She put a thin finger on his hot lips. "Now say, I love you, Tina," she said.
He nodded in desperation. "Yes-yes-I love you, Tina, I love you, I want you, I need you, Tina."
She relaxed and closed her eyes, waiting for him. He caught his breath and gasped as he inched toward her and entered the tightness of her thighs. He felt her crude wriggling beneath him and he was tantalized by the squirming touch. Then he was lost in a blinding sensation that ripped through him like a hundred sunsets. Suddenly she was urgent to him, sweet and warm and she bore an important relation to this new, strange world.
He lay with his head beside her on the bed and he gasped for breath. She reached over and pulled the sheets around them. He closed his eyes.
"Sleep well, baby," she whispered softly.
CHAPTER ONE
Lou finished his canneloni and poured another glass of wine from the basket-covered Chianti bottle. The smell of the onion and garlic was strong and smoke like a pall hung heavily in the restaurant. The crowd from the bar was spilling into the dining section and the din of noise had increased until he and Marilyn could barely hear each other across the tiny table.
"Christ, I can remember when this was a quiet little place full of well-dressed diners. Look at it now-get a look." Lou said with a smile.
Marilyn took a small nibble of the canneloni and stared around. "Never mind the crowd-the food is still good. It's the best pasta I've had in a long while."
"That's why I brought you here," he said. "The crowd has changed but not the food. Few places in town serve it as well."
"How long has this place been here?" asked Marilyn.
Lou thought a moment. "Ever since I can remember-in fact before some of these beatniks were born."
She smiled and shrugged. "It's different-even if it is a little wild-looking. I hope this celebration isn't premature, Lou?" she said, reaching for his hand.
His smile widened. "Don't worry, kid," he said confidently. "You're going to do the series. With all the background I picked up for you about these sex animals nobody else on the paper could do it." He lit a cigarette and stared at her.
She squeezed his hand as if it was exactly what she wanted him to say. Then she finished the last of the canneloni and moved her plate aside. She stared through the curtained window and was absorbed by the moon rolling coldly along a silver cloud bank. She turned slowly and stared around the room and Lou thought how she always moved with delicate gravity and grace.
"I bet some of these slovenly girls are here tonight celebrating their latest abortions," said Marilyn, her eyes dimming.
Lou laughed. "Among other things."
"What else?"
His eyes itched with mischievous desire. "Those wild sex parties you're going to write about." He leaned toward her over the table. "And don't forget to include the filthy way they live-their beards ... their sandals ... their long hair ... their lack of bathing."
She laughed and nodded. "Of course, I will. It wouldn't be a story without the details," she said.
"Good." He shook his head. "I'm afraid I prefer the well-scrubbed variety," he said, raising his voice over the throbbing hum of the crowd and the squeaky juke box. He looked around for a waiter and finally caught sight of one hurrying through the crowded floor. He motioned him over and ordered a couple of Stregas and asked for the check.
Marilyn suddenly caught Lou's eye and nodded toward the side. Lou glanced slowly.
The girl was slim and dark yet her chest was big and sprawling and spread out. She must be a Texan in those regions thought Lou. She stood a few feet away holding firmly to a glass of beer. Carried well-shaped legs that showed through shortened and tattered jean. Her blouse was colorful, like an Egyptian tablecloth, and the top two buttons were loose as if neatness was no part of her scheme of fashion. She wasn't the pretty type that compels a man's attention yet her prettiness shone through the masquerade of her clothes. Her long black hair cascaded to her shoulders and it was obvious she had little preference for the refinements of cosmetics.
"She looks mean," said Marilyn.
"Everyone does in this neighborhood."
Lou turned back to Marilyn and took her hand across the cluttered table. He stared a long moment into her lovely face shadowed by the flickering table candle-light. "I've brought the cleanest girl in town to this smoky grime-pit filled with dirty girls," he said, smiling.
"Oh, it's been nice. I enjoyed it. I should be used to these places by now-I've spent so much working time here digging up my expose these last few weeks. Yet I could go right home and soak all night in a tub."
Lou's nine senses possessed other ideas for Marilyn besides tubbing all night. His ninth sense in particular wanted amour. The other eight didn't matter. The waiter brought the drinks and Lou paid the check. Then they sipped slowly and stared into each other's eyes. He was about to reach over toward her and kiss her when he heard a girl's voice.
"There's no use coming around with the same old kicks," she was saying loud enough to be heard above the crowd.
Lou refrained from turning around. "Was that our girl?" he asked Marilyn with a wink.
"That was her all right," Marilyn said with a grin. "If she's so interested in kicks she might get some taking a bath."
Lou grinned as he stood up and waited for Marilyn. She stood up and asked him to be seated while she went to the ladies' room. He looked idly around. The stench of unclean bodies and heavy smoking almost suffocated him. He stared at his hands. They were firm and steady. He saw his napkin on the floor. He reached down and when he straightened up the dark-haired girl was near him-staring and tense, her breath held tight, her shifting buttocks tightly outlined. He leaned toward her, his face alive with interest. She turned toward the bearded one and said aloud: "Shove off, baby. Come back when you've found your imagination." Then she stepped toward him-a wild, dark, sardonic smile spreading her lips.
He looked hard at her. "Hello."
"Hello."
Her large black eyes were fastened on him like buttons and her voice cut across in a deep-throated sultry wave.
Suddenly Lou felt foolish. In the distance he could see Marilyn wending her way toward him through the surging crowd. He heard himself whisper to her, "My name is Lou."
She set her empty beer glass down on his table-stared at him as if he were inept, then shrugged and walked off. Christ, he said to himself, as she was lost in the crowd, who the hell is she?
Wow-is she wired for squirms. He guided Marilyn through the door and onto the sidewalk past some tattered guitar strollers. Then they both inhaled the dash of fresh clean air in deep gulps as they walked around the corner to his car.
Later, in Marilyn's apartment, Lou put his arm around her and stroked her shoulders. He was thinking of the girl with the dark shadowed look in the restaurant and he was haunted momentarily. Marilyn's robe was open and the sight of her golden body drove thoughts of strangers from his mind. He could feel her hands rubbing his prick as he kissed her fervently. She made sexy little noises in her throat and he shivered to his roots. Now he just didn't need any woman-just Marilyn ... the woman. He tore at her body impatiently. "Come on!" he whispered savagely.
On the bed she breathed deeply as she melted in his arms. Her tongue flicked his like a dart. Her nails raked his back and she held him firmly as he shifted toward her ready to ride the entire rampant fury of his love. His flanking thighs were cool. Hers were warm. She buckled herself to him and gasped as she rode the familiar route-rough and ecstatic. Then she gasped and pulled him closer ... holding on for dear, delightful life.
She could hear rain begin to fall. Evening frills. Inside she had the real thing ... at boiling point. No frills here. They remained wrapped with each other a long time-talking softly and feeling each other until the surge of a new excitement began. And they made love again. The rain began to come in through the open window. She didn't care. She loved what she was doing. His tongue licked gratefully at her. She bit at his nose. He bit back.
Suddenly everything was too far gone as she felt him ram and ram her again in a steady, demanding series of thrusts. She began to give back all she had. But she took her time about it.
He loved it. So did she. The more he thrust the harder she kissed him. She stopped his lips with hers. He made a throaty sound and his head swam. Now he was probing her, letting her feel who was boss. He could feel her gurgle with charged pleasure as she bent her body toward him wriggling like a worm. Then her cry of joy as she shook spasmodically under his cruel baton.
Later he closed the window and they lit cigarettes and smoked quietly. They listened to the rain and the distant peals of thunder.
"In a way, Lou, you're really the first for me," she said. "Certainly there have been others before you!" She laughed. "Maybe a few, darling, but only with you do I feel like a woman. The others were all turnips."
Lou stubbed his cigarette. He put his arm around her ... kissed her gently on the forehead. "Dear Marilyn," he could only say.
But she put a restraining finger to his lips. "No darling, don't say anything," she whispered softly. "I just wanted you to know."
A few minutes later he was listening to her steady breathing. He sat and lit another cigarette. He was exhausted. He could not sleep. He followed the smoke curl upward in the dimly lit room. And for an instant he thought he saw again the bold, black eyes of the girl in the restaurant, mocking him derisively.
CHAPTER TWO
The place was packed. Lou fought his way to the bar and stood wedged among the crowd as he called for an Old Forester and water. He drank rapidly and soon had consumed three shots when he saw her reflected in the mirror. Cold black eyes were fixed on him hard. He bit his lips. He felt the blood begin to pound in his pulses. He turned around.
"Hello."
"You said that last night. Can't you say anything else?"
He blushed. "My name is Lou."
She narrowed her eyes. "Yes, I know. Now try saying something new."
"How about a drink?"
She moved to the bar. "That's better," she said acidly. "I thought you didn't get a good enough look at me last night," she said. There was something greedy in the way she feasted her eyes on him.
Lou ordered her drink. He took a slow sip of his bourbon. He looked her up and down. "Maybe I saw all there is to see," he said slowly. He liked the faint grin beginning to spread around her mouth, revealing strong white teeth.
She fondled her drink and stared up at him. "I doubt that very much, Lou," she said. He watched her make a production of sipping her drink.
She hadn't changed much since the night before. Her clothes were still the same and he wondered if that was all she owned. When he finished his drink he leaned forward to call the bartender. He felt her pressure on his arm and he turned toward her.
"Do you like wine, Lou?" she asked with a little inflection of excitement.
"At the right occasions I do."
"Look-I live upstairs," she said quietly. "Let me buy you a glass of wine up there. At least we'll have a place to sit down."
He nodded. "Agreeable. Lead the way," he [text missing in original pocketbook]
In a quick movement she slipped her arm through his and led him through the crowd and smoke to the street. She pointed up-four stories above the noisy restaurant. She mounted the stairs before him and he watched her buttocks wriggle in staccato impertinence as he followed behind. She opened an unlocked, undistinguished door. For some strange reason she did not put on the lights. Instead he suddenly saw a lit match applied to a candle. In the shadows he could perceive a cluttered but somewhat pleasant one-room apartment. Green plants stood on a window sill and it matched the delicate greenery prints on the wallpaper. Then his eyes became accustomed to the light and he was suddenly appalled. Clothes were strewn everywhere-the furniture was battered and cigarette butts littered the floor. A couple of paper bags of garbage overflowed sloppily beneath the sink and dishes were piled high in the sink. His knees unbuckled for a moment at the horrible filth of the place and he stood unpoised like a deer shaken by lightning.
The girl motioned to a chair. "Sit down," she said, moving so he could have the chair.
There was an overstuffed chair in the center of the room and as he walked toward it he could see the stuffing beneath hanging limp. He sat down and heard a squal emanating from the old springs. He watched her remove a bottle of dark wine from a small cabinet and pour a full glass for him. "Take it," she said. "I'll drink from the bottle."
She came toward him and sat on the arm of the chair. Her breast brushed his ear. He knew his heart was pounding. He looked up at her thrusting, firm breasts. She stared down at him with an acid smile.
"What are you looking at?" she asked. "Never seen a woman's uppers before?"
He grinned and squeezed her knee. "Was it that obvious?"
She was drinking from the bottle-her eyes closed. He felt her arm beginning to coil around his neck. He began to sip the wine. Then he nearly gagged. Bums strained shoe polish through bread and got better stuff, he thought to himself. He set the glass on the floor. She stopped drinking and put the bottle on the floor beside his glass.
"Bet you work uptown?" he heard her say, as she ran her fingers through his hair.
"Yes, I work for a newspaper," he said.
"I'm a painter," she said proudly. "At least I used to be one. Now I'm nothing."
She moved closer and her breasts touched his face. He wet his lips. Then, like a sudden shaft of lightning, he pulled her head down and kissed her. She tugged hard and pulled away. He felt shivers curve down his spine.
He was aware of her incredibly small and slim body except for her jutting breasts. And he remembered the touch of her wet lips.
"Relax Mister Uptown," she said. "Don't be afraid. What's a heaven for?"
He grabbed her by the waist and pulled her down. When he kissed her he tasted the Claret on her lips. At first she failed to respond-then he could feel her tongue snaking through his lips and she seemed keenly aware of the most sensitive spots to lather. He was feeling a strange new thrill as she wrapped a leg around him. He remembered the guy with the scraggly beard the night before and was sure she had done this with him many times. She was probably a one-way girl ... all sex moving with any tide.
On the bed he strained at her clothes-fumbling behind her back to unsnap her bra. When her breasts surged forward he buried his head in the warm softness and he could feel her nipples harden as he kissed them fervently. She was breathing deeply but remained a little passive-but that didn't matter. He stopped for a second-doubtful. Beneath her jeans she was nude and mysteriously inviting. It was all a dream and he belonged to the dreamers.
She didn't respond and his orgy was small. The only part that seemed alive and real were the deep, black eyes which observed him like a bird of prey. But his brutality was gone-suddenly drained, and he felt awkward. What sort of girl was she, he wondered? He wanted to leave then when he suddenly felt her arms coiled behind his neck and she dug fiercely into his flesh. The only sound in the room was her breathing-a sort of mumbled animal sound, either terribly hurt or whimpering for love. She pulled him with a passion as desperate as wild sex can be and he felt like a dry log on fire being consumed.
Later they lay still for some time. He tried to reconstitute everything in his mind. But it was like trying to smash a hurricane into jig-saw pieces. Only the tumult of her flesh was real. The fuzz was clearing from his mind when she pushed at him. Then she scrambled from the bed. Sweat stood out on her lithe body. She got the bottle from the floor and sat on the chair staring fixedly at him. He saw a cockroach crawl down the arm of the chair and he almost puked. He stood up and started dressing. He was in the midst of a filthy suffocation and the aftermath was ugly.
"You might at least have asked my name," she said softly. Then she smiled with an edge of spite. "If you care-my name is Tina. Tina Williams."
"I'm sorry, Tina, truly sorry," he said. "I'm Lou Conner." He felt like a bastard. After all, she was only a girl and she had asked him to her apartment.
He walked over and put his hands on her shoulders.
She looked up at him. "And you could have said thank you," she remarked sharply.
He lit a cigarette and stared at her. "You're so right. I should have. I do thank you, Tina."
Then she looked angrily at him. "The next time you're going to say please."
Dirty little bitch-he remarked to himself. He turned from the door. "There won't be a next time, Tina," he said. He felt spent and foolish, like a stretched rubber band.
As he left he heard her laugh and call out: "Want to bet?"
CHAPTER THREE
Marilyn put the lid down on her suitcase and snapped the lock. She felt his hand around her waist and pulled away. "It's late, Lou. I told you what would happen if we remained in bed all morning," she said eagerly.
"Don't worry-you'll make the train on time."
He saw her go into the bathroom and put some toilet articles in a plastic container. Then she opened the suitcase and placed the bag inside. She walked over to him and bent down to rumple his hair. He reached up and kissed her forehead.
"To bad you have to leave just when you're on the threshold of your first big success," he said, lighting a cigarette. "I've never seen Michaels more enthusiastic about a pending series. And he usually doesn't reflect exuberance," Lou remarked casually.
She spread her arms happily. "I'm so excited I could burst all over, Lou," she said.
"This Garden street bunch will make the paper a lot of new readers. It's quite an expose-front page stuff and all."
"I'll be back in a few days," Marilyn said.
"I'll try holding my breath."
"You'll make it, Lou," she said with an eager smile. "How about a drink?"
Without waiting for his answer she walked to the bar in the corner and filled two glasses. Her slip was a shortie and her legs showed amply. Men told her that she had pretty legs.
Lou took one of the glasses and she sat down beside him. Marilyn always did something to him. What was it? Annealing-that was the word. She could heat him, cook him and cool him and she could soothe him with little brittle. With her he felt always naked in the sun-lolling with soft pleasures. She took a long swallow of her drink and then bent over to kiss him.
They were on the couch. He put his hand beneath her blouse and rubbed her firm breasts. She ran her hands through his hair and pulled him close. "Oh, darling, if we must, then let's hurry," she panted.
She helped him fumble from his trousers. For a moment she felt it was wicked to do this at the last moment. The room was bathed in glorious sunshine and her morals seemed hushed. She closed her eyes and kissed him but she moved her body toward his. She let him run his tongue in her ear ... she let him kiss her with hot open mouth ... she let his hand roam everywhere and suddenly she felt ringed with complete desire. She twisted and turned toward him. She wanted no mock affair-no silent, meaningless emotion. This was the real thing.
Easy, baby Marilyn, relax, let yourself loose. Let the sun play while Lou tingled her, unbending her virtue and inflaming her passion. She opened her eyes and looked at Lou with glistening eyes, her face flushed for thrills. Hurt me and love me, I don't care, she thought, put a new world in orbit for me. She tried to push everything else from her mind that was alien to the ecstatic moment before her, as if everything else but this searing love was offensive. And once, she remembered, she had been so innocent.
College gave her the knowledge of learning and male anatomy. Which came first she couldn't remember. Before her sophomore year ended she knew she had a button called a clitoris with an immense arena of tingling possibilities. The private courses in the use of the condoms and the mystery of the male phallus was just another basic background that fitted adequately. Her room-mate Joan had discovered sex earlier and liked it better. Marilyn wasn't sure-but she wouldn't have been surprised if Joan opened her vagina as often as she opened her purse. They even went once as guests to a nudist camp. The men stared at them-at their uptilted grapefruit breasts, long legs and sexy bodies. Some of the males looked ready to explode on contact.
She moved through the college years assessing the world and its males. She knew there were strong and weak people-the leaders and the led. And those that just passed through sniffing and wondering. She had many affairs-all without inner meaning and so thin they dissolved very quickly. But her sexual frustrations were stilled-the ruts smoothed and cushioned.
She developed her own logistics of living. Sex became the sauna bath of her emotional salvation. That summer in Europe she found that it was basically sex that tied so many Americans together. Sex was the umbilical cord that never let go-branching into many new friendships. To the European men she was but a second-rate curiosity. Europe was so much older than America-a continent where sex was no curiosity to be kept safely hidden as in her own country. She picked the men she slept with and her soul was open to all. None of them rendered the special quality of meaningfulness and there was no special memory attached-she saw them all as bodies in a bedroom.
Her emotional bubbles blew to the bursting point but men failed to explode her into something lasting. When it was over it all seeped out in small shivers. There was a man in Rome. She thought she loved him. She might have married him if he had asked her. But it was only her body he wanted-not her brain ... not her soul ... not her life. So life went fast and things happened and everybody rushed through trying to touch all the bases-but everywhere she missed. Where did she miss?
With Lou she had been close. They never talked of historic events, philosophy, or nature. These things were awkward for him. They were not his dishes. Whatever they had in common belonged in the bedroom and nowhere else. Would it ever work out? Could it? At times she wondered, but didn't care. It was enough that she enjoyed him making love to her anytime-at all odd hours. But when it was over, her mind was in another room somewhere, very distant from here.
Now she moaned and called out, "Oh, Lou," over and over again. She could feel his hot gasping breath pouring onto her warm skin. She squinted and narrowed her eyes. The room looked long and thin like an Italian bread sliced lengthwise. She liked his love. It was art and history and dreams combined. Soon she rose and picked up her panties and hurried into the bathroom.
CHAPTER FOUR
With Marilyn away he wanted a woman. His only thought was of the mysterious, dark-eyed Tina and suddenly she loomed as one of the big rocks of strength in his life. He was a damn fool at times. New dames always looked like exquisite paintings. Beauty only intruded its historic mystery, softening resistance with strange smells of lust and craving.
When she opened the door and saw him she stared contemptuously, as if he were squash. "Oh, it's you. Come on in-if you want," she said indifferently.
When she closed the door behind he turned swiftly and grabbed her. She pretended to push back. He ran his hands hotly down the inside of her opened dress.
"Easy-uptown," she sneered.
He looked worried. "I need you, Tina. I need you very much," he moaned.
They walked to the center of the room. "Help me off with my sweater," she said, lifting her arms.
He groped hurriedly and pulled off her sweater. She watched him drop it on the floor.
"Pick it up and fold it neatly and put it on top of the dresser," she commanded coldly.
He hesitated a brief instant and cursed her wildly under his breath.
But he did exactly what she told him, and when he reached for her bra, she stepped back.
"The skirt must by all means come first," she said.
He unzipped the skirt and it slipped to the floor.
"Pick it up and do the same thing."
He started to take a step toward her with clenched fist and he felt his muscles suddenly tighten. Then he thought better and smiled back at her with satisfied eyes. "Sure Tina, why not?" he said as he repeated the folding of the skirt and placing it neatly atop the dresser. He swallowed dryly feeling anger sweep over him. So he would play along with her. Christ, a dame like her was worth....
When he released her bra he folded it neatly and did as he was expected to without being told again. When he turned her he saw that favorite smile of hers curving her mouth.
"You are a fast learner, aren't you?"
He shrugged. "It's my schooling, maybe."
She pointed to her panties and snapped the elastic.
"Damn," Lou muttered, and grabbed the panties and started to yank downward.
"Easy, baby-" she said sweetly.
His fingers lingered over the inside of her thighs as he worked her panties down and he thought again how ripe and velvety was this girl's skin. As if she never saw the sun. She stepped from her panties and walked to the bed and sat down. He was at her side breathing heavily.
"Didn't you forget something?" she asked.
"I did?"
She raised a well-shaped leg. "My stockings. Don't your uptown girl friends wear hosiery?" Everything was blurring into a lot of incongrous things. He felt like he was pouring brandy into a glass that never filled. Nothing he did or wanted seemed to make much sense to her. He muttered "dirty bitch" under his breath and his warm breath spilled out as he slid his aching fingers over her legs and rolled the stockings down. Then he looked up at her and saw a face wrapped in an enigma-almost expressionless.
"That's better, Lou, now you can do whatever you want with me and your uptown friends will never know," she said with a smile.
Her words pulled him to reality and he knew her heart for some strange reason was full of hate and he stared at her, his mind reeling. He was all sweat and shaking as he moved toward her.
She spread her hand stiffly toward him. "There's one thing more," she said.
He wiped the sweat from his forehead. "Don't push any more, Tina," he said in a low, menacing voice.
She smiled. "Oh, you must have forgotten. I told you last time you would have to say please." And she leaned back and stretched her small body lazily.
He stopped like in the middle of a stroke. He cursed and swallowed a lump. "Sure, Tina, please," he heard himself confess.
For a moment she stared at him. A soggy cigarette dangled from her red lips and she looked raw and hard at him. He knew from here on in she was playing it by ear.
Suddenly she stubbed out her cigarette and lay back on the bed and opened her arms wide for him and her dark features were spread by a smile as big as a canvas.
This time her response electrified him by the way she kissed him until he tried to spread her only to find she would not let him pry her apart. He felt like a broken cat-a one-armed theater seat-and he was hot and fevered and his pulse reacted quickly.
"Open up, damn you," he shouted at her.
"Say, I want you, Tina," she said huskily, her body twisting beneath him. "Say I need you, Tina."
What makes a woman desirable in bed, he wondered. Style-only style, and she had it all. The way she worked at it, changing and shifting course and doing it each time differently. He shrugged.
"Of course, Tina, I want you-I need you," he gasped.
After he said it he felt ejected from the world like a cartridge. No woman before had ever caused a feeling of debasement so profound and he felt like a gurgling sewer.
Then suddenly she let him spread her-wider and wider-a thin smile lighting her face. She slid toward him and pressed hotly against his surging body. He gasped and pulled her lips to him. But she forced her lips past his and bit him savagely on the shoulder. He felt her wriggling and started to impale her. He was ready to explode when she gently pushed his face away.
"Please, Tina, please-let me-," he begged.
She put a thin finger on his hot lips. "Now say, I love you, Tina," she said.
He nodded in desperation. "Yes-yes-I love you, Tina, I love you, I want you, I need you, Tina."
She relaxed and closed her eyes, waiting for him. He caught his breath and gasped as he inched toward her and entered the tightness of her thighs. He felt her crude wriggling beneath him and he was tantalized by the squirming touch. Then he was lost in a blinding sensation that ripped through him like a hundred sunsets. Suddenly she was urgent to him, sweet and warm and she bore an important relation to this new, strange world.
He lay with his head beside her on the bed and he gasped for breath. She reached over and pulled the sheets around them. He closed his eyes. "Sleep well, baby," she whispered softly. He could feel her move closer to him and curl her leg around his thighs. But before he drifted off he told himself this must positively be the very last time with her. He was jeopardizing his job and everything he valued. His real world was Marilyn's bed. He felt like sobbing from his tense doubts.
CHAPTER FIVE
While he slept she remembered vividly the first time she had been pulled down gently in bed with a man. He told her strange stories of love and lust to fan her desire and it worked. In the stillness of a dark, rented room she shared his bed and listened to him. He told her of Hong Kong whorehouses where straw baskets on a pulley were used to lower the girls to the waiting customers. Each girl a different price. Each girl young, lovely and fresh. Each girl undressing slowly in front of the men, tantalizingly close, yet the rules of the house forbade the men touching the merchandise until it was paid for. She was eighteen and she listened enraptured until he could feel her trembling beneath his roving hands.
"You know everything, Mike-positively eery thing?" she asked.
The man laughed. He was big and strong with quiet features and about twice her age. She had met him that night at a dance and now she was sitting up ready to go anywhere with him. When his hands touched her it was his way of saying he needed her. She had no choice. Shake loose and beat it. Stay and sop it up. So she went to him completely and yielding and somewhere in the past a dark door slammed on her virtue. Hence forth this was to be her standard. Any man she liked . ... every guy a sexual soldier at heart. And Tina the grab-bag for any guy that met her own personal requirements of approval.
She had been brought up in a religious home. That was all that mattered. Her parents were nothing but slaves to the will of God. When she left home she forgot everything. God was no longer her world-just as a far-out dream weak people indulged in ... vague ... strange ... inexplicable. To understand it you had to go up on a mountain to see what was on the other side. More dreams ... more worlds laid out end to end in futility and God was nowhere in the scrub.
Her heart was simple and the cherry touch of hope shone in her eyes. There was a short, hopeless marriage for a few months, and when it broke up she took up with a crowd of decrepit-looking girls that banded together in the slum area of Garden Street. They maintained scandalous associations with every man who had the price to pay for their pleasures-each girl a literal sexual assassin when it came to the artistry of love. They cluttered together in stale smoky rooms and for the right price they curled themselves into willing sex balls sweating incoherently in the dark.
Her memory was a gallery of unforgettable faces and sweaty bodies putting their money on the table and taking their fill. Nothing magic, nothing glittering, nothing enduring. She sifted her womanly needs to her own style and when she met a guy she liked she did it free. Like Lou. He seemed all right-a slow uptown jerk who didn't know better but who might give her giggles and squeals. Once a guy waited until she undressed. It was in his apartment at the edge of town. When she was nude he grunted and said: "You're dirty laundry. Take off before I throw you out."
When she left she kicked him in the glass-bottomed ass sending him sprawling. She banged the door behind her.
But her superiority remained. It was part of the winding pattern. As a woman she could enjoy it for what it was. She did not need a man to frame her sex and hang it on a wall and ring it with chains. She walked through life with the bounce and unfettered care of an ungirdled woman ... the lightness of detachment. The trouble with her whole life had been the late date at which she mastered her freedom. Now she ran and did and acted as she wanted and the motion of life surged about her like a seething maelstrom. This was what she wanted.
When Lou left she started to straighten out the room. Then she heard a knock on the door and called out, "Come in."
It was Leslie, the girl down the hall.
"How about a little something for breakfast?" asked Tina.
The tall red-haired girl sat down. "Just coffee," she said. Then she remembered something. "Who was the good-looking guy I noticed leaving your room before?"
"I met him the other night. He's free stuff."
"What's he like?"
"An uptown guy who works for a newspaper."
"You like his prowess?" asked Leslie.
Tina smiled. "I can't say just yet. He's got a good hard body-the rugged, ladies man type, I think. Maybe a little too Puritanical for me, though."
"Does he like you?"
"I think I disgust him. The first night I saw him he was with a well-dressed chick," Tina said, pouring the coffee. "But suddenly he's been back twice without her. So I really can't say."
"He must like you if he's been back twice?" Leslie suggested.
"Maybe. Today I really showed him the way I want my loving. I had him crawling."
Leslie drew her breath in a loud sigh. "I bet you did at that." She glanced at her watch. "I have a client in a few moments so I'll run along for now," she said.
Tina smiled. "That same Marshall girl again?"
Leslie chuckled. "The same-imagine having to pretend to a husband she enjoys making love to him and then sneaking here when he's at work." She shrugged her shoulders as she walked toward the door. "Well, Tina, that's her bag-not mine."
When Leslie was gone Tina's face remained expressionless. She glanced around the room. She smiled to herself. What a sweet set-up for a girl, living a wild and free life with good liquor, and sometimes pot, and alongside of it all, the never ending line-up of sex ... any size and any shape. She filled the wine glass and stared at her image in the glass for some time. She drained the wine. She looked at the empty glass. Now there was no image.
Her hand moved to her chin-sharp and firmly pointed. Her skin was fine-no blemishes and a fine natural glow. There were her two deep, black eyes, big and expressive, the focus of her pretty face. But the glory was in her breasts, large protrusions and ripe as watermelons. Men could run their tongue in her ears and kiss her hot open mouth but her breasts were the most trafficked and desirable part of her beautiful upper anatomy.
She was happy with herself then and she knew you can't hide happiness just as you can't still sound. Tonight she would cater to the rich out-of-town plumber with the steel-rimmed glasses and steel wool mustache. Twenty bucks to prop up a fellow traveler. She liked the way she earned her money, keeping guys like him in line. At this point there was nothing else she wanted to do with her life. Only the green of money mattered.
She looked at her life as a point of view with no return. Here it was wonderful. She went anywhere and did as she pleased and dressed as she chose and in the Garden Street section people didn't even look at you. They just passed you smugly on the street and mumbled something incoherent. Even that didn't matter. Homosexuals and lesbians were everywhere and many plied their trade openly. Garden Street belonged to the unsure ones-the insecures. The tourists came in big busses and stared and wondered and went their way. Eveyone in the area was typical to out-of-towners. Tina hardly called herself typical by any standards. She had her own clinical description of the kind of person she thought she was. And the first time anyone special she liked was curious she would explain herself-not before.
CHAPTER SIX
Lou drank the red wine from a paper cup and watched the girl called Kitty grind her body to the rhythm of the guitar and bongos. A strong wind swept across the rooftop and whipped Tina's long black hair. He looked back at Kitty. She was well-stacked with narrow hips and a deep bust. Some of the guys kept pace to the music by rhythmic clapping. He took a swallow and shuddered. These kids' stomachs would be ruined by age thirty if they continued to drink this stuff. He drained the cup and crushed it, discarding it over his shoulder.
He stared around the group. Most of the fellows had beards and long hair and all wore sandals-no shoes. The girls were poorly dressed, mainly in jeans and tight blouses or sweaters. Some of the huge girls were obviously dykes-big and mannish. Those that were quite feminine and attractive were in the main Tina's group of friends. Maybe Tina was a lesbian, he thought. But he couldn't believe a girl who made love or pretended to make love the way she did could be a lesbian. He shoved the thought from his mind.
Kitty's jeans were now unhitched and down to her thighs and Lou couldn't help but stare. In another moment they slid down and she stepped from them and pivoted sharply ... a neon smile lighting her pretty face. Then the rhythm renewed tempo and she swished her body and rolled her buttocks and her panties rolled slowly down. She raised her hands to her head and swayed to the luxurious rhythm and smiled deeply at everyone in the circle. They applauded.
He saw Tina shake her hair from her face and stare at him. He moved his hand near her. She squeezed it and smiled warmly at him. Her blouse revealed she was not wearing a bra and he felt a little itchy with desire. Then the dance was over arid Kitty turned and ran down the stairs followed by a couple of fellows. Then Lou saw that several of the kids took out thin joints of pot and started smoking.
"What do you think of Kitty?" Tina asked. "I'd rather think of you-although she seems to be very talented," he said. "I'm out of wine."
He rose and walked across the roof to the table where the drinks were set. Christ, he could have brought his own bourbon but he was damned if he would provide free liquor to this motly group. He brought the cup of wine back to Tina. He had decided to come down again to see Tina for the last time. He could hardly believe that after the way she had handled him that he would come back for more. Nobody had ever turned sex on and off for him the way Tina did and he was more than curious, as a newspaperman, as to what the hell coiled her springs and gave her kicks. Marilyn would be back tomorrow and things seemed to be getting serious between them. So for one last time he would play Tina's game and please her.
He handed her wine and she sipped deeply. "Oh, baby," he heard someone shout a few feet away in the darkness and there was the sound of wild laughter. He couldn't see but he could guess what it was all about. Then Tina stood up and said, "Let's walk to the end of the roof-behind the chimney. Come on."
It was darker behind the chimney. Her white skin stood out sharply. He started around. "Why don't we go down to your place?" he suggested.
"Not now," she said snappily.
He stepped toward her. He was willing to undress her, to say what she wanted to hear-a hundred times ... "Please Tina-please Tina, I love you, I need you, I want you. At least for the final time this evening. But not here on the roof with people milling about.
Her hand snapped at his belt and jerked. He put his arms around her. She whispered in his ear: "Poor timid baby."
He pulled away from her. "Don't push me, Tina," he half shouted, his eyes afire.
"You have me confused with sex or lust or love, Lou. Which is it-you tell me?"
He grabbed her wrist. "Look, Tina, and look good. I'm not throwing myself. Not any more. Now which will it be?" he demanded.
"Baby, listen good," she said, rolling her eyes in a way that made him go cold. "Walk down the stairs and out of here-or forget completely that you've ever been an uptown guy."
He could feel something snap inside of him. He stared past her at the winking blue of the night harbor. He looked at her and she seemed as cozy as a coot in a trance. He wanted to sleep with the stars above. Instead he reached for her and ground his lips to her. He could feel the nipples of her breasts pushing into him and he traced his fingers around the rim of her buttocks. This time her lips worked and sucked at his. And she moved her body ever so tightly in friendly squirms with his.
"My shorts, Lou," she said.
"Tina ... please ... not here," he pleaded.
"Here ... right now ... like everyone else."
He stared around and saw merging forms and heard sounds of laughter and weird grunts. He loathed himself but he knew he would do anything she asked of him. There was a furtive gleam in her eyes and a suspicious leer that flirted with his doubts.
"Please, Tina, let's go down to your place and I'll show you how much I really want you. I promise." There was a knot in his throat.
She gave him a sudden, wide half moon grin and nodded. "All right, Lou, that sounds interesting. Let's go."
When she switched the light on in her apartment and he saw the filth and floor littered with cigarette butts and empty wine bottles he felt himself taking a sabbatical from reality as he shouted at her.
"Christ, Tina, you live like a damn pig."
She whirled at him, her dark eyes burning fiercely. "Next time you come I'll have you clean it up. Or would you rather do it now?"
He mumbled something about being sorry and walked to the bed. Even the appearance of the dirty linen appalled him. He shuddered as he sat down. He felt like belching. There was a knocking on the door.
"Who is it?" asked Tina.
"Leslie," the voice said. "Open up, Tina."
Lou heard the rustling of a paper and some startled whispering between the two girls. Whatever it was probably concerned him and he wondered what it could be. Then the door closed and Tina approached him, paper in hand, eyes blazing.
"You crummy bastard-you lousy excuse for a man," she shouted at him.
He saw she held a copy of the paper with Marilyn's expose. She spread it wide for him to see. He tried to use the lull to power his thoughts but she hardened a little fist and shoved it in his face.
"Fraud-cheat-you come down here to make love to me and then you go back uptown and have a martini with this girl reporter and describe my friends and my apartment and the way I live and she writes it up." He stared at the clock behind her on the dresser and wished his life was ended this very moment.
"Listen, Tina, just listen to me," he pleaded.
Her eyes danced. "There's nothing to listen to. So I live like a pig! In fact, didn't you say that a few minutes ago? Well, all my friends are going to read this. You might have at least disguised the people you were writing about."
"Tina, please, it wasn't me. Look it's the girl reporter-there's her picture near the article."
She laughed wildly. "Sure I recognize the picture," she added coldly. "I'm not blind. You should have brought some of your friends along with you. I'd get you a sexual group plan. Big boy lover from uptown-exploiting me and my friends by feeding your lover in on the details.
"I couldn't know she would write what I told her, Tina," he said lamely. "I know she's a scheming girl who would do anything to get ahead-but I never...." He tried to act the thespian he was not. He stared at her bulging breasts through the opened blouse-a chest like a cabinet with the top drawers hanging out.
Lou knew things were out of hand and he rose to leave. Her lips curled in a half obliging smile.
"Go to this Marilyn Harris and take her. But get out of here right now. You've had your sexual hotfoot for the night."
He started to leave. "Baby," she called out. He turned around.
She was sitting with the newspaper in her lap. "In a few days you'll come back and I'll be expecting you. You know why you'll be back? Because you like my filthy pigpen. And when you get ready to crawl. And the first time you come back will be a night you won't ever forget."
He slammed the door and bounded down the steps. When he reached the cold evening air of the street he was sure he would never be back again. Never.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Marilyn carried the tray of steaming dishes in from the kitchen as Lou was finishing mixing the martinis.
"Sure I can't help?" He asked.
She set the tray on the round table near the window. "I don't permit guests to help with kitchen chores," she said with a smile.
He reached across the table and planted a big kiss on her forehead. "I'm glad you're back," he said pleasantly.
She squeezed his hand across the table. "I'm glad you missed me." she said sweetly.
He smiled. "After dinner I'll show you how much."
The setting was fresh and frilly with new tablecloth and bright flowers and tall blue candles. They ate silently, smiling often at each other. When she started to speak he waved her to silence and rolled his eyes to the music of the record player. The candles flickered in the faint breeze coming in through the window and he thought she had never been as lovely as now. When she served the coffee they spoke about the articles she had written. Here Lou felt clean and wholesome. He was with Marilyn again and that was all that mattered. Tina was now a horizon of faded echoes. She looked at him directly when he led her toward the bedroom.
She stretched out on the bed ... long and loose ... her arms reaching toward him. He kissed her fervently and felt a carnal response. She ran her fingers around his ears. Then she sat up and unzipped her dress. "It's new-I don't want it wrinkled," she said pleasantly. She reached across the bed and laid it on the chair. Lou swallowed and remembered undressing Tina. When he went into her arms and her tongue probed his he felt the feel of Tina's tongue and Tina's arms squeezing his neck. A faint rasp of irritation overcame him and he tried to push the dark-eyed, mysterious girl from his mind ... her crazy life and floppy fashions and wild habits.
"Is something wrong?" Marily asked suddenly.
"Not at all doll, everything is fine," he said.
How could he think of a girl of Tina's type when he had something like Marilyn wrapped up and ready to go for him any time he wanted her?
He took her bra off and buried his face in her breasts as he felt her hand disrobing him. He heard her moan as she moved beneath him. He stopped for a second and stared at the girl beneath him and suddenly everything was negative. She might have been a cigarette machine flashing lights for all he suddenly cared. There was a sense of imbalance-a strange tension as he tried to push the image of Tina out of his mind.
Finally he went between her thighs. It was no use, he told himself as he worked with her. He needed Tina-Tina's prod to sharpen his impulses. Somehow Marilyn was not as exciting as she used to be. He performed the act mechanically, hoping his technique would hide from Marilyn how little he really cared.
Later, as she slept, he crept quietly from the bed. He walked into the living room and lit a cigarette. At the window he stared down into the dark streets and wondered what Tina was doing. He took a deep drag. What was happening to him? If he had to fake interest in making love to a stunning girl like Marilyn, something deep and sinister was wrong in his life. He couldn't deny it. He was in bad shape.
He sat down in the leather chair and dreamed he was in a gorgeous suite at an uptown hotel and Tina attired in long earrings and gown, strumming a guitar. She seemed to have arisen from out of a deep sea with pale face and heavy burning eyes. When she stopped playing she sat down beside him and kissed his nose, fingers, eyes. He embraced her passionately and he loved her and he was happy and willing to die for her. Then the dream moved and they walked arm in arm over an old railroad bridge and watched the smoke curl up from the puffing engines. Then everything began to crumble and the warm body near him was gone.
He sat up with a start-feverish-his throat like cotton. "Tina," he muttered aloud. "Tina, where are you?"
He had a hot headache and he grunted to himself. He stood up and lit another cigarette. He went back into the bedroom. He stared at Marilyn's nude body. How lovely she was! He lay down beside her. He stared at her breasts, and when they became Tina's he did not rebuke himself but applied himself vigorously to the task of kissing them. He didn't know if it was a cunning piece of revenge or not. He didn't care. Tina's image dangled relentlessly before his eyes.
Marilyn stirred and opened her eyes. She smiled and opened her arms. He bent down and kissed her. He rubbed her joyfully and she responded anew reaching for his erect connection. She was full of sap and he went to her in his fluid dream faithful to her in one flashing moment as a Christian is to his God. To himself he knew he was merely creating with Marilyn what he wanted to do with Tina.
He turned his face away when he was finished.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Tina shrugged. "Who cares? We're small time, and sipped Claret from a long-stemmed glass. The room was heavy with gray smoke and the place smelled like sewer gas. They watched the crowd surge and hunt for tables. The place looked like a bughouse as waiters charged madly with heaping trays of food for the customers. There was a mirror beside each table on the wall and as Tina stared around the room, everything she saw was double. She saw a man spit behind a table out of the side of his lower lip. Then he seemed contented.
Leslie said: "I'm not worried about the articles. They can't pin anything on us even if the D.A. decides to look into the situation. But I suggest we cool it for a while anyway."
Tina and Leslie stood at the crowded, noisy bar It makes good reading but not good hunting," she said indifferently.
"You know what?" said Leslie, lighting a cigarette and exhaling a mouthful of smoke. "I'd love to get my hands on that fancy uptown chick who wrote the stuff about us and give her a treatment she could never forget."
"That's all we need," said Tina. "The paper would really blow it's stack if we worked their girl over-although it's something to think about if things get hot, just to teach her a lesson."
"Have you seen the newspaper guy-the chick's friend-since you dumped him from your apartment?" Leslie asked her curiously.
"No," said Tina slowly. "He hasn't been back."
"In a way I'm glad," said Leslie.
Tina pulled her shoulders back. "He'll be back. I'm sure of it."
"You think he's hooked on you?"
"I've hooked better guys than him," Tina replied. "He's very confident about himself-thinks he's the great, imaginative lover with the women. To me he's all square and soft as jello. No springs. I think he wants to be sexually dragged down without actually knowing it. I was really riping him up for me, though."
"Is there any way he can be useful to you?"
Tina thought a moment. "It's possible, Leslie, very possible. I would like to use him to get through to the chick. If we could manage that we could get that straight-laced chick up to the country for the treatment. There wouldn't be any more articles after that-you can be sure."
Leslie wet her lips. "Wow ... would I like to get my hands on that dame and raise her temperature." Her eyes turned wide.
A noise like a high gong was clicking in Tina's head. "The more I think of it the better I like the whole idea. Now if we only could get our hands on her," Tina said thoughtfully.
Suddenly Leslie nudged Tina's arm. "Say, there, look what I see at the bar," she whispered.
Tina turned slowly and across the crowded bar she saw Lou talking to a tall man with brown, short-cropped hair. Lou was looking nervously about the room.
"That's a fuzz he's talking to, I bet," said Leslie.
"No doubt. He's got copper splashed all over him."
"What do you think, Tina? More trouble for us?"
"On second thought, Leslie, I should say no. I think he came down here looking for me and merely ran across the fuzz by accident. He's hot for me so he can't stay away. If his editor or any of his friends ever found out how he's been carrying on with me it would be curtains for him and his job.
"Sounds reasonable," said Leslie. She laughed slightly, sadly.
Tina maintained her stare of sustained inspection of Lou and the copper. A small secret smile adorned her red lips as if she were fitting the pieces in her mind into the right slots. Then she turned her head and looked around the room appreciatively, her face glowing in the golden light.
Tina's eyes suddenly bounced like ping-pong balls as she elbowed Leslie. "I've got a great idea," she said excitedly. "I'm going to spend some time with Lou. Tonight. I'll dump the whole thing in his lap. I'll hook him good. He's in too deep with me now to start pulling out. He'll do anything I want."
Leslie looked puzzled. "Exactly what are you getting at?" she wanted to know.
Tina's eyes danced. "I want to involve him further with me and then face him with the evidence."
"What evidence are you talking about, Tina?" asked Leslie.
Tina grinned and her deep set eyes burned like a simmering volcano. "Pictures of us both together. Instant stardom for us both when we show it to the guy's fancy chick reporter. Maybe he can't spell my name right but he knows how to look," said Tina with a sardonic smile.
"You think you can get it done?"
"Forget the question. Remember the answer. I'll do it somehow." said Tina determinedly. "Suppose you leave me now, Leslie. I want him to see me alone when the cop leaves."
Lou, meanwhile, had been glancing nervously around the bar as he spoke to the man, apprehensive that Tina might somehow approach them and start a conversation.
"So we don't have too much to go on except the lousy conditions and practices the girls here engage in. Not enough to start a real drive, Lou," Mulligan was saying. "Personally, I'd love the chance to bust this love racket wide open. I'm sure deep down it's not only love for sale-I think even beside the pot and LSD stuff they carouse with they got a bigger hobby going for them. I wonder what?"
Lou swallowed hard. "I've been hanging around here a little and as soon as I dig up some facts I'll give them to Marilyn for her articles." Lou said.
"Sure, Lou, do that. Now, I've got to get back to the precinct. See you about, Lou."
He said goodbye and watched the detective push through the crowd. He knew he was out of his mind to have come back here to see that dark-eyed mysterious Tina again. He winced as he contemplated the price Tina might want to extract from him this time. He stared at the empty glass on the bar. He was warm and the thick smoke enveloped him. The noise of the juke box blared and interrupted his now wavering thoughts.
Then he saw her. She was alone at the other end of the bar. His jaw squared as he wended his way toward her.
"Hello, Tina," he said, squeezing in beside her.
She turned her nose. "Sounds familiar-like the first time we met," she said indifferently.
She seemed to be dressed different this evening. Her clothes were shimmering colors of oriental brocades and she had a new stylish coiffure. A cloud of dark hair was neatly set over her forehead and she had the stare of cocky confidence. He felt a silent ache beginning to churn inside him.
"What are you back for now, Lou?" she asked. Then she laughed, deeply amused at his discomfort. It was a way she had of throwing her head back as she laughed-as if she wanted to taste her joy first.
His eyelids shrunk slowly. "Frankly, Tina, I tried to stay away from you but I couldn't. I kept seeing you everywhere."
"Sapped dry as a herring, already, so you come back to Tina?" she said smugly.
"I guess that's it, Tina." he said bashfully.
He knew she was whipping him into a state of sexual delirium and she was enjoying his discomfort.
"What's wrong with your uptown girl friend? Can't she satisfy you?"
"Not like you, Tina-never like you."
She cocked her head and mocked him with a twisting smile. "What do you want to do with me, Lou?" she asked.
He swallowed hard, looking away from the coal-black eyes haunting him, hoping he had a bullet-proof resistance to her sinister charms. Something about her engulfed him so completely.
"Let me make love to you, Tina, tonight. I need you," he said.
She laughed. "Not a chance, baby."
He leaned toward her. "I'm sorry about those articles she wrote about you and the girls here-I couldn't have stopped them," he said.
"I don't believe it."
"Believe me. I'll do anything to prove it." She stared at him as though he were an open wound.
"You are beginning to crawl, aren't you Lou, just like I told you the other night," she said.
He nodded. "With you I guess I'm a born loser," he replied.
"I can't forgive you for what you did. You put my ass on a poster and sold it to the highest bidder. Now you throw yourself at me and you want me to forget everything," she said derisively.
"It's not exactly that way, Tina. Stop shrivelling me-please."
For a moment there was a sudden bandaged silence between them. Then she said, "All right, maybe I'll give you the benefit of a strange doubt, Lou. I'll go upstairs. Give me a couple of moments. Then come in crawling-just as I said you would."
He licked his parched lips and watched her as she walked away and he thought no smuggled contraband could be so desirable to him at that moment as she. He waited some minutes, lit a cigarette and walked from the bar and up the stairs. At her door he stopped and listened, then knocked softly.
He heard her say, "Come in," and he opened the door. He glanced shyly down the corridor to see if there were any observers and seeing nobody was about, he slowly lowered himself to his knees and began to crawl on all fours into the room. Inside he stood up and shut the door. He gasped when he saw Tina spread on the bed in the nude-nothing on but the radio.
At that moment she became the awakening limb of his lustful imagination and he was at her side kneeling. His doubts suddenly vanished like early morning dew off the grass. He was madly, hopelessly aroused in a way he had only recently been iniated into and he began drawing his labored breath in shuddering gulps. He stared at her through drugged eyes and he felt on fire, as if a strange moment of truth was at hand for him.
"Is this the way you want me, baby?" she asked.
He buried his hand between her thighs. "Yes-yes, this is how I want you," he stammered.
"You're finished with all the uptown phonies, creeps, stiffs and bongs, Lou?"
He stared giddily, as though he were in a state of senseless mania. A wave of lust and desire swept through him. "I'm finished with them all. Let me be one of you, Tina?" he said, startled at the whine in his begging voice.
He moved closer to her-eager as a claim jumper. His heart pounded and warm flashes racked his body. He was now so close and yet so far. He wasn't sure yet what was in her simmering mind. He had to have her-here-now-tonight. A man without a woman like her is like a body without a soul, he thought. He would do any horse trading she wanted if he could share her bed.
She began taunting him with slow pelvic twists, and he stared at her. "You can take it all, Lou, but when you're finished I may ask you to pay a high price for taking me. I have my principles."
"Yes-Tina, you mention it when we're finished. I'll do whatever you say," he begged.
She smiled and took his hand and pulled him forward. He went to her. Tonight was to be his. He didn't mind begging for it. He invaded her slowly and she wrapped her hands around his back. He felt her shudder from her loins to her lips. He didn't want to rush her-to spoil everything. He wanted to avoid having his eagerness make him inadequate for her. Her body cleaved to his as though they were bonded to a sameness of flesh and bone operated by the same network of nerves and sensations.
His fire was building madly as she sank her teeth into his shoulder and she clung like a terrier, breath gusting heavily through her open mouth. He could feel her beginning to flood and bite down harder on him. He began to boil over as his body pounded hers and his fingers gouged her buttocks. She lifted herself higher toward him and he gasped at her reach. There came from her the convulsive jerk and she was suddenly out of control. His impalement was controlling her as she writhed insensibly, as eruption enveloped them simultaneously.
Later, as he lay beside her he could feel her move her hand caressingly down his chest and belly. He didn't move or speak. When she curled her slender leg over his hairy thigh, he knew she had him. She had settled on her prize like a brood hen on its nest. This was her definite victory. What, he wondered, would be the price she would soon demand of him?
CHAPTER NINE
Marilyn was thinking hard as she smoked a cigarette and listened to her record player. She tried to relax but she was far too excited and apprehensive. She exhaled, enjoying the feel of the smoke pouring out of her mouth and she leaned back and curled her legs beneath her. Since her series of newspaper articles on the Garden Street activities she had suddenly become the editor's favorite. She was also the talk of the entire city room. She adored this sudden respect and admiration for her work-it was something she had never experienced before and she found herself revelling in secret pride.
She got to thinking about Lou, and doubts began to assail her. Something was cockeyed between them lately. She could tell by the coolness of his ardor. The magnetism of their past erotic relationship had dimmed like fading embers. It had begun to happen when she returned from her vacation. That was when she felt it first.
She had orginally set out to hook him when she first went to work on the newspaper. He was full of rugged charm and a handsome guy and she wanted to have him. After he made love to her she . began to cook for him and have him over to the apartment more often. She recalled everything with wounded perception. She remembered their last bout in bed and she blushed.
She began to feel as though she were a discarded diary. She got up and stared through the window. It was a breathless pink morning. And suddenly she didn't care. Not about Lou or their affair or whether it would remain and flourish or wither and vanish. All she could think of was a rapidly accelerating career on the paper and a column of her own with her picture decorating the border.
Suddenly wanting Lou became something of the past that no longer mattered. He suddenly seemed to her dull and routine-a habit of having male company and someone to compliment her on her cooking and satisfy her womanly needs. Now everything was turning out so differently.
When she started to dress the doorbell rang. She threw on a silky blue robe and hurried to the door. "Who is it?" she called.
"Lou."
She opened the door and he walked in staring sideways at her through the flimsy robe. She closed the door and stared at him for a long moment. His eyes were glazed and she was sure it was the secret and lively life he was living apart from her. She had a sudden impulse.
"I must say you look somewhat shaken up or drunk or both, Lou," she said slowly, eyeing him compellingly. "Which is it?"
He sat on the couch and rested his elbows on his knees. "Neither, Marilyn. Just a bit distraught. But it will wear off," he said opening and closing his fists.
She put her hand on his head. "Well, if you're not drunk I'll mix you a special for acute distraughtness," she said with a smile.
She watched him gulp the drink down while his eyes probed her through the robe. She stared down and noticed the robe had slipped open but she did not close it. This was a man she could now afford to tease, she decided. She was tired of playing his game. Up to now she had always managed and enjoyed him. Although at times she was strong it required more than strength to cope with it now.
"I haven't seen you lately, except in the office," she remarked dryly, seating herself beside him.
"I'm sorry to neglect you but there's been a lot of things I had to clear up," he said in a bold lie.
He stared at her big, full and solid breasts and hungered to enfold them in his arms and squeeze their ripe buds. He felt like grabbing her and loving her so very hard, to hear her familiar animal moanings. He wanted the point of climax with her now-on a hot bed. She was all woman and that was what women were for, he thought.
When he suddenly put his arm around her he felt her stiffen and pull back. He pushed his mouth forward and mashed her lips clumsily. Her mouth was firmly closed. He felt like a fool not knowing what to do now. She might just as well have laughed at him.
"Lou, there's something definitely wrong. I feel it. What is it, dear?" she asked earnestly.
He mumbled incoherently and framed a swift smile.
"There's nothing wrong," he insisted, "it's just that I need you badly. Be a dear to me, Marilyn."
"You stay away for days then you rush in and demand your pleasure like it was a bag full just waiting for you."
"You're wrong, Marilyn. You make it sound even worse," he insisted. "It's a long story and some day I'll tell you. But now I must have you because...."
"You need a fast pick-me-up so you come back and break open the bottle for another swig?" Her eyes danced.
She moved closer to him-her thigh firming into complete contact with his. She had made her remark with studied calmness and casualness. He now measured the degree of her casualness feeling a little futile with her reaction.
"I guess maybe I've been wrong about you."
"I guess you have-very wrong."
"It's over then ... between us?"
She stared at him humbly. "I didn't say that, Lou. But what am I to think when you absent yourself for days and suddenly you're back?" She began to laugh until she saw the tears fill the depth of his eyes. Her resistance thinned with a flowing sadness. She let him take her robe off and snap her bra open. And suddenly her needs were strong as she felt the familiar refrain awakening her to response. She let him push her down and flatten himself atop her and she let him unroll her hosiery and remove it. She felt a small fierce burning fire beginning to rage.
She heard him mumble, "You still got a great heart, Marilyn, I knew you would...."
Remarks from the corridors of other times. Now it was suddenly different. She was far from easy with overhelming points of difference flooding her mind. But she let herself step over them-all of them, as she lay back and waited for the sexual concerto to begin.
As he slaked his lust and spread her curves carefully upon the bed, she suddenly felt monumental-exalted as a summer heat developed her, deepening her impulses. He was a load of benzedrine and she needed it badly. Then she could feel him roar into her like an explosion. The moment was long and loud and carried as much surface as depth. A moment ago she had repulsed him and almost laughed at him. Now the moment had split and shuffled and reformed into another dimension. She could feel him flow toward her and she didn't want to be in a spot when he wasn't around. Not now, anyway. Not this minute.
When it was over she felt like a blown fuse in a dark room waiting for the lights to come back suddenly. She felt a sweat and a shiver and she moaned. Then she could hear Lou groping toward the bathroom and she sat up blinking.
She felt like she had been buffered with a gallon of cognac and was walking on high, thin wire. No matter what else, she thought, with Lou around the nights were never all black. Her feelings were mixed-parts saying go away now, go away. I couldn't care less. But then she closed her eyes to control her dizziness and she knew she didn't want it that way. At least not for the time being. Why shouldn't she go along strictly on the pleasure principle, and come what may? Deep down she felt this was the time for a test of courage. And she ought not to be found lacking.
CHAPTER TEN
Lou was wondering how his life was shaping up when the phone rang in his office. He knew he had disappointed Marilyn and Tina both in things expected of him and if matters didn't clear soon he'd put himself on some analyst's couch and let a perfect stranger probe his weaknesses. Was it really something he thought too much about? Was his wish to possess first one then the other girl more than lust?
He knew he had to get a bold grip on himself and solve his problems himself. He remembered the last night with Tina and then the scene with Marilyn. He was playing a shell game and he feared exposure-the news would spread fast and he would be ruined. He had been sitting at the desk toying with a pencil, and dreaming of Tina. He knew she stood outside his mental door every moment of the day. His mind had little room to dwell and play. It was only when he felt really pressed down that he remembered Marilyn. And then with only a thin slice of hope and meaning.
So when the phone rang he jerked at its sound, cursed his nervousness, and picked up the receiver. He started. The voice was young and familiar and pretty and his heart soared instantly.
"Linda," he shouted. "Linda, my God, where are you?"
"I'm in town. In a hotel, Lou."
"I can't tell you why but I'm darn happy to be talking with you. Are you free!
"Yes. Can you come over for some drinks?"
"Right away. How about Eddie's for old time sake?"
"Half an hour?"
"Twenty-five minutes. How's that?"
"See you there."
The wonderful things in life come in pretty breaks sometimes when you need it most he thought to himself. It had been a long time ago with Linda. He smacked his lips. He walked back through the city room and waved meekly to Marilyn at her desk.
He was sipping a martini when he saw her coming across the dimly-lit room. He stood up, smiled and extended his hand. She looked positively ravishing in a cocky outfit as though she knew she was meeting a cocky guy. He stared at her with admiration in his eyes. Her face was silk-screened in delicate lines and she walked firm and erect, the way he liked his women to walk. He liked her because she was a dame who didn't kid around-she said what was in her mind and never hid coyly behind the screen of sex. She sat down and Lou ordered a drink from the passing waiter for Linda.
In her eyes was a promise of gossip. "Tell me everything, Lou, don't leave anything out," she said, with a ravishing smile.
Lou shrugged. "Nothing much to tell, still on the paper and hammering out yarns for the public to gobble up."
"That's all? No romance or marriage?"
He chuckled. "No-although I still see Marilyn. You remember her?" he said sheepishly.
She looked suddenly deflated as though she had a run in her stockings. She saw him take a hurried sip of his drink and place the glass on the table. She leaned forward anxiously.
"Yes, I remember Marilyn, Lou. I would think by this time you would have a painted cottage and a dutiful mortgage," she said easily. "I still think you made the wrong choice, you know?"
He remembered a dark elevator shaft in an unused warehouse loft he had gone to in pursuit of a story and he wished it was before him so that he could casually drop into it and float down and away.
He stared at her-the memory as rigid as a tightly clenched fist. Linda asked about the paper-reminding him how much she had enjoyed being one of its reporters before going to New York. They rang up some more martinis and giggled over old times-discussing women, dogs, sex and imbeciles in that order, and ending with a curse on their canned civilization. He asked how she liked New York.
Her eyes blazed. "Positively enthralling, Lou, you would love it ... exciting, wicked, enjoyable-birth and decay going on all the time," she said with pride.
She was seated close beside him and he felt like an old mustard plaster heating up. She looked delectable and he wished he had her where he could hear himself pant like a long-distance runner. When she suggested going back to her room and having a round of drinks there he agreed willingly. Her hotel was a few blocks from the cocktail lounge and they held hands like eager kids as they trudged through the street.
He bought a bottle of bourbon in the hotel lobby. The moment she closed the door and bolted it he took her in his arms and crushed her. He felt her breasts digging into his chest as he squeezed her madly-pouring hot kisses upon her receptive mouth. He could feel his knees tremble.
She folded her arms greedily around his neck as he carried her to the bed. She stared at him with dreamy eyes as he slowly undressed first her-then himself. His face was flushed and the blood boiled madly in his temples. Her eyes glittered as he moved beside her. Now she lay completely exposed and his eyes drank up her pink liveliness completely. She was long, slender and strong and now she lay there waiting-her mind on fire and whirling in a sensual confusion of love.
She sighed heavily and closed her eyes but her hands, as if they had a will of their own, slid knowingly down the lines of his naked body. Her naked thighs gleamed whitely as she locked her long legs around him and kissed him with gasping ardor. He was far too quick the first time and Linda did not mind. She knew there would be more now that she was back with Lou.
She felt his desire renew almost immediately and he crashed into her loins like a high voltage current. Now a wave of animal lust swamped them both and she could sense quick flames mounting within her. She remained beneath him, cradling his love, her body containing him with an erotic sense she could not release. He was deep and strong and she leaped with a special kind of joy she hadn't felt for a long time. When she convulsed around him and started to throb, his arms tightened about her like steel bands-solid muscles of erotic music, imprisoning her.
When the thundering chords stilled she lay back and said, "I still love you, Lou."
He didn't know what to say. So he smiled.
"That's where we really busted last time, you remember? You thought I was too much for you," she said quietly.
He wanted to forget the past. "I was wrong," he said.
She rolled her head and laughed. "See how unfettered I am with you. I work without a net," she said.
He bent down and kissed her. "At every occasion. Keep it up," he said. "There's always a reason for everything you do, isn't there, Linda?"
She laughed. "To quote an old college professor, Lou, reasons are reasons for man's greatest achievements."
He maintained the clinical joke. "What's Mickey Mantle got to do with Lenin?" he asked with a smile.
Her eyes darted in a quick movement as she stared up at the ceiling. "What would you like, Lou? A sermon or an analysis?" she asked.
They had a way of talking to each other, trading words as if they were hors d'oeuvres. It had started at the beginning with shyness and grew into small jokes when their eyes traded warmth. Now she was trying to scrub the world clean for him as if she were secretly aware of the outrageous arrows consuming him.
He caught the sparks in her face out of the corner of his eye. The screaming color of passion consuming her a few minutes ago was now a graceful, subdued pink.
"Please, Linda, no sermons and especially analysis. I'm not an emotional mirror that requires prying," he said sullenly.
She turned on her side and rested her chin on her elbow. "I'd like to tell you what brought me here, Lou." She reached for a cigarette and held it in a firm grip as he lighted it for her. Then she settled back in the same position and exhaled deeply." We have dreamed of great passions while love has eluded us both. I didn't come back to haunt you either. I'm on assignment from my magazine. I'm going to drop over to see your editor-my old boss-later. I'm doing the same type of expos in New York on Bohemian cults and practices in the sex field that Marilyn is doing here. I understand you dug up a lot of color for her. Do you think you can do the same for me if I ask you to?"
He felt the sudden hot stink of steaming sewers choking him., .all force and staying power suddenly gone. He wondered if Linda knew more than she was revealing. He felt a strange-hold on his reputation and security, as though a block of granite was edging closer to annihilate him completely.
He hacked a sudden cough. "It's quite strange that hundreds of miles apart my two loves are working on the same project," he said, filled with remorse. "Maybe the girl reporters have begun to inherit the world." He suddenly had the vision of a catastrophe.
She sat up. "What's eating you, Lou? Do you think I would lie to you? For what reason?" She narrowed her eyes. "There's something about this whole thing you're scared of-aren't you, Lou?" she demanded.
The pressured fever of doubt quickly began to dissipate. "I'm sorry I gave you that impression," he said hastily. "No ... it's not so ... not at all."
She kept staring at him. Then stood up and smiled quickly, it was as though she were restoring luster to an old coin.
"Well, maybe my thoughts were crawling to hasty conclusions, Lou. Let's forget about it. I'll be in town for a few days, and I'll pretend I'm still a Bryn Mawr virgin and you're the man I have selected to deflower me in the most brutal fashion." As she said this, she put her arms around him.
He felt for a moment, staring into her dancing eyes, that he wanted her more than anyone else-even Tina-if he could only match her as a man. If he only knew what direction to take, what to do.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
He stood only a few feet away from her in the elevator but he had to strain to hear her say, "Good night, Lou."
Lora Marks was the only colored girl in the city room. Everyone liked her-especially the cheery way she smiled and said goodbye to everyone at the end of the day. He turned slowly from his maze of nervous thoughts that had been depressing him. The day had been rough and he had quibbled with the editor over sundry details. Now he was bored and tired and a blurring image of spending a lonely evening in his apartment awakened him to reality.
"Oh, hello, Lora," he said, "I'm sorry I didn't notice you. My mind has been clobbered lately."
They walked from the elevator together into the spacious lobby. He was a little more steady now that she had shaken him from his lethargy. Seeing her suddenly set a plan buzzing in his mind for creating an interesting evening together.
"How about a drink at the tavern before you go home, Lora?" he suggested.
She stopped and bit her lips. She was pretty and shapely and although she came from another world she gave an impression of inherited wealth and breeding. She looked radiant in a tweed skirt and silk blouse and she stared at him with mixed emotions.
She smiled broadly, revealing firm white teeth as they shown through her sensuous lips.
"Aren't you travelling at a phantom clip, Lou?"
He knew what she meant. His nervousness renewed.
"You should know me better than that, Lora," he said apologetically, "I'm not one of those...."
He hesitated. "Bigots? Is that what you meant to say?" she asked.
He laughed. "Exactly."
"Do you want to talk about it?"
"No. I want to have a drink and I should be proud to have you keep me company, Lora." He took her arm. "The whole world is on the verge of new life."
They walked along. "Well, at least you're a good spokesman for ordinary decency," she said.
Some of the patrons in the lounge stared at them as they moved to a small booth in the rear. He ordered drinks from a curious waitress who dropped her order pad twice as she departed.
They sipped their drinks casually as they talked. He knew she was searching him out but after the second drink she saw him finally and utterly with a real sharpness for what he was. He was not pretending at all, she was sure. She relaxed. But-what did he want, she wondered to herself.
Lou felt relaxed and witty-the dazzling agitation he had been through recently completely asleep in the scabbard of forgetfulness. When he switched to reality she stared at him.
"I'd like to come to your place-if even for an hour, Lora," he suddenly suggested. He thought his voice was pleading and he hated himself for it.
She said, "All right, Lou, but just for a short while."
It was a small house on a private street and it contained a half dozen apartments. Her apartment was severe and she proudly explained the antique pieces in the living room.
When he headed straight for the cabinet with bar glasses she stopped him. "If you want to stay, you better not have any more," she said.
He looked sharply at her and was about to say something tart, but he shrugged and sat on the closest chair. "Hell, then, let's talk, Lora. How are Marilyn's rewrites coming along?"
"I think she may have some problems-the paper too-if any arrests are made and she can't substantiate the facts. She is condemning a community, you know."
"I don't get it." Lou's eyes narrowed.
"It's very simple, Lou. I saw the original notes and I can see how she's jazzing it up to sound like a confession sort of thing. In tomorrow's series she's even injecting actual conversations with various characters. She better watch out. They're a tough bunch to intimidate."
"But she hasn't actually spoken to any Garden Street characters-I know that. She merely did background on the situation," said Lou.
"Well, you wait and see. I typed tomorrow's article this afternoon and she has a tramp dame there by the name of Tina-something or other-and she's supposed to be the leader of the narcotic and prostitute gang. I don't like it, Lou, I think Marilyn has some wild ambitions." Lora shook her head sadly and pulled her garment over over her knees, totally unaware of his surprise.
Lou was astonished. He smiled wide in a jack-o-lantern style-to hide his charged emotions. Marilyn was doing with her talents what poets did with words-creating a fantastic, unsubstantiated miasma. Now he was sorry he had filled her in on so many little details and background.
"What else, Lora, tell me?" he demanded softly.
She shrugged. "That's all, Lou, I don't know any more." Then a sudden look of doubt was in her eyes. "I hope I didn't say the wrong thing?"
He waved his hand. "I'm glad you told me. I'm the one who can hold her in line and make her hold to the facts. Thanks, Lora. I won't involve you at all," he said firmly.
Nothing seemed suddenly tidal to him now. He stared at the slender and pretty girl before him and she seemed very dedicated with huge burning eyes and a wane smile.
The sight of her pretty legs put some life into him. He stroked his cheek and looked deep into the girl's eyes. Then he said it before he could retract it.
"Lora, I want to love you." His words were a rush-not a gentle pour.
She was looking at him. "Why do you want to go to bed with a negress?" she asked.
His answer was almost inaudible. "Because you're a woman-a very desirable woman, Lora." He sat staring at her-only a few feet away-but he had to strain to catch her answer.
The words were a compliment, she knew. But men were used to rendering compliments in these situations.
She remembered the warmth that she had experienced the first time with a white man. She had slept with him out of pity more than lust. He had been a student expelled from a small college and his huge eyes burned her resistance as she indulged in an obsessive attention to details of how a white man loves. He had a knack for stripping all the essential sexual details down the drain as he transferred his excitement to her. It was like trying to impress a rhino with a popgun. She had a horror of repeating an affair with a white man since. In her memory she had buried the mangled remains of that one time.
But when Lou approached her it grabbed her as nothing else had. He seemed to have everything she needed and she went with him into the bedroom. She was aware she was doing something she vitally needed-importantly urgent. She wanted a tremendous release which she felt this strong, handsome white man could give her. It was as simple as that. He would pickle her and put her away and then give another woman her day. But she didn't care.
When they were completely undressed she explored his tongue with hers. When their mouths had been locked together like bonded rubber for some time she sensed his pulsations-a slow rythm and she relaxed and waited for him to come to her. Her heart was lunging but she did not quite know why. Perhaps it was the healthy appearance of his big muscular body-perhaps he had a stronge bloodstream that made her heart beat faster. She parted herself not knowing exactly what to expect. His thrusts were like the rhythmic swell of breakers against a rocky shore and she began responding in rhymically and in time with the pattern.
When her thighs grew numb from his weight she felt she would rather have it amputated than move it away. She fought desperately to keep up with him. This white man was a sexual boomerang and he knew how to wedge himself firmly within her so that she could erupt when the signal flared. She was convulsed with him in a constant holding action and when he finally flooded her she stormed along helplessly with him, screaming shrilly and thinly.
When it was over she thought that now he could forget her. He had conquered what he had sought. But she knew she could not forget him easily. It had been a lovely dream.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Tina's black eyes burned with a stark vengeance as she stared around the room at the group of sprawling girls on the bed. Everything would be settled tonight. Just as she planned. Some of the girls were giggling and the smell of onion and cheese hung heavy.
"All right, girls, now listen to what I have to say," Tina began. "That girl Marilyn from the newspaper has to be silenced before she goes further. There can never be any peace in the area while she remains free to pound her lies on a typewriter and inflame the authorities against us.
The girls remained silent. Tina continued.
"We all remember the Maine, don't we, from way back when we were kids in school and...."
"I don't dig it, Tina," Leslie said, "who are we going to sink-that uptown chick or another battleship?"
Tina laughed and the group was amused.
"We're all going to remember that Marilyn girl for a long time and we are going to sink her-but good and proper. Only in a way she'll be able to talk about for the rest of her life. We all know that men and women are delighted to engage in love-soberly, passionately and blindly and mindlessly. It's the only way they can come to terms with sex and themselves." Tina paused to light a cigarette. She could sense the group was anxiously awaiting the entire scope of her plan.
"I'm going to call her and dangle some information she can use in her articles about us and the other kids. She'll jump at the bait. I'll tell her something she didn't know-that her boyfriend is involved and hooked. She couldn't resist that, I'm sure. I'll set up a meeting, we'll grab her out to the cabin in the hills and give her a night she will never forget."
Tina paused. Some of the beagle brains on the girls were begging to be filled in further. The silence was deafening. Tina laughed and clapped her hands.
"Any questions?"
The red-haired girl with tattered sweater and crazy hairdo said, "Yeh-but what about when we leave her go? She'll go screaming her head off and we'll all wind up in jail. You're not supposed to hurt cops or reporters, I once read."
Tina smiled. "Excuse me, girls, that won't happen, I assure you, because we're going to take pictures of her getting the treatment," she said happily.
"What treatment?" Leslie asked. The other girls stared dubiously at each other.
Tina felt herself sweating. "I've read about the Chinese Stud treatment-something like a torture in reverse where the girl is continually aroused by hired studs until she screams for satisfaction and begs and pleads for sexual mercy. To no avail. The studs hold out after giving her a workout she'll never forget. But actually it's the pictures that will count because we will make it look as if she is engaging in a wild orgy with nude men." A wicked grin crossed Tina's face.
"Sounds great, Tina," one of the girls said, with delight, "where did you dig it up?"
Tina walked to the table and poured a glass of wine. She gulped deeply and wiped her mouth with the tablecloth.
"I thought it up, girls, honestly I did. And I think I know where to get the studs too," she added.
"How many are you figuring on, Tina?" Leslie asked.
"I thought two would be all right."
The girls nodded in agreement. "Sounds crazy but exciting," a red-haired girl in the corner said. She shut her eyes. "I certainly wouldn't want that happening to me. You could lose your mind, I think?"
Tina paused with an inquiring scrutiny at the group. "Then it's settled, she stated flatly. "I'll start the ball rolling tomorrow with a telephone call to the lady reporter."
Lou was downstairs at the bar sharing the bedlam of noise with the heavy pall of thick smoke and sipping a drink. He stared ahead as though in a trance, his mind a portfolio of conflicting emotions. Marilyn might help him. Or Linda. Or Lora. Or even a cat in a booth. His eyes flickered. His conscience awaited explanations. He probed in vain. He thought of her column this afternoon and what she had said about Tina and her gang. His thoughts wandered to Linda. What a crummy break having her in town at this time and writing a similar series for her own magazine. The developments were too messy to tidy up. He felt a wanton confusion and the pangs of fear and uncertainty gnawed at his emotions.
He had a sudden compelling urge to quit the job and the town and go to New York with Linda. But it would solve nothing. He would still have to live with himself and at the moment he didn't even know his name, rank and serial number. Then he saw Tina walking haughtily toward him-a newspaper in her hand.
He thought she looked like a noble savage as she stopped in front of him and put the paper under his nose.
"Do you know what your girl friend said about us today, Lou?" she asked, her black eyes consumed with deep hatred.
Lou swallowed. "I don't run the paper, Tina. I only work there," he said quietly.
He felt he was skidding in a puddle of sloth. She shoved the paper against his ribs. "She wrote about how dirty and filthy we live-the men we put up with and the wierd ways we make love. That's what she wrote," she said angrily.
He swallowed his embarrassment with dignity. "I told you-I had no hand in this and you have to believe me."
She slapped the bar with the newspaper and her eyes rolled wildly. "I don't have to believe anything you say. This is my neighborhood, my bar, my way of life, selected by choice and not imposed and this is what I prefer and no lousy college chick with a flair for pounding a typewriter has a right to invade my privacy. Now beat it uptown and leave me alone. For good." She walked off in a huff.
She had ruthlessly bruised his allusions and punctured his complacency with a strange, firm bittersweet quality. He felt like a bottle with a corkscrew-going round and round-then pop and out came nothing. He tried to pour some light on the alchemy of the situation but he could think of nothing to appease his conscience.
He had seldom felt so beaten, so completely outside himself, a thing of no consequences. He thought of Linda alone in her room. He scratched in his pocket for a coin as he walked to the telephone booth.
The waiting was profound. She sounded like a cherry jubilee when she heard his voice. Her invitation to come over was like a thunderstorm kissing hilltops. He dashed from the booth, his lust tinkling like ice in a martini glass.
Idiot-damn idiot he shouted to himself as he hailed a cab.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Marilyn felt swells of eagerness beating rapidly within her as she waited for the elevator. The ride down seemed endless. Then the long wait on the sidewalk for the light to change. She was going like a travelling carnival to meet a girl from the Garden Street vicinity who had called and offered her a wide break in her article series. It would be a good break for her and the paper if anything startling could be added and with a refined sense of malice toward both the informer and the community she came from, Marilyn decided to caulk the seams of her expose and see it to the end.
When the light turned green she walked rapidly across the street and turned a corner. She walked two small blocks and approached a small bar. From the outside the place possessed the appeal of a nasty case of exzema. Inside it was correct in every detail with neat furnishings and heavy drapes and low lights. The girl who called had requested meeting her in this particular place and Marilyn wondered if this could possibly be her favorite uptown hangout.
The bar was dark at first and she stood for a long moment allowing her eyes to become accustomed to the lack of adequate lighting. She noticed the bartender, built like a stuffed lamppost of ponderous proportions. A few men leaned on the bar and slowly rolled their drinks between conversation. She felt for a moment she was treading on lower ground than hell. When she was convinced she had conquered the darkness she stepped toward the rear where the small tables were situated. The girl had said she would wear a white dress and white shoes. That's all. Maybe that was her way of turning jam into caviar, Then she saw the girl. Alone and dressed in white she had a small flower set neatly in a balanced coiffure and she was gulping a glass of wine. She looked trim and tan and reluctantly she admitted that the girl was a pretty wench. When Marilyn approached the girl's table her eyes startled and her mouth opened in amazement. It was the same girl she and Lou had seen one night in the restaurant. Now she sat demurely, sweetly dressed and smiling daintily, soft shoulders well-tanned to match her face and she could have posed for a bridal ad. Marilyn stood still for a moment, confounded.
"I'm Tina, the girl who called you."
Marilyn sat down. "Yes-and I'm Marilyn-the girl you spoke to on the phone."
"I hope nobody sees me talking to you."
Marilyn raised her eyes. "Why, Tina?"
"Believe me, it's dangerous. Our kind isn't supposed to be talking to reporters ... especially while we're being exposed and investigated." Marilyn thought she saw the girl's teeth chattering.
Marilyn rubbed her palms together reflectively. Then she turned around and ordered a drink from the bartender. When she sipped the martini she felt awakened with impending confusions. This seemed to be a day for things to happen. Then her mind was calm and aware and she raised her face to Tina.
"You feel you took a big chance seeing me, don't you, Tina?" Marilyn wanted to know.
Tina nodded meekly. "I guess that's it-and I'm scared." Her voice wavered and she closed her eyes.
Marilyn touched Tina's hands assuringly. "Well, don't be scared-you have the power of the press on your side. Besides that," she added with narrowed eyes, "you're different, Tina, very different and unlike the depraved tarts floating around Garden Street. Just tell me everything."
Tina smiled inwardly at the crinoline cloud Marilyn was putting over her. She felt she was putting up a good act-so simple and pathetic-that if she maintained her thespian behavior much longer they would ban her in Boston.
"Are you going to write down anything I say?" asked Tina, innocently.
Marilyn smiled warmly. "Only if it's necessary. I'll try to remember everything. I've been trained to have a retentive memory," she said.
Tina lit a cigarette and settled back against the tufted leather back and surveyed the reporter as though she was viewing a landscape with booby traps.
"I feel wonderful talking to someone out of my own neighborhood," she said, trying to sound sad.
"Maybe when it's all over you will get yourself some nice place closer to this part of town."
"I hope so-I really do."
"Let's begin," said Marilyn, pushing herself into the far corner of the booth. "You begin talking."
Tina began and hoped she would not flounder-that whatever she told the reporter would sound authentic and convincing. "All right," she said slowly. "It's not a very glamorous story but then nothing is where I come from. I came from a small town in Maine and I wanted to paint for a career so I came to the big famous city to bare my talents and conquer the advertising world. It was hard and frustrating and I found the going rough. Oh, I could have gotten lots of jobs if I would fall into bed with a lot of guys. Every boss had a gimmick-a crude sex bomb bulging from his pocket. Long live dynamite." She laughed and cupped her mouth.
Marilyn's eyes flickered. "Very interesting, Tina, please continue," she said eagerly.
"Well," Tina continued, "I soon became involved with everything but my art work. The boys were tough but I would say the girls more than met them half way. They banded together for kicks and got all the pot they wanted and caroused with drink. It took so little to cheer me-I had such simple tastes-I took everyone at his word. You may not believe it but I was a healthy virgin when I got here. I'm not ashamed to say I'm no longer in that status. After a while the life nettled me and I lost my attachment for their way of living."
Marilyn wondered if that was all because so far the information Tina had given her was a relic not worth exhuming and putting in print. Country girl comes to big city for fame and fortune and is hatched into a nervous sexpot. The whole world already knew there was no greater gift than genital joy. Then Tina's voice suddenly assumed a stilled, persistent sadness.
"There's something I really must tell you so you won't be hurt in any way-and if it's hard to believe in the end you know I'm telling the truth. I think you've been seeing the wrong man, Marilyn," Tina said seriously with extreme caution.
Marilyn's eyes opened wide. "What man are you talking about, Tina?" she demanded.
Tina's long lashes lowered. "The man who works on your paper. His name is Lou and he's been up to my room a lot of times and he wanted his sex strangely-in ways I never heard of. I wondered if he wasn't hooked on drugs besides dames." She stopped and the story sounded like an unfinished revolution.
Marilyn was staggered. "You mean-Lou-the man you saw me with the first night at the bar? Is that the man you are speaking about?" asked Marilyn, highly excited.
When Tina nodded her head in assent Marilyn froze into immobility. "Yes, Marilyn, that's the very same man," Tina said.
Tina's eyes were glints of sensous vengence and it shook Marilyn into jelly. "Please continue," she told the dark-eyed girl.
"This was about the time your articles began coming out in the papers. Well, one night this Lou picked me up and asked me to take him up to my room. Hell, Marilyn, he's such a good-looking guy ... I don't see many like him around the neighborhood-I agreed and we started to love it up."
Marilyn jumped up. "As quickly as that-you took him up and you both made love? Is that it?"
Tina smiled and snapped her fingers. "Yes, as quickly as that."
Marilyn decided to let the reel out a little more.
She exhaled a mouthful of smoke from the cigarette she had just lit and lowered her voice. "So what's so unusual about that, Tina? Two people love privately and smugly. It wasn't a public exhibition. I'm sure he put you in a sexual trance, didn't he?" Marilyn asked.
The softness had gone out of Tina's face and now it was bloated with a crust of aroused hardness and all that you wanted to know of her and Lou shone in the way her eyes rolled and the leering smile enveloping her face.
"Trance is exactly the right word, Marilyn," she continued, "because some of the things he wanted me to do for him mortified me-low animal things I never even heard of. He kept getting me drunk and then I let him. Every night or every other night-I don't remember-he kept coming back. When I refused the second time he threatened me and said he would have my name in the column you were writing and he knew all the cops and vice men and everything would be his word against mine if I squealed. So what could I do, Marilyn?" she begged.
Tina forced some sobs and conveniently shook her body in the proper accompanying fashion to induce sympathy. Marilyn handed her a handkerchief and tried to console her. Now her mind raced. At a magic, rapid pace. Now, suddenly, a far bigger expose was at hand for her to reveal. The look of a radar trap was in her burning eyes as she studied Tina.
Tina dried her eyes and looked at Marilyn.
"I don't feel like talking any more," she said suddenly.
"Why not?" Marilyn asked.
Tina leaned closer to her over the table.
"Because I don't really have to," the black-eyed girl whispered softly, "I was smart-I kept a diary with names and places and I have cancelled checks showing the amounts he paid me each time."
"Tina," her voice was suddenly breathless. "Where can I see these things-the records you kept? I must see them to prove it in my articles. I need that evidence, Tina, I need it."
"Oh, I'll give it to you. I don't need it. But I don't have it with me. I figured it might be very important to the right party so I left it in a close friend's home at the end of town. If you really want to see it, Marilyn," Tina said eagerly, her eyes rolling, "just tell me and I'll see if my friend will be home tomorrow and we can all go over there and get it."
Marilyn thought of Lou and that was when she felt like drowning-suffocating in one fell swoop and get it over with. But early sadness always had afternoon pleasantries and she pushed the despair from her mind. Tina had the things she needed to confront her and advance her career at the newspaper. To hell with him-plenty of other nice guys around.
"Why don't you call me during the day tomorrow and I can meet you and go to your friend's house-whenever you say, Tina," Marilyn suggested firmly.
Tina stood up. "I'm sorry to have been the one to tell you about him-I mean your boyfriend," Tina said with obvious regret.
Marilyn smiled like a born loser. "Life has a way of moving apart sometimes, Tina, and if we're big enough we can move it back again," she said with a smile.
"I'll call you early tomorrow."
"Please do, Tina. I'll be waiting."
The pretty girl with the black hair and white dress walked erectly toward the door. Marilyn observed her from behind and felt elated at the sudden turn of events that would create a starring role for her on the newspaper. She sat quietly for a while draining the last of her martini and drying her thoughts with a stifled groan. She had given the whole of herself as she had never done before to Lou and she remembered the first day she met him. He called her a smart dame in a brilliant century and she had liked his original wit. She once told him that trusting people was not one of her strong points. She turned a little toward the mirror on her right and played a wan smile on herself. All that was missing was Lou-damn his soul.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Lou sat slouched on the couch in his apartment and slowly fondled the glass of bourbon in his hands. Tina had dumped him and changed the quality of his amorous landscape. He had been prepared for anything except to be ignored and buffeted by Tina's exploding shells. His arrogance of personal conceit had been fractured and he was frustrated with indecision.
He took a gulp and put the glass down. He pulled tissue from the table and wiped the drop on his chin. He tried to get himself to think clearly but his thoughts were like boomerangs returning relentlessly to himself and Tina. He remembered Lora and how he had set his sights on her in the elevator. There hadn't been another since. But she was meaningless. She had been very wonderful that night and he had taken a pleasurable allowance with a pretty colored girl-in which was lacking neither passion nor the willingness to abandon herself to him.
He glanced down at his shoes and seemed quietly mesmerized by his size. He rubbed his hose around the ankles. Strong, firm cotton fibers. He raised his hand and wondered if it was steady. Should he write his last will and testament? There was no joy in leaving nothing to everybody.
He realized that he was hungry-that he had not eaten all day. He felt the ravages of a sweet tapeworm licking his innards. He made himself a sandwich and devoured it hastily. Then he sat back on the couch and lit a cigarette, feeling all jammed up. He had proven something to himself. The world was a rotten place and he had a right to feel sad.
He stared at the door vaguely when the buzzer rang. He carried the glass of bourbon he had just refilled with him. Linda stood there smiling lightly.
"You know why I'm here, Lou?" she asked, coming into the room and glancing around.
He closed the door and said hello.
"Because I was determined to see you," she concluded.
He stepped back and glanced at her through murky eyes. "You look pretty as hell, Linda," he said.
"So give me a drink and shove me into heaven," she said, with a pert smile.
He brought the drink to the couch and she smelled it first, "Just what I need, Lou, really."
Her skirt was tight and it crawled along her golden thighs and when she let it rest there he kept staring.
"What's on your mind, Linda?"
"I've got to return to New York sooner than I expected." She paused to take another sip. "But before I go I want to have a few things out with you."
She noticed the frown on his face and she leaned forward a little. "Oh, I have nothing to lose, Lou, so I'm going to spill it all," she said with authority.
He wondered what she was talking about. "I don't feel like talking, Linda, and less like listening," he said.
"Sit down here," Lou," she insisted.
He sat down reluctantly and stared at her. "Go on. Linda, go on," he said slowly, "I'll try to be a dear listener." He felt like a fool just sitting there with a new curiosity before him.
Linda framed a swift smile and puffed on her cigarette.
"Listen, Lou," she started in a husky voice, "I want you to know that I still love you and I'm saying what's coming only because I think it's best for you." She looked at him with studied concentration, measuring him coldly. "Lou-I know everything about you-everything there is to know, believe me."
He stared at her strict little dress and cocky hat to match and wondered what she knew about him. His face took on a guarded look. "I'm listening, Linda," he said.
"You're finished here, Lou, it's going to get around that you've been messing regularly with the very girls the paper is trying to expose."
His eyes went suddenly yellow like a tarnished trumpet. There was no doubt what she had in mind. His blood curdled and his palms went soft and moist. His voice was cotton.
"How do you know, Linda?"
"In the name of God, Lou, be realistic," she pleaded. "There's nothing left for you to salvage. Here in this town you're nothing but a big fish in a little pond. Come back to New York with me. I'll get you a job on one of the city papers or my very own magazine. I'll work it out, Lou, try to understand. You're a good writer, Lou, better than I'll ever be."
He shook his head. "I can't leave. I've got pride, you understand, Linda," he said firmly.
"In this situation there's nothing to be said for pride, Lou." She reached over and took his hand. "Don't wait until they back up a hearse for you.
He felt a quick wave of hate, fear and sickness. Everyone was stepping over him-even Linda. Only Lora refused to get into step. A deep sadness bit into him. He was no longer the fat success. There was an uneasy silence and he raised his head to stare at her. She was lovely in a wild way and now she was trying to help him forget the sad tunes bouncing in his head. Linda was trying to be his cushion. Why were woman always his cushion? He wasn't lazy. He knew how and when to sweat and strain. Did they think he was lazy and soft? He reached over and squeezed Linda's hand.
"You make sense and you mean well, Linda, I'm sure of that. But this is all so sudden," he said.
She took a long swallow of her drink and set the glass on the table beside her. "I'll give you three days-no longer. Figure the rest out for yourself. But if I were you, Lou, I wouldn't take somebody I know into my confidence," she said slyly.
He looked up. "Who are you talking about?"
Her eyes tensed. "Marilyn-beware of the ideas of Marilyn, Lou," she said dramatically.
He began to shiver openly. "Are you crazy, Linda?"
She laughed. "Do I look nuts, Lou?"
"What's Marilyn got to do with all this?"
"She knows all about you-the same as I do-and you may be sure in her rage of jealousy she will spare nothing to rip you to pieces and throw the bloody remains in the gutter."
He felt as though she was pouring ice down his back.
"You're sure, Linda?"
"You don't have to believe it if you don't want to," Linda said.
He was sure of one thing. She hadn't gone fishing and he was not the angler's paradise. She had dug in the Garden Street muck and come up with an odd blight. His reasoning was muffled. He stared at her-she like a lacquered rose-he caught between impulse to laugh or cry. He heard a small voice within him-without any range-urging him to protest. But he could barely hear his own thinking.
She patted him on the back before she left and he remained sitting on the couch staring at the ceiling. Even with himself-the couch was empty and so was the room. He walked to the window and raised it-took a deep breath of cool evening air and lowered it. He stood a little unsteadily as he went to the phone and dialed Lora.
"I want to come over, Lora, I want to come over right now," he said firmly into the phone.
He was suddenly bottled fire-capped too long.
"I'll wait, Lou, but hurry," he heard her say.
Pile enough women on top of each other and you have carpeted steps all the way to anywhere, he recalled as he bolted through the door.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Lou stared carefully at the black nakedness of the woman beside him. She lay cuddled and dozing and he said to himself that this might be the end of the dream. She was all the small pieces of all his dreams. She was the outer world and he the innner world and the mask had been dethroned. She thinks but don't say-she wants but can't do-only the right for her to dream in a tip-toe dance of futility. She was stirring and he fondled her gently. The pleasures she had absorbed from him had been big and she had rushed along with him in precise direction as he burned and stung her to madness.
He felt very proud of himself. Black or white-women never said no to him. He was a stud for wayside bitches and pretty darlings. He had the knack. He could create a mood in moments. And to resist both the man and the mood was too much to require of most women. He always got his women quickly and with honesty. Because he bulged with the romance of the world and knew the correct way to speak lingeringly of sex. And this, he thought, looking at Lora, was his crowning virtue.
She opened her eyes slowly, then wide and kissed the part of him closest to her. "Oh, Lou-Lou," she said as if it were a melody.
He smiled down on her. "Lora," he said tenderly, "you make a lovely bed warm."
She came to him then with the same excitement as a short time ago and overwhelme him with hugs and caresses.
Now as she lay there beside him, he though how it all almost never happened. He liked bein with her because their love bore little relation t the outside world. He liked when she smiled with sticking pain if he had said the wrong thing. But she always came to him with laughter and a waiting smile. When he walked into her place a queer freedom enveloped him and he felt he was leaving his problems behind. All the big fat mental blocks were gone. He liked oozing into her warm softness.
Later she said, "Lou-am I only a hot bed to you?"
She wanted truth wrapped up in words and lies.
"Don't you like the things we do, Lora?" he asked.
"Yes-yes-I like it very much." Her eyes were wild, her voice silky.
"I have problems, Lora, let's cut this stuff. What are you afraid of-that you won't ever get married?" he asked nervously.
She looked fully at him now, resting on her elbow. "No, Lou, it's not that. I've been married before," she said.
"You're still a kid, Lora."
"Old enough to vote."
" 'And old enough to know better than sticking your head in the lion's den a second time. Don't thin out life, Lora, that's what marriage does."
She smiled pertly and she looked like a funny face painted on a coconut. "If you get the jitters about it, Lou, I promise never to mention it again."
He laughed. "When you're single, Lora, you even sleep better. Provoking hopes merely detracts from the joys of life," he said pleasantly. He forgot where he had read the lines.
He walked to the window and stared through the parted drapes. The moon was a sharply-defined sickle in the blue sky. The air was heavy with the scent of night-blooming jasmine. He could see the open gas station down the street-lights still on although it was almost dawn. He felt drained but he went to Lora again and she spread herself willingly for him. He didn't want to rush her-everything could be spoiled.
"No man but you can be my king, Lou," she said excitedly, as she kissed his flushed cheeks.
He clutched her tightly, moving her long, lithe legs gracefully apart. Now everything on earth was right. She made it so for him. He gulped the excitement of her body and sought no answers. She was his expedient answer to all his problems. He had loved other women in darkened bedrooms before. This was nothing new for him. She was the private waltz in his life. He wanted the dream to roll on without let-up.
Her mouth yielded and sucked at his-and their tongues twisted, circling each other. When he turned her flat on her back she crouched over looking down and seeing his manliness she closed her eyes quickly, her hot veins humming. She opened slowly to him as he lowered himself trying to fit him as precisely as she had done previously. She shared his sensations until a sudden heat beat fiercely inside her body and roared like a thunderclap-then throbbed slowly like heat lightning to a soft, summer shower.
She was asleep in the dawn when he left her. He didn't know when he would be back. If ever.
In the street as he pulled away from the curb he knew that everything he left behind was a thin, thin layer of a world he could live without. But not without its pleasures.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Why did lovely faces haunt him, he wondered? He had the uncanny knack of attaching himself to stunning women and becoming the locksmith to their emotions-leading them compassionately toward a door that led to nowhere. In his heart the bell tolled loudest for Lora because she signified black lust to be devoured and dispersed. She was a cool statue in a soon-to-be-forgotten garden. Yet she formed a welt in his heart. If only he weren't white. If only the dust had blown him black like she.
He snatched a couple of hours sleep which he needed badly. The phone shattered suddenly like a noisy holocaust and drearily he heard Marilyn's voice.
"Lou, can you come over here before you go to the office?" she asked.
He glanced at the clock. "I guess so. What's up?"
"I want to talk to you."
"I'll be over. Give me time to change."
He stared in the bathroom mirror and slowly his eyes cleared-returned to normal depth. He got there a little later than he expected and she was dressed in a hot pink raincoat and a lazy sulky look.
"I'm sorry I'm late," he said sincerely. She glanced nervously at the clock. "Well, I still have a few minutes." She removed her raincoat and folded it on the chair back and sat down.
Some dim echoes of dusty passions were suddenly upon him as he glanced at her-a gap in beautiful flesh. In a second she shed her shining mannerisms. He noticed her eyes dimmed into narrow slits as she crossed her legs in a swift movement.
"Lou-one of the Garden Street girls told me a lot of things that will help my story. She can substitute it with a diary and other assorted records and the name of a prominent man of the press who has been frequenting the girls and indulging with them. I'm supposed to meet her in a day or so-she'll call me-but I'd like you to come with me and meet the girl." She leaned back and studied him closely.
Now he knew what she knew and Linda's warning about Marilyn came home to roost. He had at first shut his mind to the warning. It sounded far-fetched and ridiculously insensible Yet in such a sweltering atmosphere implications are easily inflated.
He put her to the test. "Did the girl give you her name?" he asked.
"Yes, but I don't think you would know her-her name is Tina ... I believe."
The tall clock ticked behind her. A spring gale rattled at the window and a wave of havoc enveloped him. Now there could no longer be any doubt about Linda's warning. It was true to the hilt. She sat looking at him with a frosty stare, and Lou suddenly knew she was throwing him spitballs
"I don't remember the name at all, Marilyn,' he said. "But if you want-"
The phone broke the blanket quiet. Marilyn walked to the table. She listened for a moment and then she turned to Lou. "Some woman says it's important-about a story you're working on."
He scrambled to his feet and took the phone. "Hello," he said.
The voice was urgent and belonged to Linda.
"Please, Lou, listen and don't let on to Marilyn that it's me. I had a woman on the hotel switchboard get you so that Marilyn wouldn't suspect a thing. Now do listen carefully and try to answer so she will think it's some sort of legitimate call. Get it?"
"Oh, indeed, I do remember," said Lou, a little startled, "wasn't that the meter scandal a while ago?"
"Good, Lou, good-now listen. Leave Marilyn at once-at once, do you hear?"
"I find that difficult to conceive, madam," Lou continued his pretension.
"Keep it up, Lou," Linda shouted excitedly. "Did Marilyn ask you to accompany her to meet a girl from Garden Street to get some confidential information for her story?"
"Why, I should say yes, no doubt about it."
He heard a small chuckle. "Just as I thought. Well, don't go. The girl is Tina and Marilyn wants to implicate you right in front of Tina when she gets the information. It's all the proof she'll need to ruin you."
Lou broke into a sweat and his hand slipped on the phone for an instant. He turned his head and stared at Marilyn seated quietly staring out the window. He could feel his belly drag. He felt like a star in the trackless ocean of time. All he could get himself to say into the phone was, "I see-I see."
"Remember, Lou, beware of the ides of Marilyn," she said.
"I won't forget it because I have a retentive memory, madam," he replied, forcing a wane smile.
"Now don't do or say anything rash or you'll be sorry. And above all don't let on to what you know. Make any excuse-but get out of there right now. And get over to the hotel. I'll wait for you."
"I'll do just that, madam, I'd hardly want to miss out on something like that. Sure-sure, you can expect me." He hung up.
Marilyn stood up and reached for her raincoat. "I heard the conversation-you have to leave?" she asked.
He wanted to spit in her eye and bolt from the room. Instead he forced a smile. "Something hot-sounds like a great tip on the parking meter scandal," he said, staring at her fixedly.
The floor started to swell as he left her and dashed toward his car. Now his mind was suddenly sharp ... like the bow of an ocean liner ploughing through rough seas. He forced a loud laugh at himself in the car as he turned the ignition on and it sounded like the rumble of a landslide.
Marilyn was planning what was to be apparently her finest hour when she brought Tina and Lou face to face. She had the fuse set, the explosion timed, the situation primed. Only he was moving out of range. With him absent she would have little to hook on to. She had once been the only girl for him, the one sweet girl who did his bidding pleasingly. He remembered the first time at her apartment. It was late and a wicked storm had lashed the city suddenly. He said he would like to stay over. She said no with indignation.
"Why not? Your bed is big enough," he snapped.
He stayed over. She insisted on keeping the light on. He was furious-the light annoyed him. But he did it anyway because it all added up to a certain mood-like wenching in technicolor. More than anything-this vision had a special appeal and spirit-a mysterious tang to the first time she bedded with him.
When it was over she hushed, blushed and dashed for the bathroom and he decided it was the firmest ass he had ever rolled on. He drove the car effortlessly and his face creased as if the pain was not yet over. From then on she came to him readily, always framed like a sexy time bomb ready to explode on contact. He remembered it all with an ache of delight. He bit his lips tightly. Screw-screw-her. It was finished. Stars of blood shone in his eyes. He stopped for a light. A woman in a polka dot dress that looked like a measel epidemic pushed a carriage across the street. A young girl ran across from the other side just making the light. He smiled. Sixteen is sweet when it happens to girls, he said to himself.
He suddenly remembered that he ought to call Marilyn and tell her he would be tied up and that she ought not to count on him accompanying her on her mission to Tina. He stopped at a gas station and made the call. She sounded sadly disappointed. But he smiled to himself as he got into the car.
He hoped fervently the mainfold agonies were over. He would listen to Linda. She had the right answer. Maybe he would go to New York with her and start anew. They would form a compact. They would live together. Maybe she was just the one to make a man of him at this late date. All he needed was a fresh start.
He would be like other men-spit on the sidewalk and tear holes in the pavement. He was minting the gathered experience of the past into shreds of wisdom. As he reached Linda's hotel h felt that he was still in the grip of grim danger.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Marilyn gazed hazily as she walked slowly down the deserted street clutching her purse tightly against her straining body. The night was warm and a faint breeze ruffled her coiffure. She looked up and smiled at the blue sky. Men lounging in warehouse doors stared openly at her and she stared back undaunted. She walked on shutting her mind to all speculation about Tina. But why did she have to select such a God-forsaken area as this.
She was eager to meet Tina and get it over with-she felt like a bottled hurricane. She wanted vengeance on Lou more than anything else. Now she would implicate both Tina and Lou. A dog barked from somewhere behind her and on the corner a cat flitted by kissing her legs. She swore silently.
She stood at the corner and looked up at the street sign. The light was poor. She started to cross. She heard a swish-like a bag of garbage being thrown from a window-then a squeak of tires beside her and a door opening. A shuffling noise behind her and she whirled with a shiver. Too late. The scuffle was quick and one-sided as a hand closed on her mouth. Then she was in a car and canvas shades were drawn as it pulled madly down the street. She felt her mouth pressed hard by straining hands and she tried to tear away-to breathe. Then she felt her arms being pinned as she was pushed deep into the seat. She was frozen with terror. She tried to scream through and among the fingers that clamped across her lips-but no sound came. Somebody was pushing her down and she bumped her head. She tried to think it might be a joke-some wild dream-until she recognized Tina's dark, smiling face beside her. By this time the car was skimming furiously along a country road far from town.
Suddenly the hands were removed from her mouth. She felt a shove and she realized she was imprisoned between two girls. Two more were up front in the driver's seat. She turned to stare at Tina's leering expression.
"What's the damn meaning of this, you little tramp?" she demanded.
Tina didn't answer. The quiet stunned her. What sort of a treatment was this? Her mind was finger-painting in slow motion trying to make some sense out of the situation. It was all madness, chaotic, a dream of fantasy, she told herself.
"We want to give you a very special thank you for all the nice things you've been saying about us," a red-haired girl up front said suddenly.
"It's kidnapping," Marilyn shouted, "punishable by death."
Nobody answered. The car sped on. Someone turned the radio on low. Marilyn's eyes flicked and she groaned. The music irritated her. She leaned back and rubbed her eyes. She stared at Tina's face out of the corner of her eye. It was hard, stark, to the point of ferocity. Now she was scared. What did they have in store for her? She remained rigid in her seat as the blood of fear trembled and surged within her.
"I demand to know where you're taking me!" Marilyn blurted suddenly.
"Did you ever see a more nasty bitch than her?" one of the girls up front said, without turning around.
Tina laughed. "Oh, don't worry, we'll make a lady out of her yet." She turned toward Marilyn and leered. "Won't we, Marilyn?" she asked cunningly.
The other girls burst out laughing. They drove along in silence for a while passing what looked like duck farms and Marilyn decided she would settle for a life of farming at that moment. They sped through a town and one of the girls mentioned that she had been there once when she was a kid. Marilyn cringed a little wondering if they would set the world on fire by dousing her with gasoline and shoot her from a rocket. Crazy thoughts. Tragic ideas. She glowed with fear and felt sorry for herself. She wondered if Lou could possibly have known about this adventure. Maybe that was why he didn't want to come. She pushed away the thought. Not him.
Looking out the window she saw they were speeding down the highway parallelling the river that cut across the county. Soon the string of motel and restaurant neons faded and then, only country darkness.
Marilyn's fears compounded. Maybe they would torture her for days and days-winding her up like an eight-day clock to take the pressure. Maybe they were just dirty, lousy fakes and were just taking her for a mad ride to scare the hell out of her. One thing she could have no doubts about. From the manner of their dress they were not going to a museum or a concert. She blinked her eyes and stared ahead with a stark sense of revulsion.
Suddenly the car stopped for a light. She tried to twist free and make a mad dash to freedom. Tina's hands clutched her and pushed her down. "Easy, there Marilyn," she said with a fierce grin, "it's useless-so save your strength for what's coming. Because you're going to need everything you got to stop yourself from turning into a piece of crap."
Now she was frightened beyond doubt. She could feel her eyes roll and her nostrils sag waiting for an incredible explosion that would dump her unmercifully into another world. If only she could drop off into a coma. She heard the boom of surf from the river front as the car went along purring smoothly. They were now traveling through pine forest area. She knew the country. A lot of swamps. The moon sailed majestically over the scene and she wondered if someone there could know the rough spot she was in and radio it down to earth.
At last the car pulled into a side road, slowed down and passed through a gate leading to a deserted farmhouse. The driver parked under a huge tree, shut off the motor and lights and got out. Marilyn felt herself pushed and shoved and in a moment she stood outside. All ideas of flight were drained. She was hooked-cornered. She was shoved up some rickety wooden steps that groaned and creaked and she saw one of the girls take a key and unlock the door. Then she was shoved again into a huge room. Someone had turned on the lights and Marilyn stared around with a gesture of extreme panic stricken shock and fright.
"You...." Tina was motioning toward a door ... "get in there and wait. Don't get any funny ideas because there's no windows. Now beat it."
Then she said it deliberately, her eyes pleading.
"Please, girls, there's a terrible mistake, J beg of you," she cried eloquently. "Don't let yourself in for trouble-let me go and I promise not to say anything. I promise."
One of the girls snickered. "We're not afraid of trouble, are we girls? We're so delighted we have the trouble-maker here," she said.
Then Marilyn knew. It was like pleading with God when you're dead for another chance ... and a second death. She staggered toward the door like a blinded eel. She turned for pity toward the girls-staring in mute expectancy and when she counted the cold, gleaming eyes she opened the door and went inside.
The light was on. She shuddered at the sight of mounds of crawling cockroaches on the worn-out rug. A huge bed was set in the middle of the room. The linens were mere colored burlap shaded a deep rust and the pillows-there were three, and she wondered why-were caseless. A small lamp was lit on a table near the headboard. There were no chairs ... no dressing table. Then she glanced up. Above the bed a rectangular slit had been carved in the ceiling and a glass, transparent as ordinary window glass, had been installed. She could see beyond the glass where the roof mast merged toward the top pitch. A monumental fear clutched her. Was she to be pinned here as if she were a winged specimen under a microscope? For how long and under what circumstances?
She looked for a bathroom. There was none. Then things began to happen in quick succession. The door opened and the girls walked in-huge smiles on their faces.
Tina was the spokesman. "Get undressed, Marilyn, all the way." When Marilyn stared at them Tina took a step toward her. "I mean right now," she sneered.
"What's going to happen to me?" she cried.
She started moving back but Tina caught her by the waist and held her at arm's length. "If you're worried that we'll kill you, Marilyn-don 't-we're not murderers. But when we're finished with you it is altogether possible you may wish you were dead."
Marilyn looked at the girls and knew it was futile to protest. She picked up her dress and raised it over her shapely legs-over her thighs. She raised the slip and twisted it over her head. Then she stood-in only her garters, panties and bra.
The girls laughed. "Not a bad piece for the studs to work on," the red-haired girl said.
She reached behind her back and unsnapped the bra. Now she didn't care. It fell at her feet. She pulled the elastic band of her panties and she faced them totally nude. Then the word stud hit her hard-like a thunderclap. She knew the word in relation to animals-but humans, never. She frowned and stared at the jubilant girls looking her over.
Tina whispered something in the blonde's ear and the girl said as she left the room, "I'll tell them she's ready."
Another girl said, "Let's go upstairs and get ourselves ready to start watching the show."
Marilyn wished for sleep to dream a lifetime. She licked her lips. They were dry. She must not lose herself-not now-she said to herself. It was her damn nude body-stripped and revealing ... Yes, it was her body that was doing her thinking.
Then the girls left and shut the door. She walked around the room. She couldn't think of laying herself upon the filthy bed. The light was poor. It baffled her eyes. She heard a stumble-then creaking floorboards and the knob began to turn. Now her breath was urgent and she backed away a little. There was another creak as the door was pushed wide-and she took one look and shuddered. She tried to catch her breath but it was too much as she slithered in a faint to the floor.
The two huge nude negro giants seemed to flood the room as they entered and silently raised Marilyn's nude body from the floor and heaved it roughly on the bed. Then they stared at the stilled figure for a moment. In unison they pounded their chest twice and shouted loudly, "AGAKADI-AGAKADI."
But Marilyn did not hear.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Lou listened to Linda with interest. Her dark eyes met his lighter ones and she knew she had him where she wanted him. She had faith in him. She knew faith can be like rare flowers-some like monuments. She loved him that firmly.
In a moment of great stress a woman in love can achieve immortality and this was her last chance. She must get him to leave the paper and fly back with her to New York. There was a strange stilled silence as they stared at each other. Then she smiled and showed him her white teeth.
"I'm leaving tomorrow morning." She looked at him hard. "I want you to go back to New York, Lou. I'll take you either way-married or on the loose. I'll take my chances and live on hope. What do you say?" she asked.
It was a great chance, Lou knew-opportunities die like flies, passing you by ... they are never reborn. He felt his eyes shrink from her because his decision had failed to materialize since she last approached the idea. She had said her piece in a firm yet subdued tone-almost a monotonous voice-as if other choices did not exist for him.
She waited. "Make the right decision, Lou. Pray if it will help," Linda said.
He stood up and shook his head. "God and I have very little to say to each other, Linda," he said quietly.
He walked like a shaky zeppelin to the couch and touched her beautiful hair softly.
"Dear, dear Linda," he said, "dearest girl."
She stared up at him vaguely and smiled. Hers was a long look in a long moment of taking him in stride. "I think you're going to come with me, Lou," she said.
He smiled back weakly-the kind of smile you see at funerals. "Yes-I guess I will, Linda. As you said-once Marilyn spills the beans there won't be anything left in town for me. I better resign and skip before I'm fired," he said sadly.
She stood up and clasped him tightly. He reached behind her shoulders and crushed her to him. She looked up and said, "I've been too long untouched."
She knew how to set the alarm for him. He wore a little smile as he walked to the bedroom with her. To himself he said-I've gone along this far with Linda but I'm still keeping Lora as my ace in the hole. In some strange, weird manner he tried to keep from responding-he wanted out of her battle plan-but how could he tell her? But when she wrapped herself around him and stabbed her tongue to his and told him he was the greatest lover she had known-he went along. They were on her bed-not his. Her terms ... not his ... He shut his eyes from her and he tensed with thoughts of the negress who had picked the wrong guy to spread her love upon.
His throat was locked as his face hung over hers in the dim light. Did she pick the wrong guy? What made him think of Lora-now-at this studied moment? For days she had been just a dark toy available when he wanted to play. Now everything was opened to full range.
He resumed his caresses and pleased her struggles.
"I picked the right man, Lou, damn it-I picked the right guy," she mumbled with closed eyes. He wanted to shout he was the wrong guy-the damndest wrongest guy ever. But his throat was cotton. She wanted him completely. That was the only weapon he had. He felt like cursing. His hand touched the wetness of the bed and he recoiled from it in horror. He rubbed his face and squeezed his eyes.
It was over and it meant nothing. Not like with Lora. Linda was irrelevant-expendable-a piece of tail in bed. Compared to her bedroom Lora's was an ornate cloud of bubbles-drowning her bitterness and sharing her searching passion. Maybe she couldn't write a magazine story or do research or paint a picture-but she knew how to blow bubbles of meaning his way. Lora never pinned him down to definite patterns and formulas. She understood him ... she could branch off him like a telephone wire on a party line. She was the true custodian of his past.
Linda was a dream and he didn't belong any more. She wanted him to trade rainbows for pots-turn him from a language of love that wobbled preciously before him. He wanted the mood changed ... he wanted a softer mood ... with Lora.
He promised to see her that night again. He went to the office and puttered around the desk and knocked out a few pages. When Lora came in and put some stories on his desk, he said, "I'm coming up tonight. I want to change the landscape for you."
Her eyes widened and she smiled. She always had so little to say. Without waiting to hear more she walked quietly from the desk. He liked her long legs and hard belly and how she combined the two into a trance. She was black so that made her a maligned enchantment ... a fresh funny trick waiting to be solved. A black million dollar baby in a white man's circus.
He called Linda from an outside booth in the lobby at the end of the day and explained in what he was sure she would accept as his futile lie that he couldn't see her that evening. When she put the next question pointblank-"Are you leaving tomorrow with me?" he stuttered for a moment.
Finally he said, "Leave without me. I need more time, Linda. I'll know soon." Then he hung up.
He drove impatiently to Lora's apartment anxious to enjoy a bull market in sex-Lora, the emblem of leisurely passion. He stumbled up the stairs like a lost delivery boy. She answered on his first buzz and smiled sweetly at him. For a second he stared at her with nutcracker severity-then he smiled broadly and took her in his arms.
She poured drinks for both and then they sat opposite each other in the living room.
"Do you want to commemorate a miracle, Lou, or do you want to rescue it?" she asked solemnly.
"What's the miracle?"
She shifted awkwardly. "I think I'm pregnant."
Their distance from the world glanced off each other for a quick second. She felt his quietness turn into a sudden coolness. His silence was frozen-then he smiled politely.
"You think you're pregnant?" he repeated. "I said I think. I'm not sure." He rushed in again. "Suppose you are?" he suggested.
She smiled wanely and shrugged. "So I'll live with our child," she added courageously.
He leaned forward. "And what about me?"
She waved her slender arm. "Oh, I imagine you'll go on taking another drink for the road," she said sweetly, no hint of remorse in her tone.
He got up and raised her chin. "That's where you're wrong, Lora."
"What do you mean?"
"I'm going to marry you, Lora, and damn fast too," he said firmly.
She shook her head. "It won't do, Lou, never. I may have the white man's world in my eyes but I have Africa at my back. You could never forgive me," she said.
"What the hell are you talking about? This has nothing to do with a kid or race or religion or color. You're a real woman and I love you-you're the very kind of woman I need," he said.
"You're wrong, Lou."
"I don't think I'm wrong about you."
She sneered mildly. "You're wrong about us, Lou. These things rarely work out." She looked up at him. "Is that what you meant in the office when you said you wanted to change the landscape for me?"
He grabbed her. "Yes, God damn you, yes. And I didn't know anything about you being pregnant. I was going to ask you to marry me anyway," he fairly shouted at her.
Then he felt awkward-drained. He could have ran with a pat on the head-straight to the nearest place marriage certificates were dispensed. Then the only sound in the room was her sobbing as she buried herself in his arms. When her sobbing ceased she held him with a passion that seemed more severe than sex. They disrobed rapidly and in the bedroom she pulled him flat upon her nakedness and said, "Oh, Lou, we'll make it-I know we can."
CHAPTER NINETEEN
From a distant land-a volcanic isle, a patch of land and jungle almost hidden and lost among mighty seas-evolved the strange people and their cult of Agakadi. Lush with pandanus leaves and palms, it dwelt within the ocean winds and the odors of tropical flowers and fruits. An immense mellow platter of sun always filled its blue skies and the fierce heat followed the winds relentlessly. The males wore breechclouts and the women wore breastbinders while children played nakedly until overcome with fatigue.
Like the pleasure houses of Polynesia to the north they possessed strange ways of love and of them all the most severe form-Agakadi-the denial of love as a punishment to the sinners and adulterers, was the most wicked. It was a highly ceremonious and important event and the punishment was always directed against the female of the species.
And now this same rite was to be transposed to Marilyn as she lay helpless on the shabby bed. The girls were upstairs eagerly scanning the scene through the glass in the ceiling. None of them had ever heard of this orgy procedure in reverse and Tina herself had merely read about it once.
When Marilyn's eyes became accustomed to the giant nude figures beside her she lay on her back afraid to move. She noticed the erect and hardened prick of each and her fright gave way to an erotic pulse beat. She moved her legs closer. She had no idea what beyond the expected could happen. Then she stared up and saw the smug, smiling faces of Tina and her friends through the ceiling glass. Then she felt four heavy hands begin to stroke her breasts and other intimate parts. She closed her eyes. She lay on her back-then she drew up her legs ... waiting ... straining. She was being aroused and suddenly she didn't care. One giant pressed his body to hers in a quick movement-then he was beside her-stroking, messaging, titillating her.
The other held her arms tightly while the first began spreading her with his hand. She felt a dryness in her throat and a terrible throb in her loins. She reached out her hands to hold on to them-to return their favors. But each uttered a stifling grunt and kept out of her reach. The scene was taunting and she was swaying in madness. Strong, violent pangs clanged through her throat-her head-her body. Her breasts wanted to be freed from this ecstatic madness-but the nudes sloped their black shoulders apart as they refused to blend with her in her distinct need.
The men played with the size and arch and firmness of her breasts and thighs and she sparkled madly with a devouring lust she had never known. She tore her hair. "Take me-take me...." she yelled arching her body. The giants laughed and renewed their frenzied mauling. In a moment Marilyn knew she would go stark mad if she was not relieved from her inner torture. She tried to force her own orgasm but her hands were pulled back. They were dispatching her craving desires into another existence-away from herself.
She wanted surrender to complete the prostration-to attain her divine ecstasy-to surrender absolutely-willing to die a thousand agonizing deaths-to annihilate every vestige of self-respect if she could be enshrined even for one moment in the blinding pleasure buried deep within her. She began licking her armpits-then chewing her hair as the men slid their arms over her body in a never-ending convulsion of arousal.
She was now indescribably excited. She would have gladly performed any obscene thing they would demand of her. If only they would tell her what they wanted her to do to them. But the quiet of the room was broken solely by the unemotional grunts of both men and Marilyn's little squeals of urgency.
She had been heavily bombarded with kisses. Her lips were chewed. She had a faint taste of earth in her mouth. Her hands wanted to caress them-but they pulled her hands roughly out of range. She wondered what kind of men could sustain themselves in this fashion beyond needed relief? Her torture remained within her, filling her belly and loins with indescribable pain. She wondered who had originated this elaborate, devilish type of orgy. Her emotions were like hot steam begging to go off.
She was wearying. It had been going on for hours. Her mind was drifting. She began to kick and struck out feebly. She knew it was useless to beg. They had been well trained in this chilling masterpiece of punishment. She wanted to bring a quick end to this agonizingly ecstatic torture forced upon her. In the following moments her stirring became unbearable. She shrieked for mercy. But begging got her absolutely nothing.
Now she valued her release more than honor-more than respect. But they looked into the bottomless depths of her eyes and laughed silently. She could feel her body twitch and jerk as a molten heat kept building up unendurably within her. She was ready for their strike-but it never came. This was part of the violent game. Their stroking held a meaning beyond the realm of her pleasure. She grew to understand. She was to be primed to a cruel white heat and constantly denied her the right to set off the fuse and blow her own explosion. She was to be enveloped in living sexual flame but not released to total orgasm. Sometimes poison takes a long time to work, she thought. She had to come or go mad.
She began to laugh wildly.
"God-please, fellows, please," she shrieked, "get it over with...." She gasped and closed her eyes. "I can't stand any more-I can't ... I'll take both your cocks at once."
If only she could stagger from the bed and run naked through the countryside. She could see the two of them, black-skinned and bare, kneeling drunkenly against her thighs, firming her flesh. She subdued an impulse to shut her eyes tightly, to close out the scene. It was futile. The grinning faces above her were strong and lecherous. She felt their legs cradle her loins in a continuing embrace-their touch rocking her into a frenzy. Yet a curious order prevailed, as if the three were going through a ceremony ordained for lovelessness. She tried to lift herself, to be closer to them, but their hands moved under her hips and shoved her aside. And still they were only touching, while the amperage in her mounted steadily. The pressure became intolerable. She uttered a series of helpless, whining cries as she dug her fingers into her hair.
She tried to measure time. There was no clock. She imagined starkly that it might end well and she would shout in triumph at the end. Each of the giants became very meaningful to her. They were now her world-her salvation in orbit. She coasted up steep mountains at the speed of sound-up ridges and hills-hurrying toward it with invincible joy. But the thunderheads of great forces were crashing her down, holding her within herself.
If only things would snowball and end up right for her. She was pretty and shaped for love. Didn't they see it spread out for them? Her hips had a powerful flare. Were they blind? She would go to each like heated quicksilver if she could. Her loins leaped and her motions were contant, thrashing movements beyond control. Why weren't their passions on the same wave length as hers?
The final explosion-the final plunger-when would it go off for her? Now her gaze clung compulsively and almost unseeingly on the two giant nudes. She began to see them through oddly clearer eyes. They grinned like small wooden monkeys-like toys you pull on a string. Her loins were enveloped in a high voltage current. A wave of violent animal lust swamped her. She waited for quick flames to melt and consume her. It never came. It started to get dark in the room. Silly ideas began to invade her mind. Could she see it through or would she go raving mad? Her thoughts began to crescendo in thundering chords.
Then she did not move or speak. Soon she began to relax a little and fell soundly asleep.
Later, when the action was resumed after she had been rudely jolted from her sleep, Tina stood in the room smiling-taking photos. Now she was the special prey of the blackmailer.
CHAPTER TWENTY
In her fevered world she dreamed. Even her dreams were worlds of confusion. The pin-wheel of kaleidoscopic events darted in a frenzied maze of colors and distortions. Then she remembered the time and the place it happened. How could she ever forget that event? It was such a symmetrical experience. And he was such a symmetrical guy. She had come to his apartment with him directly from the beach. They dropped sand over the floor.
She had met him that afternoon and they had talked. He was built big and his muscles bulged everywhere. She had regarded him for a time-as she had seen him reading a book and wiggling his toes in the sand. She had planned the moment to attract his attention and now she wanted him to love her. Beside the sofa she noticed back copies of nude magazines on the table-all bosoms and revealing buttocks and jutting breasts. She felt herself unconsciously. There were no firmer nor bigger than hers. Her lips curled and she thought he would like her breasts.
He came back from the kitchen with a few cans of beer and some pretzels.
"How about a beer?" he asked.
She stared up at his incredible body and handsome face. She reached for the beer and he sat beside her. "I feel right at home," she told him.
His teeth were white when he laughed.
"Just swell-" he said. "Would you like to take a nice relaxing shower?" he asked her happily.
"Here?" she asked, her eyes blazing with surprise.
"Sure-here-where do you think I live-in the swamps without plumbing?"
She was enormously embarrassed. "It's just-that-well...!" she stammered.
He stood up, a mischievous twinkle in his eye.
"Follow me," he said softly. "I'll get the towels and if you ask me real kind like I'll even lather you down."
She gulped her beer. He was just right. She didn't have to push too hard. He was getting the message. He was wearing a tee shirt over his trunks and she gaped at his powerful thighs and wondered how soon they would be wrapping themselves about her. She felt a strong heat in her loins as she stood up.
"Are you a good masseur?" she asked, as she followed to the bathroom.
He opened the door of the bathroom and turned to her. "Get undressed. I'll show you all my talents," he said.
Her nerves bobbed madly in her body. "What about you-won't you get wet with your clothes on?" she asked.
He was pulling his tee shirt over his head. He stopped to stare at her with a wicked smile.
"I'm going to get wet with my clothes off."
She stared at his hairy, incredible chest.
She moved her head and smiled at him wisely. "For this time-please let me get undressed in there and you can do it out here," she begged. "Knock when you're ready to join me."
She liked the way he stretched his lips into a titillating smile. "Fine. I'll be ready in a jiffy."
Discreetly she walked into the bathroom and closed the door behind her. She was getting more hot and bothered by the second and she couldn't wait to get her clothes off. She knew what to expect and she swallowed a great lump in her throat.
Her clothes were at her feet and she observed her pretty form in the large mirror behind the door. She wondered how he would begin his heated passions with her and she heard the noise of children playing in the street below. She moved the shade down and began to adjust the water. Then she heard the knock and she turned toward the door.
"Come in," she called.
She heard her heart beat when he walked in and she tried to assume an emotional surprise. When she levelled her darting eyes at his nakedness she knew she wanted him to consume her at that very moment. She started gaping at him.
"Do you like what you see?" he asked.
She blushed. "Yes-yes, I do, very much," she stammered.
He patted her shoulder. "I'm for you as soon as you shower with me. Come on, let's get into the tub."
With the water cascading down upon both of them she floundered a moment and then blurted, "I liked you the moment I saw you on the beach."
She noticed his eyes drinking in the lower part of her body and she turned slightly away, too aroused to even smile or wonder.
With huge bathroom towels around them they piled into the bed. Suddenly she was yanked down and his hands were in her hair. Then she was submerged in the most torrid kiss she had felt in a long while. The towels fell onto the bed. They were both naked. She reached toward him with an aching delight and her mouth bonded itself to his. The feel of his ponderous frame was thunderously exciting to her and she lay back and held out her arms toward him.
She tingled with violent anticipation as he moved toward her. His hands cupped her breasts and then dropped to the small of her back as he crushed her fiercely to himself. Now she could not hold back any longer as the ultimate maleness of him thrust wildly at her. She felt a rush of him within her and it had never felt this way before. The sensations were so different-even the ultimate fusion of quivering orgasms as she erupted in sudden stabs.
Then she demanded more of him-deliberately, selfishly. He began to please her once more. She shuddered as he pressed within her and then there came the second pouring as she trembled and gasped and held dearly on to him. What was there about him that was so virile and impressive? Or was it her extreme eagerness to have sex with this man. All day she had felt strange stirrings and now he was hers. She wanted to be adequate for him ... she wanted that above all. Every inch of her being was on fire, consuming her until she cried out again and again as she felt the pleasures of his outrage upon her.
She smelled his body and felt a close connection to him. He moved frenziedly along with her in pulsating rhythm and she heard him gasp as she felt his flowing within her. Then he was hurting her and she tried to get on her elbow.
"Please-no more for a while-I'm pooped," she begged.
He slammed her head back on the bed. "Not yet, baby," he growled.
A strange look in his eyes sent shivers down her spine. She hadn't seen that look before.
Now she was frightened. "Don't hurt me, please," she cried.
Now his voice was anger mingled with flaming passion. He uttered an animal, throaty roar as he sunk himself deeper within her. She closed her eyes, sinking in painful darkness while he pounded her flesh until she couldn't stand it any longer.
She felt once more his pouring-so familiar, so grateful because his sensation was ebbing. She tried to recoil from him, but he was still interminably engrossed within her, searingly, in a rhymical beat she knew so well until her own searing agony was joined with his pleasure, so that now they were both one and the same again.
When he disengaged himself and went to the bathroom, she was limp and sated. She had given him what he wanted. He came back grinning.
"How was that?" he asked, beaming.
She regarded his fleshy mountain incredously. He was panting like a tired dog. She pulled the covers over herself. He flopped beside her biting the air in huge gulps, then he winked at her.
"You didn't answer my question," he insisted.
She continued to stare at him, stunned with complete release. He suddenly reminded her of a man who had finished a day's work-well done and awaiting compliments.
My God, she thought, did he always club a woman this way, would it always be like this?
"I think you know what a woman needs," she told him.
He sat up in the bed. "How long will that hold you, baby?" he asked.
"Until next time," she said weakly.
She got up from the bed and started dressing.
"Why are you leaving so soon?" he wanted to know.
She dressed quickly. When she stepped into her shoes she stared down at him. "When is our next date?" she asked.
She didn't mean it-not really.
"Here is my number." She handed him a card. "Call me when you think of it," she said. It was not her card. It belonged to a friend of hers who had moved to another state.
She squeezed softly past him and shut the door behind her. She ran from the house as quickly as she could and took a cab to her apartment. In the cab she remembered how good she felt physically-how smooth everything had gone until that look of wildness in his eyes and the rough handling that followed. He knew how to milk a woman, she recalled, but she liked a man with more finesse.
The dreams followed like hornets as she remembered others.
He was a handsome colored repairman, young and strong. He had completed repairing the upholstery on her sofa. She had taken a day off from work so that she would be home when he came. She felt a race-a color apart. His good strong looks were like strength from a past she wanted to understand. If she had a guarantee, she would offer herself willingly. She had gone about the apartment all day with a robe on and now as she was paying him, she noticed the wild gleam in his eyes as her robe fell apart. She knew a good portion of her thighs were exposed. She didn't bother covering herself. She wanted to see his reaction. She saw his face develop into a smile.
He pocketed the money, never taking his eyes from her.
"Is anything wrong?" she pretended.
He dipped his head solemnly. "Madam, you're all exposed there. Better cover up," she heard him whisper in a deep breath.
She stared at him-her eyes trying to tell him something. She wanted to end the pretension. She felt a surge of warmth flow through her-blinding her for a moment.
She forced a little smile. "Jimmy, what's wrong? Haven't you ever seen a woman undressed before?"
He moved back a step-his eyes fixed like daggers on her thighs.
"Sure man," he said softly, "but never a white woman ... never!"
There was five feet of space beside her and the sofa. She opened the tassle of her robe and spread it wide for him to see. "Then take a real good look, Jimmy," she said. "Would you like to-?"
Suddenly it was too much for him. He closed in on her fast. His hand shot out like lightning and tore the robe from her body. When he pushed her hard upon the rug she moved back willingly-his handsome black features now above her face. She closed her eyes as he disrobed rapidly but when she peeked there was too much that was so manly and strong about him so that she did not close her eyes again. In a moment he was on his knees above her and she parted herself for him-dazedly and delirous with a fever of passion. He looked even better naked than with clothes on-a black, shiny God from Africa.
She felt her body tauten-firm up entirely as she wanted to cry out for him to hurry. Suddenly she groaned and she was conscious of her feeble groan, and now she was beyond restraint. She heard him whimper above her as his desire swelled. She could feel her nipples swell into tiny fists as he massaged them briskly. She soon felt his large, muscular hands upon her flanks. Her agressiveness began to soar with his. She had never done it with a black man before. What was the difference? She had heard that they were virile, powerful lovers-and she decided to let what will happen.
She felt his movements upon her and she wondered why he had not even kissed her-but suddenly she felt deep stirrings ... and a huge, boiling pain was everywhere, fanning out across her entire body as his hands played across her skin. Her passions were bursting in exploding galaxies and she wanted to scream-to howl foolishly. Then the thing she wanted most happened. His maleness between her legs was gradually entering her and she forced her body toward him to encompass him completely. His filling of her warm body was complete-incessant-and suddenly all her pains were anesthetized. When his motions began she felt shocked back to life and in the area of his invasion she felt maddening, helpless ecstasy. Now she was glad, happy, she had taunted him into this. She might have missed this episode entirely if she had not been a little aggressive.
When she shook spasmodically into erupting orgasm he understood and let her lay back for a moment, watching her gasp, a little afraid he had been too much for her. He knew that he had speared and captured a white woman for the first time in his life and a smiling twinkle lit his face.
For many days she remembered this union. Society would say she had given herself to a barbarian. But not him-God, no-his primitive loving had mattered for days and nothing she did could dilute its stinging recollections. The world was full of words, hates, prejudices, chalk lines. But she was glad she had made the marvelous crossing. And for days she was sorry for all black men and for white women who didn't know what they were missing. A shaft of heavenly passion had consumed her, and set her life apart, aside from the feeble mortals who would never know this utter dimension of pure release.
It would grieve her that she could not impart the wonderful message to everyone she knew. But that didn't matter. She had embraced him-even possessed him-and now she was full with the happy memory. She would try never to let it escape. For days she considered herself a total woman-an exact woman, smelling better and moving more sure-footedly ... still thick with the trace.
In time the man from Mississippi might completely fade and she would slip back into the white man's swamp she knew. But the memory fastened and she began seeking out black men. She had learned to live a new life but she would have to hide the true shade of her preference.
And now the dreams and the snowy fields and the yawning chasms in the full moon where the ditches were dftgp and the earth around her was black, black, everywhere.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
It was as if all her life was being renewed when Marilyn saw the sun the next day. They dropped her off at her apartment-Tina waved the camera threateningly at her and said if she opened her mouth on the naked truth of what took place she would see to it that the pictures of her would be distributed into the right hands.
"So you better start changing the melody in your articles from now on," Tina warned.
She swallowed hard and hurried to her room. She stared at herself with the slightest smile in the mirror of the bathroom. She had had a quiet glory. At least she was still alive. That was all that mattered. It was a big advantage over cadavers, she mused. She was tired and bruised and she took a hasty shower and set her hair. She glanced at the clock. The girls were clever. They wanted no disappearance act on Marilyn staying away from the paper even a moment. She still had time to get to the office.
She thought back. Hers was a fundamental kind of chicanery. She had plotted against Lou and now the cart had reversed directions. Most people do things in life this way-in different ways and for different reasons. She stared at herself with a fixed smile. But she must have struck a travel sticker somewhere on her plans and aroused the foe. She wondered if Lou was behind it all.
When she was finished she poured herself a cup of coffee and sat silently for a while. She thought within herself. The experience had been totally unbearable. She gasped and rushed breatliless in a little stumble toward the window. She opened it and leaned out. She inhaled deeply. When she resumed her coffee she felt better. In some strange way she still possessed a determined ardor-an intense awareness that she needed the strength of a man.
She knew what can happen to a woman who is loveless-and the dilemma was so explosive it couldn't even penetrate her rational thinking. She knew she was still a very pretty, desirable creature and she was stretching out a ridiculous thing that would never happen. She went back to the mirror and stared at herself. Then she smiled and broke the mood. No-that would be too far-fetched. Besides, there was still Lou.
She called Lou into her office in the late afternoon. He looked at her as if she were a cold, unimportant thing.
"Lou," she said, "I have to go back home. My father is deathly ill. I can't finish the series. I spoke to the chief and he said for me to fill you in on everything and run the balance of it under your own name."
Lou knew she was trying to change-always changing-trying to paint over something-when the outline was difficult. Now he sat on the corner of her desk and stared down at her.
"Really?" he said, smiling wistfully at her. "When did you speak to him?"
"A couple of hours ago."
Lou's face tightened. "My dear, dear Marilyn," he said, "Only five minutes ago I told the chief I was resigning and leaving town. For good."
The girl stiffened. Something that belonged inside of her was departing. A large space in her life was being erased. She stood up. "You're kidding, Lou, tell me you're not serious?"
"I'm serious."
Suddenly a part of Lou was padlocked from her.
"What has happened, Lou? Where are you going?" she demanded.
"One at a time, Marilyn-one at a time. First, I'm getting married. Then I'm going to Chicago. I've got a good editorial post with the main paper there. I think I'll like it-."
She cocked her head sideways. "Did you say married?"
He laughed. "I did."
Her eyes spread like an ink-blot. "To whom?"
She saw him suddenly so desperately-a man with shape and boundary and his limits belonged to her. Louis looked at her with boredom.
"To Lora," he said quietly.
Her face was bathed in incredible disbelief. "Now, how in the world did you get that black character, Lou? You really are joking, aren't you?"
His eyes squinted hard at her from his upturned face.
"We're all pretty colorful characters, aren't we, Marilyn? You're white-I'm white-she's black. You think I'm tangled up, don't you?" he wanted to know. She started to stutter. He went on, "Just people-all of us-some bathed in a fraudulent halo of color-the negro the second banana of the human burlesque hopelessly trying to pinch an opening ... squeezed out everywhere like a tube of toothpaste....
He paused and looked daggers at her. Her eyes glowed like an incandescent lamp.
"Quite a booster, aren't you, for such a small payload like Lora?" she asked.
Now he was angry. "Cut the crap, Marilyn. You need a lifeline to reality," he said.
She turned around and walked behind the desk.
"If you can't beat them-marry them, huh, Lou?"
His eyes blazed. "You could have the common decency," he shouted, "to at least wish me luck."
He could see her ashen face, but she forced a smile.
"Of course, I will, Lou, of course I will." And she walked over and threw her arms suddenly about his neck and kissed him hard on his protesting lips. He untwisted her arms and set her apart.
"Thanks, Marilyn, but I wasn't referring to that kind of luck. But I'm sure you mean well."
She stared at him quietly. For months she had been so close to him-as if he had been her suction cup and now the romantic umbilical cord had become a link torn from her past. Now she was just the other woman-a female filing cabinet to store her memories. He had always been there in her life-waiting ... waiting. Something she could depend on. Then her thinking concentrated on immediate survival. If Lou couldn't do the column, who would? She could hardly afford to remain and complete the series after what she had been through.
In the last twenty-four hours she had been pointed, ungeared, twisted, pushed almost to depravity. And now where was she going? If she left what would she have to come back to having deserted a series before completion. Where to-what next? The impact was enormous and she must talk about it.
Her eyes suddenly roamed pleadingly.
"Lou-you must help me. I can't finish the column," she said.
The idea smelled to him like wet army blankets.
"Get another serf to do your dirty work, Marilyn."
She begged. "Nobody but you can handle it-you're completely familiar with the subject." Her eyes dropped. "You know that Tina girl real well, Lou, don't you?" she asked shyly.
He stared at her with a quick burst of pain. "Yes, I know her very well. And stop pretending and dishing out the innuendos. I know what you know-so we're even. But I'm equally through with her ... for good."
"You stupid, bitch newspaperman," she shouted, "how long do you think you'll last on your new job if I let it get around that you joined those girls in their private pad while you were on the job?" She stood waiting, breathlessly. "Tell me, Lou, how long?" she demanded.
He forced a cool smile to brush back his anger. Marilyn laughed acidly. Lou lit a cigarette and appraised her firmly. He was suddenly in the stiffling gloom of a lousy situation. She could ruin him on his new job and even smash his chance at marriage if he lost the Chicago job.
"All right, Marilyn, all right," he said gravely. "I'll finish it out for you in the next two days. But I want you to know that your whole life has been a he-bred on more lies and more lies until nothing is dear to you. You're lower than a mediocrity." He walked from the office.
Marilyn smiled when he left. She had arranged a lucky escape for herself. Now she could leave town for a few days and let Lou handle the lethal balance of the story.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Lou leaned on the bar and wondered what those loose ends of the series were he was to pick up and close. He turned and looked for Tina. The place was packed and it was almost midnight when she flashed by almost bumping him. He reached out and held her arm. She stared coldly at him.
"Well, well, if it isn't Mr. Newspaperman in the flesh," she said sarcastically. "Where's your lady bard?" he said.
He smiled. "Oh, Marilyn. She had to leave town for a few days."
Tina's eyes smiled mischievously. "Oh, indeed, I wonder why? It's a bit unusual, don't you think, for a reporter to quit in the middle of a series, isn't it?" she asked.
"Yes, I thought so too."
Her eyes narrowed. "Don't tell me you're finishing up for her?"
"I'm doing her a favor, Tina. As I told you before I had nothing to do with the articles except to provide background-not details. This time it's different. I'm supplying both."
Suddenly there was a strange look of pleasure in her eyes. "Would you like to come up to my place, Lou? It's still early," she said, a reservoir of deceit deeper than an ocean in her flaming eyes.
He felt a familiar urge pass through him. She did look so utterly attractive this evening. Maybe one last fling before he got married and settled down to a nice little home and wife.
"No conditions this time, Tina?" he asked.
A pulsating rhythm of noise clanged furiously. He strained to hear her.
"Not this time, Lou," she said, taking his arm.
He was plagued by doubts but he moved with her toward the street. Then at the door-she remembered she had to run down the hall and give one of the girls an important message. She asked him to wait for her inside.
He walked inside. He gave a sign of recognition with his eyes; but his body remained immobile near the door. Then he shut the door and looked for an uncluttered chair. There were none. The light had been left on and dim shadows bent lines on the walls from the open Venetian blinds. He drew the strings and closed them.
Empty beer cans were piled beneath a sink filled with dirty dishes. Menacing breeds of flies pecked softly at the bag of garbage filled to overflowing. The place stank. It would take a cast-iron posture towards the world for him to partake of Tina in these surroundings. Or an armory of guts. How had he stooped so low before? Crazy Lou. Curious Lou. Playing sexual patsy with a girl steeped in the ways of hustling a cheap dollar.
Down the hall in Leslie's room Tina was rushing a plan. Like Marilyn, Lou had to be stopped from completing the series. Where to begin? With the camera. The same camera with which Marilyn had been stilled. Tina would provide the scene, the layout, the production.
"We'll catch him with his pose down," Tina said, giggling.
Leslie's face became eager and thoughtful. "I guess that's the only thing to do," she agreed. "How much time do you need?"
"Give me fifteen minutes-then barge in and start popping those flashlight bulbs over the place. I'll have my head turned so I won't be recognized."
Her cheerful breasts surged as she saw Lou standing in the room waiting for her. She spread her arms with a smile. "Oh, no-I thought you'd be stripped and ready for me," she exclaimed, her voice carrying to overtones of camouflaged falseness.
What he secretly longed for was to disengage himself completely and quickly from this situation. About her-Tina-he experienced a sudden fallout of her sex appeal.
"Tina," he said slowly, "I've had a change of mind. I think I've been touched." He snapped his fingers. "Suddenly-girl-I don't need you and I want you even less. Do you mind if I blow?" He made a move toward the door.
She blocked his path, eyeing him carefully with a forced sweet smile. "Why, Lou," she said aloud, "you've been meditating with all the wrong people-that's what's the matter with you. Please, now, come out, come out, wherever you are. Can't you see I need you? Lou, look-please...." She began undressing rapidly and wildly. When she was stripped, the clothes piled at her feet, she tripped lightly toward him.
He stepped backward lightly-as cautious as a moose on thin ice. "Tina, get out of the way," he said not quite firmly.
She laughed wildly and her eyes rolled. She rubbed the palms of her hands wantonly along the soft and warm fleshy sides of her nudity.
"Snap out of it, Lou, I'm all here ... for you."
She began to close the distance between them. Then she was upon him-pressing her lips warmly against his. When she felt no response she tugged at his belt. She could suddenly feel him springing to life. He moaned helplessly for a moment-then began kissing her mouth, her nose, her ears, her throat. Over and over again. Against his open mouth she clamped hers and thrust savagely toward him. In a stupor she led him to the bed. Soon her body melted against his but he was still fully clothed.
She felt like a bucketful of cold water on hot stones. Steam was rising from Lou. Then he stood up and undressed with slow deliberation. She could see some strange thing troubling him. She wondered what it was.
Then his hands were on her hips, holding her close to him. She fought within herself to prolong the moment-to give Leslie time. In a moment she would burst through the door. Everything should happen just as she planned. One had to make plans to survive.
Suddenly the door was banged open-thrust almost from its ancient hinges. Tina "turned her head as she threw her arms and pressed her nudity against Lou. He started to raise his head. Then he saw-saw the girl and recognized her instantly-a wild stare in her face and the flashbulbs popped ... 1-2-3. For a second his eyes were without sight but in a flash he got the urgent idea. The whole thing had been rigged. To compromise him.
Leslie was angling for another photo when he hit her hard with his shoulders-sending her sprawling. Tina made a frantic dash for the camera on the floor. He reached it first. Both girls were now attacking him-desperately trying to get possession of the camera.
It was like trying to get the right of way in a brothel. He made a dive to the floor. His hand grabbed the camera. Two girls were on his back yanking his hair. His nostrils flared-his hair flew. He was determined. He tightened his grip on the camera. With an incredible force he heaved his body upward sending the girls flying through the room. He reached back like a catcher and heaved the camera violently against the wall. It shattered into a hundred futile pieces. He gasped. He ran to breathe with a surge of new life. He turned toward the girls. They stared at him incredibly. They looked ugly and confused. He moved rapidly into his clothes. He had brought the eagle to earth with his fist.
As he went through the door he threw them a smile of amusement. "So long, suckers," he said. He made a wide, sweeping gesture that took in everyone in the room. He grinned like an imp as he bounded down the stairs.
He could see the street sinking, fading out as he drove past the neighborhood. He felt like lead evaporating, collapsing. He had had a close call. When he was finished with the series a new race of girls would walk this earth, if it was at all possible. In the crevices of his mind he could feel filthy bugs crawling, clinging stubbornly to him. It was Tina and her group. They could never survive the historical smash-up that was headed their way. He glanced at his watch. He was excited but tired. He had almost been caught in a fiery flux.
He drove as in a dream. Then he was conscious of stopping at Marilyn's house. He didn't know why. He could see her image as if it were in a slot machine-tightly racked up with gum. It was late. He thought he could discern a light in her room. He was jittery as he rang her bell.
"Who is there?" she called.
He tapped the door. "Lou-Marilyn, let me in."
When he saw her it was as though he were arising from a reverie. He walked in and closed the door behind him. She stood back and observed him gravely.
"You look messed up, Lou. What happened?" she asked.
It was his turn to look surprised. "Get me a drink and I'll fill you in," he said.
He took a deep gulp and leaned back, sighing loudly as at a sorrowful memory. "Tonight I saw the tail of a comet, Marilyn," he said.
"Meaning what, Lou?" she asked.
"I think I know why you're quitting the story," he said.
She stared cautiously at him. How much did he know? "Then suppose you tell me," she said firmly.
He brightened at her words. "Did Tina and her bunch compromise you and get some photos for blackmail purposes?" he asked.
She reflected for a moment-then nodded. "You hit it on the head, Lou," she said sadly. "I guess I was too...."
Lou threw her a strange look. "Too weak to yell, huh, Marilyn?"
"I guess that's it."
He stood up and shrugged. "Well, don't be shocked. They almost made it with me tonight."
"You went back to that girl?"
A dark look flashed across his face. "Yes, but I got out in time when I gazed at my own image. Now the seizure is gone and I've passed beyond her. I'm glad for the experience." He toyed with his glass. "I'm finishing the series for you, Marilyn, but I'm hitting them hard."
Her mouth wrinkled. "I'm glad."
"Not under my name-under yours, Marilyn," he said solemnly, setting the glass down on the table beside the chair.
Her eyes lit up like the Vegas strip. She jumped up. "You can't, Lou, you know what they'll do to me?" she begged.
"I doubt it-but you'll have to take your chances." He walked toward the door. She clutched his jacket.
"Please, Lou, please." Her throat was dry sandpaper. She began to suffocate. "Don't let it happen to me-I beg of you!"
He turned to her. "I don't think anything is going to happen, Marilyn. Now this bomb is a dud," he said. "I've got them stewing in their stinking shit. Don't worry."
It was getting light in the street and everything appeared gray and normal. A new element of self-awareness was manifesting itself and he felt the portentious significance of it. He suddenly felt, with joyous surprise, that he could manipulate the controls of his life once more.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Lora stared at Lou. She sought her tongue. "You're sure, Lou?" she asked. His eyebrows climbed. "About what?"
"About us."
He walked over to the window, stared a moment at the street below. Then he drew the drapes a little. "With my whole body, Lora, and with my head too," he said firmly.
Her eyelids drooped lazily from the couch. "Everything is centered in the head. But does your head fit your body? Could you take colored children?" she asked.
His stare was fixed on her like buttons. He was leisurely undressing her doubts.
"You're talking about varieties of flesh, Lora. I'm talking of love. What are you trying to ask me with that loaded question? Are you asking me to turn around?" he wanted to know.
"Tell me the truth," she demanded.
"It's love, Lora, nothing more." He pounded his heart.
A dark look flashed across her sharp, pretty face and she leaned forward-her elbows on her knees.
"Tell me while it's light, Lou. I don't want to wait until it gets dark," she said.
"You're trying to isolate children by color, Lora. It won't do. You should know better than that."
"I want to be sure, Lou."
"Don't poison yourself, Lora, please?"
He stared at her ... an irresistible black creature trying to spool off assurances by the roll. He couldn't blame her. He had no secret to bury from her. He looked foggily past her.
"Let's dismiss this turn of thought, Lora," he said. "This is exactly as I want things to be. I love you exclusively, only you, and nothing on earth can swerve me. Not even you."
She made it toward him in two rapid strides and his arms opened to her instantaneously. For a second they thrived in a twilight and they spun their own web in a silent talk that evolves from spinning and weaving.
"Let those who do not approve fly a kite, Lora."
Everything was rising like vapor as he kissed her hard.
He placed the paper on the editor's desk and sat down. "There's the end of the series, Gene. It blasts the truth out of Garden Street."
Gene leaned forward and fondled the batch of papers.
"I'm glad you did it for us, Lou," he said. "Only I'm sorry to lose you. Sure you won't stay?"
It was a loaded question. Answering it was like trying to hold smoke under water. "I think Lora and I would be happier in a big city. Not too many people swooping down on you. We want to make us a thoroughly complete and fresh start together. I thought you might understand."
His eyes observed Lou meditatively.
"I do-I do, Lou, you know that," he said. "I remember an age when men were gullotined for doing less."
"That's exactly what I mean, Gene. It's harder in a little town like this. Sort of like a baptism by sticking your pinky in a goldfish bowl," Lou replied with a warm smile.
"I'm happy for you and Lora. She's a great girl, Lou."
He lit a cigarette and exhaled deeply. "I'm glad you like her, Gene. I think she's great, too. I'll try to get my joys on earth. Some have patience and wait until they get theirs in heaven."
Gene reached into a desk drawer and pulled out an envelope. "Take it, Lou, it's the paper's way of saying good luck to a couple of nice people. I've already peeked inside. There's a thousand bucks there for you both," he smiled.
Lou squeezed the envelope into his pocket.
"Thanks, Gene, this is a built-in advantage to my marriage that I'll never forget," Lou said solemnly.
He walked out feeling miraculous. The slate had been wiped clean. Everything that had to be said was explained. He stared aloft at the azure-tinted sky and thought how providence always puts opportunities in your path. In a quiet part of him there was a legend which he had nourished-of a tree and a woman beneath it called Eve-and she was holding an apple for him.
Linda had passionately withdrawn from the scene. Marilyn had departed with a mysterious smile from his life. An earlier elixir of his life had been drained and inexplicably gone. When the cup becomes too full it runneth over. All of the past had been finally extinguished. He couldn't remember in how long the dream of life had been so sweet. They had tried to move him around like a chess piece-to fit snugly into their individual inner sanctum. Women were like that.
They had everything geared up to function smoothly with a bon fire behind the urinal in the event of malfunction. Women. Absolutely guileless. Self-imposed drill masters. Whatever he had been, he had floundered and recovered. From the world about him he had nothing to fear. He was in it-part of it-and of it, totally. And so was Lora. Her vision to him was always like a fatal flower caught in the darkness, mellowing in its own glow.
He would have her forever-an exotic plant lashing and writhing in the night in an endless search to seal off time and space. She was waiting for him breathlessly when he rang the bell.
"I was afraid you would forget," she cried, opening her arms for him.
He enveloped her warm, small frame. "You were afraid I'd change my mind, weren't you, Lora?" he chided.
She shut the door. She looked radiant in a new fashion world outfit in monochromatic shades of beige. He saw her suitcases near the window. He withdrew the envelope from his pocket. He put it in her hand. She stared at it. "What's this, Lou?" she asked.
He bit his lips and shook his head. "I don't know. Gene told me to give it to you. Go ahead, open it."
Eagerly she tore at the corner of the envelope. When she opened it and extracted the thick green contents she had the look in her eyes of a woman who has loved and won.
"Oh, Lou," she cried, "what a wonderful gesture. How much is it?"
"I believe Gene said there was a thousand dollars there."
The color of her skin was heightened by a marble glow. Their kiss drowned the memory of all previous pains. Their eyes were joined and welded by an electric current of deep recognition. When they parted their lips were bruised and swollen.
