Community of Women by Lawrence Block Read Free Book Online

minutes’ worth of lust in a smelly bed. Or maybe, by God, they could do it in the back seat of a car. That would take her back to the days of her youth, all right.
    But Ted had a sports car, and it would be difficult. Bucket seats were fine for riding, but—
    Well, they could take the Caddy. Plenty of room in the Caddy. Even more room in the station wagon; just toss a mattress on the floor in back and you’re ready for action. Then—
    Oh, it was ridiculous. The whole thing was insane and she had to forget about it. Had to forget all about it. Had to think about other things like when to pick up Skip and Danny, and what to wear to the PTA meeting, and what to have for dinner, and, well—
    Boring.
    Boring.
    Boring!
    She was just about to go to the station wagon and drive down to school to pick up the boys when the phone rang. She hesitated a moment, then went to the phone and lifted the receiver to her ear.
    “Hello?”
    Silence greeted her. She said hello again, then listened to gentle laughter come over the line.
    “Hello yourself,” Ted Carr said. “How’ve you been feeling, Nan-O?”
    “What do you want?”
    “You.”
    Just the single word, the second-person-singular pronoun. Just that. It made her gasp.
    “You’ve got your nerve,” she said finally. “You’ve really got a hell of a lot of nerve, calling me like this.”
    “Busy, Nan-O?”
    “Damn it—”
    “I just thought you might have been doing a little thinking, Nan-O. About our discussion last night.”
    “Ted—”
    “Because I still think we might have a ball,” he went on. “You’ve got beautiful breasts, Nan-O. I’d like to touch them. Kiss them, play with them. I want to get in your pants, Nan-O.”
    She hated him. And yet his words were reaching her, getting to her. She squirmed uncomfortably, passion beginning to mount up unwillingly in her system.
    “Hot, Nan-O. All hot and ready to go?”
    “Ted—”
    “Let me draw you a picture,” he went on. “You’ll be lying on a bed. You’ll have your skirt way up over your waist and your panties down around your knees. And I’ll be working you up, getting you so hot you can’t stand it. You’ll beg for it, Nan-O. You’ll crawl to me on your dimpled knees. And then—”
    “Stop it!”
    A wicked laugh. “I’ll ring off now, Nan-O. But think it over. I’ll call again soon.”
    He hung up before she could answer him. Think about it?
    She shuddered.
    She could think of nothing else.

8
    D AVE W HITCOMB took Maggie out to dinner that night.
    This was not unexpected. It was a Wednesday night, and Dave always took Maggie out to dinner on Wednesday, before heading over to the weekly poker game at Len Barnes’ house. They went, as always, to The Gables, an old Cheshire Point mansion which had been converted into an Early American style restaurant. They had a pair of extra-dry martinis to start, a pair of shrimp cocktails, a pair of chef’s salads with roquefort. Maggie ordered the roast beef while Dave had a blood-rare strip sirloin. Dave talked about how the shows had gone that morning, and Maggie mentioned her visit to Elly Carr.
    The dinner was not exciting. Dave and Maggie did not have an especially exciting marriage, yet it was for each the most desirable solution to their own personal problems. The Whitcombs, man and wife, were united far less by love than by an affectionate tolerance. Each was a support for the other, a help for the other.
    Maggie had lied to Elly Carr. Dave Whitcomb was not sterile. He and Maggie had never had any children not because Dave had spent too much time in front of an x-ray machine but because he and Maggie had never made love. They were in their seventh year of marriage, were very happy together, and could not conceivably regard divorce as even a remote possibility. Yet they slept in separate beds, and stayed in their respective beds, and never exchanged more than a public kiss.
    There was a reason for this.
    Dave was a homosexual, and Maggie was a