His voice became a snarl. "You better get your ass down here."
The receiver clicked. He knew something! Kit immediately thought of Myra. Had she phoned Harry?
Fortunately her boss had gone to lunch. She hurried out to Barney's and found Harry sitting in a booth drinking beer. He was a lean, blondish man, a larger version of Sonny, looking a bit jowly, she thought, but still attractive, and prosperous, to judge from his clothing.
Except for the anger in his eyes, he seemed utterly bland, merely the shell of the man she had once loved. She felt absolutely nothing for him.
But her belly quaked with fear.
He said stiffly, "You were always a whore, Kit. But not perverted, at least not that I knew of."
"Harry, you're being a bore." Her voice sounded feeble, she thought.
"Divorce law is such that I have a right to intervene in matters that affect Sonny."
Myra must have called him. But there was another possibility. He was an insurance adjuster and often worked with private detectives in investigating fires, thefts, and the like. Could he have someone spying on her?
She said, "You might tell me what I'm guilty of, Harry."
His eyes narrowed. He poured the last of his beer, gulped it down, and rose.
"I was going to have lunch here but you turn my stomach, you and your sluttish look, like a whorehouse blowjob expert. No, I won't tell you what part of your filthy sex life to cover up. You'll learn that in court if it comes to that."
With this threat, he strode out of the place.
Kit sat with tears streaming down her face.
She needed help, needed it desperately.
Lily found the greenhouse work proceeding rapidly. Sonny worked, so well with her that it was like having four hands.
And he had such lovely brown eyes!
It was a hot day and her undies kept her breasts and crotch steamy. Not the sweet steaminess of sex but hasty, wet, itchy. She tugged her bra, trying to let some air in. Sonny saw the movement. That infuriated her. But she could not go indoors and get rid of the undies. She had to spite him.
Thus she suffered until they finished. Then she thanked him grudgingly and went indoors and got out of her mucky clothes and into the shower.
It restored her spirits. Coolly naked, she hustled about the kitchen preparing Daddy's supper, something he loved, pot roast and potato salad. While boiling potatoes she fingered her Nat. It was soft and damp, her hole quite open. It should be, after the reaming it had taken from Daddy's big cock yesterday.
It was a tiny bit sore but she hoped to have a cuntful within five minutes of his arrival home from his hated work as an accountant.
She planned to greet him like a wife. What to wear? She would absolutely not be in t-shirt and denim skirt. She riffled through the dresses in her closet, chose a featherweight print, a faint amber design on ivory. Trying it on she liked the way it hugged her breasts but the skirt was too long. She got out her sewing kit and went to work, snipping off six inches, basting, modeling it, cutting again. When it was finally sewed and pressed the skirt hem was a half-inch below her crotch. Her cunt hair would show if they were dry and fluffy but not if flattened by cunt juice.
She felt sure the hair would be plastered tightly to her lips.
When she heard her father drive up, Lily hurried to the front door, stood smoothing her skirt on her hips, tugging it down just a little. Her heart was pounding. She heard him run up the steps. Peering through the curtain she saw his grin. Her lover! As always he wore a jacket and tie that looked out of place. He made dressy clothes seem overstuffed. His chest and neck were simply too big, She opened the door and drew back to the wall, gazing at him, blushing, suddenly tongue-tied, aware that a full day had separated them since dawn when he had pumped his load of jism into her cunt.
He handed her a flat box wrapped in tissue.
"A little gift," he said, not quite meeting her gaze.
She took it and tore it open. A nightie, a featherweight thing like a white mist. Swallowing down her pleasure, she crushed it to her bosom.
"Don't you like it?" he asked.
She choked, "I'd rather have a kiss, Daddy."
He bent down and pecked her cheek. Alarmed, she let the nightie fall, seized his lapels and clung.
"Daddy, I mean a real kiss."
"Honey, listen. I've been thinking. I wonder if we shouldn't ease up. Think things over. I love you too much-you see, honey-"
Without finishing, he thrust from her, strode toward the bedrooms.
Tears streamed down her cheeks. It had ended. He had not even looked at her crotch-length dress. She picked up the nightie and sat in the chair by the phone in the hall, sniffling.
Shortly he emerged from his room wearing only a pair of shorts, barefoot.
He said, "I'll work in the greenhouse until supper."
"No!" she cried.
He paused, biting his lip. He was looking at her dress. Rather, looking at her exposed twat, for the dress had pulled up when she sat. She saw a darkness in his eyes. He rubbed the back of his hand across his mouth.
Was he changing his mind?
Then she heard a voice at the kitchen door.
It was Kit, calling, "Bill, could I speak to you for a moment?"
He turned and strode toward her. Lily sprang up, reaching out toward him but he kept on going to the sound of Kit's voice.
Kit was trembling all over. She guessed she looked haggard. She felt it. She stood on the steps from the greenhouse to the kitchen door and saw Bill appear, a hulking, hairy-chested man in blue denim work shorts.
She gasped, "Bill. Do me a favor? A big one?"
He opened the screen door. He was grinning at her. "Hell, Kit, you can have anything except my right arm. I need it. Come on in. We'll pop a beer."
"Bill, I've mixed cocktails. I want you to come over and have a drink with me. That's the favor."
"I must say, you're demanding an awful lot." He grinned, turned back and called, "Lily, I'm going over to Kit's for a minute."
Kit led him out of the greenhouse.
In her kitchen she took the tray of dry martinis she had already poured, handed it to Bill, and went into the living room, where Sonny was watching the afternoon ball game on TV.
She said, "Darling, I want to talk to Bill. Would you please go help Lily make supper, or watch her TV-"
Sonny looked surprised but obeyed without a word. When she heard the kitchen door snap shut she took her drink from the tray Bill had set on the coffee table. They tinkled their glasses together and far a moment she met his eyes over the urns of their glasses, gray eyes with a twinkle in them, handsome eyes in a squarish brown face, a good, clean, honest face.
She said, "I've been a terrible fool, Bill."
"Welcome to the club." He settled back against the cushions.
"Bill, I despise myself."
He scanned her. "I don't see anything to despise, just the prettiest woman in town.
"Do you know why I'm divorced? I mean, why my husband insisted on it?"
"Sure. Because you had too much spirit, too much independence for his liking. You wanted to pay your own way, which you do now, but he wanted to keep you in your kitchen."
She smiled. "You're good at telling me what I want to hear."
"I'll tell you something you don't want to hear. Your martinis are too small."
Impulsively she bent over him and kissed his forehead.
He looked up, surprised.
"Thanks, Bill," she said. She could not explain how he had, with a few words, lifted her spirits. He liked her. She knew he did, liked her as a person, respected her. That was what counted. Dropping down on the couch beside him, she said, "You'd make my day if we could extend the favor a little. Stay to supper?"
"Lily has ours ready."
"Let the kids eat it. You and I-please, Bill? r need time to tell you things."