"My poor boy!" Mrs. Ogilvie dissolved in tears.
Her "poor boy," at the moment, was incapable of responding to the mother's grief in her voice for the simple reason that he couldn't hear it. And the reason that he couldn't hear it was the flesh of Llona's thighs was shutting out all sound from his eardrums. Indeed, as his avid mouth searched higher and higher, the pressure on his ears increased and his head began to feel like an acorn caught in a nutcracker. Nevertheless, his aroused passion proved far stronger than his discomfort.
His hands clawed at Llona's plump buttocks now for support. On his knees, his back arched and his neck stretching, he held her nether-lips in a prolonged, exquisite kiss. Llona moaned, and her nails raked the back of his neck through the material of her skirt as she squatted lower and lower to receive the full benefit of the unorthodox-but highly pleasurable-osculation.
Ogilvie attempted to pull away, suddenly threatened with imminent suffocation. But Llona only held him tighter, more insistently, her hips writhing like twin egg-beaters as the tunnel of her passion seemed bent on enveloping him. Finally his superior strength prevailed. He yanked his head free from between her thighs. But immediately his panic vanished and his desire reasserted itself. He pulled her ankles out from under her, catching her so that her body made no sound as it settled to the floor. He pushed her skirt up over her still undulating hips and likewise raised the tail of the hospital garment he was wearing. Then he sprawled over her and lunged.
Too hard! His ankle caught on one of the shelves even as Llona's urgently whispered cry of "Archer! Archer!" tickled his ear. There was a loud crash as the shelf collapsed, and a collection of vials and bottles poured over them in an antiseptic-smelling avalanche. An instant later the closet door was flung open, and light flooded over the scene.
Four faces peered down at them. None of the four was capable of speech. Nor was Archibald Ogilvie. He was still half-dazed by the alcohol bottle which had ricocheted off his cranium. And the other half of him was lost in the passion evidenced by the outrageously swollen manhood poised at the gates to Llona's oscillating aperture. Also, the sudden light shining in his eyes blinded him.
But not Llona. She wasn't blinded. And she was the first to speak. Her voice broke the silence as her eyes fo-cussed on Archibald Ogilvie for the first time.
"You're not Archer," she said disappointedly. "You're not my Archer!"
Once again her quest had proven in vain.
Chapter Eight
"That woman is taking advantage of my son!" Mrs. Ogilvie's voice rose shrilly.
"It looks like the other way around to me," the doctor observed mildly.
"You're not Archer," Llona continued to moan.
"Sorry about that," Sammy Spayed apologized.
"Too skinny!" Hannah pronounced judgment.
"What hit me?" Ogilvie wondered.
."Don't be ridiculous," Mrs. Ogilvie insisted to the doctor. "Of course it's not the other way around. You know that my son has an aversion to the female of the species."
"That's a mightly large aversion," the doctor observed.
"Nonsense! He's simply over-excited. You know very well, much as it grieves me to say it, that my Archibald is as fruity as an apple orchard. He's a homosexual." The last sentence was delivered not without a trace of satisfaction.
"His position is pretty damned heterosexual," the doctor pointed out.
"Sheer coincidence." Mrs. Ogilvie dismissed it.
"Unfortunately, coincidences like that can get a fellow drafted," the doctor remarked.
"What do you mean? He's exempt. For psychological medical reasons."
"He's exempt because I attested to his homosexuality," the doctor reminded her. "But after this, in good faith, I can't persist in that diagnosis." "You mean you'll let Archibald be drafted," Mrs. Ogilvie wailed.
"I have no choice. The Hippocratic Oath and all that."
"I always knew you were a hypocrite!" Mrs. Ogilvie snapped spitefully.
"I have no choice. He'll have to serve his country like every other young man."
"Oh, goodie!" Archibald Ogilvie regained his senses and realized what was happening. "At last I can wear the green beret."
"There! Doesn't that sound pretty sissyish?" his mother suggested. "A green beret! That's not very manly. It certainly sounds to me like something they'd wear on the wrong side of the Village."
"Communist traitor!" Archibald hissed at her.
"Archie! I'm your mother!"
"Fetishes of garb are no proof of effeminacy," the doctor said firmly.
"At last," Archibald said. "I can give my life for my country."
"You see," his mother appealed to the doctor. "The death wish! Now, you can't tell me that's normal."
"These days it is," the doctor sighed.
"If we're not needed any more," Sammy Spayed suggested, edging toward the door with Llona in tow, "then I guess we might as well be leaving."
"Who is that woman?" The thought occurred to the doctor for the first time as his mind focussed on Llona. "What is she doing here?"
"My assistant." Sammy thought fast and spoke glibly. "Staked her out here to trap your escaped patient. It worked, too. I'll send you a bill." And before the doctor could reply, he and Llona were out the door and gone.
Sammy apologized to Llona again on the drive back to Birchville. "I thought sure he was the man you were looking for," he said. "Everything fit."
"Well, he wasn't."
"Gee, the only other lead I had that looked likely was this cousin of these Valentines. But you said you were sure it wasn't him."
"The way Olivia Valentine described him, it couldn't be."
"How did she describe him?" Sammy asked.
"Short and fat and with a hooked nose."
"Well, that sure doesn't fit the description you gave me," Sammy admitted.
Still, the inconsistency left a glimmering of doubt in Sammy's mind. The next day, on his own, he decided to check it out. That evening, he called Llona, and his voice was triumphant.
"Arch D. Phelps, cousin of Mortimer Valentine," he told her, "is not short and fat and does not have a hooked nose."
"He isn't? Then what does he look like?"
"He is a young, well-set-up fellow, and I imagine most women would consider him attractive and perhaps handsome."
"But why would Olivia Valentine have lied to me?" Llona was bewildered.
"I couldn't say. But she did lie. And all the other facts fit."
"Do you have his phone number?" Llona's heart was once again pounding with hope.
"Yes." Sammy gave it to her. "Good luck. I'll send you my bill." He hung up.
Fingers trembling, Llona immediately dialed the number Sammy had given her. A man answered.
"Hello. Is this Arch D. Phelps?" Llona couldn't help the way her voice shook.
"Yes. Who's this?"
"Well, you don't know me. Or maybe you do. I'm not sure. I'm a friend of your cousin Mortimer's wife Olivia."
The phone clicked in Llona's ear. It took her a moment to realize that he had hung up on her. When she had realized it, Llona still couldn't understand why he'd done it. She dialed again. The phone rang several times, but there was no answer. Not knowing what else to do, Llona dialed Olivia Valentine's number.
"Hello?" Olivia answered the phone.
"Hello, Olivia. This is Llona Rutherford."
"Oh. Hello, Llona. How are you?"
"Just fine. The reason I called, Olivia, is that I just called Arch Phelps, you know, your husband's cousin, and when I said I was a friend of yours, he hung up on me."
There was a long silence. "He did," Olivia said finally, her voice carefully noncommittal.
"Yes. He did. Do you have any idea why he'd do a thing like that?"
"No," Olivia lied.
Something in Olivia's voice made Llona realize that she was being evasive. That, coupled with her knowledge that Olivia had given a false description of her husband's cousin, made Llona suspect more than ever that she was on the track of the right Archer. If that was so, it raised a great many questions.