by Don Elliott
Ray put down the beer can. It was empty. He said, "You look so beautiful, Ellen. I never knew a girl who looked as lovely as you. With or without clothes."
"You should have thought of that while you still had a chance to save our marriage," she said. "You won't accept a reconcilation?"
"Don't be silly."
"How soon are you going to get married again after the divorce is final?"
"That's my business," she said.
He took a step toward her, stretching out his hands. "I'm going to lose you, Ellen, aren't I?"
"You've already lost me."
"Let me touch you. Let me hold you."
"Please, Ray. It's no use. Don't-"
But he ignored her protests, as he always did, and she could not refuse him. In a moment his long, tapering fingers were clutching at her flesh. He wrapped his arms around her and pressed his lips against hers.
One hand seized the jutting mound of her right breast, gripping it firmly, making the nipple throb as he pressed it. The other hand slid down her body, pushing the shortie nightgown aside to cup the cool firm cheeks of her bare buttocks. The fingertips glided along the valley and toward her thighs.
She began to gasp and breathe hard. His tongue was probing her mouth. She closed her eyes and rubbed herself from side to side against him.
The lawyer had said never to let him into her apartment again, and certainly never to sleep with him. But what did the lawyer know about desire? He had his head stuck away in law books all the time. Ellen was a woman, and a passionate, fiery woman at that. She couldn't turn a man away simply because she was divorcing him. Okay, she couldn't get along with the guy; there were psychological things about him that made her dislike him. But she could dislike a man and still feel desire for him.
Her nipples were red-hot rocks. Her breasts were throbbing and swollen with yearning.
She let him push his hand down the front of her body until he held her. She moved her thighs, allowing him to caress her. He touched her lightly at first, delicately, coyly, with that oddly feminine grace of his that was so very different from Jim McHughes' bulldozer masculinity.
Then he sprang away from her. He began to strip.
Ellen pulled her nightgown over her head and cast it aside. Beads of sweat were popping out all over her body. Her breasts were heaving violently. There was the anguish of total need in her sizzling body.
Ray had his shirt off. He looked leaner than ever, almost skinny. A sprinkling of red freckles was dusted lightly over his pale chest. The thin, curling red hair looked almost purple in the dim light.
He started to drop his pants. Then he grinned and said. "The window blinds! You're always leaving the blinds open, Ellen."
"Maybe I like an audience when I make love."
"Well, I don't." He stepped past the nude Ellen and drew the blinds. Then he pulled his trousers and shorts off. His narrow, hipped body looked almost boyish. Except that he was too masculine to be mistaken for a boy. Ellen moved toward the bed, her body hot with desire. But Ray wasn't ready to go to bed yet.
It was the same old business, she realized. The crazy gimmick that she hated so much.
He stooped and pulled his belt out of his trousers and handed it to her.
"Hit me first," he begged her. "Give me a good whipping, Ellen! That's what I deserve!"
"You know I don't like to do that."
"Please. Do it for me."
"It's twisted. It's nasty."
"Make me happy, Ellen."
She scowled at him. He was such a toad, such a creepy perverted character! Ray had this masochistic streak running through him. He loved to be punished. He liked people to call him names, to insult him, to turn him into a ridiculous clown. He was only happy when he was miserable.
And in sex, the pattern carried through. He liked his women to dominate him. He wanted them to whip him, to hurt him, to injure him both physically and psychologically. Why, he was probably taking a twisted pleasure in the fact that Ellen was divorcing him. Even though it hurt him bitterly to lose her, it also gave him the masochistic kicks that he cherished.
"Hit me!" he pleaded.
Ellen grabbed the belt and held it by the buckle end. She wielded it like a whip. Although it made her feel perverted to gratify Ray in these desires, she couldn't deny that there was a kind of pleasure in it, too, to be a tyrant, to make a grown man grovel before her.
She lashed out with the whip. It caught him right across the thighs, in front, only a couple of inches below the one place where he was terrified of being hit. He gasped and leaped back, whirling around, presenting his flat buttocks to her. Ellen flicked the whip across both cheeks. He sucked in his breath in an expression of delight.
She hit him across the shoulders. It left a mark. He spun around, and she got him on the other shoulder, and then across the stomach. His eyes were glazed with ecstasy. He was taut with tension, testifying to the sudden surge of excitement within him.
Ellen was temped to direct her aim. He made such a good target. She had done it once, a couple of years ago, during one of these masochistic sessions. It hadn't been a very wise idea. He had grabbed himself and doubled up in agony, and afterward he hadn't been able to take her, so she was the real loser.
She kept the belt in control. But there were plenty of other places to whip. Ray Dawson sagged to the floor under the impact of her blows. He crouched there on his knees, with his arms crossed over his forehead to protect his face, and Ellen stood above him.
She brought the belt down again and again. Sweat oiled her nude body, making it glisten. The heavy globes of her breasts jiggled up and down with each stroke of the belt. It connected with Dawson's slim body. He didn't have much fat on him to cushion the blows.
Ellen felt a savage pounding of delight inside her. She stood with her legs set, and she could feel the heat radiating from her body as she took joy in the whipping. She was the slave-master, and he was the slave. She grunted in pleasure as she slammed the belt down.
"Yes-yes-" he whimpered. "Hurt me, punish me, Ellen! I deserve it! I deserve it!"
The marks of the beating were all over him. Still her arm rose and fell, still the round breasts shivered and shook with each motion.
Then he looked at her. "Now!" he cried. "Get down here, Ellen. Now, now!"
He rolled over on his back and beckoned to her.
Ellen dropped down on top of him.
This was how he liked best to make love. With the woman on top of him, dominating him. He didn't like to take the upper position himself. He preferred to let his partner take charge.
Ellen straddled him. She threw her legs out on either side of him and lowered the soft cushions of her buttocks against his thighs. Her body was wild, ready for love.
She seized him with her hand and guided him.
He went to her easily, for her always passionate body was eager. Ellen slid forward a little way, and he tried to help her. He lifted his knees to provide a seat for her.
She began to move.
She rocked up and down, around and about, moving herself with excitement and dedication. She watched his face. It was twisted and distorted with the play of delight. Her own face, she knew, must also show the powerful emotions that were coursing through her. There were many things to be said in favor of this sort of position, she thought, and one of them was that the lovemaking pair had a full view of one another's faces while they were loving. So long as they could keep their eyes open, of course.
He reached up. His delicate hands grabbed her breasts, gripping the two swollen globes of flesh like handles. She moved vigorously on top of him Her buttocks rubbed against his lean thighs.
The spasms were starting, now. The delicious muscular contractions of fulfillment.
Yes, she thought. Yes! Yes!
He smiled at her and closed his eyes. An instant later she knew the expression of his happiness, and in practically the same moment there came the c
ulminating paroxysms of her own ecstasy. She gasped and moaned and writhed her way through the glory of it, and then, covered with sweat, limp and drained of passion, Ellen let herself slowly slump forward until her nude body was draped out like a blanket over the form of the man who had once been her husband.
CHAPTER FIVE
Mr. Crispian, huddled behind his window across the courtyard, was wondering what was going on in there.
He felt a little cheated tonight. He had gotten a glimpse of the blonde girl's naked body, true enough. He couldn't complain about that. She had undressed right to the buff in front of her open window.
But she hadn't done her calisthenics. She had robbed him of his nightly view of her wonderful body writhing and wriggling through the exercises. He particularly missed the one where she planted her feet flat on the floor and spread her legs and bent over backward to try to grab her ankles with her hands. That one made her breasts point to the ceiling, and gave him an unequaled view of her.
No, tonight she had skipped the exercises. She had taken off her clothes, allowing him to look at her supple, voluptuous nude body, and then she had gone into the bathroom for her nightly bath. The bathroom had a frosted window, so he couldn't see anything there.
Mr. Crispian had had another brief peek at her a little while later, when she came out of her bath. He had watched her put on a nightgown that didn't hide very much of her nudity. Then she had disappeared to get into bed, apparently. He couldn't see her bed from his vantage point.
Next, company had arrived. It was one of the regulars, the thin redheaded man with the crew cut who came two or three times a month. Mr. Crispian had watched them kissing. That was a hot one! He had seen the redheaded man grab a good handful of the blonde girl's bare buttocks, beneath her little nightgown. Then the blonde had taken off her gown altogether, and Mr. Crispian had sat forward on the edge of his seat, tense, hoping that he might actually see them make love.
He had seen lovemaking once, only once, since he had taken up the hobby of window peeping. The blonde girl's most frequent visitor, the burly dark-haired man, had loved her standing up, right by the window, and for once he had forgotten to pull the blind. Mr. Crispian had seen the whole thing. Her sharp eyes had seen him going to her, as he held her with her buttocks facing the window and tipped up a little so that Mr. Crispian could see the action and the two pale globes of flesh. He had seen, with his sharp eyes, the passion-distorted face of the blonde girl as the dark-haired man moved to her again and again.
Mr. Crispian had been so excited that night that he was unable to sleep. He had remained awake, seem" in his mind's eye the whole scene replayed again and again. But tonight he wasn't going to get a repeat. The red-haired fellow stripped to the waist and then he pulled the blind, shutting off Mr. Crispian's view.
Half an hour had passed since then. The blind had remained drawn.
They were loving, he thought. He was on her, or maybe she was on him. Their bodies were moving, and they were riding off to passion.
Lonely in his miserable sickness, he acted out in his mind the scene that he knew was going on across the courtyard. He stewed in the juices of his own sour frustration for a while.
Then, realizing that he had seen all that he was going to see of the blonde girl for this evening, Mr. Crispian began to survey some of the other windows that had produced scores for him in the past.
They were lit up. It was past ten o'clock, and he had a clear view into many apartments. He glanced at the one on the fifth floor. Two months ago, he had seen a naked woman in that window. True, it hadn't exactly been a sight for sore eyes. She had been about fifty, he guessed, fat and untidy-looking. But she had been naked. He had seen her big, long, dangling breasts, her dimpled, jiggling buttocks, and the pot of her stomach. For Mr. Crispian, who measured his life in such adventures, even that glimpse of sloppy, middle-aged nudity had been a triumph.
He hadn't seen her again in the nude. But he never gave up hope, once he scored with any window. If a woman would walk around naked in front of a window once, she might do it a second time. But there was no action up there tonight, Mr. Crispian saw. All he could make out was the blue glow of a television set. He wouldn't see any flesh.
His eye roved a couple of apartments over. Only last week he had had a real thrill there-a teen-age girl, dark-haired and beautiful. Up till now, the blonde girl right across the way was his most dependable and most attractive peeping victim. But this teen-ager had really sent his blood pressure soaring.
He had seen her around the building over the past few years, had watched her grow up and fill out. But he had never spied on her. Now and then, he had caught sight of her moving around in her bedroom, but she had always been fully dressed. All the same, he continued to survey her window, just on the off chance that some night he would be rewarded.
The reward, when it came, was spectacular. She appeared in the window totally nude. She was standing in front of the dresser, with her profile to him, and she was brushing out her lustrous black hair.
Thanks to the mirror on the dresser, Mr. Crispian got a perfect double view, front and side at the same time. The profile showed him her flawless figure, narrow at the waist, flat at the stomach, with her breasts high, firm and jutting out straight in front of her, and her buttocks curving attractively. The mirror showed him both breasts at once, twin round hills of delight tipped with small, dark-hued nipples.
He had watched her for fifteen minutes as she tirelessly ran the brush through her hair in stroke after stroke. Then she had finished brushing her hair. She turned and faced the window, and he got a direct view of the flat young stomach, the mounds of breast-flesh, the jet-black beauty of her. She was about fifteen or sixteen, Mr. Crispian guessed, and her body had the perfection of early maturity.
She had pulled the blind. And it was like a cloud shutting off the sun. Each night since then he had hoped to catch another glimpse of her, but no luck. Now he looked hopefully toward her window. It was dark.
She's out on a date, Mr. Crispian thought with the bitter jealousy of a loveless man. She's in a parked car somewhere, on the back seat. Her date is unfastening her brassiere. He's putting his hands on her breasts. Squeezing them. Playing with the nipples. They're like little buttons, hard and round. Now he's taking a nipple in his mouth. Drawing on it. She's gasping. She's still a virgin; this is the first time anybody's ever done this to her.
And now the date is pulling her panties down. She is exposed.
He's opening his pants. She gasps a little. She's afraid because he's so strong.
He moves toward her. He arranges her limbs and positions her.
Then he puts himself into position.
"Be gentle," she whispers. "This is my first time, you know."
"Yes. I know, darling."
He just goes just a little way. He retreats almost completely. Then he pushes again, a little further. His hands are holding her breasts. Her buttocks are bare against the upholstery of the car seat. She wriggles around. Excitement is taking hold of her. He's going to make a woman out of her! She thrusts herself against him.
There's resistance. She keeps on pushing, though. So does he.
Suddenly the barrier dissolves, and he's there; she's holding on tight to him and her eyes are closed; she's afraid and in love all at once, and he moves around, going further and further Mr. Crispian shook his head. He clenched his fists so hard that his nails dug into his palms, and pulled himself out of his fantasy of imaginary sex in a parked car. For all he knew, the dark-haired girl was at choir rehearsal tonight, or a basketball game, something completely innocent.
Sweat ran down the peeper's body. His eyes roved the other windows, hungry for a score.
Hey, now! What's this?
Second floor. It was the apartment where the Andersons had lived. Old Mr. Anderson had dropped dead in January, and the widow had moved out a month later. The apartment had been vacant for a while, but Mr. Crispian had heard th
at some people were moving in.
The light snapped on suddenly in the apartment. Mr. Crispian saw two figures.
Two girls.
They were standing in a bedroom. There was no furniture in the room except a bed. There weren't any blinds that could be drawn, because they hadn't been put up yet. The apartment still had that raw, not-quite-lived-in look. The open window, unguarded by any kind of barrier, radiated a blaze of sudden light into the courtyard.
The girls were kissing.
They were in a tight embrace. Mr. Crispian watched, startled by what he saw. This was a quiet, middle-class kind of house. They didn't get any beatnik kinds here, any Bohemians. Yet these two young girls, framed in the window, were unmistakably kissing. There was a brunette and a kind of red-haired-girl, and the brunette had her hand between their two bodies, obviously holding the other girl's breasts. And the other one was rubbing her hand over the brunette's blue jean-covered buttocks.
