Oddly enough, the innocence had never seemed phony and that had always been something of a deterrent to Vera's hopes. But now that the old hope had been fulfilled, she could be less queasy in her quest for the new one. She had kicked off her last shackles of moral restraint and was no longer dubious about her role as the seducer and corrupter of all that innocent femininity. The role had become necessary to her future well-being and wasn't necessity the mother of invention? In this dog-eat-dog world, she had to rise to the occasion and be strong and clever, reaching out to grasp every possible opportunity.
Ho-hum, the money again. The pot of gold. Which was only leading her back to the moans and groans of her worrisome plight. Couldn't she find something more cheerful to think about? Like the beginning of their affair, for instance, a time when the immediate money issue hadn't yet reared its ugly head. All rainbow, no pot. Mmm, yes, and such perfect timing! just when her own expanded fling with her maid Solange had gotten a bit cloying, physically cloying. Anyway, she had sure been ready for it, ready to tangle at last with the obviously virtuous young divorcee whose very presence had tantalized her from afar. Ready to turn a chance meeting in town into an unprecedented invitation oh-so-cunningly cadged! to come and visit one evening soon…
A lovely night, that was. A lovely night and a lovely lady to woo. Hardly more than a girl. All love, love, love! Not that Vera wasn't also impressed by the sheer wealth of the place. But that only made love all the easier, creating an atmosphere conducive to sophisticated romance. Even the wine they drank had been brought up from a private winecellar. Delicious, apparently potent. Just right to break down the barriers and she pretty much took charge of it after the first few sips, handling the bottle quite unobtrusively while managing to keep both glasses replenished. It was bound to help. If help was needed. Things were going so swimmingly! She could even recognize a certain awe in the girl's attitude, doubtless engendered by a respectful curiosity about an older and more worldly woman's career as a model and sometime professional actress.
It was simple to steer the conversation into the area of true confessions, gaining a little unexpected insight from the story of the marriage gone sour. The charming young beau had quickly developed into a brutal husband, it seemed. Brutal in bed. Overly handsome, he must have tried to compensate with an overdone attempt to prove his own idea of what masculinity entailed. Or perhaps it was in unwitting resentment of his wife's inherited wealth, a matter of millions. In any case, the marriage bed became a place of torture, a ritual of nightly rape that lacerated Alison's body and all but destroyed her mind. Luckily she had extricated herself in time, suing for divorce and struggling back to sanity in her new-found freedom. But it had left its traumatic scars, naturally, one an emotional reaction that struck even as she told the story, a mild but noticeable slump into despondency. Related, no doubt, to her rueful attitude toward men.
Vera made an effort to snap her out of it. "Well, at least you've got your own name back. And this great big house to knock around in, hmm? And since there's never any worry about money… "
"Pooh! Money. What good is money when there's nobody to enjoy it with? And this house. It's so huge. That's all I do, just knock around in it. I've only got those two old servants, the old family retainers, and I'll probably have to pension them off soon."
That was when the germ was first implanted in Vera's mind. She didn't do much thinking about it then. Just enough to perceive an abruptly added significance to this venture, a venture in more ways than one now. Too important to bungle, she recognized vaguely but with undiminishing conviction. And that called for a slower style of seduction, slow but sure, minimizing the risk of failure. An experienced seductress would test each step in advance, avoiding the painful but not impossible setback of a negative response. And who had more such experience than herself?
"Oh, listen." She cocked an ear toward the nearest sound system speaker. "I just love that tune. It's an oldie. Reminds me of my lost youth. Schooldays, you know? We used to dance to it, real romantic dancing, in a kind of swoony embrace, holding on to each other and maybe sneaking a feel in the dark corners. Or wondering why the bashful boy hadn't tried. But that was before the sexual revolution, of course, before it became so easy to get laid. Dancing represented an opportunity then, sometimes the only scandal-free opportunity to get chummy. The whole idea was sexy. Not like today, with the music so loud and two solo dancers in every couple."
"Hmm. And I thought today's dances were supposed to be pretty hot stuff. All those bumps and grinds… "
"Sure, but where's the contact? The bodies don't touch any more. Just working up a sweat for later, I guess. Hey, you know something? That song. It was sexy even without boys around. Sexy to dance to, I mean. Like at an all-girl party, a slumber party where the boys could only be talked about and imitated, when someone felt like dancing. It always got a little sexy, somehow."
"Just girls? Two girls dancing together?"
"You never did that?" Vera rose, setting her drink down and then extending her hand. "Shall we, my dear?"
"I I'll try… " Hesitant but game, Alison stood up. "But don't expect too much, the fruggy stuff is more my style. And I haven't done any of that lately, not since the divorce. The last time I danced was ages ago."
"Don't let it bother you. Just sway to the rhythm and follow my lead. Like this. It's even relaxing after a while. See?"
"Uh-huh. This is fun."
They were still pretty awkward together, but the inspired girl soon shed her initial clumsiness and gained confidence. She murmured it again, funnn, a delighted little gurgle in her throat. Affected by the wine, probably, letting the gurgle grow to a shrill giggle as she got real daring and lunged for the light switch when their flowing dance movement covered the distance to the far wall. A somewhat gingerly lunge. But effective nonetheless, ending in a twist of the dimmer knob that controlled the entire chandelier, every hot-eyed bulb in that great overhead garland of crystal. And the normally spacious living room turned abnormally cozy, bathed in an erotic glow all of a sudden, caressed by those now-tiny twinkling stars above, now only bravely reminiscent of that glaring crystal monstrosity. Or bright work of art. Or whatever. The big chandelier, however spectacular, was still at the mercy of one small and unassuming switch, a rheostat and one small twist of the wrist: now you see it, now you don't. A change in historical perspective, just like that, an instant shift from the baroque to the romantic. Vera found it all too thrilling, this suddenly conducive atmosphere. There was even some hint of mystery now, a feeling of shivery togetherness in their unspoken pact against the dark night-creatures blending with the darkness, the vampires and werewolves lurking in thick shadow just outside the glow, the periphery of safety. Mildly entranced, she simply let the conversation die and then had to flounder around to pick up the threads and start it again.
"Yeah. It's fun, isn't it? You're right about that." Not much of a thread to work with. Then again, maybe not so bad. "It would be even more fun with a man, though. Not a real man, if you're still a little uptight about that. A gigolo, let's say. Just a perfect dancing partner, otherwise a blank. Tell you what, honey, just shut your eyes and pretend, huh? And as long as we're pretending, I'd better play my part and hold you closer."
The dainty blonde divorcee succumbed with a sigh as Vera renewed her embrace and added a subtle tightening. Her ears caught the sound of a faint second sigh, different this time, a sigh of pleasure untainted by passive resignation. She accepted that as a personal commendation, a tribute to her slowly evolving artistry. It did feel nice, this let's-pretend dance, only there was no pretense about the way their softness seemed to mesh and merge from breast to belly to thigh, a fusion of sweetly fitted parts.