Read Online The Deceivers by John D. MacDonald - Free Book Online Page B

they started having picnics, they found a special place, a stream flowing through a narrow curving valley where there were grassy banks. The isolation and privacy of the little valley complicated the problem they had set for themselves. They had agreed, with a certain solemnity, to wait until they were married to consummate their love. They agreed, in a most sophisticated way, that it was actually only a symbol, but at least it was one way of proving to each other that they were people of character and restraint. But as the spring became more florid, the grasses more heated, the sun more languorous, the agreement became increasingly difficult. She was not a sensuous woman, but she was lusty and hearty and primitive in her needs, and her responses to his every touch were almost instantaneous. They took increasing liberties, aware of the tantalizingly narrow path they walked, but telling each other that so long as the ultimate was not accomplished, they were living up to their sacred agreement. When he would slide his hand under her clothing to cup her breast, large and warm and firm, the erectile nipple would rise to hardness against his palm and her breath would become bellows and furnace.
    Time after time they would, in their quiet place, on the khaki blanket spread on the shady grass, go beyond the limits of control, but always one or the other, much more often Joan, would bring them back from that edge of danger to sit rigidly apart until breathing slowed and the high flush faded. And he began to depend on her to take the responsibility. And later drive back to the city with aching loins and feeling of tension.
    He grew to depend on her so much that on one Sunday afternoon in May when she was carried beyond her ability to protest or object, he could not turn back. She was virgin, but after a single moan in the initial shock and pain, her passions returned undiminished, and the sun circled in a crazed sky, and the trees in the valley trembled, and the sound of the busy stream running over stones faded into an utter silence.
    Afterward, with tears in their eyes, they each demanded to be given the responsibility and the blame. They did not think to blame it on Spring, or the softness of the grassy bank. And then she became very upset and nervous about the possibility of her being impregnated. It did not seem possible to them that such a fierce union could have occurredwithout creating a child. He drove her back to the apartment at reckless speed where, using the equipment of one of her apartment mates, she performed the futile and rather degrading ceremony of contraception, knowing full well that it was much too late—while he waited down in the car. They went to a movie that night and all through it she clung tightly to his hand. Once when he looked at her he saw tears on her cheek.
    After ten suspenseful days she met him with guilty joy to announce that her period had come precisely on schedule, and then they told each other how lucky they were, and then they began to worry if whether, after they were married, they would be able to have any kids. But, they said, it would be stupid to slip again, knowing that the last day of June, the day set for their wedding, was only a little over a month away. They told each other that they had found out how truly wonderful their marriage would be. And he, with pontifical sophistication, told her that perhaps they had been wise to ascertain their sexual compatibility. This cool statement annoyed her. They agreed that it would be nonsense to take such a risk again.
    But they did slip again, of course, as perhaps both of them suspected they would. They slipped three times beside the same stream in the same valley, and when she found he had come prepared for the possibility, she was angry with him and accused him of having no character. It took him a long time to convince her that he did indeed have character, a respectable amount of character, and he had equipped himself in much the same