Chapter 7

It was Winter and New Year's Eve had finally come around. Long Island was covered with a thick mantle of snow, and more had been predicted for the rest of the night and for the following day. It fell in long driving white swirls around the large suburban ranch house, heaping up, drifts against hedges and eddying in curled billows against the frosted window panes of the Howards' bedroom.

Betty Howard leaned back on the bed, sighing deeply as she pulled the silk stockings up her legs that were as slender and delicately sculpted as ever. A martini glass sat almost empty on the table next to the bed, and it was easy to see that she had already had quite a few from the dreamy quality that softened her slow self-assured movements.

But, beneath the calm exterior, she was absolutely tingling with expectancy when she thought of the new possibilities in store for her tonight. She had never in all her life imagined that she might find happiness in trading partners as they had been doing almost every weekend since that first fateful evening. But it was true. She had found a new release for herself in seducing young male initiates during the parties they went to at a middle-aged executive's house in a nearby suburban area. Kent had changed considerably as well. He had grown so passive, even stodgy and, well, there was just no way of overlooking the fact that he simply could not keep up with her. He seemed depressed. She hoped he didn't suspect that she was still seeing his brother Bob and their older neighbor, Dan Clark, on the side...

It wasn't until she stood and turned that she noticed him gazing fondly at her from the door of the bedroom.

"Whatever are you doing?" she laughed, zipping up the back of her dress as she walked in her stocking feet across the thick bedroom carpet. She picked a pair of shoes from the closet and, stepping into them, gave him a soft brushing kiss on the cheek as she passed him on the way to the dressing table.

"Watching you."

"Would you make me a drink?"

His reflection, frowning and unsettled looking, appeared behind her in the mirror when she sat down. "Jesus, honey," he looked pale as he spoke to her image in the mirror. "You've already had two or three."

Betty lay the brush down so hard that it made a loud cracking sound against the glass covering the table. "I've had two," she said in a highly impatient voice.

He glared at her in a way that told her he knew she was lying. But it didn't matter to her since it didn't change his response. "Goddamn it, you want a drink so bad, take my drink," he snorted setting his glass abruptly beside her elbow before he moved to the bed.

While she put on her make-up and sipped at the drink, Betty let her mind luxuriate on the tantalizing problem of just which of the virile men they knew of all sizes and ages would probably be at the party. Then she considered all the exotic positions and combinations her naked body would undoubtedly be part of before the evening was over. God, there was nothing like three or four big beautiful cocks, prodding at a woman's every orifice at the same time, to drive her absolutely crazy.

"I'm ready," she said brightly and, finishing off the last of the martini, pushed the chair back from the table and stood up.

"Betty, let's not go," Kent pleaded moodily from the bed, his eyes following her as she moved to the closet for her fur coat.

"Not go?" she giggled more or less to herself in disbelief at his new puritanism. "I'm not going to miss out on the big party of the year. And next year," she added, laughing.

"I don't want to go," he said stubbornly as a child.

Betty spun around in her coat, her body shaking with all the murderous fury and fear of someone meeting an obstacle to their attainment of a pleasure that has become an absolute necessity. "Kent. I won't put up with this. Do you have to go through all these changes on New Year's Eve? Could you do it some other time? Does it have..."

It was snowing heavily when they pulled out the driveway. The low seething sound of flakes seemed to press in on all sides of the car at once, enveloping the long station wagon in a softly whirling curtain of whiteness. Now Kent was looking for excuses not to drive out in the bad weather, but Betty didn't listen. Her thoughts were caught up in the swift white spiral of snow that she made out through a defrosted patch on the corner window. In her mind she was already at the party, protected against the winter night by warm lusty bodies, with the sounds of music and laughter and clattering glasses in the background. Kent's argument continued, but it was nothing but a long dull droning murmur that she was not even listening to...