Simpson could make no reply.
Smith went on. "You could have done something about this problem months ago, after Nancy Pace was attacked, but you fobbed it off. If you asked me, I'd say it was your hands that had that boy's blood on them, Councilor Denning."
DesirЋe, sitting in the audience, cringed. They were blaming Mark for all this, for failing to do something positive after Nancy's rape. If they had hunted down Lobo then, he never would have been able to come to DesirЋe's room that night two months before and fucked her half-silly – no, more than half-silly. However, Lobo would then not have been able to rescue her from being raped by the three young men, she might have become pregnant by them and…
"So what all of us here are asking now is when you elected officials are going to do more than just bend your arms at your cocktail parties. I've lost livestock, and so have others here too."
"Me too," came another voice.
"And so have I," Ben Drake called out. "Six sheep, and a hen house cleaned out."
"My wife is scared shitless," said another man.
"All right, all right," Mark said, his palms raised to the gathering. "No need for foul language. We've heard all your complaints already, but I think before we start pledging tax money for bounties we ought to have a referendum on the expenditure. I mean, it's your five thousand dollars."
Clete cleared his throat. "I've got a feeling five thousand isn't going to arouse much interest."
"Let's make it higher," someone said.
"Ten thousand ought to sweeten the deal."
"Make it twenty grand just to make sure there's a few takers."
Clete stepped forward again, addressing the council as if on behalf of the constituency. "Twenty thousand is a good start, with maybe a ten-thousand-dollar bonus if the problem is taken care of within two weeks."
Many voices agreed.
"But that's a lot of your tax money," Mark protested. "It will take some deliberation and a vote before we can dedicate that much to it. We'd be remiss if…"
"Well, do you think you can get a move on before one of our wives or children is mauled to death?" Smith said sarcastically. "And I think the city corporation should make good our losses since the problem reared its head two months ago and nothing was done."
A resolution was passed and the councilors stayed behind to make arrangement. As DesirЋe rose, she saw Clete grinning in triumph, and then saw his gaze touch her. He smiled again and the blonde turned quickly away.
It hadn't happened, she thought. It was just a dream, a horrible nightmare, that remembrance of him humping her kneeling body in the presence of Priscilla Devereaux. Nothing at all untoward had happened since the wedding except that she missed Mark so much that she had strange, vivid dreams in his absence. That look in Clete's eye was just his usual, frustrated leer and nothing more. She had nothing to be ashamed of but an overactive imagination due to an underactive recent sex life.
Yes, that was it, she decided.
DesirЋe left the hall with the rest of the people, listening to their snide comments about Mark as they seemed to forget that she was his wife. Or perhaps it was because she was married to him that they said things about him so that she could hear. People were frightened and letting her hear their comments was a way of making sure the message reached Mark. She noticed the women's furtive and faintly hostile glances and she felt very uncomfortable as she walked to her car. She would wait for Mark at home, cook him dinner, and spend the evening amorously with him, giving him all the support that he needed. He had meant well in not initiating a bounty hunt two months previously. He had just not counted on the evil of which Liz's lost pet and his wild partners were capable.
Dinner by candlelight and the rest of the evening in bed, making up for the last three days' forced separation.
Mark came through the door and warmly kissed his young bride. Enthused emotions of hope quivered inside DesirЋe; she knew that he'd emptied his mind of his problems and was looking forward to their planned evening of love. She toyed playfully with him for a few moments, her confidence growing, then left against his begging pleas, knowing he was in a state of hardness beneath the sheet. She didn't want anything to spoil their coming night of pleasure. She went to the kitchen to fix him the meal, while he finally made his presence known in the shower with a badly off-key baritone. Shortly, they ate together, exchanged expressions, words and kisses at the door before he left to "check on things". Two hours later, while she busied herself with personal chores and tried not to think of Lobo, he was back, and that was when her anxiously planned evening began.
It was after eight when they finished the scrumptious dinner she had prepared, more than just a little pleased that it had all turned out so well. The way to a man's heart and all that, she thought, as Mark gaily helped her with the dishes while she beautifully sang an Italian aria a capella. He was slightly tight from the martinis and wine, she knew, and just the way she wanted him. As a matter of fact, she wasn't feeling any pain either.
After, she led him into the living room, turned on the tape recorder with a strip of some of their personal romantic favorites, then poured them both coffee and brandy. They snuggled up on the couch, his arm around her, his hand brushing incitingly against her breast in the manner of their intimate courting moments, that very intriguing gesture doing more to fire her than anything he could have ever imagined. And how badly she needed that with him now, after last night's frustrated dreams. She needed to make it all right, make love to Mark and remove the contamination of that before their wedding, of the lewd dreams she was subject to.
"Mmmmmm, what a handsome man you are, Mark Denning," she whispered, lifting her hand to his cheek and holding his face so that she could kiss his lips. "And, I'm going to ravish you now, before you suddenly get sleepy on me and change my opinion."
Mark laughed, his happiness reflected in his voice. "That might not be a bad idea, angel, along with the music and the liquor. I think I need something erotically stimulating."
Again, DesirЋe kissed him, caressing his face with her soft smooth hands, while simultaneously her pleasure-scheming mind worked. She wanted this night to be so right, so full! She wanted to forget everything that she had done two months ago, that she dreamed had been done to her while he had been away in the capital. It was necessary that they intimately reach one another! It had to be tonight – it had to be, especially after the last frustrating time!
"Darling, this is going to be the most wonderful night we've ever spent together!" she whispered into his face. "No inhibitions! Just love, Mark darling, love anyway you want it!"
His eyes opened and his brow wrinkled as he kissed her. Her words churned lightly in his mind, but the more they churned, the deeper meaning they seemed to take on.
Finally, he said: "Inhibitions? Anyway I want it? What do you mean, baby? Do either of us have some hang-ups I'm not up with?" There was only one other way of doing it, and that was oral sex!
Christ, could she possible mean that? A lusty shiver shot through him at just the thought, any drowsiness he might have known leaving him as if he'd suddenly been doused with ice-water. He slipped his arms around her and drew her tightly against him, passionately kissing her.
"No answers will you get from me, lover," she half-smilingly whispered, illusively slipping from his arms to stand. "I'm going into bed now. I'm going to shower and fix myself all pretty for you. You can come along in ten-minutes. Use some nice smelling delights for your Dezzy after your shower, all over, darling, all over!"