"What the hell! Forget Sara! She's got nothing to do with this… with you and me! Look, can you make it tonight…?"
Before he could, finish or she answer, Jay's harsh voice came to them! "Hey! What're you doing back there, remaking that shoe, you guys? Come out and take a look at these boots, doll!"
"How about it? Tonight?" Stan Wilson pressed in an urgent whisper.
"N-No… I can't, tonight! Besides… we have to think of your wife, and… and my husband… at least, a little bit!" Beth defensively answered hardly knowing what she meant by her words.
"Think of them…? Christ, girl, what's with you, anyway?"
"Ooohhh… I-I shouldn't have let you…"
"The hell with that shit! W-What are you, anyway… a Goddamn cocktease?" he spat at her. "You come tripping in here with your husband, practically nothing on beneath that frigging skirt, show me your cunt like you're waving a flag, then suddenly give me that old 'your beautiful wife' routine! What the hell's with you, Mrs. Durke? You have problems in bed with that talented artist out there, or something…?"
The venom in his cutting words burned into the young blonde wife like eating acid, and she backed away from him with tears brimming up into her big, round eyes! God, what'd happened? It had all been flowing so beautifully! Just the way she'd envisioned it! Ooohhh… she'd truly blown it… blown it! And now, what…?
She dropped her head and he said: "Damnit, look, honey, I'm sorry! I didn't mean it… honest! You're just too much, is all…"
"Hey! You characters coming out here, or should I go out for coffee, maybe?" Jay's voice reached her, a tone of up-tightness barbing it.
Beth moved forward, quickly picking up and slipping on the new sandal. She daintily wiped at her eyes as Stan said: "Look, I'm sorry! Please…? Tonight. We can straighten all of this nonsense out, Beth! I promise…!"
The voluptuous, long-haired blonde wife didn't look at him. She knew if she did she'd probably meet him in an alley if that's what he wanted! God, she'd never been any hotter, or closer to spreading her legs, in her life! Instead, she said: "No… I can't, Stan. Let's just think about it. Maybe… maybe, we both made a mistake…!"
"Shit! Listen… wait a second, baby! Oh Christ…!" Beth heard him choke behind her as she brushed the curtain to one side and walked out into the front of his store, every inch of her alive with sensual excitement.
"There, it's all right now, Jay darling! Mr. Wilson fixed it beautifully!"
"Aawww, come on, baby… not Mr. Wilson," her cigar-chewing husband reminded. "Stan… remember? We're neighbors, eh? And… how do you like these boots on me…?"
CHAPTER THREE
Beth Ann Durke couldn't be any less conscious of the male eyes appraising her enhanced young curves as she, accompanied by her outlandishly dressed husband, treaded the familiar sidewalks of the Edgemont Heights shopping center. His whispering dispatches that this "punk" and that "bastard" had just undressed her, dribbled off the voluptuous blonde wife like water off the proverbial duck's back. She had just over-played her starring role, then upstaged her own self in the manner of a Miss Do-Good from a B movie! In short, she'd absolutely muffed it… needling him with Sara, then slipping into the offended other-woman part before she'd even been cast!
God, how stupid could one get? Pretty bad, she inwardly seethed, sick at the thought of having him, that gorgeous hunk of man, right in her eagerly yearning, little hands, then frittering away her hold through girlish ridiculousness. Damn, she'd never intended they be any more than lovers, an affair, an experience! "When Beth? Tonight? Can you get out…?" he'd panted, his breathing a masculine, lusty blowtorch against her face. "Whoa, darling… not so fast…!" she'd childishly answered… and God, why, she'd never, never know…!
"You dig the boots, baby?" Jay's raucous voice interrupted.
"I-I guess so."
"Wilson was wearin' a pair of suede jobs, but they're Goddamned sweet for me. Fruit boots, you know," he said, his ludicrous inference not even meriting a reply from her. "You know, he seems to be an all right guy? We'll have to get better acquainted with 'em… like that Vickie Davis next door to us. I see her and Sara talking a lot, and she just walks right into the Wilson's as if she owned the place."
"Does she? I never noticed," Beth replied, preoccupied and barely with their conversation.
"Sure… she and that German Shepherd dog of hers… What's its name?"
"Lancer."
"Yeah, Lancer." He wagged his bearded-faced head as he lumbered along beside her. "Beautiful dog, but town's no place for an animal like that. Should be on a ranch or farm where it can get out and run… exercise, you know?"
"I suppose," she idly answered.
"But, I guess she keeps him for protection, living alone and all. That's a funny thing, too, a model like her with no male around, at least, once in awhile. You think maybe she's lez, doll?"
"Frankly, I never thought about it."
"Well I have," he said with a snigger, holding onto his young wife's arm in true claiming fashion. "Something's smelly there… all by herself… just her dog… You get it, baby? Just her and that Goddamned brute of an animal…?"
"You've got a dirty mind, Jay Durke," Beth retaliated, not trying to hide her disgust. God, why didn't he just go off somewhere so she could brood in peace?
"Yeah, a dirty old gold-mine!" he punned, nudging at her ribs with his hand holding onto her arm. "How'd you like that one, doll?"
She said nothing, not even daring to look in his direction for fear she would blow her top right there on the street. Then, thanks be to the powers, he stopped in front of the barber shop and said: "This is as far as I go with you, baby? Going to get handsome for you. Where you off to now?"
"The supermarket," she answered, elated that he was about to unhand and separate from her for a few hours.
"Okay. You take the Caddy home. I'll walk. It's only ten minutes and I need the exercise… sitting at that desk all day."
"You could take a cab…"
"No, I'll walk. It won't hurt me," he said, grinning and leaning toward her for a kiss.
Beth did, knowing that she was doing untold things for his ego right in front of his favorite bragging grounds. But it was the last lewd pat on her buttocks right there on the street that set the readied rancor to bubbling inside her! Damn! What a slob he could be…
"See you, babe."
"Bye!" she snapped, whipping away, her mind becoming an immediate well of Stan Wilson, and thankfully so.
Even as she shopped, she could concentrate on little else but her handsome neighbor and the way she had stupidly bungled the whole thing. Of course, she could have gotten out tonight, or any other night! Jay never questioned her in that respect, whatever story she came up with, and most times it was just to get a break away from him and take in a movie, or a quiet relieving walk. Damn… was it too late? She could go back alone now, eat a little crow and set it up for tonight! God knows, she was still that sensually excited… but no! No, she wasn't about to eat crow for any man! If… if only she could cool down a little! She was actually wet, wet between her legs, and no one but Stan Wilson had done that! But damnit, she wasn't about to eat crow for him! Never…!
Oh, where were the damned pickles…?
The sexually flustered young wife's entire grocery shopping excursion was marred by similar incidents. She couldn't concentrate, and finally in dismay, had called a halt, knowing she'd forgotten half the items on the list she'd made out and left on the kitchen table.
At one point, while retrieving a box of soap powder from a lower shelf, she had half-glanced behind her to see an older man pushing a cart full of groceries pause to observe the spectacle she was thoughtlessly offering him in her bent-over position. Though she had immediately straightened and turned to glare at him, his elderly, lecherous smirk as he pushed on only seemed to add unneeded fuel to the already glowing bed of coals smoldering in the hot, fluid hearth of her body. The male clerks, the homely, balding assistant manager, even the young carry-out boy, Jerry Adams, who lived in their block on Tasmen Drive, all were doing their unintentional share in provoking her private passion.