Chapter 09 of Campus Nymph by Greg Caldwell

1962 GENRE: Vintage Sleaze | Promiscuous Wife

... PROMISCUOUS WIFE

Boiling passions and naked carnal desire on a college campus ... Night after night, beautiful, passionate Gay tossed sleeplessly on her lonely bed, wondering what had gone wrong with her marriage. Where was the ardent lover who just couldn't keep his hands and lips from her voluptuous body less than a year before, when they were first married? Why was Roger always "too busy"—or "too tired"? When she learned that Roger was involved in a torrid romance with one of his students, Gay decided that what was sauce for the gander was gravy for the goose ...

With provocative abandon she turned to Karl, the virile young college athlete who was never too busy or too tired.

... And Martin York, an accomplished connoisseur of the techniques of love ... Until one day she found herself caught up in a web of seething sin from which there was no escape, and learned what it really meant to be a …

… CHEATING HUSBAND ...

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CHAPTER NINE

Gay worked full-time on her painting for the next two days until Roger returned. As soon as the Apollo was dry, she sent it off to her mother in New York. She did another nude, of Karl, then set to work on several paintings for ads, using clothed figures.

She was happy working like this, painting full time and knowing that she was doing the best work she had ever done. She practically forgot all about Doris Hammond and her husband's affair with the girl. Somehow it didn't matter so much what Roger did, as long as Gay could paint and fill her thoughts with bright images of what she was going to do next.

Then Roger came back, full of the English convention and plans for the summer. He had decided to do some research for a paper. Gay tried to enter into his enthusiasm. She knew learned papers were important.

Sometimes professors got promotions when they had papers printed in their society journals. But his subjects did not sound at all interesting, it sounded very dry an analysis of words in Arnold Bennett's novels.

"Do you like Bennett's novels?" Gay asked timidly.

She vaguely remembered being forced to read one for a report.

"Like? Hell, no. I don't do papers because I like to, Gay," said Roger impatiently. "He's the pet of one of the editors. I know I can get it published, and it's important to publish. I explained all that."

"Oh."

So Roger would spend his entire summer, writing a paper on a subject he disliked, in order to get it published in a journal he could scarcely force himself to read, in order to get promoted by a college president he disliked, to a higher position in a college he despised!

Men, thought Gay, were strange. Or was it only that professors were strange? She would never dream of spending three months doing something she cordially detested in order to achieve something she did not want.

Early in their marriage, say, last fall, Gay would have bluntly told Roger he was foolish to do it. Now, knowing he was not what she had one thought him, she kept silent. His hypocrisy hurt her. She had always valued honesty much more highly than appearances.

Roger was ashamed of her Bohemian ways and manners and appearance. But Gay was ashamed of Roger's double-dealing! She thought his fawning over his senior professors horrible. And this project for the summer was a waste of time, to her way of thinking.

Martin York, she thought, was not like that. He rarely attended faculty events, laughed frankly at some of his seniors, never knew from one year to the next whether he would be kept on, as he had cheerfully told her. He didn't seem to care—and they kept him on.

On May Day eve there was a faculty rehearsal for the May Day events. Gay and Roger attended, yawned through the long boring meeting, and left gladly. Gay tucked her hand in Roger's arm as they left. They had exchanged several significant glances through the evening, and she felt for once some comradeship in their mutual boredom.

"Dreadful," she whispered as they went out to the car.

"One more march around the room, and I would have broken out into a full-fledged twist! Disgraced myself thoroughly," whispered Roger.

She laughed delightedly, and squeezed his arm. This was the Roger she had loved and married. He did have some feelings in common with her, some regard for the ridiculous aspects of life.

"Oh, I would have loved that," she said happily.

"Darling, you know, we haven't gone dancing for ages."

"We will this summer," he promised. "I've missed it too. You know, I think I'll do my research in New York. I could work at the libraries there, and we could really let loose. I'm sick of being proper all the time."

She was startled. "But Roger, honey, we don't have to go to New York to let loose. We can go into Shelby and go dancing, and stay overnight at a hotel. We don't have to go wild—just have fun."

He moved his shoulders restlessly, let go her arm to unlock the car. "Someone always sees you," he said. "Someone always wants to know why a professor is cutting up. I can't be normal."

Normal? What did he think as normal? Gay puzzled over that as she got into the car.

Roger explained further when he got in and started the car.

"I like to really cut loose in New York. Go to the hot shows and nightclubs and all that. You can wear whatever you please. The lower-cut, the better." He leaned over and kissed her cheek. "Just like a second honeymoon, Gay," he whispered.

He didn't need to whisper. They were alone in the car. Gay wondered at him. He was like a college kid to do forbidden things because they were forbidden, but not get caught at it. Hot shows? Night clubs? She had never gone to them when she lived in Greenwich Village. They had seemed unnatural to her, artificial travesties on sex. Sex itself could be so good, so wonderful. Why did anyone need to buy a painted artificial version of sex? The real thing was so much better.

Roger drove by the dormitories again. "I heard from the dean that he really expects trouble tonight," he said, trying to frown. "I thought I'd better check."

Gay's mouth tightened. He used his position as an excuse to witness episodes he did not dare imitate.

She said nothing when Roger parked near one of the dorms, in the shade of some trees so they could not be seen.

The yelling and shrieking soon told them that the raiders had invaded the dormitories and were actively engaged in acts of piracy. Roger sat forward eagerly as some men dashed out of the nearby dorm. He stared, his mouth parted, his eyes glistening, as the men were followed by girls and the fighting and hugging went on in equal measure. Panties were snatched boldly from the kicking legs of girls, and waved aloft. Several couples fell to the ground, rolling over and over, fighting or embracing, Gay could not tell which.

"Come on, guys," someone yelled. "We're going to have a parade! Come on!"

"That—sounds like trouble," said Roger pompously.

"We'd better go along."

As several jalopies started up and zoomed down the street, Roger started his car and they followed.

"Let's not join the parade," Gay reminded him dryly, as he seemed about to fall in line. "It might look rather 'odd. Unless you want to wave my panties!"

"Don't joke about this," he said sternly. But he took the hint, and pulled over to the side to let several gaily-painted jalopies pass him. He followed the cars at a discreet distance, then pulled into a side street.

"I'll park just off Main Street. We should be able to see the parade."

Gay's mouth quirked. He was like a kid wanting to see the circus. As they parked just off Main, she saw the cars beginning to stream past at an unusually slow gait. Men and women strolling on the street paused to stare as the college kids rolled past.

She gasped. Panties were hoisted as flags, attached to aerials on the cars, attached any place they could be fastened or waved in triumphant hands as the cars passed. She saw white panties, pink panties, a gaudy pair of red flannels that brought shrieks of laughter from the watchers, pairs of shorts, one pair of long plaid slacks. One man waved a pair of black lace panties, big and full. Gay stiffened as she saw the black lace, then relaxed. They were much too big to be hers.

She was staring at a pair of bloomers when Roger growled, "Look at that—look. Those panties look like yours."

"Oh, no," she said carelessly, not seeing where he was pointing. "They couldn't be—oh!"

She had finally seen where he pointed. Karl Lucas driving by, waving a very brief pair of black lace panties, open, with pretty black bows dangling from his fingers! She opened her mouth in horror, but no sound came out—fortunately.

"Those look like yours!" said Roger, aghast. "Like the ones I bought for you! And they were the only ones in stock!"

"Rah—really?"

"Yes. Which reminds me, I haven't seen yours recently. Do you still have them?"

"Of course, darling," she lied feebly.

He turned on her. "Do you? Do you really? That Karl Lucas. Someone said he came over to the house while I was gone. Was he there?"

She could not reply. She did not know how to lie to him. Should she say Karl had come, yes, but only to pose for her? What a train of questions that would set off!

"Was—he—there?" Roger insisted angrily. He turned and shook her by the shoulders. "Answer me!

Have you been playing around behind my back?"

"What if I have?" she said coldly, deciding to admit nothing. "If I have—and I don't say that it's true—why not? You're off playing with your Doris! Why should I play alone?"

He shook her harder, his face blazing with anger under the street lights. "You little bitch! What have you been doing? Have you been with that Lucas fellow?"

She did not answer.

"How did he get your panties?" Roger raved. "Answer that!"

"He could have gotten them off the line of laundry," she said.

"Yeah. I'll bet. Well, I'll soon settle that!" He started the car with an angry jerk that jolted her head back on her neck. She rubbed it meditatively, wondering what story she would come up with.

Roger drove home faster than the law allowed. He got out and ran into the house. By the time she reached the bedroom, he had most of the contents of her dresser spilled out on the floor.

"Not there! The panties aren't there!" he howled in anguish. "They're gone. Those were your panties!

That boy stole your panties!"

"My, my," said Gay, gently. "Maybe our house has been raided, like the dorms. We should have stayed home to protect our panties, instead of going to watch the other raids!"

He glared at her, feeling the sting of her irony.

"You're getting back at me for Doris. That's what you're doing. You couldn't wait and be patient, the way I asked you! You're no wife for a professor!

You would know that these crushes don't last."

"Not more than three or four years anyway," she said, sitting down on the bed. Curiously, though he had caught her in the wrong, she felt a deep satisfaction as Roger's face turned redder and redder. He was getting some idea of how she had felt when she had discovered his affair with Doris. "I believe your affair with Doris began about three years ago?"

"You did have an affair with him! That's your way of making me look foolish! " he said unexpectedly.

"The whole campus will know it now! They will all know that you're having an affair with one of the boys."

"How will they know? Will you tell them? Or are they all to be expected to recognize my panties?" she asked, logically.

The argument seemed to have raised his passion for sex as well as his anger. He came over to her, knocked her back on the bed, and began kissing her wildly. He pulled off her clothes, threw them around the room, raved at her, struck her.

She felt a violent distaste, could not bring herself to believe this was love! Roger was wildly jealous, but under the jealousy she sensed a renewed interest in her.

She felt no answering interest. She did not feel more fascinated by him because of his affair with another girl. Rather, it made her question her love for him.

She lay back passively as he struck at her again and again. She watched him coldly, as he pulled off his clothes and fell on her. She felt nothing, no love, no passion, not even pure lust such as she had felt for the boys who had posed for her.

He lay upon her and lunged at her. She winced.

"Admit it," he raved. "Admit you're carrying on an affair with Karl Lucas! Say it!"

She shrugged. Her calm seemed to infuriate him further. He lunged at her, hurt her, took her by main force. She cried out, and tried to push him off. He laughed at her, his face distorted by fury and passion.

He had never before hurt her like this.

She tried to knock him off her. They fought across the bed. His strength was greater than hers, though.

He fought her onto her stomach and attacked her again from behind.

He was so upset that he had forgotten his usual precautions. He quickly reached the summit but she felt no passion, only fury that he should use her like this. When he pulled away and lay panting beside her she could have wept, except that her pride would not let her. Her body hurt cruelly, her love for him had been dealt a mortal blow. That Roger could treat her like this, that he could be so brutal, so deliberately brutal, was beyond her ability to comprehend. They were married. They had loved one another ...

She had provoked him, she admitted. She was in the wrong. She had had not only an affair with Karl, but also with Martin York. And there were other men before her marriage, whom she had not told him about. Even so he had no right to treat her like this, not after the way he had betrayed her with Doris.

Roger turned to her again as soon as his energy revived. He bent over her eagerly. "Admit what you did," he demanded. "Tell me everything that happened!"

She closed her eyes scornfully. He wanted to hear the details, get a vicarious thrill out of her affair with Karl. She would not give him the satisfaction. She knew him too well now.

Roger struck her again, demanding to know what she had done, how Karl had gotten her panties, what Karl had done to her. He threatened to go to Karl.

"I'll make him tell me! He could be forced to leave school."

"A star basketball player forced to leave school?

Don't make me laugh," the new Gay sneered. "They'd make you leave first. A professor can always be replaced!"

He flinched from that, made no more threats against Karl. But he kept at her to tell him what had happened.

She would not tell him, and he attacked her again.

He kept it up most of the night, as when they were on their honeymoon, hanging over her, making "love" to her, forcing her to submit. But with this difference.

It was in anger that he did this, anger and jealousy, and she felt only pain as he forced his caresses upon her. There was no love between them that night.

She endured it, sometimes silently, sometimes crying and begging him to stop, sometimes cursing him with gutter words she had picked up in the Village. But she would not utter one word confirming her affair with Karl. And finally, in sheer weariness, he had to quit.

When he finally was asleep, snoring in the other bed, Gay got up quietly and went to the bathroom. She took a long hot bath, to draw the soreness out of her body. She wept silently in the tub, rubbing her face with her wet arm to wipe away the tears. Roger had changed, or she had changed, or something had happened to them. What was it? What could she do about it? She wasn't sure she wanted to go on with this marriage.

If she could only get away for a while.

Think. Get away. Have time to think and ponder.

New York, she thought. Her mother. Girls always went home to mother when something went wrong.

She grimaced ruefully. She had never expected to go home to Elinor Ryan, the smart, lively, artistic mother who was more like her older sister. But her mother would take her in, admonish her briskly and talk to her about painting. That would help.

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