They got out, and Mary Alice insisted on carrying her bag. "Don't be to quick to judge it," she said. "I know it looks like a dump right now, but we're due for a paint job right after I make the nut on this quarter's taxes. And it's a great place, really, with terrific vibes. I can't wait for you to meet everybody. You'll just love 'em."
They ducked into a big old frame house situated to one side of the complex; it was large, roomy, and very nineteen-twenties. It reminded her (with a pang that surprised her) of small-town Pennsylvania, and the reminder was immediately reinforced by the interior, which was put together in old-fashioned furniture and cranky, un-matching objects d'art. It needed a sweeping. Nan vowed to give it one next morning.
They raided the icebox for salami sandwiches and beer, and they-just once-found themselves hugging each other and crying and saying sweet things to each other. Nan was touched, more than she could say. And just before bedtime, sitting before the fireplace-imagine! In what ought to be dead midsummer, you could have a fire!-in their robes, toasting their tired toes before the flames, they cracked open a special bottle of brandy Mary Alice had been saving for a real, live, Special Occasion, and toasted their new futures, whatever they'd turn out to be. And Mary Alice had got off a few tears again, and Nan had hugged her with a surprisingly genuine affection.
Bedtime. They kissed, and said good-night, and Mary Alice went to her own room after tucking Nan in with a warm kiss on one ear and some hoarsely whispered words of affection. And Nan, tired to the bone, slipped off to sleep almost at once.
Disquieting dreams bothered her again, though. They woke her four times in a row. They were dreams of the bad night on the beach at Nice, of the young man beating her. Of the horrors of her marathon night of cruelty and sadism at St Tropez. She woke up finally in a cold sweat sitting bolt upright
There was a noise somewhere in the dark house. A noise as of a child or an animal, whining in a low, nasal voice. Nan sat up, wide awake now, listening.
"Ohhhhhh…Ohhhh…
It was coming from a room down the hall. Nan got up in her nightie, disdaining the robe, and padded silently out of the room in bare feet. She wished she had a flashlight…but it didn't seem to be anything really dangerous. She went forward, spurred by curiosity.
"Ohhhhh…Ohhhhhhh…There! It was in the second room, after all. She tiptoed forward, opening the door slowly, as quietly as possible, looking in.
The moon was nearly full it seemed. It was certainly bright. And it shone through the open window on Mary Alice's contorted face, shining with cold sweat in the white light. She was stretched out on the bed, naked, her head rolling back and forth as the moans escaped her lips one by one. In the moonlight the lovely, round, womanly breasts looked even more grossly sensual than they had through her thin sweater at the airport. And as Nan watched, Mary Alice's sleeping hand stole to her crotch, to burrow deep into a thick, coarse mat of curling black hair between the sturdy thighs. The sight was one which should have roused Nan to pity; the cries escaping from Mary Alice's lips were agonized, unhappy cries for help. Instead, Nan found her pulse pounding all of a sudden. The view was…was incredibly smutty. Sexy. Whatever you wanted to call it. Mary Alice's body had none of the fashionable skinniness she'd seen everywhere on the beaches of the Cote d'Azur. It was the full, womanly body of a peasant: gross, physically demanding.
My God! Nan said to herself. What am I thinking? "Ohhhhh…Ohhhhh…"
And then compassion took over-that and the affection she'd already begun to feel again for her old school friend. She was, after all, so unpretentiously decent a soul-there was hardly another word for it-that Nan's heart instinctively went out to her. She remembered Mary Alice well; there'd hardly been a selfish bone in her body. When her friends had suffered-poor grades, broken romances, the whole innocent tragedy of girlhood-she'd suffered with them, and stayed up crying with them until they'd been restored enough to face their problems. A good-hearted person.
Nan couldn't help it She approached the bed and sat gently down beside her friend.
"Mary Alice," she said gently.
The body beside her shook, shivered, sobbed, and came awake. And, shocked, frightened, she sat bolt upright a look of terror in her eyes. "I… "
Nan held her gently in her arms, patting her softly on the back. "There, there. There, sweetheart. It's all right I'm here."
"Annie…" There was a flood of tears and Mary Alice snuggled her head into Nan's neck. "I kept…I kept dreaming… I dreamed I'd lost the place…" And she hugged Nan hard. Nan felt the big gross breasts, with their dark, hard nipples, pressing sensuously against her own. And felt her own nipples harden at the sensation.
"There, there, sweetheart…" Nan said. And she pulled back to look Mary Alice in the eye. "You won't lose the place or anything else, sweetheart. Tm here to help you."
Tears gleamed in her friend's eyes. She couldn't understand…Nan now remembered she hadn't told her that she'd come into money, more money than Mary Alice had ever heard of in her whole life. She was about to explain this, gently, when Mary Alice herself took the initiative. She leaned forward, her eyes brimming with tears, intently fixed on Nan's, and kissed her.
It wasn't a friend's kiss. It wasn't even the sort of kiss women give each other on the rare occasions when they kiss each other on the mouth. It was the kind of kiss a man gives to a woman. The lips bruised hers; Mary Alice's tongue shot deep into her mouth, and Mary Alice's hand went to Nan's breasts: caressing, exploring, touching, and tweaking the tender nipples. "Oh, Annie…you're so lovely…" Mary Alice said. And her hands went under the nightie, swept it up and off, baring Nan's body in the cool night air. "Oh, Annie…darling…stay with me…" And Mary Alice kissed her again, harder.
Nan, her heart melting, came, shuddering, crying aloud, at the kiss, at the feel of the warm fingers on her nipples, at the sound of the soft and loving voice. And she rolled over on the bed, spreading her legs for her friend's kiss, which roamed over her body, touching here and there, before coming to rest in her yawning, wetly glistening patch of auburn pubic hair. Once there, her friend's broad tongue went to work, licking her clean, licking every drop of juice from her warm and slippery hole before running up between the lips of her cunt and going ferociously to work on her clitoris, with little cries of delight and appreciation. "Annie…darling…she said, between juicy and unbelievably sensuous licks at Nan's eagerly trembling crotch. "Annie…I can't believe you're here, sweetheart…I've always loved you…" And the ardent attack brought Nan off twice more before Mary Alice was ready to raise her head from Nan's dripping and satiated lap and kiss her again on the lips, her mouth still reeking (and how incredibly sexy it was!) of Nan's own bodily juices, her trembling breasts pressing against Nan's own in a pagan and uncontrollable abandon. Then, falling to the pillow in each other's arms, they slept, kept warm by each other's bare flesh in lieu of cover…
Chapter 7
There was a cover over her when she awoke, alone, though, and she was glad to have it. The mornings here, if they were mostly like this one, wouldn't at all run like Miami's. It was cool-if you got right down to it, downright chilly-and the light coming in from the open window was from an overcast sky. She pulled the covers up over her breasts as she sat up.
Beside the bed was a little rolling table with a little hot-water heater and a cup on it. There was a teabag in the cup, and there was a piece of paper stretched out beside it Nan leaned over, poured for herself-the water was still simmering nicely, and the smell of the tea, as the water went through the little bag, was delightful-and only then looked at the note: Annie darling!!!