While the rentals were being taught to obey their drivers, the next group, the volunteers, were being prepared. Robin’s round sparkling eyes studied the others without any apparent surprise. Nothing seemed to surprise her or, for that matter, even upset her very much. Looking at her face it might have seemed as though she thought it an everyday occurrence to be among these other naked women, hitched to the carts that they were pulling across an uneven, grassy field. Since she left the farm to live in the big city Robin had mastered the ability to seem calm and unruffled, her fear, even terror completely hidden under a seeming calm exterior. The young man driving her pulled back on the reins, shouted, “Whoa, whoa up,” and pulled on the brake. The combined forces brought her to a sudden stop. Pushing with her tongue she tried to shove the metal bit forward in her mouth to ease the pain from the appliance stretching her cheeks.
“Damn it,” the young man said more to himself than to her, “that line is coming loose.” He hopped down to retie the knot. “How you doin’ Babe?” he asked when he finished. “Not bad,” he answered his own question, cupping her large breast in his hand. “Not bad at all.”
She focused her large brown eyes on the young man, the most recent of her lovers. The first one, a young man who had seduced her and carried her away from the farm, left her not long after they moved into their ratty little apartment only a block from a noisy freeway. Robin looked at him in amazement when he told her he was moving out. She’d gotten a job as a waitress in a Greek restaurant, given him all the money she earned and made herself sexually available whenever and however he wanted her. How could that not be enough? He just shrugged and told her that he had found someone else, a woman with a better job and more money. It was at that time that Robin found she couldn’t live without a man in her life. A man’s body in the bed next to her was essential to her existence. To achieve that, she was willing to willing to accept any decent looking man who wanted her. There was a brief entanglement with one of the waiters, a newly arrived immigrant, who stayed with Robin until his girl friend arrived from Greece. There was her nice businessman who, Robin found out, only toyed with her while his wife was away. And now the young man who brought her here.
# 5--Mary Louise – A College Professor --
The handsome, dark-haired woman gazed in astonishment as though she really couldn’t believe what was happening to her. The boy with the pretty, almost feminine face, whispered to the back of her head in an effort to calm her down. His attention was quickly diverted as other naked women trotted nearby. Women fascinated Daniel. He was very good at what he did, seducing young, insecure women. It wasn’t a talent that he was born with. It was something he developed. As a college freshman he began with the sad, lonely, needy girls that he happened to meet. Plain ones, homely ones, sometimes even downright ugly ones. In return for his attention and concern, they slept with him, finding in Daniel their hoped for redemption in a man’s arms. Waitresses, shop clerks, grocery cashiers all believed that he really had been waiting all his life just for them. His quick intelligence made getting good grades reasonably easy and not too time consuming. A native shrewdness revealed the better targets and suggested the most effective strategies. Of course, his large eyes and pretty, sweet, and almost girlish, face made his successes more likely. And there was his willingness to listen, or appear to be listening to whatever was said. Women like to be listened to.
He admitted mistakes when he made them and learned from his failures. He was amused when male friends nicknamed him king of the pigs. He put it down to envy. Sure, none of his partners were beauties, but he had lots of partners and that was compensation enough. In fact, like most men he found good looking women intimidating. The more attractive the woman the less approachable he found her. The pleading and begging, threats of suicide or self-mutilation when he dumped one of his pigs, was some compensation. Beautiful women were riskier. Even with all his success, Daniel was less assured in the presence of a really good looking woman.
The breakthrough came this past year. He signed up for a late afternoon class in Art History. That particular course fulfilled one of the college requirements and the description, saying that they would discuss Eros and erotic art, interested him. When the professor walked in, Daniel was astounded. Female professors in his experience were doughty, outright unattractive, or if they were at all good looking adopted masculine, aggressive, and unpleasant mannerisms. But on the first day of his Art History class there was a lovely, feminine woman introducing herself, talking about the texts they would read and explaining the requirements for the course. She had a pleasant voice, dark hair, large eyes, and an exceptionally good figure. Her maroon suit, beige blouse and shoes with slightly raised heels, not the flat clunky shoes that most women professors wore, were all feminine and alluring. She acknowledged the four young men sitting together in the back with a smile and a nod. A fan club, Daniel thought, she has a fan >club. But of course she would, other guys would have noticed her. Mary Louise, he said the name over and over to himself, Mary Louise.
The class met twice a week and, after the first day, Daniel thought of very little else but seeing her again. His Mary Louise. He remained in his apartment for entire weekend, turning down earnest invitations from his most ardent admirers and, after awhile, not bothering to answer the phone at all.
On Monday, since the class wasn’t due to meet again until Tuesday afternoon, as a way of connecting to this woman who had become an obsession, Daniel studied the syllabus. There it was, right under her name: Office hours. Of course. He had a perfectly legitimate reason for approaching her, sitting with her, talking to her. She did have office hours on Monday. Daniel, screwed up his courage, steadied his nerves, showered, shaved and rushed to the campus.
He hadn’t been so nervous since he was fourteen years old, when he bedded his best friend’s mother. Dottie was a small, rabbity-faced woman, with little eyes and buckteeth. One night, while he was out walking the dog, he saw Dottie trying to get her drunken husband out of the car and into the house. Daniel did most of the work carrying the man up to their bedroom and waited in their basement while she made sure the husband was safe in bed. He could hardly speak when she came down the stairs wearing only a slip. She wasn’t wearing her thick, wire-frame glasses. Daniel couldn’t remember ever seeing her without them. As an attempt to make herself look more attractive, it failed because Dottie was constantly screwing up her face in a squint.
Dottie handed Daniel a beer, took off her slip and immediately began removing his clothing. It wasn’t his first sexual encounter, but it was his most serious involvement up to that time. There was something about her combination of buckteeth, tiny tits, together with her overwhelming and obvious neediness, that jarred Daniel’s sensibilities and drove him to treat her with contempt. The more scorn he heaped on her, the more devoted she became. The more obvious her desire for him, the more powerful Daniel’s need to treat her badly. For the first time in his young life he consciously reveled in deliberately degrading a woman. The more he indulged, the more he liked it. Though he remained friends with her son and visited the house often, he often, though not always, rejected her entreaties, explaining that he was too busy with other women to be bothered with her. “Please, Daniel. Don’t be so mean to me,” she used to moan in a voice that guaranteed he would find new ways to be cruel to her. He started to think of her as a leech that, if he was ever once nice to her, would latch on to him and be impossible to dislodge.
A favorite fantasy was picturing his friend Toby blundering in on them, finding his mother down on her knees, or on her back with her legs up in the air. “Wouldn’t Toby be surprised, seeing his mama like that?” He would ask the back of her head. To this day, he occasionally felt a pang of disappointment that Toby never walked in to discover his mother on the floor at his feet with her mouth full of Daniel.
One memorable Saturday, Daniel kept Dottie in his bedroom for an entire day. She came to their house, ostensibly to ask a favor from Daniel’s mother, but when she found no one else at home, raced up to his bedroom. He woke with her in his bed, took her twice in rapid succession and, when his parents returned from their errands, confiscated her glasses and refused to return her glasses or her clothes, deliberately leaving the bedroom door wide open when he went out, forcing her to hide in the corner, crouching behind his bed, a picture he found so stimulating that he returned often, once right in the middle of the family’s dinner, to close the door and satisfy himself. He sometimes wondered if the rabbity little woman really would commit suicide when he stopped seeing her. The last he knew, she was still alive.
Daniel never expected to achieve that sort of success with his professor; he just wanted to see her, to chat with her. But the meeting went wonderfully. There was no one else in the office, something he worried about. She was pleasant and friendly. He was even more worried about that. He imagined that his attraction for her showed and that she would respond by rejecting him. They talked and laughed together and got on perfectly.
After that Daniel showed up regularly at her office hours, usually twice but at least once a week. He worked very hard at her course, doing not only all the required work but also reading everything she even mentioned and reading books referred to in the required readings. His comments in class were well received while she wrote wonderful comments on his papers, all of which were A’s.
He would not, he decided, even try to advance the relationship until after the semester was over. There had been so much publicity about student-teacher relationships and the abuse of power, that she might have been reluctant even to have coffee with him while he was in her class. Toward the end of the semester, Daniel was quite busy finishing papers for his other classes, studying, preparing the end of term, so that he saw her only in class. Sitting in her Art History class, watching her move about, he wondered how to move their interactions to something more personal, an uncertainty intensified by wondering what she would make of the fact that he hadn’t been to her office hours for the past two weeks.
“Hi, Daniel,” her smile was broad and genuine. “I’ve missed you.” She lowered her eyes as she said the words.
“Sorry, Professor, but I’ve been very busy. You know,” he began to explain.
“Since, I call you Daniel,” she interrupted. “I think you should call me Mary Louise.”
Their eyes met. It was an important moment. Daniel’s spirits began to soar. Excitement bubbled inside him. His throat constricted. Fortunately she continued talking as he sat down terrified lest he embarrass himself in front of her. “I have your last paper. It was the best yet. The only A+ I have given this year. Or even last year. Congratulations.”
Still unsure of what to say, Daniel tipped his head in acknowledgment. “Shall I buy you a cup of coffee in celebration?” she asked.
“I would like that very much,” Daniel took a deep breath.
Over coffee, which she both paid for and carried to the table, he began to feel relaxed and comfortable. This was familiar territory, a coffee date with a prospective partner. Daniel knew how to listen, when to put in a word, when to look sad or serious, how to lighten the conversation. This was all something he had done so many times before. By the end of the semester, when he went to her office to collect his final exam, Daniel was confident. If once she set foot in his apartment, she was his. Unlike the girls he usually dated he couldn’t just invite a college professor over for a drink or a joint or to watch a TV show. No, it would have to be timed just right. Mary Louise was a bright woman, married to the Chairman of the Economics Department at the State University. Though if Daniel had to guess, he didn’t think she was all that sexually experienced. Casually inviting her over and getting her into bed just wasn’t going to work. Sometime she would let him know that she was ready and he would invite her in.
“I’m working on a book,” she said as they were saying goodbye. “I’ll be in my office most days this summer, trying to finish it. You will stop by, won’t you?”
“Sure will,” he said brightly.
But it was three weeks until he finally knocked at the door to her office. “Daniel,” she gushed. “I thought you’d forgotten me.”
“Of course I didn’t forget you,” he insisted. “I tried to get here several times” he lied. “But it wasn’t ever possible.” Inwardly, he knew that he’d been right. It needed some time to make her a little uncertain, to cause her to wonder whether he was only interested in the grade and not in her. “Can you take some time from your book? If so, we can go for a walk.”
“Yes,” she said. “I’d love that,” and she began to tidy up her office.
They chatted as they walked and it was as though no time had passed since the last time they talked together. Sitting on a bench side by side she turned to him. “You know,” she said very seriously, “I’m a married woman.” Mary Louise took his hand in hers. “I wish it weren’t so, but it is.”
Daniel tilted his head. There it was, just the sign he had been waiting for. Mary Louise was ripe, ready for the picking. He had heard that phrase before, “I’m a married woman,” brandished like a shield. It was something women said to assuage an already guilty conscience. Perhaps they told themselves that it was a stop sign but it was just the opposite. It said, “I’m ready to be taken.” All that was left was the harvest, undressing her and putting her in his peach basket. He always liked married women. In addition to the special pleasure screwing other men’s wives, they left his evenings free. He could have his Mary Louise in the afternoons and weekends and still have time for the chubby drama major or the supermarket cashier with the long face and small boobs. It was funny the way they said, “I’m married,” as though that settled the matter. Did any of them really think so? Probably not, Daniel decided, although maybe they told themselves that it did. What Daniel heard in every case was words of surrender. I am married. You know that. The fault of my seduction is, therefore, yours. “I understand,” Daniel said. “It’s alright.”
At their next meeting, they walked and talked for hours until, somehow, they were at his apartment. Without asking he poured her a glass of wine, which she drank quickly. When Mary Louise finished her wine, Daniel kissed her. “I’m married,” she said very softly. “I’m a married woman.”
It was something that he had begun to realize but now it became crystal clear. Beautiful women, even beautiful and intelligent women Professors with PhDs from Oxford, were not all that much different from the pigs and skags he usually slept with. Lying there on her back, entirely undressed, her legs spread, looking up at him with a frightened smile, Mary Louise displayed the uncertainty that necessarily comes from being so fully exposed and vulnerable. All of her fears, hopes, wishes, dreams, desires, her insecurities and even terrors floated toward the surface of her being. Just like the waitresses and cashiers he so often seduced, neurotic undergraduates and lost little girls, she was giving herself over to him in the hope of redemption. Daniel stood next to the bed looking down at Mary Louise. Leaning down, he fondled her breast and rubbed the back of his hand against her cheek.
“My sweet Mary Louise,” he whispered.
“Yes my darling,” she replied.
Daniel knelt on the bed next to her. If there were to be redemption, it would have to be earned. She turned toward him, opened her mouth and touched his erect shaft with her lips. That would do, he thought, as a first approximation. He moved between her legs, lifted her knees and slipped himself inside her. “Oh my darling,” she sighed. “My darling Daniel, I do love you.” Daniel didn’t like them to talk. “You’ll have your chance to prove it,” he thought to himself.
At first she called before she visited him. As the days went on, she began showing up at his apartment with no prior warning. Sometimes, when her husband went out, she called in the evening. The cashier was no problem as she arrived at Daniel’s apartment late and went to work quite early. The drama major often wanted to visit after her work at the theater and she like to stay in bed all morning. Neither paid much attention to Daniel’s phone calls but he did worry that Mary Louise would be able to tell from his voice that he had a woman in the apartment. He sincerely hoped that Mary Louise wasn’t starting to become more trouble than she was worth
Lying in bed together several weeks after they began, Mary Louise took Daniel’s wrist when he started to remove her panties. “It’s my period,” she said apologetically. “I understand,” he replied. When she slid her hand down to stroke him, Daniel made it clear that she was not to use her hand. She stopped, and responding to his obvious desires, began kissing his chest. Slowly, Mary Louise worked her way down until she
grasped him between her lips. Daniel held her head as he raised his hips, forcing himself deep into her mouth. It was certainly something she had never done with her husband and Mary Louise was surprised by the rich, salty gel that filled her mouth while Daniel groaned his pleasure.
It wasn’t until the following month that Daniel brought up the subject of the pony races. He had been there twice before, both times driving rented ponies. Now he was involved with someone good looking enough to take out there. He wanted to show her off, to have his lovely Professor in harness strutting her paces, pulling him around, racing against other naked women. None of his others were attractive enough to be shown. Her first reaction was disbelief and disgust. Such things weren’t possible and she certainly wasn’t having anything to do with them. But Daniel was good at pouting. Passive-aggressive behavior was the way that his Psych major last year described the tactic. “Look,” Mary Louise said after almost two weeks had passed, “I can’t possible do such a thing. If it became public, I’d be fired in a minute. No, it’s absolutely crazy. I won’t do it.”
No one ever finds out about these things, Daniel explained. But if she didn’t want to do it, Daniel understood. It wasn’t very long until she gave in to his silences and the following week Mary Louise acquiesced.
On this sunny afternoon Mary Louise found herself in harness, the bit stretching her lips and cheeks, pulling Daniel along behind her. Suddenly the whip bit into the fleshy part of her behind. “Faster,” Daniel shouted, “faster.” Mary Louise tried to increase her speed.