"The reluctant neighbor" - читать интересную книгу автора (Jenkins Peter)

CHAPTER TWO

Marily enjoyed the dinner. She had consumed two drinks, much to Fred's consternation, then had eaten a delicious steak, blood rare. She felt great. She had admonished herself for looking at the men in the room, feeling each time she looked thoroughly at one of them (sitting alone at the bar, with other women, with men friends) the sensations that she had had earlier in the afternoon. She was just as pleased to leave the restaurant as she had been to arrive there.

Once home Marily tried to shake the feeling of need and desire that bunched up inside her demanding an outlet. She couldn't. While Fred had been showering for bed, she had wandered out to the patio, had looked in the direction of Peter's house, had tried to figure which bedroom might be his. Then she remembered his wife, she frowned and, in her own mind, agreed with her husband: how could he live with such a silly woman? She returned to the house, went to the bathroom, stopped in the bedroom and stifled a giggle when she realized that Fred was doing his deep breathing exercises, as he did every night, before going to sleep. She stripped in the bathroom, stood straight and looked at herself in the mirror. She liked what she saw. She was tall, five feet eight, she had nice large breasts that had not the slightest trace of a sag. She ran her hands over her breasts, lifted them so that the nipples, pink and soft, pointed straight into the mirror, then let them drop, ran her hands from her chest out over her breasts, to the end of the nipple, then down, under and across her stomach, marveled at the smoothness of it, then along the outside of her thighs. She stopped, shook herself, a need that had never been there before today rushing through her, and slipped her black negligee over her head. She gave her hair a couple of quick strokes, then returned to the bedroom. She stopped just inside the door and looked at Fred. She couldn't tell whether or not he was asleep because he often, as he explained, went to sleep in stages. She walked softly to his bed, circling her own, and lay down alongside him. He gave no indication that he was awake, that he knew she was there.

She carefully put her hand under the cover, let it rest gently on his stomach. He still made no move to indicate that he was aware of her presence. She started to massage his stomach, moving her hand across it back and in a circular motion and suddenly he sprang up to a sitting position, reached out, turned on the lamp. Marily was startled.

"Marily, what are you doing over here in my bed?" He wanted to know, scowling at her.

"I came to… I want you tonight, Fred." She leveled her large, hungry stare at him.

"This is Tuesday night! I just don't understand you, Marily. I broke up the entire schedule for the day and now you want to take it into the night, ruining our whole weeks' plans. I just don't understand." He was perplexed beyond doubt. "Don't try to understand. Let's just make love, Fred." She moved to him, put a hand behind his back. Fred sighed, turned out the light, then crawled on top of her. He lifted her negligee, took his penis out through the opening of his pajamas, then eased himself down to her so that his soft, fleshy prick was pressed against her warm, open vaginal slit. She moved slightly, put her hand on his back. He shook it off. She lay still, fear somehow almost paralyzing her that she would go crazy and give all that happened away and then he moved against her. She felt him begin to harden, and she wanted to kiss him, to be kissed, to have his tongue inside her mouth just as Peter's had been, but she dared not. She felt him enter her, easily, then push himself all the way in, then move in and out of her. She felt a rush of memories from the afternoon and before she realized what she was doing her legs went around his back, her arms circled his neck. He withdrew immediately. He was shocked, she knew.

"What are you trying to do?" he demanded of her, raised above her on his arms. "If you want me to make love to you, then lie still."

Marily did. She lay perfectly still, all desire gone, while he fucked in and out of her, not really touching her feelings again. She lay under him almost hating him, repulsion for his selfishness angering her. She knew that he was about to cum, not because he grabbed her and clung to her and pounded into her but simply because his breathing increased and his strokes became minutely faster. He withdrew from her almost as soon as his semen had flooded into her and got off the bed and went directly to the bathroom.

Marily lay as she was, heard the shower running, and laughed bitterly to herself. She knew that he was washing her dirt off himself. When she heard the shower stop she got up, went to her own bed. She feigned sleep when he re-entered the bedroom. She heard the springs give as he got into his bed, then the sounds of breathing (deep) that he made, then shortly a soft snore. For no reason at all tears sprung to her eyes.

She cried silently.

As her tears of frustration trickled slowly down her cheeks she began to consciously, for the first time to analyze her life, to look back over it, examine it, hoping to find an answer for her immediate situation.

Her whole life had been spent in study, one school after the other, until graduation from college. She had developed, she thought, as all the other girls had and a darned site better than ninety percent of them. She was an only child, her parents did not believe in a display of affection. She marveled now that she could never remember seeing her parents kiss, really kiss, in front of her. Nor, had she ever seen her mother cry. Now she found that amazing.

She had grown up with Fred, had attended the same grammar school, the same high school, never having taken notice of him, until their third year of college. He had asked her out and she had accepted. She hadn't cared much for dating and was beginning to wonder about herself. She had had a good time with Fred and had ended the summer by announcing her engagement to him. She laughed now, bitterly, about their dates. He had never taken her out 'petting', had never tried to handle her as some of her one shot dates from college had done. She had appreciated that at the time, but now that she reflected upon it, she wondered about it. Why? Why hadn't he tried to make her, just as all the other boys had?

He respected her too much, she decided. That had to be it. After all, he had known her all his life, their parents had known each other, so it stood to reason that he wasn't going to come howling into his own neighborhood and rape his fiancee. No, not Fred.

Even her plans for and the wedding itself were without emotion. She had felt curious at the time about herself, why she wasn't like the other girls squealing and giggling and bragging about their future husband, their families, their potential income, and their love life. No, not her. She and Fred had planned the first five years of their marriage down to the last day months before they were married.

She hadn't felt love for him, not as she supposed that she was meant to feel, but she had wanted to be married to him, to share his life. That, she told herself, she was doing. What little living he did, that is. So she had to admit to herself that she was just as cold and calculating as he was or wasn't depending on how one viewed their situation. She didn't really suppose that he felt any different about her than she did about him.

It seemed ironic to Marily that the first two years of what she had come to call their 'five year plan' had come off rather smoothly. They had lived in the city in a cramped apartment for the first two years. Both of them had worked and saved their money, all of her checks going into the bank for a down payment on their home in suburbia, and, Fred had done well with the firm, had entrenched himself, was on the ladder up. All just as they had planned. In six months he would plant the seed that would bring forth their child nine months after that. They would have another, but only one more, during the next five years, depending on Fred's advancement in the firm. The very coldness of it made her shiver. But, on the other hand, she was somehow upsetting the first five year plan. She almost laughed.