Chapter 12

After last night, she realized she was ready for anything.

Who were these two dames anyway? Sweet cunts? Sour ones? Nasty and sophisticated like Jenny?

Betty realized that she didn’t care. All she knew was that she had to carve out her own little piece of Leonard’s life. That was the best she could manage now.

Finally, Leonard got up and staggered into the kitchen and put the light on under the coffee.

Sometimes he was really horrible in the morning, withdrawn, white in the face, almost as nasty as Jenny.

But Betty couldn’t fault him. He had shown her lots of attention on the floor, even though Jenny was trying to monopolize him.

She knew though that he felt uncomfortable between the two girls.

There was nothing more to say. They had said and done most everything.

Betty wondered if Leonard was going to ask her to be really friendly with Jenny ... that friendly.

Fucking Jenny was something she hadn’t thought of, and she didn’t really want to.

She hoped that Leonard wasn’t going to try and play the kinky scene. It wasn’t her style.

She didn’t think that it was Jenny’s either, but you never did know what was going to happen when the twins came.

She couldn’t think that far ahead.

She was rocky and exhausted.

Suddenly, Betty realized that she wanted to get out of there, because it was all entangled like knots, and she felt like she would be caught in the trap if she stayed around very much longer.

She went to the bathroom and washed her face with cold water, that woke her up. Then she came out and dressed. Leonard said, “Where are you going, honey?”

“Back to my place,” Betty said, “I’m going to leave you with your guest.”

Jenny chuckled. “Are you giving up?”

“No,” Betty said, “but I feel secure with the two of you.” Her voice was like the taste of lemons.

Jenny said, “Finders keepers, losers weepers.”

Betty said, “So long, folks.”

She had to get back to her own place and think things through. Maybe she would find another way of proceeding.

And yet, she had tried to convince herself that she was ready for anything.

She really wasn’t.

She wasn’t ready for screwing twins and Jenny and Leonard all at the same time. That would be like a circus. She couldn’t stand the thought of it, and all she really wanted was to be safely protected by her big Daddy.

When she got back to her apartment, the telephone was ringing. She leaped at the phone, hoping that it was Leonard asking her to come back.

But it wasn’t.

It was a voice out of the past, another guy, asking her what she was doing tonight, whether she was busy, whether she would go out with him.

“Oh, Jack,” she said listlessly, “I haven’t heard from you for a thousand years, but I haven’t forgotten you, honey. I’d like to see you.”

Betty was silent for a moment, thinking that it would serve Leonard right if she started going around with another guy.

She remembered Jack. He was kind of sweet and had a good-sized cock. He had really taken care of her properly.

The only problem was, they had begun to argue a lot, and she didn’t like to fight.

Yeah, Jack was possessive, and he didn’t want to share her with anybody.

Betty laughed bitterly to herself. This was just the time to see Jack, certainly with all those other people running around in her life.

“Okay, I’ll go out with you. I think it will be fun. Why don’t you come over?”

“When?”

“You want to make it, say, five o’clock?”

“That will be just right,” he said.

Betty had plenty of time through the day now to take a shower and sleep and pull herself together. She really needed it.

Finally, she got into bed and lay there staring at the wall and wondering what was coming next in her life.

She had never seen so many people all at once in such a lousy mood. She was usually able to juggle them, one after another, but here they were, all falling on her head.

Well, maybe she would save herself with Jack. You never knew people changed. Perhaps Jack would be quieter now, behave himself since they hadn’t seen each other for so long.

She closed her eyes and forced herself to sleep for a few hours. When she woke, she admitted that she felt refreshed.

She took another shower then and looked through her clothes to find something particularly nice to wear for Jack.

She found the pink blouse and matching skirt, and she looked like a flower when she was all dressed. She didn’t put on a bra, of course, because her breasts were one of the nicest parts of her body.

She looked at herself in the mirror and admired the way the points of her nipples stood up.

She had a beautiful body. Leonard always told her, and so did Jack. She brushed and brushed her shining golden hair, making it sparkle.

She thought about putting on a little bit of lipstick on her mouth and did dab on a trace of it. She didn’t really need lipstick; her lips were so red naturally.

Then she found some nice fragrance that smelled like lilacs. She was already for Jack the moment he rang the doorbell.

She thought about asking him in, and then she decided not to. If he came inside, he would want to screw her immediately, and she really wasn’t up to it.

She wanted to be in his company for a while.

She looked up at him. He was a big guy. She saw him clearly and realized how big he really was. He filled up the whole doorway.

He was just like a gentleman, like a solid citizen of the city.

“I like your tie,” she said.

It was a striped one, dark blue with yellow and red stripes running diagonally, rather business-like and sensible.

He thanked her with a smile. She thought he was rather nice-looking, maybe even better-looking than Leonard.

He had lots of dark curly hair and an easy grin. He had straight teeth and a square jaw.

He looked clean-cut, like he lived a decent life.

That’s what she needed, a guy who led a decent life.

“Come on,” she said, “let’s go out. I’m really hungry.”

She was hungry, not only for dinner but for a different style of living, and maybe, maybe, just this time, she was right in looking to Jack to help her find it.

They went outside. The light was beginning to move off into the violet of dusk. She began to recall what had happened the night before on the floor, fucking Leonard with Jenny underneath him.