Chapter 3

Marleen Franklin closed the shop at seven o'clock, five minutes after Wendy's current boyfriend, Clyde Brooks, picked her daughter up in his sports car. She thought of Wendy as she walked up to the dark and empty apartment after she'd done the ledgers for the day, thought of how much a boon and companion she'd been as well as a child of which to be proud. She wasn't worried about Wendy being with boys; the doctor had assured her that Wendy was still a virgin as of the last checkup, and she was a good girl by nature. Marleen was well aware of the traps and snares young people could fall into in this day and age, and she was doing her best to keep Wendy from falling into any of them. She'd thought she'd fairly well succeeded, and looked forward to the day when Wendy would be an equal, an adult and mature, and no longer her little child.

Not that Wendy was a child any longer; one look at her in the shower and soaping her full-shaped breasts or now matured vaginal area told her that. And Marleen had looked, and looked whenever Wendy was displaying herself, because she was proud of having produced such a fine girl-woman and drawn with loving tenderness to her daughter. And yet... there were times when she'd watched Wendy's snub-nosed, freckle-faced innocence combined with the lush provocativeness of upright, taut breasts and flat belly and gently sloping thighs where her triangle of soft pubic fleece lay between so prominently, and Marleen had been worried that perhaps Wendy was emerging into maturity a little too fast. But then she'd laugh away her silly fears, for the world was simply spinning faster these days, and hadn't she gotten married at nineteen?

Upstairs, she puttered around the kitchen, a bit sad and feeling lonely with Wendy out. The new tenant was constantly on her mind, and as hard as she tried to dismiss their new boarder, Dave Preston, from her thoughts, the more he seemed to come back to haunt her. He'd been in and out of the apartment all of that day, with his flaxen-haired girlfriend, Gloria something-or-other. She looked like a whore, smelled of cheap rose water, and chewed gum; Marleen had not thought much of her, although she had to admit that the woman had a fine and sensual body and knew how to move it. She didn't walk--she strutted! Not that it was any of her business what Preston did or didn't do with that woman, she chastised herself...

She undressed for bed early, deciding to go to lie down and watch some TV from the portable set in the bedroom and just plain relax. It had been a harrowing day what with one thing and another, and she was awfully tired...

She stood naked after stripping her clothes off and hanging them up, examining herself critically in the light of the bedroom before switching on the TV. She took the pins out of her hair and let the long silky strands fall; they covered her breasts partially, with only the dark aureoles and nipples peeking through, and the bottom crest of translucent flesh mounded below the hairline. She let her eyes move across her still flat plane of stomach, past the few stretch marks left over from Wendy's birth, down to the softly curling pubic hair which covered her pinkly hidden vaginal lips. Then she stretched, throwing her hair over her shoulder, and looked at her smooth satiny buttocks, the rippled muscles in the back of her slim, tapered thighs, and shapely, slim legs.

I have a good body, she thought. I really do. Some day, for some man, it would please with the same intensity and passion with which it had pleased Howie, her late husband. Until then, all she could do was hold it in reserve. She hadn't been bothered by the possible aging of her charms until today, strangely to say--oh, she'd noticed her reflection in the mirror and looked at herself as she was now, but today she'd made the startling discovery that the original fires Howie had kindled in her many long years ago weren't cold embers but banked coals, threatening to burst into flame from the nearness of an attractive, magnetic male beast.

Marleen lay down on the cool sheets on the bed and stretched out with a low, grateful sigh. That's what had been the matter with her today: she'd found to her surprise, and yes, to her fear as well, that she was still sexually responsive and yearning for love and the chance to love in return. She tossed fretfully, naked and uncovered on the bed, the stifling summer heat less oppressive to her than her own inner fires, and kept asking herself the two most important questions of her life: when a woman is widowed early in her married life, how much does she owe her child? And: can romance live in life at thirty-six and after?

Damn that David Preston for coming here today! she cursed. Damn, damn, damn! He was the one who'd made her so horridly aware of the gifts she had to offer, and the unrequited pangs of not having a man to whom to give them totally and forever, who would appreciate the extent of those gifts...

"Mmmmmmmm!" Then: "Ahhhhhhh!" in a voice which obviously belonged to Preston. Marleen lay rigid on the bed, holding her breath, realizing with blushing embarrassment that she was unwontedly overhearing her new tenant and that blonde girl 'visitor" making love in his bedroom...

"... Run your fingers along my balls..."

"... Suck, baby, suck my cock!"

She couldn't continue listening! That woman, that Gloria was taking her boarder's throbbing penis in her mouth! How utterly perverse... But Marleen was only able to lie motionless, caught in a strange series of involuntary sensations as she listened against her will and judgment to the salacious conversation muted by the thin wall separating the two bedrooms.

"Ahhhhh, baby... oh, the inside of your mouth is like melted honey. Oh Jesus, that's nice..."

I've got to get out of here! the distraught widow cried out to herself. But it was as though iron shackles were fettering her to the bed...

"You really love to suck cock, Gloria... Ohhh, ahhhh, mmm!"

Stop it! Stop it! Marleen screamed silently. But as she struggled mentally, she looked down the expanse of her smooth, taut body, and saw that physically she was reacting in a way entirely opposite to what her head was telling her. The nipples on her gently curved breasts were peaking out of their folds, becoming hard and raised, like cherries on top of whipping cream. A tender aching was beginning to tingle between her legs, and when in wonderment and disbelief she actually touched one of them, the contact of her fingers intensified the throbbing in her loins to where she could no longer ignore its presence or what it signified. Dear heaven above, she was becoming sexually stimulated by the lewd actions taking place next door! No, no, it couldn't be happening... but it was, and her entire being quivered on the bed.

"Gloria... suck harder milk my cock dry, you little hot bitch! Ahhhh!"

The inside of Marleen's mouth was dry and she ran her tongue moistly over her lips to dispel the arid, cottony taste, and though she tried to blank her mind, it seemed to lewdly insist on projecting the image of what must be taking place the few feet away. David was on the bed... yes, that was it, and Gloria was kneeling over him stripped naked, her long lemon-yellow hair fanning over his belly and abdomen, and she was taking his blood- swollen shaft in her mouth and sucking it, up and down, up and down...

A wave of shame caused her to flush a violent crimson. She'd never allowed Howie to kiss her between her thighs, or kiss him down there in return... and here she was, dreaming of the carnal, degenerate act and working herself up to an impossible frenzy. She was aroused, all right, and for the first time in six years at that, and there was no use trying to delude herself any differently. If Howie had been there, she'd have gladly opened her legs wide and accepted his penis up inside her, for she needed it... she needed release, and needed it desperately...

"That's wonderful... tickle my balls, baby. Ohhhh, I'm about ready to cum in your mouth, Gloria... ohhh, suck harder!"

Marleen continued to mold and knead her breast, slowly capitulating to her physical hunger, her anguished needs which were spreading like an insidious cancer through her flesh, and only the reassured knowledge that what she was doing would be a secret to everybody but herself helped tame the shame and horror of her manipulations. Her other hand was moving to her wide- splayed thighs, wet with the secretions of her excitement, and gently she fingered her soft, writhing skin, teasing her still softer pubic hair and inner vaginal lips as she was held in the overwhelming grip of her powerful passions. Her finger contacted the trembling erection of her throbbing little clitoris and she gasped then in total defeat, rolling helplessly on the sheets with the obscene delight of touching herself down there.

From next door, David Preston was yelling: "I'm going to cum, baby... ahhhh, suck it, suck it nowwwww!"

The fire burned more insatiably in her cunt, and demanded more to feed its lewd furnace of cravings. Marleen pictured the nakedly locked bodies next door and she inserted her finger deep into the passion moistened mouth of her pulsating vagina, drawing her knees up and her buttocks off the bed, high in the air as she arched with the maddening rhythm of her finger--now two fingers-- -screwing deeper and deeper up into herself. She could see in her mind's eye the naked woman's hotly ovalling lips and David Preston's humping, jerking motions as he thrust his hips up toward her slavering mouth, and Marleen finger-fucked herself faster and faster, nothing existing except the delirious coming of her impending climax with theirs...

"Get out of the car, and don't ever come around again," Clyde Brooks sneered. He gunned the small engine in his MG with impatience. "I want to go out and find a real woman now and take the bad taste out of my mouth."

"Clyde, please--"

"Stop your mewling, baby. Out."

Crying abjectly, the terrified and brow-beaten young girl flung herself out of the sports car and ran to the gate, having a difficult time unlocking it with her house key because of the tears streaming wetly from her swollen eyes.

Her mascara was running down her cheeks, staining her livid skin, so red and mottled from her anguish and tormented heart. She trembled as she unlocked the door to the apartment, pausing to take a deep breath and smooth out her still damp skirt and blouse. Her head was whirling confusedly with the enveloping whirlwinds of her thoughts and emotions, the effect of the traumatic evening, the wine, the nearness of being fucked for the first time filling her marrow and blood with quaking distress.

She had to talk to her mother--Mother was her Rock of Gibraltar, her foundation for what she believed, her point of faith for her morals and actions... But Mother wasn't in the livingroom, even though the lights were on. She must be in the bedroom, the daughter concluded, seeing the light on in there and a strange, squeaking noise coming from within... She crossed hesitantly on the carpeting, her flats making not the slightest noise, and then she was at the open doorway... and stood stone- still, drinking in the unbelievable scene...