William Davis - The Polaroid club book II

But tonight, Howard would not be home at all. He had called her from work shortly past noon, to tell her that Ralph had invited him to go to Monterey for some kind of dealers' meeting later that day as Auto Circus' representative. The meeting would last well into the night, so he would be spending the evening in Monterey, to return to Morriston early the next day, Saturday. She hadn't wanted him to go, did not wish to be alone for a single night, but what could she tell him to stop him, short of confessing all that was troubling her? Nothing, nothing at all. And so he was going, probably had already left by this time.

Cindy took another sip of her coffee and set the cup down. A small tremor passed through her rigid young body. Dear God, what a nightmare she had been living these past few weeks! Everything had been going so beautifully – and then the evil postal clerk, Steve Samuels, had come into her life and forced her to defile her marital bed and to perform countless perversions with his wizened, deformed body. He had left her after that single, orgiastic night and had not contacted her since… but she knew it was only a matter of time, just as she had known it all along, in spite of what Norma Taylor had told her. He would be back, demanding more from her, more disgusting and lewd acts which made her want to vomit just thinking about them. But that wasn't all; there had been the party… her agitated mental state… all the sangria she had drunk… the foggy moments with Ralph… going out to the Volkswagen Variant… drinking that bourbon… the kaleidoscopic, filmlike flashes after that, moments of lucidity to be followed by moments of complete blankness… Ralph spreading her legs, putting his penis inside her, she powerless to stop him, him heaving and bucking into her, cumming with his burning hot semen; another, shadowy figure replacing him that to this day she couldn't identify, another penis, more heaving and bucking, more torrents of hot sticky cum pouring into her tender, ravaged vagina… what she suspected had been her own crashing, spiraling orgasm, though her mind had since refused to admit such an actuality…

A low, involuntary moan escaped the soft, pink lips of the mentally tortured young woman and she put her head in her hands. All the thoughts she had suppressed the past three days came rushing into her conscious mind, bringing with them the terrible humiliation and guilt of her actions. What had happened to her innocent, well-ordered little world? Why had things suddenly seemed to turn completely against her, slowly but inexorably destroying her? What had she done to deserve all of this?

She didn't know, had no idea. She felt as if she was on a merry-go-round, forever spinning, which she could never get off of. She had never been so alone, so helpless, in her life – there was no one to whom she could turn, nowhere she could go…

Norma? Norma, who had listened and advised her before? No, no, of course not… it had been Norma's husband, Ralph, whom she had allowed in her drunken stupor to claim her body. How could she tell that woman, whose husband she now hated with a full and overwhelming passion, what had happened? No, there was no one, no one at all.

What am I going to do? she asked herself silently. I'm so afraid… afraid of that terrible postal clerk, afraid of Ralph Taylor, afraid of what has happened to my own body for I think I enjoy any sexual act – no matter what kind, and even with another man – completely and totally now. I'm a different woman, a woman I don't understand anymore, and I'm so frightened…

The sudden ringing of the telephone completely shattered her reverie and brought her off the couch in a convulsive jump, her heart hammering crazily in her chest. She squeezed her eyes tightly shut as she identified the abrupt sound, and willed her trembling body still as the bell sounded again. She walked stiffly to where the phone was located and, biting her lip, lifted the receiver.

"H-Hello?" she said in a strangely quavering voice.

"Hello, Mrs. Jamison," a familiar, terrifying wheeze answered her, and the young wife felt a bolt of sheer terror shoot through her body like an electrical charge. She almost dropped the phone, and her heart threatened to burst through her chest cavity. Her tongue was thick with fear, and she couldn't make words come.

"Are you there, Mrs. Jamison?" Steve Samuels asked in his oily, insinuating tone. "Do you hear me?"

"Y-y-yes," she finally managed in a strangled whisper.

There was a soft, evil laugh from the other end of the wire. "You know who this is, don't you? Of course you do. Have you been thinking about me, Mrs. Jamison? Have you been thinking about what happened between us the other night? About how I put my hot thick cock far up into your asshole and fucked you and fucked you and…"

"Stopppp iiitttttt!" Cindy Jamison screamed in a voice fraught with the pinnacle of sheer mortal terror. "Oh, shut up, please shut up, oh, God don't talk to me like that!"

More high-pitched laughter, and then the venereous government employee said softly, "I want you again, Mrs. Jamison. I want you again – tonight!"

"Noooo!" wailed Cindy.

"Oh, yes, Mrs. Jamison. Tonight, at my place, at nine o'clock."

"No! Oh, dear God, no, I can't! I can't!"

"You can, and you will," Samuels told her, his voice turning harsh and ugly, as ugly as he was. "You'd better be there, or you know what'll happen to you and that husband of yours. Nine o'clock, Mrs. Jamison. Or else!" And with those sharp, threatening words, Steve Samuels slammed the receiver down in her ear.

Cindy flung her own handpiece down and fled into the living room, throwing herself prone on the couch to sob out her fear and torment and helplessness. She couldn't go through another ordeal like the one the depraved clerk had put her through ten days ago – and yet she had to. There was no alternative, short of defying him and thus relegating her and Howard to possible prison sentences. That, and…

Murder.

The single word echoed and re-echoed in Cindy Jamison's mind, and she sat up abruptly with the force of it. But, just as quickly as it had come, it vanished. She was not a murderess, could never take the life of another human being – even if that human being was the animalistic Steve Samuels. The torment, the horror, would be magnified tenfold instead of banished by such an act. No, she could not kill Samuels, much as she would like to see him dead, and she could not defy him, either.

She would go to him tonight, then, as he had instructed. Go to him in body, but not in spirit or soul.

And somehow she would endure the degradation and lasciviousness which was sure to then ensue – for Howard, for the man she loved…

Ralph Taylor arrived at the weed-choked, slumlike house of the postal employee Steve Samuels at eight-thirty that night, carrying a huge case which contained his Polaroid camera, timer, and tripod.

The venereous civil servant let him in with an expression of excited anticipation, and led him down the hallway into the living room. Samuels had made an effort to tidy it up somewhat, but the room still had an air of musky staleness, a look of cluttered squalor. He offered the automobile executive a drink, which Taylor promptly refused. Then Ralph said, "Did you make all the arrangements?"

"All of them, yes," Samuels answered quickly. "That bitch Cindy Jamison will be here at nine. The other one, Sally Reagan, will be along a little later, around nine-thirty. Oh, Christ, she was really upset about coming here tonight, that one was. She cried and begged and pleaded with me not to make her, but I said…"

"I don't give a shit what you said, you little weasel," said Ralph Taylor shortly, obvious distaste for the postal clerk on his normally jovial countenance. "Just as long as she's coming here tonight. And just as long as Cindy Jamison is coming; she's the one I'm really interested in."