Chapter 5

Melanie Cartwright sat in an old squeaky rocking chair, her hands folded neatly in the lap of her bathrobe as she stared sightlessly as the animated screen of her television set. Her eyes viewed but did not watch; her ears heard but did not listen; her mind was concentrating on more important matters than the raucous images dancing only a few feet away. Three days of bed rest and home care had alleviated most of the physical damages to her ravished, battered and bruised body, but Melanie doubted if anything could ever eliminate the horrible mental injury done to her soul.

Lethargically she rose from the rocker and walked to the kitchen, where a three-quarter full bottle of bourbon was on the counter. It had been new and unopened that morning, just as two empty ones resting in the garbage sack beneath the sink had been full the last two respective mornings, and more than likely this one on the counter would join them by tomorrow. It was her only sedative to calm her ragged nerves enough to function during the daylight hours and sleep through the dark night's constant dreams.

She poured herself a half a tumbler full, put the bottle back on the counter and returned to the rocking chair in the living room.

Though it was brightly shining outside with Saturday's mid-morning sun, she had closed the venetian blinds, unable to face the brilliance in her present frayed condition. She took a long drink from the straight bourbon and felt the liquid hit the bottom of her stomach. The warmth crept through her body, causing a slight tingling sensation to ripple across her skin. It felt good, so she raised the glass and took another long sip. Her heavy-ridded, shallow eyes turned back to the soap opera on the television screen, but once more her mind returned to the horror of that Wednesday night when she had innocently accepted the Andersson's invitation...

The drinking at the Dew Drop Inn... The -smoking of the marijuana... The surrender of her spontaneously passionate body to the assault of her employer... her ex-employer now, thank God... The obscene mouth of his naked wife upon her wide-splayed thighs... Oh dear God! She shivered convulsively and took another large swallow of the amber liquor to soothe the misery in her heart. She knew she should be filled with repugnance and loathing for the vile things that had been done to her, and she was. But her nightmares were not of them so much as of her own despicable submission and performance, and that was scaring her more. She had not merely succumbed to the Andersson's perverted advances, but had given herself willingly, and what had happened was as much her own doing as either of theirs. The fact of the matter was that she had been completely and wantonly enslaved by the ugly but delightful sensations they had sent coursing through her helplessly trapped body. Had she been the strongly moral person she had always thought herself to be, the whole repulsive incident would never have happened.

God, she was so desperately ashamed. Tim would never forgive her if he ever found out about that night. He was too proud and sensitive, and while a woman might forgive a man for an indiscretion, a man could never forgive a woman no matter how unfair it was. She still loved her husband, too, perhaps more now with the dreadful knowledge that she had let her body betray her fidelity. She alone had to suffer for this, and she was determined to protect his honor and her marriage from the secret, no matter how much it might hurt her deep inside herself.

Melanie drained her glass and returned to the kitchen to fill it once more. After placing the bottle on the counter again, she changed her mind and took it with her into the living room, setting it down within easy reach beside the rocker. Again her mind revolved with the horrid remembrance of that night...

Yes, there was no doubt about it. As things stood, the appalling truth would be kept locked within her heart, there to remain hidden forever as far as she was concerned. Time, she hoped, would eventually seal the vicious episode away in some dark recess of her brain, there to heal until only a minor scar would remind her it had ever happened.

She leaned her head back in the chair for a few moments, wondering how she could ever convince Tim to move to another town or suburb, the further away from Greenridge as humanly possible. But she knew she had to, for she must never chance seeing the Anderssons again, and so far she hadn't, not even returning to the theater for her pay check. She could feel blood rising in her cheeks at just the thought of what Amos' lean muscular handsomeness and Syble's voluptuous sensuality had done to her. Truly, they had reached her baser animal instincts before they were through with her, and she could never allow her naked flesh to run away with her like that again. At least not with anybody else except her loving husband...

It was rather warm, and Melanie opened her flower-print bathrobe she had been wearing since she got up that morning, and exposed her unclothed body to the slight breeze that came in through a partially open front window. Once more she inspected her soft, white skin, this time not looking for outward signs of damage as much as for tell-tale traces of dissipation. Strange, she had to admit to herself nobody could possible know by looking that she'd been fucked and sucked half to death by another man and woman...

She concentrated on her breasts, and remembered vividly how Amos Andersson had first taken their taut, puckish fullness and made them throb with life. Yes, and had made her come alive until she had climaxed for the first time ever, begging shamelessly for his thick, long penis to slave a burning fire in her uncontrollably lusting vagina... a vagina which until then had known no man except her husband. Melanie squeezed her eyes tightly shut as the erotic memories came flooding back, reviving a sudden twitch between her thighs. She was forced to squeeze her legs tightly together in an effort to end the tingling sensation there, moaning as she again lay her head back against the wicker of the rocking chair.

This is no good... I'm only torturing myself... I've got to get a firm control of my senses! My God, am I going mad?

Suddenly she realized that the doorbell was ringing, and after a few moments of waiting and hoping whoever it was would go away,, she resignedly stood up and carelessly tied the cord of her bathrobe around her waist. She walked down the short hallway to the door and opened it.

"Yes?"

"Mrs. Cartwright? Registered letter for you." A white- haired, stoop-shouldered postman handed her a manila envelope. His eyes blatantly traced the contours of her breasts and thighs under the loosely tied bathrobe, and he smiled with obvious appreciation.

"Th-thank you," she said, drawing her robe tighter around her and grabbing the envelope. Who could... ? There was no return address on the letter itself, and only and unreadable scrawl on the receipt pasted to its front.

"You have to sign for delivery, Ma'am," the now ogling older postman said, and held out a thick stub of pencil. She signed with a hurried signature, blushing furiously at the knowledge that with every second she was in front of him, the postman was breathing heavier with excitement. She handed the pencil back and slammed the door before he had a heart attack on her doormat and died with that obscene smirk on his lips.

My God, she thought as she took the letter back into the living room, and sat down again, had she sunk so low that even a postman had no respect for her? Angry at him, and at herself, she ripped the envelope open and dumped the contents out in her lap... and was abruptly shocked mindless as if stunned by a bolt of lightning!

There, lying in her lap was her pay check from the Bijou Theater. And with it were three of the most pornographic photographs she could have ever imagined. And worse, they were of her with Amos and Syble Andersson!

In horror, she picked one of them up. The picture was a full-color reproduction of herself kneeling nakedly on the couch with Syble, sprawled beneath her, licking hungrily at her tender pink vagina. Melanie had her smoothly rounded buttocks splayed wide in full view of the lens, showing all of her desire-moistened cuntal slit. With a helpless cry of revulsion, Melanie flipped to the next, and saw her flushed wet mouth lewdly ovalled around Andersson's hard, glistening penis. She gasped at this obscenity, but the third picture was by far the worst. It showed the naked man's thick fleshy cock pumping out his surging white semen into her painfully stretched vagina, her backsides lewdly flooded with the overflow of his cum.

Melanie groaned and fell back, her arm over her eyes. From deep in her subconscious, she now recalled the bright flashes going off and the strange noises in the background. Her passion- crazed mind had not related them to a flash camera at the time, but it was unmistakably clear to her now that's what they had been.

She lay in the rocker for several minutes without moving, then slowly sat up and looked down again at the horrible reminders of that evening, almost vomiting at the lust which was so plainly visible on her face in each of them. One of the three photographs had turned over, and on the back of it she saw that a message had been written in the familiar penmanship of Amos Andersson. It read:

"If you want the others, come to my house Saturday (today) at three o'clock in the afternoon. If you think your husband would like the photos instead, don't show up. Love, Amos."

It wasn't until she had read the message three times that the full impact of its implications hit her. My God, what did he have in mind for payment? He'd want something, she had no doubt about that... but what? He knew she had no money...

And then her stomach knotted and convulsed as if it had just turned over. She suddenly got the meaning, all right. There was little question regarding what he had in mind, only what was to happen if she should be agreeable. The ghastly truth that she was going to have to bargain the keeping of her secret by giving Andersson her body seemed unbelievable to her, yet she knew that she might have to do just that in order to avoid a worse fate. Suddenly she felt nauseous as vivid memories of Amos Andersson crouched over her face, his large throbbing hardness shoved halfway down her throat, flooded her mind. She fell limply back on the rocker, reached for the half full glass of bourbon, and drained it straight down. Droplets ran loosely down the edge of her mouth. The burning sensation helped dull her senses a little, and she immediately poured herself another, trying to smother the knowledge that in a couple of hours she would have to return to that horror-house in the hills, for Tim's sake if nothing else.

She couldn't bear for him to know the depths to which she had wallowed by seeing those indecently filthy pictures of her. It would destroy all love he had for her in one wide-eyed scathing moment. She drank the whiskey to give her courage, then staggered defeatedly into the bedroom and began to dress. She put on the same thin, low cut dress she had been wearing the night Tim had attacked her, the irony of the choice not escaping her bitter thoughts, and took a last look at herself in the mirror and a last glass of liquor. She wanted to be as alluring as possible in hopes she could convince Mr. Andersson to give her the dirty pictures without having to compromise herself too much. But she had the most dreadful apprehension that merely looking nice would not be enough to satisfy that evil man's degenerate soul.

Melanie's taxi pulled up in front of the Andersson's spacious home a little before three. Well, better late than never, Melanie thought with wryness as she paid the driver. The neighborhood was quiet but there were an awful lot of automobiles parked around, and she had a momentary sense of panic, almost turning to tell the driver to take her back to her home. But her overwhelming desire to recover those pictures took hold of her again, and she gathered up her spirits and walked along the crushed oyster shell path, over the bridge, and to the front door. She pounded the brass knocker, and after a few moments, the door slowly swung open.

Amos Andersson stood smiling in the doorway, softly tweaking the end of his mustache with one hand, the other in the pocket of his crimson velvet smoking jacket. The thumb of the hand that was in his jacket pocket was exposed, and it rubbed along the seam with a casual motion. Melanie couldn't tell if he had a shirt on underneath the smoking jacket, although he was wearing a pair of snug trousers and his usual black shoes polished to a high luster.

"Well, my dear, I see you accepted my invitation," he said smoothly. "Good to have you here again."

"I-I want those pictures, Mr. Andersson," she blurted, trembling.

"Yes, I suppose you do." He moved aside and held the door wide for her. "Well, do come in and we'll chat about it. And please, my dear, please call me Amos. I so prefer it among friends."

He was definitely no friend of hers, but Melanie didn't want to say anything that would harm her chances, so she replied: "Thank you... Amos." She walked into the all too familiar living room, and almost sat down on the wide white couch before hastily changing her mind and settling in a small chair instead. She nervously crossed her legs, seeing already from the way that Andersson was roving his eyes over her mentally cringing body that it would not be easy to accomplish her purpose.

"Now then, my dear, let's consider this situation." Amos talked softly, leaning with one elbow on the mantle of the porcelain fireplace. "You have something I want, and I have something you have to have."

"Mr. Andersson... Amos," she said, catching the fire in his sultry eyes, "I love my husband... I want to forget what happened between us. Please, won't you let me have those pictures?"