The young wife made herself a Cuba Libre, feeling as if she were rattling around in the empty apartment as she walked into the living room and slumped down into Mark's favorite chair. Her mind, as it had ever since she'd left the airport after seeing them off with kisses and hugs, continued to function along the same fines. It reviewed in intimate detail all she could remember of her lewd acts with Kye, though much of it seemed fogged, and even as she knew remorseful shame time and again, the pain of Kye's and Sergeant's loss by far outweighed it.
She would never see either of them again, she felt certain. Their brief passing through her life had been a meaningful phenomenon, perhaps meant to make or break her! And she lingered on that teeter-board, didn't she? Shame continued to spiral through her like wafts of choking smoke, but she could cough it away, and when it was gone there were all the breaths of sensual excitement that Asiatic street-boy had raised, then erotically satisfied within her!
Oh, the little, lovable devil! With his whores and Joes… and his Mr. Ace! Who was he? Mr. Ace! That absurd alias, or was it a title of sorts…? She tried to think of when they had talked about such an individual and couldn't. Yet, the name had registered with her! Mr. Ace… He would pay ten-thousand American bucks for you…!
Dianne shook her head and drank heavily from her glass. So much had happened so quickly between them… and Sergeant…! God, she thought, her half-morbid, half-invigorated mind racing back and forth between the somber and the sensual, the ultimate realization finally fixing itself that Mark Keller would very, very soon again be her whole overwhelming world!
C-Could they find it together? Now, so much had happened during their separation! She loved him! There wasn't the slightest doubt in her mind about that… but… but love was many things, wasn't it? Could he… would he love her as that fourteen year old boy had done, like an innocently smiling little slave, firing her so that she could do the same to him? God, she had never realized the importance of such love-making, where each subjects one's self to the other's passionate delights!
Dianne drained her glass enroute to the kitchen to make another, contemplating changing the mini-dress she had worn to the airport for shorts and halter. The tingling feel of the cool liquid spilling down her throat pleased her, and on the second, she drank half of it right then and there. Damn, she needed an uplift of some sort, and it was nicely doing the job.
Suddenly, she was very confident that Mark would manage something. He loved them both as much as did she, and even before…! Yes, he would… her darling, Mark, and then… then, she would have all of them around her!
Goddddd!
The bell at the front entrance rang before she had retraced her steps into the living room. Setting her glass down, Dianne walked to the door, tugging it open, annoyed at having her private world interrupted. She had expected an unknown face, a salesman of some nature, but instead she looked into that of the young neighbor boy, Olaf.
"Oh… Olaf… what… can… can I do something for you?"
Knute Jensen was anything but a gentle person, and aware of it, the massive, bewhiskered man took certain pride in the fact. His own father, a brute who had believed in the wisdom of the horsewhip as well as the evils of education, had been his cruel teacher. He'd hated his father with a passion, and the day he had found him dead in the barn from a heart attack, he had taken the old man's bottle of whiskey from its hiding place and sat down beside the dead body to laugh and drink himself drunk.
As near as possible, he had raised Olaf under the same rules of tyranny, except that the law, as well as his wife while she lived, had demanded the boy attend school until he was sixteen. Knute had realized the waste of this, but a poor man couldn't fight the law and a wise man never argued with a bitch-woman. He was only sorry that she had died before their overgrown offspring had been arrested for using and selling marijuana. Christ, how he would've gloated and taunted her with that. As it was, his only satisfaction came in the knowing that he had been right, and his continual punishment of the son whom the court had seen fit to release to him on probation until the boy was twenty-one.
Naturally, Knute had snatched the big oaf out of school immediately and put him to work around the building where he himself had been caretaker for five years. Now with his bitch-wife dead and cold in the ground and the boy to do the work, the fat, barrel-chested father was enjoying his version of the fruits of life for the first time in his half-century of living, drinking his daily fill of booze and wenching with the tavern sluts to his lusty heart's content.
But the Goddamned kid was not only lazy, he was sneaky and undependable, traits he'd inherited from his mother. It was necessary that Knute have one eye on him all the while if they were to keep the work up around the building, which was exactly what the grey-haired, bearded man was doing at the moment, only to see his muscular, blond-haired son standing at the open doorway of the Keller apartment talking to the captain's sweet-assed young wife.
Just what in hell was he up to, anyway? Knute had seen her drive off with the foreign kid and his dog, then come back alone, deciding that it couldn't be him Olaf was looking for. Anyway, there was no Goddamned time for him to fuck-off with that scrawny little shit! If he didn't have enough to keep him busy, Knute could damn sure find more… But sonofabitch… she was letting the stupid lunkhead in… stepping aside and… sure as hell, Olaf was going in and closing the door behind him!
J-Just what in hell was going on, anyway, the powerful man wondered as he swilled from his can of beer, his red-rimmed eyes fixed on the closed door. Hmmmmmm… maybe she's having trouble with that drain again… or the leaky faucet in the bathroom…? Whatever, he'd just stand right there and watch for a few minutes… and that fat-headed kid better not be too damned long at it either…
"I-I couldn't imagine who it might be," Dianne said with a questioning little smile. "Y-You know, of course, that I had to take Kye and Sergeant to the airport. They have to be up at March Air Force Base tomorrow morning…"
"Yeah, I saw you leave… then come back," the big boy said, shifting his solid weight almost nervously from one foot to the other. His small blue eyes moved wetly over her in a sweeping glance, causing an uneasy feeling to flutter through the blonde young wife. "I-I been waiting to talk to you about something… something important, Mrs. Keller…"
"Oh…?" Dianne followed with surprise.
"Well… what is it, Olaf?"
"I-It's going to take a few minutes to explain, Ma'am, and… and if my paw sees me standing here… well…" he said, hoping she would take the hint.
For a hesitant moment, Dianne stood silently surveying the older boy, well aware of the strict treatment his father subjected him to, and why. She'd never had much contact with the big blond youth, actually having little reason to, and she wondered if maybe it was not his size that made her feel uneasy around him. However, she knew about his scrape with the law and felt that his father was unnecessarily punishing him, especially after the court had been lenient enough to let him free on probation… besides, he had befriended Kye, and that had found a soft spot with her…
"C-Come in dear," she finally invited, stepping to oneside and holding the door for him, subconsciously fingering the low-cut front of her revealing summer mini. She closed the door and followed, pointing toward a chair. "Sit down, Olaf," she offered, easing down onto the arm of another and carefully angling her long legs into an inconspicuous position. "Now… what is it you want to talk to me about?"
Olaf dropped onto the davenport and edgily rubbed the palms of his big hands against his thighs. He stared at her, his thick tongue licking out to moisten his worm-like lips. "I-I guess I might as well come right out with it, eh…?"