Robert Desmond

House of Evil

CHAPTER ONE

"Just take your time, my dear, and try to pretend I'm not even in the room with you," George Blackwell instructed the stunningly beautiful redhead with a slight chuckle. "I'll simply be working in here for awhile."

"Yes sir," Nadalee Parker replied in a soft, shy voice, nodding sweetly as she bent down to dust a bookshelf a few feet away from where her new employer sat behind a huge mahogany desk, his intelligent but somehow disturbing gaze seeming to bore straight through the sheerness of her white maid's uniform. She felt a cold shiver run through her, as though his eyes were stripping her bare, and the very fact of his assurance that she should pay no attention to him because he was "working", made her feel all the more uncomfortable in his presence. For he was not working at all but only sitting there, almost leering at her, glancing up and down the length of her body with a strange sort of approving smile on his stern-featured face. Her hand trembled inadvertently as she swiped along the tops of the books with the feather-duster and she suddenly found herself unable to concentrate on what she was doing from one moment to the next.

Jesus, what an innocent, juicy young bitch! George thought to himself as he ogled his new maid's lush, girlish figure. She was almost like a toy, a sexy little eighteen-year-old toy, with long copper-red hair and big fluttery emerald-green eyes. And man, he was glad now that he had allowed his wife, Dolores, to talk him into buying Nadalee the "uniform" she was wearing. It was a lacy blouse and a kind of little-girl pinafore with a tucked-in waist and a short skirt that accentuated every inch of the lovely girl's body, from the deep cleavage showing between her large, firm, white breasts to the taper of her slender waist and the rounded outward curve of her luscious hips that sloped to her long full-swelling thighs and, lower, to her well-formed calves and ankles… Hell, yes, she was absolutely mouth-watering to look at! He could hardly wait to get his hands and mouth on those ripe young curves and bring her to a pitch of passion that would make her beg for what he could certainly give her when she was ready. But she had to be ready, he reminded himself, or his ambitious plans for her in the future might never be fully realized. Still, though, he decided, it could not hurt anything now to relish her choiceness from a distance. He involuntarily drew in his breath at the sight of her sweet chasteness. There was no denying that there was something especially vulnerable about Nadalee, in that almost naked expression on her face that made her look as if she required protection from everything around her and that she was the kind of girl around whom men automatically watched their language and probably usually felt guilty about even desiring. After all, she looked so pure, so thoroughly innocent, so untouched by the tough sophistication of big city life and the fast types of people that he and Dolores had left behind them in San Francisco. But there was something more too, something deeper and excitingly sensual, an innate sexuality in her that seemed to be just begging to be exploited to the fullest. Well, by Christ, he was just the man to do it, he gloated inwardly, thinking with pride of himself as one of those rare, rare exceptions – a man whose own perversity and lust were points of genuine honor in his mind.

"Do you like it here, Nadalee?" George asked bluntly, surprising the girl with the sudden sound of his voice.

"Oh yes – yes, I like it very much," the redhead answered quickly, avoiding his eyes as she struggled to control herself and not betray her discomfort around him.

"Do you like me, Nadalee?" he interrogated, grinning pointedly as he continued to feast his eyes on her voluptuous young body like some sort of monarch about to enjoy a ritual sacrifice. He could not get over her youthful smoothness, how unused and unmarked she appeared to be, even though he knew that she was married to Newton, whom he had hired along with her as chauffeur and handyman, a young man who was only two years older than she.

"You didn't answer my question, dear. I asked if you like me," George repeated after a moment.

"Y-yes… I-I like you, sir," Nadalee stammered, blushing a little as she continued to work without daring to look up at the big man sitting behind the desk.

"But what exactly do you like about me?" he taunted, enjoying her embarrassment and how she unconsciously dusted again a surface of the bookshelf that she had just finished a moment before. "Do you like me the same way you like your husband?"

"I… I don't know what you mean, Mr. Blackwell," the lovely green-eyed girl quailed as she turned to briefly glimpse his face for some sign, some clue to his meaning, and saw the slight smirk on his face as his eyes blatantly traced the contour of her throat to the tantalizing valley of cleavage between her full breasts suspending below her bent form under the gauzy veneer of the lacy white blouse. She hardly dared to breathe and anxiously wondered why he was putting her in such an awkward position by asking a question that she obviously did not know how to answer. She knew that her face was a beet-red color and the knowledge only served to fluster her more.

"Now come on, my dear, it's a simple question," he chuckled hoarsely as he watched her full, rounded buttocks poke high in the air when she bent lower to flick the feather-duster over the books on a lower shelf. "I'm certain that a bright girl like you knows what I mean… Do you like me as a man in the same way that you like your husband? I'm merely curious, that's all, so you mustn't try to avoid answering for some silly reason that has nothing to do with the truth."

"I'm sorry… I'm sorry," she blurted, unable to decide on what he wanted her to say. Of course she did not have the same feelings toward him as she had for Newton, her own husband! But maybe the stern-faced man meant something else…

"That's okay, honey," George said, faking a patronizing tone of voice to further intimidate her. "Just forget it. I guess it's not all that important anyway."

"But Mr. Blackwell, I'm sorry," she said meekly, an apologetic frown on her face as she straightened up to look at him and a feeling of girlish confusion mounted in her. "It's only that I don't know what you want me to say."

"Please, forget it," George rasped, wiping his palm across his forehead in mock disgust.

"But really, I'm sorry," Nadalee whimpered, afraid that she had actually offended her employer. She wondered now if she had been wrong to suspect him for what might after all have been just an attempt on his part to make harmless conversation. "I didn't mean to hurt you, Mr. Blackwell, but I just don't understand you."

"I said forget it," he snapped, his tone causing her to wheel away from him as though she had been cuffed for stupidity. He sat watching her apply herself to cleaning the room with renewed fervor, grinning to himself as he reveled in the power he felt after making the little bitch squirm. Damn, he thought, he had fucked a lot of women, many of them young, but never had he even come close to screwing anything as luscious and naive as the girl before him. The picture of her lying on her back with her innocent young legs spread wide and just the thought of helpless mewling grunts of pleasure coming from those tender lips goaded his prick into rock-hardness. He could feel the blood throbbing painfully into its large expanded head and the tiny droplets of slippery clear seminal fluid, that already had begun to seep from the sensitive contracting gland at its tip, smearing wetly against his beefy hairy thigh. Then, silently, surreptitiously, he opened the fly of his expensive woolen trousers to ease the pain a little. Then, with the massive desk shielding him from detection, he slowly massaged the heavy thick foreskin back and forth over the wet jerking cock-head as he leered salaciously over at the beautifully built young redhead who was still working away in deep concentration on the long bookshelf. He could not help but smile contemptuously as he noticed how determinedly she was evading any direct eye contact with him, holding herself back from him as if she really knew what a fiend he was when his own greedy enthusiasm for obscene sexual situations took over his brain and body.

Well, never mind, he thought to himself, this big prick he now held in his hands was the great equalizer, the piece of equipment that would teach her the facts of life, and he would see that she prayed to it like an idol of pleasure before very long. But shit, he could barely contain himself from jumping up now and throwing her down to the floor to ram it up deep between her soft silky white thighs. Probably the time would be right tomorrow, or the next day at the latest, but soon, soon, no matter what.

Being careful not to attract her attention, he slyly opened the last button at the top of his fly and peeled open the flaps of his trouser front to fully release his hard thick penis. It stood out in proud menacing erection under the desk-top as he savored the thought of the obscenities to come, dwelling particularly on what a delectable sight it would be to see his stiff cock throbbing out its load into Nadalee Parker's sweet innocent face and down over her soft pale breasts as she knelt down in front of him. He lewdly pictured his sperm dribbling down over her chin to the hollow of her slender throat and forming warm sticky pools between those lush firm breasts of hers. It was driving him half crazy and again he considered going through with it then and there as he stroked himself to a rigidity that threatened to erupt into a streaming flow of thick white cum at any moment… But no, not yet, he chided himself; not until everything was perfectly arranged according to plan. He knew that he would hate himself if he allowed his impatience of the moment to spoil all the juicy fun in store in the near future for everyone in the household.

"Mr. Blackwell, there's a call for you on the telephone downstairs," a tall, completely bald man of about thirty announced suddenly at the open doorway to the study. The unexpected sound of the gruff male voice caused George to jump slightly in his chair, swearing as he glowered with loathing at the unwelcome intruder. It was Braun, his and Dolores' personal manservant for the past five years, a brutish half-wit who was well-trained and obedient but too stupid to observe certain formalities.

"You Goddamned fucking idiot, I've told you over and over to knock before you enter a room!" George barked savagely at Braun. The husky sweating man of forty-five lifted one hand from his lap beneath the desk-top to smooth back his silver-grey convict-short hair and then reached down again to button his trouser fly before rising to his feet.

Nadalee twisted quickly around from the bookshelf with a look of open-mouthed amazement on her pretty face at the sound of the ugly vile words that George Blackwell had used so cruelly to reprimand the dull-minded servant who stood there unfazed and uncomprehending in the doorway. She had never heard a man speak that way in front of a woman before and she was visibly shaken. But that shock was mild compared to the one she felt when George finally rose and she saw the jutting hardness of his penis straining against the semen-soaked fabric at the front of his trousers. She almost fainted, her body sagging back against the wall for support, her knees feeling as light as balloons as she gazed helplessly at the lewd, disgusting spectacle of the older man's shameless lust. Any other time she would have run away as fast as possible to escape from such an indecent, vulgar exhibition of evil carnality as this but now she was paralyzed, her feet rooted to the floor, and she could not bring herself to take her eyes from his bulging maleness. It was as though she had been spellbound, was charmed into motionlessness, and not even her own innermost horror could break the trance of wicked fascination that held her sight locked inexorably on the tent-like protrusion in his trouser crotch. It was insane, hideously sinful, something that she had never done before in her short sheltered life.

There was a glint of pleased amusement in George's dark inquiring eyes when he saw the stunned expression on Nadalee's exquisite face. By God, look at her, the impressively big man smirked to himself as he strode heavily toward Braun who was still waiting silently at the entranceway. Goddamned if the sensuous-looking young maid did not seem to be more than just a little interested in her new employer's aching hard-on! Shit, maybe he should just stick around and forget all about his carefully worked out plans for the girl in the near future… Maybe his scheming was actually unnecessary… Maybe he should try to have a go at the tasty little cock-tease right now.

"It's a long distance, Mr. Blackwell," Braun droned thickly in an almost characterless voice, reminding George of the telephone call waiting for him downstairs. "Mrs. Blackwell said to tell you it's pretty important and that you should get down there as soon as you can."

"Don't you worry yourself about it, Braun," George admonished, "because if it's any close friend of mine, whoever it is can damned well afford to pay for a few lousy extra minutes of telephone service, long distance or not." When Braun failed to offer the inane reply that he usually uttered after any remark that George made in his presence, the big-limbed wealthy man turned slightly to glance at his feeble-minded employee and saw that the bald servant was examining Nadalee's scantily-clad form, his nostrils quivering as his deep-set eyes hungrily scanned the girl's soft curvaceous limbs.

"You stupid son-of-a-bitch, you're going to get yourself all hot and bothered for nothing if you don't stop gawking that way at the poor young thing. Anyway, she's married, you know," George teased as he sneered insultingly at the already obviously aroused moron. Laughing aloud then, he slapped Braun on the shoulder and shoved him playfully toward the hallway outside the door.

Just as the two men were leaving the room, George threw another cackle back over his shoulder and said wryly, "Nadalee, honey, I want you to decide what it is that you like about me when you go home today. We can talk about it tomorrow."

A second after they were gone, the lovely distressed girl slumped down limply with her back against the wall, shaking so violently that she was barely able to support her own weight with her legs. Gradually, regathering her senses little by little, relief from being alone again coming over her, she began to relax and breathe normally for the first time since she had been in the room that afternoon. As her mind began to clear, she found herself remembering the odd chain of events that had brought her and Newton to accept their present jobs with George Blackwell and his harsh-seeming but extremely attractive wife here in Southern Oregon, jobs which paid well but were so psychologically demanding that sometimes she wished with all her heart that she and Newton were still back in Oklahoma, living the modest life they had known as newlyweds in a tiny town outside of Tulsa. Not that they had been wildly happy there; not when her husband had been so gravely religious and sober-minded, just as he always was now, but at least she had been among friends and had felt freer to be herself while Newton worked as a service station attendant in town. And they had had "the dream", as her handsome brunette husband called it, that someday they would have enough money saved up to buy a farm and raise children. It had been all he ever talked about and finally she had come to have faith in the dream as well.

Then, one evening before dinner, Newton had come running into the kitchen to her, waving the Tulsa newspaper excitedly and pointing to an advertisement in the classified section. "This might be our chance to make 'the dream' come true!" he had enthused, urging her to sit down and read it then and there, even though she had been in the middle of cooking their meal. The ad had read: RETIRED COUPLE WANTS ATTRACTIVE YOUNG MAN AND WIFE AS MAID, CHAUFFEUR amp; HANDYMAN. FIVE-ROOM COTTAGE PROVIDED, MORE THAN GENEROUS PAY AND MANY BENEFITS. ONLY REQUIREMENTS: WILLINGNESS AND APPRECIATION OF PRIVACY IN BEAUTIFUL FOREST AREA. SEND PHOTOGRAPHS.

Newton had insisted that they answer the advertisement and they had spent the entire evening drafting a reply and choosing the best of their wedding pictures to accompany it. They had received an answer within a week, a friendly letter of acceptance along with a check for airplane fare and instructions to meet a Mr. and Mrs. George Blackwell at the San Francisco airport on a date less than a week away. It had been a frantic time for the next few days, packing, Newton quitting his job, saying goodbye to everyone, but at last they had arrived in San Francisco and been surprised to find that their new employers were not the elderly couple that they had expected.

After a drink together to get acquainted, they had all left the terminal in the Blackwells' expensive shiny black Chrysler and driven into the city itself where George had given them a fistful of money and told them it was an advance for clothes and personal items that they might need up in the mountains where they were going. She remembered now how Newton had practically fainted when the older, white-haired man had told them what their salary would be. It was more than they had dreamed possible! More than three times as much as Newton had been making at the service station back home! And there were supposed to be what the Blackwells had called "premiums", to be paid every few months, if the young Parker couple "worked out all right". As the big car had sped northward toward the Oregon border, Mr. Blackwell had explained how he had made a virtual fortune on real estate holdings in California and had decided to retire while he and his wife were still young enough to enjoy themselves. He had gone on to relate how they had searched all over the west coast to find exactly the right spot to build a luxurious home with servants' accommodations nearby, a spot where they could have privacy in lovely natural surroundings, and how excited they had been when finally they had found and bought the property at Quail Lake. Nadalee had been proud when he had said that she and Newton had been chosen out of over two hundred couples who had answered the advertisement from almost all over the United States.

They had arrived at Quail Lake that evening, been given a large bundle containing their uniforms, and then the Blackwells had escorted them by flashlight to the roomy, nicely-furnished cottage that was located about three hundred yards from the main house. It had all seemed to be a fairy tale, too good to be true, and she had been filled with childish happiness over the elegance of their new home and the seeming windfall of money they would be earning simply as servants.

That had been a week ago. But now, despite the fact that Newton was well pleased with the way things were working out, she was nervous and always plagued with a feeling of unexplained anxiety, as though her welfare were constantly on the verge of being irredeemably destroyed, not only by George Blackwell's insolent behavior, but also by a strange mixture of unreconciled feelings inside herself. She had been struggling with herself, as was even now, against an overpowering resentment at her husband's miserly displays of affection toward her even while she wanted more than anything to please him and be a perfect wife. She knew she was being silly but it was becoming harder and harder – especially lately, during the short time that they had been at Quail Lake – to endure the strong sense of loneliness that she felt.

Well, she decided, there was no time right now to dawdle over such unimportant matters. She was merely a young newly-wed and Newton surely realized what he was doing, even if she was unhappy to the point of misery sometimes, and besides, his apparent coldness toward her was probably only because he worked so hard to please the Blackwells and that his mind was filled with plans for the farm that, now, in one short week had become less "the dream" and more of a reality in her mind. Her mother had warned her against selfishness, had said, "If you can't be certain your man is leading you in the right direction, you shouldn't have agreed to follow him in the first place."

Nadalee noticed the clock on the wall behind the big desk that George Blackwell had occupied less than five minutes ago. Heavens, it was almost five-thirty, only twenty minutes before her husband would be expecting her back at their cottage, and she still had most of the study to clean! Despite her troubled state of mind and the embarrassment she had suffered in the room, she knew that Newton would be absolutely infuriated if for any reason the Blackwells were dissatisfied with her work as a maid. Sighing, she straightened up and set herself to the task of finishing the task with a fresh burst of energy, praying that she could do a decent job and still be home before she was missed.

Twenty minutes later, almost to the second, Nadalee hurried through the garden toward the forest path that snaked through the towering trees along the lake to the cottage. Suddenly she stopped dead in her tracks at the sound of a menacing growl behind her. After what seemed an eternity, she turned slowly and saw that it was Buck, the huge black-and-brown German Shepherd that was nearly always at Braun's side. She had forgotten in her haste that the bald servant usually allowed the dog to run free in the afternoon.

"Go home, Buck, go back!" she commanded with shaky authority. But the ferocious-looking creature would not budge and sat there a few yards behind her, snarling as he moved his head up and down to scan her body, eyeing her as though he were human. She was frightened half to death but could not help but admire Buck's raw animal magnificence. Even perched on his haunches, he was imposingly large and feral, even exciting… His chest was as broad as a young boy's and she allowed her eyes to roam from its huskiness down along his fawn-colored belly to the hairy sheath aiming up between his powerful hindquarters. For some reason, the canine's furry sex organ reminded her of the sight of George Blackwell's erected penis under his woolen trousers, how it had jutted out so lewdly and yet had been mysteriously exciting. The German Shepherd's ensheathed maleness now had the same alarming fascination about it, like some mighty hidden strength that was threatening but oddly thrilling as well.

Realizing what she was doing, she quickly raised her eyes and stood there in confusion for another long moment, wondering if the beast would attack her. Then, suddenly, she heard Braun's deep voice calling Buck back to the house and watched with relief as the big dog rose and turned to trot off, his dark pod-like testicles swinging heavily down between his back legs as he went. They looked to be as large as, if not actually larger than her husband, Newton's!

A couple of minutes later, she was already halfway home, still trembling from the shock of her encounter with Buck. She stopped at one of her favorite spots along the trail, hoping to calm down a little before she arrived at the cottage. She peered out through an opening in the evergreens at the idyllic mile-long lake shimmering like molten fire in the light of the late afternoon sun. It was a brilliant blaze of orange and gold that softened and finally faded in the rhythmic green water that lapped at the glacier-formed rocks and the exposed down-curving roots of pines along the edge of the shore. Good Lord, it was a beautiful place! She had to admit that she had never seen anything so utterly breathtaking anywhere in Oklahoma. She felt the coolness of the air wafting over her skin, her wide green eyes full of the poetry of nature as she gazed out at the oblong body of water nestling in the bosom of the high peaks surrounding it.

Just as she turned to leave, a hawk came into view, circling up high over the lake and then gliding silently down on the still air to flash in the sunlight like a hover of gold. Oh, if only she were that free, that free to soar and feel the bloom of young womanhood in her limbs, free to be herself and not haunted by whatever it was within her that seemed to enslave her almost as much as Newton and the Blackwells.

Remembering the time, she hurried down the shade-mottled path toward the cottage where her husband would be waiting impatiently for her to prepare his dinner.

CHAPTER TWO

"Honey, do you like Mr. Blackwell?" Nadalee asked suddenly, interrupting the after-dinner silence in the living room and causing Newton Parker to lift his eyes from the Bible he was reading. He did not answer her right away and sat staring across the dimly-lighted room with a pious scowl on his face. Reading Scripture and quiet meditation for nearly two hours every evening were practices that his farmer parents had taught him and he devoutly followed them. Nadalee knew perfectly well that this was a sacred time of day and he resented her intrusion.

"Well, honey, do you like him?" the redhead asked again.

"Nadalee, I'm trying to read the Bible," Newton said sternly, turning his head to glare reprovingly at his lovely youthful wife. "We'll talk about Mr. Blackwell later… when it's time to go to bed."

"Sure, honey, it's all right with me if we talk about it later," she nodded obediently. Resigning herself to the fact that she would have to wait out the long stretch of lonely stillness before her, she shrugged her shoulders and settled back in her chair then to gaze downward at the floor. Just as always, she would spend this time pretending to pray and think divine thoughts but really she would be mulling despairingly over the emptiness of their life together. It was nothing unusual at all. It was Newton's regular habit to postpone their daily "talks" for bedtime and when they were finished, instead of touching and caressing her, making her feel loved, he inevitably announced that they had better get to sleep because tomorrow would be another "hard day of work".

"Why?"

"Why what, Newton?"

"Why do you want to know if I like Mr. Blackwell?" he asked, curiosity as well as irritation in his voice now. He could not focus his attention again on the passage he had been reading while her question continued to play on his mind, intriguing him to the point of bewilderment. He could not for the life of him understand why she had thought to ask him that.

"Oh, it's nothing important," she said softly, surprised that he wanted to know enough to persist this way. Also, she was sorry now that she had even dared to bring up the subject, for surely it would cause trouble between them.

"It must've been pretty darned important, Nadalee, or you wouldn't bother me when I'm reading the Bible," he insisted. "Now tell me, why do you want to know if I like Mr. Blackwell?"

"Honestly, honey, we can talk about it when we go to bed," the beautiful young redhead said soothingly, trying to appease him with a weak smile of assurance.

"Nadalee, I want to know right now what made you ask me that question!" he demanded, his handsome face clouding with frustration and anger.

"Well, he… Mr. Blackwell… he was… looking at me today," she finally said stumblingly, her enthusiasm to share this shocking knowledge with her husband suddenly fading away. She knew that, unless she could come up with a watered-down version of what had happened, he would prod her until she blurted out the whole sordid truth about their employer's behavior that day.

"You just don't make any sense," Newton grumbled. "What's my opinion of the man have to do with his looking at you? What's come over you? You've been actin' like the devil's got you ever since we came up here to work."

"Please, I just wanted to know if you like him," she said, her eyes filling with tears and her slim shoulders clenching inward as she made a huge effort to fight down the emotion that would betray her into telling the whole story.

"All right, sure, I like him. Why shouldn't I? He's a fine man with a good heart and he brought us here to pay good money for honest work. Lord willing, he's our big chance to get that farm and settle down to live like honest people should."

"But Newton, don't get mad at me," Nadalee pleaded with a choked sob. "Can't you see that I was only teasing you – I just wanted to see if you'd be jealous of him. I know you admire him and I was only… only teasing… I'm sorry I said he was looking at me! I'm sorry I said anything at all!"

"You should be!" the brunette husband accused. "This is a funny time… after dinner this way… to be pullin' silly little girl stunts like that." With his last remark, the tall slender young man hung his head for a moment and mumbled a brief prayer, then rose and closed the Sacred Book.

She watched him walk grimly across the living room floor and reverently place the Bible next to the large photograph of his mother and father on top of a cabinet, then turn on his heel to stride briskly away without a word toward the rear of the cottage. She was alone now, more than ever alone, and an overwhelming feeling of miserable desolation swept over her.

Lord, how she wished she had kept her mouth shut about the incident that afternoon! She should have realized that Newton would never listen to anything that seemed to threaten their jobs here at Quail Lake… their "big chance to get that farm" someday. It was almost funny, now that she thought of it, for maybe she had been teasing her husband a little by daring to mention that their harsh-faced employer had stared at her that day. Maybe she had actually wanted to see if Newton's puritanical approach to sex was strong enough to make him want to protect his own wife from the lewd gazes of an older man – even though any show of indignation on his part might well cause George Blackwell to fire them both. Well, now she knew, she smiled bitterly, but still, it was impossible for her to wiggle out of the untenable position she had put herself in by changing her story at the last minute and not truthfully saying what had happened in Mr. Blackwell's study… what awful things he had said to her.

For the first time that evening, she pictured again the lurid spectacle of her employer's hardened shaft in his trouser crotch. Then, without warning, an unwanted tingle of sensation fluttered in her stomach as she remembered the wide spreading stain of wetness that she had seen at the tip of his penis where it had strained under the woolen fabric. It caused her to think back to one night when Newton was still courting her. They had been to a potluck dinner at his church and had been sitting quietly in his beat-up old jalopy, parked in front of her parents' house on Taylor Street. It had been summer and they had listened to the crickets chirping as they held hands, very much in love. Suddenly, the good-looking brunette boy had reached over and thrown his arms around her, jerking her to him and kissing her hard, his tongue actually slipping between her lips to touch hers. His breath had been warm and clean and she had felt his hands start to play lightly down from her sun-tanned shoulders to her chest. Then he had reached for one of her breasts and found his way under her blouse and then under her bra. It had been terribly exciting, as if the soft flesh had been given miraculous life in a second. His hand had been hot and firm, her nipple pulsing in his palm, and she had begun to quiver and make small sounds far back in her throat.

Newton had mistaken her sensual arousal for whimpers of protest, though, and had swiftly withdrawn his hand to sit with his head hanging down in shame. He had spent almost an hour apologizing to her, begging her forgiveness and promising never again to stray from the strict moral values that his parents had drilled into him. And she had tried to console him, saying that it was just as much her fault as his… Nevertheless, he had carried the burden of his guilt around with him for almost a year, had even seen her less for awhile, until eventually the horror of the liberty he had taken with her cooled in his mind.

They had been married a year later, two days after her seventeenth birthday, and then her suffering had really begun. On their wedding night she had felt free to give herself to him completely and had wanted to please him as much as she could with her inexperienced body. At first it had been wonderful to be all naked and cozy together in the warmth of their honeymoon bed and he had stroked her with his hands, roving them maddeningly over the full length of her body, over her flat white stomach and then on down to the auburn softness of her pubic hair. He had stroked her there slowly, gently insinuating his middle finger between the moist, never-before-entered lips of her vagina. It had started a thrilling prickling feeling in her that she had never known before and she had squirmed around on the mattress beneath his probings. Then she had unexpectedly felt a blunt fleshy pressure digging against the top of her thigh, gouging demandingly into the tender sensitive skin there, hurting her a little but not enough to make her object and risk losing the waves of sensuality it made in her.

It had been his penis!

She had never actually felt its nakedness against her own naked flesh and the muscles of her body had contracted involuntarily at the strange touch. A rippling shock of electric pleasure had gone racing through her as he inserted his finger deeper and she had been literally unable to move. Then, Newton had taken her closest hand to place it over his rigidity, gasping as he felt her fingers clenching around him. She had never dreamed that it would be so enormous, even though she had seen its swollen length beneath his trousers that night in the car, the same stain of wetness on his pants that she had seen just that afternoon on George Blackwell's pants in the upstairs study.

At last Newton had rolled over on top of her and placed his penis between her thighs, reaching down with one hand to guide the tip up into the tiny, virginal opening of her throbbing wet vaginal passage. After the initial pain of entry, she remembered that nothing in the world had ever made her feel so good, so complete, so utterly female and worthwhile. They had tossed and moaned for what seemed ages, until eventually he had groaned louder and she felt, a hot, thick stream of liquid spurt up inside her stomach, filling her so much that it had flowed out again and drenched the sparsely growing curls of her pubic hair, covering the insides of her thighs with its slippery wetness and dripping down to moisten the sheet beneath her buttocks. He had given out a final groan and then collapsed over her body, mumbling abject apologies into her ear for having brought them to what he said was a low, indecent level of unholy lust.

It had been evident that he was unaware of her frustration that night, for he had obviously thought that they had both reached climax and he had been responsible for reducing them to what he considered to be ungodly behavior. Strangely enough, she had not told him that she had been only on the brink of orgasm. Perhaps it had been pride – she could not remember now – but she had tried to be understanding and stroked the back of his neck tenderly, consoling him with soft whispers even as she had hoped desperately that he would get hard again and do the same thing to her a second time to end the tension she felt. Instead, though, he had risen from the bed and dressed to cover his nakedness before rummaging through their luggage for the gilt-edged Bible his father had given him before he died.

Newton had spent most of the night reading verses on carnal lust, scolding himself in prayers for what he had done to his new bride on the first night of their honeymoon. The next day they had had an argument after she had come up to him to kiss and enjoy a little session of snuggling against him. Then, she had really wanted him to make passionate love to her and when he had kissed her back and held her to him just long enough to quicken her pulse and breathing, he had pushed her away and almost shouted that sex was evil except as a divine means of reproducing children.

It had been the same ever since. Newton made love to her only when he could convince himself that God really wanted him to have a son, "a strong boy to help him work the farm someday". At times he seemed almost obsessed with the idea of having a child but could not manage to overcome his feelings of sacrilege when it came to the act of sex itself, and accordingly, he had established a pattern of making love to her a mere once or twice a month. And even then, he fondled and caressed her vibrant young body only long enough to stimulate himself to the point of achieving an erection. Then, soon, too soon, without any warning or buildup of her own passion, he would pump his male sperm up into her womb and rise from her to return to his own bed.

As the result of this unrelenting moral code of Newton's, she had lived a life of total confusion during their one year of marriage, feeling always either frustrating desire for him or a sense of profound loneliness and exile. Sometimes, she even reminded herself of one of the divorcees or old maids she had read about in English translations of those saucy French novels, the books that at sixteen she had discovered and been able to sneak out of her grandfather's supposedly secret library of erotica when the old man had been living with her mother and father then. But there were crucial differences between her and those desire-ridden fictional characters – she, Nadalee, was young and alive, married, and wanted more than anything else simply to share all that she possibly could with her husband, the man whom she loved now, despite everything, just as much as ever.

She thought about the warmth of his lean body and how blissfully comforting his strong muscular arms would feel if suddenly, miraculously, he would call out for her to come in to bed with him. She knew better than to hope for miracles now, though. And yet, she could not shake off the feeling that she had been deserted and she could not help but be vaguely frightened as she contemplated the bleak prospect of the future as Newton's wife. She realized that she was not even an adult yet, not in years anyway, but she was, nevertheless, a person and had the same need for affection and understanding that any fully mature woman felt. She worked hard every day around people who were strangers to her, only to come home to another stranger, her husband. Here at Quail Lake, twenty miles from the nearest town, there was no one to talk to, no form of diversion for her, and she felt more and more imprisoned within herself as each day passed.

Her thoughts were suddenly interrupted by the sound of the bathroom door slamming shut behind Newton and the soft padding of his footsteps as he headed toward their bedroom. Heavens, how long had she been sitting here letting her mind wander? Glancing over at the clock on the wall by the entrance to the kitchen, she saw that it was after ten, the time they usually went to bed. Newton was evidently terribly angry at her or he would surely have summoned her from the living room by now, reminding her of the time and that they had to get up early the next morning.

The sweet-faced girl uncurled her legs from under her and swung them over the edge of the chair, allowing the blood to prickle for a moment in her ankles and feet before she stood and then hastily moved around the room, switching off the overhead light and the several table lamps in the room. She thought of George Blackwell again as she made her way cautiously through the darkness toward the lighted hallway… What could she possibly say to him tomorrow if he renewed his interest in what she "liked" about him? She knew that she would have to lie if he cornered her somewhere in the house to torment her with the question, a question that embarrassed her even now, for she could not honestly say that she felt anything but plain fear and loathing of the man. She had never met a more heartlessly ruthless person in her life, not one who seemed to take such undisguised satisfaction in the discomfort that his very presence caused in other human beings around him. He was completely unlike anyone she had ever known among the sturdy reliable people of Oklahoma… If Newton believed that there truly was a Satan on this earth, certainly George Blackwell was the fiend himself… or at least seemed to be the most likely candidate for the position. What was worse, she thought bitterly, the wealthy man had had the gall to use her as an instrument with which to torment Braun, the bald half-witted servant who always seemed to stare at her with such open, actually pitiful hunger.

"Blast it, Nadalee, if you can't make up your mind to come in here to your bed, at least turn off that bright light out there so that I can get some rest," Newton growled out from the darkened interior of the bedroom, the tone of his voice no less wrathful now than when he had left her alone in the front room of the cottage three hours earlier.

"I'll be in there in a minute, honey," the ravishingly beautiful girl assured. With a deep sigh of fatigue, she opened the linen closet at the end of the hallway and took out her nightgown, reflecting one last time, though less clearly now, on the strange events that had taken place that day. Maybe everything was not as bad as it seemed, she debated sleepily… Perhaps she was just exaggerating everything in her mind and was being a silly little girl, exactly as Newton had said earlier. Maybe her physical and emotional needs were not really the same as those of a fully mature woman, were in reality nothing more than the selfish flights of adolescent fancy of a girl who was only eighteen… even though she was married and temporarily isolated from friends and fun. Maybe, despite everything she had felt to the contrary that day, maybe she really was being silly and too emotional. It could be that her gloomy conclusions lately about the circumstances at Quail Lake, as well as those concerning her marriage to Newton, were no less absurdly melodramatic than the distressing theatrics of those frustrated old maids and divorcees whose entanglements in spicy fictional situations were the very meat of the risque novels she had borrowed so furtively from her grandfather's naughty collection… After all, it had been two years ago when she read them, when she was only barely sixteen, and now she was older, married, a housewife with a husband to look after and a good-paying job that required responsibility. Naturally she had more common sense now and there was no doubt that the sensational plights of those women in the books would seem like utter nonsense to her if she cared to read them again at this point in her life. She felt oddly relieved now that she had acquitted herself of her own indictment, because above all, it was important to her to be herself for Newton.

A few moments later, Nadalee was cuddling up tightly to the pillow she held in her arms, the covers pulled up over her ears, her young body slowly unwinding from the pressure of her experience that afternoon and at home that evening. Unconsciousness rose like a welcome tide of darkness throughout her whole being, gradually obscuring the last pictures in her mind of Mr. Blackwell's penis jerking obscenely in his trousers and of the big German Shepherd's furry sheath…

CHAPTER THREE

The next morning, a little after seven o'clock, Nadalee felt buoyantly happy and fresh as she bounced briskly along the springy forest path on her way to work at the Blackwell house. She was about fifteen minutes early and she was glad of it. The beautiful young redhead's spirits bubbled over at the majestic splendor all around her, her large green eyes brilliant with wonder as she tried to look everywhere at once and drink everything in simultaneously. It was one of those special mornings and she wished she could say hello to somebody or somehow embrace the air.

There was a cool exhilarating breeze breathing in mildly from somewhere out on the lake… cool yet pleasantly warm as though the wind were coming only from out where the diffused image of the sun was mirrored like an immense white beacon blazing in the stupendous green of the water. She could see long luminous white clouds trailing their own reflections across the glassy surface of the lake. To her, they seemed to be wisps of smoke drifting away from the raging bonfire of sunshine out in the middle. Then, suddenly, she saw a trout flash upward out of the water, a silver streak of iridescent grace that fell back with a splash and was marked by rippling circles of blue-green that widened outward, winking little lights where the sun sparked on their tiny crests. It was all so wondrous, so calm and familiar, she thought almost religiously; it was like an ideal world God had created somewhere else and then, for some unknown reason, had decided to place here in the midst of the harsher reality of the regular world. Oh, if only Newton were here with her now, she wished, fighting down the sudden desire to run ahead and search for him in the tool shack or the garage where he usually worked mornings.

Newton was the real reason why she was in such high spirits this morning. When she had risen this morning, she had expected him to show at least the lingering traces of his anger from last night but instead he had been almost cheerful at breakfast. He had not given any explanation for this wonderful difference in his behavior except to say that he had been doing what he mysteriously referred to as "some hard thinking that morning". Then, just before he left for work, he had surprised her by stopping at the doorway to kiss and hold her for a long blissful moment. She remembered now with a glow of radiant happiness just how astonished and thrilled she had been as she watched him disappear into the forest, so much so that her fears and doubts about their relationship had become meaningless to her in an instant and then the future had seemed to change in that instant from dismal blankness to a bright hope in her mind. Oh, anything, she would do anything! she resolved as she bounded along the same winding trail that he had taken earlier that morning, if only Newton would continue to show her such love and let her know that she was more important to him as a person than merely a female who cooked and cleaned his house, would someday probably bear him the son he wanted.

Two minutes later, Nadalee entered the Blackwell house through the kitchen door at the back and was confronted by Dolores Blackwell herself. The young maid stood silently for a moment, gazing at the thirty-five year-old woman who was leaning back against the long counter next to the stove where John, the chef, was busy preparing what seemed to be a particularly elaborate breakfast. Nadalee had been afraid of Mrs. Blackwell since taking the job and had never been able to pinpoint just why.