"Are you scared? Or more excited?"
As he knelt up she noticed that his pupils were dilated, his nostrils flaring and closing with each breath. She'd never seen him like this before. He reminded her of an animal, without conscience or reason, at the mercy of pure instinct. And now, to tell the truth, she did feel scared, because the Dan she knew and liked and trusted had been taken over by this other creature, alien to her, which had desires and lusts it meant to satiate.
"Dan, no, don't--please," Jo said, trying to break through to the person she knew. At the same time she began edging backward on her elbows, which had the effect of pushing her breasts upward against the taut material so that her nipples were clearly defined.
Dan's bleary gaze moved from her soft red mouth to her provocative breasts and down along the length of her thighs and legs molded tightly in jodhpurs and boots. A pulse was beating behind his eyes, jolting his brain. He was enveloped in a pulsating red misty heat. His heart pounded thickly.
Jo rolled away from him. She tried to scramble to her feet, digging the toes of her boots in, but the turf was like glass and she slipped, tried again, getting frantic now, and finally succeeded as Dan's hand clamped fast to her ankle and with brute force brought her crashing down and dragged her backward across the white cloth through the remnants of chicken and salad and untasted chocolate cake, which smeared itself the full length of her body. Lumps of chocolate stuck to her chin and cheeks, got in her nostrils and eyes and hair, and she could taste it vilely on her lips.
She opened her mouth and screamed, the scream muffled by chocolate icing and the crumpled white cloth.
Then she felt his hands tearing at her shirt, ripping it in shreds from her shoulders. He was hauling at her jodhpurs, attempting, impossibly, to drag the leather belt from her twenty-two-inch waist over her thirty-four-inch hips. In the red misty madness there was no plan or logic, only an aching stiffness that had to find release.
Jo let out a choking, suffocating scream. "Oh, God no, please don't! No, please! No! No! No!
But he was working with mechanical mindless intensity now, kneeling astride her, clawing at the belt and getting it undone, the sight of her pink rounded buttocks marooned between the tanned lines at waist and legs driving him into a frenzy. While he was unfastening his own belt and pants Jo tried to squirm free and he slapped her down with a stinging blow that left five white imprints in the glowing pinkness. His hand was between her legs, searching, probing, and he lifted her powerfully until she was open and vulnerable, a sacrificial offering, his outspread fingers stretching her wide while he guided himself forward and plunged solidly, satisfyingly home.
Jo didn't cry out again. In the quiet glade she whined softly and the tears washed the encrusted chocolate from her face and lips. It was the taste of indignity, of hurt, of disillusion, this salty chocolate, and her throat burned with a mush of chicken and salad vomit.
Dan's body thumped like a piston while his head roared redly in a blast furnace of deafening heat.
"You mean you haven't noticed anything? Nothing at all?" Nick Power said. He sounded incredulous.
"What in hell are you talking about except a few high spirits, for God's sake? Jesus, you damn English are all the same," Tom Brannigan complained. "Skittish as kittens."
Either Brannigan was playing dumb or he
"It's like a disease," Nick said. "Don't ask me whether it's physical or psychological because I don't know--but believe me, something's happening to us and it's getting worse. Especially the young people." He looked around at the other council members, nine in all, who carefully avoided his and one another's eyes, none of them prepared to support him. Or, more likely, afraid of disagreeing with Brannigan.
"What is this?" Cheryl demanded hotly. "Are we afraid to admit it to ourselves? Nick's right and we all know it, or most of us do. The rest must be walking around with their eyes shut. It isn't only the climate and vegetation that's gone haywire--there's something deeper and more fundamental that's affecting us all, every single one of us."
"Hey now, let's not get hysterical," Brannigan said indulgently. The fact that this was a woman's opinion dredged up the latent male chauvinism that was only millimeters beneath the bluff, jovial exterior. It was only to be expected, his manner suggested, that nervous and highly strung females were prone to such outbursts.
Cheryl recognized the ploy and choked back her anger.
