Chapter 12 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 ...

Read the entire book as an EPUB eBook that can be downloaded from the Fox Library.

CHAPTER TWELVE

When Gay arrived home in the late afternoon, Roger was sitting in the living room.

When she walked in he looked up at her. His face was so grey it scared her.

"Roger! What's the matter?" But she thought she knew.

"Where were you? Where did you go?"

"Into Shelby," she said. She set down her suitcase, defiant, ready to defend her actions, to lie, to tell any story. But it wasn't necessary.

"I—I needed you," he said, brokenly. He put his face down in his hands. "Something horrible has happened."

Hesitantly, she came over and sat down beside him on the couch. "What happened?"

"Yesterday the Dean called me into his office. We talked—three hours. He—he said I might be expelled."

"Oh." Her fingers pleated her skirt nervously. "Because of—her?"

He nodded. "The whole campus knew. Everybody knew. Everybody!"

"Yes, I thought they did. Mrs.—that is, one of the faculty wives told me. She said everyone was talking about it."

He stared at her. "How did they know? How could they possibly know? We did everything in secret."

Oh, foolish Roger, to think he could keep an affair quiet. She sighed. He was nine years older than she, but she felt like a mother with a small boy caught in mischief.

"What did the Dean say?"

Roger shook his head as though to clear it. "He said—first, they were so sorry about you leaving. They had thought the affair was blowing over—until you left. Then some of the women got upset, asked that I be expelled! Me!"

"Did he say it was final? He isn't really going to expel you, is he?" She felt sorry for him, but it was a rather impersonal sorrow, as though he was beginning not to matter to her.

"No. I said I would give up Doris. That I had never meant to let it go on. I explained that she had a crush on me, that was all. He didn't seem to understand that."

Gay felt like laughing. She could imagine the Dean's contemptuous expression as Roger fumbled with his explanations.

"So he said he would give me another chance. That it would depend on me. How we got along."

“We?"

"Me and you. Us. In our marriage. He seems to think you're a good wife for me." Roger stared at her, seemingly bewildered. "I tried to explain that you're an artist and a Bohemian, and we were not fitted, but he said we were married, and ought to try to make a go of it."

Gay stood up abruptly. Her voice was hard. "I was an artist and a Bohemian when you married me.

Why is it so different, now that we have been married a year? Are you tired of me, Roger?" She flung around on him. "Is that it? You're tired of me?"

"No, it isn't that." He rubbed his head with his hands. She had never seen him so unsure of himself.

She watched him keenly, trying to find a clue to him.

"Gay—if I could only have you both!" he blurted out. His face was bewildered and lost. "I guess I'm terrible. I want you both. If you were only my mistress and she was my wife!"

He had said it, the thing she had suspected he had felt all along. It was a relief to hear the words.

"That's what I thought you wanted," she said. "Yes, your little Doris would make a perfect wife for you, with her ladylike ways and her cute little intelligent mind! And I'd make the perfect mistress, the artist to be seen on the sly. I thought that was why you bought me all that wild lingerie. Well, I have news for you.

I prefer to sleep in a long cotton nightgown that covers me from chin to feet!"

"What do you mean by that?" said Roger. "I don't understand you at all."

She sighed, picked up the suitcase and went back to the bedroom. No, he didn't understand her at all.

He didn't understand that she wanted to be treated like a wife instead of a mistress. She unpacked, put her things away.

Roger came back to the bedroom and stood in the doorway, watching her.

"I didn't finish," he said at last, when she was ready to scream from being watched. "I wanted to say something more."

"What, Roger?" she asked patiently, hanging up a dress and smoothing the wrinkles out of the skirt.

"I am going to give up Doris," he announced solemnly.

"I realize now that I can't have both of you. So I must give up Doris. I told the Dean I would."

"That's nice," she said ironically. "I am sure the Dean was pleased."

Her sarcasm went right past him.

"I want us to try again, really try this time," he said. "I'll forget all about those panties that boy has."

She wrinkled her forehead. Panties? Oh, yes, the black lace panties Karl had stolen. She had forgotten about them.

"That's good of you," she said. She put in the pile for laundry the negligee she had. worn last night. Martin had really mussed it up, hugging her so. She wondered if Roger would forgive her for last night, if he knew about it.

"And you must try too," said Roger irritably. "You must give up those boys. Enticing boys to the house to pose for you."

She started. "Oh, no, I won't do that again," she said. "That was a mistake, I suppose."

"It certainly was! The Dean admitted that your behavior had not been discreet."

She came close to bursting out laughing. What the Dean did not know!

“I'll try to be more discreet," she promised, and bent over her suitcase to hide a wicked grin.

Roger came up behind her and took her in his arms.

She stiffened. He kissed her neck awkwardly.

"Darling, I do want to make a success of our marriage,"

he said. "We got off on the wrong track, but I want us to get back on the track."

She was moved a little by the plea. After all, she had come back from New York for this. She hugged his arm. "Let's try, Roger. I want to also."

"Good, good," he said, and turned her around to kiss her. She felt completely incapable of letting him make love to her. Martin had worn her out. She resisted when he tried to draw her over to the bed.

"Roger—not now. I can't," shes aid bluntly.

He stopped at once, rather relieved. "Of course, darling. Whatever you want. I have some papers to grade anyway." He seemed more cheerful, all at once.

"Well, I'm glad we've made it up," he said. "I can get down to work. I couldn't do a thing last night."

He looked at her reproachfully.

"I should have been here, darling," she said automatically.

"We could have talked it out then."

"Yes, you should have been. I had a terrible night!"

He went to his desk in the living room and sat down with a sigh. When she looked at him a little later, he was deeply immersed in his papers. She shook her head. She would never understand him. He was calmly giving up Doris, calmly making up with his wife, was relieved because now he could get down to work once more on his beloved papers.

She went to bed early, and was asleep before Roger came to bed. In the morning, she quietly got up, had her shower and was dressed before he awoke. Thus she avoided sleeping with him, making love with him, letting him touch her. Somehow she was not ready for any intimacies with him just yet. She wanted to think.

And Roger didn't seem to care. He was cheerful again, working hard, complaining about how little time he would have this summer because he had to teach in summer school. They had suddenly rescheduled him, and he was angry about that.

He did not seem to hold a grudge against her because of his lost Doris. Gay sighed, and decided finally that she must try hard to make a go of her marriage. She would try to settle down and be a good wife.

But she could not yet endure to have Roger make love to her. That worried her a little. How could she be a good wife to him, if she could not bear to have him touch her? She must force herself to begin. She would think about their honeymoon, the times in Rome, the good times of their early marriage.

Then on Monday afternoon Karl Lucas phoned her.

His voice was angry, sullen, hurt.

"Hello, Karl, how nice to hear from you," she said.

not thinking that at all. She was learning to lie. Maybe she would make a good wife after all.

"I have to talk to you," he said. "I have to see you."

She thought fast. She didn't want Karl blurting out their affair, and her affair with Martin. He had seen plenty in that hotel bedroom. "Of course, Karl," she said sweetly. "Why don't you come over sometime this week or next."

"You're not going to put me off! I want to talk to you today."

"Why, of course, darling, if you can spare the time.

Come on over."

"No, I want to meet you in the woods. Where we were before."

Grimacing at the phone, she glanced at her watch.

One o'clock. Maybe she could make it short but sweet, and bribe him to let her alone from then on.

"Well—all right. But I can't stay long. I'll have to be back home by four o'clock."

"I'll meet you out there."

The phone banged in her ear. She rubbed her ear, and thought angrily what she would like to do to that pup. She wished she had never begun the affair. She might have known it would get out of hand, a kid like that. Martin was more sophisticated. He liked the complexities of affairs, the secrecy as much as the affair itself. And he understood her.

She changed to a cotton skirt and blouse. She did not mean to undress for him. If there were peeping Toms in the woods today, they were not going to see what Martin had seen that day.

She arrived at the rendezvous first, waited impatiently for Karl to show up. She wanted to get back home in time to fix a good supper for Roger. Food was important to him and a quiet place to work, and an agreeable wife. Maybe they would work it out, she thought wistfully.

If it did work out, and she was able to endure this marriage, she would have time for her painting. That would be her outlet, her pressure valve. She would send her paintings to her mother and try to improve her work. She would encourage Roger to work hard on his research papers, he would be busy with that and not be tempted into affairs with pretty students who got crushes on him. She understood him pretty well now.

No marriage was ideal. One always had to make compromises. If only he loved her sometimes, and she loved him sometimes, they could endure it. Her work and his work would be their refuges from each other.

Karl finally came, walking slowly. He looked at her with sullen possessiveness, flounced down beside her and grabbed at her. She withdrew coldly.

"What do you want to talk about?" she asked.

"You know. Us. What you're going to do for me."

He looked older than before, greedy and not so boyishly eager.

"Oh, really. What am I going to do for you?"

"You're going to be my mistress. Whenever I say. Whenever I want you."

She laughed shortly. "You're quite mistaken. My husband and I have become reconciled. I came to tell you this is the last, I'm not going to meet you again.

You're not going to mess up my marriage." She said it calmly and clearly, but he got furious.

"Oh, you're going to go back to your husband just as if nothing had happened! Well, I've heard the talk.

He was almost expelled because of Doris. Wait until everybody hears what you've been doing with me and Professor York, and I don't know how many other guys! Steve told us what you did with him, back in the painting room. Wait till everybody hears about that!"

This was what she had feared. She turned sweet and affectionate on the surface, but underneath she boiled.

That this kid could ruin everything! She would not let him. She would terminate the affair slowly, turn cool to him, turn him off.

"Karl, honey," she said gently. "Goodness, what has upset you so? You know I'm an artist, and I can't be faithful to everybody! I just meant I don't want Roger to know about everything."

She talked to him, cooed at him, let him turn up her dress and make love to her with greedy lips and greedier hips. She endured it, and did not protest when he hurt her with his violence. She let him see subtly that she was not passionate today, that she felt only gentleness toward him. He was dissatisfied, as she had known he would be.

When they sat up again, she sighed, and said, "I'm getting older, Karl. It's a sad thing not to enjoy lovemaking as much as one used to when one was younger."

She caressed his hair and talked about how she was getting older how young he was and how he deserved someone as young and passionate as himself.

She wasn't sure if her speeches were effective, but they seemed to work. He did not linger that afternoon.

He wanted her several times, but she was merely letting him have his satisfaction. It was evident even to the boy that Gay was not responding, not getting any pleasure out of this.

After the last session, he stood up and put on his trousers again. She studied him impersonally as he dressed. She could use him, those long brown legs, that curve of muscles on his thighs. She could see him in a painting. That was all he meant to her now, she felt no passion for him at all.

"You'll meet me again when I say," he ordered, as she got up to leave.

She looked at him and smiled. "Of course, honey, whenever I can. But I warn you, it may not be often.

School will soon be over." As soon as she said that, a wave of relief rolled over her. Of course, school would be over and Karl would be gone for the summer.

"I'll call you tomorrow," he said brusquely, looking at her with hatred. He turned and walked away from her, as though she were something he had used and now was discarding.

Her red-hair temper flared up. She longed to pitch a rock at him, rage at him, tell him off, curse him. But she was learning, she let him go.

Her mouth twisted as she straightened out her skirt and blouse and started slowly homeward. Let this be a lesson to her not to get involved with boys! After this, she would choose only men like Martin— "Hey, hold that, Gay," she said aloud. "Remember, you've reformed. Only your husband from now on."

Yes, she would have to give up Martin also. But he would understand. That was the nice part about Martin.

Wearily she trudged homeward. She was bone-tired.

Karl could be cruel when he wanted, and her muscles ached. How would she explain the bruises to Roger?

A fall in the kitchen?

No, she had better not let him see her body for several days yet, until she was over this session.

Karl would call tomorrow. Oh, yeah? Well, she would put him off, and put him off again with teasing promises and vague regrets. Finally he would let her alone again. School would be over in a couple more weeks. She and Roger would be able to give their marriage a chance, with Karl gone and Doris gone.

Surely the faculty would not give Doris a job now.

Roger was not home yet when she arrived. Something to be grateful for. She showered, put on a clean dress, and started dinner. A nice big dinner, that Roger would enjoy.

When he came home about five o'clock, she asked him how the day had gone and listened with pretended interest to his long recital. He seemed to appreciate her attention, sat down at the kichen table and told her everything that had happened and what he had thought about it.

When he finally got up to go change his clothes, he kissed her cheek.

"You know, Gay, you've changed," he said affectionately.

"You have settled down a lot. I think we'll make a good marriage. You're more of a faculty wife now."

He nodded solemnly and went off to the bedroom.

She stirred the soup and smiled a little twisted smile.

So this was Roger's idea of a good faculty wife—a woman who listened and obeyed, a woman who pretended to be interested, a woman who could lie well, pretend and be dishonest.

How far she was from her artist days now, she thought. She considered what Martin had said about artists—honest, not pretending emotions they did not feel. Yes, she had changed a lot. But whether she could keep up the pretense, she did not know.

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