“You're very kind,” Patty said. Her tone was mechanical.
"Not at all," Renault beamed. “Now then, would you care for a drink? I have some fine imported brandy from France, or some excellent Scotch.”
“No, I don't think so.”
Renault steered her gently toward the couch.
"I have something else, then, which you might enjoy," he said. He waited until she had seated herself, sitting rather primly on one of the cushions, and then he moved away, only to return moments later with the same sculptured silver cigarette box he had passed around last evening. He flipped the top open, extending the box to her.
"These are Acapulco Gold, my dear, the finest quality marijuana you can buy. I only use them on, ah, somewhat special occasions."
Patty stared into the box with a faint revulsion. She was about to decline his offer, tell him to take the marijuana cigarettes away, but then something strange and perverse seized hold of her. A part of her brain recalled the pleasant, euphoric feeling the grass had induced in her the previous night, the total relaxation she had experienced, and suddenly she wanted one of the little brown weeds; perhaps it would snap her out of her abject fatalism, at least momentarily, give her a moment's respite from the terrible, utter feeling of desertion, of emptiness which was now consuming her body and her very essence.
She reached out and selected one of the cigarettes, placing it between her lips. Renault smiled, moistening his own lips, touching his gray mustache with the tips of his fingers. He produced a gold lighter, snapped it open and flicked the flint wheel; flame burst upward and he held it to the tip of the cigarette. Patty sucked the sweet, hot smoke deep into her lungs, held it there, released it slowly the way she had been taught the night before. Then she expelled it, inhaled again, repeating the process.
Renault sat down beside her and lit one of the muggles for himself. He inhaled deeply, watching Patty covetously out of the corner of his eye. They sat in silence, smoking in the darkened room, and as the brown cylinder burned down almost to her fingers, to nothing more than a thin ash, Patty began to experience a certain diminishing of her depression. She was feeling better now, yes, she was feeling much better… but not quite good enough. She turned to Renault, smiling a little. "Would it be all right if I had another, Rick?"
"Of course, my dear," Renault said with solicitous enthusiasm. He opened the box again, waiting until she had taken another marijuana cigarette from inside, and then lit it with his lighter.
When that second muggle was nothing but dead ash, Patty was feeling buoyant, almost happy, almost alive again. She closed her eyes, leaning back against the pliant cushions of the couch. She began to giggle softly, for no apparent reason, luxuriating in the coolness of the leather against her neck, beneath her hands. She said between the soft girlish sounds, "You're a very nice man, do you know that, Rick? You really are a very nice man to make me feel this good when I was feeling so bad."
"Thank you, my dear," Renault said. "But why were you feeling so bad?"
"It's a long story," she told him. "A long, long story. I'll tell you about it sometime. But not now, okay?"
"Okay."
"You're a very nice man," she repeated through her rising haze. "I like you, Rick."
He touched her hand, and his touch seemed somehow to cause little tingles of electricity to course up along her arm. She could feel a warmth growing in her belly, and she knew that it was the beginnings of sexual arousal, unwanted arousal that she could not stop. She had a sudden, desperate urge to run, to get out of there, out of that house, away from this man, but then the urge passed and she felt good and warm again, letting the prurient sensations drift downward into her vagina and begin the first flowings of her feminine juices from her naked crotch beneath the short skirt.
Renault continued to stroke her hand, moving closer to her on the cushions until his leg was pressed against hers. He said in a soft, husky voice, "Would you like to see some movies, Patty?"
"Movies?" she asked, her eyes still closed, feeling her nipples harden beneath the thin sweater.
"Yes," Renault said. "Very special movies. Very special movies, indeed."
"What are they about?"
"About love," Renault said. "About love and fulfillment in strange new ways."
"Ummmm!" Patty said. "Yes, that sounds nice!"
"Shall I show them, then?"
"Yes, please do."
Renault released her hand and stood up. Patty opened her eyes, watching dreamily as he moved to where the projector sat. The film was already threaded, ready to be shown, and Renault reached down to flick off the curio lamp, plunging the room into immediate darkness; then he put on the projector, and a square of light danced onto the screen in front of the couch, the projector making a pleasant whirring sound in Patty's ears.
After a moment, a large, oak-paneled bedroom, in full rich color, appeared on the screen. At first it seemed empty, but then a young girl with short raven hair came into view, completely nude, walking slowly toward a wide, turned-down king-size bed in the center of the room. Patty, watching phantasmagorically, marveled at the girl's full, globular breasts, the nipples a dark, rich color against their still darken areoles. As she lay down on the double bed, Patty could see that her pubic mound was covered with a dark, thick thatch of curling down and when she opened her legs in an attitude of complete relaxation, Patty's eyes focused directly on the pink, wetly glistening folds of her fluted vaginal lips with their secret, fully erect clitoris.
She's already aroused, Patty thought, she's very excited. She felt her own juices still flowing, lubricating her entire vaginal slit now, forming little wet pools on the slick leather of the couch beneath her; she squirmed her buttocks against the yielding cowhide, feeling her skirt slide up and the backs of her naked thighs come into contact with the coolness. Dimly, from somewhere in the back of her mind, a voice seemed to be trying to tell her that what she was seeing was not an ordinary cinematic film, was in fact one of those "blue movies" her absent husband had told her about once, the kind they showed at stag parties and smokers, the kind that depicted, in great detail, all manner of lewd and perverted acts. But somehow, the voice never penetrated any further into her conscious mind than that first dim whispering; the increasing arousal of her own body brought about by the marijuana and now the sight on the screen of the young, nubile girl's nudity and the nearness of Rick Renault were all that mattered.
Patty felt Renault slide over next to her, taking her hand in his and putting his leathery face close to hers. His breath was hot and smelled of mouthwash and faintly of sen-sen. He began to stroke her hand rhythmically now, up and down, up and down, and Patty felt her nipples harden into granite chips beneath her sweater.
On the screen, the young girl began to slowly undulate her buttocks, her eyes tightly closed, her mouth slightly parted. She's thinking about her lover, Patty thought hazedly. She's thinking about him making love to her, kissing her and putting his huge penis into those sweetly parted young cunt lips of hers…
The rise and fall of the girl's firm, erect breasts increased with her excitement, with the vision she was experiencing in her mind, and her hips began to rotate faster and faster on the bed. One of her slim white hands left the spread beside her and began to slowly, teasingly, massage her own breasts, squeezing the berrylike nipples with tantalizing movements of her thumb and forefinger. She continued this rubbing, teasing motion for a long moment and then she moved her hand away from her breasts and down through her dark silky pubic fleece, placing the palm flat against her abdomen with the fingers splayed wide in her crotch, playing in the lust-dripping furrow, tickling the throbbing phallus of her clitoris with her middle finger and then sliding it slowly, down to the entrance to her vaginal chamber, dipping it inside, swirling it around inside her deliciously oozing cunt.