under the breezeway to the sudden damp coolness of the three-car garage. She nodded her head fondly at their antics as she opened the door to her station wagon and slid onto the smooth leather seat-covers. Backing out of the driveway, she glimpsed Dan Clark bent over his lawn mower. Dan bragged about making it big in the fertilizer business out West. But even if he had become partially suburbanized he was still a country-bumpkin in many ways, Betty smiled to herself.

"Nice Saturday," Betty smiled out the window at him as she turned the car into the street.

"That it is, Betty," he said metallically, looking up from his work. "And you got your hands full with them relatives, dontcha?"

She waved at him not answering back. Dan was always making odd cryptic comments, but he was quite harmless so she paid little attention to him. She drove calmly through busy Saturday morning traffic that congested the streets between her house and the suburban North Shore community of Potasset where Mrs. Fergusson lived. The day had started badly and she expected it to get even worse as Kent arose hung-over and grumpy, but it didn't. Now his unexpected good humor and the sudden clarity with which she had seen that she must accept Shirley had relieved her depressing confusion and fortified her for an afternoon with sour Mrs. Fergusson.

She parked the car so she wouldn't block the driveway on the small shady street in front of the widow's modest bungalow. She was careful to walk up the front sidewalk rather than set foot on the grass. But, fortunately, the acid-tongued seamstress was not looking out the window as usual.

Betty stripped to her bra and panties while Mrs. Fergusson brought the elegant dress from the back room, muttering her usual complaints about Mr. Fergusson whose final act of discourtesy seemed to be dying five years ago. Betty caught the reflection of her half-nakedness in the mirror and thought it would be an advantage to a dressmaker not to have a man wandering about. She felt odd enough with Mrs. Fergusson's plump hands fluttering like small birds over her firmly curving abdomen and waist. The woman slid the strapless gown over her head and she shivered as the plump widow abruptly undid her bra before Betty could lift the front of her dress to cover herself. Her large, melon-like breasts swayed out and reflected back in the old fashioned mirror, their tiny bud-like nipples in the center of the wide pink aureoles stiffening from the sudden naked contact with the air. The widow's eyes gleamed peculiarly and a tremor quivered through Betty's belly. God, she wished the woman would hurry up with her fitting, as she made her nervous, even though she was aware that the seamstress was merely suffering the eccentricities of loneliness and the beginning of old age.

She broke off the fitting when the seamstress was almost finishing her work and changed hurriedly into her street clothes, explaining that she suddenly felt unwell and leaving the widow sputtering irritably through the pins in her mouth. For some reason, she didn't feel quite herself. Perhaps the tension of the last two days was catching up with her, but Mrs. Fergusson's reaction to her naked body that after all might just as well have been a mannequin for the purposes of fitting was quite odd, she shivered to herself.

She drove directly home. Her own sharp reaction to the incident a few moments before had been sparked by Bob and Shirley's actions the previous night that had diverted her momentarily into her disgusting self-abuse. But, despite the guilt, she had learned from that experience: she needed a man to bring her to what she considered complete satiation. She had repressed her needs for a long time but now that she had been awakened, the passion seemed to feed off itself and her desire increased rather than diminished. She swung the car audaciously up the driveway and came to a halt without bothering to park the car in the garage... Shirley could use it for the errand she planned to send her on.

A very long errand, she thought and grinned widely to herself as she entered the kitchen.

The room was a surprising disorder. Before she had left, Betty had washed the pots and pans she had used to make breakfast, but now the dirty plates and cups still sat around the kitchen table. The bacon, eggs, the orange juice everything had been devoured, plus the cantaloupe she had been saving for dessert after dinner. There were no signs of Shirley and Kent there. She walled through the living room and stuck her head into the silence of the back porch, then recrossed the front room, turning towards the L-shaped hallway that ran to the bedrooms of the long modern ranch house.

The bathroom door was open and she looked in, noticing that someone had taken a bath. Apparently Kent, she frowned, seeing his shoes and clothing piled in a careless heap under the sink and wondering why he should take a bath there when he always used their bathroom off the master bedroom. Coming out of the bathroom, she progressed a few steps and noticed something queer in the center of the thick carpet: Shirley's sandals. Her step quickened as she followed the trail of Shirley's clothing now apparent down the long hallway. She stepped quickly over Shirley's dress, bra, and then her panties and found herself at the door of her own bedroom.

God, WHAT HAD HAPPENED? her hand curled reluctantly over the door knob to her own room. Had there been some crime, a murder perhaps, and she felt sickened at her own response that almost hoped it was true. WHAT HAD THEY DONE THE MOMENT HER BACK WAS TURNED? She wanted to scream and abruptly opened the door and then fell back against the door frame, wild sobs of relief spilling from her eyes. There was absolutely nothing. The sun streamed in the windows and the bed was unmade just as Kent had left it that morning. But then, the sounds started coming...

"OH, JESUS, DO IT AGAIN," Kent's voice suddenly floated through the room. "LICK IT RIGHT UNDER THE RIDGE, OOOOH, THAT FEELS SO DAMNED GOOD."

"Do you like it when I play with your balls at the same time?"

"Oh, God yes! Run your fingers over the skin. Do that too!"

Betty's head flailed from side to side at the sound of strange disembodied voices. OH GOD WAS SHE GOING MAD? WAS THIS NEW PASSION SHE HAD LET ERUPT IN HER LAST NIGHT ALREADY DRIVING HER CRAZY? Her eyes caught on the sliding glass door to the balcony and she quickly crossed the room, her eyes sweeping frantically through the glare of the empty sun-deck. Her heart followed her gaze down the wooden plank steps to a small shady bower where the naked forms of Kent and Shirley tossed and heaved on the grass. She didn't know how long she stood there too stunned to cry. But a good deal of time had passed and she had seen enough to last her a lifetime before she retraced her path to the car she had left parked for Shirley in the driveway.

An hour before Kent had raised up in the full bathtub, resting his arms on the edge as his younger brother's new young bride watched. A moment later she stepped closer, giggling. "You're acting rather peculiar for a brother-in-law, Kent," she said in a teasing voice.

"How's that?" he had asked innocently and flicked a puff of suds at her that quickly evaporated, leaving a large dark circle of cloth clinging wetly to the tip of her full left breast. His long flaccid cock quickly engorged with blood and stiffened in the soft sudsy water. The bitch wasn't wearing much of a bra! he thought, noting how the damply clinging cloth displayed the round little outline of her left nipple.

"Asking me to give you a bath," she said in a falsely reprimanding tone.

"I'll give you a bath if you'd like that better," he said and moved threateningly, as though he were going to pull his long naked body out of the water.

"No! No!... Oh, all right! I guess I'll have to," she sighed in mock irritation and bent over to the floor to pick up the bar of soap he had thrown at her. In the process, he could see her panties slip teasingly into the crevice of her behind, revealing the warmly tempting bottoms of her firm moon-like buttocks.

Kent felt his cock harden even more and throb against the warm pressure of the water while he watched her walk with nerve- wracking slowness to the sink for a washcloth. Jesus, he had practically cum right then in the kitchen when she had sat on his lap. Then he had pinned his chances on the hallway bathtub, purposefully leaving the dour open.

Then... "Hurry up, goddamn it," he yelled out as she fumbled interminably through a stack of fresh washcloths.

"I hope my new brother-in-law's not the dirty old man type," she teased, finally picking out a bright blue one and approaching him with an evil gleam in her eye that seemed to penetrate right down through thick bubbles to the hotly aching protuberance of his now fully erect cock. "In any way," she giggled, settling her round young buttocks on the side of the tub and letting her slim tanned thighs fall slowly apart as she balanced herself precariously there.

"Oooh baby, you're in big trouble with your husband's big brother!" he exclaimed and suddenly lifted his arms to her face, pulling her harshly to him.

His tongue splurged hotly into her mouth, flicking through the moistly clasping walls and pressurizing forcefully down the warm smooth length of her tongue. She sucked on it, slowly drawing it down to her throat like she was trying to pull it out of his mouth. His lips pressed against hers, clinging there for a long moment and then the water and her hands against his chest sent him spilling back into the tub.

"Now you've got to behave yourself," she waved an admonishing finger at him. "So I can do my work."

"Yeah, yeah, do it, do your work," he agreed, sliding on his back down into the water. He lifted his legs and his heavy muscular thighs broke through the water line, dripping wet and the tendrils of thick black hair flattened out against his tanned skin.