"Her husband_s boss" - читать интересную книгу автора (Ziegler Karen)

CHAPTER TWO

"Mr. Alexander is engaged right now, Mrs. Cummings, but he'll be free to see you in a few minutes, if you'll be kind enough to wait here."

Lost in her own thoughts, Kathy Cummings was startled by the sound of the blonde receptionist's voice, but after a moment, she murmured absently, with embarrassment, "Oh yes, of course, I'll wait. I know he's a very busy man."

By the time Henry Cummings' young wife had collected herself sufficiently to speak, the pretty receptionist had already returned to her desk and was answering one of the insistently buzzing lines on the switchboard in front of her. With a fleeting, nervous glance around the spacious, modern waiting room, Kathy ascertained that, curiously, there was no one else in line to see the president of Alexander Steel. She stiffened with irrational apprehension as she wondered again exactly what she would say to the powerful mysterious man who was her husband's boss. Now that she was here, sitting in the very building in which Henry worked, the nervous young woman wondered if perhaps she had made a foolish mistake by coming here. For the flash of an instant, she was tempted to turn right around and go back home again, to its relative safety, but the mental image of her and Henry's home made her remember exactly why she had come downtown today… and why she would not go home until at least some small step had been taken to set their marriage straight again.

But what on earth would Mr. Alexander think when she attempted to explain why she wanted to get a job, she wondered nervously. How could she ever make him understand that perhaps the very future of her marriage with Henry depended upon whether or not she could really prove herself to be a contributing, productive member of their marital partnership?

Kathy shifted anxiously in her chair, picked up a magazine from a nearby table, then quickly put it down again, deciding instead to make a last-minute check of her makeup in a tiny mirror which she withdrew from the expensive shoulder bag now on her lap. It would not do, she knew, to walk into Mr. Alexander's office with smudged lipstick or a grimy face from the long bus ride she had made from their suburban home into the industrial section of Los Angeles.

It took Kathy but a minute to pat her long, shiny strawberry blonde hair into perfect place and then apply just a touch more of pale beige lipstick, adding a slightly more pinkish color to her already full, sensuous lips. The thin line of eye makeup around her wide brown eyes was still perfect, though, and she knew from experience that, no matter how determinedly she powdered her face, the light smattering of golden freckles across her nose and part way down her cheeks would show through anyway. Even though she was almost twenty-two years old, those puckish freckles gave her the appearance of a teen-aged tomboy, despite her alluring curves, but she had learned to live with them over the years consoling herself with the memory of Henry once having said that they were "cute" and made her actually prettier. Despite what was to her the annoyance of the freckles, she could see in the little compact mirror that she was indeed a very attractive young woman, the kind of young woman whose sweet, almost childlike facial features were a direct contrast to the delectable, curvaceous symmetry of her sensuous-looking body. The long, lucent swing of her shoulder length reddish-blonde hair tended to sophisticate her pixyish beauty, so that she almost looked her age.

Replacing the mirror in her handbag, the exquisite young wife shook her golden hair ruefully. It was disconcerting to look always so cherubic and inexperienced, especially at times such as this afternoon, when she was determined to impress Henry's formidable boss with her maturity and potential efficiency – impress him enough to land a decent job. With an involuntary gesture of nervousness, she reached down to smooth out the short skirt of her crisp, navy-blue cotton dress over her silky, suntanned thighs, hoping that the prim little frock with its lace cuffs and collar was proper and demure enough to help her in her plan. It was the longest dress she owned now, one left over from high school days, and yet it still exposed a fairly daring expanse of shapely, sun-browned leg well above the knee, and its slim figure-hugging design did little to hide the lush contours of her body, the high-set, swelling breasts and firm, circular buttocks that accentuated her tiny girlish waist to such good advantage. Well, so what if she did look a little daring, she rationalized, it could not hurt her chances for the job – though, God knows, it had not been doing her much good in her own home.

At the thought of her dismal home-life with Henry, her bright, ambitious husband, the slight, satisfied smile that had begun to play across her perfectly-formed lips faded away and her high, clear brow wrinkled with anxiety. In the six months since her marriage to Henry, the beautiful strawberry blonde had been forced to arrive at the conclusion that something was basically wrong with their relationship, something serious, and until last night, she had been unable to put her finger on precisely what it was. Now she knew and the realization had spurred her on to the desperate action she was taking today. She would get a job and show Henry once and for all, that she too had a mind, a mind probably just as good as his, and that she was perfectly capable of making some decisions concerning their marriage – even if she did occasionally make a mistake.

The mere memory of what had happened after dinner last night made Kathy's heart race furiously and she felt the blood rushing to her pretty face at the humiliating recollection of her own husband's cold, objective lecture about her "irresponsible conduct"… as though she were some sort of capricious school child who needed to be rapped across her knuckles for naughtiness. All she had done was take advantage of a "once-in-a-lifetime sale" on needed household goods in a local department store, considering very carefully before she had bought the bathroom scale and… well, an electric blender. They were things they should have and no doubt would have bought sooner or later anyway, but Henry had acted as though her decision had driven them to the verge of total bankruptcy. The whole thing was almost too silly to take seriously. After all, Henry made more than enough money to live on – and, really, who needed a bank account anyway after less than a year of marriage? Seriously, who did, she fumed to herself, thinking with resentment of her husband's cautiousness.

"Why do you always have to be such a grouch?"

Kathy started at the sound of her own voice and, realizing that she had spoken her thoughts aloud, looked furtively around the waiting room, afraid that the receptionist or someone else might have overheard her voiced complaint. But the reception area was still deserted except for the busy blonde at the desk, who was working the switchboard and writing out messages, oblivious, it seemed, to Kathy's presence in the room. Her embarrassment quickly waned and was replaced by defiance again. What if someone had heard her, she angrily asked herself. Perhaps, somehow someone might have figured out who she was talking about and told Henry what she had said about him.

She hardly had the nerve to tell him anything and the fact that she always became so intimidated in his presence made her madder than ever, when she actually stopped to think about it in the light of their latest disagreement. All she ever said was, "Yes, darling," "No, darling," "I'm wrong again, darling," even when she knew perfectly well she was right – at least part of the time! Well, this time she was going to surprise him, really shock him, and be right for a change. As soon as she had a job, they would have so much more money that they would be able to afford a truly nice house as well as a healthy savings account… and maybe that would do something badly needed for their sadly disintegrating sex-life.

Kathy sat up straight in her chair and her hand flew to her cheek in horror that she had even thought such a thing. For a moment she wondered at her own audacity at daring to even mentally criticize her own beloved husband's judgment in matters which she knew so little about. After all, except for a few sessions of back-seat petting in college, she had been virtually innocent when she had married Henry and he was the one male in her life who had ever taken the time and trouble to be patient and teach her what bit she knew about physical love. At least he had in the beginning. But now that she was finally beginning to lose her fears, to relax and truly enjoy the sensation of her husband's hard penis pistoning in and out of her most secret place, instead of being frightened to death as she had been when they were first married, Henry seemed to be losing interest in her sexually.

There, she was thinking the same thing again, the pretty blonde realized with a sense of self-irritation, she had decided early in their marriage that it did her no good at all to question Henry's judgment in matters like this and yet… and yet, there was obviously something wrong. Her chocolate-brown eyes clouded over with regret as she remembered the nights, seemingly so long ago, when Henry would spend hours coaxing her to do things that seemed so terrible, like actually touching his hard, lustfully throbbing penis before he put it into her, and he had always been right. They never hurt her and Henry had always provided both of them with a strange extra enjoyment. That is, all except for the weird things that he could never convince her to do, things that she had heard about in school but did not really think normal people did. Lately, instead of talking about them, he became angry when she refused to let him perform those perverse acts with her, and angrier still, when she refused to do them to him. It was not as though she had not tried sometimes. God knows, she always wanted to keep him happy and in love with her, but she just couldn't force herself to go through with them, not and feel normal. Even now, in the business-like atmosphere of Mr. Alexander's waiting room, she felt herself quivering with revulsion at the memory of one night, not long ago, when Henry had tried to push her head down under the sheets and then the coldness with which he had treated her afterward, when she had tearfully refused to obey him. Why wasn't he more understanding, she sadly wondered. Why couldn't he realize that she had fears and doubts just like anybody else?

"Mrs. Cummings, Mr. Alexander will see you now."

"Th-thank you," Kathy muttered as she rose automatically, flustered by the sudden presence of the blonde receptionist a few feet in front of her chair. Though she knew it was silly, she could not help but be embarrassed by the idea that she had been mulling over such personal things, right there in the anteroom of Mr. Alexander's office. Suppose his receptionist had been able to tell what she had been thinking by the look on her face? It was ridiculous, she knew, and yet Kathy felt relieved as she stepped into her husband's boss' office and heard the door shut quietly behind her.