Al Fessler twisted and turned and groaned and snorted in the king-size bed, but could not will himself to sleep. Every time he started to drift off he would be falling, falling, and there falling beside him, just out of reach, would be Billy Lockett. Each time, Al would be jerked awake to sit there in the dark, sweating and worrying.
This was not the first time Al had been in money trouble. Far from it. But never before had it been anything this heavy. What made this time different was that he had borrowed a bundle from some very questionable people. The kind of people who, if you didn’t get up a payment on time, might come around and break your arm. Or worse. Al had gone into it with his eyes open. He knew the risks, but he was already into all his legitimate sources to the limit.
A big chunk of the money had gone to buy up Billy’s recording contract from Gamma Records, the outfit that had released his early disks. At the time it seemed like a rock-solid investment. It would give Al Fessler control of all Billy’s future records, which would surely gross millions after the concert and subsequent TV special. That investment had stepped out of the airplane yesterday morning and smashed into more pieces than Billy himself on the San Bernardino flatlands.
Al groped at the night stand pointlessly for a cigarette. Madeline had cut off his smoking six years ago, but he still hadn’t lost the craving when he was nervous. Even when Madeline had moved into her own bedroom — his snoring kept her awake, she said — Al had not brought cigarettes in. Madeline could smell tobacco smoke a block away through concrete walls.
Al got out of bed and went over to the chair where his pants were draped across the seat. He fished through the pockets and found a pack of sugarless gum. He unwrapped two sticks and slipped them into his mouth. A poor substitute for nicotine but better than nothing.
He lay back down on the bed, chomping moodily on the gum and staring up at the ceiling where little sparkly bits were embedded in the rough plaster. Somewhere, he told himself, there had to be a way out of this. After all these years of reaching for the gold ring, how could he crash when the prize was so near?
Damn it, he simply would not allow himself to lose. He would not let it happen, that’s all. Many times in the past Al Fessler had come up with a way out of a tight spot. He would do it this time too.
The first thing to do was count his assets. Not much there, he had to admit. Of course, technically he still owned all rights to Billy Lockett. Not a whole lot of comfort, owning a dead man.
Abruptly, Al sat up in bed. A glimmer of hope. A possible out. Maybe even better than that. He just might come out of this in roses. For a full ten minutes he sat staring across the dim bedroom, running the idea backward and forward through his mind. There were rough edges and a million details to be worked out, but by God, this just might be the Big Score.
Al grabbed the bedside phone and punched out Conn Driscoll’s home number. The phone rang and rang at the other end, and finally the blurry voice of the young PR man came on the line.
“H’lo.”
“Conn, this is Al Fessler.”
“Huh?”
“Al Fessler. Come on, wake up.”
“Oh, hi, Al. I was gonna call you. Sorry about the kid.”
“Never mind that, we’ve got work to do.”
“Work?”
“You want a job, don’t you?”
“Sure. I thought it was all off. Isn’t it?”
“Maybe not.”
“Billy is dead?”
“He’s dead, all right, but I’ve got an idea. I don’t want to go into it over the phone. Can you be in my office tomorrow? Make it early. Nine o’clock.”
“I’ll be there,” Driscoll said.
Al replaced the telephone and grinned. The old adrenaline was flowing again, and he was feeling fine. He looked down at the front of his pajamas and saw that other things were stirring too. Sometimes it worked that way, an idea that he knew was a winner would excite him sexually. It could be downright embarassing when it happened at the office. Right now he wanted his wife badly.
Shoving his feet into a pair of soft leather slippers, Al left his bedroom and padded down the hall to the slightly smaller room where Madeline had slept after the first few months of their marriage. He eased open the door and looked at her in the faint glow from the night light. In sleep, as in everything else she did, Madeline was perfectly poised. She lay on her back with the covers smooth over the narrow mound of her body. Her pale arms rested straight down at her sides, the fingers gently curled. Her face was beautifully composed, not a wisp of blonde hair had strayed out of place. No wonder, thought Al, that she had chosen not to sleep with him and his incessant snoring, rolling, mumbling, and blanket-yanking.
Madeline looked so carefully arranged there on her satin sheets that it almost seemed a pity to wake her up. Almost. Al’s desire for his wife was stronger than any reluctance to disturb the picture.
He reached down and touched the smooth white shoulder where the flesh was bare below the blue nightgown.
Madeline opened her eyes and looked at him. Her gaze was keen and alert. For her there seemed to be no transition between sleep and waking.
“What time is it?” she asked.
“I don’t know. Four o’clock. Five, maybe.”
“Is anything the matter?”
Al tried to make his tone light and easy. “No, nothing’s wrong. I just got lonesome.”
Madeline continued to lie on her back and look at him.
“I thought we might … make a little love.”
“All right.”
She did not move toward him as he peeled back the covers and got into her bed. But she did not move away either.
Al eased the covers back over their bodies. Over the years of his marriage he had learned to subdue his natural instinct, which was to grab her roughly and go at it balls out, so to speak, and have a walloping good time screwing. Madeline had made it clear early on that she did not care for that kind of sex. Animalistic, she called it. Although he had never felt quite at ease doing it her way, Al had made a serious effort at becoming the gentle lover she wanted.
He reached over carefully and laid a hand on her body. Madeline’s belly was so flat it was almost concave. Like everything else about her, it excited him. Al felt the warmth of her flesh come into his hand through the slippery material of the nightgown. Somehow, he always half-expected her skin to be cool.
Slowly he moved his hand up to cover one of her breasts. He held it carefully, like a small, delicate bird. With his fingertip he drew a circle around the nipple.
Al’s passion expanded until it seemed to fill him to bursting. Still he forced himself to move slowly, gently. He slipped the blue nightgown down away from Madeline’s breast. He moved lower in the bed and put his mouth against the nipple.
“You don’t have to do that,” Madeline said. “I’m ready.”
“I like to,” Al murmured without taking his mouth away. The taste of her was smooth and sweet as whipped cream.
Madeline sighed and her nipple grew firm and erect under his tongue. By opening wide and sucking, Al could take almost her entire breast into his mouth. She placed her hand at the nape of his neck and let it rest there. The effect on Al was like that of a wildly erotic caress. He gave a muffled moan around the resilient flesh.
When he could stand it no more, Al moved away from her long enough to pull off his pajamas and throw them aside. Naked, he knelt beside Madeline and eased the nightgown up over her narrow hips. She raised her buttocks slightly to make it easier but stopped him when he tried to slip the garment over her head.
“That’s far enough,” she said.
Al moved his hand over her belly, down to the pubic mound. Madeline had less hair down there than any woman Al had seen. A neat little triangle of yellow, short and fluffy as a kitten’s fur. He petted her there, wanting to kiss it, but Madeline would not go for that either.
His fingers found the lips of her vagina. Slowly, slowly he probed inside. Al was relieved to find that she was moist in there. He hated it when they had to use the Vaseline. She never let him put it on, but made him wait while she turned her back and applied the jelly to herself.
Madeline spread her legs for him, and Al moved over to kneel between them. He lowered his body and used one hand to guide his stiff penis into her. He wished she would do that, but she had never liked to touch him there. Early in their marriage when he had carried her hand down to his naked cock, she had recoiled as though from a snake.
He found her lips with the head of his penis, and let himself glide into her. It was good. It was better than good, it was the best. How a woman who put as little apparent effort into it as Madeline could be such a great fuck was something Al could not understand.
Right now he didn’t care about understanding. He stroked slowly in and out of her, trying to make it last as long as he could. He held his breath, clenched his teeth, tried to think of unpleasant things — anything to hold on a few seconds longer.
But as always, nothing worked. It was over suddenly and explosively. Madeline closed on him, grasping his cock inside her as surely as with a fist. There was not a man alive, Al thought, who could hold back his climax when squeezed by that beautiful cunt.
He pumped strenuously, ejaculating into her, wondering if she came with him. She said she did sometimes. He never knew for sure.
Then he was finished, gradually relaxing on top of the slim woman, supporting most of his weight on his elbows. Her vaginal lips milked him of the last drops of semen and let him go. Limp and drained, he slid out of her with a long, moaning sigh.
“Honey,” he said when his breathing had steadied, “That was super-great.”
Madeline held him for a moment and kissed him lightly on the cheek. “Let me up now,” she said, “so I can go clean up.”
Al rolled over on his side and watched as his wife pulled down the nightgown, then stepped out of bed and walked carefully to the bathroom. The door closed behind her, and Al heard the soft click as she punched the lock button on the inner knob. Whores were the only women Al knew who were in as much of a hurry as Madeline to douche out after sex.
He swung his legs out of the bed and gathered up the two halves of his pajamas. What the hell, he thought, for a piece of ass like that he could overlook a few peculiar habits. He just wished it would happen more often, that’s all.
Naked, carrying his pajamas, Al walked back down the hall to his own room. There was still time for a couple of hours sleep before he had to get up, but first he sat down at the writing table next to his bed and pulled out a sheet of paper and felt-tip pen. In the morning he wanted to give Conn Driscoll a solid outline of his idea. Once he had sketched in the outline, Al was sure the young PR man would come up with the details.
When he had filled the page with notes, he folded the paper twice and tucked it into the inside pocket of the jacket he would wear tomorrow. Then he walked back and dropped into bed. He pulled the blankets up around his chin and was asleep in ten seconds.