The Nude Wore Blaсk

Chapter Three

Under the black veil of her widow's weeds, Llona flushed at the remembrance of the old gag epitaph from her high school days. It seemed improper for it to pop into her mind at this particular moment, while she was standing over George Rutherford's grave and watching the coffin containing his remains being lowered into it, but she couldn't help it. Somehow it had just popped into her consciousness with a relevance transcending the proprieties of grief.

The coffin came to rest and the ropes used to lower it were removed. The minister ceased his litany and the other mourners stood back respectfully to allow the young widow to drop a handful of earth atop the casket. Without meaning to, Llona let fall a rather large rock in with the dirt she deposited. It made a loud noise as it hit the coffin lid just above George's lifeless groin. A few of the men winced empathically.

Flanked by her parents, Llona turned then and left the graveside. The group of mourners parted respectfully to allow her a path to the waiting limousine supplied by the funeral home which had handled the arrangements for George's burial. The driver's face maintained its expression of professional mourning as he held the car door open for her. Only a slight glint in his eyes gave him away as he studied the length of Llona's lissome leg when her skirt climbed as she stepped up and into the interior of the car. A moment later the limousine started slowly out of the cemetery.

When they reached home, Llona went directly to her room. "I know how you feel," her mother said sympathetically, "but people will be coming by to pay their respects, and you should really be here to greet them."

"I'll come down in a little while," Llona promised. "I just want to have a little time to myself first."

"Of course, dear." Her mother had sniffled as she watched Llona climb the stairs to her room.

Closing the door behind her, Llona caught her reflection in the mirror on the opposite wall. Damn! She looked so pathetic in the drab black dress and veil. But under the funeral garb, and only half hidden by it, was the body of a young girl, voluptuous, bursting with life, filled with a fire that had burned away all lamentation. Llona knew she was supposed to be grief-stricken. But she just couldn't feel it. All she felt was cheated. She was too young and alive to be a widow. Her body cried out for a kind of release denied by the grave.

Downstairs she could hear subdued murmurs as the first mourners arrived to pay their respects. She ignored the soft sounds. For a moment, while she was alone at least, she just had to shed the garments she couldn't help feeling were marks of hypocrisy and acknowledge to herself the real Llona beneath them.

She tossed the dowdy hat and veil on the bed. A few seconds later she had slipped out of the black dress. Then she kicked off the low-heeled black shoes and removed the unappealing thick black stockings. Her slip was black, too, and she removed it. Black bra and panties followed. For a time at least, Llona wanted nothing black covering her body, nothing black to remind her of her widowhood.

Naked now, she flung herself down on the bed and stared at the ceiling. The ceiling stared back blankly, without vision. Too bad for the ceiling. It didn't know what it was missing. Llona's hair spread out like dark golden bronze over the white pillow, and the smoldering of her deep brown eyes testified to the fires making her breasts swell like soft rockets poised for the end of the countdown and rocking her buttocks so that her flesh shimmered in the light from the ceiling.

At first Llona tried to blot out the message her body-was transmitting. She tried to summon up some feeling of sorrow for George; she tried to envision his face. But it was a blank in her mind. And each time she tried to fill it, it wasn't George's face, but another, clearly etched and compelling, that she saw. It was Archer's face which insisted on etching itself so vividly across the screen of her mind.

She saw it peering from behind the closed closet door facing her bed. Helpless to stop it, her mind seized upon the memory and enlarged it to recreate the scene which had taken place in that very closet on her wedding day. She heard his voice, felt his breath in her ear and his hands on her body, tasted once again the beginnings of the nourishment he'd provided her hungry body.

Llona closed her eyes tightly. Her hand fell to her breast and caressed it. In her mind it was Archer's hand stroking the panting flesh, tantalizing the sensitive nipples until their redness deepened and the roseates widened and the tips swelled to little quivering fingers of lust.

Her tongue flicked at her lips now, moistening their burning dryness. It moved quickly, matching the cadence of the long fingernail strumming the erect tip of her breast. The movement traveled to her hips. They moved spasmodically at first, then settled into a drawn-out, grinding motion. Every so often, however, the rhythm was broken by a sudden tensing of her buttock muscles which thrust the pink nether-cheeks upward and clear of the sheets. Llona moaned low in her throat.

Her smooth belly was undulating now. Each rippling palpitation had the effect of making her navel seem to be opening and closing. The triangle of golden brown curls beneath it seemed also to move-like a wheatfield stirred by a sudden breeze. One long, slender leg bent at the knee and moved in small circles. Both inner thigh muscles stood out like tensed arrows of flesh pointing to the moist passage of her womanhood.

One hand traveled down the length of her body, the middle finger coming to rest to duel with the taut scarlet sentinel standing at attention and guarding the tunnel of forbidden delights. The duel went on a long time with Llona bouncing slowly and then more frenziedly on top of the bed. By the time the sentinel had been bypassed, the bouncing had changed to a wild thrashing about, furious testimony to the complete abandonment now possessing her body.

In her mind, Archer was once again rending her, providing the brutal ecstasy she'd known so very briefly. Too, too briefly. The two fingers of her hand no longer in sight substituted for the mighty weapon with which he had assailed her. Faster and faster, deeper and deeper they plunged. Her breathing was an audible sob as she mounted higher and higher on the crest of oncoming fulfillment. Finally, mindlessly, she screamed aloud, and- CRASH!

The loudness of the sound made mourners' eyes look ceilingward in the living room directly beneath Llona's bedroom. Llona's parents were the first to react vocally. "That was Llona screaming!" her mother said, panic in her voice.

"That noise-!" Llona's father looked fearful. "Do you think that she-?" He moved quickly toward the stairs, his wife following behind.

As they disappeared, the consternation of the mourners broke into words:

"Do you think that she-?" "Widowed like that on her wedding night, perhaps her mind snapped and-"

"Grief too heavy to bear-"

"A young girl not wanting to face life alone-".

"That sound? Could it have been a pistol shot, or-"

"It sounded more like a chair being kicked out from underneath like when a person hangs themselves, or-"

"A body hitting the floor-"

"The poor girl! She never should have been left alone at a time like this!"

Speculation mounted on the floor beneath them as Llona's parents reached her bedroom door and, with much trepidation, opened it. Instant relief, as they saw that their daughter was still alive. Seeing her father, Llona hastily pulled the bedspread around her.

"What happened?" Her father stared at the wreckage of the bed crumpled to the floor.

"The slats broke and it collapsed," Llona explained helplessly.

"How the hell-?" Llona's father started to ask.

"Don't badger the poor girl with questions," his wife interrupted. "She must have thrown herself on it in her grief. My poor baby. There's no telling what a person's likely to do under the weight of such a loss. Grief can drive a girl to do all kinds of things. Isn't that right, sweetheart?"

"That's right, Mother," Llona agreed. "Grief is a peculiar thing. You're right."

Llona's reaction to her grief persisted during the time which followed the funeral. Indeed, it became more pronounced. So much so that by the time she finally fell asleep at night, her arms and wrists felt heavy as lead from the activity which obsessed her. And always, her reminiscent fantasies of that one time with Archer accompanied her body's writhing quest. His face and his body were as clear in her mind as they had been the day he deflowered her.

Increasingly, however, her solitary sublimation of the memory of Archer's lovemaking became less and less satisfying. Her body ached for the reality of him. Her mind dwelt constantly on ways and means of locating him. Her fantasies of what it would be like to lie in his arms once again became more and more elaborate.

Along with them, though, there was an increasing despair and certainty that she would never see Archer again. All she knew was his name. She guessed that he didn't even live in Birchville. She thought of and discarded all sorts of wild plans for tracking him down. In the end she had to admit to herself that it would be like looking for a needle in a haystack.

Still, Llona was becoming desperate for some companion-any companion-to help relieve the solitude of her seemingly ever-yearning libido. The trouble was that her status as a recent widow made even the slightest social contact with males difficult. Protocol in Birchville called for her to mourn George for at least a year. She willingly would have broken that protocol, but the young men who might have cooperated were themselves bound by it, and it probably never occurred to any of them that she might even consider herself available. Under the small-town mores, even a movie date was out.

The weight of those strictures had Llona feeling truly desperate by the time, about a month after George's death, that she made her first public appearance. It was a lunch date at the town's one half-decent restaurant with an old school chum, Betty Bradshaw. When Betty called, Llona leaped at the opportunity for any sort of companionship, even female. For the first time, she discarded her widow's weeds for the occasion. The dark green dress Llona wore was a compromise between convention and the bright red way she was really feeling.

The way Betty complimented her on it was a compromise, too. Her tone said that Llona really did look pretty but she wondered if the color was appropriate under the circumstances. Llona didn't mind. On the contrary, she was flattered at the implication of grudging admiration.

Lunch went by quickly, with Betty responsible for most of the idle, pleasant chatter. They were dawdling over their coffee when Betty suddenly broke off in mid-sentence to point somewhat rudely toward the exit across the large dining room. "There he goes," she said, her voice heavy with disapproval. "I wonder just what hard-up wife it was who brought him here."

"There who goes?" Llona asked.

"That Bill Archer from the massage parlor. You mean you haven't heard? It's a public scandal!"

Llona missed the last part of what Betty was saying. At the name "Archer," she'd swiveled around in her ehair, her heart skipping a beat, to look where Betty had pointed. "Who-who do you mean?" she asked breathlessly.

"He's gone already. Thank goodness. I'd just choke on my food if he was still here. I wouldn't be able to swallow a bite."

"You've already eaten," Llona reminded her. "But why should he make you feel like that?" There were butterflies in her stomach, but she managed to control the interest in her voice.

"Then you haven't heard. Of course not. I forgot. You've been in seclusion. Well-" Betty leaned across the table conspiratorially, lowered her voice, and took a deep breath before she resumed speaking. "This Bill Archer opened this massage parlor for women over on the south side of town. Only the women that go there don't just go to get a masssage." She paused significantly. "They're mostly married," she resumed, "and it's common gossip that the 'treatments' he gives them are making it easier for a lot of husbands to catch up on their sleep." She giggled.

"You mean he's like a male prostitute? That he makes love to them?"

"Oh, no. From what I hear, it's much more depraved than that. It's all done under the guise of giving them a massage. But he sees to it that they get their kicks. Isn't it disgusting?" Betty licked her lips.

"Disgusting," Llona agreed. She glanced at her wrist-watch. "I have to be going," she told Betty.

"So soon? What's your hurry?"

"I just remembered that I have to pick up some things for Mom. Thanks for lunch, Betty. I'll call you soon." Llona had to control herself to keep from running out of the restaurant.

Outside, she looked up and down the street, half-hop-ing that she still might catch a glimpse of Bill Axcher. There was no man in sight who looked even vaguely like the Archer of her most compelling memories. Determinedly, Llona walked into the first drug store she passed. She stode directly to the phone booths at the back and flipped through the pages of the classified directory until she found "Massage Parlors, Ladies."

There was no Archer in the listings. However, there were only three places listed under the category. The first Llona was familiar with, as it had been established in Birchville for years. Its reputation said it couldn't be the one to which Betty had referred. On impulse, Llona dialed the number of one of the remaining two.

"Is Bill Archer there?" she asked when the phone was answered.

"Speaking."

Llona's stomach turned a flip-flop. Was that the voice which had echoed so often in her fantasies? She couldn't be sure. "Does the name Llona Mayper, or Mrs. Llona Rutherford, strike a bell with you?" she asked hesitantly.

"Can't say it does. Is this Mrs. Rutherford?"

"Yes. It is."

"Would you like to make an appointment, Mrs. Rutherford?"

There was no reason why he should remember her name. He may not have even known it. She had to see him for herself to see if it was really him. "Yes, I would," she told him.

"Wednesday at three," he suggested.

"Don't you have anything sooner?"

"Well, I could squeeze you in tomorrow same time." The way he pronounced the word "squeeze," it had all sorts of connotations.

"All right. I'll be there," Llona told him breathlessly and hung up the phone.

She was still feeling breathless when she arrived at the Acme Massage Parlor for Ladies promptly at three the following day. A female receptionist in a white uniform checked her name against a list of appointments and indicated that she was expected. "Right through that door." She pointed. "You can undress in one of the cubicles and you'll find a terrycloth robe to wrap around yourself there. When you're ready, you can go right on inside to the private massage room. Mr. Archer is waiting for you."

Llona did as she was told. When she emerged from the cubicle, clad in the terrycloth robe, she walked to the end of the hall opposite to the door by which she'd entered and found herself facing two exits. On one there was a sign which said: main massage parlor. The other was labeled: private massage room. Remembering that the receptionist had said "private massage room," Llona pushed through the second door.

The decor of the room in which she found herself was semi-clinical. The walls were off-white, the counters and cabinets which lined them either the same color or metallic. A few abstract paintings on the walls relieved the sterility. In the center of the floor was a large, upholstered massage table with four or five metallic handles protruding from the upper part of the base. Llona guessed they were used to alter the position of the table. It seemed to be sectioned, and it was likely that the various sections could be raised, lowered, and angled independently of each other.

The man standing at one of the counter-like shelves across from Llona had his back to her. At the sound of her entering, he spoke without turning around. "Mrs. Rutherford?" he inquired.

• "Yes." Llona swallowed hard. "Are you- Are you Bill Archer?"

"That's right. Will you get up on the table, Mrs. Rutherford, and lie face down? I'll be right with you."

Llona still couldn't tell if he was the Archer she was seeking. Her heart was thumping as she lay down on the table. Her mouth was dry with anticipation. She craned her neck so that she'd be able to see his face as soon as he turned around.

"Oh!" It was a disappointed exclamation. The Bill Archer walking toward her was not the Archer she sought. Llona's face fell.

"Something the matter?" In T-shirt and white ducks, Bill Archer was a blur of muscles approaching her.

"No.. No, I was hoping-I mean expecting someone else."

"I see." He shrugged it off, not seeing at all.

"Do you have any relatives named Archer?" Llona asked.

"Sure." His leather-tanned face crinkled into an agreeable smile. "A whole slew of 'em back in Milwaukee where I come from."

"I mean here. In Birchville. Or nearby."

"Nope. My family's all in Milwaukee. I'm the only

Archer in these parts as far as I know." He glanced at his watch. "We'd better get started, Mrs. Rutherford. I have another client due at four." He was standing directly over Llona now, and all that she could see of him was a section of the T-shirt stretched over the ridge of muscles at his waist. "If you'll just slip your arms out of the robe," he instructed. "That's it. Now let your arms lie parallel to your body on each side. Don't make a fist. Let the fingers extend to their full length. Fine. Now just relax." He folded the robe back from the top and bottom so that her legs and back were left bare and only her derriere was covered. His hands knowingly investigated the muscles at the back of her neck.

"What are you doing?" Llona inquired.

"Searching out the tension spots," he explained. "You have a lot of tension. You have to learn to relax. You're very rigid around the neck and shoulders." His fingers expertly probed the hollows of her shoulderblades.

"Mmmm. That feels good," Llona sighed.

"That's it. Just relax. That's better." Archer's fingertips worked their way down her spine.

"Ooh! That gives me the shivers!"

"Is the sensation unpleasant?" His hands stopped moving.

"Not at all. I like it. Don't stop."

"All right." Archer's knowing smile was out of Llona's range of vision as he gently resumed massaging her spine. When his fingers reached the folded robe, they delicately crept under it and continued manipulating right down to the very tip of the base of Llona's backbone. "Can you feel the tension leaving your body?" he asked as his hands lingered there.

"Oh, yes." Llona couldn't stop herself from wriggling under the intimate caress.

"The muscles on either side-do they still feel tense?"

"Now that you mention it, they do seem to be just a little tight."

"Well, we'll fix that." Bill Archer's hands separated under the terrycloth to knead the plump globes.

To Llona it felt as if they were burning under his touch. The gentle pressure pushed downward, then released the flesh, developing a rhythm that had Llona's lower torso grinding against the table in a way which she was finding very titillating. Without thinking, she separated her legs, and her thighs strained to part even farther.

Bill Archer carefully left the folded terrycloth in place and dropped his hands to the shapely calfs of Llona's legs. His fingertips traced the muscles there, then moved higher to dig into the joints. The muscle-flesh softened under his touch, and Llona emitted a sound a little like a purr. Archer manipulated a lever at the side of the table and it moved so that her legs were forced to bend backward at the knees. This brought the rear of her thighs into prominence, and now he began massaging this area. Both his hands slipped between the thighs and slowly moved higher, probing the tension spots as they went. Llona rocked from side to side in response to his pressure first on the inside of one thigh and then the other.

Archer progressed to the juncture of her legs and then stopped. Llona moaned with disappointment. Her moan changed to a quick yelp of surprise as Archer immediately started working his way up and down the length of her body with a series of short chopping motions that made her teeth rattle. The blows weren't hard, but nevertheless they were reminiscent of a karate fighter limbering up, and they stung the soft flesh.

Now Archer was at her shoulders again, kneading the flesh. Leaning over her, he reached underneath and worked on the front part of her shoulders. He bent farther forward, crooking his elbows and his wrists until he had a loose grip on the upper part of her breasts. Then he quickly adjusted the table again so that it seemed to drop away from under Llona's bosom. Reaching between her arms and the sides of her body on each side, he gently squeezed the fullness of her dangling breasts. The muscle tissue supporting them softened in his hands, but the nipples became quite rigid as he caught them between his fingers. Llona's arms, still at her sides, pressed against her body, and her fingernails dug into her trembling hips.

After a while, Archer stood back. "Put on the robe and turn over," he instructed in a tone of voice that was all business.

Llona did as she was told. Now, as she lay on her back, the robe covered her completely from her ankles to her neck. She looked at Bill Archer expectantly.

He had slipped his hand into a gloved contrivance. A wire trailed from it to a socket in the wall. With his other hand he tripped a switch, and it began to hum. The palm of the glove had a multitude of tiny rollers, each of which was individually covered with some sort of long fur. The fur rippled as the rollers spun rapidly.

"What's that?" Llona's eyes were very large.

"Nothing to be afraid of," he assured her with a professionally soothing tone of voice. "It's a hand vibrator. I designed it myself and had it made. It will draw the tension from your nerve-ends themselves. All of them."

"Oh."

He applied the vibrator to her forehead. It was like a sort of gentle electric caress. "That feels marvelous," Llona crooned.

The vibrator-hand moved over her neck. With his free hand, Archer moved her head from side to side. He kept it up until her head rotated freely, without strain. Then it moved under the folds of the terrycloth robe without separating them to hum against the flesh of her shoulders.

As it moved farther down to dip into the deep cleavage between her lush breasts, Llona gasped. Involuntarily, one of her hands rose to clutch at the material over her right breast and to guide the vibrating hand over its surface. The warmth it generated seemed like sunlight shed on the flower-petal roseate surrounding her nipple. That was exactly the sensation. It was as if the roseate was actually spreading to thrust the breast-tip deeper into the aura of warmth.

Her hand closed over the vibrator-hand once again as it traveled over her other breast. Her back arched to increase the pressure of the pleasurable sensation. Archer smiled to himself and flicked the vibrator switch another notch. The humming grew louder. The fur-covered rollers whirred faster. The nipple flicked back and forth between them hlce a flower stem which has just pierced the soil and is bursting with life.

The vibrator slipped down to the softness of Llona's belly. The rippling flesh danced under its gentle prodding. She bit her lip as it grazed the triangle of curls under the terrycloth.

Then it was plowing the curls, a palpitating explorer charting the map of her most erogenous zone. The curls were traced to their source. Once again Archer increased the action of the vibrator.

Llona's eyes were closed now. Even under the terry-cloth, her heavy breathing made the swelling of her breasts visible. She kicked the material away from her legs and dropped them over each side of the table so that the target being assailed by the vibrator was thrust upward prominently.

Delicately, Billl Archer held the material over the vibrator together so that its effect was not revealed. Yet Llona, behind her squeezed-shut eyes, saw a vivid picture of what was happening. Accurately she envisioned the straining guardian of her womanhood fighting a losing battle with the vibrator-and losing gladly. She saw the gates swinging open-wide open-to the whirring caress. And then she felt the frantic response as the vibrating sensation overwhelmed the hungry core of her femininity.

The real picture dissolved then to be replaced by the memory of her wedding day. She saw the face of the man in the closet again, the face of the other Archer, felt his touch, and it was his flesh vibrating against hers until she screamed aloud under the impact of wave after wave of ecstatic release.

Finally Bill Archer removed the vibrator and stood back, waiting for Llona to subside. When she had, he spoke. "I think we've had excellent results for a first treatment," he said deadpan. "Can you feel the release of tension from your body?"

"Oh, yes," Llona said, stretching luxuriously.

"Then you do feel more relaxed?"

"Definitely! I haven't felt this relaxed since- Well, in a long time."

"Good. Then if you'll get dressed, I'll see you in the reception room and we can arrange for your next appointment."

When Llona emerged, fully clothed, he Was standing beside the receptionist's desk and waiting for her. "That will be twenty-five dollars, Mrs. Rutherford," he told her.

"Oh!" It was obvious that Llona hadn't expected it to be so much.

"Now about your next appointment-" Bill Archer

started to say.

"I don't think I can afford to make one," Llona said frankly as she fumbled in her purse. "I didn't expect it to be so expensive."

"Well now, that would be a shame," Bill Archer said smoothly, professionally. "When I can really help someone, when the results are as pronounced as they were in your case, I hate to see finances interfere with treatment. After all, Mrs. Rutherford, your health comes first."

"I know. But I just can't afford it."

"Well, maybe we can work something out. Private treatment with specialized attention would be preferable, of course, but we also have some group massage therapy available at a much lower rate. You have a lot of tension, Mrs. Rutherford. I'd strongly advise you to continue with treatment."

"How much would that be?"

His eyes dipped into her open pocketbook and made a judgment. "Five dollars a session is our absolute minimum," he told her. "Do you think you could manage that?"

Llona knew even that amount would be a strain on her resources, but she was still feeling the afterglow of the last "treatment." In her widowed situation, she simply had to do something! She just had to have some release! Her solitary pleasures just weren't enough. "I guess I can afford it," she told Bill Archer.

"Fine." He beamed as he accepted the money from her. "Then I'll see you next Friday at two o'clock and introduce you to the rest of the ladies. I'm sure you'll find much in common with them. And I'm positive that you'll benefit greatly from the treatment given our little group."

Despite Bill Archer's assurances, Llona found her first "group treatment" something of a letdown after the private session which preceded it. The principle was the same, but the fact that it was carried out on something of an assembly-line basis detracted from the depth of the experience.

With the group, Archer worked with two assistants who moved from table to table in a prearranged fashion that didn't take into account the differences in reaction to stimulus by the various ladies on the tables. Nevertheless, the objective seemed to be accomplished with all of them -Llona included. And from Llona's point of view, it was still better than going it alone.

It was on her third or fourth visit to the massage parlor that Llona met Mrs. Valentine. It was Mrs. Valentine's first time with the group. She was assigned the table next to the one on which Llona was lying, and Llona couldn't help noticing her. Mrs. Valentine was like a compact cache of dynamite, fuse sizzling from the moment she mounted the table, which finally erupted in a series of explosions accompanied by high-pitched cries of ecstasy that testified to the efficacy of the Bill Archer practice of massage.

She was a small girl, was Mrs. Valentine, petite, Bar-dot-like, breasts shaped like perfect, ripe pears, hips from which wine-jugs could have been slung, legs shapely and strong like a dancer's, a sculpted, foam-rubber tail cushion. Her face was the face of a pixie, heart-shaped with high cheekbones, a saucy button of a nose, pouty lips and pert chin, complexion a permanenet red-gold tan, and eyes that flashed the signals of a sex-kitten ever-ready to purr, albeit a sex-kitten with sharp claws and set to pounce. Mrs. Valentine was alive and lively, a bounce given substance, a hungry libido on legs made to arch.

Mrs. Valentine was a greased ping-pong ball for a solid two minutes following the massage. When she'd finally stopped squealing, she rolled over on her side and her eyes met those of Llona, who was lying on the next table. "Wow!" Mrs. Valentine said. "I needed that!"

"It certainly seemed very therapeutic for you," Llona agreed.

"You can say that again!" Mrs. Valentine giggled. "I'm Olivia Valentine," she went on to introduce herself.

"I'm Llona May-I mean, Llona Rutherford," Llona responded.

"Glad to know you. What say we get out of these Mother Hubbards and into a nice warm gimlet?"

"I'm sorry. Do you mean-?"

"I'd like to buy you a drink."

"Oh. Well, thanks," Llona accepted.

"Meet you out front." Olivia Valentine bounded from the table.

Some twenty minutes later Llona was seated across from her in a dimly lighted cocktail lounge. She sipped at her drink quietly as Olivia chattered.

"You married?" Olivia wanted to know. Then, without waiting for an answer: "I am. My hubba-hubby's a Kin-sey dropout. Like he's a real sexual disaster area. Same with you, huh? You wouldn't go for the treatment if it wasn't, I guess."

"My husband's dead," Llona told her.

"You think yours is dead? You ought to try my Morty. He couldn't make it in a Russian whorehouse with a pocketful of rubles!"

"No. I mean my husband's really dead. I'm a widow."

"Oh. Sorry about that. I thought you meant- Gee, you're awful young to be a widow. Around my age, I guess."

"Probably."

"Still," Olivia observed, "if you don't have a ball-and-chain, why bother with the massage bit? There must be plenty of guys around would be glad to see to your needs."

"Yours, too," Llona pointed out. "Being married wouldn't necessarily have to stop you."

"In Birchville it would. This town's too damn small."

"That's my problem, too," Llona sighed. "I haven't been a widow long enough."

"Well, I might as well be a widow. For a recent bridegroom, my Morty's got all the enthusiasm of a permanent soprano choir boy."

"Then you haven't been married long?" Llona inquired idly.

"Just a couple of months. Mrs. Mortimer Valentine. I'm still not used to it. And the way things are going in the sack, I hope I never am."

"If my husband had lived, I'd only be married a couple of months myself," Llona said. "When were you married?"

Olivia told her the date.

"Why, that's the same day I was married!" Llona exclaimed. Then she remembered something which filled her with a sudden renewed hope. "What did you say your husband's name was?" she asked Olivia.

"Mortimer J. Valentine. Why?"

Mortimer! That was the name Archer had mentioned during that interlude on her own wedding day, Llona remembered. He'd come to her wedding by mistake. He'd thought he was at the wedding of his cousin Mortimer! "Does your husband have a cousin named Archer?" she asked Olivia, her heart pounding.

"You must mean Arch. Yes, he does. I've never met him, though. He was supposed to come to our wedding, but for some reason, he didn't show."

Llona thought she knew the reason. "Look," she said earnestly. "I know you don't know me very well, but this is terribly important to me. Do you think you could arrange for me to meet your husband's cousin?"

"I guess so. Why not?" Olivia looked at her curiously. "We've been meaning to ask him to dinner," she added. "Why don't you come, too? He's not married and it will balance things. Only one thing-"

"Yes?"

"You will be discreet about where and how we met, won't you?"

"Oh, yes," Llona promised. "Why don't we just say we're old friends from summer camp when we were kids and we recently met again on the street?"

"Good. I'll arrange it, then." Olivia took her phone number and promised to call her as soon as the date was set.

Llona left then: Her heart was singing. She was sure that at long last she'd traced down her Archer. She couldn't wait to see him and confirm it. She couldn't wait to lie in his arms once again. She dreamed about him all through that night.

The dream was even better than the vibrator…