Chapter 4

"It's quarter to three. My husband will be home in less than ten minutes," the naked woman on the bed said lazily.

Darleen's new lover jumped quickly to the floor and dressed in the dark with the hurried precision of a man who had known many close calls with faceless husbands.

"Why did you tell me you were divorced?" he asked.

"Never trust a woman," Darleen laughed and turned her back to him as he quickly left the room checking all his belongings as he ran down the stairs to his car parked in the driveway.

Darleen didn't know his name. She hadn't even bothered to ask. Four hours ago she had been sitting in Peter Grant's discotheque, Grant's Tomb, and the young man had sat beside her and bought her a few drinks. In return she gave him some small talk and a wild hour in her bed. She was still excited and not completely satisfied. No matter how hard she tried with so many other men, only Martin satisfied her the way she wanted. The adulterous act of sleeping with men other than her own husband only increased the excitement of making love with him. Her other lovers were only preparation for each night's romp with her husband.

"That was a pretty wild getaway he made. He nearly knocked over the garbage cans," Martin said, framed in the doorway by a small hallway light silhouetting his large, husky frame.

"He decided rather hurriedly to leave," she said, smiling. "How did it go with you?"

He crossed the room like a man who had just won an election. The sureness of his step showed Darleen that she need not have asked. He slid open the closet and began undressing.

"It was easier than I thought," he said. "She was hornier than I had anticipated. We only spent an hour at the club and by the time the dancers had finished she was ready to go right there."

"Well, don't be so damn smug" she said. "And come and tell Mama how you did it."

Martin related the story to his wife, exaggerating slightly. Darleen was hurt as she always was when he told her of his affairs, but excited by his story, imagining herself writhing in the front seat of the car under his powerful thrusts.

Her eyes were glazed when she asked, "What happened afterward? Is she going to tell Greg? Did you use the embezzlement?"

"Don't worry about a thing, sweetheart," he said, crossing the room toward the bed. "I've done this so many times to so many sniveling little wives that it's almost a repeated dialogue. We'll have no trouble from her and soon you shall be able to try Greg on for size. You'll like that, won't you?"

Darleen turned her head into the pillow, not wanting to look at her husband as he sat on the end of the bed. "Martin, please," she pleaded. "You always make it sound so dirty. Why is it that I'm always at fault when I'm with another man and you... you're such a saint. There's never anything wrong with your activities. Why am I always nothing but a whore?"

She faked a sob, but no tears came to her eyes. Whenever the two of them had found other lovers for the night, they repeated the same scene afterward. Neither was serious, but Martin enjoyed tormenting her and calling her names as much as she enjoyed the suffering at his hands. He played the roll of injured husband and she the role of the unfaithful wife.

He would shout at her, call her names and she would respond to the whip of his tongue, each painful word a delightful snap at her backside. She could feel herself moistening between her legs in anticipation. Her nipples, already erect, awaited his touch, his kiss that she knew would come soon.

They had been married fifteen years and for nine of those years they had been taking other lovers and swapping partners with couples they met. Most of the couples would soon fall out of the arrangement, usually moving out of town, or at least across the county. Many of the men would find work elsewhere in the area to avoid contact with Martin. More than a few couples had ruined their married lives by contact with the Kellys, but other people's fate was not the Kelly's concern. They were holding their own, Darleen thought, precariously, but holding their own. Her body shifted on the bed as he changed positions. "Whore," she heard him say quietly. "You're just a whore with a gold band on her finger. You'll never be anything but a whore. You've always been one and nothing you can do will change that."

She loved the words. She was no good, she thought, and deserved all that he was saying. There had been many lovers before Martin, and scores since they had been married. But one thing kept them together. No man could please her as he did. No man was cruel enough, hard enough or could give her what she needed.

Most of her lovers were only preludes to what would come to her at home. A single climax with any of them was not what she needed. They were her tools to excite her before she knew she would be taken by Martin when she finally got home. He would torment her and curse her, but then when he finished with the insults, he would screw her like no man would ever dare.

She shuddered with delight. "Whore," he said again, this time louder. "You'd take any man any time. How can you live with yourself!" His voice was stern, but she could detect the note of pain in it, the pain of a man who had been wronged. They were both good actors for this scene that took place at least three times a week and she always knew what was coming next.

She braced herself. His slap was hard. A red mark rose on her buttocks where he had hit her. Her whole bottom tingled. "Oh, don't," she cried, knowing that he would do it again and excite her even further. He slapped her again and the soft flesh of her smooth, silky buttocks quivered like flaccid jelly.

"You'd even go to bed with that brute, Monroe, if he came to you," he said, his voice feigning a threat. Monroe was Peter Grant's bodyguard. He had been a former professional football player and his six foot five inch frame held two hundred and sixty pounds of solid muscle. He guarded Grant twenty-four hours a day, keeping his employer from any harm. As a nightclub operator in Los Angeles, Grant had made many deadly enemies as well as friends. He and his wife knew the Kelly's intimately.

"No, Martin, never him. He's too big, he'd kill me!"

"Do you mean to say I'm not as big as he is. Have I ever split you, have I ever hurt you like you think he would?"

"Oh, yes, my darling. But him, he's an animal. I couldn't take his hairy body on me."

"What about Janet? Do you think she could take him?" he asked his wife. Her torment increased as he slapped her bottom again.

"Yes, yes, Janet. He could take Janet and we could watch. Oh, Martin, I'd like to watch that brute screw her until she screamed for mercy!"

"You would like to see her hurt, wouldn't you?" he said. "She would beg him for mercy, just like you beg me--right?"

"Yes, please, oh, yes," she cried as he slapped her again.

"Then we will, you wait and see," he said, and pulled at her body, turning her roughly on her back.

They stared at each other for a moment. Darleen's tear-filled eyes could see her husband's sadistic smile. They both would enjoy seeing the girl screwed by Monroe. Darleen would get her revenge against this girl she had always had the fear might possibly take her husband away from her.

She always had feared that one of his partners would take him from her, for Darleen knew she lived on the edge of disaster. If Martin found a woman that could please him more than she could, then their life together would be over. There was no hope that she could find a man who could do for her what he did. Janet would suffer for being so beautiful, for luring her husband into bed.

It was always the other girl's fault, never Martin's. His weakness was beautiful women, and Janet qualified as a temptress by being born beautiful. But she would pay and pay dearly, Darleen thought. There was no other way for the girl. Janet asked for whatever was coming to her. Darleen would insure a double reprisal by seducing Greg. It was only fair.

Martin looked at her, knowing what she was thinking. He always knew what he would conjure up in her mind by mentioning the women that he had just finished with. He knew that Darleen needed revenge to reassure her position. She was alive and fiery, and could please him as no one could. The gulp of loaded gin he had taken before leaving Janet's was at its full force. He was ready now to plunge into his wife.