Karen Ziegler Read online

  Confused, Kathy turned to Max for some sort of explanation but was met with the sight of his bulky naked body doubled over in silent laughter. She watched in astonishment as he righted himself with effort after retrieving one of his expensive Havana cigars from the pocket of his fallen jacket.

  "I-I don't understand… I should leave," Kathy murmured to no one in particular and she was about to swing her legs off the couch when Max reached out and placed his hand firmly on one of her smooth creamy knees.

  "Not so fast, baby," Max grinned sardonically around the fat cigar in his mouth. "Don't you want to meet your new boss, or have you changed your mind about your job… and your hubby's?"

  "My new boss?" Kathy repeated blankly as she tried to make her exhausted mind operate efficiently once again. "But I thought… isn't she your…"

  "No, darling, I'm the public relations department, the personal public relations department," June interrupted smoothly, then chuckled at the look of startlement and confusion that again crossed Kathy's sweet young face. "My name is June Stillson and I am the closest thing to a wife Max has," she added slightly more threateningly and then looked at Max. "Is she going to be my assistant?"

  "You got it, baby. You keep telling me that you can't handle all of my business associates, so now you've got someone to help you share the load," Max chortled to his mistress, his penetrating gaze roaming insultingly over Kathy's still-unclothed body.

  "But Max, I…" June began.

  "You can have her do shows for the guys, just the way she performed for you this afternoon." Once again his eyes lingered approvingly on the ripe young contours of Kathy's lush form. "You have to admit, June, that she did very well… very well indeed."

  "All right Max!" June snapped bitterly. Kathy's gaze darted up to catch a gleam of unmistakable jealousy in the older woman's expression. The youthful wife felt a sudden pang of apprehension about her future but then quickly forgot it as the lovely brunette turned to face her with an inquiring smile. "Do you think you can handle it, dear? Even Max, the stud here, can't come up to some of the monsters we'll have to… entertain. And sometimes they get a little strange when they're drunk… I just thought I should warn you."

  "You don't mean that I have to… to make love with strange men?" Kathy gasped in disbelief as she stared from one to the other of her two tormentors. As before, she was threatened by the cruel sarcasm that she thought she had heard in June Stillson's voice and she wondered if this was not some cruel trick they had contrived to humiliate her even more. But she could see from the sadistic, gloating expression on Max's face that it was all true. She had been led into a vicious trap, like an unsuspecting baby lamb, and there was no way out for her. She knew it now, just as she had known it when Max had called her a whore earlier, when his vile erect cock had been spearing in and out of her obscenely eager vagina. She had made herself into no more than a common slut when she had given in to the seemingly irresistible temptation this afternoon, and now she would have to do whatever those two horrible blackmailers wanted – if she wanted to keep her marriage intact. There was no other way, except to let Henry lose his job, and besides, she was certain that Max would happily blackmail her with what had happened today in his office. She knew that her husband would never forgive her if he should ever find out the awful truth.

  "I-I guess I have no choice," she said slowly, trying to blink back the tears of pitiful frustration and shame that were filling her eyes. The pretty little blonde stared hard into both June Stillson's and Max Alexander's faces, trying to find some pity or compassion in their expressions, but she found only two pairs of coldly amused eyes. Their demon-like indifference to her distress filled her with deep resentment over the injustice of her situation but she could do absolutely nothing but gaze contemptuously back at them. "May I go home now? I mean, are you finished with me yet," she finally asked icily.

  "Not for a long time, baby," Max quipped, leering hungrily again at her naked body as she rose upright from the couch, stepping carefully over his unclad body, still seated on the floor, to reach the crumpled heap of her clothing lying on the plush carpet a few feet away.

  June scowled irritably and then turned toward the miserable young woman, saying, "Pouting won't get you anywhere, honey, and I don't have time to play games with you. Take the job or forget it. And remember, nobody's forcing you to work for Alexander Steel Company," she added with a sly, ironic grin of insolence and spite.

  "That's right," Max smirked evilly. "Now, I think you ought to start work tomorrow."

  "Yes, if you want me to," Kathy nodded humbly as with down cast eyes she hurriedly put on her clothes, tears of stinging shame and resignation spilling at last in tiny wet trails down her flushed cheeks. "I'll do anything to save Henry's job and… and our marriage."

  "Don't worry, sweetie, you'll have to," Max rasped ominously as he also rose to his feet. "But right now, I'll give you your first paycheck, in advance, just to make your new job look a little more attractive to you. As I recall, money was your problem, wasn't it?"

  Without waiting for her reply, the hulking executive strode calmly back to his desk on the other side of the room, his long thick penis dangling like a vulgar length of limp hose under his softening belly as he bent slightly over to open a desk drawer and rummage around inside. Kathy saw a brief flash of green as he nonchalantly stuffed several bills into a white legal-size envelope and sealed it with a swipe of his fleshy red tongue.

  "There you are, kid," he said fliply, tossing the envelope toward her across the broad expanse of shinning wooden desk. "And if you want more, you'd better come up with a convincing story about what you're really doing on your new job. I'd hate to be forced to tell my version of everything to young Henry if he came storming in here, yelling rape."

  "Oh yes, I can just see it now – Henry Cummings' cute golden-haired little wife trying to explain to him what she does during her afternoons," June exclaimed gaily, her interest renewing in the younger woman. With a wry teasing smile, she added, "You can tell him for me that if he ever wants to get into the act, I'll be right up here in my office waiting for him. He looks a little green, but hell, he might be taught to be a great lay."

  Her last mocking words were lost on Kathy, who had grabbed up her purse and the envelope from Max's desk and hurried out of the room, a muffled sob her only farewell. After the door slammed shut behind her, the silence in the office was broken only by the sound of Max Alexander's self-satisfied laughter.

  "Dammit, Max, be quiet," his black-haired mistress hissed suddenly.

  "Why, baby, what's the matter," the naked, greying company president inquired facetiously, a look of injured innocence clouding his face. "You said that I deserved a little 'strange pussy' now and then, and anyway, I told you I'd explain everything."

  "Well, I hope you have a good reason for picking on the kid like that," she said with disgust in her voice. "Now I'll bet you're too worn out to take me to dinner as you promised."

  "Aw, hell, since when did a good fuck ever wear out Maxwell Alexander?" he cackled in amusement, shrugging his shoulders as he added: "So what's your problem, baby?"

  "Nothing, Max, nothing at all, except that I got a good look at you two going at it before you noticed me in here. And, if you want to know the truth, I can't remember the last time you fucked the way you were laying into that innocent little bitch!" June spat.

  "Why, honey, don't tell me you're jealous of that naive little girl," he crooned mockingly but smiling affectionately at the fuming brunette. "Don't play the dumb cocktail waitress with me, because I know you better than that – and anyway, you're hotter in bed than ten of those silly little broads."

  "Well, maybe I was jealous," she muttered in a low voice, somewhat mollified by his words, "but now that you've had your fun with her, we'll hand her over to your wolfish business pals. We wouldn't want to risk having her husband catch her with you, the boss, would we?"

  "Okay, okay," Max soothed her, circling around the desk to en
fold her in his brawny arms. "When did I ever do anything you didn't like?"

  "Ever since the night I met you, you horny old bastard," June shot back, but smiling now as she allowed herself to be crushed tightly to his naked hairy chest.

  Max knew that the crisis was over, for the moment anyway, and released her so that he could reach down and retrieve his clothing from the floor. The middle-aged steel magnate's mind was already working out plans for the next time he got that sweet-assed little blonde in his hands. "Ahhhh," he sighed satisfactorily to himself. "He would teach that young magazine editor of his to forget his picture, he would teach him well!"

  CHAPTER FIVE

  "Where have you been, honey? I've been home for nearly an hour and dinner isn't even started yet!" the youthful masculine voice came from inside the living-room as Kathy stealthily pushed open the door of their attractive suburban home. She had made infuriatingly slow connections on the buses out of Los Angeles and had hoped to be able to sneak into the house and make some plausible excuse to Henry about gossiping away the afternoon with a neighbor. But now, as she heard the sound of her husband's footsteps coming toward her from their living room with its big picture window facing the street, she knew that he must have seen her hurrying up the sidewalk from the bus-stop at the corner.

  "I'm sorry, darling. I went into the city today," she called back, meekly lowering her voice as Henry's slender, solid form appeared in the doorway from the living room. "I got back as soon as I could."

  "Dammit, have you been out shopping again, Kathy?" he interrupted, his blue eyes glowering beneath his thick shock of unruly dark brown hair. "I don't see any packages, so I assume you've bought one of the larger so-called necessities of life. What is it this time, a baby grand piano or a mink coat that they're going to deliver tomorrow?"

  "Oh, Henry, don't be silly," the sweet-faced blonde girl giggled nervously as she suddenly felt an unreasoning fear that her husband might somehow guess what had really happened to her in his boss' office that afternoon. Her slender fingers gripped more tightly the handle of her leather purse which contained the envelope that Max Alexander had given her. Gazing timidly up at Henry through her long, golden lashes, she tremulously explained, "I… I went in for something else, darling… to see someone."

  "Sure, sure, you always go in for something else," he said, shaking his handsome head skeptically. "But someone always manages to sell you something while you're there. Whatever it is, you're going back into town tomorrow and get your money back. I don't work forty hours a week in the Alexander Building so that we'll starve when we're old, Kathy. It's about time you started remembering that."

  Kathy raised her eyes to silently protest his automatic assumption of her extravagance, but it was too late. Having completed his tirade, her husband turned on his heel and strode back into the living room, and a moment later, the house was filled with the sound of the nightly television news broadcast.

  For the briefest second, the shapely young wife was sorely tempted to march right into the middle of Henry's precious news program and tell him how very wrong he was about what she had done that afternoon, tell him about her new job and the envelope that was in her purse. But guilt and fear held her back. She was afraid that once she began to tell the story of her meeting with Maxwell Alexander, she might accidentally let slip some incriminating detail, alerting him to the fact that his seemingly trust-worthy young wife had made a grave mistake that day, had lost the innocence and virtue that he had always so delighted in. Just the thought of how she had behaved in Mr. Alexander's office, willingly allowing that filthy old man to take the most indecent liberties with her body, made tears of shame spring into Kathy's big brown eyes and she rushed back into the kitchen to busy herself with preparing Henry's dinner before she broke down altogether.

  For a moment or two, the pretty young blonde bustled around her bright, modern kitchen, pulling cans from the cupboards and pork chops from the refrigerator, trying to pretend that this was a day just like any other, but her vision kept returning to the kitchen table. As she opened the canned peas and poured them into a saucepan, her thoughts kept going back to that moment on the bus when she had remembered the white envelope that had still been clenched tightly in her hand. Wanting to throw the unwelcome reminder of her horrible afternoon out the window of the moving bus and yet wondering how highly Maxwell Alexander had valued the afternoon's experience, Kathy had impulsively torn open the envelope. One glance at the contents had left her white with shock and she had anxiously stuffed it deep into her handbag, not wanting the other passengers on the roaring vehicle to see the tangible proof of her guilt.

  But now, in the kitchen of the home she had shared for six months with her husband, still smarting from the tongue-lashing Henry had so unfairly bestowed upon her, Kathy's thoughts returned to the envelope with a slightly different attitude. There was now money in her purse, a great deal of money, and after all, what had Henry been so upset about? Why else had she gone to Maxwell Alexander's office in the first place, if not to find an opportunity to help with her and Henry's financial situation. The beautiful young woman reasoned carefully as she slowly peeled potatoes over the sink. It was vile and disgusting to make love to other men behind her husband's back, she knew, but if it could save their suddenly shaky marriage, was it too great a price to pay?

  Suddenly, with an expression of unusual determination on her face, Kathy set down the potato and peeler and turned around to face the kitchen table, hurriedly wiping her hands on a dishtowel she had grabbed from a rack near the sink. Only her wide eyes showed her anxiety as she reached out and fumbled with the clasp of the leather bag, finally opening it and pulling the crumbled white envelope out of the very bottom.

  At first, she hesitated to look into it staring instead beseechingly at the door to the living room, as though mutely pleading for a compassionate reprieve from the future that fate seemed to have designed for her. But nothing issued from beyond that door but the sound of the evening news and at last with a sigh, she withdrew the contents of the envelope. Closing her mind to everything else, to the brassy sounds of the television and the persistent, slightly painful tingle between her thighs that served as a nagging reminder of her betrayal of her marriage vows, Kathy slowly and deliberately counted the money, twice.

  It was five hundred dollars, more than her husband made in two weeks! It was twenty times the amount she had spent at the bargain sale yesterday and if he never found out how she had gotten it, it was more than enough to make Henry view her in a new light, to start talking to her like an equal again and maybe even to care enough about her to take time and much-needed care with their sex life, talking about new things and making love considerately like he used to.

  Even in her intense concentration, Kathy was suddenly aware of the click of the television off-switch and then the low footsteps that suddenly filled the silence of the house. In her panicky fear of discovery, the frightened girl could think of nothing to do but hide the five hundred dollars behind her back as she heard Henry coming toward the kitchen.

  "Honey, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have jumped on you like that," his apologetic voice came into the back of the house even before his sheepishly smiling face appeared in the kitchen doorway. "The printer forgot to put Mr. Alexander's picture in the magazine and I'm just worried about the explosion that's coming tomorrow when he notices it. What did you do downtown today, anyway?"

  "Well… well, I…" Kathy faltered, trying desperately to conjure up some reason for their newfound wealth, "I saw… a lawyer," she suddenly decided aloud, a smile of profound relief lighting up her naturally sunny facial features as she seized upon the bold lie. "D-did I ever tell you about my great-aunt in Baltimore? She… she died."

  "Oh, honey, I'm sorry," Henry blurted out consolingly, rushing up to wrap his arms around her slim shoulders as he saw her soft lower lips begin to quiver and her eyes grow shiny with real tears.

  "No, you don't understand," the young blonde wife said, no long
er able to hold back her tears of helpless misery. Tearing free of his embrace, she tried frantically to smile as she brought her hands from where they had been hidden behind her back and pressed the hundred-dollar bills into his hand. "Here… the lawyer gave me this… She left me the money. Now we don't have to worry about… about money anymore," she explained through her uncontrollable sobbing.

  Her good-looking husband stared at her, first in astonishment then with concern as he thought he began to understand the true reason for her distress. Tossing the money down on the kitchen table, he laced his wiry arm around Kathy's tiny waist and drew her closer to him, until her head nestled warmly into his shoulder. Softly stroking her face with his other hand, he murmured gently, "I'm so sorry, honey. I didn't think you were taking our money problems to heart so much or I never would have been so hard on you. It's not that important. It really isn't."

  "I know, darling, I know," Kathy gasped out through her tears as she leaned wearily against the comforting warmth of her husband's tall form. In her heart, however, the voluptuous young wife was thinking something that was entirely different, for Henry was holding her tenderly, speaking more gently with her than he had done in weeks, making a real effort to understand how she felt. He seemed suddenly different now, radically changed from the way he had acted toward her for such a long time, changed from the way he had acted when she had walked in the door only fifteen minutes ago. And to her mind, there was only one thing that could account for the sudden shift in his whole attitude toward her.

  Kathy's brown-eyed gaze drifted to the tiny pile of green one hundred dollar bills that lay on the kitchen table and she realized that, yes, she definitely would be returning to the Alexander Building, tomorrow as she had promised.

  CHAPTER SIX

  June Stillson sighed in disgust and slowly settled her excitingly naked body into an easy chair close to the huge king-size bed, reaching up beside her then to pull a small, secret switch recessed in the bedroom wall. It was located next to the huge mirror facing the colossal double bed that filled most of the room.