Her body, that had been virginal a moment before, was moving in frenetic appeal. The heat of her passion was burning him. Heavens, he thought in sudden panic, supposing she gets pregnant? Gosh what will I do, siring a child by this creature? It's a sin. I've got to stop. He tried to withdraw, but it was too late. The seed of his loins was already fighting its way into her quivering body.
She knew what had happened. "Wonderful, wonderful," she cried stiffening her entire body in physical ecstacy. "My beautiful brilliant man." Then, with a little moan that was half pain and half pleasure, she went limp in his arms. Their mating was complete. Loring lay dazed and exhausted.
It was at that moment that he heard Janice scream. It seemed to him that a white-hot shaft of dread went through him before a coldness fastened on his heart, and he began to tremble violently. He thrust the woman in his arms almost brutally from him, and struggled to rise. It was a struggle, because the arms of other women had instantly entwined themselves about his arms and shoulders and even about his legs. It was as if they had mistaken his blind, fear-inspired brutality for rejection of one woman in favor of many, and thought of the many as themselves.
He thrust their arms aside, forced them to release him by smiting them cheek and thigh. He did it unconsciously, thinking only of Janice and what the scream might mean. But they seemed to take the blows as compliments and murmured: "What a lover! What a man!"
He saw her then—saw her above the straining white arms and tumultuously heaving breasts of women who seemed suddenly Medusa-like, the shadowy Gorgons of some monstrous dream.
She was struggling in the arms of a man who seemed in all respects the exact opposite of a brute. He had the body of an Athenian athlete in the days of Grecian splendor and his head was aureoled in gold. He was young and lithe-limbed and the band of gold which encircled his light blond hair, worn long, above the classic manliness of his features, glittered in the sunlight, giving him an almost Apollo-like aspect as he stood by the stream. Apollo, the Sun god.
Damn him to hell, Loring thought.
He knew nothing about how a woman would feel but from his knowledge of women he could hardly doubt or question the man's undisputed right to consider himself literally brimming over with male sex appeal. He was the kind of man it was hard to imagine any woman resisting for long and yet Janice was struggling violently in his arms!
Loring had freed himself completely now and he lost no time in reaching the man's side. Greek athlete or not, the man had no chance at all and he seemed to realize it the instant he looked into Loring's eyes.
He released Janice and started to move backwards, away from Loring. But Loring did not let him retreat far. He dropped the repulsed Apollo to the ground with a savage right to the jaw.