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  Months later, when Bill Medkeff found a better job with Westinghouse and had removed everything from his desk, Bill had gone from office to office with the good-byes. In Clark's office, he closed the door and said, "Clark, I have something to give you. Elaine Bettinger. All gift wrapped and waiting for the taking."

  "I'll take her."

  "That's just it, pal, you can't."

  "I know I can't!" Clark suspected Bill of being half-drunk, moved closer and sniffed slightly to detect the odor of alcohol. There was no odor of alcohol. He said, extending his hand, "Bill, we're going to miss you around here. Lots of luck."

  "Luck I don't need. Ability I need."

  "You have ability. Plenty of it."

  "Thanks."

  "What is, is."

  "You too, pal. Plenty of ability, plenty of everything. Don't forget the greener grass. Keep looking over the fence."

  "Stop in sometime, Bill."

  "Stop in, hell! Pal, once I'm out that door, I'm gone forever from this goddamned place." They grinned at each other and Clark thought it was the end of their conversation until Bill snapped his fingers. "Christ! I almost forgot. We were so busy with our Mutual Admiration Society meeting, I almost forgot to tell you how I've got Elaine all gift wrapped and waiting for you."

  "Yeah?"

  "I heard your Miss Frostbite of 1908 is retiring. They're going to leave my job open for a while to show how goddamned unimportant I was and how little work I did, so Elaine has to be somebody's secretary. She told me it's a toss-up of either replacing your Miss Frostbite or else going somewhere in Accounting. I gave you a big buildup. Told her what a hell of a nice guy you are, all that crap."

  "Thanks."

  "I made a slip once and said she's a tease and likes to play. I didn't want to go into all the details while I was still working here but, pal, we're going to be about a hundred miles apart from now on, so I don't mind telling you. She'll never give you a piece of ass. The stupid girl is in love with her husband, saves all her pussy for him, something like that. But ... she'll tease hell out of you if she's your secretary. Certain times of the month, she gets a ... well, it's a kind of hot gleam in her eyes. If you work it right, during those times, she'll ó "

  The door opened and a group of men and women came into the office. Clark watched as they herded Bill out of the office amid a babble of voices. They had a going-away gift for him and they'd interrupted Bill's story.

  The next morning, he stopped at Elaine's desk. She was dressed in a gray suit and had her hair piled in an elaborate honeycomb style. She looked up when he entered the office and smiled. He wondered if she still remembered the pass he'd made at the office party. He said, "I saw Bill yesterday and he reminded me you'll be looking for a job now. With Miss Devon retiring, I'll be looking for a secretary and I want you to know I'll certainly appreciate it if you'll fill the vacancy."

  "Thank you, Mr. Vaughn. I've been trying to make the choice. It seems the Accounting Department has a lot of possibilities for advancement." She'd decided to take the job with Accounting and now she had prepared him for the eventual news. Too late to change her decision?

  He idly straightened the IN basket on her desk and moved the pen holder to a more central position. He mulled the things Bill had told him and said, "I need a good secretary. I guess I can only promise to give you the best possible pay ... and promise not to chase you around the desk."

  She smiled, blushing slightly, lowering her eyes and he was not sure the latter part of his little speech was right or not until later in the day when Charlie in the Personnel Department called him on the phone and told him that Elaine Bettinger would be working for him. Then he knew he'd said the right thing.

  The first few months she worked for him, he made no move at all. He contented himself to look at her, to smell her perfume, to listen to the softness of her voice. He remembered what Bill said about her being a tease.

  That part was right. The most subtle kind of teasing.

  Her desk was in the outer office, at an angle from his own desk so he could not see her whenever she was at her desk, typing. Whenever she brought papers into his office, she had a habit of rolling her chair a few inches, turning the swivel chair toward the open doorway of his office, then rising and walking into his office.

  But after she moved her chair those few inches she was in line with the doorway and he could see her. She also had a habit of not looking toward his office; a habit of spreading her legs slightly before rising from the chair and ó in that position ó allowing him a view of her thighs, the tops of her nylons, and garter straps. She never turned in such a position that he could see the V of her loins ó as if she had mastered the precise position that would allow him only a view as far as the soft uncovered flesh of her thighs an inch or two beneath her loins. And a way of seeming completely unaware of the view she was giving him.

  He remembered what Bill said about a "hot gleam in her eyes at certain times of the month" and discovered it was true. There were certain times of the month when her eyes were brighter, her manner became more friendly, her whole body seemed more sensual. He occasionally invited her to lunch at The Hub. He learned to recognize the "certain times of the month" as Bill had phrased it ó the times of the month when it seemed her blouse protruded more than usual as if her nipples were hardened beneath it ó times when she seemed to actually breathe more quickly, her eyes seemingly warm with an inner fire ó and it was usually during those certain times that he invited her to lunch.

  During one of the lunches at The Hub, he experimented by pressing his knee against hers, withdrawing it as if it had been an accident, then pressing again. As he did so, she began talking about her husband ó an idle conversation but the truth hit him with an impact as hard as if he had suddenly grasped Einstein's theory of relativity.

  He began talking about his wife and about the barbecue they'd had for the neighbors. As he talked and painted a word-picture of a happily married man, he felt her knee press against his. She loved her husband; she was happily married, but she wanted to play. As Bill had partially explained. She didn't want a lover, or an affair. She wanted only the excitement of teasing and playing.

  After one of the lunches at The Hub and a period of playing kneesies, returning to the row of elevators and seeing they were crowded, he suggested they walk up the few flights. In the seldom-used flight of stairs, he said, "At the barbecue I was telling you about ... We had drinks afterward and it turned into a mess. Some of the couples began fighting among themselves and one of the wives wanted to go to bed with me."

  "She did?"

  "I told her I was an old-fashioned married man and I'd never cheated on Alma. I tried to get rid of her tactfully. Actually, I don't see any harm in a little fun, but I don't believe in going all the way. Going all the way, getting somebody else's wife always ends the same way."

  She paused at the next landing and leaned against the railing. "Can we rest awhile?"

  "We can rest here an hour if you want."

  It was almost completely silent in the stairwell. He leaned against the ceramic wall and could hear the faint metallic whirring of the elevator beyond the wall. He thought he would have to pursue the trend of the conversation or drop it altogether, but Elaine asked, "What do you mean by fun?"

  "Harmless things. For instance, at a party, I don't see anything wrong in dancing with someone else's wife. Maybe holding her a bit closer than necessary. Maybe kissing someone else's wife. What's wrong with only kissing?"

  "I agree with you, Clark. I ó Well, I have to confess, I'm happily married to one of the most wonderful men in the world. I wouldn't want to do anything to ... jeopardize my marriage. It seems most men have only one thing on their minds. One goal when they're dealing with a woman. The ultimate. .But I ... "

  "But you don't see any harm in a little fun."

  "Oh, no."

  He moved closer to kiss her, but she moved her head slowly away. "We can't do that," sh
e whispered. "The lipstick ... "

  She was afraid to let him kiss her. They were at a landing between floors, but there was a possibility someone could enter the stairway from either the upper or lower floor and accidentally reach them in a matter of seconds. Not enough time to remove all the traces of lipstick if he kissed her. He had placed his hands on her waist when he tried to kiss her, and she guided one of his hands down across her stomach to her loins. He felt the contours of her body through the layers of her clothing and she slowly moved her hands to his cock, probing at it through the layers of his clothing.

  That was what Bill had meant by play!

  But it progressed much further than that. In the privacy of his office with the door locked, she had no aversion to his kissing her. His playing with her went to the extent that she allowed him to slip his hand beneath her skirt and slip his fingers beneath the leg band of her panties to play with her cunt. For that type of play she often sat on the edge of his desk with her eyes closed until she shuddered with her climax. She had two firm rules that Clark knew she must have also enforced with Bill Medkeff: while he played with her with his right hand, his left hand was always to be on the desk beside her and she always kept her hand on his left hand to constantly know its whereabouts; while he played with her, his fly must always be zipped up and his penis safely encased beneath his pants and shorts. The rules were her precaution that he should not suddenly be overcome by desire while playing with her and unexpectedly slip his penis into her.

  Once, while playing with her and she was very near her climax, he felt the soft moist warmness of her cunt tight around his probing finger, he did become overcome with desire to fuck her, snatching his left hand away from the desk ... unzipping his fly. But she slid from the desk and ran from the office before he could thrust into her. She had started to react the moment she felt his left hand leave the desk and although he'd used his right hand to grab her wrist, she had broken free, biting his hand with surprising fierceness.

  She was always eager to play with his cock and to give him a climax but she had equally well-thought-out precautions against his suddenly being overcome with desire and taking her. The only way she would give him a climax was if he knelt on the floor with his pants down around his ankles. While he knelt, she crouched in front of him and, with his prick aimed at tissues spread on the floor, grasped his cock with both hands, playing with him until he spurted sperm onto the tissues. In such a position, with his pants tangled around his ankles, he was almost powerless, almost completely in her power because of his inability to move abruptly.

  If anyone had ever told him that someday he'd be kneeling on the floor while his secretary gave him a "hand job," he would have said he was out of his mind. But the truth was that the situation had evolved slowly over a period of months and, while not as satisfying as fucking, there was a satisfaction almost as complete as fucking and one more unusual.

  It was uniquely satisfying to kneel there before a woman as lovely as Elaine, to look at her long blonde hair and the crevice of her breasts visible above the neckline of her blouse, to look at her soft red lips, moist and parted slightly, as she breathed heavily, to look at the beauty of her nyloned legs as she knelt there and grasped his prick with her soft red-tipped fingers ... watching the blur of her red-tipped fingers as she worked on him ... watching the gleam of excitement in her eyes, the rapid rise and fall of her breasts ... and watching the widening of her eyes as he exploded onto the tissues ... hearing her soft sigh of satisfaction and pleasure.

  From playing with each other, they progressed to the point where she allowed him to kiss her breasts and suck on her nipples. Thinking that if he could lick and suck her pussy he might be able to get her so excited she would want to fuck, he had licked and sucked her pussy several times. Each time, as he knelt on the floor before her, she had reached a climax, but he had never succeeded in getting her so excited that she wanted to be fucked.

  She had, a few times, knelt before him and licked his cock. And kissed it, leaving red smears of her lipstick up and down the entire length. And sucked it on a few rare occasions ó but only briefly, never keeping at it long enough for him to come.

  He rationalized that she was not normal, but she was better than a considerable number of other women in the world who were not normal. Weren't there some women who liked to be beaten and whipped? Although he could never understand exactly why she didn't want to go so far as fucking, with all her peculiarities, Elaine was much more satisfying than some other types of not normal women.

  * * *

  "Clark?"

  "Yes?"

  "This is Rosina."

  Rosina began to sob hysterically. He waited a few moments and tried to calm her. His words had no effect on her, and then a man was on the other end of the phone. He listened numbly as the man explained there had been some trouble at his house and he should return as soon as possible. When he asked what kind of trouble, the man said he would rather not say over the telephone. When he asked where Alma was, the man told him his wife had been taken to a hospital but was not in a critical condition.

  Rosina was on the other end of the phone again, now more composed. He asked her which hospital Alma had been taken to and was told the Delaware Memorial Hospital. When he asked Rosina to tell him exactly what happened, he learned his wife had been raped.

  CHAPTER THREE

  At the hospital he was shunted from one place to another, from one nurse to another, until finally one of the nurses, after several phone calls, located a doctor who had treated his wife. He was asked to go to the waiting room on that particular floor and was told the doctor would stop there to discuss his wife's condition.

  A tall, thin, bald-headed man was also in the waiting room, sitting with his legs crossed and glancing through the pages of a magazine with unseeing eyes. Clark sat for a moment, lit a cigarette, then rose and stood near the large glass panes that lined one of the room's walls. The corridors were temporarily empty and he studied the numbered doors, wondering if Alma was behind one of those doors. A small neon sign said MATERNITY and there was an arrow indicating the direction to be followed.

  As he stood there, with the tasteless cigarette occasionally raised to his lips, two nurses came down the corridor. An intern casually pushed a stretcher on large silent wheels. At first, Clark thought it was a patient being carried to an operating room, but then he noticed the person on the stretcher had been completely covered with a white sheet. There was no indication that there was a person beneath the sheet except for the white featureless shape of a head and the long form of a body with twin white hills of feet. The nurses were both young and attractive; their breasts jutting sharp peaks against their starched uniforms.

  "He has a high fidelity, all right," one of the nurses was saying in a low voice. "But, believe me, when he invites you to his apartment to hear it, he has another kind of high fidelity in mind." The nurses giggled softly and the intern smiled, not looking at them, staring instead at the length of the corridor before him. "I trust Lew," the other nurse said with mock emphasis.

  "I'll listen to his high fidelity if he wants me to. You can't talk me out of it."

  The trio passed beyond his angle of vision. Their voices drifted to him from farther and farther down the corridor until there was a faint closing of a door and the voices vanished.

  He stubbed his cigarette in the sandpit of the nearest ashtray and whirled nervously when he heard elevator doors opening. He hurried into the corridor, fully expecting it to be the doctor he was waiting to see, but instead there was another of the stretcher devices on those silent wheels ó this one with a woman obviously pregnant and in labor. She moaned and clutched at the sides of the stretcher, while the nurse moved her steadily in the direction the neon MATERNITY arrow indicated.

  He went to the window and stood with his hands clasped behind his back, staring down at the grounds surrounding the hospital and the blocks beyond, the rows of brick and concrete structure
s. Nothing to worry about, he told himself. Alma will be all right.

  There was a church near the hospital and a cemetery between the church and the hospital. He stared down at the irregularly spaced and irregularly shaped stones and allowed his gaze to drift back to the city before him. He could see red and yellow neon, the message indistinguishable because of the distance but somehow reminiscent of a bar's neon sign.

  It struck him then that the hospital was a central place ó it had a dual function for the city. Men and women died in the hospital and men and women were born in the hospital. It was a central place, a place in which the people of the city were both removed from life and brought to life; in a sense, the most important heart of the city ...

  "Mr. Vaughn?"

  "Yes." His own voice sounded strange in his ears.

  "I'm Doctor Walker."

  "Yes? My wife?"

  The doctor was tall and oddly young-old with a face that appeared young but heavily filled with wrinkles. His hair had been cropped to a semblance of a crew cut but spotted with gray hairs. "Your wife is doing well. She's under sedation right now."