Chapter 1

The Spender house was spacious, painted white with colored awnings over the windows, the long marble-flagged terrace led down to a swimming pool, the neighbors were hidden by rows of flowering eucalyptus and the wide garage held three cars. Arnold Spender was rich had always been rich as his father before him and his father before him. Beyond that generation the tracing was lost, as his wife Susannah too often mentioned during rounds of family-tree accounting. Nevertheless he belonged - she always conceded - since his ancestors on his mother's side were pioneers like her own, one of whom crossed the Delaware with George Washington and another died as a young lieutenant at Valley Forge. They should be living in Boston or New York, Susannah constantly complained, instead of being surrounded by the nouveaux rich of Long Beach. She was all snob whereas Arnold was only part snob, a bright and successful petroleum engineer who still retained the flavor of his Ivy League days at Harvard.

Who they were and what they were, these were the ever repeated legends of themselves instilled in their daughter, their own little Princess as they called her. They scoffed at the idea of a generation gap in their closely united family, forgetting that the younger generation that lived at Long Beach was beyond their comprehension. Their friends were older or seemed older than themselves, but were usually as rich, belonging to the same clubs and having much the same interests. In this circle the young Linda was nurtured and brought up in the belief that she had inherited the earth.

The Spenders had good cause to be proud of Linda. Bright at school, popular with all their friends and their children, never complaining about going to church, she never gave her parents any anxious moments - except for her daring in the surf. The California beaches and the beaches on Hawaii where they often vacationed were an irresistible magnet to their beautiful, sun-blonde daughter. Her mother claimed to have passed on to Linda a perfect figure, an open, nicely rounded face with a slightly pointed chin, big hazel eyes and a soft, velvety skin that never tanned deeply, retaining under the hottest sun a honey brown that sometimes disturbed her father with its sheen of sensuality, giving him feelings to which he would never admit, even to himself.

Linda was not yet fully developed. She would grow taller and the small excess of baby fat around her high, perfectly rounded bottom would go. Once in a party frock the bodice pushed up her breasts so that they formed two little mounds above it, causing Arnold to remark that their little girl was a big girl now. Naked, as her parents sometimes saw her running from a shower, her breasts showed like two firm oranges, her thighs and calves like a graceful athlete in a Cretan painting. Linda was their proudest possession; she was a precious jewel. Yet they realized that she would one day live her own life and must prepare for it, therefore she was allowed complete freedom to stay out alone with a boy, as long as he was as well bred as Tom Blackwell - and as long as she was home before midnight. The Spenders enjoyed a lot of night life themselves, always feeling secure in their belief that their Princess would never stray from the straight and narrow path laid out for her.

Arnold's professional and investment interests in oil extended to Australia where new oil field discoveries were extending his own little empire. As vice-president of a California company he was invited to sit as a director on the board of its Australian associate company, a position which would mean occasional journeys out to Sydney. He and Susannah were both looking forward to a holiday in the antipodean sunshine in the near future, where the summer was at its highest and where Linda could enjoy a surfing break from her high school studies.

Earlier that evening when Linda had gone to a drive-in with Tom, Arnold and Susannah had visited a friend's house for a champagne supper. As usual, they left early, intending to be home long before Linda arrived back. They had celebrated somewhat more alcoholically than usual, mixing too many cocktails with too much champagne, but nevertheless they were home and undressed before eleven. Susannah, an older, taller and well preserved replica of her daughter, wanted to dance so Arnold turned out the lights, put on a record and, blithely naked, they danced slowly across the living room floor toward the long settee. Warmed by the drinks and the central heating, their bodies slightly perspiring, they began to feel one another, Susannah squeezing his slowly hardening cock while Arnold slid his hand down the cleft of her ass-cheeks, down until he could stretch a finger to the back of her slippery cunt. Susannah suddenly broke away from him. Surprised, he asked her what was wrong.