Читать книгу Shadow Lane Volume 1 & 2: The Romance of Discipline, Spanking, Sex, B&D and Anal Eroticism in a Small New England Village - Eve Howard - Страница 9
ОглавлениеWhen Damaris Perez put her phone down, William Random appeared at her shoulder, impatient for her words. “Well?”
“He’ll be right over,” his new secretary replied, loudly clicking her gum. William scrutinized the girl with irritation through his first pair of glasses, which were heavy and uncomfortable.
“All right Damaris,” he said. “Send Detective Flagg in as soon as he arrives.”
“‘Kay,” she replied, with a snap of her gum, starting to dial the phone.
“Hang up, young lady, “William told her suddenly. “Sit up straight when I’m talking to you and get rid of the gum.”
“Did I do something wrong?” she was mystified but obeyed both commands.
“Yes. You came to work today. These new glasses need adjusting and they’re making me cranky.”
“Are they magnifying my faults?”
“They’re allowing me to see that your comportment leaves a lot to be desired.”
“I’m sorry. What can I do?” Damaris wasn’t taking this seriously and gave him a saucy smile.
“You can start by buttoning that jacket properly. You should also be wearing a shirt under it.”
“It’s too tight.”
“Of course it is, you’re wearing it.”
Damaris sobered, her dark eyes glittering. Her pert bosom heaved as she fumbled with the chunky buttons of her glove-tight princess cut jacket. Her long red nails slowed her down.
William adjusted his glasses, folded his arms and began to lecture her sternly. But she only saw his body without hearing his words. She had been distracted by it all day.
William strode up and down while reminding her of the many privileges she enjoyed as his secretary. Her salary, car and apartment were mentioned in turn. Damaris covered her fluttering heart with her tiny hands.
Almost certain she was going to be fired; her full red lower lip began to quiver. But William was expanding on his theme and did not notice. “It isn’t your work I’m complaining about,” he went on. “It’s the way you look and act, the way you flirt with my clients and fraternize with my employees. Oh yes - I’ve actually seen you out in back, behind the warehouse, getting high with the boys. You behave more like a shipping clerk than an executive secretary.”
“So,” she ventured timidly, “am I on probation?”
“Is that what you’d suggest? I was thinking more in terms of a good spanking.”
“What did you say?” asked Damaris deliberately, unconsciously clutching her stomach, where she’d felt a sharp stab, then a rush.
“I said that you deserve a good spanking. And if that detective weren’t due any second you’d get one right now. All right, make your phone call. But remember what I said.” William advised, then disappeared into his office.
Detective Flagg arrived in due course and remained closeted in William’s office for a half hour. Damaris was standing at the window, staring out at the rain falling softly on the woods that surrounded the building when the two men emerged.
“Don’t forget to call me,” William urged Michael Flagg, who was in no hurry to be ushered out. Damaris leaning on the windowsill, with her curvaceous bottom, so prettily outlined by a tight merino skirt, had captured his entire attention.
She quickly straightened up as the men walked through the office, and remained at attention until the detective was gone.
“Having your wife followed?” Damaris teased.
“You’d better not be so fresh or you’ll get that spanking yet,” William warned, but turned his back on her too quickly to notice her shudder.
The next afternoon it was raining again. It was a slow day and the phones had hardly rung. At around three, Damaris wandered into William’s office without an official reason. He was reading through some tiresome correspondence he’d already postponed far too long.
Although he hardly noticed her enter, William couldn’t fail to acknowledge her presence when Damaris boldly perched her pert bottom on his desk, and began to swing her daintily shod foot. He stared at her with wonder, her nerve rendering him temporarily speechless.
Damaris smiled, batted her lashes, then blew an enormous pink bubble at him with the huge wad of gum in her mouth. William threw his pen down and leaned back in his chair.
“Young lady, didn’t you hear a thing I told you yesterday?”
“Boss, are you a pervert?” she asked ingenuously.
“What sort of question is that? And does this look like a chair?” He thumped the desktop.
“Three times yesterday you mentioned spanking me,” she reminded him. William pushed his correspondence aside. Suddenly she had his full attention.
“There’s nothing perverse about that,” William told her. “That’s what you do with a brat.”
“Do you ever spank your wife, boss?”
“I assume you have a good reason for asking?”
“Just prurient.”
“Yes, I spank Laura.”
“Often?”
“Yes.”
“How does she feel about that?”
“You two go out to lunch together. Ask her,” William replied carelessly.
Damaris wiggled off the desk and took a stroll around the room. His gaze followed her taut little bottom with a connoisseur’s savor. Her waist seemed impossibly small, perhaps 22” around. He watched her promenade awhile. Then he rose and locked the door.
“To answer your original question, Damaris, yes, I am a pervert. And your questions seem to indicate that you are one as well.”
He pulled a chair into the center of the room, then stepped up to her and took her by the arm. “Come over here,’ he said, pulling her to the chair, sitting down and putting her briskly across his lap.
“No! Don’t!” she cried, fully breathless yet feebly trying to resist. This seemed necessary. She had her pride. But as she only weighed 100 pounds to his muscular 165, she was tucked neatly under one hand and easily held fast. Damaris squirmed in vain.
“Right,” he said; “This won’t take long.” And he smoothed down the seat of her pencil skirt, pausing momentarily to admire her shapely legs, glamorously hosed in seamed stockings and shod excitingly in spike-heeled pumps.
While holding her firmly in place by her impossibly small waist, he administered no more than a dozen resounding smacks to the well-rounded seat of her skirt. But each spank was a shock to her system that left a penetrating sting in its wake.
The spanking was over almost before it began, and she was set back on her feet. To Damaris, it had been a teaser, like a spanking in an old film that you catch by accident at 2 am
“Boss, that hurt!” she told him, because this was a normal thing to say. To keep acting normal seemed crucial to her.
Similar thoughts were flashing through William’s brain. Which was why he had kept her first spanking so short. If he kept it light and flirty, she mightn’t be scared off. “Spankings hurt,” he told her, while watching her rub her buttocks with both hands.
“No,” she replied, “that huge boner sticking into my ribs was what hurt.”
“Are you still being fresh?” He pulled her down to sit on his lap, locking his arms around her waist.
“In my culture,” lied Damaris, “when a man smacks a woman on the bottom, it’s as good as a proposition.” She nuzzled his ear as she purred this, grinding her freshly warmed seat into his corded thighs.
“Mine too,” William said, boosting her off his lap with a swat. “Go lock the outer door,” he told her.
Michael Flagg had been asked to detect the security leak at Random Construction. Damaris was the prime suspect. But William needed proof before acting. It was his contention that she had been selling information to his largest competitor, Price Enterprises. William hadn’t gotten near a property in almost a month; just about the length of time that Damaris had been his secretary.
It was quiet on the Cape at that time of year, with the rowdy summer crowd long gone. So Michael Flagg had plenty of time to devote to solving the sordid little corporate mystery revolving around the seductive secretary. Autumn had taken hold fully in the village and tracking Damaris to and from her coke dealer made for a delightful drive through leafy, dappled lane and pumpkin patches. He’d found her motive for selling her company out. No salary is ever large enough to support a coke habit. Now he only had to spot her making one exchange.
There was to be a land auction on Friday. Damaris typed and sealed the bids herself on Thursday night, not forgetting to make a photo copy for herself.
That evening Michael followed Damaris straight from work to The Serpentine Lounge, where she began to drink, while awaiting the arrival of her contact. Michael sat in his car outside until Randall Price himself strode into the bar. This was the arrogant young owner of the company to which Damaris had been selling information.
Michael slipped into the club just in time to observe them swap envelopes the instant Price slid into the booth beside her. His went straight into a breast pocket - it was thin. Hers immediately vanished into her large handbag. It was thick. Randall Price ordered a cocktail, but left well before it arrived. He hadn’t much to say to Damaris after picking up what he’d come for. Soon after this Damaris paid her bill and also left.
The wind was whipping leaves around the street when Damaris came out. She was half drunk on cocktails. The sky was filled with clouds. Soon it would rain. Damaris turned her collar up and started to walk towards her car, feeling lonely and sad. She hated the things she’d been doing. She never had an ounce of coke all to herself before. She resolved to quit using for good when it was gone. Nor would she ever deal with the officious Price again. It wasn’t a bad resolution, but it could not dispel the guilt that now oppressed her.
Damaris felt utterly wretched when she thought about her boss. The pleasure she’d enjoyed with him lately had been intense. But it always ended all too soon; and then he went home to his wife. A strong man to lean on was missing.
Hearing steps behind her in the street, she turned. He was tall and seemed familiar. And he had left The Serpentine to follow her. Something was wrong.
Up until this moment she had liked the new arrangement of trading information for cocaine instead of cash. Serial numbers on bills worried her, for she could imagine stranger things than being set up by Randy Price. Particularly after she had ceased to be of use to him.
“Just a minute, Miss Perez,” said the man, closing the distance between them in a couple of strides. With a sinking feeling she remembered him as the police detective who had visited the office a few weeks before.
“We need to talk,” he said.
“We do?”
“Yes, and you know why. Come on, we’ll go in there.” He took her arm and steered her towards Basil’s Coffee Shop. Lightening flashed and thunder rumbled as they entered. Then rain began coming down hard. He led her to a booth by the window. Damaris asked for coffee.
“You ought to eat something, you’re getting thinner every time I see you,” he commented.
Damaris excused herself to go to the bathroom. But when she reached for her purse Michael stopped her.
“Leave that,” he said firmly. Evidence had a way of disappearing in bathrooms.
“Can I just get my lipstick?”
“Sure.”
Damaris reached into the enormous handbag with an unerring hand and pulled her lipstick out, then disappeared. Clearly, the stash she had just acquired was about to be seized. She was now more depressed than before. She reached into the pocket of her well-cut suit jacket for the tiny brown glass bindle containing all her remaining cocaine. With a sigh she spilled it out on the porcelain tank top and used her little straw to snort it up in two very long lines.
While she was blotting her lipstick in the mirror, the drug hit her brain with a blast. “Maybe I can book,” she thought, suddenly wired, “Except there’s no window in here to climb out of. Do I really have to deal with this?”
She rejoined Michael, who was giving the girl an order. Coffee had been served. Damaris slid into the booth in her tight skirt and reached a cigarette out of her bag.
“How long do you think you can keep your good looks when you treat your body like a toxic waste dump?” the detective demanded.
“I should quit smoking,” she agreed.
“Not just smoking, young lady. You drive up the Cliff Road to your dealer every other day. I’ve been keeping tabs on you.”
“Oh,” Damaris said, taken aback, but unable to prevent herself from sniffing once or twice. She drank her coffee, smoked and waited for Michael to speak.
“You’ve played your little game with Randall Price for the last time tonight. I saw what went down between you just now and that’s all the proof your boss needs to nail you.”
“So he’s suspected me all along?” Damaris suddenly did not feel well. Her heart was pounding frighteningly, and not just from the drug.
“Of course. Who else?”
“When are you telling him?”
“Right away.”
“Couldn’t you wait until I get out of town?”
“Get out of town - you’ll be lucky not to get arrested tonight.”
“Arrested?”
“If William Random chooses to press charges against you I’ll have to take you in and book you. Naturally, bail could be arranged.”
“I can’t be arrested! I don’t have anyone to bail me out.”
“That’s a shame.”
“Please don’t arrest me!”
“If it were up to me, I wouldn’t arrest you. I’d spank you. Hard.”
Damaris stared at him.
“But it’s up to your boss,” Michael continued. “If it wasn’t for him I could try to forget about what I found in your purse.”
“You took it, huh?”
“What do you think?”
“Oh god - what am I going to do?”
“Stop taking drugs.”
“I don’t have much choice now. You have my drugs and I just lost my job.”
“Cheer up. I might decide to rehabilitate you personally,” he said, because she seemed so sad and sweet. And in spite of the things she had done, the girl appealed to him.
When Damaris realized she was being flirted with, her black depression lifted somewhat. This tall, good-looking cop was here to save her, to protect her from everything bad.
“You don’t want to arrest me, do you?”
“I want to reform you. I can see myself giving you the guidance that’s been missing in your life.”
Damaris confessed, “I’ve been living in a company apartment, driving a company car and spending every penny I earned. I don’t even have enough cash for a bus ticket back to New York. God - everything I had, my boss gave me. And I did this to him.”
“Bad girl.”
The waitress arrived with soups and sandwiches.
“I’m not really hungry,” said Damaris.
“Eat something anyway,” Michael advised, “Just to show me that you can be good.”
Damaris smiled her beautiful smile for the first time that night and lifted a spoonful of soup to her lips.
Michael had often wondered what it might be like to have a girl that one could scold and boss around. Jane had always been the perfect adult, self-reliant, sensible, responsible, and mature. Even Marguerite, who was far from sensible, radiated independence and power. But this little waif was different. And she aroused the nesting instinct in him as no woman had done before.
“All right,” Michael said, after watching her toy with her sandwich; “I’ll see if I can make him not press charges. I’ll go now.” He pulled out some bills for the check.
“What about me?”
“You can go home for now.”
“I can’t go back to that apartment. He won’t want me there.”
“Then you can stay at my place until I get back. All right?”
“Yes,” Damaris agreed and her anxiety began to wane.
The cold rain was still washing the streets at ten, when Damaris looked out the bay window of Michael’s second floor sitting room, chain-smoking while watching for his car. When it appeared she went to the mirror to paint her mouth dark red.
“You can relax,” Michael told her as soon as he walked in. “Random says he won’t press charges as long as you don’t get in touch with Price again.”
“That’s right, now those bids that I sold Randy are no good. But Randy doesn’t know it yet.”
“You haven’t called Price, then?”
“No. I didn’t even think of doing that.”
“Then it looks like you’re off the hook.”
“Until tomorrow when Randy gets stung at the auction and concludes that I double crossed him.”
“I wouldn’t worry about that.”
“That’s because you won’t be the one going to Emergency with two broken arms.”
“Don’t be silly.”
“He’s very powerful and I think, vindictive.”
“I’ll have a talk with him and make sure he knows I have enough evidence to implicate him in two felonies. That ought to keep him in check.”
“Did my boss say anything about me?” she hesitantly asked.
“Lot’s of things. I wouldn’t expect a Valentine this year.”
“What about my things?”
“He wants the keys to the car and apartment back, of course. I’ll help you get your stuff tomorrow.”
Damaris picked up the drink she’d been nursing.
“I got into your whiskey. I hope you don’t mind.”
“I think it’s time you sobered up.”
“I know you do.”
“Are you getting smart with me? Already?”
“Sorry. Bad habit.”
“You have a lot of those.”
“So, I’m really not getting arrested?”
“I don’t think so.”
“When will you know?”
“When I make up my mind.”
“When will that be?”
“I’ll let you know,” he promised, deciding he would also have a drink.
“We were having an affair,” she blurted out, because she’d gotten into his whiskey.
“What’s that, sweetheart?”
“Me and my boss. But it wasn’t an ordinary one. At least, not from my point of view. In fact, it was the most exciting purely sexual affair I’ve ever had.”
“Do I get to hear the sordid details?”
“Do you want to?”
“Sure. I might be able to pick up some pointers.”
“You don’t need any pointers,” she told him, turning her head to hide a shy smile.
When Michael decided she should spend the night, Damaris did not protest. He put her in the back bedroom, thinking, “I can’t rush this.” This room contained the four-poster bed he had bought with his upcoming marriage in mind. It was spread with a blue counterpane. She admired the bed.
“Jane and I picked it out together.”
“Who’s Jane?”
“My ex-fiancée.”
“When did you break up?”
“About a month ago.”
“That recently? What was she like?”
“Wholesome, healthy, athletic and politically committed.”
“Doesn’t sound like she and I have much in common,” Damaris observed.
“And she never wears shoes like that,” Michael said with a glance at her gleaming black high heels.
“You like the way I dress?”
“It’s an art form.”
“But, your fiancée was pretty, huh?”
“You’re pretty,” he said, in a way that made her face grow warm. She nervously fumbled with her lighter. He sat down on the bed beside her and lit the cigarette for her.
“We’ve got to break you of this habit too,” he told her. Then he said goodnight and left her alone.
A little while later, Michael was reading in bed, when Damaris appeared at his door, wrapped in a cashmere robe that belonged to Marguerite.
“If the bottom half matches the top I’m not leaving this room,” she remarked of Flagg’s torso.
“Come over here, young lady,” he said, patting the bed. Damaris came to him.
“I hope the girl this robe belongs to won’t mind if I borrow it.”
“I’m sure she would.”
“Maybe I should take it off.”
“By all means, do.”
“Well... just don’t tell her.” Damaris enjoyed being teased.
“She’d smell your perfume on it anyway.”
“This doesn’t look like the sort of robe your ex-fiancée would own.”
“It isn’t,’ he replied, wondering how the robe ever stretched to fit Marguerite.
“Listen, what’s your name?” Damaris asked.
“Michael.”
“Well, Michael, the reason I came in here was to ask you, do you think that it would work for us in bed?”
“It’s always worked for me before,” Michael said, indicating a sizeable erection under the cover.
“I see what you mean,” she laughed. “That size always works.”
“We can test that theory after you’ve had your spanking,” he said, pulling her face down across his lap. “And don’t bother arguing. You know you’ve got one coming after all the wicked mischief you’ve been up to.”
But Damaris didn’t argue. She had been stunned into silence. He then began to spank her in a slow and measured manner. And much harder than William had spanked her, right from the start. He paused for a beat or two between smacks and alternated cheeks, though his palm was almost broad enough to cover both at once. After about 10 stingers, the girl began to wriggle and whimper. His hand was very heavy. She counted 20, 30, 40 smacks. He went on and it stung more and more.
“Take it,” he told her.
After his metronome arm had descended about 100 times, Damaris started squirming in earnest, and whimpering much louder than before. And though he hadn’t even lifted the cashmere robe yet, she put up one tiny hand to shield her bottom.
“No you don’t,” he told her, pinning her wrist to her side. “Starting to feel it, huh?” He then raised the skirt of the robe to her waist to reveal her ravishingly well-rounded cheeks, now tinged a dusky rose. “I’m just getting started,” he told her, pausing with his arm locked on her waist. “And you’ve got such a lot to answer for. Like disloyalty.” He gave her a resounding smack that made her cry out. “Dishonesty,” Michael continued, administering another spank; “Deceitfulness... Be still!” he warned, for her squirming was annoying him. “I’m not through with you,” he told her, speaking sharply for the first time. “You’ve done some reprehensible things lately, haven’t you?”
“Yes,” she admitted, sobbing aloud and hiding her face.
“Did you think you could get off Scott free?”
“I didn’t think about it.”
“That’s your problem, you don’t think. But apparently you do feel.” And he proved this by applying an additional volley of hard smacks, so that she was kicking and sobbing aloud by the time he let her up.
“Tears of shame, young lady?”
“I’m contemptible!” she sobbed, burying her face in her hands.
“Stop that,” Michael said, pulling her hands away from her face and taking her in his arms.
“I hate myself!” she cried.
“But I like you,” he said, holding her tighter. “Now let’s find out if it’ll work.”
On Saturday morning William told Laura he’d be driving into Boston to visit his tailor and wouldn’t be back until late that night.
“Poor Damaris,” Laura said as her husband got into the convertible.
“Don’t start that again.”
“She was my friend...”
“Was is the operative word.”
“I’m sure she’s flat broke. If you throw her out of her place, where will she go? What will she do?”
“She’s lucky she’s not in jail. Laura - the girl stabbed me in the back.”
“I just can’t stand to think of her stranded.”
“She isn’t stranded. Michael Flagg has a crush on her. Didn’t you pick up on that when he was over last night?”
Laura blinked in surprise.
“I have a feeling,” William said, starting the engine, “that Damaris is going to be Flagg’s headache from now on.”
William drove off down the lane as Laura remembered Flagg telling them that he was going to let Damaris dry out at his place for a couple of days.
She resolved to go and see her there at once. She would bring some money and help her friend in any way she could. William would not have to know. She even knew where Michael Flagg lived, as Marguerite had shown her one day.
Laura rode her bike into the village. Michael lived in an Edwardian triple-decker, just a few blocks from Marguerite Alexander’s bookshop on Shadow Lane. She locked her bike outside and went straight up to the second floor flat. Damaris answered her knock. “Who’s there?”
“Laura.”
Still in Marguerite’s cashmere robe, Damaris opened the door.
“Come in. What are you doing here? Do you have any cigarettes?”
“No.”
“Damn.”
“Are you all right?”
“I’m okay.”
“I was just wondering.”
“Is that why you came by?”
“Actually, I brought you some cash. I figured you’d be pretty strapped.” Laura handed Damaris two hundred dollars in fifties. Damaris took it, in a daze, then shook her head and thrust the bills back into her friend’s hand.
“No. I couldn’t. But thanks. You’re really sweet. You can’t believe how sorry I am about everything.”
“How long will you be here?” Laura asked, walking about Flagg’s sitting room.
“Permanently, I hope,” Damaris confided.
“You like Michael Flagg?” Laura was once more surprised by the concept of Flagg and Damaris.
“Don’t you like tall, handsome men with big dicks?”
“How big is it?” Laura could not resist asking. Damaris framed seven and a half to eight inches between her hands.
“That big,” she said. “Just like homeboy.”
The next moment, Damaris reeled at her own indiscretion. Being straight was a dangerous thing. “Homeboy” was a nickname Damaris had for William and well did Laura know it.
“What?” Laura stared at her.
“I mean, just like I’m sure Homey must be.” Damaris amended hastily.
“You’re sure all right!” Laura charged, understanding now why William had shown a minimum of compassion for his secretary. “You’ve been with William!”
Damaris didn’t answer, but could not look Laura in the eye.
“You were sleeping with him and you still sold him out? That’s unforgivable!”
Damaris agreed and hung her head.
“Not that he didn’t have it coming,” Laura said. “The treacherous reptile!”
Tears pricked the backs of Laura’s eyes. William had been having an affair and she had never suspected it. When she thought of the way she had worshipped him, of the way he ran her life, she felt dizzy with mortification.
“Well, good-bye,” said Laura. “And thank you for opening my eyes.” Then she left. She noticed she was trembling when she got back on her bike.
Laura peddled slowly up to Marguerite Alexander’s bookshop. It was a blustery, overcast afternoon. A melancholy autumn afternoon, Laura thought. For her brand new husband had broken her heart. “So he was going to let me play with Hugo on Halloween! How extraordinarily generous of him!”
Laura stopped to unburden herself to Marguerite. Her russet-haired friend, who was unpacking a carton of shiny new volumes, was not inclined to take William’s office affair seriously. But Laura felt betrayed.
“And I’ve been the perfect submissive!” she protested to Marguerite.
“Wrong,” Marguerite corrected. “If you were the perfect submissive you wouldn’t question your dominant’s motives in taking a mistress.”
“Is that the way it works?”
“That’s the way it works.”
“Well, I don’t care.”
“Then you’re not the perfect submissive.”
“I’m William’s wife. That entitles me to feel jealous, wounded and furious off when I find out he’s cheating on me,” Laura maintained.
“If I were you, I’d bite the bullet,” Marguerite advised. “You’ve got everything you want and you’re a spoiled brat. You don’t even have to work.”
“I don’t mind working,” Laura said. “It was William who decided to keep me in his dollhouse.”
“You’re really upset, aren’t you? Don’t worry, you aren’t going to lose your hunk to that little minx,” Marguerite assured her.
“I know. She’s shacked up with your hunk now,” said Laura, and reported what she knew about the budding romance between Damaris and Michael Flagg. It was as though somebody had pulled the world out from under Marguerite. To lose her lover to a woman half her size, was grossly humiliating.
“I think I’ll take a short vacation,” said Marguerite, immediately putting the closed sign in the window. She had to get out of town.
“Where were you thinking of going?”
“New York.”
“I’ll go with you.”
“Really?”
“Why not?”
“You’re not afraid of William?”
“Not anymore.”
“You just think you’re not.”
“Just let me know when you’re ready to leave,” Laura said. “I’m definitely going to New York with you.”
When William returned from Boston late that evening, he found Laura in their bedroom packing a valise.
Upon ignoring William’s greeting, avoiding his embrace and pulling off her wedding band to cast it at his feet, Laura announced that she was going away.
“What does this mean?” he said, mystified, bending to pick up the ring.
“It means that I renounce my marriage vows,” she declared snapping shut her little suitcase.
William digested this for a moment. “Any particular reason? Or do you just feel like a change of pace?”
“Yes, there’s a particular reason,” Laura took a cherry red dress from her closet. “I hate you!”
William watched her hold the dress up to her slender body in the mirror.
“What happened between this morning and now?”
Laura went behind a lacquered screen.
“You’ve been fucking Damaris!” Laura charged with vehemence, exchanging her grey skirt and white cotton blouse for the red dress. There was such a long silence then that Laura thought William had gone from the room.
“That would be like him,” she fumed savagely, “Not to even give me the satisfaction of calling him a swine!”
But when Laura emerged from behind the screen in the clinging jersey, she saw that he was simply leaning against the mantelpiece, thinking. Finally he spoke. “What you said was true, but it’s over now and it never had anything to do with us.”
“Really!” Laura laughed. “You suave snake. You’ve humiliated me for the last time.”
Then she changed her shoes for higher heels.
“You’re over-reacting,” he told her. She had picked up her valise.
“Excuse me, I have to catch a ten o’clock train.”
“A train to where?” he moved out of her path, but followed her downstairs.
“New York.” She paused at the hall closet to remove her raincoat. “Good-bye!”
When the door slammed behind her William finally understood that their honeymoon was over.
A few minutes later, William sat at the kitchen table ruminating over a bowl of cereal, unable to decide whether to feel flattered or irritated by Laura’s jealousy. He looked up at the kitchen clock. It was already 9:30. Laura’s leaving town would interrupt his whole routine. It was bad enough he had to find a new secretary. Now this had to happen as well. William decided that he was irritated. Where did she get off, carrying on like Doris Day? He had a mind to give the spoiled brat a good thrashing, right on the station platform, before dragging her home.
Of course William did not for a moment seriously consider going after Laura. He had never chased after a woman before and wasn’t about to begin. Loss of dignity wasn’t the issue; he was just too busy. It would be nice to be able to go rushing off to New York whenever one felt like it, William reflected, a few minutes later, while lacing his running shoes. He himself had to work, and exercise. When he went for his run he could think without being distracted. The girl would either come back or she wouldn’t. He would wait and see.
Laura didn’t look for William at the station, though she did begin to miss him as she and Marguerite were boarding the train. However, she wasn’t allowed to brood on this for long, for Marguerite was pawing her with excitement.
“Laura - did you see who got on the train down the platform? Randy Price!”
“You know him?” Laura knew the name, but had never met the man.
“I should say so - although it’s been about 3 years since we played. Laura, Randy Price is a multi-millionaire. Let’s go and pick him up in the club car. What a stroke of luck. He’ll be mad about you. We’ll get him to pay for our trip to New York!”
