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 “Sorry.” I didn’t know what else to say. There was an awkward pause. It was filled in by the strains of a slow Sinatra coming over the stereo. “Would you like to dance?” I asked Joy.

 She accepted. You can tell a lot about a girl from the way she dances. That’s even true for a flub-foot like myself. A friend of mine claims that at the age of sixteen he discovered that the dance-dip was the tip-off to whether a girl would or wouldn’t. Twenty years later he claims it’s still a valid test. Maybe he’s sublimating; maybe he’s got his knee confused with a more erotic item of his anatomy; still, his premise does have a certain amount of worth.

 Joy danced comfortably close without attempting to lead the way some sensual women do when they dance. A tall girl -- almost five-ten in heels, I’d judge—-her cheek nestled comfortably against my shoulder. At six-four, I’m a long drink of water myself.

 “Did you play basketball?” she murmured in my ear.

 “Huh?” I’d been concentrating on the close warmth of her body and the question hit my ear as a non sequitur.

 “When you were younger? I mean, tall boys usually——”

 “Oh. No, I didn’t. Lousy coordination. My arms and legs kept getting all tangled up. Still do sometimes. I was a lousy athlete when I was a kid. I picked up some boxing and karate knowhow in the service, but before then I had very little physical confidence.”

 “You don’t seem to lack physical confidence,” Joy murmured, moving her hips so that the subtle pressure against me pinpointed the “confidence.”

 I exerted pressure back and we danced that way for the rest of the number and the next one. I was beginning to realize two things about Joy Boxx. First, she was more than a little drunk; second, she was a very passionate girl. Both facts were hidden under her demure, ladylike exterior, But both were betrayed by the frankness of the signals her body was transmitting.

 Those signals were making me forget the reason I’d come to the cast party. What with the emotional upset of the divorce and all, there hadn’t been too many women for me this past year. The hints of Joy’s willingness were blotting out my sense of duty as a secret agent.

 Somehow I knew that before this evening was over there would be a reckoning between us. What I didn’t know as we danced among the members of the Pine Glen Drama Group was that there would be a reckoning of another sort as well. There was no way for me to know that before the night was out one of these people would die a violent death.

 Who would be the victim? Soon I would know. How would death strike? Unexpectedly! In a manner both shocking and bizarre! Why would it happen? That was the question which would truly launch my counterspy career!

 There would be a lot more passion and a lot more violence before I found the answer.

 Chapter Two

 Violent death isn’t ordinarily Pine Glen’s cup of tea; illicit passion is its more usual pekoe. As swinging a crabgrass community as you’re likely to find on the South Shore of New York’s Long Island, its folk prefer sophisticated sex to mayhem and the atmosphere is more Noel Coward-ly than Hitchcock-esque. As a rule, Pine Glen is too civilized for either fidelity or homicide.

 Hot-eyed housewives abound. The local supermarket is the trysting-place for young-marrieds not married to each other. Bent over the deep-freeze, or hidden behind the canned peas, they work out the details for the midtown lunches in intime Manhattan bistros, the three-cocktail preludes to motel passion. The PTA meetings are electric with silently swapped remembrances of backseat hanky- panky. The smoking cars of commuter trains are filled with fuming cuckolds, the bar-cars crowded with cuckolders drowning their guilt. On the outskirts of Pine Glen is a tavern where the younger, childless wives go to be picked up while their husbands work overtime at convincing stenographers that theirs is a marriage in name only —little dreaming just how true it is.

 Yes, a swinging burg! And of all the swingers in Pine Glen, the Drama Group was the swingingest clique of all So rumor had it, anyway. Despite the fact that I’d lived in Pine Glen for five years, rumor was all I had to go by—- until now.

 The first four years I’d been too busy fighting with Marcy, my wife—my ex-wife, I mean -- to become involved in the community kanoodling. We’d both kept too active stoking the fires of each others’ hostilities to think about joining the drama group. Since the divorce I’d been occupied with all the details stemming from it. Far from joining in the life of Pine Glen, I’d been trying to get out of the town. I was frustrated by the fact that my one-time honeymoon split-level had turned out to be a white elephant I couldn’t unload. So, what with alimony and all, I was forced to go on living there. Being thirty and wife-less, it wasn’t the milieu I would have picked for myself if I’d had any choice.

 Still, as I was just beginning to appreciate, there was a lot of action available to a single man in the suburbs. The women at the cast party, for instance, had in common an aura of being sexy and available. Perhaps it was the culmination of twelve weeks hectic rehearsal for the show put on earlier that night that was now causing the drama group to let off more steam than a Turkish bath with busted valves. In any case, inhibitions were rapidly deteriorating in the Roundheels’ furnished cellar.

 Dancing with Joy Boxx made me very aware of this. When the dance was over, she turned to me. “I should be leaving now,” she said.

 “May I see you home?” I took the hint.

 “That would be very nice.”

 I followed her up to the bedroom where the guests’ coats had been stashed. They were piled impossibly high on the bed. We were alone in the room. Joy plowed through the pile, looking for her own. I moved to stand beside her and bent over the stack.

 Bending over did it. There was a scatter rug beside the bed and we were both on it. Now it shot out from under our feet and we sprawled atop the bed in a tangle with the mish-mosh of coats. Our arms and legs flailed for a moment. My left hand came to rest on her right breast. Clutching for support -- or was she?--her hand held mine tight against her.

 I wasn’t a member of the group as yet, but I picked up my cue quickly anyway. I kissed Joy. It was long-lasting, better than king-size, hot and unfiltered, deep and exploratory with lips, teeth, and tongue all active. By the time it was over I’d opened the zipper at the side of her dress and slid my hand under her bra. There was much more there than the demure dress had led me to expect. The flesh was warm and quivering, the nipple growing hard under my touch.

 “The light!” Joy gasped.

 I removed my hand, went over to the wall, and flipped the switch. The room was plunged into darkness. I closed the door, felt my way back to the bed and groped among the coats. “Joy? Where are you?”

 A muffled giggle.

 “Okay. So we’ll pay hide-and-seek.” I burrowed under the coats. Finally I encountered a pelt that felt more fleshy than furry. “Whaddaya know,” I remarked. “I was beginning to think I’d have to settle for mouton.”

 “Responsive mouton,” Joy murmured.

 I found her nose, traced it down to her lips and kissed her. The zipper was still open. Her skirt was pushed up over her hips. My hand slid over the silk of her panties. She sighed and bit my ear. Her fingers started to toy with the belt to my pants.

 “I’ve had too much to drink,” she confessed. “This is indiscreet. And me a minister’s wife. It would be better to wait, to let you take me home. But I don’t want to wait,” she gasped. Her grasping hand turned into an eager, pulsating fist. “And you don’t either. I can tell that.”

 I confirmed it by pulling her panties down to her ankles. Her derriére was smooth and tight as I clutched it. Joy was bouncing eagerly now and the bed rocked beneath us. We were buried under the pile of coats. She burrowed deeper under them in order to arch her legs. “Ahh, hurry!” she urged. “Please hurry.”