"Oh Howie," she blurted out unable to hold it back longer. "I opened that envelope you brought home last night, the one from Ralph. That's why I was so upset tonight, because I opened it and I saw those terrible pictures, and I… I was excited by them. I was, Howie, and that's the reason I was so upset. Howie, I actually got turned on looking at those dirty pictures!"
She flung herself against his chest, and Howard held her tightly to him. He could scarcely conceal his elation. So she had seen them, just as he had expected — and, as he had hoped, been aroused by them! Good, good; now he had to proceed carefully, carefully, lest he cause more shame and guilt inside her, break the thin shell of sexual freedom which was beginning to construct itself around his lovely young wife's old-fashioned and ingrained moral ethic…
"You mustn't feel bad, baby," he soothed, kissing her hair. "There's nothing wrong in wanting to make love after looking at other people doing it; it's a natural reaction. A perfectly natural reaction that almost everyone has."
"But the… the people in those photos were doing such… such awful things to one another…"
"There's nothing awful about giving pleasure to your husband or wife," said Howard wisely, tenderly. "It's the whole foundation of a marital relationship, honey. If it pleases the one you love, then it can't be wrong. You believe that, don't you?"
"I… I guess so."
"If, for example, I was pleased taking pictures of you with our Polaroid, pictures of you in the nude, you'd want to do that for me, wouldn't you? You'd want to take off your clothes and let me photograph you, wouldn't you?"
"But… but you couldn't be pleased doing such a thing, Howie! You're not that kind of man…"
"Honey, I like to look at you, at your naked body. It pleases me, it excites me tremendously. I like to look at you in photographs, look at you there in full-color; any man would, any real man…"
"Howie, what a terrible thing to say!"
"It's true, honey," Howard said, feeling pressure building in his loins as he spoke, knowing he was going to win, that his strategy was working. "I like to look at you in the nude, and I'd be a liar if I said I didn't like to look at other women in the nude, too. Not to touch or anything," he added quickly, "just to look at and get excited by, that's all. And you're not any different than I am, not really; you're just like other women in that respect, too. You got excited looking at those photos of other couples making love and I did, too. When I saw them, I got so excited I thought I was going to have an orgasm right on the spot. But it wasn't them I was thinking of loving, Cindy; it was you, you my darling. Looking at those photos of other people doing it made me want you even more than I ever did before!"
Cindy could hardly believe her ears, hearing her husband's confession. He had felt the same as she last night, as hundreds of other people did every day if what he said was true. Why, then, did she feel so much guilt about her own photos and the ones she'd looked at the previous night? If he was right, then she shouldn't have any guilt at all with her own husband. And yet… Oh, she didn't know what to think now; if only she were sober, if only her brain wasn't spinning, spinning…
"I'll prove it to you, sweetheart," Howard was saying in his mellifluous voice. "Ralph gave me some other pictures tonight. I didn't want them, but I took them anyway; how could I say no to my own boss? We'll look at them together, honey, you and I sitting here right now. We'll look at them together, and what will happen is that we'll both become very excited. You'll want me more than you would otherwise, and I'll want you the same way."
"Howie, no! We can't!"
"Why can't we?"
"It's… it's wrong!"
"No, it isn't wrong, Cindy. I've told you that. Now trust me, baby, just trust me."
"Howie…"
But he was already taking the envelope of pictures Ralph had given him in The Gandydancer from his coat pocket, opening it, taking out the richly colored, glossy photographs inside. "Here," he whispered, holding them and pulling her head away from his shoulder, "here, honey, look with me…"
Cindy didn't want to look. She was trembling and she didn't want to look, she kept telling herself that — and yet her head turned and her eyes focused on the picture, and a small cry burst from between her moist, pink lips.
"Howie, oh God!"
"Look at it, Cindy darling. It's exciting, look at it, it's exciting, look at it…" His voice droned on, mesmerically, and Cindy found herself staring at the photo in his hand, staring at the young, fresh-scrubbed-looking, collegiate boy and girl performing a sixty-nine — her moistened lips locked tightly around his hardened, lust-swollen penis; his lips pressed firmly, tongue extended, to her glistening pink vulva; lips on penis; lips on vulva…
A low moan of commingled desire and perplexity burst from the young wife's throat, and she felt the soft, warm area between her tightly pressed thighs flower wide with the building secretions of her arousal. Beneath the cocktail dress, her nipples hardened into turgid buds, the way they had hardened the night before. She could not seem to take her eyes from the photo, and her breath began to become labored.
"You like to look at pictures like these, don't you, darling?" Howard's voice droned.
"Yes," she heard herself reply in a half whisper, unable to control the mounting flood of passion which threatened to consume her in fiery lust. "Yes, yes yes!"
Quickly, Howard shuffled the photos, bringing another into view. The same couple, the same oral love, a somewhat different position. Cindy could see all of the young man's masculinity, his sperm-heavy testicles, the wide girth of his great penis half-buried in his beautiful young companion's ovaled mouth. She gasped, drawing close to her husband, her hand sliding down involuntarily to rub almost spasmodically along his thigh.
Howard shuffled the pictures again again — again. The same couple in each, the same pagan rites of fellatio and cunnilingus. But the positions, if such a thing were possible, grew more bold, more provocative — seemingly impossible positions: standing, with the girl turned completely upside down, her legs locked around his neck; sitting, with the man's head buried far up between the wide-spread, alabaster thighs of the girl, his legs locked around her neck and she supporting him with her hands and arms…
Cindy was breathing heavily with her intense arousal now, proof positive to her panting husband that she was as acutely excited by these photos of others enjoying sex as he was. "Darling!" she mewled. "That's enough, that's enough! I want you, Howie, honey, I want you to love me, please, please!"
But Howard was oblivious to her pleas, for his mind was centered on two main objectives: to get his chaste, enchanting young wife to pose for him for more Polaroid pictures; and to get her to perform the self-same acts of oral love which were depicted in the photographs he held in his hands.
He moistened his lips, thinking that his first step would be to get her to undress and pose for him yes, that was it, she was highly inflamed with desire now and she would be slave to his whim; he sensed this beyond any doubt, knowing that, at last, she was going to be his on his terms…
"Cindy," he whispered in her ear, his right arm circling her shoulder, his fingers gently kneading her soft, resilient breast, "Cindy, I want to take some pictures of you, darling, some pictures like I took the other night. They excite me, honey, just like these photos excite you. You want to please me don't you, honey, you want to please your husband?"
"Yes… yes, I want to please you, Howie, but… but I'm so excited! I want you to make love to me, Howie, please…"
"Afterward, baby," he breathed in her ear. "After we take the pictures, afterward…"