When Leslie was twelve, James was thinking as he sat in his new office on Madison Avenue in one of New York's tallest skyscrapers, the two of them had a bitter argument one Saturday evening. Leslie had been gone all day and wasn't expected home until midnight. She was with one of the neighbors whom the Groten's trusted.
"Well, James, how do you feel?" No tenderness.
"Fine, I guess. You?"
"Like a little fucking."
She said this with the same tone she would use to tell him she could eat some cheese and crackers if he would get up and go into the kitchen and prepare the platter.
"I don't feel like it now, honey," he had answered.
"James!"
"Yes?" He looked up from the book he was reading. He had a lengthy report to prepare in the morning and this was required reading.
"You didn't fuck me all week, you know."
He knew.
"And, James, my period's due in a day or so, and I'd like it before then. You never take me when I'm bleeding anyway, so you'll have your usual five days of rest."
He hated the mechanics of it all.
"James…"
He didn't look up this time. She scowled at him. She left the room and entered their bedroom. He heard her undressing, then showering, then dressing. She went out the front door briskly, slamming it and shattering the deep silence of the suburban night.
When Leslie was dropped off safe and sound from her all day outing at exactly midnight, Suzanne had still to come home. It was seven in the morning when she finally marched in.
James had waited for her all night and he'd drunk himself into a delirium of hate, self-torture, self-pity, jealousy and finally, a rage he found difficult to control. When she came in, she brushed by him haughtily.
"Late for work, James?" He hated her when she was snotty.
He finished his coffee and left the apartment. He drove to the station, grabbed the commuter train and instead of going into the city, got off on a way stop. Here he found a tavern open early in the morning. He sat for hours drinking, then he took the train back home.
"Half-day today, James?"
She struggled as he slapped her. His hand rained blows on her face. He had never struck her before. He finally sat down and said he was sorry, but she flew at him with foul words and accusations. Then she spelled out her numerous infidelities, torturing and hurting him.
From that day on until he flew with Leslie, they slept in separate beds and had as little to do with each other as necessary. The friction in the home was intense.
James Groten sighed now as he recalled the last days living with his wife. He was certain now that his love for her had been blown to bits and pieces, mostly by her admittedly hostile tirades and her open, blatant infidelity. It was tune to begin a new life!
He liked New York. There was a bustling excitement, people hurried differently, dressed more expensively. The chic young women in his office were twenty times more attractive and sexy than those back in Chicago – and much younger, he noted.
After the first few days in his new office, which he found quite to his taste – although the costly decor and the furniture astonished him – he had made several new friends among the staff. This included one Alice Duerr, a higher-echelon statistician. He guessed her age to be about twenty-nine, but she looked more like twenty-two.
Alice wore her hair down to her shoulders. She wore hot pants in the office. Her legs were long and lovely. Her breasts were magnificent. Large and unbrassiered, her gorgeous globes bounced and jiggled when she walked. Her nipples seemed to be always erect and often James found himself staring absently at them. Several times her glance met his and they both smiled, she sensing his appreciation and he expressing it, almost unconsciously running his tongue over his lips to moisten the dryness.
But his first real encounter with Alice Duerr was to happen his first Friday there. It was payday and as usual the staff took extra-long lunches. He met Miss Duerr in the bank line where he was waiting to deposit his check in his newly opened account.
"How do you like our little town, Mr. Groten?" she asked gaily. She was in line in front of him. He had been admiring her before he recognized her… Today she was wearing an expensive white satin blouse. It was tight across her massive breasts and emphasized every delicious curve. Her nipples were highlighted each time she'd move, the hardened buds pointing out lasciviously.
"Still getting used to it," he replied. They talked about generalities for a while, then before she stepped in front of the teller, she smiled at him.
"I want to invite you for a drink when you've finished."
"I'll be delighted," he answered. They agreed to meet at the bank's exit.
Finished with his business, James Groten smiled to himself contentedly. Financially, he was much better off than he'd been back in Chicago. He began to realize how expensive Suzanne was. Before, he'd never given it a thought!
He met Miss Duerr at the corner. "Sorry. Took me longer than I'd thought," he smiled at her. She put his arm in hers and started up the street.
"Where are we going, Miss Duerr?"
"Call me Alice, please. You can, call me Miss Duerr in the office, if you wish."
They passed several bars and James was mystified as to why they didn't enter one of them. After all, they didn't have that much free time on the expanded lunch hour.
"We're going to the company apartment," Alice said, as if in answer to his question. "The company rents a very nice pad up the street here for visiting clients and the VIP's when they stay over for one business reason or another," she laughed. "I kind of manage it. One of my extra duties," she explained.
He could feel the sloping curve of her breast bouncing gently against the side of his arm as she held onto him crossing the avenue. Soon they approached a lavish hi-rise apartment building.
"I found this place, and it's lovely. Company furnished it. I picked the stuff out. Always wanted to be an interior decorator and never a mathematician, but it turned out I was best at adding and subtracting."
"But not multiplying?" he joked.
She laughed. "No. No, I'm childless, even husbandless – now, that is. Divorced a whole year now."
The apartment was just as she described. Lavish! Many rooms and all beautifully furnished and decorated, a testimony to Alice Duerr's exquisite taste.
"We keep the booze under lock and key," she said. "All the execs have their own keys, and they must tell my secretary whenever a bottle's about used up." She nodded to Scotch and James smiled. She poured two and then held the glass under the ice cube maker inside the fridge and four cubes slipped into the glasses. Rather neat!
They sat on the couch together. Today Alice wasn't wearing her scandalous hot pants. Instead she wore a two-piece tight sheath dress which clung to her body, the satin blouse outlining every curve of her breasts, the skirt clinging to her luscious hips and especially to her full, rounded buttocks. He could see no outline of panties on her buttocks and this meant only one thing – no panties. He was altogether too conscious of the fact that under the shimmering satin blouse he'd first admired in the bank line, there was no brassiere. Now sitting close to her, half facing her, his eyes slid silently over her voluptuous form, pausing now and then to linger on her magnificent mounds, concentrating perhaps on her jutting nipples or merely sweeping over her entire, relaxed frame.
"It's such a relief to take a breather in here," she said softly, stretching her seductive body. James thrilled to the sight of her full ripe breasts pushing against the satiny material. "I come here often, James, just to be alone. Sometimes," she said, sitting up and bending over, James imagining what her large breasts looked like hanging down, "I come here alone. I take off my heels or my shoes. Sometimes I even strip all the way down. I make a couple of drinks for myself. Think about forbidden things. Then, after I've come to, I dress and return to the office." She smiled up at him. She'd removed her high heels. "I guess you find it mystifying why I tell you all this, huh?"