The Adventures of Claudia is a novel of the early 1930's, a time of great social and moral upheaval. We tend to think of our own day, the 1960's, as the era of the "sexual revolution," forgetting that the social mores of today are nothing more than the logical culmination of the revolution that began after the First World War. That was the period when the suffragette movement achieved its goal of universal female suffrage, with the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution, in 1920. It was the day of the "lost generation," with its free-thinking guru, Gertrude Stein. It was the era of the flapper, with her short skirts and bobbed hair. It was the time of the first blossoming of sex goddesses on the motion picture screen.
The American woman was coming into her own, and the world was being made abundantly aware of the fact. Movies had become the most popular form of mass entertainment, and the film industry had discovered the power of sex. At first, the filmmakers weren't quite sure of what to do with it, and we had a dual development, represented on the one hand by Mack Sennett's bathing girls, and on the other by Theda Bara's vamp. But it was Cecil B. DeMille's bedroom and bath format which set the style that is still followed today. At about this same time, the public discovered Hollywood and made it into a symbol-the city of beautiful girls, the sex capital of the world!
In literature, sex and women were not unfamiliar subjects, but the emancipated woman of the 1920's offered a new dimension of expression and a freedom from the restraints which had limited most earlier writers in their female characterizations. Fitzgerald, Hemingway, and others helped to create this new woman, who formed the mold of her life as she wished, who demanded to be mistress of her own fate. They recognized the American woman's desire for self-expression, and they gave it to her-but they tried to be scrupulously fair and honest, and they gave her the problems that went along with it as well.
No one will suggest that the unknown author of The Adventures of Claudia possessed the literary artistry of a Fitzgerald or a Hemingway-that kind of talent would not remain hidden behind a pseudonym like Joan Cabot for very long. Nevertheless, our author did possess a certain modest ability. The story line of the book does not exhibit very great originality or ingenuity, but it flows smoothly and its parts are quite well-coordinated. The characterizations are not very deep, but they do have a lively freshness and appeal about them. Most important, however, is the fact that the author seemed to possess an understanding of the mind of the "modern" girl of the 1920's and 1930's: her desires, what motivated her actions, her perplexities, and how she went about resolving the problems that beset her in a society which sometimes still displayed a hostility toward her and often had no compunctions about taking advantage of her.
This brings us to the question of who, or what, is Claudia Fenton, the heroine of our story. To answer this, we must think of her in the context of the time in which she was created. She is not, of course, the average girl of those tumultuous decades of the 1920's and 1930's, but neither is she totally divorced from reality. She is an exaggeration, but an exaggeration in the sense of being drawn larger than life rather than one which is a distortion of life. The complete, individual Claudia, with her amazing sequence of adventures and vicissitudes, would be hard to find, but the composite Claudia, the many girls who have experienced parts of Claudia's life, is very plausible indeed.
Specifically, Claudia is the distilled and concentrated essence of the "modern" girl of the 1920's and early 1930's. The heroine of our book was neither the first nor the last small town girl faced with the need for an abortion who chose to go to Chicago, partly because it would be easier to find the necessary facilities there and partly to begin a new life behind the mask of Chicago's anonymous millions. She was not the only girl to accede to the blandishment of admirers and take on the status of mistress, which simplified some of the economic problems of life, and after all, was the thing to do. Nor was she alone in discovering that in such entanglements romance is often short-lived and succeeded by disappointments and frustrations for one or both of the participants. And finally, many others, like Claudia, became sufficiently disillusioned with the free and independent life of the big city to make at least a partial compromise and return to a more circumscribed but relatively secure life in their home towns.
Thus Claudia is made up of bits and pieces of the lives of many girls, all rolled up in one rather appealing and sympathetic package. She exemplified the desires and interests of much of her generation. She acts for them and contends with their problems, resolving them to the best of her ability. We may not feel that she always decides wisely, as for example, when she permits herself to become involved with her lesbian neighbor, Billy, or when she puts herself under the not-too-tender care of Killer Jones. But would the average girl caught up in a similar chain of circumstances have acted much differently? Claudia is not the clever and resourceful heroine of romance; she blunders all too often, and she pays for it in full measure. She doesn't have a built-in reservoir of intestinal fortitude and unconquerable spirit. When things go well, she is happy and optimistic; when they go badly, she is disheartened. When a particularly low point is reached, and she simultaneously learns of the illness of her father, it is all she needs to throw off her last illusions about the big city and return home. There, in typical American tradition, she finds the promise of a more meaningful future.
One final word on the author of The Adventures of Claudia. Despite the feminine pseudonym, the book almost certainly was written by a male. In a general sense it reflects the typical male dream-fantasy of the beautiful girl subjected to a wide range of sexual experiences-and there is far more concern with the physical aspect of these experiences than with the emotional. Descriptions center on those elements which a man would tend to notice; this is particularly true in the descriptions of the female characters. Surely if a woman had written the novel we would have much more descriptive detail about Claudia's clothing than the few brief references to the color and material of some of her dresses. And unquestionably there would be a much greater concern with the emotional relationships with her lovers than we are given. And lastly, although there are the usual exaggerations of male staying and recuperative powers, the writer exhibits a considerably better understanding of the nature and functioning of the male in sexual activity than of the female. Needless to say, none of this helps in identifying the real author, who very possibly never will be known. But we may still enjoy his book, a work which may not possess great depth and complexity but more than makes up for it in sympathetic appeal and human interest.
Frank A. Hoffmann, Ph.D. Buffalo, N.Y., May 1968
* * *
CHAPTER ONE
Claudia lay in her warm tub, her young silken body caressed gently and lovingly by the tepid water. A feeling of lassitude came over her. She stretched her slender white arms overhead and unconsciously her hips undulated. She felt a peculiar sensation about her femininity. With gentle fingers she explored her genital orifice, closing her eyes with delight. Of late, she had felt more and more a strange longing, an overwhelming desire for she knew not what. Claudia was sixteen.
She raised herself out of the bathtub, her firm white body aglow from the warmth of the water, like a nymph arising from the sea. The figure-length mirror covering the bathroom door was clouded with steam, but gradually the mist cleared and the glorious maiden-form of Claudia stood revealed in all its wondrous nudity and flowing curves. If only some great painter could have beheld the sight of her rosy flesh rising from slender, rounded ankles into curvaceous calves, then melting into long, powerful, bewitching thighs, with the splendid hair-crowned V at their apex, then continuing with milk-white hemispherical hips tapering to an incredibly slender waist only to swell out once more into the exquisite breasts which stood out like twin rosebuds-if only some master-artist were present to preserve forever this picture of beautiful girlhood poised upon the threshold of life!
Claudia rubbed herself dry with a coarse, heavy Turkish towel. She studied herself closely in the all-revealing mirror. She turned and viewed her figure in profile. She stood tall and not too slender. She was unusually developed for her sixteen years. Some girls are naturally more precocious than others. In Claudia's veins there flowed warm pulsating Latin blood from her mother's side. She felt a thrill as she cupped her hands under her breasts. She did not need a brassiere, she thought. It was mean of Mamma to make her wear one. She hated the confining feel of it when she filled her lungs with air. Claudia did not realize it then, but she would always fight against stupid, silly conventions which interfered with her enjoyment of life. She was a natural rebel.
"Claudia!"
It was her mother. "Landsakes, child, are you ever going to get out of the bathroom?"
"I'll be ready in a minute, Mother. Does Daddy want me down to the office today?"
"Yes, dear. You had better hurry."
Claudia's father was the doctor in the little town in which they lived, and occasionally she helped out in the office.
She had breakfast and a few minutes later was in her father's office. When she got there she found that he had left on a call, so she made herself comfortable. There was no telling when he might come back. Her real duties consisted mainly in answering telephone calls. She thumbed through a few of the magazines scattered about and, becoming bored with this after a while, she selected medical books from her father's shelves at random.
Claudia possessed a healthy curiosity. She stared at the anatomical charts and tried to remember her own body as it appeared to her in the mirror. Then she turned to the chapter on "Male Glands and their Functions." Here was reading more to her liking. She pored over the illustrations. Claudia knew a great deal about the masculine makeup by now. In fact, if anyone was ever ready for the fulfillment of sexual desire it was Claudia. Before her she had a diagramed drawing of the masculine sex organ. Claudia had a vivid imagination, and as she sat there with the heavy volume in her lap, she almost felt the large, beautifully colored penis entering her sheath. She sighed and her hips rolled unconsciously and with natural rhythm. She wanted, she needed love. The telephone rang and it turned out to be Arthur Bolton, who attended the same high school she did. He asked her if she would go to a movie with him that night and she gladly consented.
She resumed her contemplation of the phallus revered by all ancient traditions as the seat of life. Old civilizations had honored the male reproductory organ by art works displaying that member in unashamed and natural glory. Her father entered, carrying his worn, black satchel. "Mrs. Duncan just had a baby, a little boy."
Out of the yearning in her to experience and to know all things in life, she answered, "I wish I could have a baby."
Her father laughed at the seriousness of her tone. "It's not as pleasant as you think, young lady."
That night, promptly at eight, Arthur Bolton tooted his horn outside of Claudia's home. She came out happy and eager for the society of a man-any man; it didn't matter. She got into the little roadster and wedged in close beside him, her hands reaching out to stroke the roughness of the tweed coat he wore. The little car tore along into the balmy night. The air was redolent with the scent of growing things and the wind pulled at their hair.
"Gee! Claudia," Arthur said, "do we have to go and sit in that hot theater tonight. Couldn't we just drive around somewhere."
Claudia's heart leaped with joy. At last here was an opportunity for love-real love. Of course she didn't want to sit in a stuffy theater and watch other girls crushed and mauled by virile, handsome men. It did things to her. Lately she would just twitch in her seat and her hand would steal beneath her skirts and her fingers would run gently over the tender lips of her vulva.
"Why no, Arthur," she said, barely able to restrain herself.
He gave her a strange look. "You certainly have a lot of pep tonight, Claudia. I don't know when I've ever seen you looking so well, either."
Claudia just snuggled closer to him. She could feel some of the tautness and restraint leaving her. Tonight she would experience ecstasy! Tonight she would receive her woman's rights!
Arthur drew up at last along the banks of the little lake which lay a few miles outside of town. There was a golden moon overhead and the wind whispered through the leafy trees. Claudia's soft black hair tantalizingly brushed Arthur's lips. A faint scent of the stimulating perfume she affected made him dizzy. He looked down at her and her glowing dark eyes were somehow wicked and mysterious in the moonlight. He took her smooth rounded chin in his hard, calloused hand, tilted her face and their lips met in a cool, tender, drawn-out kiss. He had kissed her this way before, and that had been all. But tonight Arthur had not reckoned on this new Claudia, this girl-woman who would not be denied. She nuzzled her soft cheek against his and thrilled to the feel of his adolescent beard. She exhaled her warm breath in a slow delicate stream in his ear and felt a sudden rigidity come over his body. Claudia was learning; she possessed a natural aptitude for love. She brushed her full, tender lips over his eyelids and felt him quiver in her arms. He was but an instrument for her superior skill.
"Claudia, honey," he whispered, "I can't stand this any longer! You're driving me mad!"
With an incredibly swift motion, his hand sped to his trousers and came forward with a sizable stiffened penis projecting from a bush of reddish blond hair. Claudia trembled. At last she was to know and experience that relationship which has motivated man since creation. His trembling hand ran up her delicately turned limbs and enmeshed the luxuriant curling hairs growing about her femininity. She felt a delicious, glowing warmth in the region of her crotch. She melted into his arms.
"Honey, please. Give yourself to me!" Arthur was pleading in a voice that would melt a stone. She suddenly realized dimly that his tiny car was no place to consummate her womanhood. It seemed somehow improper, not to say almost impossible, to perform the heavenly act in such cramped quarters. Her mind worked quickly. The ground was yet damp from previous rains. There was no question about it. She would have to postpone her inauguration into the hymeneal rites. From far off she heard the pleading voice of her companion. "No, Arthur," she said. "I can't tonight."
He was almost beside himself with infuriated desire. "So you're nothing but a teaser!" he sneered bitterly as he buttoned his trousers. "There is nothing I despise more than that. An honest whore is noble beside you. There is something cheap about a girl who promises everything and then welches."
Claudia was almost in tears. She wasn't that sort of a girl at all. She reveled in the idea of some day giving herself wholeheartedly to a man she was fond of. She saw nothing wrong in it and would continue to see no wrong in it as long as she lived. That was the destiny of human beings anyway-to love and be loved. She told that to Arthur and he saw that she was right. "Don't you think I want love the same as you do? Don't you think women have feelings and burn with the same desires you men do?"
He kissed her and told her she was a wonderful girl. He explained to her what an unsatisfied erection did to a man. He told her how sorry he was to have been so eager. It was there that Claudia learned that most women have better control of themselves than men. But that was before she had herself been inducted into the almost unendurable pleasures of sex. Claudia was an exception.
His penis seemed to have a magnet-like fascination for her. It had been the first real male organ she had ever seen. Her fingers itched to hold it and toy with it and almost unconsciously her dainty hands played about the front of his trousers. She recalled something about masturbation she had read about in her father's books. That would be one way of giving her lover some relief. Womanlike, she was already putting her mate's desires ahead of her own.
She slowly unbuttoned his trousers. He sat there helpless, unable to move while she captured his rod in her soft delicate hand. It changed from a limp, shapeless mass of flesh into an erect soldierly fellow, throbbing and swelling in her grasp. She stroked his manhood with ineffable skill for so inexperienced a performer. Claudia instinctively did the right thing in sex matters. In ancient times she would undoubtedly have been a high priestess in some sexual-religious cult. Her grasp on Arthur's penis alternately tightened and loosened as she drew it in and out, gently at first and then with staccato jerks. Arthur's face was writhing with unendurable agony. He kept saying, "Oh! Oh! Don't . . . stop!" Then the love-juice began to squirt hotly: first in short, spasmodic squirts, and then in a strong stream clearing the car by many feet.
Arthur was sighing now like a spent swimmer who has at last made his way to shore after a titanic battle. "Oh, Claudia, it feels so good! What a relief to spend oneself! Oh, Oh!" He emitted ecstatic sounds which made Claudia envious to think that she had been denied this tremendous pleasure. He lay there exhausted, too tired even to cleanse himself with his handkerchief. Claudia stirred uneasily. She had discovered that when a person of the opposite sex played with your sex organs, you experienced a feeling of rapture entirely different from that when you yourself did the playing. And Claudia longed for experience. She yearned to know and this was her chance to find out part of what she would later learn about the wonderful sensory mechanism which makes life so worth living.
By now Arthur had been appeased. He had cleansed himself and was caressing Claudia with loving hands. Yes, she again told herself, there was a definite difference. When Arthur played with her, the sensation was unmistakable. She again took up the love-play with Arthur, who was growing bolder with the minutes. His left arm encircled her waist and his hand crept slowly up to her breasts. His right hand cautiously stroked her graceful silk-clad limbs. He was so slow, yet the sensual pleasure was thereby intensified a thousandfold. Slowly and slowly his hand worked above her knees, crawling with a spider's touch along her well-fleshed thighs. His hands slid over her skintight silken hose. Gradually his questing fingers slipped across the lips of her vulva, then to her inner thighs and back again. A tremendous feeling of excitement surged up in her. Her breasts heaved and her hips began to rotate gracefully under Arthur's touch. "Go on, Arthur! Don't stop now. Sweet boy! In deeper! Deeper!" She was thrusting upwards to meet his joy-giving finger. Then she had a feeling of pain. She shrank back, but she could not deny herself the maddening pleasure of the genital stimulation. His finger gently sought admittance to the gates of heaven. But her maidenhead was the bar to fulfillment of desire. At last she was nearly driven crazy with alternate inexpressible rapture and rending pain. She looked down and saw a thin stream of blood flowing from between her thighs and she fainted.
When she came to, she saw Arthur's deadly pale, white face over her. He was bathing her temples with a handkerchief soaked in the cool waters of the lake.
"Are you all right, sweetheart?" he asked anxiously.
"Yes," she smiled. "It was only my maidenhead. Thank you for breaking it for me so nicely dear. Now I am really ready for love."
They kissed and Arthur drove her home.
* * *
For several weeks after her first introduction into the drama of love, Claudia lived quietly. Her exploit with Arthur had tended to let her down temporarily. She felt cleansed and bereft of the exciting emotions which had until then destroyed her sleep and made of her life a hell. Yes, Claudia was going through a rather dull period in her life-at least for what was to follow; because where Claudia was there would never be any dullness. Arthur called on her a few times, but she felt indisposed toward seeing him. She knew he desired her and would call again. With the healing of her ruptured hymen, however, all the old burning passions were revived. Once more her nights were sleepless and filled with lascivious dreams and longings. These dreams may have satisfied another girl, but not Claudia. She was too sensual and earthy a person, and her father's conservative blood was overbalanced by the hot Latin influence from her mother's side.
So when Arthur telephoned her that he wished to take her to the senior prom, she was more than just willing to go. Somehow, she felt that night would symbolize her freedom. She really did not have much chance to meet Arthur during the regular life in the little town, at least not alone the way they both wanted to. It was too easy to get oneself talked about.
It was the night of the prom and Claudia lay lazily in her bath enveloped in a steaming aura of jasmine bath salts. Jasmine was her favorite scent. She arose and soaped her luscious body. Her fingers touched her intimate organs delicately and she stopped regretfully. Tonight they would be united and caressed in nature's own beautiful way. What right had she to stimulate herself artificially. How could this compare to the actual masculine contact.
She dried herself and studied her figure with customary delight. What loveliness her mirror reflected. Tonight her beauty was doubly precious because it would contribute to Arthur's delight as well as her own. She took the huge powder puff she had recently purchased and dipped it in the daintily scented stuff she used, then ran its feathery touch over her figure. It gave her a luxurious feeling to dust her skin ever so lightly. The puff tickled her caressingly as she worked it carefully between her budlike breasts. She donned a new pair of peach-bloom step-ins with tiny little rosettes on each shoulder. Her breasts swelled the glimmering fabric in a manner to craze any man. No, she told herself, tonight she would not wear a brassiere. She donned her deep decollete evening gown and drew the rhinestone belt tightly about her trim waist. Her hips rounded smoothly and silkily behind her. Her vitally alive and gleaming hair, black like night, was tied in a little knot and it rested on the back of her creamy neck. She knew she looked her best and she was happy and proud. The bell rang and Arthur's handsome face appeared at the foot of the stairs. She came down like a queen, the dress draping itself about her thighs revealingly. Arthur could only stand there, stunned. Claudia smiled. She was beginning to realize the power she held over men.
When they reached the country club where the school dance was being held, things were well in progress. But the chaperones furnished by the faculty put a damper upon the naturally wild spirits of the students. The band blared out "Tiger Rag" and Claudia and Arthur stepped out on the floor. She seemed to dissolve in his arms. They stood in the center of the floor, their arms locked about each other, insensible to the world about them. Suddenly Claudia looked up to see the horrified gaze of old Miss Mehaffy. You crusty old bitch, she thought, you would be a lot more horrified if you knew all the things in life you had let slide. What can you know about how people with red blood in their veins feel? She whispered to Arthur.
"It's all right, honey. We won't stick around this old dump anyway. Here comes Ted now. We're all going out to the Red Mill. Ted and his girl Millie, you and I."
A few moments later they were roaring along the highway toward the notorious Red Mill. Ted drove. It was a large sedan. Claudia and Arthur sat in the back seat wrapped in each other's arms. Ted drove with one arm about Millie and grumbled about having to drive; but he didn't look over his shoulder. Driving with one hand and playing with Millie at the same time was job enough, because Millie was playful.
The wind roared by and the motor droned hypnotically in Claudia's ears as Arthur's lips blended with hers-long, moist, lingering kisses.
Their lips seemed glued. Their bared teeth met and an electric current ran through them. The car came to an abrupt and screeching stop as Ted slammed on the brakes with youthful exuberance. They piled out of the car and were swept into the infamous Red Mill by other seekers of excitement. A myriad of tables covered with red-checked cloths, waiters scurrying to and fro bearing drink-laden trays-red, red, red-the color of love.
They were escorted to a table in a corner from where they had a good view of the dance floor, the size of a postage stamp. Their drinks came and they sat there sipping them, toasting one another and clinking the ice against the glass. The liquor made them amorous. Millie leaned over and her curving young breasts were plain in the reddish light. Claudia saw Ted's face smeared with a look of passion. He was feeling Millie's leg under the table and she pretended to be angry and pushed his hand away-and the Negro band played "St. Louis Blues." With one accord Claudia and Arthur rose to their feet and swung with an old barbaric rhythm that years of pink civilization had failed to atrophy. There they stood, hips weaving-man, woman and desire. The muted trumpets had a silvery sound, the low ceiling seemed to descend even lower, and a fat colored "shouter" was moaning:
"St. Looie woman . . . with her diamond ring, "Got my man tied to her apron-string . . . " Claudia's plump shapely buttocks were thrusting forward to meet Arthur's roll.
The Negro woman shouted, her eyes half-closed, "Oh, sock it!" And they did, nearly delirious with delight. You could have fenced off one square foot of the dance floor because that was all they needed. "Oh, walk it, white folks!" the singer was half singing and half moaning. "Oh, walk it!" And the orchestra swung with every musical beat. They were not too far away from the jungle.
Now Arthur and Claudia were standing nearly still. He could feel her breasts with their points pressing like bayonets against his shirt front. The heat of the place produced an indescribable odor as a slight perspiration broke down the scent Claudia used on her body and the body smell of the fresh, virginal girl combined with the odor of perfume had a most aphrodisiacal effect. He looked down at her and whispered his desire in her ear. She nodded and they danced off the floor to a little stairway leading to the rooms upstairs where for a few dollars they could be alone and attain their hearts' desire.
Arthur made quick arrangements with a wooden-faced waiter and now they stood face to face.
"God," he said. "How I've longed for this moment! And now-now it's here!"
He was almost beside himself. His hands shook with passion. He was on his knees before her, pleading: "You won't let me down this time?"
She smiled down at him. "No, Arthur. I won't let you down."
She slipped off her gown and hung it on a hook and stood revealed in her nude loveliness. Arthur removed his trousers, hesitated a moment, and it seemed to her that all that was real and vital in life hovered like a rock balanced upon a precipice. At last he swept her up in his arms and his face slid down her soft white throat until it sank deep, deep into her fragrant bosom. He could feel her heart flutter like an imprisoned bird. At first he could not rid himself of the feeling of awe she afflicted him with. But now he understood that they were both formed of the same flesh, the same nerves and the same desires. Go easy, he thought; go easy. He ran his fingers up and down her sides like a sculptor modeling in clay. He felt her shudder underneath his touch. His lips thirstily sought the erogenous areas in her body: her lips, her neck, her breasts. He stopped at her lovely breasts and his lips played about the nipples which began to stand erect and to stiffen. He placed his left hand about her shoulders and drew her to him; his right hand had crept up along her legs by easy stages until now his fingers were buried in the jungle-growth of hair which covered her rounded feminine parts. He cunningly sought out the tender lips of her vulva and began to play a heavenly symphony upon them. She moaned and writhed under his touch. Once more she was whispering, "Deeper, oh . . . deeper!" and Arthur made haste to comply with her wish. His finger probed until he had located the clitoris, which by now stood erect and nearly ready for entrance. He felt a moisture and he knew then that she was ready. He placed her hand upon his penis to better enable him to make his way into her sheath.
"Together, darling! We'll ride away together."
And together they guided his throbbing love-stick into her vagina. She began to shake her hips like a hula dancer. He rode above her almost helpless before her furious onslaught. He was like a boat caught in a storm, a bit of wood in a ragtime tide. He held on until she should spend herself. He came first. As the hot flow spurted into her belly she began to moan, "Oh, Arthur! Wait for me! Wait!" and she came just a little later. It was like riding away on an enormous bird under the blue vault of the heavens. So that was what an orgasm was like. She felt as though some great pressure had been released from her brain and she was drifting off into unknown space. She lay flat on her back, as did Arthur, for they were both exhausted by the unaccustomed strain. A delicious feeling of lassitude came over her. She looked down at her body and it seemed to her that it belonged to someone else. With the greatest possible physical effort she turned to look at Arthur and he apparently had turned to stone.
They rested a while and slowly their desire became kindled once more. But now it was more of a languorous play. He held her loosely in his arms and his limp penis rested on her thigh. She took it in her hands and gently manipulated it and it wasn't long before it began to swell once more. It looked red and angry. It reared its head like a snake about to strike; and Arthur's arms began to lock themselves more rigidly about her yielding form.
She lay flat on her back while he mounted over her, supporting himself by his palms. She drew up one knee in order to provide him with an easy ingress. The other leg she spread out. Slowly he brought his prodder into her snug holster, and as it passed through her vagina, scraping the walls with its network of incredibly delicate nerves, a thousand chills shot through her system. She contracted her muscles and alternately seized and released his phallus. He was almost insane with ecstasy. Back and forth they went-a human shuttle. Claudia, with unerring instinct, weaved her hips in perfect accord with every swing and stab Arthur made. They made a beautiful sight there as they utilized perfectly the wonderful organs nature had granted them. Now he plunged his dagger up to the hilt, and for a moment they stayed that way. Then she dug her heels into the hollows behind his knees and strained upward mightily as though she believed he yet held out a tiny fraction of his penis. But he bore into her with everything he possessed. They reached the climax of the sexual union together this time. As the hot sperm jetted into her vagina and her own seminal fluid gushed from her glands to blend with his discharge, it seemed to her that the world had stopped in its orbit, that she had captured for an instant an ecstasy that had been sought since the birth of man. If only she could prolong this indescribable voluptuous sensation. But this is not the way with human physiology, and they separated in a state of blissful exhaustion. Claudia lay back, the love juices overflowing her womb. At last she was able to come out of her nirvanic coma and dry herself with a towel.
She turned to the exhausted Arthur. "Here, dear, let me cleanse you," and she proceeded to wipe the sticky fluid from his drooping penis. Her touch this time did not raise his rod and Claudia learned another thing: that there was a definite limit to masculine endurance. She herself, with her extraordinary passionate sensuality, was almost ready for another bout, but poor Arthur lay supinely on his back. After they were both somewhat recovered, they left the room and returned to their table, but Ted and Millie were not there. Arthur went out to see if the car was gone, but no, it was still parked near the roadhouse. They sat and waited for their companions with knowing smiles.
Time went on and still no sign of Ted or Millie. They began to grow a little worried. Arthur made inquiries from the waiters and discovered that their friends had gone into a little room at the head of the stairs. Claudia and Arthur tiptoed quietly up the softly creaking stairs with no particular plan in mind. They paused outside the door and listened. The protesting creaking of the bedsprings sang lustfully in their ears. There ensued a long, significant silence. The bedsprings had ceased their song of love. But some kind of sexual gratification was taking place because the sound of Millie's voice moaning feverishly assailed their ears. It had a profound effect upon Claudia, like the scent of a mare to a stallion. They were doing something there that was different than anything she had ever experienced. She was bursting to know just what it was. A chair stood at one end of the hall and it was but the work of a moment to place it before the locked door and use it to look through the small transom down into the room.
With fast beating heart, Claudia stepped on the chair and looked down. She would never forget this sight. It would remain in her consciousness forever as the embodiment of sexual gratification. Millie lay vertically across the bed, her legs hanging down and her head pointed toward where Claudia gazed through the transom. Claudia could see her lips working spasmodically and a pulse seemed to throb agitatedly in her throat. But Claudia nearly fell from her improvised perch when she saw there on his knees, face buried between Millie's shapely, pink-tinted thighs-Ted! His head bobbed back and forth like a cork in water. For the moment Claudia could not make out what he was doing, but only for a moment. Millie began to moan again, devoured in the conflagration of sex.
"Oh, Teddy, your tongue is like a flame! Like a snake when it strikes! Oh! Oh! Take the corners, angel! It's too much delight! Deeper!" And she wriggled from side to side. Ted's head followed her as though he had been grafted between her legs. "Faster! Faster, Teddy, I'm blowing! I'm blowing! Ah! Oh-h-h!" and her voice thinned away as she shook convulsively during her orgasm.
Arthur was looking up impatiently. "What are they doing, Claudia? What are they doing now?" he asked urgently, tugging at her.
"Nothing, dear," Claudia replied. Womanlike, she wanted to possess a superior knowledge in sex matters. She knew something now that Arthur probably was ignorant of and it might be easier for her to bend him to her will if she so desired. Millie and Ted were donning their garments and when they came downstairs Claudia and Arthur were quietly seated at their table.
When Claudia got home that night, she did a little thinking. There must be something the matter with her. She was certain of that. She had undergone two pretty thorough sexual experiences within a short space of one another and she still had an inner hankering, a yearning. In short, Claudia was not sexually satisfied after having gone through what would have exhausted any normal woman. She still felt a fever running through her veins which threatened to devour and engulf her.
Her advance to a woman's estate changed Claudia's outlook. Many things which she had previously noticed now took on a new significance. Flashy, overdressed women in the streets with their dawdling sexual walk and their occasional fleeting glances over their shoulders to see if they had attracted a follower, now were closer to her. Before her own experience she had never given this side of life another thought. She took to reading Freud and his theory of the "libido": that sex was the motivating power, the real and fundamental reason for the major portion of man's acts. Claudia was progressing.
She continued her liaisons with Arthur and she drained the virility from him. "My God! Claudia," he would say to her. "Are you never satisfied?" She resolved in some manner to work upon him indirectly and bend him to her desire. She would build him up to the point where he would go down on her like Ted had on Millie. He could offer her as yet nothing but the conventional methods of sexual gratification, and to Claudia at present, that was thrilling enough. But she resolved to utilize Arthur as her guinea pig. She was not quite ready to dispense with him in her quest for Eros; but when she would be, she would discard him as she did a used sanitary napkin.
She maneuvered Arthur carefully. Perhaps back in her head lay the idea that she would learn the general things about men from one particular man. She began to exercise more control over herself. She put Arthur off night after night until he was nearly insane with desire for her and to tell the truth she for him. But she realized clearly that by withholding herself she thereby increased her power. Claudia had not yet learned of Thais and other great courtesans; but she was gaining a great feminine and realistic grasp of sexual psychology. Claudia was still sixteen, but only arithmetically.
She compelled Arthur to take her to motion picture shows and other public places where she would be protected from him as well as herself. As for poor Arthur, he could not understand the change that had taken place in her. He was not gifted enough imaginatively to follow her intricate mental processes. He reasoned obviously enough that she had surrendered herself to him completely and with the utmost abandon, therefore she would be his whenever he crooked his finger. He did not possess the requisite subtlety indispensable to the consummate lover.
He would sit puzzled and frustrated in the gloomy sanctuary of the motion picture theatre and finger the girl-woman who was fast becoming a stranger to him. She would repulse his advances gently until his feelings were in a terrible state. No Tantulus tempted by the heaped delicacies just beyond reach of hungry out-stretched hands ever suffered more keenly. He did not comprehend that he was just the tool of a clever girl; a child, in fact.
One night Claudia consented to go for a drive out in the country; Arthur was almost beside himself with joy. It was a lovely night, and when they drew up near the little lake, the scene of their first tryst and the site of Claudia's defloration, Arthur spoke to her:
"Claudia, what's got into you? I can remember a time when you weren't so cold to me. What has happened? Is there anyone else?"
Claudia ran her cool soft hand over his flushed, troubled face. "There is no one but you, Arthur, dear."
He was happy and he crushed her to him. She knew she was safe so long as she remained in the car. Her head reeled and she felt giddy under the avalanche of kisses he rained upon her. The closeness of the passionate male!
She pillowed his head upon her fresh yielding bosom and held him tight, running her fingers gently over his dry, feverish lips. Tonight she would compel Arthur to bury his face deep into the seat of her sex. She thrilled at the thought. Life was to hold no secrets for her, at least not for long.
Arthur's hand was beginning to glide sinuously along her thighs; his head still rested upon her breasts. She drew him down lower and lower. He was so carried away by the burning, silk-like feel of her flesh that he did not grasp what was taking place. Now his fingers crept along until they were imbedded in the sensitive forest growth of hair which grew around her female orifice. Now like antennae his fingers searched out the liplike folds of her vulva and he stroked it gently back and forth; his other hand clasped Claudia about her slender waist. She held his head firmly between both hands and kept pushing him down lower and lower until he lay upon the floor of the car, his head resting against her thigh. She pulled him to her, pressing his face deep and hard against where her legs joined together to form their glorious V. He tried to speak but his voice was muffled by her sweet strength. He was trying to lift her skirt and she released him for a split second so that he could reveal her treasure. When he had done so, once more with irresistible power she drew him to her until his face was buried deep in her femininity, as though he was smelling a bowl of roses. He was on his knees now and if he had any notion of resisting, he was beyond human aid; he was carried away by the power of age-old emotions which lie dormant until some urgency electrifies them into life. His tongue darted in and out of her vagina which opened under the stimulus like a flower unfolding its petals to the sun. Tremors ran through her, shaking her to her soul. She clenched her teeth together to keep from crying out. Her long, tapered fingers were transformed into claws which found a hold on his hair while his tongue, like a delicate instrument, probed hitherto unsounded depths. Her rigid fingers slid to the nape of his neck and her nails drove into his flesh, but Arthur in his mad frenzy was beyond extraneous feeling. The seat of the car seemed too small a space for her to confine herself. Her body undulated slightly; her hips pivoted as though she were a sphere spun on an axis. She began to spurt within and an indescribably delicious sensation permeated her body. Claudia felt as though she had captured all the rapture the world had to offer. Again her excretion ebbed and flowed like a tide as Arthur's draining lips were glued to her pouch. She could not restrain herself any longer.
"Quicker, Arthur, quicker! Oh, suck me!"
The climax came and it seemed to Claudia that anything that had ever been pent up in her life had now been released. She experienced a glorious sensation of escape and freedom. Her mind and body seemed to become separate entities soaring away from each other, off into unknown and uncharted space. Arthur fell away to the floor, exhausted, having spent in his trousers.
Claudia had added another triumph in her quest for sexual expression . . .
That she had undergone some sort of outward change was quite apparent to Claudia's friends. Her mother sometimes eyed her with a peculiar expression; her father would glance at her carelessly and remark that his little girl was growing up and indeed Claudia was.
School had become hopelessly boring and stupid to this new Claudia. She contemplated the dull earnest faces about her with blas' eyes. She had been like that once, but that was long ago. Now she was equipped with knowledge that you couldn't find in school books-knowledge which was far more important and certainly vastly more satisfying than anything one would be apt to find between the covers of some musty old volume.
She had finally been forced to drop Arthur because people were beginning to talk and besides he had been too dull to keep pace with her own bright mind. Claudia was looking for new pastures to graze in, and the desired pasture was supplied by the hated and despised school. Venerable Mr. Gillingham, the white-haired history teacher, had been forced to retire because of illness and a new instructor was coming from the state college. Rumors flew about with the speed of homing pigeons winging to their nests. He was tall and handsome and had wavy hair. He had been an Ail-American football hero at State. Claudia gave little heed to these idle rumors. Her interests were no longer centered about school. She was already considering asking her father's permission to drop out. But then came a certain Tuesday when Claudia stopped looking out of the window to rest her eyes upon the teacher's desk. There sat a wide-shouldered young man dressed in a well-tailored blue suit. His wavy blond hair was carelessly rumpled. Level eyebrows nearly met above the bridge of his classic nose. His blue eyes were rather cold and stern. That this man would be hard to handle was her first impression.
"I'm your new instructor," he told them in his deep, vibrant, masculine voice.
Claudia gazed at him with new interest. This was a man! All the girls were wild about Mr. Thomas from the first. Tommy Thomas! His exploits were almost legendary. During his college days he had nearly eloped with an heiress to a fabulous fortune made in the sugar industry. The papers had been full of the story, and now he was teaching history; but only temporarily, they understood, because the university was soon to send him upon a historical exploration.
The history class was swelled with newborn interest. The girls were awed and could barely recite when called upon. Mr. Thomas maintained a kind of romantic aloofness which became him well. Claudia made no special effort to attract his attention. She had more subtlety.
One day Mr. Thomas decided to revise the seating arrangements. This put Claudia in the first seat on the outside row to the right of Mr. Thomas' desk. Late that day, as Claudia sat somewhat negligently in her seat, she looked up suddenly and happened to catch Mr. Thomas' eye upon her with a peculiarly ardent expression. Until then Claudia had entertained none of the typically romantic girlish notions of her companions. Though she had progressed far beyond any of her classmates in the mysteries of life, she still thought of such a mature and strong man with a little awe. It had not occurred to her until that instant that, large or small, old or young, rich or poor, stupid or intellectual, the physically normal man would respond pretty much the same to female provocation. Claudia made her plans accordingly. She set out to win Mr. Thomas.
Claudia prevailed upon her mother to allow her to purchase for herself the finest and sheerest silk hose the town afforded. She wore the most daring and alluring clothes and the daintiest and scantiest of underclothing. Her mother grumbled, but Claudia was an only child, and her slightest whims were gratified. Her father twitted her as though she were engaged in a puppy-love affair with some callow youth of the town. Claudia would practice before her mirror for hours: learning to walk with a graceful hip-swinging stride; she would watch her posture as she sat, how her legs appeared when she crossed their slim loveliness; how to reveal just a bit of intriguing lacy lingerie. She was going to make herself technically perfect at the love-game. She went about her business like an accomplished and conscientious actress perfecting herself in some new and entirely different role. Her efforts bore fruit.
Mr. Thomas had decided to conduct an essay contest among his class. There were to be two winners, both of these were to be rewarded by being treated to a Shakespearean performance given during the same week at the local auditorium by a famous repertory company. The subject for the essay was optional, just so it dealt with a famous historical personality. Claudia wrote her essay around Catherine the Great, ever to her one of the most glamorous figures in history. She wrote her paper carefully and well. Her natural interest in this exceptional woman led to an unusual study. Claudia and a slender, owl-eyed youth won the prizes. Mr. Thomas did not, however, read Claudia's paper to the class. When the session was ended the following day he asked her to see him. Claudia waited until the others had gone: she stood near Mr. Thomas' desk.
"Sit down, please," he told her. He studied her out of puzzled eyes; in his hand he held her paper. In blue pencil he had underscored certain words and phrases. He began rather uncertainly:
"Frankly, Miss Claudia, I really don't know what to say. I've seldom read stuff like this in the works of the most mature biographers, let alone in an essay by a child."
Claudia flushed. "I'm not a child," she pouted.
Mr. Thomas smiled. "Yes you are, and a particularly lovely child."
Claudia was irked. This was not what she wanted. It would not do for him to carry the impression that she was a child. She knew that a first impression was a stubborn one and hard to erase. She had to startle him and bring him to his senses, to the realization that she was a competent and desirable lovemate.
"Catherine was a woman of super-abundant vitality. Freud says in his book that the sexual urge manifests . . . "
Mr. Thomas cut her off, his face suffused with a rising tide of color. Claudia smiled. It would not matter what he said or did. She had made herself felt as a vital feminine personality. Let him sleep on that.
In the days that followed, Claudia developed the trick of watching Mr. Thomas' face in the mirror of her purse. Her silken-sheathed limbs held him entranced as he stared at her with troubled eyes. Below the desk, Claudia would gradually raise her skirts over her rounded limbs until her rolled hose would show, and the dazzling white flesh of her thighs hinting at the promised land beyond. Mr. Thomas' eyes grew parched and what Claudia saw in her mirror confirmed her faith and confidence in her personal charms.
Mr. Thomas told the two winners of the essay contest that he would call for them in his car Friday night and he told Claudia if she wished she could avail herself of a chaperone -possibly her mother. Claudia smiled inwardly. How stupid men were and what dishonest and evasive measures they habitually used to attain their ends. Claudia waited for Friday to finish the snail-like progress of the school week. Life was once more looking up.
CHAPTER TWO
Friday night sluggishly edged its way through the calendar. Claudia's instinct warned her that this night would presage an entirely new experience. She bathed and dressed with great care; she must be at her seductive best for tonight. She donned a filmy chemise over her roseate body and a deceptively simple little dress with a wickedly low neckline. She removed the stopper from the perfume bottle and daintily touched her lips, her bosom and her hair. The doorbell rang and she went forward with her peculiarly swimming gait, a vision to delight any man. When Mr. Thomas was received and his blue eyes met the sparkling humid orbs of this dazzling creature before him, he had perforce to look long and deep to reassure himself that this beautiful young woman was a demure student in his class. Claudia looked mutely to him for assistance in putting on her coat. Then Thomas held it up so that she could snuggle her svelte figure within its folds. His hands brushed her shoulders and the titillating odor of her scent shot a thrill through him. His hands had a tendency to linger.
"Oh, by the way, Miss Claudia," he said, "Robert, our other prize essayist will be unable to go-he's confined to his home with a cold. If you like, I can postpone our little theater party . . . "
Through it all he devoured her with his eyes and it was all Claudia could do to restrain her laughter. At that moment he looked for all the world like a little boy who had performed a misdeed and was wistfully attempting to square off things. Of course he wanted her. Then why did he have to go through this silly rigmarole?
"Of course, we'll go," she told him. "That is, unless you have made other arrangements."
"Oh, no . . . no," he reassured her with ludicrous haste, and they left the house.
Once on the highway Thomas' spirits returned, and he was once more the masterful, sophisticated man he really was. It was apparent to him that this girl knew what was going on and would have to be treated as an adult. He told her as much.
"Miss Claudia, I want to beg your pardon for treating you in the moronic manner I have."
"Then from now on things are going to be different?" Claudia asked him sweetly, drawing closer.
"Yes, of course."
"Then call me Claudia."
"If you will call me Tom?"
Things were moving rather swiftly between them now. He drove with one arm about her supple waist. She thrilled to his muscular hardness. They were drawing near the theater now. Suddenly, upon impulse, he said boyishly, "Claudia, we don't really have to go to that old theater, do we?"
This was more like it, thought Claudia. "Well, Tom, where would you like to go?" she asked innocently enough.
"Well," he replied, "we could go over to my place. I've got music and perhaps you would like to look at some of my books. I've got one about Catherine the Great."
"I don't know . . . " she said doubtfully, getting a thrill when his face plainly mirrored his disappointment, and how it lighted up when she did at last consent to go to his place.
It was indeed a lovely little place, a small bungalow on the outskirts of the town amid a delightful seclusion. Chances of interruption were slim. Claudia liked the masculine atmosphere. A picture of Tom in his revealing togs fired her with desire, he was so beautifully built. Here was a man, a man a woman could gladly give herself to! There was nothing juvenile about Tom. She was tired of the simple boys she knew. Tom was different.
"Drink?" he asked after they had taken off their coats.
"Please." She turned on the radio while he went into the kitchen.
He returned in a moment with a loaded tray. They clicked glasses and Claudia swallowed a goodly share of her highball. A famous Chicago orchestra was pouring insinuating rhythms into the room. Claudia draped herself full length upon the chaise lounge, her lovely figure outlined in all its splendid symmetry. Thomas studied her, glass in hand, his eyes smoldering in his pale face.
"You know," he said, "you're a strange girl . . . "
"Don't start that now, Tommy. Let's dance." She didn't want him to begin talking in that vein, as though he were taking advantage of her. She could take care of herself. She did not know all there was to life, but she was learning, and tonight, she was determined, she would learn another lesson in pleasure.
He held her rather loosely in his arms, as though he feared he might do her bodily harm. She would soon change that, she smiled to herself, and gently drew closer. His arm tightened about her curving form. She nestled closer still, her head resting upon his expansive chest and she began to work her thighs against his gently. She felt something growing slowly against her dress; it seemed to work its throbbing way through the flimsy material, boring into the juncture of the thighs. It swelled larger and larger until all that Thomas could do was to stand rooted to the spot. Claudia's hand dropped with seeming casualness and grazed the front of his trousers. It was as though the man carried a concealed baseball bat, so large and so stiff was his penis. Claudia trembled with suppressed delight. This wonderful thing was going to be hers and tonight . . . yes tonight! She would break down all those childish fears Tom undoubtedly had about her. If the stories told about him were only moderately true, he had lived life at a pretty fast clip, and she was going to live part of it with him. He was probably afraid of exposure and the fact that she was under age "jail bait" was the term she had heard used. It was up to her to take the initiative.
Claudia twined her arms tightly about his neck and began to swing her hips in an oval orbit, gently massaging Thomas' inflamed and tumescent shaft. Thomas was no longer in possession of his normal senses. His hands descended inevitably and uncontrollably upon her tautly-fleshed buttocks and he lifted her to him. All pretense at dancing was tossed to the winds. Thomas felt himself ejaculating in his trousers. The spurting liquid seemed to come from the base of his skull. When he had finished he released the girl and sank into a great overstuffed chair which squatted in a corner. His throbbing head was buried in his hands. He felt ashamed of himself for having committed so childish an act-and with a child. But, by God, she was no child and she couldn't get away with something like this on Tommy Thomas! No woman ever had and this was no exception.
"You wait here a minute," he commanded brusquely. "I'll be back in a jiffy."
As he left her standing near the radio, her breasts rising and falling beneath the flimsy material of her dress, he thought he detected a gleam of amusement in her eyes. Well, he'd change all that in a hurry, he reflected grimly. He entered the bathroom and washed and dried himself and donned pajamas and a robe. Now he'd see how far this innocent little bitch would go. He'd give her something to put in her diary after he had put it into her.
When he got back she was reclining once more upon the longue. She had flung her shapely body upon it carelessly, for her dress had worked its way up over her knees and the white skin of her thighs gleamed. He dimmed all the lights, with the exception of one little bulb which threw a lascivious red haze over the room. He tuned down the radio and stood over her . . .
Claudia saw him through a faint reddish mist. He bent over her, drawing closer and closer until she could feel his hot breath upon her cheek. He brushed her cheeks, her brow and her eyelids with his moist lips. Claudia pressed her fair face against his, gently turning against his lips until they both met in a burning, drawn-out kiss. He let himself down upon the sofa, swinging her body easily above him as though she were a baby. This was no mean feat. Claudia was a tall, healthy girl. He cuddled her to him, rocking her in his massive arms. Claudia lay on top of him, her yielding flesh pressing against him with intoxicating warmth. To his searching hands she felt like a bundle of fire.
Claudia lay relaxed and incapable of any motion; she seemed to be in the clutch of a straining giant. Apparently Tom was carried away by passion. They lay together in that state for moments, when suddenly he arose with her in his arms and carried her into his bedroom.
Claudia felt his nervous, fumbling fingers unbuttoning her dress. She helped him; and when at last she lay naked and unashamed upon the dark coverlet, her ivory-white, tenderly rounded body with its swelling red-nippled breasts melting into the softness of the bedding, Tom could restrain himself no longer-for that matter what man could? He mounted her, resting on hands and wrists and knees, her beautiful slimness outstretched beneath him.
From between his own legs there projected eight inches in length of feminine pacification. Claudia reached up with fond hands and guided his dagger into her receptive sheath, where it fit without any room to spare, in fact it caused her considerable pain-but it was a curious mingling of agony and delight. Thomas let out his organ slowly and cautiously like a construction worker paying out a length of rope, but when he had sounded her depth, she emitted a little wail, "Oh, Tommy, darling, you have put your prong where no one else ever has before!"
Tommy began to pump and Claudia to writhe in ecstasy beneath him. Waves of agonizing delight filtered through her. This was really fucking! His peter seemed to swell and grow larger within her repository. It extended the muscles of her tight vaginal tract and she was almost insane with pleasure. Her pelvis rotated madly and as a result of their close sexual cohesion, Tom played but a passive share. There was none of the customary slipping in and out; Claudia was as yet too tight. Like a runaway horse she had the bit in her teeth and dashed off in her mad race. He was forced to follow her lead as she gyrated beneath him. He reached for the bed posts and held on until they should both drop back with passion-charred frames, but he had not reckoned on Claudia's amazing strength. Powerful a man as Thomas was, and experienced as he was in the ways of love, he was but a willing and helpless foil in Claudia's hands.
A lesser man might have come long before, as a result of their almost unbearably tight union, but Thomas forced himself to think of other things to prolong his ejaculation. But even he could no longer withstand the onslaught of this sex-mad Venus to whom he was a helpless but willing Adonis. He felt he could not retain his seeping seed any longer.
"I'm coming, Claudia!" he cried chokingly. "I can't keep it back!"
Claudia could not answer because her own hot flow began to ooze simultaneously with Tom's molten discharge which felt like liquid fire in her depths. Only inside of her she felt a gush of indescribable sensations. She felt an inner urge to raise her voice in song, but when she at last was able to give utterance, all she could say was, "Tom! Ohhh! Tom!" She gave a few last writhes as though to milk him completely of his semen, and gradually, as he emitted the lava-like flow of love-liquid, his penis slowly shriveled and slipped slackly out of her passage. They drew apart, panting like exhausted athletes after a grueling contest.
At last Tom was able to gasp, "Claudia, darling, where on earth did you ever learn to love like that? How could you learn so much in so short a time?"
Claudia glowed under his praise. "I have you to teach me more, Tom," she said shyly.
"I know you must have been with many women."
He protested, telling her she should not believe all the wild stories she had heard.
Claudia smiled. "That's quite all right, darling. I wouldn't love you as much unless you had had some experience, and don't try to tell me you haven't. What about that heiress?"
"Sweetheart," Tom said seriously, "you've made me forget any heiress that ever existed, and for that matter, any other woman."
It was sweet flattery to Claudia to think that she compared favorably with all the dazzling, mature women Tom must have known.
She reached over to where he lay and, twining her arms about him, gave him a long intimate caress, smoothing back his rumpled curls, brushing his throat with her moist lips, and all the time she watched his shrunken penis rising to life. Tom had the quick revivatory powers of healthy, hot-blooded youth. He lay on his left side and encircled the rounded column of her neck with his left arm. He slid his right leg in between both of hers and with his right hand he played upon passion's keyboard as though it were a piano. His fingers lovingly fondled the fat-lipped crease between her legs. Her female orifice opened wider and wider under his stimulation. Tom was a man who took his time. His questing fingers gradually worked their way inward until they encountered the clitoris, and under his skillful manipulation, Claudia learned the true meaning of "unendurable delight indefinitely prolonged." She lay there quivering under his tense body. And when at last her torrid crevice began to become moist and slippery to his touch, he slowly eased in his sizable shaft; but this time he did not put it in to stay. In and out he slid its length until he reduced her to a moaning pulp. She wrapped desperate arms about him to compel his moving prober to stay put, but Tom had other ideas. At last, having exhausted the possibilities of this method, he grasped her plump round buttocks with both hands and drew her into him. They both ground away, their bodies seeming to melt together with the heat of pure animal passion. As they reached their emotional and physical crisis, it was too poignant for Claudia and like a mad tigress she sank her white teeth into Tom's muscular shoulder. He swore but only held her closer so she could hardly breath. At last they emptied themselves of their pent-up juices, first in short spurts and then in that wonderful smoothly flowing release of love's lotion. Although both felt a great peace, so strong were their emotions that they yet clung to one another, their bodies scorched by the winds of desire.
At last Tom arose. He attempted to raise Claudia in his great arms, but no, he did not possess the strength. He laughed softly.
"You see what you do to me, dear," he said to her.
Claudia pretended to be sorry. "I shouldn't have let you, honey," she told him regretfully. "You might strain yourself."
"Try and stop me, you wild woman," Tom said. "You ain't seen nothin' yet." He made as though to spring into bed once more, but Claudia had come to her senses.
"They will be expecting me home, darling. It's late and besides there will be other nights."
They both went to the bathroom and cleaned up. A feeling of deep peace came over her. This was the only way in which she could purchase emotional quiet. Tom drove her home and left her, after pleading to see her later in the week. He begged like a little boy and Claudia could not help but feel proud when this great handsome young man pleaded for her favors.
"We'll see," she said like the natural coquette she was. Claudia was learning fast.
It amused her during the following week to watch the way Tom maneuvered to get to speak to her alone. She purposely put him off until he was beside himself with desire for her. He would ask her to see him after class under the pretext that he wanted to talk to her about her school work. She would sit some distance away watching him out of amused eyes. She learned the terrible weakness of a man who is in love.
A week went by and now it was Claudia who began to feel within her the stirring of desire. She found out that she had cravings also, and they left her powerless. It was in this condition that she consented one afternoon to see Tom after class. She waited until all the other pupils had left, and then she sidled up to him with her voluptuous, swinging walk.
"Now, Claudia," he said with a weak attempt to enforce his authority as her teacher, "this last paper you handed in is not up to your usual standard. I'm afraid you are not showing your customary interest in your work."
Claudia leaned over him and her fresh pear-shaped breasts swung out slightly from their splendid hollow. Poor Tom could only stare in fascination at the lovely, pulse-quickening sight.
"You're not showing much interest in the paper either, teacher," Claudia teased.
Tom stood up and towered above her. She looked up at him with slumberous, provocative eyes. He swung her feet off the floor and cradled her in his arms, crushing her, smothering her with flaming kisses.
"Put me down, Tom!" she cried. "Someone might come in!"
"Let them,'" he said hoarsely. "You can't play around with me. You're mine."
"Yes, yes," she said urgently. "But lock that door. What if someone comes in and finds us here?"
He would not set her down, but carried her to the door and locked it. He bore her over to his chair and placed her on his knees and his hands went to her tempting breasts. He put his mouth to her nipples and began to blow upon them with his fiery breath. They grew erect and hard under his ministrations. His hands worked up her legs until they reached the converging lips of her sex and then he knew he had her. Her heavy lashes drooped over her eyes and her breath came in convulsive sobs. When he had her writhing in her arms, crying for him to give her relief from her excitement, he turned her around in his lap until she faced him and she straddled him between her legs as though she were riding him like a saddle. He bared his penis and lifted her up until she had become impaled upon the shaft, and when she felt its hot length imbedded into her vaginal tube she began to dominate the sex play, for after all, Tom was in a stationary position and it was up to her to impart sweet rhythm to the carnal act. She writhed like a serpent in his arms and once, in her excitement, she rotated her hips in such a wide swing that his penis slipped out of her two sections of moist, hot flesh and they both sought with frantic fingers to replace his raging organ into her cavity. There was no earthly power capable of stopping them now. They climaxed their passion with the inevitability of a rock rolling down a hill, and Claudia found this new position productive of great pleasure. At last they poured out their lava and for the moment they slaked their sexual thirst.
When they had finished, Claudia slipped from his lap and arranged her clothing. Tom walked rather stiffly to the door and opened it. He breathed more freely now. But he was worried. No woman had ever aroused in him such physical desire before. It had been sheer madness to have risked detection in this manner. He told Claudia he was sorry for having behaved so impulsively and that he would not behave like that again.
Claudia came close to him and whispered: "Tom, dear, don't you see that we are up against something that is bigger and stronger than either of us. I'm not afraid of it because I know it is part of life. Don't you remember Oscar Wilde's Helas? And these lines?
" 'To drift with every passion till my soul, Is a stringed lute on which all winds can play.'
"That is what I want. I want to know and feel all that a person possibly can. If it is part of life, I feel it should be experienced."
Tom could only look at her and stare. He was amazed to hear such a mature thought (he had already borne the brunt of and could testify to the maturity of her physical passion) coming from so young a woman.
"I have never before known so gifted a person." he said. "There is no doubt in my mind but what this town is too small and limited for your talents and your personality."
Tom was no fool and could see the handwriting on the wall.
Claudia was hurt by his words. "Oh, Tom, I've been so happy here the last few weeks, and all because you have entered my life; and now you talk of my leaving. Are you tired of me already?" she asked, and came close to him, insinuating her thighs against the front of his trousers, rubbing gently in the way she had. In a moment his inflamed phallus was in her soft grasp, but this time they could not chance an unexpected interruption. Tom sank back in his chair, his legs under his desk while Claudia gently frigged him, catching the hot flow in her handkerchief. He could not resist her volcanic lust, and there were to be few men in her life who could.
After this episode, Claudia's life swept on evenly; but she understood by this time that existence was full of lulls, depressions between the peaks, and one had to accept them gracefully. Something would happen, and when one was as beautiful and youthful as Claudia, something generally did. She was not the kind of a girl that men forget.
There was a deep excitement bubbling within her which constantly called out for change, new faces and new thrills. Claudia seemed to be insatiable. Even her parents noticed a certain change in her. As a result of her sex experiences, she seemed to glow and expand with a new and radiant beauty. Intercourse swept her clean of all the unhealthy neuroses and complexes common to the average inhibited girl. Claudia possessed a lovely youthful bloom which vastly became her. Boys of her own age were mad about her, but to Claudia's maturer point of view they seemed but little children. There was little they could offer her after what she knew.
Tom still pursued her as avidly as ever and they spent many exhausting nights together. He was a well-educated and considerate man and he did a great deal toward polishing off the youthful amoreuse. In her relations with him, Claudia probably learned more than she ever could in formal schools. The school of life teaches more vital subjects and manners, and what it has to teach, its students never forget, for it sears its lessons indelibly upon the brain.
There came to Claudia's father's office one day the handsomest man she had ever seen. There was something vaguely familiar about his appearance. He approached Claudia, who was sitting in the little reception room, and in a beautiful voice slightly tinged with a foreign accent asked if the doctor was in. Claudia replied that he had just been called away on a case and that she expected him back shortly and asked him if he would be kind enough to wait. The stranger took one look at this delicately rounded creature, her lovely face and the memorable dark eyes which glowed expressively in her milky face, and decided that he would be delighted to do so. He seated himself advantageously, so that he might better study this glorious creature so out of place amid the rather squalid surroundings. He was enchanted by her grace as her body moved in gracefully fleeting poses. A beam of sunlight poured through the window, endowing her hair and features with a kind of ethereal radiance. The stranger was overcome as he always was in the presence of beauty. "Dio Mio!" he said softly. "A madonna with a Borgia's eyes!" and when Claudia raised her head questioningly, he begged her pardon with a charming smile. "You look so beautiful sitting there with the sun like a spotlight thrown upon your face and hair. Ah, my girl, you possess real beauty. The sun is an enemy of feminine charm. It is a cruel revealer of the flaws in the skin, but you are a very lucky girl; you have the delicate perfection that is possessed only by the very young."
Claudia reacted instantly to his charming manners, his voice and his good looks. She looked at him quietly serious for a moment and said in her throbbing contralto voice, "You are most kind."
She did this with a kind of grand and moving simplicity that is part of genuine persons. The stranger studied her with narrowing eyes. What had he found in this ugly provincial little town? What manner of a young woman was this? Why she was scarcely more than a girl. Whence came she by her regal air and the way about her of careless ease? He was burning with a host of urgent questions, but the entrance of the old doctor forestalled him. When the visit was over, the stranger paused at Claudia's desk.
"Allow me to introduce myself," he said with a disarming smile. "I am Richard Martini; I am an actor and am appearing at your auditorium for a short stay. You would give me great pleasure if you would accept two tickets for the show. Perhaps your boyfriend, eh?"
Claudia accepted the tickets without letting herself appear too eager. With a flashing smile Martini made his exit, leaving the girl to swim in the riotous seas of speculation.
Claudia could hardly wait until the show would open. She tried to tell herself that Martini had behaved with the traditional open-handedness of his profession, that she meant nothing to him, that he had probably drawn out her father, and having discovered their relationship, merely offered her these tickets as a courtesy. Had he not mentioned something about a boyfriend? Surely that did not indicate a particular interest in her. But she knew she was only denying what was fairly evident. He was interested in her; her instinct told her that. How his eyes had followed her every move! Well, tomorrow would tell the story. Claudia had progressed. She did not feel any awe toward Martini, even though his personality was considerable. She was learning to take all men in her stride.
Tomorrow came at last and Claudia prepared herself for the unknown, the unpredictable. She bathed and dressed and scented her velvety softness until she stood feminine perfection incarnate. Of course she went to the theater alone . . .
Shortly after Martini made his entrance upon the stage, his eyes sought out Claudia. His action was unmistakable. When he found her sitting alone, his entire being suggested relief. It was terribly flattering to this girl to be singled out as the object of this man's attentions. Of all the hundreds of persons thronging the theater, she alone had entered into a secret understanding with this prince among men, this glamorous person whom people paid to see.
The first act was over; Claudia relaxed in her seat. To her the performance was vitally exciting. She had such a personal contact with the show. A boy came up the aisle during the intermission with a little note. She read it:
"Will you come back stage after the performance? Please say you will.
Richard Martini."
The boy furnished a pencil and Claudia wrote boldly across the note, "Yes." Now it seemed to her that all through the play every romantic speech and gesture he uttered was addressed to her. She was enmeshed in the tenuous web of glamour. Her heart rose and fell with the caressing beat of his voice. She deeply resented the leading lady; she stirred uneasily when the situations in the play demanded that Richard hold her in his arms while he made passionate avowals of love. But at last the play ran out its length, the actors took their bows and the audience began to stream up the aisles out into the night. And Claudia went backstage.
It was with mingled emotions that she viewed all the hubbub going on. Groups of actors in intimate little discussions, talking and laughing with the unselfconsciousness of small children. She was directed to Martini's dressing room. When she entered, she found him removing his makeup. He jumped to his feet and greeted her so effusively that her confidence grew immediately. She complimented him upon his performance and discussed the play intelligently while he continued to change into his street clothes. When he had finished he said, "Now let me really look at you."
With mock-seriousness she pirouetted before him, turning gracefully upon her heels like a mannequin. Fresh and radiant, her lush beauty reminded him of some jungle flower. He must have her. He decided to gamble everything on one decisive stroke.
"Claudia, will you consent to have supper with me in my rooms? Just us two. There is so much I want to know about you."
She readily gave her consent and they taxied to his hotel. He had the good taste to refrain from making love to her during the short ride and she liked him all the more for it.
When they entered his suite everything was in readiness for a cozy little supper party for two. The table was beautifully set with gleaming silver and flowers. "I telephoned as soon as you answered my note," he said by way of explanation.
Claudia answered, "Richard, you're lying but I love it."
They both laughed; they were great friends.
When they had finished dining, the waiter cleared the table and, after asking whether there would be anything else, withdrew. They were alone. Claudia stood by the larger French window overlooking the town. A friendly moon rode the skies like a golden ship. Through the windows drifted in the redolent odors of growing things. Richard stood beside her. "Madonna Mio!" His voice caressed her. "Of what is my little virgin thinking?"
Claudia turned until she was hard against him. She said slowly, "I'm thinking the same thing you are thinking, Richard." He folded her in his arms and kissed her gently, just brushing her lips. He kept his mouth slack, working his lips on hers in a circular fashion. Then opening his mouth he pressed his strong white teeth against hers and sent new sensations pulsating through her. He sucked against her mouth, manipulating his lips until she experienced a feeling similar to that incurred in actual intercourse. Richard was a master at the art of kissing and he played upon her until every cell within her cried out for impregnation, until her itching crevice cried for pacification, until she was whispering hoarsely, "Take me, Richard! For heavens sake, take me!"
He bore her half-swooning to the bedroom and undressed her until her splendidly nude body reposed upon the bed. He watched her skin grow red as though rouged with carnal heat as he undressed slowly, like an epicure contemplating a feast. What a lovely piece, he thought.
At last he was as nude as she was and he crept into bed beside her. It seemed to Claudia as she lay there beside him that she was caressed by hands of flame. His diabolically clever fingers searched out her most sensitive nerve centers and twanged them as though she were a tightly strung harp. No sooner had his fingers left one erogenous spot twitching with desire than he was cunningly manipulating another. Why doesn't he begin, she thought. I can't stand this much longer. After all, there is a limit to human endurance. Well, she said to herself, if he could stand it, so could she. Perhaps that was how sophisticated men went about it.
Richard now began to run his moist lips along her legs upwards of the knee. At the same time, his hands were gently pulling at her nipples, bringing them to a jutting erection. She felt within her a drooling, a laving of her cavity, but still he made no motion to inject his priapus. Claudia lay in a helpless near-fainting condition. Waiting, waiting for Richard to assert his masculinity. Now his soft lips were brushing the tender insides of her fleshy thighs. Her vulva lips were yawning wider and wider under the titillation. Now Richard had his lips buried in the luxuriant black hair curling about her pubic mount. She felt his torrid tongue like a flame darting in and out about the delicate membranes of her vaginal tract. The molten liquid began to spurt over her tormentor's face and she writhed away from him, rolling in unspeakable ecstasy.
Richard got up and cleaned himself with a towel. Claudia lay there momentarily satisfied with her orgasm, but still wondering why Richard had not availed himself of the opportunity to sink his tool into her. In this he seemed to be different from all other men.
They rested, quietly laced in one another's arms, their passions spent for the moment. Claudia was curious, but she bided her time. Surely Richard Martini, the darling of two continents, knew all there was to know about the art of love.
He began to play with her body once more and again Claudia waited in deference to his presumably superior knowledge. Now he had his finger up her rectal cavity and was massaging it gently while he pressed his face in the exquisite hollow between her breasts. This was a new sensation to Claudia. Now, she thought, he surely will love me good and proper. Now he buried his nose under her arm pits, sniffing like an amorous dog. "Ah, darling," he said, "your perspiration is like the most delicate perfume!" His warm tongue was flowing over her silky, globular breasts and he was working her into a sitting position on the edge of the bed. Some inner urge compelled her to spread her thighs as wide apart as was physically possible, and Richard slid out of bed with a sinuous motion like a snake slithering through a pile of dead leaves. He grasped one of her ankles in each hand and raised her legs high into the air while she locked her hands over his buttocks as he once more dipped into the scarlet gash of her sex. The lips of her cleft drew apart under his heated attack and now his long slender tongue worked his way into her box, touching delicately everywhere. Far into her crevice, her clitoris began to stiffen like the penis of a man. Claudia was experiencing what was until now the acme of physical sensation in her career. But now Richard played his trump card. He nibbled gently at her clitoris with his teeth and Claudia made little animal noises of unbearable delight. She moved like a maddened beast. "Stop it, Richard!" she gasped. "St-o-op!" Her body was racked by a thousand sensory twinges. Richard stopped as all that was liquid in her body seemed to stream forth. Claudia now lay upon her face, utterly exhausted by the most ferocious love-play she had ever encountered. Her body was shaken and smoking like the skeleton-like, charred ruins of a building that has been razed by a devastating fire. She was entirely numb.
How long she lay in that position simulating death, she had no accurate memory of. Till at last she felt a hand upon her shoulder. It was Richard. "Drink this," he said and held out a good shot of brandy. It helped to bring her to. He threw open the windows until a reviving breeze swept through the rooms and refreshed Claudia to the point where she was able to bestir herself. They sat there in the dark room both in the nude, and discussed inconsequential things, as people will after they have had the most fundamental experiences together. It was on the tip of Claudia's tongue to ask why he had not possessed her in the orthodox manner. All the other techniques were satisfying enough but it was just like having a seven course dinner, each one consisting of chocolate cake. But she kept her speculations to herself for fear of seeming coarse.
With the passing of the minutes her thoughts began more and more to turn to sexual pleasure. Claudia was a strong healthy girl with marvelous recuperative powers. She and Richard were occupying separate chairs and now she arose and sat on the arm of his chair, pressing close to him, carrying on a conversation which was casual enough. Her hand slid down his fine body until she encountered the object she was searching for, and now her fingers closed around it. Richard did not move. Claudia gently manipulated it with loving hands, knowing full well that the limp prong should stiffen and swell under her skillful touch. She kept on fondling and caressing his joy-stick, thinking all the time that he was remarkably slow in coming around, but perhaps when he did so she would have one slow and grand fuck in which she would be able to spend herself several times.
Growing impatient, she began to frig him with sharp, abrupt thrusts. "Richard!" she cried in alarm. "Richard! What is the trouble?" But he was crying like a baby and could only hang his head in shame.
It was plain to most people what the trouble was. Even Claudia was beginning to grasp the meaning of his action, but she wanted to be certain. "You can tell me, Richard. I'll understand," she said in a sympathetic tone, throwing her arms about him, brushing the tears away as though she were a mother, and in a broken voice he blurted out the miserable story:
"While I was a very young man, practically a boy in Italy at the start of the war, I joined the Italian army. I saw considerable service in the Tyrol against the Austrians and one night during a raid I suffered a superficial wound and was left for dead in enemy territory. When I came to I discovered I had been taken prisoner. From then until the Armistice I remained confined in this camp, and it was during this incarceration that I lost my manhood in the most shameful manner." He paused as though backward about finishing his story. But Claudia's feminine curiosity was aroused, and she insisted upon hearing the completion of the tale.
It was with considerable reluctance that he concluded the story of his downfall. "I was then in the very first flush of my youth and had never intimately known a woman. I was bothered by the most lascivious dreams and nocturnal emissions, and the stories the older men continually told, and which I naturally could not help hearing as we were in pretty close quarters, inflamed my desires to the bursting point. This confinement was especially hard upon those men among us who had known connubial bliss and the deep sexual peace it generally brings. Masturbation became a common outlet. For a long time I was able to impose an iron restraint upon this horribly insistent voice which was raising a deafening clamor within me, but the sight of my companions easing themselves in this manner was too much for me, and with my very first act I began to dig my sexual grave. I was a hot-blooded youth and abused myself far beyond normal endurance. When at last the terrible war came to an end and I returned home, I found to my horror that I was no longer capable of functioning as a normal man should. That impotence led me into the kind of love-making you have been party to tonight."
Claudia was silent, for, after all, what was there that she could say to assuage his pain? It did not take a great deal of imagination to understand how he must feel. Claudia donned her clothes in silence. When she had finished dressing she walked over to where he sat, his head bowed in his arms. She bent over and kissed him dispassionately upon the forehead. "Goodnight, Richard," she said and she left him sitting alone in the dark.
This unusual encounter left Claudia somewhat dissatisfied with things. It left her rather cool toward men for some time. She began to consciously avoid the opposite sex for the first time since she had learned the joy which lay in the sexual congress. She resumed her friendships with the girls in the little town and spent the evenings about her home. She attended parties among several young men and women of her own age. Their naivete and general ignorance of sexual matters were to her a constant source of amusement. She laughed inwardly as these clumsy, awkward youths would attempt to make love to her, fingers all thumbs. It gave her considerable malicious pleasure to lead them on by apparently accidental caresses until they lusted for her with every fiber in their beings. She even amused herself with the girls, stirring them with clever fingers until they did not know what had aroused sudden dormant desires.
Nevertheless, time healed the wound left by her amour and once again Claudia felt within her the consuming desire for love. This was no mild thing now. She had known what it was to be loved by a strong man, and once a woman has undergone that sensation, forever after she must have regular appeasement or suffer the torment of the damned. This was no problem for Claudia, because Tommy Thomas still slipped her scorching notes and mutely pleaded with his eyes for her companionship, and one day, when she was unbearably prodded by her physical needs, she consented to go to his little bungalow.
When she arrived that evening Tom was as solicitous and tender as a groom on his first night. Claudia joked with him about it, but Tom was in earnest. He had missed her. They had a few highballs and then he promised her as much love as she had ever had in her life.
It would be a glorious meeting of two people admirably suited to the delectable task of consummating the normal function of both sexes. Both entered frankly and unashamedly into the task of rendering the greatest possible joy to the other. They had been denied so long that they cooperated in getting over the first sexual union quickly so they could dally with more extended pleasure. He slipped his lusty ruby-tipped organ between her vulval lips after fondling their softness so that they parted readily and, after three or four rapid pushes, they spent a little of cupid's lotion. What did it matter? They possessed youth's reservoir.
They drew apart, each drinking in the beauty of the other. She with her graceful, symmetrical legs crowned by the growth of curling black hair, bringing out the wonderful whiteness of her thighs and gently rounded belly, tapering to a waist like the stem of a wineglass and then flowing into the tenderly blown breasts; and he with his stalwart shoulders, muscular arms and bulging chest, his every move starting his muscles flowing like animated coils of rope across his body. From the top of his head, crowned with its strongly growing blond hair, to the balls of his feet (not to speak of that club-like member dangling from between his legs), he was a man to arouse the respect and desire of any woman who possessed the normal feelings of her sex.
Claudia idly reached out her hand to galvanize his priapus into throbbing life. She thrilled as he did when his organ leaped up in exultant response.
"How strong you are, Tom, dear!" she exclaimed in wonder at his virility.
"Tonight, Claudia," he whispered, "I shall show you how strong I really can be." He directed her to get down on all fours, and while she was in that position, he grasped her by her softly yielding buttocks and drew her toward him until he had impaled her vagina upon his semen-filled penis. It was a new delight to Claudia to be loved dog-fashion from the rear. She wiggled her lovely rump to meet Tom's violent thrusts into her belly. The entire proceeding was fraught with a certain amount of pain, but the borderline between pain and pleasure is sometimes one of shading.
They pumped away in this manner until the hot sperm began to jet into her and she retaliated with a similar flow. A wonderful warmth came over her as she continued to spend her almost inexhaustible supply of love's juices. At last their figures merged from the lustful composition they had formed. Love, even such as theirs, has physical limits.
It was pleasant to lie so close to one another and listen to the deep, regular breathing of healthy youth gathering up strength for another fierce foray into the arms of Eros. Strange thoughts tumbled through Claudia's brain. This kind of thing surely could not go on forever. A strange feeling of uneasiness crept over her. Life always tendered one a bill for whatever happiness one was able to snatch from it. What price would she have to pay? She shivered, and once more Tom held her in her arms. She melted into his grasp as though he could shield her from any possible retribution. She gave herself up to him completely.
Several days after that memorable night Claudia had spent in Tom's house, she had her first inkling that something might be amiss, that her premonition had been correct. She was in trouble. Her menstrual flow had stopped.
She did not know which way to turn, but in the end she decided to call upon Tom for advice and for whatever assistance he might be prepared to offer.
When she told him what had happened, he immediately recognized her symptoms as the first stages of pregnancy. Naturally, Claudia was frightened, but she bore her misfortune well: she was a courageous girl and blamed no one for her predicament. After all, she realized she had been negligent. Tom stood by her and offered her marriage, but Claudia was too good a sport to take advantage of his offer. She had gotten as much pleasure out of their relations as he had and now that she had come to grief she was not going to be a cry baby.
"No, Tom," she said. "You don't owe me anything."
"Well," he said at last, as she remained adamant in her refusal, "the least I can do is to offer you money for an abortion."
She reflected for a moment and availed herself of his offer.
"Of course, Claudia, you realize you will have to leave town," he pointed out.
Her veins pounded with excitement. That thought had always lain back in the recesses of her mind: to go away, to try her wings in a large city. She would leave home; that's what she'd do. She would go to Chicago.
CHAPTER THREE
Claudia sat in the observation car watching the scenery rush by. Mile after mile of interminable flatness: the monotonous level of the Illinois prairies. The roaring train seemed to bisect its evenness like a pair of scissors cutting through a sheet of paper.
The trip had been barren of event. True, several men had attempted to become familiar, but Claudia was hardly in the frame of mind .to be receptive to masculine advances, regardless of how attractive they might be. She sat with eyes glued to the window, trying to still the horrible fear in her heart, thinking of how she would have to live alone in the great bustling city of Chicago and of the suffering which would be her inevitable lot-the abortion was not very pleasant to look forward to. For the moment, the girl pondered whether the price of pleasure did not come too high.
Now the skidding landscape was changing from fields of waving corn, rolling seas of wheat, barns and silos and herds of cattle, to dingy, smoke-belching factories, great train sheds, and miles ahead the city seemed enveloped in a cloudy, dirty gray-an unnatural gloom which would hover over the great city so long as its industries would continue to pump the lifeblood of production through its swollen veins.
Fifteen minutes later the train pulled into the La Salle Street Station and a grinning redcap carried Claudia's bag out into what was to her countrified eyes and ears a disintegrated bedlam. She got into a taxi.
"Where to, lady?" asked the cabby.
She paused, undecided where to go in this clanging jungle.
"Do you know of some nice clean place where I might stop?" she asked. "Some place that is not too high?"
The driver pushed back his cap and scratched his head. "How about the "Y"? They're pretty reasonable."
Claudia was about to consent when she reminded herself of her condition. That would hardly be the place for her at present.
Noticing her hesitation, the driver suggested the near-north side as a desirable address, "Because," he explained, "you can live pretty cheap and it's within walking distance of the loop."
She placed herself entirely in his hands and soon they drew up before a clean, rather interesting looking apartment house in one of the little Parisian appearing streets so common to that part of the town.
Claudia climbed the stairway, her heavy suitcase bumping against her legs. She rang the bell and a few moments later the buxom landlady, a Mrs. Gleason, answered the door. She sized up the girl with friendly eyes and showed her two vacancies which existed in her house. Claudia selected a little kitchenette apartment with French windows which faced the street and offered an interesting view of the city. She gave Mrs. Gleason a week's rent in advance and when at last the landlady withdrew, she flung herself upon the bed, exhausted from her unaccustomed train ride and the nervous tension of entering into a new life.
But she was not destined to rest for long. Insurgent thoughts and memories crowded into her consciousness. Home . . . her parents. The thought of how shabbily she had treated them and how much they must be suffering brought the tears welling up in her eyes. She could see before her the heartless words of her tense little note:
"I'm fed up with living in this stupid little town. I want to get away while I have the chance. Don't try to find me and don't worry. I'll come home when I'm ready. Love, Claudia."
It was a pretty heartsick girl who cried herself to sleep that night.
The next morning, following a brisk shower and a change of clothing, Claudia felt considerably better when she walked out into the warm sun of a newborn day. The famous, exhilarating breezes of the windy city promised new thrills, new excitement to this girl released from the narrow confines of the small town and the constant rubbing of elbows with all of its inhabitants. Here in this vast metropolis one could for the time being escape from many things. It would be pleasant to become for the moment a new person, to assume a new identity. This might be fun, after all, she thought, but what about breakfast?
Bacon and eggs, a steaming cup of coffee amid a clatter of dishes and a cheerful rattle of cutlery made her feel even better. With a light heart and a radiant smile upon her lovely face, Claudia fairly danced along the city streets, leaving a trail of craning masculine necks behind her.
The sound of horns, the screeching of auto brakes, the dang-dong of impatient streetcar motormen produced a throbbing metropolitan symphony which was music to Claudia's ears. She was like a weary traveler who has roamed the world to find at last a sense of integration and a feeling of belonging in some inconsequential hamlet. This, she felt, was her spiritual home.
The street she trod led at last to the great Chicago Loop district and Claudia spent most of the day gazing at the lovely things displayed in the glamorous windows of State Street's famous shops. She could not fight off the temptation to purchase things and before the day had drawn to a close, she had spent a large portion of the two hundred dollars Tom had given her as a parting gift.
That evening, after she had played with her purchases like a little girl will with a new doll, Claudia sat down and did some serious thinking. She had not taken any steps to procure her abortion. She did not know how such things were handled or who to turn to in this strange new world she had been plunged into. As she lay there deep in harassing perplexity, she heard a knock on her door. She opened it to find Mrs. Gleason standing outside with a friendly smile upon her open countenance. "My, haven't you bought a lot of things!" she exclaimed to Claudia as she noticed the temporary disorder of boxes and wrapping tissue. The girl was touched by her manner and began lightheartedly to model her purchases before the motherly landlady who stood watching her beautiful roomer, a bundle of towels suspended over her arms. Mrs. Gleason nodded her head approvingly with each new change of costume. "My dear," she said, "you are a very lovely girl and I hope you will be very happy here."
Her simple manner so moved the girl that she burst into tears.
"What's wrong, child?" asked Mrs. Gleason. "Don't you feel well?"
Claudia was then impelled to pour out her age-old story and Mrs. Gleason received the news of her condition without any visible shock or surprise. "There-there," she comforted the sobbing girl. "Never you mind. Everything is going to be all right. My nephew is a doctor and tomorrow I will give you a note to him and it'll all be fixed up. Why, this has happened to thousands of girls!"
When the landlady left, Claudia fell into a deep, dreamless sleep. She had made her first friend in this seething city.
The following morning, Claudia, armed with her new friend's note, made her way to the offices of the latter's nephew. The address on the note Mrs. Gleason had given her led her to a grand building rearing its impressive height deep into the overhanging clouds. A speedy electric elevator suavely lifted her almost instantly to the fifteenth floor. She got out and entered a large office exquisitely furnished in the modern manner. A young woman seated behind a switchboard gazed at her inquiringly.
"Dr. Benson ? " Claudia asked rather timidly.
She was told she would have to wait and was directed to a chair in the lavishly furnished anteroom. Claudia sat fingering a copy of a glossy, beautifully illustrated magazine. With sly eyes she studied the luxurious surroundings and gave herself up to guesses as to the kind of a man the doctor was. She thought: was he young or old? Good-looking, or just another man one took for granted like the parlor furniture?
She continued to thumb through her magazine, idly staring out of the window at the far-reaching, shimmering blue expanses of the lake. Several hundred miles beyond that watery stretch lay home and security. She trembled with a sudden fear. Perhaps things would not go as easily as she had been led to believe. A voice intruded: "You may go right in now, Miss. Dr. Benson will see you in there." A white-frocked nurse indicated a door.
It was with mingled feelings that Claudia walked through the door into whatever fate held in store for her.
A tall, distinguished-looking young man, his darkly handsome face accentuated by the whiteness of his surgical gown, greeted her. Claudia was instantly reassured by his competent and direct manner. She held out Mrs. Gleason's little note. He took it without a word, merely giving her a sharp glance out of his clear blue eyes.
When he had finished, he folded the paper into a precise little square. He addressed her, "Well, Miss Fenton, I see you are in trouble. My aunt has asked me to help you and of course I will be glad to do whatever I possibly can. You must realize, of course, that for a doctor to perform an abortion, he exposes himself to considerable risk. Accidents are unpredictable and naturally the act itself is illegal. However, I will be glad to examine you and see how far gone you really are. Just put your things on that chair and when you have completely disrobed get on that large table near the window."
He walked away, whistling a little tune, leaving the poor girl in a terrible state. She stood rooted to the spot and unable to make a decisive move. Dr. Benson came back, fuming with impatience.
"What's the trouble! Hurry, take your clothes off and get on the operating table. I can't take all day!"
To be in the nude was no novelty for Claudia, of course, but nevertheless it was one thing to stand naked before some man whom you cared for and who was delighted by your physical presence, and yet another matter to disrobe before the hard eyes of some medical brute. But what could she do? She resolved to adopt her only way out of the mess she had gotten herself into and began to slowly reveal her love-charms to Dr. Benson, who watched her frowningly.
Accordingly she took off her hat and coat and slowly drew her dress over her head, and as the hem of her skirt rose like a curtain lifting over a theatrical scene, Dr. Benson lost his hard, bored professional look. Her tenderly turned calves and swelling firmly-fleshed thighs came into plain sight. And as her tapering waist and glistening pendant breasts were revealed fairly straining at the filmy chemise which reluctantly clung softly to their loveliness, the good doctor ran his tongue over his suddenly parched lips. His professional attitude was quickly vanishing, although he still retained his medical manner.
At last Claudia stood revealed in the nude, her silky skin turning rosy beneath the doctor's smoldering gaze.
"Come," he said authoritatively. "On the table. Let's have a look."
The trembling, wretched girl reclined her gorgeous figure upon the doctor's table and closed her eyes for shame.
The medic now had her where he could feast his burning eyes upon such exquisite loveliness as had never before been his fortune to view. Benson could examine and treat a thousand women, perhaps, and very likely not one of this number would tend to give him any amorous stimulation. Claudia was the thousand and first.
Benson seemed in a kind of a trance. He could not take his eyes from the tenderly swelling delicious pink and white flesh which lay before him. Claudia moved restlessly as though she felt his heated stare. The doctor shook himself into some semblance of activity.
His precise, workmanlike hands swept over her mound-like belly. He prodded her about, his fingers searing her cool, yielding body. "Does that hurt?" he kept asking her. "Does this hurt?" And always she answered in the negative. Now he inserted a probing finger between her vulval lips, caressing them with a delicate feathery touch. He stared with fascinated eyes as the lips of her sex began to part and open wide like the petals of flowers under the stimulating spring rains. The girl began to stiffen under his ministrations. Benson's fingers, like the roots of a deeply growing tree, imbedded themselves into the glossy curling hair which grew like moss around Claudia's scarlet, fat-lipped gash of sex. He tugged at the silky ringlets and the girl let out a moan. This seemed to have'a peculiar effect upon Benson. He began to knead her breasts with cunning hands. Poor Claudia felt as though ten thousand devils were jabbing tiny pitchforks into her most sensitive areas. It was all part of the treatment, she reasoned, but after all she could not stand this much longer. It was too much for frail feminine flesh to endure. The doctor continued his passionate pawing. He thrilled to the exquisite feel of her flesh, he could go on like this forever. He felt his penis straining against his trousers like a dog against a leash. Far back in her womb, he could see her clitoris like a slim finger standing erect. He caressed it and soon there began to exude from out of her ducts a trickle of sex-secretion. To the doctor this was the last straw. His hands went to his trousers and came up with a fistful of woman-delight. He grasped Claudia's slim ankles in iron hands and dragged her until her spherical buttocks rested on the table's edge. He released her legs until they hung from a sitting position, then he eased his palpitating prong into her throbbing depths and began to pump away madly.
"Doctor! Oh, Doctor!" called out the amazed Claudia, realizing by this time that the unexpected was taking place.
The busy doctor could merely grunt, "It's only part of the treatment, honey!"
Claudia did not know what to say. She was hardly in a position to make an effective protest. After all, he was the doctor.
The torrents of lust swept her up as she reacted to the virility of Dr. Benson. When he had spent his sexual fluid for the moment, he took her in his arms and she realized that the treatment had gone too far. She struggled in his arms, wildly attempting to free herself from his maddened embrace, but she was in a grip of iron, too terrified to scream. Once more he attempted to put in his raging tool, but she continued to move her crevice about in such a manner that he found it impossible to penetrate her, and all the while his heat and desire for her mounted. She was doubled up on the table, attempting to cover her sheath and protect it from his furious onslaught. This left her ruby breasts exposed. The infuriated doctor put his throbbing tool in that smooth hollow which existed like a gentle valley between her bulbs and, under this added stimulation, he soon poured out the pent-up semen within him, splattering the poor girl with the sticky stuff.
This emission seemed to bring him to his senses and to a realization of the enormity of his offense. He solicitously cleansed the distraught girl and pleaded with her for forgiveness. Claudia felt sick and tired of the whole thing. Benson was afraid the girl might lodge a complaint against him and now offered to perform the abortion for nothing. He explained to her that his customary fee for the operation was two hundred dollars. Claudia now had in her possession barely one hundred and twenty-five dollars. Not only could she not afford the necessary medical procedure, but even if she could secure a cheaper physician, she would be left penniless. While it was true she had been grossly violated, nevertheless, Dr. Benson now seemed to be repentant and was offering a handsome conciliation. Claudia decided to allow him to go through with the operation.
He seemed genuinely relieved when she told him her intentions and he gave her instructions as to her diet and how she should use some pills he provided her with. "Come back on Friday afternoon," he told her. "Don't eat any food and I'll perform the operation. I feel I owe you that much, and for heaven's sake nothing to my aunt about what happened here."
Claudia agreed readily and as she walked slowly to her apartment she began to realize that the doctor's attack upon her, unsought and unwelcome as it had been, was in reality a financial boon at any rate. She kept her mouth shut to Mrs. Gleason when her landlady praised her nephew as a very fine young man. If you only knew, she thought, what a wolf your "fine young man" really is; but Claudia was discovering that few men were to be trusted where a pretty young woman is concerned. It was something in the male sex-psychology, she decided, and did not bother her head about it any further.
Friday, on the appointed hour, she appeared in Dr. Benson's office with Mrs. Gleason, who had consented to come along. True to his promise, the doctor was in readiness to perform the deed. With a beating heart Claudia removed her clothing and allowed herself to be placed on the operating table by the nurse who was in attendance.
Claudia bore the pain and travail of her abortion with the enduring feminine stoicism which has been a source of wonder to men through the ages. When at last she drifted out of the haze of smells and sounds she could hear Mrs. Gleason's voice as if from the peak of a mountain top, "It's all over, dear-it's all over." She was lying on a couch in the outer office. She heard Dr. Benson's voice speak with professional crispness. "Just let her rest here a while," he was saying. "She'll be all right. Everything went fine. Bring her back next week and I'll give her a final examination."
Claudia gradually gained strength until she was able, with Mrs. Gleason's support, to get into a cab and make her way home.
Under the landlady's care Claudia rapidly recovered and was soon as radiant and blooming as she had ever been. The following week she appeared in Dr. Benson's office for his final seal of approval.
"Everything has gone splendidly," he told her. "You are as healthy as you ever were. After this, don't be so criminally negligent about yourself. Here"-he handed her some literature-"read this and take care of yourself, and if you ever need me, don't hesitate to get in touch with me."
Claudia thanked him and said goodbye, happy that this dreadful experience was over and that she was all right again.
From now on, she thought, I'm through with men. She began to live a quiet, secluded life, spending the evenings in her little place listening to the radio or reading a book. During the daytime she went for long walks through the city. She could not see enough of its wonders: the libraries, picture galleries, parks, the wide-flung lake in its many moods, smooth and even as a table top one day and a raging, tempestuous sea another; but most of all she enjoyed the picturesque neighborhood in which she lived. She never tired of gazing at the passing throng from her own personal little ivory tower. They swarmed under her gaze like so many microbes, each with its own little festering of hopes, schemes, woes and frustrations. And all the strangely ludicrous combinations: short fat men with long angular women, lean as a rail towering above them; great stalwart men with tiny women barely able to keep pace with them as they trotted briskly by their side; old men and virgins; slim youths and fatuous old women tittering and giggling like overgrown school girls; swarthy, glistening-haired Filipinos with the inevitable pale-faced blondes teetering along on incredible heels-the whole thing, like a vast picture whose figures were forever merging into new and more exciting compositions, was a never ending source of interest and entertainment.
Of course, with the passage of time, Claudia became seized with the desire to become more than a spectator. She tired of her purely objective mood and a spark of the old longing began to glow hotly within her. Her sleep became fitful and troubled and she knew it would not be much longer before she would seek relief.
A new tenant had come into the building and that evening as Claudia lolled at ease, wrapped in a sheer negligee, she heard the sound of a piano and strains of marvelous melody filtered into her room, the golden tones of the "Moonlight Sonata." Claudia bathed in the liquidity of Beethoven's genius. The playing died away abruptly, the pianist striking a jarring discord as though displeased and angry about something. Claudia listened, hoping that the unseen musician would play again.
The night was hot and sultry. The few trees outside drooped lifelessly, their leaves still and quiet as if in a vacuum. Claudia toyed with the idea of going for a walk toward the lake. There was a sharp rap on her door and she rose to her feet, switching on the light to see who it might be. She opened the door to discover a tall, strongly built young woman with level, piercing eyes.
"Good evening," she said in a deep, throaty voice. "My name is Davis, Billy Davis. I've just moved in next door. I hate to trouble you," she continued pleasantly, "but I'm in the middle of a lemonade drinking orgy and I find I've just used up what little sugar I had left. I wonder if you're in any better shape?"
Claudia hurried eagerly to her little cupboard, terribly eager to please her new neighbor. She returned with her entire supply.
"I just adore the way you play the piano," she told Billy in her shy way. "What on earth made you stop?"
"Oh, I don't know," she said. "Just a mood, I guess. You know how you're apt to get when you live alone." She studied the dainty creature before her. Into her eyes there was growing a peculiar stare.
"I know how you feel," sympathized Claudia. "I have been feeling like that myself."
"Wouldn't you like to step over to my place?" invited Billy in a casual tone. "I've got the dump fixed up pretty good. Want to take a little looksee? And if you're a good little girl, I might play for you."
Claudia was delighted. "Wait," she cried, "until I slip into a dress."
"Don't bother," Billy told her with a strange expression. "It's frightfully warm. Let's be comfy." She led Claudia across the hall into her room.
Claudia gave vent to a little exclamation of surprise when she saw how beautifully Billy's apartment had been arranged. It was done in a modernistic black and silver and Claudia had never seen anything like it outside of a movie set. Mirrors set into the walls and the ceiling shot flashes of light from all angles. In one corner were several marvelous feminine nudes. There were no pictures of men. Along one wall was a long bookcase crammed with volumes of all sizes and thicknesses. The entire arrangement reeked of a certain culture. "Like it?" Billy asked.
"It's simply beautiful!" Claudia answered. "It makes my room look like a hole in the wall."
"There, now, don't say that, dear," Billy said with a kind of tenderness creeping into her voice. "I really thought your room was dainty and sweet like yourself." She stood close to Claudia, her face betraying a conflicting emotion, but Claudia was too interested in her unusual surroundings to notice and Billy walked off into the kitchen to prepare the lemonade, leaving Claudia to drink in the room and its furnishings. One did not have to know much about that sort of thing to realize the costliness of the rugs and the odd pieces lying about with a kind of oriental profusion. And the books were peculiar titles that Claudia had never heard of before.
The welcome sound of the musical clink of ice against glass put an end for the moment to her explorations.
They sat about, sipping at their cooling drinks. As Claudia sat back in her easy chair, the folds of her flimsy robe fell away, revealing a goodly length of shapely limb and curving thigh. Billy's mouth worked uncontrollably, her eyes hypnotically riveted to the delectable sight. Claudia unconsciously drew her robe about her and Billy turned suddenly and walked over to the piano where her long powerful fingers struck wonderful chords, sensuous strains of melody like a bird trilling a love-call to its mate.
At last Billy stopped and shook Claudia gently. "You better get to sleep, honey, or I might have to carry you." A shiver coursed through Claudia. This woman reminded her of Tom, with her height and wide shoulders, and when she turned her head and the vein of her neck stuck out in a taut line, her entire profile, with the closely clipped hair falling over her brow, completed a picture she knew too well. She said goodnight to Billy, sensing as she did so an odd constraint in the air.
"Goodnight," said Billy, and her blazing eyes followed Claudia's hips in their beautifully feminine rhythm as she swayed across the hall. Billy spent a bad night.
That was the beginning of a strange friendship. Claudia got into the habit of dropping over almost every night to listen to Billy on the piano. It began to appear to her that she was the best friend she ever had, so understanding and so full of sympathy. Billy and Claudia kept open house for each other. Billy was especially fond of surprising Claudia in the bathtub. She would stand gazing rapturously while the younger girl would rub down her soft glowing skin and something inside her would melt as she watched the girl's rich, warm breasts and tenderly rounded buttocks. Claudia grew used to this scrutiny and gradually attached less and less importance to it. Occasionally she would become peculiarly disturbed by what would begin as a casual caress and tend to develop into something vastly different, but when she would look up with an expression of faint alarm spreading over her youthful face her companion would quickly turn away with some joking speech such as:
"You know, my dear, I don't understand for the life of me, how the men can bear to leave you alone. You were made for love. You know you have the loveliest and softest body I have ever seen. I love your breasts and thighs, so smooth so round and white." And her fingers would open and close as she would turn her face away to walk over to the piano where she would vent her tortured feelings by pounding away with all her strength on the piano.
Naturally, such a state of affairs could not endure for long. One evening, as Claudia emerged fresh and glowing from her bath, she felt the pressure of a pair of lips upon her shoulder. She turned in surprise and was amazed to find Billy standing quietly like a bashful lover, like the boys back in her own little town who she used to torment with her beauty out of sheer cruelty.
A sudden instinct bade her cover her nakedness with her robe.
"Why, Bill!" she said. "What on earth is the matter with you tonight?"
Billy hung her head sullenly. "You ought to know what is the matter with me," she sulked. And then, when she noticed the uncomprehending look on Claudia's face, she said gruffly, "Kid, you don't know what it's all about, do you?" She walked out of the room and returned a little later with a small book in her hand.
"Here," she said to Claudia. "Read this and you'll understand what's the matter with me better than I can tell you myself." She left like a gust of wind, slamming the door tight.
With mingled feelings, Claudia sat down to read the book which had been left in her possession. What had come over Billy? What was the underlying reason for her strange actions? Well, she would soon find out.
Claudia read the book without moving from her chair for two hours. When she had absorbed every word and studied every phrase, the little volume slipped from her lifeless fingers to the floor. Tears seeped from out the corners of her eyes and rolled unheeded down her cheeks. So that was how it was. Billy was a lesbian!
How blind she had been not to understand what was perfectly obvious at first glance. What torture Billy had passed through! Poor creature! Who could trace the fearful labyrinths of the human mind! In what strange channels did human desire flow! By what devious routes did humans seek ecstasy.
With every fiber of her being Claudia yearned to help and to make her friend's lot a happier one, for she was genuinely fond of her talented neighbor. And now, through the open window, music was wafted to her, the song of a damned soul, and it seemed to Claudia as she sat there that Billy was pleading for her closer understanding, for her love. The song swelled and threatened to overflow her senses. Claudia ran out of the room crying, "Billy! Billy!" and she was clutched in the arms of steel. Their tears mingled in the grateful darkness.
Thus began an unusual relationship between the two women, one which was fraught with unique experiences for Claudia as she gave herself utterly to this strange and dominating creature.
At first the only apparent sexual gratification Billy craved was that of the kiss. She began by kissing Claudia tenderly and chastely, like one would kiss a brother or sister-utterly without passion. Her greatest sensual thrill seemed to be derived from the contemplation of Claudia's undraped figure. She would turn out all the lights in the room but one and focus that one upon Claudia's body which would glisten beneath its radiance as though it were made of polished marble. Billy would study this lovely picture and then go to the piano, where she would extract from its depths strange and eerie music.
But gradually her passion took a more definite turn. Billy was clever enough to play upon her younger and as yet more unschooled pupil with consummate skill. She was slowly and deliberately preparing her lovely companion for greater transports and more intimate raptures. She would say to Claudia, "God made me the way I am, a man in woman's clothing. I did not ask to be thus created; therefore the fault is not mine."
Claudia came gradually to understand the peculiar workings of her mind, and her tolerance and sympathy grew accordingly. The first instinctive aversion she had felt was leaving her and was replaced by feelings of an entirely different nature.
Both women lived together now, Claudia having moved into Billy's apartment. Mrs. Gleason, the landlady, looked rather displeased, but said nothing. It was an old story to her.
For several days Billy courted and wooed Claudia like the most tender and poetical of lovers. She wrote her amorous lyrical poetry extolling her lovely feminine charms and spun about her the disturbing net of music. She would read to the younger girl the most poignant expressions of love known to man. The incomparable Sappho was her favorite and she would quote the poetess-courtesan's burning rhythms to Claudia as she held her in her arms.
"Whose soft footfall sets my heart a-bound-ing
Wilder than when the clarions are sounding;
Whose bright face hath power to charm me That Lydia's army!"
And louder and sweeter would grow this he-woman's voice. Claudia was fast becoming carried away by this surging worship of music. But with the passage of time she began to yearn for a more material sign of love. It was wonderful to be thus tenderly worshiped and revered, and to be showered with expensive gifts and the filmy finery dear to her woman's heart, but nightly there grew in her vitals by leaps and bounds the desire for physical satisfaction. She was becoming sated by this platonic and sexless arrangement, she was tired of being treated like some bloodless doll. She was too hotly sexed for that kind of treatment.
Her feelings were communicated to Billy in that marvelous intuitive way she had of understanding things without being told. She smiled her bitter smile. "So you are beginning to become oppressed by your desire for physical intercourse, eh? Your insides are crying out for impregnation by a man-the filthy beasts. Can't you understand that I offer you a love far more pure and delicate and beautiful than that which any of those coarse-haired creatures can offer?"
"I know that," Claudia said. "I know, dear, and I'm sorry. Truly I am, and I want you to know that I am grateful for everything."
Her mildness softened Billy. "You dear sweet child. Of course it was silly of me to grow angry. After all, you must be starved for sexual stimulation. Well, if you want it that way I can give you greater satisfaction than is possible to any man."
"Can you really?" asked Claudia in wonderment.
"I'll show you," Billy said. She grasped the girl in her strong arms and, pressing her lips to Claudia's in a fierce liquid kiss, worked her fiery tongue inside of Claudia's mouth with the rapidity of a striking snake. This was the first time she had ever caressed Claudia with any show of masculine passion and the girl's head rang with strange clamor. She had known the pulse-quickening kisses of men in the heat of their lust, but never the love lashing which now sent quivers like the chilly feet of an army of mice marching up and down her spine. It seemed as if Billy would never halt her torrid caresses. She released the girl for an instant so they could both snatch a brief breathing spell. Then she once more covered the rosebud mouth of her passive partner with her own full lips, but she was more gentle. With softly pursed mouth she cleverly created a kind of suction between them which soon had Claudia trembling like a leaf in the wind, her body seared by the hot flames of lust.
Billy desisted and held the shivering girl rigidly in her arms. She pushed her away. "Now do you think I can love?" she asked, her voice filled with contempt.
Claudia was almost beside herself with stored-up passion. She sank before her lover upon her knees. "Please!" she urged. "For heaven's sake, do something for me before I go mad!"
Billy stood in a masculine manner, her arms crossed over her flat chest. With a sudden motion as if she had changed her mind, she caught the distraught girl up and carried her tormented form into the bedroom. She tore the clothes roughly from the girl's palpitating figure.
"Love?" she cried. "You don't know what love is! I'll show you how a tribade makes love!" She removed her clothing until she had revealed entirely her half-formed breasts and flat hips. She jumped into bed and drew the yielding pink and white body to her.
"It's such a lovely thing," she whispered as she sucked the ruby-red nipples of Claudia's velvet breasts and fingered the converging lips of her cleft with sensitive touch. The poor girl was in insufferable heat.
"Billy, Billy, do something!" she cried. "I'm burning up!"
Billy mounted her and they rubbed bottoms, the friction causing the girl unspeakable delight. She bucked beneath the lascivious weight of the lesbian like an unbroken horse trying to unseat its rider. Despite her strength, Billy had a hard time staying with the now ecstatic girl.
"I'm coming!" Claudia kept crying and undulating her hips with machinelike rapidity until at last she felt the torrential flow within her and she sank back in languorous delight, her body renewed and refreshed.
It was with a tremendous feeling of gratitude that Claudia nestled like a little child within the circling arms of her preceptress.
"Oh, I can't begin to describe how good you have made me feel!" she said. "It's as if all those horrible knots within me had suddenly become untied."
"We have only just begun our rosy trail of love," Billy told her. "If ever you leave my arms you will find that no one will ever take you as high on love's towering mountain as I will." Her vice-like arms strained the girl to her own hard body with such force that the breath was driven out of Claudia and she wriggled gasping in her lover's clutch. Billy whispered, "When I'm through with you, you'll never look at another man, the beasts!"
She kneeled beside the bed and drew Claudia across its narrow width and tongued the snowy insides of her thighs, gradually working up her thinly covered, turbulent sexual desire. When she had lifted her to the sought-for pitch, she buried her face deep into the mossy growth of hair which grew lovingly about the girl's beautifully shaped sex and began to lap the luscious crease vigorously, sending waves of agonizing delight through the girl who was no longer able to control herself. She twitched and wriggled as new sensations came into her consciousness and her ovarian geysers emitted, spouting lavalike outpourings of love's lotion.
She had fallen into the hands of a devotee of Aphrodite who was intensely skilled in the rites of satisfying as well as provoking desire.
Billy played with her erogenous centers and delicately nursed Claudia's diminished and somewhat appeased appetite like a pungent cocktail will bring dormant desire for food to life. Those knowing fingers titillated within her the seat of passion and gave new and unusual sensations to the unlearned in love. Claudia swelled beneath the tribade's maddening touch, and now her own fingers went on a search of their own, toying with the thin vulval lips of her companion. She inserted an inquisitive finger into the other's vaginal tract and now it was Billy's turn to stir with uneasy hips. Seeing this effect upon her friend, Claudia groped deeper into her female orifice until her fingers found the clitoris. To her amazement it felt like a penis in her hands and, looking down, she saw it projecting its smooth head from out of the vaginal tract. Farther and farther it protruded from between Billy's twitching legs until it grew to the size of a man's thumb. Billy once more mounted over Claudia's shapely body and inserted her little prong into her pleasure-laden depths. When Claudia felt that little object pressing within her after the long time she had gone without its delight, her excitement knew no bounds and she wrapped her slender limbs about the waist of her lover as though she meant to blend the other's figure into hers forever and ever, and now the two made the bedsprings give up chamber music as they melted together, caught in passion's flame. It was an experience fraught with pain and pleasure for both. They both went mad and tore at one another like animals in heat, and after they had spent, they lay too tired to move.
That was Claudia's introduction to Sapphism and she was soon firmly caught in its almost inextricable toils.
Nevertheless, association with the talented and musical lesbian did wonders to improve Claudia intellectually. She now read many things that ordinarily she never would have known existed. She heard the finest music played by a creature who was almost a master. She continually met new and interesting people and moved in an aura of refinement, decadent refinement, to be sure, but yet productive of considerable intellectual vigor.
They rarely went out, but one evening Billy suggested that they might amuse themselves at a sort of tavern and club for their kind known as "The Sister's Club." Claudia accepted with alacrity.
It would have been terribly amusing for an uninformed onlooker to have beheld the solicitous manner in which the lesbian selected her "wife's" costume for the evening.
"I want you all in black for this evening. I want all my friends to see how gorgeous my little girl really is."
Billy practically dressed Claudia, helping her into a dainty black transparent chemise under which her white skin gleamed. Over this she donned a low-cut, clinging evening gown, effectively simple except for a little belt studded with rhinestones which seemed to burn with a kind of electric fire as it tenderly encircled her slim waist. A rhinestone purse to match and one white orchid on her tenuous shoulder strap completed the dazzling costume.
"My dear," said Billy, "you look like a dream come true."
As for Billy, a new mannish blue suit with a dashing felt hat to match, a white pique shirt and loosely knotted dark blue satin cravat sprinkled with white polka dots made her an unforgettable picture of a twilight woman. They made a terrible and splendid picture as they left the apartment house together.
"The Sister's Club" was going full blast when they arrived. Claudia was instantly the object of interest among the other woman-lovers. They drank and watched a suggestive floor show with interest. One turn, two pretty girls executing a nimble cancan with much high kicking and display of slender silken limbs amid a white froth of petticoats, brought the most prolonged applause.
A tall, broad-shouldered man, or what at first glance appeared to be a man, took the floor. That was "Paul," the master of ceremonies.
There was a preliminary fanfare as he made his brief announcement.
"And now, as you all know, we will conduct our monthly beauty contest. The most beautiful girl will be given a cash prize. All contestants are requested to enter the dressing rooms to get ready for the lineup."
"I would love to see my little sweetheart entered in this contest," Billy whispered as she caressed Claudia gently.
Claudia was reluctant, but under Billy's insistence and because she hated to offend, she went to the dressing room with the other contestants. Here each girl was given an arm band with an identifying number and told to disrobe. Most of the girls were entirely stripped except for their shoes and stockings before the amazed Claudia could begin. One of the tall lesbians approached her. "Come, honey," she whispered in her ear. "Take your clothes off." She pinched her soft breasts. "You're such a lovely piece, dear." She ran her tongue around her lips suggestively. The entire procedure made Claudia ill, but she decided that now she would have to go through with it.
Like the others she removed all her clothing but her shoes and stockings and got into line. At a given signal they filed out onto the little dance floor into the blinding glare of the spotlight. They were greeted by tumultuous applause. They took their positions and Claudia tremorously awaited the next move. All the tribades rose to their feet to inspect the contestants. They did not stop with their eyes; they prodded the flesh and ran their hands down curving buttocks. They fondled swelling breasts and commented upon skin texture. But that was only the preliminary examination. Now they knelt to inspect the private parts of the girls. They exclaimed in loving tones when they stopped before Claudia and ogled her beauteous sex. "What voluptuous lips!" they remarked. "What splendid hair and development of the mount of Venus!" Their lips drooled and their eyes flashed as with their feverish imaginations they pictured the delights which the girl's body contained.
After the examinations had concluded, ballots were passed out and the count taken.
"I award the grand prize of a beautiful purse containing fifty dollars to number seventy-two."
Number seventy-two was Claudia.
She received the award amid thunderous acclaim. They kept her in the center of the stage alone so they could drink in the rare loveliness which stood shyly before them. When they had finished making love with her with their eyes, Billy led Claudia back to her dressing room. She quietly donned her clothes, filled with revulsion. Something had snapped with her. She was sated with everything; with life, with love . . . and above all with Billy.
CHAPTER FOUR
The entire occurrence at the "Little Sister's Club" marked a turning point in Claudia's life. It filled her with a profound loathing and disgust for lesbianism in any of its revolting phases. For several days afterward she could not bear Billy's proximity; she pleaded illness and slept on the couch. Secretly she thought this mood would pass, that it was only a temporary feeling engendered by what her eyes had beheld that eventful evening. In her sleep at night it seemed to her that she was surrounded by the hot lascivious eyes of the panting tribades, that she yet stood in the all-revealing white glare of the spotlight, naked before a room filled with strangers. And what for? So Billy could parade her conquest before envious friends. It was shameful!
For days she shrank under her companion's touch. This state of affairs could not continue long.
"What's the matter?" Billy asked her. "You act like you were afraid of me. Have I become poison to you?"
Poor Claudia was too ashamed and frightened to confess the reason for her sudden apathy. The crisis came that night when Billy attempted to win her over again by making violent love. Claudia fluttered in her arms like a frightened pigeon, her heart pumping against her breast. Her very terror seemed to inflame her seducer, who that night took the frightened girl against her will. Billy slaked her sexual thirst and left the girl alone to brood over what had befallen her.
To Claudia it seemed that she had been defiled, raped and besmirched. This, she thought, was the end. She never wanted to see or hear of Billy or any other lesbian again.
The next morning, when Billy had gone, Claudia packed her things together and took a taxi to the far North Side. She found a room on Sheridan road in the "roaring forties," and the hateful memory of Billy was dulled by the healing passage of time.
Claudia was happy in her new surroundings. A great deal of youthful activity bubbled about her. She seemed far removed from the alternately luxurious and squalid life that is so typical of the "Gold Coast." In this upper-middle-class haven she felt more integrated and secure. She still had a little money left, for Billy had paid her expenses during their association, and she resolved to take things as they came until her money was gone.
A week or so of this quiet life and she was on the lookout for some adventure. The rooming house she lived in was quiet so there was nothing doing in that direction. Since she lived within a short distance of a famous North Side ballroom, Claudia decided to spend an evening or two there. She had often heard its famous orchestra over the air in her home town, and now that the opportunity afforded itself, she decided to go see the band in the "flesh."
The handsome ballroom was a revelation to her: tremendous in size, dazzlingly lighted, the gigantic ceiling resembling the blue vault of heaven studded with electrically twinkling stars, the suave, pulsating strains of music-it was to this girl an enchanted fairyland. And the crowd! She backed up against a pillar so she could take in the new and dazzling life which was swirling about her. The young men seemed to her remarkably well-dressed and well-mannered. As for the girls, they possessed, in her belief, poise and beauty. A desire grew in her to become part of this display. After all she too was young and it was very pleasant to be young in a gathering place of youth. They all seemed to be having so much fun. All around her men were asking for dances and she wondered if anyone would ask her. She could have saved herself the worry. A nice-looking youth with a pleasant smile approached her.
"May I have the next dance?" he asked eagerly. And, as she hesitated, he said, "Please."
She nodded and in a moment they were out on the floor drifting smoothly along with the lilt of the waltz. Claudia gave herself up entirely to the music. It was nice to be held so close in masculine arms once more, to sniff eagerly at the faint odors of shaving lotion and tobacco. When the dance ended he thanked her and walked off. The pleasant casuality of it all pleased her immensely. She wandered about haphazardly, conscious of the fact she was the object of considerable speculation on the part of the young men, and it was soothing to her girlish vanity to know that they found her desirable. She felt more at ease in her new-found environment and was enjoying the experience with each succeeding moment.
Dance after dance. Tall men and shorter men, dark and light, talkative and quiet; Claudia loved it all. She felt incredibly young again as she watched the youths eyeing her and trying to screw up enough courage to ask her to dance. It restored her sense of feminine balance which she had come so perilously close to losing. She shuddered involuntarily and threw herself into the spirit of the evening with a desperate zest as though to make up for the disturbing experiences she had undergone. She wanted to recapture the womanliness she had throttled within her the past few months.
That night Claudia went home unescorted, not for lack of cavaliers, but because she wanted to hug the sweet memories of the evening close to her heart. There would be other nights, many of them.
One night, life again sought Claudia out. It happened on a glittering Saturday night. The enormous ballroom was thronged with light-hearted couples. It was well toward the end of the evening that Claudia met Frank Hey-ward. From the moment she first laid eyes upon him she knew somehow that he was different. He seemed to possess all the things the others lacked. It was not merely that he was well over medium height, or that he had the tempered good looks of a burnished steel blade; it was not his calm assurance or his catlike walk. Rather, it was the combination of all those things that made up Frank Heyward.
She had refused to dance with another of the sleek young men who, for the most part, comprised the masculine element of the dance hall, To tell the truth Claudia was becoming bored by all these reverential and colorless dancing partners who drifted before her in an endless well-groomed parade. She felt Heyward's piercing gaze upon her and a current of electricity flowed between them. Claudia stood quietly waiting for him to approach her. She knew he would. He did. Without a word he held out his arms to the loveliest girl in the place and she drifted into them like a bird snuggling in its nest. They danced as one, as if they had been doing the same thing for countless ages. When the all too fleeting moments of the dance had ended he spoke for the first time.
"Let's go up on the balcony. Shall we ? "
Claudia nodded. They skipped up the stairs like happy children and found a shadowy, secluded nook from which point of vantage they could look down upon the milling throng. His face was stern and aloof in the darkness. When he talked he did not flood her with a horribly strained mixture of small talk which was the stock in trade of the other habitu's.
"You know," he said, "you're lovely." And he waited.
Claudia smiled. "There are dozens of girls down there who are far more beautiful."
He raised his level brows. "Perhaps," he said in a tone of utter disbelief, "but there is no one who shines out with that peculiar inner radiance which seems a vital part of you. You look-" he was pausing for a thought "-like ever-changing material."
"Like transparent velvet," Claudia suggested laughingly. "I'm sure you must be a yard goods salesman."
"Worse than that," Frank said. "I'm one of these desperate college boys. And speaking about selling yard goods, I'd like to put in an order for a good piece of you."
His tone thrilled the girl, but they were moving at too fast a clip to suit her. Claudia knew what it was all about now.
"I'll put your order on file to be filled at some future date," she said softly, her words sultry and fraught with meaning.
Heyward grasped her soft yielding little hand in his large powerful paw and the touch promised both something new and exciting.
That was the beginning of a whirling existence to Claudia. They left the dance hall and walked happily along into the balmy summer night down the little streets to where Frank had parked his smart roadster. They got in and were soon spinning along the broad ribbons of the North Shore, fanned by the cooling breeze coming in off the lake. The stars winked overhead and the entire setting was one for youth and love. On they rode through "No Man's Land" and picturesque suburbs. At last they stopped in a little grassy glen near the lake. They sat watching its smooth plane with the moon sending down a beam of mellow light which the dark mirror of the lake reflected in shattered pieces. Frank held Claudia close and drank in her fragrance, thrilled to her fleshy warmth. This girl did things to him. He was a college man, not old in years, but he had had women. Men who looked like Frank Hey-ward would never lack for women.
As for Claudia, she knew a deep sense of security. She felt that she would be able to handle him. She nestled closer to him and Hey-ward was a little at a loss as to what to make of the situation. Well, he thought, a kiss was always safe. He tilted her little chin and lightly pressed his lips to hers. It was a delightful comradely caress which both enjoyed. They stopped at that. Frank was happy to learn that the girl was not a prude. He was in no hurry with a girl who was so beautiful and charming as this one. He pictured future delights in store for the two of them. He would wine and dine this girl as he had no other. It would be mighty sweet to trail this lovely creature down the aisle of fine restaurants and nightclubs. She would be a credit to any man and an unimpeachable indication of good taste.
He made no further demands upon her that night but took her to a well-known barbecue stand where they had a bite. While there, he was saluted by numerous college friends, and their good-natured envy was like strong wine to him. Frank Heyward had been reared to be satisfied with nothing but the best.
He took Claudia home that night and left her after arranging a date for the following Wednesday night. They stayed in the hall teasing one another gently, as young people who are fond of one another will.
"Take good care of yourself for me, honey," he said as he took his leave.
"I'll take good care of myself for the both of us," she answered him and left him to ponder her words on the way home. Claudia had the invaluable knack for saying the right thing.
Wednesday afternoon Frank sent her flowers, which went a long way toward melting Claudia's heart. He arrived that evening resplendent in a dark blue suit, crisp linen, and his hair shining like a polished metal cap. Claudia was ready for him in all her glowing loveliness, her maroon velvet frock sheathing her shapely roseate body.
He drove out to the south side to the Grand Terrace Cafe where they dined and listened to the torrid music of Earl Hines. They sat entranced as his nimble fingers ran up and down the piano with dazzling rapidity. The man was like a mechanical device fastened to a piano stool. His whole body seemed to be thrown into those brown fingers which clawed at the keys. They had a few drinks and sat in the enveloping gloom watching the fast, diverting floor show. There was an air of danger hovering over the entire place. Liquid eyes and gleaming teeth. A black and tan fantasy come to pulsating life. Blue lips pressed to the flaring mouthpieces of wind instruments, blowing hot licks into the smoke-swirled room. Dancers swinging with unconscious and sensuous rhythm through terrific routines. Chanters, singers, and skat singers; blue-black as the ace of spades, brown as a Havana cigar, or creamy like a cup of Boston coffee, the performers shaded in variations. But it was all fast-very fast.
Now a beautiful mulatto was caressed in a spot of silvery light. Her body fairly slithered as she moved her hips with the grace of a birch tree in the wind. Now her hips were shooting in all directions in a sort of orgiastic climax and Claudia felt her own soft hips swing in sympathetic accord. Frank sat unmoved through it all. It was nothing but tinsel to him. His pleasure lay in contemplating the gorgeous creature who sat near him, who was drinking in the scene before her with avid eyes. Her eyes danced and evoked strange emotions in Heyward's chest. What a girl, he thought as Claudia leaned over and he was afforded a heavenly glimpse of two delicately tinted and rounded breasts nestled under the folds of her dress. His fingers twitched in anticipation. This was going to be something worth playing for. With Heyward, as with most normal men, the chase was a goodly part of the game.
They danced in that bluish haze which reeked with the stimulus of sexual desire; they had drinks which only inflamed that desire. Later they traveled back north where they stopped in a great tavern with a tremendous bar and a tiny four-piece orchestra. From one extreme to the other-but that made both more diverting. They had as much fun drinking Tom Collinses as they had had in the more elaborate south side club. The crude entertainment they viewed tickled them as much as the finer showmanship they had just left. They were having a great time as the alcohol fired their blood. Frank's usual reserve was rapidly vanishing and even Claudia was melting within and becoming more receptive to the inevitable amorous advances. Their laughter rang out with greater freedom and Frank's hands were dwelling on hitherto untouched places. Claudia yearned to be manhandled.
They left the hectic tavern unsteadily, for they were both carrying a good load, he under his belt and she beneath her girdle.
They climbed into his car.
"You know," he said, "I'm going to take little Claudia home. That's what I'm going to do. Home. Home. Home." It was all uttered in slightly drunken singsong.
"Home?" Claudia echoed.
"What's the matter?" he looked up sharply. He was not so drunk that he could not detect a note of disappointment in her voice. Frank was no fool. "Sure. I said we'll go to my home." Since Claudia said nothing, he drove to his parents' residence.
When at last they pulled up to the handsome building, Claudia expressed a fear that there might be someone home.
"They're miles away," Frank reassured her. "They've gone for the summer and we can have the house and each other for days and days."
It was a prospect which was not unpleasant to Claudia. She was prepared to give herself in the end and she was certain that in Frank Heyward she had found a fitting companion with whom to scale the stairs of sexual delight. Claudia was a realist and took what life had to offer.
After some fumbling with his keys Frank was able to unlock the door and they entered the large, beautifully furnished residence. They wobbled upstairs into a handsome bedroom. They threw themselves upon the bed fully clothed and promptly fell asleep in each other's arms.
The sun awakened Claudia the following morning as it streamed warmly through the windows. She stared about her for a moment before she was able to piece things together. When the full significance of everything dawned upon her and she understood they had slept together the entire night without having made any sexual overtures, she threw her head back and sent peals of delighted laughter ringing through the empty house. Frank was coming around now, rubbing his eyes uncertainly.
"What the . . . " he started as he saw the laughing girl now sitting up in bed. He looked at his clothed body and it all came back to him.
He laughed with her, albeit a bit ruefully, when he realized that he had been so close to the promised land.
"I'm off the stuff for life," he said to her with great emphasis. "It interferes with my pleasure."
"What makes you so sure you would have had any pleasure?" she teased.
Her fresh seductiveness, the maddening manner in which her dress had worked its way up over her rounded knees, the long full line of her thighs inflamed him and he crushed her body in his arms and kissed her full on the mouth. They rolled over and over on the bed and landed at last on the floor before he would release her. They were like two puppies at play.
"I know what," she said mischievously. "Let's take a shower together."
"Swell," he said. "And the first one in gets a prize."
"What's the prize?" Claudia wanted to know.
"You'll find out later. You better hurry and take your clothes off or I'll leave you so far behind you won't stand a chance."
In just a few seconds Frank was dashing madly for the bathroom, followed by an artist's conception of a perfect nude come to life. There was barely room for both of them as they crowded into the shower. Frank accidently turned on the wrong faucet and a sudden downpour of cold water dampened the desire which was rising like a high tide within the hearts of the two of them. They frolicked under the lukewarm spray, soaping one another's backs. When Frank tried to soap Claudia's lovely sex he received a slap for his pains.
"What's the matter?" he protested in a hurt tone. "Look," and he pointed to his tumescent shaft which was rising like the Washington monument between his legs, "you can wash that. I won't complain." Claudia's fingers closed about its fine length with such vigor that he howled. "Hey!" he cried, "why don't you watch what you're doing? Do you want that gun to go off in your hand?"
At last they had finished their play and they rubbed one another down until their fresh young bodies glowed with health. Frank could not keep his itching hands from her melting flesh. They cupped themselves under her breasts, fitting perfectly into his palms, their softness just running over. She slipped from his feverish embrace and ran like a sprite into the bedroom, where she was caught up and flung upon the bed. He tried to slip his raging prong into her, but it was like attempting to thread a moving needle. She was like quicksilver in his hands. They both broke out into a sweat, the scent of which had a terrific aphrodisiacal effect upon both of them. At last Claudia gave in and slumped limply into a reclining position. Frank put a pillow beneath her buttocks to raise her sex a little higher and afford himself a more exquisite thrill. Now he gently wedged his raging shaft into the cavity between her widespread thighs. She sighed as she felt it slip into her depths.
Frank's mouth engulfed hers and they were closely contacted in two sensory spots. He went to work, slipping his penis in and out of her receptor, affording both the marvelous stimulation necessary to perfect enjoyment of the sexual congress. It was as though they both constituted a great orchestra and were slowly and inevitably leading up to the climax of some tempestuous symphony.
Claudia's hips gyrated madly and as she felt the first preliminary spurts warming her delicate inner cavity, she wound her shapely legs about him in abandoned frenzy. They were both breathing hard as they sped to the dizzy peak of sexual ascent. Now Frank shot a sustained stream of semen into the writhing girl and she gave him an answering flow. They shuddered convulsively in each other's arms, and his limp tool slipped from the wet clutch of her vagina and nestled against her thigh.
"You're wonderful, Claudia," he said.
"Only with you to help me," Claudia replied. "You do your part so well that any girl would be wonderful in your arms."
He buried his face between her fragrant breasts and she leaned over, gently breathing moistly into his ear and caressing the short hairs growing down the back of his neck. It was not very long before his rod looked as though it had been filled with plaster of paris.
This time Claudia mounted him. He thrilled under the sweet pressure of her soft body against his. He held his legs stiffly together as she let herself down upon his yearning priapus. He tongued and mouthed her breasts into perfect sexual cohesion, having drawn the full length of his organ between her hips. She ground her white belly against his. Frank lay supine, his eyes closed in rapture, while Claudia controlled love's transport. Her uterine fingers alternately clutched and released his pleasure producer as she madly milked the fluid from his sack. Frank felt like a little boat caught in the turbulent troughs of a violent sea. At last their desire had run its full course; they dressed and left the house for breakfast.
"If we go on like this, dear," Frank laughed, "I had better buy a chicken ranch so I can stock up on raw eggs."
"There's enough of the rooster in you to suit me," Claudia replied.
"A little more love like I had this morning," Frank joked, "and I won't have enough strength left to crack the eggs."
"Enough of the game," replied Claudia. "When do we eat?"
Frank laughed. There was much that he liked about this amazing girl, and not the least was her quick sense of humor. This sort of trifling interplay stimulated the man and gave the girl a genuine personality. Such a girl would hold a man.
"Well," sighed Frank. "Let's go, honey. At least there'll never be a dull moment." And there never was.
They had their breakfast in the fresh virginal morning, then Frank decided to drive out to Evanston. They spent most of the day just looking at the great expanse of the lake. Frank stretched out on the sand, his head cradled in Claudia's lap. He had not a care in the world.
"Why can't a guy parlay moments such as these into eternity?" he asked Claudia lazily. "What the hell can life offer a man besides a few seconds like these? You know, honey, since I've known you, I feel that in some measure I have justified my existence, or rather life has kind of evened itself up for the rotten bumps it has taken me over. I hate to bore you with my infantile rhapsodies and I know umpteen poets have versified these thoughts before me, but a man hasn't lived until he has been loved by a woman."
"You great big philosopher, you!" Claudia smiled down upon him indulgently.
"All right, go ahead and laugh," Frank scowled. "What do you know about the finer things in life?"
For answer, Claudia bent down and kissed him full upon the lips.
"That's all I want to know," Frank told her.
The sun shone down hotly and they lay in that lazy twilight. It was enough to them that they were close to one another.
"Hey!" They looked up to hear voices.
They were surrounded by several laughing couples. Charming young men and women with the unmistakable stamp of college training.
They were Frank's friends and he introduced Claudia all the way around. She made a favorable impression, for after all, Claudia had all the qualities that made for youthful admiration and companionship. They sat around joking.
"Say, Frank," remarked a handsome lad, "why don't you come up to the house party tonight and bring Claudia along. We'd love to have you both. It's going to be some affair." He winked. The girls flushed and laughingly called him a big slob. He grinned. "If it's anything like the last one, it'll be hot stuff all right."
"A lot you know about it, Brent," Frank said. "You'll probably be out like a light before it gets under way. The only way you'll be able to tell whether you had a good time or not is by asking your friends."
"I'll stay sober this time," Brent said. "There's plenty of reason to stay on the wagon this weekend. What do you say, Frank? You're not going to be selfish enough to keep
Claudia all to yourself. How about it, boys and girls?"
It was impossible for Frank to refuse. "All right, you big clown. We'll be there. Now beat it and leave us alone."
They all left, their goodbyes fading into the distance.
Claudia was no fool. "You weren't very anxious to go, Frank. What's the trouble ? "
"Oh, nothing much," he told her. "The party will probably get pretty rough, but perhaps it'll be some fun anyway. It'll be a change, if nothing else. They're a kind of screwy bunch. Don't mind if they get a little crude, honey."
Claudia said she wouldn't mind and they dropped the subject, content to bask in the sun.
Later that evening he drove her to her room where she could make the changes necessary for the house party. Frank told her to pack a bag as though she were going on a trip. "It may last a few days," he told her. "Better take along a few changes of clothes and other stuff that you might need. These things are hell on your clothes; I'll pay the damages. Some fool is always spilling a drink or something of the sort."
When she had packed what they thought would be necessary, they drove back to Evanston. Inside, Claudia felt anticipatory thrills. A premonition warned her that they would not devote their time to watching the moon and discussing Freud. These students were not overly old in years, but they looked like they had a pretty good notion of what was going on.
When they reached the exclusive North Side suburb night had thrust purple fingers across the sky. A moon hung overhead like a yellow lantern. The scent of lilacs filled the night air. Frank wheeled up to a large rambling fraternity house and they piled out of the car.
The house twinkled with lights and through its doors floated music, gay voices, the sound of tinkling glasses, and laughter . . . much laughter. They ran up the stairs into an uproarious, thronging mob.
Brent was the first to greet them, a seraphic smile upon his handsome face. He held up his hand for silence. "Quiet please!" he roared. "This happy couple is Frank and Claudia. Frank and Claudia, the folks. Folks, Frank and Claudia."
There was an amusing drunken dignity about him as he showed them around.
"Lord and Lady Wheatcake," he would present them as he would walk to some secluded corner and tear an embracing couple apart. "I know you'll just love 'em," he would say as the enraged couple drew apart.
Signs of drunken disorder were already in evidence: one girl was taking her clothes off. "What's your hurry?" asked Brent. "Can't you wait awhile. The week is young yet."
"No, no!" cried the girl "I want it now, and you're going to give it to me!"
"That's the stuff, Lydia! Make him put up or shut up!" they all shouted. "What a man, making the girl ask for it!"
Lydia held her skirts high over her knees and her shapely limbs excited murmurs of approval.
"Give it to her, Brent!" shouted one young chap, "or I'll do the little business myself."
"Oh no you won't!" shouted his girl friend. If you're going to lay any pipe tonight, I'm going to be on the receiving end!"
Lydia snuggled closer to Brent, placed her hands about his buttocks and kneaded the front of his trousers with her thighs. Brent was horribly embarrassed and tried to push her away.
"Look at that damn fool!" someone cried. "He doesn't know what's good."
Brent couldn't loosen her grip and now the sex-enraged girl was rotating her pelvis madly in dry intercourse. Her little hand disappeared in his trousers.
"Aha!" she cried. "Little Rover feels like a baseball bat." Her hand emerged, caressing a fistful of throbbing manhood.
"Let go!" shouted Brent.
"Like hell I will!" said Lydia, clutching the protesting youth's organ in her small but strong fingers. One round arm encircled his neck and her lips covered his with a titillating, moist suction. They clung for what seemed minutes. The girl was the aggressor, and for a while it appeared as though she were going to suck all the vitality he possessed through his mouth. The other girls cheered her.
"Go to it, Lydia!" they shouted. "Let's see you rape him!"
The young men just stared in envy. Claudia was thrilled by the exciting scene. This was something she had never before observed.
Frank suddenly got an idea. "Exhibition!" he shouted, and the cry was taken up by all the others. Someone pushed a low couch toward the struggling couple and turned out all the lights except for one lamp which was situated so it could be thrown upon the two young people like a spotlight.
Poor Brent's knees were buckling under him like a punch-drunk fighter. His protests were growing weaker and weaker before the relentless strength of this determined girl who knew very definitely what she wanted. Besides, Lydia had him in a bad way. She stubbornly refused to release his raging sex organ. Suddenly she wound her legs about him so that he tripped and landed on the couch on top of her. She kissed him cleverly so that it seemed to him that he would ejaculate at any moment without entering her burning gash of sex. Now it was he who took the lead, carried away by the rising flood of desire. With one motion he drew off his trousers and the girl followed suit by ripping off her dress. Her unusually large breasts fell in Brent's face. The girl guided his turgid projection into her avid cavity while the highly entertained audience cheered.
They rolled together like an ocean wave. Her hips rotated so violently that Brent was almost thrown into the air.
"Stay with me, honey!" shouted the passionate girl. "Don't let go!"
They rode to happiness together.
Claudia looked up at Frank. His hand was working its way under her dress. His eyes burned with an unmistakable light. Claudia placed her hand upon the mound that was slowly rising beneath his trousers.
The actors had stopped to catch their breath. A few couples had drifted upstairs, and amorous sounds were wafted down from above. The rest grouped in a circle about Brent and Lydia. They critically discussed the merits of the performance, and all agreed that both had performed well, but that there had not been enough variety.
"What we want," one girl said, "is a little variety. Not that the good old way isn't satisfactory enough, but a little change makes the feeling more intense."
"All right," said Lydia. "I'll show you something. She took off her chemise and kneeled on all fours on the couch, her buttocks in the air like two ivory spheres. There was a universal hardening of male sex-organs in the audience.
"Come on, Brent," Lydia urged. "Get behind me and slip me the business."
Brent looked a little doubtful but, egged on by the others, he kneeled behind the lovely flesh and began to push his prong up her rectum. He let a little of his length ease into her, but apparently the entrance was not going to be as simple as they thought. Lydia was moaning now. "You're hurting me, Brent. You're hurting me." But she did not say anything about stopping and Brent continued to pay out his fleshly line. But now he was no longer responsible for his actions, for he was consumed by the ruling passion. Lydia's buttocks were beautifully divided by her rectum, out of which grew a fascinating silky bush of hair. His penis throbbed and raged at the resistance he was encountering, and with a sudden violent surge he broke through into her rectal passage. Lydia let out a moan like a maddened animal, but at the same time she backed up to Brent's testicles. She wiggled as though she intended to break off the shaft imbedded so deeply within her. Their audience was enthralled by this rather novel exhibition of sexual passion.
Flesh and blood could stand no more and at last Brent's reservoir released cupid's lotion like a warm douche into Lydia's bowels. The girl was nearly beside herself with ecstasy. That concluded the little show and now, as the inflamed couples broke up, each drifting towards vacant rooms to satisfy their desires, Frank suddenly said to Claudia, "Let's get out of the house for a while, shall we?"
Claudia looked at him curiously, but said nothing before following him out into the night. They got into the car and drove several miles north until they found a secluded section of the beach. Frank had come prepared for a little stay, for he led Claudia down to the beach carrying a blanket and a bottle. He spread the blanket and they both lay down in the tender summer night. Overhead stretched the blue, star-studded expanse of heaven. Frank put the bottle to his lips and took a good pull. He passed it to Claudia and she did likewise. It did not take long before that had worked up a good glow. They lay in one another's arms with lazy contentment.
Claudia hummed, "Safe in your arms, far from alarms . . . "
"You might be safe in Victor Herbert's arms, but not in mine," Frank told her.
"Quite a man, aren't you, darling?" teased Claudia.
I In reply, Frank's hand went to his trousers.
"Do you ever raise your mind above your belt?" Claudia asked for no particular reason except that she felt a little perverse. Frank stopped as though he had been shot. He reached for the bottle and decreased the liquor-line by two inches. He turned over on his side away from the girl. She watched him with amused eyes. The minutes sped by and from the great lake came the steady roar of the water rolling up on the beach. A star shot across the sky in scattered silver flight. Claudia stretched her lovely body.
"Frank," she said. But he wouldn't answer. "Come now," she said, "don't be such a child."
The thought came to her that perhaps he was asleep; she leaned over him. His eyes were closed! There was one sure way of finding out. Claudia slipped her hand in the waistband of his trousers and the prong between his legs jumped to her touch.
"Asleep, eh?" she laughed. "That's a funny way to sleep."
He rolled over, imprisoning her in his arms. She spread her legs, drawing up her dress and tantalizing him by pretending to be unable to find a resting place for his enlarged tool. Frank swore and at last Claudia rammed the shot home within her. She scored a bull's eye. It was one of the most exciting experiences Claudia had ever undergone-to give vent to her desire outdoors in the languorous night, away from all extraneous noises and the distractions of civilization. It was very simple in this wonderful environment to give oneself up entirely and wholeheartedly to the erotic ritual. Her delicately muscled vagina alternately pressed and released Frank's organ as they came together in love's pleasant exercise. She drew the juice from him in small amounts until the dike broke at last and he poured the molten lava into her waiting cavity. When they had finished their exquisite rhythm, they made inroads upon the bottle together. Their spirits were fired by the liquor and soon Frank was divesting himself of all his clothes. Claudia watched him curiously. When at last Frank stood in the nude, the moonlight bathing his muscular frame and clean-cut profile in a molten golden light, Claudia said, "Where do you think you're going?"
Frank said nothing, but ran down the beach into the lake. Claudia stripped immediately and followed suit. She made a dazzling picture as she ran gracefully down to the water, all soft and white, with tenderly curving breasts, hips and thighs, her shining black hair streaming behind her.
The temperate lake waters soothed and calmed them as they gave themselves up to its delights. They paddled and frolicked like two long white fish. Far into the distance, flowing along on the horizon, they saw boats twinkle with lights. The "whoo-whoo" of their whistles sent shivers through them. There was something weird and eerie about the entire thing, once they had got their fill of the watery sport. They ran out and rolled up in a wet bundle in the large blanket Frank had so thoughtfully provided. They nestled close to each other, warming themselves by the quickly generated body heat.
In no time at all they were dry and laughing at the position they were in. The dip into the lake had only momentarily abated the desire they carried for each other. They lay together on a sweet pillow of love, their warm breath intermingling and exciting them. They kissed and their tongues awoke torpid longings.
"You've got me in a hell of a fix," said Claudia. She dug her pointed nails into his forearm. His sex began to grow warm and hard against her pubic mount. "Don't you ever let up, you ass?"
"Look at yourself in the mirror the next chance you get," Frank told her, "and you'll find out why I don't let up."
He put his ramrod into her and this time they just nestled in each other's arms without bringing the act to an abrupt climax. It was thrilling to Me in such intimate proximity without bringing things to a torrid conclusion. Familiarity was bringing control. They understood each other well and could develop new refinements. They remained in that position for some time. The sky was becoming shot through with vivid reds and pinks; it was nearly dawn. They executed a final blissful act of copulation. Frank got in a sitting position, as did Claudia. They faced each other and she put her legs about his waist and embraced him with her arms. He put his arms about her and they were both easily able to maintain a sitting position. His erect penis pointed upwards and entered between the hot, fat-lipped crease of her sex. They rocked each other in this position which was so conducive to cohabitation. They started slowly and swung with heated rhythm as the seminal flow began to seep from their organs. This unique position provided perfect sexual contact. They teeter-tottered to the heavenly heights together.
They enjoyed a long rest while their bodies became recharged with new vigor. That beautifully cleansed feeling. At peace with themselves and the unimportant world about them. At last they arose to return to the party.
The sun was up now and they sped along the highway on wings of the morning. Everything was dewy and fresh when they reached their destination. Once they stepped across the threshold they were struck by the appalling quiet. The place resembled the aftermath of a Roman Imperial orgy. Men and women lying outstretched upon the floor in a collective drunken stupor: breasts hanging from torn bodices, private parts carelessly exposed, clothing all over the place in litters. One sleeping girl still clung to the limp yet sizeable priapus of her partner. Apparently, like the hero of one of Boccaccio's tales, she too had captured the nightingale.
Frank and Claudia climbed upstairs, where practically the same scene greeted them. After a search, they at last located an empty room and flung themselves down to sink immediately into a dreamless sleep.
After what seemed seconds later, they were aroused by a terrific din coming from downstairs. They stayed in bed, covering their ears with their hands. The noise came closer and closer. Many hands tossed them out of bed. They looked up sleepily from the floor at the grinning mouths circled above them.
"Everybody up!" they shouted. Banging away on tin pans, they moved on to rouse other sleepers. Lines formed before the bathrooms for showers and other urgencies. When at last even the most torpid had been revived and freshened up and had changed clothes, a rousing breakfast was served, with hilarious tossing of food and exchanges of pleasantries. They were all well-bred and there were no references to the night before. Apparently they lived on the theory that what was done-forget. Tomorrow is another day. It was a splendid attitude, and very typical of youth.
Brent and Lydia behaved as nonchalantly as though they had never put on a sexual demonstration the night before. Nobody ragged anyone else about their conduct the previous night.
That was how she wanted to live her life, thought Claudia: without any vain and stupid regrets. And a great fondness for all the young people in the room swept over her. She felt fond of Frank and grateful for the opportunity he had given her to mingle with his friends.
They lazed about the veranda, idly smoking cigarettes and waving to other groups of young guys and girls who rode or walked by. Everything and everybody seemed filled with a fine zest for living and camaraderie. Over it all hung an air of accepting things as they were without any futile protest.
Frank and Claudia sat close together on a porch swing. A girl was strumming a ukulele. Everywhere was motion, gaiety and a lust for life.
"Like?" Frank asked Claudia. "Very much," she answered. Her heart was full.
CHAPTER FIVE
The hectic weekend over, Claudia once more picked up the loose threads of her life. Frank continued to take her about town, but a new and hitherto unknown problem was confronting her the age old tormentor: money. At last her funds had reached a perilous state, and Claudia began to look about her for some means of making enough money to sustain herself. She studied the newspaper want ads and went through the experiences common to most average people living in cities today. No matter how quickly she would run to the business house which had placed the advertisement, she invariably was too late. The pavement commenced to feel increasingly harder beneath the worn soles of her shoes. Meals were fewer and harder to obtain. Claudia took her punishment like the courageous girl that she was. She could not bring herself to accept money from Frank. Write home, she would not. Tommy Thomas probably would be glad to send her money if she would get in touch with him, but it offended her sense of fair play. They had had their fun and Tommy had paid his bill in full. There was only one way out. She simply had to get a job.
The bitter struggle went on. It has been said with considerable truth that once one is forced to go out into city streets to seek employment, one loses something which is never regained. For sensitive people, job-hunting is a horrible ordeal. Claudia was sensitive.
One day she got a job.
She had spent the entire morning following up fruitless leads. She had seen swarthy little Italian girls given jobs as candy wrappers in preference to herself. She could understand the justice of that, too. After all, these girls had experience. She had watched their fingers flying like a flock of jittery sparrows. There was nothing, Claudia thought, that she could do well. She waited for hours in smelly lines in cheap department stores, and always would come the same questions: "Any experience, Miss? Who did you work for last?" And even if she were "lucky" enough to secure the miserable job, the few pennies she would earn would do little toward keeping her.
Now she was on her weary way home. She took a last glance at the small drab type in the help-wanted section of the newspaper and the following advertisement caught her eye:
YOUNG WOMEN-to learn the art of massage. Earn big money. Become a competent masseuse. We teach you how. Pleasant, dignified work available to young women who qualify. See Madame Sylvia at Herford Bldg. Room 312.
It looked like a pretty forlorn hope, but nevertheless, Claudia decided to investigate. It would not cost her an extra fare, as the Her-ford Building was situated within walking distance of her rooming house.
The building had, to Claudia's eyes, a rather sinister aspect. It smelled slightly of decay. It leaned over against a red-painted hotel which looked as though it would not be greatly concerned over what type of guests availed itself of its hospitality, except that they be able to pay.
A shaky, rickety cable elevator wheezed Claudia up to the third floor where the Madame Sylvia Massage System was located. With mingled feelings of curiosity and apprehension, she opened the door and stepped into the anteroom. The entire place was jammed with girls. They sat and stood in various attitudes, all types, shapes and complexions. The room hummed with the sounds of many voices. At last a tall, remarkably well-built woman with a rather severe manner entered the crowded room. She was attired in a crisp white uniform. It seemed to Claudia that she wrinkled her nose in displeasure at the assembled rabble. Her sharp eyes swept the room. She approached six girls and touched them with her hand. "All but these can go." The room of girls filed out in a reluctant grumbling stream. Claudia was one of the six.
"Now girls," Madame Sylvia said, "step back here with me."
They followed her back into the establishment. As they passed through various chambers they heard the sound of slapping and the grunts of "patients."
"Take off your coats," they were ordered. When they had done so, Madame Sylvia lined them up and looked them over with her sharp eyes. She walked around them as if she were a judge in a cattle show. She stopped before Claudia and her gaze lingered.
"How tall are you, my dear?" she asked.
"Five feet seven."
"And your weight?"
"One hundred and twenty-nine pounds."
The madam nodded her head. She ran her hands swiftly and expertly over her body. Claudia felt a strange reaction at her touch, but she said nothing.
"You may sit down, my dear. I will talk to you later."
She studied the other girls once more. At last she selected a tall blonde girl of apparently Norwegian ancestry.
"Your weight is . . . ? "
"One hundred thirty-eight."
Madame Sylvia's eyebrows shot up. She smiled calculatingly.
"The rest of you girls can go," she said.
When, at last, the three of them were alone, Madame Sylvia began to unbend and to speak confidentially. She asked the girls their names.
"Claudia and Elsa? That's fine. That is how you will be known as long as you work in my establishment. I want to explain to you girls how I conduct my business, just what I expect from you and what you can expect from me. I will give you the benefits of my seventeen years in this business. At one time or another I have worked upon the most famous people in this country and abroad. Yes, with these very hands . . . " and she held out a pair of large, powerful, broad-wristed hands. "Ask them about Madame Sylvia in Hollywood. What actor or actress does not know of me?" Circumstances seemed to bear out her contentions, for the walls of the room were literally covered with what appeared to be personally autographed photographs. Some of the world's most famous people posed with Madame Sylvia, and all this seemed to surround her with an air of authenticity.
"Now," she went on, "I am perfectly willing to teach all you girls all I know of anatomy and the exhilarating effects of body manipulation. All this I place at your feet. I will even pay you a fair salary while you are learning. I know you will find this work to be quite interesting as well as remunerative. That is all for just now. I want you to come back here tomorrow and bring your belongings with you. For the first few weeks, at least, you will spend a good share of your time here and you might just as well arrange to stay here. Goodness knows we have enough room, and you might as well save yourself a little rent for the time being until you are earning real money. Then you will probably take apartments in a fine residential hotel. I'll expect you tomorrow afternoon."
The girls went down the elevator together.
"How does it sound to you, Elsa?" asked Claudia.
"I don't know," answered the tall blonde. "What have I got to lose? I'm practically out on the street now."
"I'm in the same boat," said Claudia. "But somehow I can't get it into my head that everything is legitimate."
"To tell the truth," said Elsa, "I can't say that I swallowed everything that big dame had to say either. Anyhow, it's worth a gamble. I've got to take that chance."
"I'll take it with you," said Claudia. "See you tomorrow afternoon."
The next day the girls moved into Madame Sylvia's establishment and began the life of novitiate masseuses.
They were given bare little rooms and told to leave their belongings in them. Then they received two white uniforms and several pairs lof panties and brassieres. They were told to change into their uniforms and to appear in Madame Sylvia's office as soon as they were ready.
When the girls came into Madame Sylvia's office, there were several anatomical charts ready and a plaster of paris figure of a well-built man with his nerve centers and nervous system indicated by white lines upon a red background. Especially the section around the male organ was minutely constructed so that the section could be removed at will. The whole figure was marvelously constructed. The girls could only stand and gape.
Madame Sylvia began to discuss the human system. She spoke with an air of great authority. She explained the various muscles and their functions; how the spine played such a tremendous part in human well-being and how it could be manipulated in the hands of a competent masseuse to give the patient considerable relief and stimulation. "Why," she said, "some of the most prominent men in this town come to my parlor to get a beneficial massage. It enables them to relax for a little time and get their minds off their troubles. When they get through lying in our baths and have their muscles flexed and limbered, and their spines stretched and snapped, they go out of here feeling years younger. And you will find that you will need your strength to give a competent massage. That is why I selected you girls. At least partly why. You both look like fine healthy girls and that is what we need in this business."
She continued her instructions. From time to time, Madame Sylvia's presence was required elsewhere. She would leave to return almost immediately and resume where she had left off.
"Now, girls," she said, "I think it is best that we get a little first-hand practice. Claudia will remove her clothes so that Elsa may manipulate the back muscles and long muscles in the legs. Come, Claudia; it is necessary that you undress."
Claudia hesitated, but there did not seem anything that she could do about it. She would appear silly if she refused. Modesty was a doubtful virtue in a massage parlor. She took her clothes off and lay down upon the rubbing table. Madame Sylvia ran her eyes along her beautiful white length. She put a hand that felt like a steel claw upon the girl's swelling thigh and moved it upwards until the hip curved in under her. Her hand dipped in at the waist and flared out again as it cupped Claudia's firm rosy breast. Madame Sylvia's hands lingered at the breast.
She paused a moment and said earnestly, "My dear, nature has given you a priceless heritage. Now Elsa-you stand over Claudia . . . so. Take your clenched fist and knead the spine like you were punching into a pan of dough."
Elsa proceeded to administer the treatment and soon Claudia began to feel a delightful tingle running up and down her spine. When Elsa desisted, Claudia already felt refreshed. She said so to the Madame, feeling somewhat reassured, thinking that perhaps everything was going to be all right after all and deriding herself for her foolish fears.
The beautiful blonde girl stripped and stretched herself at length upon the table. She was all pink and white like tinted snow. She had the heroic build of some legendary maiden in a Scandinavian saga: a Brunhilde come to life, waiting for her Siegfried. She was a sight which could make ten thousand limp male organs jump erectly to attention. Elsa was made for love on the grand scale. She was truly voluptuous. Her milky skin was crammed with firm flesh in just the right places. Her hips, breasts and thighs were all of the wonderful roundness which has inspired artists and creative geniuses for centuries. You find this feeling for fleshly curves intensified in pottery and even architectural design. Consciously or unconsciously, the physical qualities of women creep into man's creative life as is attested by his works. Her warm flesh had that glow which the Italian Renaissance painters were able to breathe into their women.
"Come, Claudia," said Madame Sylvia. "Give Elsa the same treatment she gave you."
Claudia could not resist placing her hands gently over the fragrant flesh. Wherever her fingers rested for an instant, the imprint remained in the soft flesh. Elsa's body seemed to course with rich red blood. Claudia began to knead her spine as she had been taught and her clenched fists made a livid path on Elsa's backbone.
"That's enough for the time being, girls," they were told. "You may go into the dining room for supper."
They washed up and went into the little dining hall. There were about six other women seated at the table when they arrived. The Madame did the honors.
"Girls, this is Claudia and Elsa. They are going to stay with us and I want you to extend every courtesy to them. Lola, Ada, Sari, Jane, Helen and Mabel," the Madame called off the names of her little force.
Claudia was instantly struck by the uniform prettiness of all the women. They looked like a front line of a Follies' chorus. They were all pretty in a different way. It was as though the Madame had assembled a fine example of every kind of beauty admired by man. Lola looked like a picture of a Southern belle, with her languid voice and manners and the way she wore her hair in a clump of curls. Sari was French. There was no mistaking that. She wore the Gallic imprint like a proud soldier wears a medal. She was tiny and delicately made. A thought came to Claudia: here was one masseuse who was not required to be so large. Ada was a lovely Negress the color of a fine piece of manila paper, with smooth black hair parted in the middle of her pretty little head. She looked like a tropical flower which has been culled from some remote jungle and transplanted to bloom again on alien soil. Jane, Helen and Mabel were different types as to build and coloring, but one thing they had in common: a certain fleshiness bordering on coarseness; a pretty obvious sensuality; a slackness about the mouth which indicated a loose manner in living.
Following the introductions, all proceeded to eat heartily of the plain, wholesome food which covered the table in abundance. There was little talk, although the others kept looking at the newcomers with typical feminine curiosity.
When the meal was over, they all arose and went into another room, a kind of a parlor. Here each girl sat in a separate chair. These were placed about the room in a circular fashion. Still no one said more than a word or two at the most. The walls of the room were covered with pictures and illustrations of nude men and women in peculiar positions-at least so it seemed to Claudia from where she was sitting. A strange fear clutched at her heart. It couldn't be, yet she jumped to her feet quickly and walked over to the pictures and drawings. Her heart pounded. It was true! She was caught in a brothel!
Every picture showed a man and woman in the process of intercourse! Although there were dozens of pictures and photographs, no two depicted the sexual act in the same manner. The walls explained and taught the diversities and possibilities of the sexual union. Every conceivable manner and style of coitus was portrayed luridly before Claudia's startled eyes.
"Elsa! Come here!" she cried. "Look! Look!"
Elsa jumped to her feet and rushed to Claudia's side. When she caught the significance of what was portrayed, she said, "Come. Let us get out of here! Now! At once!"
Claudia sped after her down the hall and as they left the parlor and it's gallery of lust behind, an evil laughter seemed to pursue them in their flight.
At the other end stood Madame Sylvia. There was nothing threatening in her manner or in the way she stood, but they felt instantly that she barred the way to freedom.
"Where are you girls rushing to?" she asked mildly.
"We want to get out of here," Elsa told her with .grim determination in her tone.
"You want to leave your wonderful positions and the Madame? And just when you're getting on so well, too? Incredible!" There was unmistakable anger in her tone.
"Stand aside, please," Elsa ordered. She stood an inch shorter than the masseuse.
"Come now," the latter said abruptly. "You haven't a chance to get out of here. You're here to stay. Forget all this nonsense or you will only regret it."
Elsa was white. She looked like an enraged Amazon.
"For the last time, Madame, will you stand aside?"
An amused laugh was her only answer.
Elsa swung a clenched fist at her obstructer, who nimbly stepped aside, caught her from behind and held her about the waist, swinging her helplessly a few inches above the ground.
"Now, now," she said quietly. "Be reasonable or you won't be so pink and so white and so pretty when I get through with you. I'll give you a different kind of a massage, you stupid fool!"
Elsa only tried to fight her way out of the viselike grip of her adversary. Claudia could not move. She was rooted to the spot. She could only watch the drama which was being enacted before her eyes.
"What do you think you're going to do if you get free? Here"-Madame Sylvia released the girl with a shove which sent her flying. "Now what are you going to do about it?" she taunted the enraged girl.
Elsa's face was crimson with hate and determination. She advanced toward her tormentor with the steady courage of her Viking ancestry. She held one arm extended in an awkward simulation of a boxer leading toward an opponent. Madame Sylvia laughed aloud as she caught her arm and sent the girl to the floor writhing in pain.
"This is only the beginning,'" she said. "You two are going to learn your lesson now. And I'm going to brush up a bit on my judo."
As Elsa slowly and painfully rose to her feet, the Madame caught her over her hip and tripped her heavily to the floor, where the girl lay in a stunned heap.
By this time, Claudia could stand it no longer and she leaped upon the victor, catching her by the hair. A jolt in the pit of the stomach released her hold and she fell weeping to the floor. The Madame dragged them both to one room and slammed the door. When the girls recovered, they could only stare at one another piteously. They spent the night in tears in each other's arms.
Just a little more of this kind of treatment plus a curtailment of food and the girls were ready to take their place in the Madame's menage, rebelliously, it is true, but nevertheless they went about their duties.
All pretense of teaching them the art of massage was dropped beyond a few preliminary tactics. The rest of their time was spent in learning about the male nervous system and the possibilities of the sex organ.
In a short while, the Madame said, "Well, I think you two are just about ready. Tonight you will see how the others work and tomorrow you will go into service."
Business in the "massage parlor" began to accelerate after about five o'clock in the afternoon. "Patients" began to file in from then on, but the peak was reached between midnight and three in the morning. The patient entered, was examined by the Madame and then allowed to steep himself in a luxurious bath as long as he desired. He then retired to a little room in which stood a massage table. All this looked innocent enough. The catch came when the comely masseuse began to rub him down. Under her skillful operation, the patient suddenly discovered a desire to massage the massager-turnabout, as it were. The girls understood the rudiments of giving a treatment if they had to, and occasionally this was the case when they encountered some naive customer; but in the main, most of the patrons knew what it was all about and they seemed to thoroughly enjoy the transparent subterfuge.
That night the girls were inducted into the trade. Madame Sylvia called them both. "Follow me!" she ordered and they walked with her down the hall.
When they reached one of the little rooms, Madame Sylvia worked her finger around a particular spot in the wall and opened a long slit which enabled the girls to see clearly into the room without being observed by those within. With bated breath they watched, and this is what they saw:
Jane, a sturdy, well-built girl, was working on a paunchy elderly man. Everything looked circumspect and proper. Then Jane's hands descended to the patient's groin, which was wrapped in a sheet. He stirred uneasily. Jane continued to rub his flaccid body with seeming unconcern. The girls could see something rising beneath the sheet like a tent pole.
They heard Jane say, "Excuse me a moment. It's awfully warm in here."
With one motion she discarded her white uniform, which was cleverly constructed like an apron, and she stood clad only in a pair of panties and a skimpy brassiere, her full womanly figure straining against the closeness of the fit.
"Now," she said. "I'm ready to give a real massage."
The man reclining upon the table laughed an expectant and excited laugh.
Jane's hands were stroking him and he lay with eyes half-closed in a blissful state. It would not have surprised Claudia if he had purred like a cat. Jane's face drew nearer to her patient. She discarded her brassiere and her full melon-heavy breasts hung near his lips. He began to kiss and fondle them.
They could barely hear Jane whisper, "Which way do you like it, dear?"
His answer was indistinguishable, but they saw Jane strip off her tiny panties and straddle her erstwhile patient. She faced him, lifting herself up with her hands pressed to the side of the narrow table until she had raised her vagina over his stiffened spear, which reared its angry head into the air. She gently descended upon his throbbing organ, taking its length within her cavity. She rocked to and fro like a rider with the motion of a horse. She made a strange Lady Godiva.
"Come girls," said the madam. "You have seen the technique. You know how to approach a prospective customer. We use a little care to feel them out. We must watch out for investigators. There is a wave of reform threatening and we can't afford any undue risks. First find out if your patient is receptive, then go as far as you like. Before you begin, however, I want you to watch Lola. There is an artist. One of the best I have seen in my years of business."
They came to another chamber, and once more Madame Sylvia opened a secret little peephole so the girls could see what was taking place. Lola, the daughter of the South, was working on a powerful man. She was giving him an alcohol rub. Lola leaned over and her hot breath streamed into his ear. Her fingers crept up and down his neck with a fairy touch.
"None of that stuff, Lola," he said. "I want to play baseball."
Lola smiled. "All these boys up here want to play baseball, and Lola really knows how."
"That's what I was told."
"All right, honey," Lola said in her soft liquid voice. "You just stand here and we'll play."
She took a towel dipped in alcohol and cleansed him about the rectum and genitals. Then she got to her knees and her moist, pink tongue began to sink into his rectum. Her subject began to wear an expression of delight over his face as her tongue did its magic. His magnificent staff, with its acorn-covered tip, began to rise ceiling-ward. Now Lola was laving his sack. Her patient's lips were twitching. "Do it!" he pleaded. "Do it!" And Lola did.
Her tongue darted in and out against the side of his heated penis. And now she took its head into her mouth and began to suck as though she meant to draw the marrow out of his bones. At the same time her hands played with his testes. In a few moments, Lola released his organ just in time to escape the seminal geyser which shot into the air. Most of it was caught in a towel Lola kept at hand. Her patient sank back upon the table, exhausted. "Lola," he whispered. "That's a different kind of baseball to me, but I say to hell with the other kind."
"Lola has scored another home run," said the madam softly as she led them away.
"Sari is working now," continued Madame Sylvia. "I might as well show you how she operates. I believe in thoroughness above everything else. My pupils are famous the world over for their technique."
When they eavesdropped on Sari, she was in the middle of a real job. Behind the leather-covered massage table was a perpendicular partition. Behind this was a bed which was a necessary adjunct to the madam's business. On this bed lay two figures tied into a confusing knot. When the girls were at last able to decipher the puzzle, they saw to their amazement that Sari was lying on top of a man, downward and buried in his crotch. Her legs extended beyond his head. At the same time his mouth was glued to the juncture between her thighs. They were both busy slobbering away and lost to the world as they lay caught in the tentacles of lust.
"Of course, I don't expect you girls to do anything like that . . . yet," said the madam. "That is a little difficult for such comparative newcomers as you two. Now let us take a last look at Ada and then you can begin with your work for the evening."
When they looked at Ada, she seemed to be buried beneath the large white body of a heavy patient. Claudia trembled for her slim brown figure beneath that mass of flesh. But their fears were in vain, for Ada was a female dynamo. Like a tawny serpent she began to writhe and the patient who was mounting her began to move in earnest before her rhythmic onslaught. She handled the immense man as though he was a pound sack of sugar. Her rotating hips were irresistible waves as she tossed his hulk about. He began to sag like a pricked balloon as he was in his transport. When he lay still at last, a limp glob of flesh, the brown girl slithered from beneath the pile.
"Hah, goodness!" she said. "You like to have smothered me! Man, you don't wiggle your backside enough."
"I don't have to, Ada. You move around fast enough for the both of us."
Ada laughed richly.
The girls followed Madame Sylvia into the parlor, where they sat nervously awaiting their call. Their fingers worked jerkily in their laps and the smiles and suggestive looks of the others only added to their confusion.
Madame Sylvia touched Elsa upon the shoulder. "In room B," she said, and Claudia was left alone.
She closed her eyes and her mind retreated into the past, into memories of things past that crowded into her consciousness with the unforgettable pungency of an autumn fire of dried leaves. Her life flashed quickly before her like a poorly edited newsreel. There was no sequence. High spots and inconsequentialities all flickered before her in a mist. A hand touched her shoulder and Claudia rose, like a dream, to meet whatever fate had in store.
When she got into the little room, a patient awaited her. He had been lying upon the massage table, a towel about his middle. He looked at her curiously when she entered. One look and apparently he was satisfied and reassured by what he saw.
Claudia began to manipulate his body gently. The flesh was firm and hard beneath her touch. He had the clear translucent skin of a baby.
"That's fine," he said to Claudia. "Only harder. I probably won't go to pieces under your touch."
Claudia put her weight behind her hands and gave her patient a pretty good treatment. He reached out one of his hands and patted her hips as she leaned over him. She grasped his hand as if to push it away from her. "No, you don't," he said. "You know what I'm here for. Let's go into the other room."
Claudia went into the little room with him. Her fingers fumbled with her white dress. At last she stood before him in all her stunning beauty. Her companion could only gawk as she emerged from her stiff, starched uniform like a nymph rising from the waves.
"My God!" he said. "They told me they had some beautiful dames here, but I never expected anything like this."
He pulled her down upon the bed. He pressed his face in the delicious softness of her bosom. "Um-mmh," he sighed happily, as his feverish hands sought the pleasure spots of her body. He mauled Claudia in his arms, straining her to him until she thought her very bones would crack. He bent over her, his fingers searching for her vulval lips.
"Come on, baby. Open up."
Claudia spread her legs. Her eyes were closed and she felt his hard hot lance imbedded between her thighs. It throbbed against her teeming insides. She felt him pushing into her, deeper and deeper until it seemed that he meant to drill right through her. She thrust upward to meet him in self-defense. He was grunting now with each forward motion. A wet, sticky substance trickled down her thighs. He was breathing chokingly, as though someone had a death-grip on his throat, and then he emitted a long sigh as he burst and shot her full of his warm seminal discharge.
He clung to her as though the passion of the moment had repercussions, recoil. She disengaged her arms. She had committed her first overt act as a whore.
Claudia cleansed herself thoroughly and went back to the sitting room. Elsa was already sitting there, sickly white and pale. They had nothing to say to one another. They sat quiet, awaiting the touch of a hand.
Madame Sylvia came in. "Claudia, your patient said you have shown him the finest time he has ever had in his life. He is going to recommend you to the boys down at the city hall. My dear, you will have the finest and most desirable trade in town. The city hall crowd! Every house in town has tried to get them. They're magnificent toppers. But you . . . " she turned on Elsa, who shrunk back in her chair. "You! Your patient told me how cold you were to him. You let me hear another report like that and I'll tear you apart."
The evening crept on with the horrible painfulness of a mortally wounded animal dragging itself to some quiet spot to die. Time after time Claudia was called to "massage" some patient. Always the same insipid beginning. The wait for the overture. It was about two in the morning that she experienced something new in the way of sexual diversion. A slender man of about thirty-five years received her ministrations. She had given him the customary amount of rubbing when he said to her, "Take your clothes off!" Claudia obeyed. He looked at her for a little while. "Very charming," he said, and he slid off the table until his feet rested on the floor. He leaned over the table, his elbows set solidly and his naked buttocks held out invitingly. "Whip me!" he said.
"What?" said Claudia, unable to believe her ears.
"I said 'whip me,' " he repeated.
"I couldn't do that," Claudia told him.
He cursed. "Didn't Madame Sylvia tell you about me?" He looked up, and there on the wall of the room hung a slender whip. He reached over and got it and put it in her hand. "Begin!" he ordered.
Claudia shrugged. A sudden anger surged within her. She revolted against them all. She would whip this man until . . .
Swish! The whip cut through the air and struck against the buttocks of her patient. Again and again she struck his bottom, raising terrible welts against the smooth flesh. A feeling of exaltation grew within her as she laid on with a will. She went insane with delight as she raised and swung her arm until her body was aglow with perspiration. Whack! Whack!
Her subject began to moan with pain beneath her lash. Claudia was carried away by an emotion she never knew existed. The dormant sadistic instinct, which is universal, came out at this moment. At last she stopped out of sheer exhaustion. She stood still, head bowed, brain awhirl, and in her hand she still held the whip. She felt as though something terrible had oozed out of her. How long she stood thus, she did not know. She felt something moist about her feet. She looked down to see her patient groveling on hands and knees, licking her feet.
The fantastic evening drew to a close. All the girls gathered in the little room. Now that the evening's work was done, they lolled in all attitudes of ease, smoking and thumbing through cheap magazines. The restraint had left them. They talked and chattered for all they were worth. Even the madam unbent and poured them drinks out of a whiskey bottle. Elsa's face was modeled in stone. Claudia felt tired, dreadfully tired. The madam spoke:
"Well, girls, we have had an excellent night. If business keeps up like this, and I don't see why it should not, we will soon be on easy street. Here is your share . . . " She began to parcel out little rolls of bills to the girls. "You ought to be thankful," she said, "that I don't let you go out and spend your money. You do the right thing by Madame Sylvia and you will all be rich."
The whiskey had disappeared and Madame Sylvia opened another bottle. Ada, the colored girl, had little Sari on her lap and was kissing and fondling her as though she were her lover. Their lips and tongues were glued together. They seemed oblivious to the fact that there were other people in the room. Ada moistened her finger with saliva and pushed it up the little French girl's bottom, working her finger in and out.
Claudia sought release in whiskey. She was in a warm enveloping fog. The faces of the others grew dim and indistinct. The madam bent over her. "What's the matter, child?" she asked.
Claudia couldn't answer. She felt strong arms about her, caressing her, lifting her. Fingers were kneading her breasts. They hurt; she cried out. She heard voices from afar, and laughter-deep dark laughter; jungle laughter. Caresses of burning hands grew more intimate and demanding; a voice murmured smolderingly and insinuatingly and she knew no more.
Claudia awoke late that afternoon. She tried to stir in her bed and she could not. Her limbs seemed paralyzed and distinct from her body. It seemed to her she was a spirit drifting, drifting. What, she thought, must one do to bring one's body to life, to motion? She counted: one, two, three and go! But nothing happened. She looked down at her bosom. Its whiteness was marred by red and blue bruises, plainly imprinted by lustful fingers. Her hips and thighs throbbed.
A voice. "Come, girl. Out of bed!"
It was Madame Sylvia.
Her tongue refused to move in her mouth. She couldn't answer. She was dragged out of bed and thrust under a cold shower, which brought her out of her stupor. She was thrown upon the massage table and Madame Sylvia apparently intended to beat her into a pulp with her own muscular hands. She groaned under their relentless pressure, but when her tormentor had finished, she sat up and felt almost normal again.
She went down to breakfast. The other girls were just leaving the table, all except Elsa. She sat limp and quiet, her eyes on the floor. The big girl had wilted under the treatment. There was a good deal of the whipped puppy about her. The shadows of pain were dark beneath her eyes. Her face was pinched and drawn. The girl was suffering-that was plain. Claudia comforted her. "Don't take it so hard, dear. I'm sure everything will come out all right."
When they had finished toying with their food, they walked into the waiting room. All the girls were once more sitting in the circle of chairs. The madam was holding forth:
"I want all you girls to be doubly careful of who you take care of today. One of the newspapers is conducting one of their crusades and a lot of joints in town are getting the screws put on them."
A spark of joy flared up in Claudia's bosom. Pehaps that was her avenue of rescue. She faced the day with a heart full of anticipation.
She handled her first customer, and he was like all the rest. She gave him his fill and returned to her chair to wait. The second made her pause. There was something assured about his manner. He lay upon the table. "Give me the works, sister," he said with an air, and when he saw her strip for action his eyes popped in his head.
"My God!" he blurted. "There's something in this job at that. I'll have the works, and when you're through, you may repeat. Fire when ready, Gridley. I have but one peter to give to my paper."
Claudia started. This must be the investigator.
"You're drunk," she said. "True."
"I want you to help me," Claudia said earnestly.
"Sister, I'll help you till the cows come home, and come to think of it, what's the use of coming home? C'mon baby, let's go to bed. If I'm going to investigate, I'm going to investigate right. C'mere and let me conduct my investigation. It's for the paper. This is the first break I ever got on the rag."
"Will you help me if I go to bed with you?" Claudia asked.
"Jump in, honey," the reporter said, "Sure I'll help you. What d'ya want me to do? Keep the name of the joint out of the paper?"
"No, you fool!" Claudia nearly shouted, "I want you to plaster the name of this brothel all over the front page of your paper!"
"Uh . . . what?" he was sober now.
Claudia told him the story. When she had finished, he said simply, "I'll have the police here in an hour."
He began to rise from the bed slowly, staring at Claudia with longing eyes, like a small boy eyeing a second helping of dessert.
It amused Claudia. What was one more or less now, she thought. She climbed into bed with him. "You men," she told him. "You're all that Sadie Thompson said you were."
The newspaper man was too occupied to reply-
An hour later, axes smashed down the front door and Claudia and Elsa were herded with the rest into the patrol wagon.
The next day they appeared before the judge. Apparently, he had been informed of the imprisonment of the two girls, for he called them back into his chambers and told them they were free to go without any more degrading publicity.
As Claudia left the dingy station, she ran into the newspaper man who had expedited her rescue and release.
"Thank you a thousand times!" she said to him impulsively.
"Not a thousand," and he put his hand to his back with a groan.
Claudia blushed.
CHAPTER SIX
Life had been treading over Claudia with hobnailed boots. She had seen and lived the seamy-side, and now she yearned to break away from its brutal unpleasantness. Here in Chicago, she knew that all life was not drab around the edges. There were many brighter aspects to "the London of the West," yet Claudia had known, for the most part only the sweaty in-sides of the sprawling roistering giant.
She was again in the same position she had been in prior to her enslavement by Madame Sylvia. The few dollars the madam had given her could not possibly stretch beyond two weeks-three at the most. But Claudia understood by now the uncertainties of city life. You were just a little chip in a maelstrom: if you got sucked in at the vortex you were dragged down to certain destruction: if you just missed the fatal center you were swirled about within its turbulent borders, and a sudden watery lash might fling you safely upon a safe and fruitful shore.
She decided not to go through the useless humiliation of job-seeking, but to let life do with her as it would. She was tired of fighting. She would go slackly downstream for the moment; perhaps life would be kinder that way.
Accordingly she took to rising when the spirit willed her. She would bathe and dress (she still possessed an excellent wardrobe) and go out into the milling streets. It was in the middle of summer and the sun felt good upon her bones. If the mood was on her she would stroll from her little North-Side room to the Loop. It seemed to her as she walked through its bustling glitter that everyone, but she, was hurrying to some objective. Before noon, groups of people stood awaiting admittance to combined picture and vaudeville houses. Claudia made a little grunt of distaste. The notion of attending theaters in the daytime was repulsive to her. You walked out of the darkness to blink in what would now strike you as raw, ghastly, obscene sunlight. The romantic spell would be broken by harsh reality. No, she thought, the glamorous, star-studded night was the proper time to leave the theater.
Claudia often went to the lake front. That was the cheapest form of relaxation and productive of the best results. You could bring with you a sandwich or a little fruit and lie there and feel the warm sun seeping through you, renewing the life that was slumbering down deep inside. Yes, she thought, the ancients were very wise when they chose Ra, the sun-god.
Or you could, if you wished, watch the bronzed, picturesque fishermen waiting patiently for a significant tug at the end of their lines; or the equestrians galloping by on fiery, well-groomed horses; or you could swim.
But the nights-the nights were bad. She thought of Frank, but she did not know how to find him and he did not know her new address. Yes, it was when the sun went down that one missed comforting human companionship. "How I long for the touch of your hand . . . " Tin Pan Alley had the right dope at that. Wherever Claudia went she was a target for masculine eyes. All about her she saw sordid romance in the making via the "pickup." The giggling, professionally coy girls made her sick as they stalked the stalkers. And the would-be swains with their pimply faces, horrible clothes and still more horrible manners, offended her completely. Claudia was accustomed to the society of first-rate men and these callow, awkward creatures were offensive to her. No, there was nothing for her in that quarter. And her little supply of money dwindled.
One sunny afternoon Claudia was emerging from the soothing waters of the lake, her simple bathing suit clinging to and revealing the gorgeous flowing lines of her figure, when she caught the eye of a rather plump little woman who had been watching her. She smiled in a friendly way. Claudia involuntarily smiled back. There was something pleasant and comfortable about the strange woman. If you were put to it to describe her in one word you might have said: "home-body"; the description would have been pretty nearly inclusive, at that. She had the easy placidity of a woman who is sure of herself, her man and her existence. Claudia felt drawn to her.
The little woman spoke first: "Pretty cold in the lake?" Claudia nodded.
She continued: "I been watching you swim. You're pretty good. I don't swim myself, but I like to watch. Eating is the best thing I do, I guess." She took a sandwich out of a large, beautifully made English luncheon kit. "Won't you have one?" she asked. "I'm sure you must be hungry after all that exercise. I've got a thermos full of coffee, too."
This was too much for Claudia, who by now was feeling rather faint. She accepted the generous offer and was soon munching on a welcome though unexpected lunch.
"I'm Mrs. Williams . . . Katie Williams," her hostess said. The name had a faint ring of familiarity to Claudia. After introducing herself to Mrs. Williams, she told her that she was almost certain that she had heard and seen the name before. Mrs. Williams' eyes twinkled. She rose to her tiny feet and nimbly executed an intricate dance step.
"Oh!" gasped Claudia. "You're the Katie Williams. I never saw you myself, but I've heard and read a lot about you."
"I suppose you have!" sighed Mrs. Williams. "Well a lot of good liquor has flowed under the bridge since then. You know I danced in the Follies with Ann Pennington and Marion Da-vies in 1914 in the old Amsterdam Theater in New York." She looked down at her pudgy body with a trace of wistfulness. "You wouldn't think so to look at the old frame now. Well, it's all over and I'm content to sit back. But say, kid," she went on, "you've got the sweetest chassis these old eyes have peeped at in many a day. Poor old Ziggy would have snapped you up in no time. How come a doll like you is running around loose in this town? What a chump I am! You must be in show business-a kid with your stuff. Who you with?"
"No one," said Claudia, "unless my shadow constitutes company."
"You're doing some kind of work, aren't you?" asked Mrs. Williams as though she could not believe her ears.
"Not a thing right now. I've just come down from Michigan."
Mrs. William laughed. "That explains it, I guess. But you sure had me fooled. There ain't no hayseed in your hair. But it's a crime to see so much good-looks thrown away behind some ribbon counter or a typewriter maybe. Kid, you oughta be in the profesh and I'm gonna be your angel. I'm gonna take it on myself to see that you get in. Call me Katie."
Claudia grasped her hand. She was overcome with emotion. There was something contagious about the breezy open-heartedness of this fat little woman. She might be coarse, and she had undoubtedly been seared by life's relentless fires, but she was still soft with human kindness.
"You're very sweet to me, Katie . . . " she began, fumbling for adequate words.
"Hell, forget it, kid. I'm gonna do something for you. You wait and see."
The sun was losing its early afternoon warmth and Claudia was oblivious to the life about her as she listened to this veteran of a thousand theatrical campaigns spin yarns. Heartbreak and laughter crowded in around her. A new life was being revealed to her by one who had plunged headlong into its ever bubbling fountain. Katie held the girl in thrall with her tales. Through them all ran a healthy ribaldry.
"Yeah," said Katie, "life's been just a series of sleeper jumps to me. But you wait here until Joe comes. I'll make him do something for you. It may not be much, but you'll at least be able to eat. Here's Joe now. Hello, Joe, you bastard. I was just telling my friend about you," she cried to a slim, dapper man of about forty.
"Yeah?" he said. He grinned at Claudia. "It'll take at least two years for me to square myself after the old lady gives me one of her left-handed buildups. Anyway, hello." He was a nervous, twitchy person, never still. His hands fluttered about and he kept whistling snatches of hot jazz music.
"How did it go today, Joe?" Katie asked.
"Lousy. Them broads I got in the line are worse and worse. I've given up trying to show 'em how to move their feet so they don't fall down. Sam Katz, he don't care if they can't dance without falling on their pratt. That don't get him so much as the faces on these broads. Only today he was sayin' to me. 'For chrisake, we gotta brighten up the front line. I don't care how you have to go out and get 'em, but get me some babes whose pusses wouldn't curdle cream.' Now all I gotta do is go out and rape some girl's school."
"Well, Joe, I know where you can at least get one good-looker for that lousy burleycue joint of yours. Claudia here needs a job. Give her a break."
Joe immediately changed his tone. "Stand up," he ordered. "Now put your legs together."
Claudia followed his instructions. Her splendid figure with its flowing womanly lines showed to excellent advantage in her brief bathing costume.
Joe whistled. "Kid," he said, "you're all there. But can you dance? Nothing much, y' understand. Just a little time step, maybe."
Katie cut in. "She's new, Joe. But you can give her a little personal attention for me, an old pal, cantcha?"
Joe laughed. "Well, I suppose I can. Tell you what to do. You come down to the joint early tomorrow morning and maybe I can wise you up to a few things before the regular rehearsal. Don't get me wrong. Burleycue is a pain. You'll work hard and long and you won't get a lot of dough, but who knows? It might lead you to something; you can never tell."
"Yeah," said Katie. "Look at me. It led me to three husbands."
"Well, what did you expect?" said Joe. "Four?"
They got their things together and departed, leaving the happy girl in blissful anticipation of a solution to her financial and possibly her social problems as well. What luck, she thought, and from a totally unexpected avenue at that. She went home to her room and spent a restless night waiting for morning.
At last the appointed hour edged its way around. Claudia made her way to the burlesque theater. She discovered that the stage entrance was through the alley, and that first impression became to her a kind of a symbol of what the life held for her.
True to his word, Joe was ready for her. She would net have been surprised if he had not been there. In the brutal reality of the morning, the events of the previous day seemed but figments of her imagination.
Joe waved his hand casually at her. "Hi, kid," he greeted, and turned to a stage carpenter to give an order. "Be back in a minute," he said over his shoulder, and he was gone. She had ample time to take in her surroundings. She was backstage! She summoned up all the glamorous writings and thoughts she had ever known concerning the theater. Did all those high-blown words and thoughts apply to such a dingy atmosphere. The backs of the sets were a flimsy crisscross of two-by-fours and the stage floor was littered and dusty. Everything about the entire place was sordid and common. Of course, a burlesque show was not a theater in a real sense, but Claudia knew that this type of entertainment had a certain vogue in cities, and that even the swells sometimes attended just for a lark. It didn't pay to get too close to things, she thought, not if you wanted to cherish illusions.
Claudia was becoming a realist.
Joe returned. "Here," he said, and he threw a few garments at her. "Practice clothes. Get in the dressing room and make your change. I'll be waiting."
She went into the dressing room and made the change quickly. Joe nodded his approval when she returned. "That's what I like," he said. "No fuss and monkeyin' around. Well, let's get down to a little business. I can't give you a hell of a lot in a few short minutes and I'm not going to try to get you all frigged up. I'm just going to put you wise to the simple routines we have in the show so you won't be kicking someone's fat behind and knocking yourself out of the opera."
He took a square of chalk and diagrammed the few dance steps which would be required. He went through them slowly and thoroughly a couple of times. He watched her imitate him and then he stepped to the battered piano and pounded out the melody. Claudia breezed through the routine. She was naturally quick and graceful and the little dance made barely any demand upon her agility or suppleness.
Joe looked at her and said in his cold, matter-of-fact voice, "You'll do, kid. I like your style. Curtain at one. Be back here at 12:45. That's all."
Claudia changed back into her street clothes and walked out into the street to pass the time until she would make her debut. She laughed at the thought of making a debut in the last line of a burlesque chorus. No one would even see her, she thought, and perhaps that was just as well.
When she walked up the alley to the stage entrance, there was all kinds of activity. Girls were trickling in from all directions. There was an old Irishman at the door. He looked at her keenly. "You must be the Miss Fenton Joe told me about. Alright, come on in. See
Lily, the wardrobe mistress, for your costumes."
Claudia elbowed her way among the rushing girls until she found the wardrobe mistress, a middle-aged woman with a certain faded prettiness. She looked up from her sewing machine when she saw Claudia. "Oh, yes," she said in a soft voice. "Joe was in here telling me about you. Take your clothes off and we'll make a fast fitting."
As she took her things off, Claudia remarked, "So far, all I can say for this life is that it's one clothes change after another."
Lily laughed. "You're new at this, but you might as well get used to it. Joe said he thought you might develop into a stripper. If you ever do, then you'll spend all of your time taking your stuff off."
"What's a stripper?" asked Claudia as she pulled her dress over her head.
Lily stared. "My God! He must have dipped into a convent for you, honey. Well, you just go along and you'll find all these things out for yourself." She looked at Claudia's shapely form from beneath her silk chemise, took in her rounded pillars of throat, legs and arms, and her swelling breasts, then continued soberly. "Yes. You'll learn all right, and there'll be a lot offering to help you, I can see that."
She went ahead with the fitting and was soon finished.
"Just put your stuff in here," Joe said when Claudia appeared, "and I got a make-up box for you. Don't thank me, because it's coming outa your pay, see? When you make your first change, come out here and I'll have one of the girls show you how to put the stuff on."
When she was ready, she was directed to a place at the long line of tables. There were innumerable mirrors, brightly lighted, before which the girls applied their makeup with lavish hands.
"This is Betty," Joe said as he presented a tall, willowy blonde girl. "Betty-Claudia. She'll show you the ropes. I've told her you're new."
Betty showed her how to apply the cosmetics, how to shadow the lids of her eyes in order to give appearance of largeness and allure, how to make the uniformly red cupid's bow mouth, and how to dust powder all over her legs, bosom and shoulders.
"Most of this stuff is wasted on a pretty young kid like you," Betty told her. "But as you get along in this racket, you'll find you're gonna need all this extra help. All right," she slapped Claudia on her behind-"you're ready for the slaughter, lamb."
Joe showed her her place in the line, which was forming to go on. Out front the orchestra was striking up the tune she was to grow sick of hearing. She looked around and it seemed to her sharpened perceptions that she was inundated by a sea of powdered flesh. Women and girls of all ages and descriptions swarmed about her. Wherever they moved, they left an aura of loose powder. The music grew increasingly stronger and the girls ran out upon the stage when the cue was given.
Claudia would never forget her first startled sensation when she faced the audience. A numbing sensation took hold of her as she stared out into the darkness before her. Gradually the audience took shape and she was able to make out an individual face here and there. When the girls began to lumber through the routine, she had calmed down and was able to devote herself to the job at hand. When it was over and she was once more backstage, a certain certainty and self-possession swept over her. She was a performer. She nearly grew hysterical when she thought it over. Five minutes in the last line of a cheap chorus and she was already considering herself a member of a glamorous profession.
All about her was a strange, seamy style of life. The girls were kidding with the electricians and stagehands. Their humor was of a rough and ready sort with an occasional obscenity.
The comedians began to walk through the throng of girls. They seemed to be prime favorites among them, particularly one they called "Flops." And when at last the comics had made their entrances, the girls all crowded forward in the wings to watch their act. Claudia walked over to Joe.
"I watched you," he told her. "A little scared, hey? Well, you'll make a trouper yet."
The sound of a sweet tenor voice drifted back to them.
"Whose voice is that?" asked Claudia.
" 'Flops' Morgan," said Joe. "He's goin' places. The Shuberts got their eyes on him. He's tops. He won't be in this racket long."
When "Flops" had finished his number and taken his bows, the girls came on again. When they had finished for the moment, Betty, the girl who had assisted Claudia with her makeup, stalked out upon the stage with a flimsy cape covering her body from the waist up. She was greeted with prolonged applause. The crowd knew her. She sang a little ditty in a small, sweet voice, something about a girl who was taking music lessons from a private tutor. The chorus was self-explanatory. "My first piece. That's the man who gave me my first piece." The audience snickered. Betty retreated and the girls filled the stage once more. When they ran off this time, the stage lights were dimmed and Betty glided sinuously across the stage. The band no longer brayed. The trumpets were muted, and insinuated things. Claudia listened from backstage, completely fascinated.
Joe saw her. "Take a peep," he said casually.
She did, and this is what she saw:
Betty was wiggling her hips with sensuous rhythm. Then she would throw her hips jerkily, as though she were in the throes of an orgasm. With each toss of her loins, the drummer would strike his cymbals, Tchah! Tchah! Then Betty held her arms stiffly before her and rolled her buttocks in a slow rippling rhythm, sinking to the floor as she did so and moaning like a woman in her transports, "Oh-h-h-h!"
"Catch on?" Joe asked.
Claudia nodded. It was simple enough. It took nerve and a nice body.
"Take it all in," Joe told her.
Claudia watched the rest of the "strip." Betty was always threatening to remove some piece of her tenuously fastened clothing with each exit. Continued applause brought her back with one less gauzy piece of covering. Now she was revealed in nothing but a scanty brassiere and a metallic covering over her groin. As she skipped off this time, the place resounded to the wild applause of the patrons. Some were even whistling and stamping their feet in approval. Betty removed her brassiere and returned to grace the boards in the dim light, practically nude.
Claudia eyed her critically. She had a good body, though a little too slim for the particular work she was in. Her breasts and hips were a little too flat to lend themselves to "cooching," but Betty had a fair sense of rhythm and an excellent feeling for showmanship. She made up for physical defects with a good understanding of burlesque psychology.
The show carried four "strippers," and they formed a little aristocracy of their own, like the principals in a high-class production. They kept to themselves, and had their own professional hates and rivalries. They and the comics had the run of the theater.
From the first, Claudia saw the horrible banality of that kind of life. Few occupations could be more empty than that of being a member of a burlesque chorus line. She could not blame the girls for what they did after hours. You had to cut through the monotony some way. Drink and fast living offered peace.
Claudia made good from the start. Joe took an interest in her and brushed her up on the pitifully small amount of dancing knowledge which the business required. Claudia was logical about it all. She reasoned that as long as she was forced to put her time in at this business, she might as well make more money and earn better treatment.
Accordingly, she conditioned herself like an athlete, kept regular hours and watched her food. She would practice for long periods before a large mirror. In time she developed a few wrinkles of her own.
Claudia was maturing. She had filled out and was now in the lovely bloom of perfect womanhood. She was tenderly smooth and round. Her parts flowed one into the other in a striking manner.
One morning, during a dull rehearsal, Joe and another man who wore a derby hat and a cigar had their heads close together.
"Fenton," Joe said, "come out here and show us what you've got."
"Better let her put on a costume," advised the man in the derby hat without moving the cigar from his mouth.
"Yeah," said Joe. "That's right. Tell Lily I want you to have something black."
Claudia returned in a few minutes in a ravishing creation of black lace which accentuated the dazzling whiteness of her skin. Lily had taken her hair down and its glossy length hung down near her waist. The cigar sagged in the mouth of the man in the derby.
"Jeez," he said.
"Like her, Maltz?" Joe asked. He said nothing.
The band struck up Mood Indigo at Claudia's request and she was soon parading her maddening charms before them. She was smooth and effortless in her work and when she reached the peak in her number, she had a slow way of rotating her hips and throwing her groin forward that would make any man's organ jump to attention.
"Where you been hiding her?" Maltz asked. "Put her on right away. Get photographs here. Get Jacobs to fix a little publicity. We're going to do things with this girl."
Claudia went on that afternoon and was almost instantly a hit. She brought something new to the jaded patrons of burlesque. She was different from the others, who looked obviously like the hardened tarts that they were. Even to the bums and drifters in the distant galleries, Claudia possessed an air of refinement that got across. True, she stripped as far as the others, but she was infinitely more graceful. She had a definite charm. She was cleanly made and reminded the spectators of girls they had desired. In short, she was womanly and appeared to the observers to be less brazen and tough than the routine performers they had been accustomed to.
She took her success casually enough. It did not go to her head because she attached little importance to it. She moved to a decent apartment and commenced to take lessons in voice and dancing. It was too late to become overly proficient at either, but they helped considerably by giving her work a certain professional finish.
She was underpaid, of course, but it was enough to keep her living decently. Her main trouble, she found, was to hold off Maltz and "Flops" Morgan. Maltz was getting to be a nuisance, but she felt she could handle him, but "Flops" was something else again.
He was quite a character in the business. He came from a long line of show people, famous ones, too. They had been determined from the start that their offspring should not tread the boards and as a result, he was kept out of the theater and sent to good schools. But the tradition was too strong for the boy and he had gone against the parental desires. His family had gotten him fired from job after job until he had found refuge at last in rowdy burlesque. He had the stuff and would soon move up into faster company on his own merits. Handsome, gifted musically with a fine lyric tenor, he had all the qualities in demand on the big time. Every woman with the show was crazy about him. Any man less talented would have been let go almost instantly as too much bother; but he was under contract and Maltz expected to make a tidy sum by releasing him to the Shuberts.
He eyed her when he thought she was not watching. He always waited in the wings until she had finished her number. He never spoke to her except casually. He had his pride as the Don Juan of the troupe. Everyone was hard-boiled and would have ridden him unmercifully had he committed any open act indicating his interest in her. Claudia understood this and was grateful.
He approached her one night after the late show and, even in his ragged tramp's costume, he managed to express a certain cavalier mood, a youthful recklessness.
"Why are you trying to avoid me, Claudia?"
"I'm not trying to avoid anyone," she answered.
"I don't know," he said sadly. "I've been gargling my mouth twice a day and I just passed a correspondence school personality course."
"Get a copy of What Every Young Man Should Know and then maybe you would be good company."
"Flops" said nothing, but Saturday night after the midnight show, he walked up to Claudia with a book in his hand. It was a copy of What Every Young Man Should Know.
"Have you really read it?" Claudia asked amusedly.
He crossed his heart without a smile. "See you outside in fifteen minutes. Say you will."
When Claudia came out of the theater, he was waiting. "I'm parked across the street," he told her.
Soon they were zooming along the Outer Drive, the wind tearing at their clothes and hair. It was sheer delight to Claudia to sit thus after the scorching hours under blinding lights. She filled her lungs to the very last inch and thrilled to the panorama of Chicago unreeling before her. On the right myriads of twinkling lights and gigantic and unusual advertisements. On the left the vast lake, never twice the same. Now it looked ghostly in the velvet blackness.
When they dashed by Forty-third Street, thousands of Negroes were sprawled over the sand and rocks like some great Congo camp. Flickering bonfires gave the whole thing a weird, fantastic appearance in the surrounding gloom. The night was unbearably hot and the police permitted the wilted bathers to spend the night near Lake Michigan.
"I really should thank you, 'Flops,' for taking me out of the oven."
He leaned over her and patted her on the arm. "Just having you with me is thanks enough," he told her, and when she looked up in surprise at his serious tone, she saw that he was not kidding. She involuntarily drew closer to him. Everything in the picture demanded it. The holy trinity existed: the time, the place and the girl.
They roared through the night like a rocket. A strange feeling of exhilaration swept through the girl. She began to sing at the top of her voice. "Flops" joined her. They drove at a dangerous speed, but tonight they were, "Flops" told her, riding on the crest of the wave. They drew up before a famous Southside hotel and a swift elevator shot them to a glamorous roof garden high above the drive where they looked down at the cars, moving along like so many snub-nosed black beetles. Far out in the lake they could see the light of excursion boats and hear their throaty whistles. They sat touching elbows and thighs and drank bourbon highballs, which gave them a temporarily acute sensitiveness and reaction to the things about them and to each other. They danced to suave music and laughed at whatever the other said. Claudia dropped the shackles she had riveted upon herself in the last few months and was once more a pleasure-loving child.
They had worked up the finest stage of alcoholism, that rosy glow when everything and everybody appears unbelievably beautiful and you want to go around kissing people and giving your money away.
"I love everybody," said "Flops."
"Don't you?"
"Everybody," said Claudia. "I'm America's sweetheart. We're all sisters and brothers under the skin. Colonel's lady and Claudia O'Grady. I want to make everybody happy."
"Just make me happy first, Claudia."
"Flops" suggested practically as he escorted the girl once more out into the night. How they ever arrived at his apartment, they never were able to explain afterwards. The whole drive was one kaleidoscope blur. At last they extricated themselves from the car and piled into his rooms.
"Flops" began to take his clothes off.
"Wait," said Claudia helpfully. "I'll help you make the change."
"Make your own change, honey."
"Flops" said. "I'm coming right at you and if you haven't got your clothes off by then, I'll tear 'em off."
In a moment he was completely nude. Claudia just sat on the bed. She began to giggle and gradually worked herself into a spasm of uncontrollable laughter.
"What's the matter."
"Flops" was angry.
"I've got the mumps," Claudia managed to tell him.
He took his enlarged organ in his hand, looked at it and looked back at Claudia. "Down, Fido," and in a few seconds his penis wilted like a starched collar around a fat man's neck. "No meat for you tonight."
"Better take a cold shower," advised Claudia.
"Flops" grinned. His good spirits were contagious. He was soon splashing in the bathroom. When he returned, he was smiling.
"A hell of a lot of good you were to me tonight," he said.
"I wasn't much good to myself, either," Claudia remarked.
"Just a bad break for the both of us. Just a period that spelled the end of everything."
"A period ends the sentence but there's still an unfinished chapter," Claudia said.
"Will you let me write in your book."
"Flops" asked.
"Pages and pages," Claudia assured him.
They kissed and sat together, waiting for the morning.
Later that week, Maltz threw a party. This was one event Claudia could not evade. Even Joe told her it would be best if she went. "Flops" was angry. He told her that she had no business there and when she asked him if he were going, he grew angry. There had to be a showdown. Claudia decided to gamble on some sort of intervention which would take him off her hands.
They piled into taxis after the performance. Maltz cleverly managed to maneuver Claudia into his and gave her a bad time of it with his unruly hands. Once they reached his luxurious apartment, he was off her hands as he had to perform his duties as the host. All the principals of the company were in attendance, especially the strippers. Betty followed Maltz around in a way that gave Claudia hope that release lay in that direction. Bottles were opened, cocktail shakers made music, the radio blared, voices rose and everybody was growing intimate.
Maltz came into the room, hair awry, face smeared with lip rouge. Betty followed, her dress wrinkled and her face flushed. It was a story without words.
He hiccupped. "Here's a drink you want to try. One shot and you look for someone to bang." He looked across the room at Claudia, who was sitting in a corner talking to "Flops."
"C'mere, honey and have a snifter."
There was nothing for Claudia to do but accept the offer. She did. Maltz drank with her. He was carrying a beautiful load now.
"Attention, everybody!" he shouted. He took Claudia by the arm and they held the center of the floor. "I wanna interduce to you people the loveliest piece of goods it has ever been my privilege and pleasure to present as long as I been in the burlesque profession. Look at that build," he said proudly. He ran his hand down her back and curving waist, stopping at the hip. He patted the swelling flesh.
"It pays to be boss," he winked at the others, and downed another drink.
Betty was doing a dance to a hot piece coming over on the radio. She looked unusually striking in her black, sheath-like gown, cut daringly down the back until the pointed "v" met her hips. In her frenzied motion, her shoulder strap slipped and one small breast hung dazzlingly out of her dress. Another girl, not to be outdone, had raised her skirts over her chemise, a bush of dark hair was in evidence.
Maltz put his hand between her crotch. "Pardon me," he said. "I've just lost a golf ball."
The girl crossed her legs and refused to let him withdraw his hand. They collapsed in a heap on the floor. "Flops" grasped Claudia by the arm. "Let's get out of here." But Claudia stared fascinated at the mad scramble that was taking place between Maltz and his new attraction.
Maltz was thrashing all over the floor. "Let me go, you bitch!" he was shouting, but the girl kept her legs locked. Betty jumped in between them. It was all a pretty hopeless tangle. The entire party stood around offering advice and cheering for their favorites.
Someone shouted, "Give it to her, Maltz."
"I can't!" he gasped.
"How about the back way?" said his advisor.
There was a sound of ripping cloth as Maltz tore the dress off the girl's back with his free hand. He tore the fly on his trousers and his dagger popped out like a jack-in-the-box. He eased it into the squirming girl as he lay on his side. Once he had its full length rammed into her melon-shaped buttocks and was pumping away with all he had, she opened her legs. The crowd cheered. The sweat stood out on Maltz's forehead.
Betty was at a loss for a moment. Things had taken an unexpected turn. People were laughing at her. "Left out in the cold, eh, babe?"
She dove at the crotch of the girl squirming on the floor and buried her nose and chin in their hirsute depths. The poor girl was caught in the middle. This was more than the crowd had bargained for, but Betty had saved her face. Somebody turned out the lights and hell broke loose. Women screamed and moaned, glass broke and bedroom doors slammed shut. Claudia found herself in one of those rooms with the panting "Flops."
"At last, honey, I've got you to myself."
His lips found hers in a long wet kiss. It was as though a bomb had burst within her. In that dark room it seemed to her the blackness was streaked with red. His hands were working in the delicious softness of her bosom. They separated and got out of the binding garments. Now they melted together solidly between breast and thigh. His hands searched for the ecstatic gates and found them. He gently spread them apart, giving them time to respond to the excitement of the moment. Claudia lay there, a willing foil. Her breathing was labored and difficult. "Flops" inserted his tool and Claudia's legs bound him tightly to her, locking him in a carnal clasp until orgasm do them part.
They were quiet . . . getting the feel of each other. He wiggled a bit and she rose to meet him, to absorb everything he had. Now it was in as far as it could possibly go.
"Rock me, honey," Claudia murmured.
They made a living cradle of desire as they rocked themselves toward a state of physical satisfaction. "Flops" fought desperately to prolong the act before ejaculation terminated the preliminary pleasure. Claudia's uterine fingers contracted and tightened about his organ until it was beyond his power to delay the crisis any longer. Claudia's pleasure rose in intensity to blend together with his. His semen began to spurt hotly within her: one, two, three and bang, he poured his load into her and their juices mingled into unspeakable bliss. Gently they relaxed in each other's arms. Love's battle had momentarily ended. His penis shriveled and slipped from her moist socket. What a sensation to lie in the comforting darkness, to be able to touch one another, to know that they were affording each other one of life's greatest pleasures, that they had but to turn to fall into waiting arms. Truly a man has not lived until he has been clasped in the hot, desirous arms of a woman.
Life began to return to "Flops," organ as he cradled in between the tender pillows of Claudia's breasts. It throbbed in her lovely hollow as it renewed its strengtth. "Flops" stretched her full length upon the bed on her back. He pushed up her legs and lay under them until they formed a T. He fingered her yearning sex and then, turning on his side, he injected his spear, letting it remain there lazily. It was delightful to lie there in the clutch of Eros without making any effort to culminate coitus. Just let love run its course. "Flops" began to withdraw his penis at intervals and then bore into her with it. In this way he banked her sexual fires. There is a definite art to love and "Flops" was an artist. He had the unexplainable quality known as rhythm. He built a sexual congress into a thing of major proportions. His prong darted in and out of her sheath like a hot poker. He worked it around until it touched areas that had never been touched before. Claudia began to enter into the love-play. How she wiggled her rump in unison with his tickling until it was all she could do to keep her pulsating body on the bed.
It was not long before their elixir of love spurted to meet in life's oldest cocktail.
Even pleasant things cannot be prolonged beyond their natural conclusions and Claudia and "Flops" concluded many times that night. They came to one definite conclusion, however, and that was that four times in one night was enough.
The next morning a weary Claudia picked up her life where she had left it the night before. She looked critically into her mirror that morning and what she saw displeased her. No wonder the other girls looked and felt like they did if they went through torrid nights to come down in the "morning after" state to go through their grind. She was having a swell taste of it herself, and it didn't go so good. Everyone and everything looked repulsive to her that morning. All the shine and glitter of show business had scaled off like the paint on some scabrous old slum building, and now she could see the drab, dirty bricks beneath the outer coat.
Something whirled in her head. She had to get away. It rang in her ears like an alarm clock. She thought to herself, how had she ever been able to put up with this miserable life in a pigsty? When "Flops" came in he approached her familiarly with a casual and intimate caress. Just another push-that was all she meant to him. At least he might have created an illusion that he loved her. How could he be so matter-of-fact? The entire lack of subtlety disgusted her.
As the day lengthened, her disgust grew with it. Everything that took place seemed to stuff her beyond endurance with revulsion. Her belly was full with all this hokum littered about her. The troupe was nearly ready to go on tour through tough little industrial towns. The whole picture appeared before her: cheap hotels, cheap stage-johns, overnight jumps, sneers, insulting stares, and Maltz.
At exactly 3:30 that afternoon, Claudia walked out of the burlesque business and back into the ebb and flow of Chicago's streets.
CHAPTER SEVEN
When Claudia walked into the hard sunlight of a warm August afternoon she had no notion of any definite objective. She felt the wonder of freedom. There was no remorseless curtain she had to limit her activities for; no dirty background atmosphere; no undue familiarity and pointless obscenity; no chains to bind her now. She celebrated her Independence Day by buying a new hat.
For days she lived a life of ease, slept late and lounged about her apartment. She felt something would turn up, it always did. Claudia was the kind of person life seeks out. Her existence had been like a chart of American finance: up and down, peaks and valleys. She was in a valley now and satisfied to remain thus for some time to come. She liked living alone and as she pleased. She began to read again and to go to art galleries and concerts. She burned with an insatiable intellectual curiosity. And all about her she could see no man or woman who could extend her mind and make her fight to rise to new and greater heights. There appeared no one who could test the elasticity of her mind. She knew that all about her in the city were men and women who could aid her in her desire for mental rebirth. The city was full of vital and interesting persons, but how to find them? And what did one do after they were found. You couldn't very well burst right into their presence and ask them what they thought of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony or A Nude Descending the Stairs. It just couldn't be done that way. You had to be presented in the conventional manner. Claudia looked about her for someone who had an entree to Chicago culture.
One day she found that someone.
She had gone for a dip down at the lake. Lake Michigan had become a symbol in her life. It brought her placidity and contentment. Whenever life became too enormous and troublesome she could always clear the fog within her by looking at the blue expanse of water that made summer heat bearable in Chicago.
Now she stood on the shore, dripping water: tall and straight and full at breast, hip and thigh. The sun had lent to the usual creaminess of her skin a kind of a golden glow, and now, as she removed her bathing cap, her luxuriant hair flowed over her shoulders and framed and caressed the loveliness of her face. Although it could not be truthfully said that Claudia was an unhappy girl, nevertheless there was a toast to her beautiful countenance which made her stand out from the vacuous, fleshy faces about her like a rose in a bed of weeds.
That was the picture which confronted Jose Vidal, the internationally famous Mexican artist, as he sat with his sketchbook in his hands. He took one look at Claudia and his mind was made up. There was about him, as there is about all great personalities, an air of directness and an absence of stupid subterfuge. He walked over to where Claudia stood and addressed her simply: "You are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen in my life."
Claudia's eyes swept over him slowly and fearlessly, like one fine animal surveying another. Vidal was secretly delighted by her natural poise and dignity.
"Is mere physical beauty all you desire of women ? "
Her deep, slightly husky contralto voice intrigued him. By God, he thought, here was a woman among all these pallid sticks. And a woman, a real one, was always worth painting.
"Beauty in a woman, as in anything else, is a virtue. Life is not overabundant with loveliness."
"But," she went on, "does not one weary of beauty? Don't you think contrast is necessary so that the eyes of the beholder are not blunted to a constant level?"
"Yes," he answered. "If I look at that fat woman over there"-he indicated the woman -"and contemplate the ugliness of her dead folds of flesh and then bring my eyes back to your slim beauty, it is true that my pleasure is intensified. However, that is something else.
I have my work to do and I must get along. Do you mind very much if I sketch you as we talk?" He began to make sweeping strokes on his sketch pad without waiting for an answer. Claudia was amused by his way of taking everything for granted. As he sketched her she took advantage of his preoccupation to study him. He was slender and tall; his skin was olive and his hair gleaming black; but it was his hands that fascinated her: long and tapering and strong, with meticulous nails. He wore a well tailored pair of gray slacks, and a gray and black striped Basque jersey, out of which his well muscled neck rose in a bronze column. Everything about him indicated culture and feeling. Here was a man, she felt, who knew life in all its moods, who was not to be taken in by vulgar sham and pretense. He would have the courage to go through his allotted span of years in the manner in which he saw fit and not the way others deemed judicious and proper. This man had much to offer her.
"Will those sketches give you enough material to work on?" she inquired.
"Yes," he said briefly. "But then again, the idea for a picture is taking form in my mind; in fact I could do a series of pictures. Yes" -his eyes were glowing as he talked. "Yes, I think I could turn out something of importance." His eyes narrowed into dark slits as he put his fingers under her chin and studied it, studying her face from various angles. It was all so impersonal that she could not resent his liberty with her person.
He scribbled something on a scrap of paper.
"I'll expect you tomorrow afternoon," he said as he handed it to her. He gave her a last piercing look as though he wished to carry away a lasting picture of her, and then he strode rapidly away with a bounding stride.
Claudia looked after him until he was lost to sight. Then she studied the scrap of paper he had left in her hand. It read: "Jose Vidal, Tower Court, Studio B."
He seemed too sure of himself and of her, too, she thought resentfully. She was a personage in her own right and she was not so sure she liked the way he took things for granted. Nevertheless, she knew she would seek him out. Once more life held out a promise.
The next afternoon Claudia found the studio after a prolonged search. It was located in a rebuilt garage in one of those little-known Northside streets on the fringe of the Gold Coast. She walked up a flight of rickety stairs until she reached a humorous sign of a goat nuzzling in a garbage can. Above it was lettered simply "Jose Vidal, Enter." She opened the door and the strains of a musical voice singing a haunting Spanish tune accompanied by a low twang of a guitar came to her ears. She entered the room a little hesitantly. Vidal was lying on a low settee, a bottle of wine on the floor close at hand. When he saw her, he waved his hand negligently and went on singing. There was something amusing about this to her. She took her hat off and walked around the place, studying the pictures which covered the walls and the objects strewn about in picturesque confusion. Most of the stuff was definitely Mexican in motif and flavor.
Claudia was impressed by the careless richness of everything. The sun streamed into the room through a skylight overhead. The entire arrangement mutely attested to a warmth-a lust for life that was a rarity in most of the homes she had had access to. This place was furnished to live in and not to show to company.
"Sit down," Vidal said, "and make yourself at ease."
She found a comfortable chair and sank into it.
"I don't know what you're thinking," he told her. "Honestly now, isn't there something sinister to you in all this?"
"Yes," she said frankly.
He laughed delightedly. "Ah," he said. "You have the naivete of a child. But let us get down to business. I want you to pose for me. You must. I am prepared to make it worth your while. I have conceived something definitely new, and you are a perfect subject for my idea."
When he told Claudia that she would find the work dull, he was guilty of no exaggeration. It was trying and productive of aches and pains, but fortunately she possessed a little dancing training and a healthy body-all this helped her to maintain her poise. In addition, Vidal did not mind if his models talked while he worked and he was ever a source of interest to her. He knew so much; he had traveled in many strange lands and expressed himself well. He had the free soul of a great artist and was recognized as such by competent critics. There was absolutely no superficiality to the man. Claudia learned a great deal.
The days went by and he made any number of canvases. They were splendidly done, too. Several he had already sold to dealers who called at his studio from time to time. It was plain that he was trying to exhaust all the pictorial possibilities she possessed. He told her so. "I have in me the germ of a great idea. When the time is ready I will tell you what it is. In the meantime we go along as we are."
People streamed in and out of the studio in an unbroken flow: the very cream of Chicago's social and intellectual personages. To Claudia there was wonder in this constant exchange of thoughts, ideas, talent and banter. Old or young, good-looking or plain, rich or poor, they all had this in common: an unaffected naturalness and a keen enjoyment and appreciation of life in all its phases, good, bad, sublime and ridiculous. You were liked for what you had to offer. Claudia was liked. Beauty, youth and wit were an offering of considerable magnitude.
She was impressed by all this and confided her reactions to Vidal. He laughed. "This is nothing. Tonight I will run a party at my studio and you will see something. This is not life; Faw!"
After the afternoon's work, Claudia went home to dress for the party. She looked forward to the evening with considerable anticipation. She bathed and groomed herself with great care, standing before her bathroom mirror, which framed her glowing loveliness. She ran her hand up her smooth belly and under her pear-shaped breasts pointing straight out before her. She pressed them, glorying in their firmness and in their expression of her wonderful femininity. She donned a gown of red velvet that even Vidal had not seen. Her lustrous dark hair was wound about her proud little head in two thick braids. From her ears hung antique golden earrings.
She was an immediate sensation when she entered the packed studio. When she descended into the pack they divided like the Red Sea before the ancient Hebrews. She approached Vidal with her lilting graceful walk. He wore an air of surprise as though he had never before seen her. "You are dazzling tonight, like a poppy swaying in the wind. You have never looked so lovely."
His admiration was sweet indeed to Claudia's ears. She had begun to think that he had ceased to think of her as a woman but as some object which he was attempting to reproduce on canvas.
Claudia was whirled from this group to that in a series of staccato introductions. Wine and tequila flowed. Everybody drank enormously. There was food Mexican style: tortillas, frijoles, tamales, corncakes and chicken. Several men in native costume plunked at the strings of strange instruments and produced quivering, nostalgic melodies. A girl sang a song which moistened many an eye, then, abruptly, the tempo changed. A slender, lithe girl did a gay, sensuous dance to noisy applause and enthusiastic heys! From then on the party gathered momentum like a snowball rolling downhill.
A couple held the floor while they executed a tigerish, pulsating native dance with much orgiastic wiggling and fondling. They pressed bodies together and he moved his groin in against her, she arching her back inward to meet him. The fiery liquor and food and now this aphrodisiacal dance all had their effect upon heightened nervous systems. Men and women began to nestle closer to each other. There had been no particular restraint upon this party, but now everyone began to unbend in earnest.
A drunken woman had removed the top of her dress and now advanced to the center of the floor to stand like a statue, her fine plump bosom bared to the crowd. She turned as if on a pivot and shook her charms gently to the audience, who cheered madly as her breast quivered like the proverbial "dish of jello on a frosty morning."
Vidal leaped to the center now and held forth.
"My friends," he addressed them gravely. "We are assembled here tonight for one purpose: pleasure."
"Hear! Hear!" they shouted.
"We will now inaugurate something new," he grinned at them all. "I propose a contest. We will offer a prize to the woman whose breasts are adjudged the most beautiful."
A chorus of cheers and protests rent the air. The cheers, of course, came from the masculine element and the nays from some of the women. But in the end the contest was held. All the women were herded together in one section of the room and told to disrobe to the waist. Amid protests and ribaldry, at last they all stood with their breasts bared to masculine inspection. A small riot ensued. All the men appointed themselves as judges and it appeared as though the only manner in which they could estimate the comparative values of the enticing love charms before them was by fondling. They rushed to the women and began to handle their knobs as though they were turning the dials on a radio set. Vidal led the pack to Claudia, who stood like an armed Venus, her twin mounts pointing forward like pink-tipped bayonets. He put his hands in the sweet hollow between the swelling hemispheres. "Ah, Chiquita. It is marvelous to explore those wonderful hills and valleys."
There was no conclusion to this unique contest. It was no longer a question of who had the finest breasts but who would allow herself to be dragged to the floor first. The lights went out and there followed a mad scramble as men and women mingled in an inextricable jumble. Claudia reached out an arm and felt the naked breast of a woman. She clung to it for some perverse reason. Her other hand was seized and dragged to the crotch of a man. In an instant she had his erect penis in her hand and she frigged away until she felt a warm sticky emission in her hand. A mouth was glued to hers and she lay tongue to tongue with someone in the darkness. Another hand had raised her skirts and was gliding gently up the sensitive insides of her thighs. When it got as high as the hairy slit between her legs she crossed them and held the hand a prisoner. Moaning, groaning like an old windjammer before a gale-sea sounds, flapping and creaking in the dark. Her legs were gently but firmly spread and she was speared right between the fat-lipped crease. Her would-be lover was suddenly pulled away and she shook herself free from her other captors and managed to crawl out of the lust-maddened pile and arrange her clothing into some semblance of order. She felt along the wall for where the light switch ought to be and found it after some groping. It was a dirty trick, she thought, but she was fed up with this mauling business. She smiled in the darkness as she clicked on the lights. What a scene met her eyes as they all blinked up in the glare! Men and women were satisfying their desires in chain fashion. In some cases two men were working on one woman. One entered in the orthodox manner through the vagina, while at the same time, the second bored in with his tool from the rear. Between the two they made a three-layer sex-sandwich. The same thing had been done to a great hulk of a man. One woman was sucking madly on his prong, which was so large that she could only take half its length in her mouth, while the other sent her tongue darting like a delicate antenna into his rectum. Here and there one could see the reason for this disproportionate relationship, for the lesbians and homosexuals were plainly identified in that instant flash. One man was reaming another through the rear and ecstasy was written over their features in lustful letters. Two women were lying together and rubbing clitorises with such violence that they were sprawling all over the floor. A kind of a mad cry went up when the lights went on. Having satisfied herself as to what was actually taking place, Claudia doused the lights once more to the accompaniment of a satisfied sigh from the revelers. Immediately afterwards she felt herself in the iron grasp of a strong man. She fought his grip furiously. It was not that she was worried about what might happen, but Claudia meant to have a choice in whom she had relations with. Nevertheless she was borne to a long, low divan in a remote corner of the large studio. Whoever carried her knew the way about the place. She passed her hand lightly over his features and knew instantly that it was Jose Vidal. Her struggles subsided a little, but she would give him a time of it; that was certain.
A pleasurable little wrestling match ensued. With one hand he held her arms and with the other he tried to thread her needle. Just when it seemed that he was about to gain entrance to love's citadel, Claudia invariably made just that little move which frustrated his desire. He was panting and perspiring in the hot darkness. He worked his finger between her buttocks into her rectum. She was taken completely by surprise and gave out a little cry, but it did not feel so bad once he got it in and worked it around. She clutched at his penis and soon took the stiffness out of it while he lay helplessly in the thrall of his orgasm. He cursed in Spanish.
"Nice party, Jose. You really operate a hotbed of culture and erudition."
"You devil! This is to punish you for turning on the lights. I'll show you, you can't make a fool out of Jose Vidal and his friends!"
He had recovered his strength and he hauled and dragged her roughly into his bedroom, which was up a little stairway. He clicked on the lights and threw her on the bed. She looked at him with wondering eyes. She had never seen him so hard and cruel looking before. He reached over his head and took an ornamented riding crop from a peg on the wall.
"Jose!" she wailed. "What do you mean to do?"
He took her in his arms and slipped her between his legs so that he could grasp her waist with both knees, her rump before his face. He raised her dress and bared her milky seat.
"I'll show you what I'm going to do, you white-faced bitch!" The crop descended upon her quivering flesh. She let out a scream and the more noise she made, the harder he struck her. Welts began to appear on her snowy behind. He hit her just hard enough not to break the skin. Gradually the piercing pain dulled and instead of pain a kind of peculiar exaltation grew in her, welled up and threatened to engulf her. She was sobbing now but it was more from a kind of emotional rapture than anything else. At last he had his thrill and he threw her from him and sank his head in his hands. Claudia could only lie quietly in a crushed heap in the corner. Many emotions coursed through her body. She was conscious of a dull throbbing feeling in her posterior and yet she felt as though she had not reached a sexual crisis. The mauling had merely acted as an aphrodisiac upon her. She wanted fulfillment and she wanted it in the worst way.
She looked up to see Jose's shoulders shaking. She rose on tottering legs to see what was the matter.
"Tell me, Jose. What is the matter?"
He did not answer and she inserted her hand between his and felt his face. It was wet with tears. "There, there," she comforted him. "Don't feel so badly about it. I'm sure you just lost your head and goodness knows I gave you cause enough. My big baby! There, there," she crooned like a mother to her infant and pillowed his head upon her bare bosom. Gradually, Jose subsided and became coherent again.
"I can only beg your forgiveness," he said with surprising humility. Surprising in him because he was generally so aggressive and sure of himself. "There is only one way in which I can atone for my sin. You must accord me the same kind of treatment you have suffered at my hands."
He put the riding crop in her hands.
Claudia hesitated. This was not what she wanted. She protested. But he was firm. That was, he said, the only way in which he could save his soul. At last poor Claudia had to give in to his desires. He threw himself across the narrow side of the bed and pulled down his trousers. His backside quivered before her eyes.
The girl struck him feebly.
"Harder! Harder!" he cried in rage, and Claudia began to lay on with a will. The sound of the whip against the bare flesh set fire to the smoldering sadistic instincts which are inherent in the human soul. Each whack touched off something bestial inside of her and now she was out of control. He rolled about on the bed, squirming under the lash, making throaty cries as the blood began to ooze out of his wounds. At last Claudia had reached a stage of passion that she must have coitus or go mad. She flung the whip across the room and tore the clothes from her body. She leaped upon the moaning Jose and tore his penis from his trousers. It was rigid to her touch. Apparently the whipping had had a sexual effect upon him also. Her desire was so inflamed that she mounted him, and spreading her legs, she sank down upon his piercer until his genitals were mashed against her scarlet gash. And now she began to thrash and heave like a wounded animal. It did not take long before Jose's staff wilted under the onslaught and he released a warm inner bath of semen that soothed her torrid crevice. But Claudia was filled with a yearning for satisfaction so strong that they returned almost immediately to the love play. She put his organ between her breasts and manipulated the glorious globes until the thing they imprisoned began to rear its head looking for an entrance. Now Jose placed a pillow beneath her inflamed buttocks and raised her cleft to considerable height. He sank to his knees with her cavity between his legs, winking up at him like a lustful eye. He put the eye out by inserting a rod in its pupil. Claudia could, by raising her head a little, see the pretty play that was going on and derive still greater satisfaction as his piston moved in and out like a highly geared machine. Shivers of delight swept over her in recurrent waves. This was intercourse at its best. Jose had been a little spent and now they both possessed good enough control to give the act an excellent preliminary. The delicate inner wall of Claudia's vaginal tube alternately clutched and released Jose's sexual finger as it probed her insides. Occasionally he would become a little too vehement in his sport and would withdraw his inflamed member completely and she could contemplate his saber affectionately and guide it gently back into its sheath.
Claudia felt the surging flow welling up inside her. Jose was yet a little behind and she reached out her hand and skillfully stroked his hardened genitals to coax from them the sexual sap before she should spend. Under her ministrations the molten lava of love erupted volcanically and they both emptied their stored-up streams. Now, as she lay in that blissful twilight state following the bursting of the boudoir bomb, Claudia thought, what a pleasant price to pay for physical psychical release! Jose lay at her side and looked at her out of humid eyes.
"My querida! Who has ever known so beautiful and adequate a lover! Tristan and Isolde? To every lover it seems his sweetheart is the best. My chiquita! To you . . . no! to us both . . . I will bring immortality!"
Claudia pushed back his mop of tumbled hair with tender fingers. She felt a sudden rush of love for this man that she had never before known for any other. He was hers-hers to mold and influence as she desired. A hitherto unknown maternal feeling coursed through her. She would be everything to this man of talent: sweetheart, wife and mother. Together they would scale the cliffs of life and art. She looked down on him as he lay there. "Jose," she said gently. "Jose." He did not move. She bent over him and saw that he was asleep.
Life with Jose was no simple matter. Who could tell when he would be stirred by a feverish need to create. When in the grasp of the muse he became irascible and single-minded. Fatigue and food became secondary as he worked. The world for him had ceased to exist. Telephones were allowed to ring, invitations were ignored. They might have dwelt on some isolated island.
She was posing in the nude for Jose now. She walked about the studio with her lilting gait while he sat motionless watching the play of her limbs and parts.
"Beautiful! Beautiful!" he would cry out when a particular rippling pose would capture him. "There is music in the sway of your hips, Claudia."
He would of a sudden develop unpredictable moods, sitting her up on an elevation and examining her organs with an abstract air as though she were some new specimen which he was cataloguing in a scientific spirit. It was wearing, but then he would blaze up with a desire to go about and for days they would whirl around the city in a maze of lights, music, liquor and people. Everything he did was unaccountable. Some tormenting inner spirit seemed to egg him on. Life became a series of excesses: excess of toil, excess of emotion and excess of rest. Days would pass while Jose sat like a Buddha. It hurt Claudia to watch him brood. It was a necessary adjunct to his artistic creativeness. He was straightening out and gestating the mass of indigestible concrete birth on canvas. Yet it was a wonderful experience for Claudia to watch a first-rate man at work.
The picture he was working on was taking shape, slowly but inevitably. It was to be called "Nude with a Red Comb." Like all artists Jose wished to paint "the perfect nude." He piled Claudia's lustrous hair atop her head and set an elaborate Spanish comb into its thickness. A diaphanous lace shawl carelessly draped her shoulders, the rest of her was au naturelle. It was splendid material for a painter, especially a fleshly one. Jose had the Latin gift for sensuality and he poured out his skill and genius upon the canvas to capture her superb flesh tones.
"In this cold gray world there is too little that is warm and beautiful. You are warm and beautiful, Claudia. To posterity I will leave a breathing likeness and not a barren photograph. I will paint you so that you will never look the same twice to the beholder. I want to set you down on canvas in all your pulsating feminine loveliness so that many, many persons may feel that they too have known you."
Claudia was a little awed by such a lofty conception. She had a good deal of the earthy quality in her and was irked by what might be called a "Madonna complex."
After his harrowing toil, Jose and Claudia would drink tequila until they would drift together in a nameless state of consciousness. This sort of life had two peculiar effects. It heightened Claudia's fleshly desires and lessened Jose's. She would cleverly arouse his passion, but it was becoming increasingly difficult. Their sexual unions would extend over longer periods of time before reaching an actual climax. During the hour or so it took Jose to arrive at the point of ejaculation Claudia might spend as often as three times. It was maddening to her.
Perhaps, she thought, when he has this picture out of his mind they would return to their former powerful pleasures. Art has ever been a competitor of love.
At last the work was completed. Jose's friends ebbed and flowed through the studio to study his magnum opus. Opinions were conflicting, but all agreed that he had performed a magnificent and very likely controversial piece of work. It hung in an international exhibition in the Art Institute. The newspapers printed reproductions. As usual the reform elements in the city began to attack this portrait of unbridled lust. Clergymen held forth from their pulpits on the viciousness and sinfulness of the nude. Vaudeville comics cracked jokes about what the well-dressed woman would wear in addition to a Spanish comb. And one afternoon a sensation was created by a reformer, L. S. Marrow, who attempted to slash the portrait with a knife which he called "the sword of the wrath of the Lord."
Jose Vidal was world famous in a day. Before Vidal fully realized the import of all the publicity and sensationalism, he and Claudia spent one of those perfect days which one hugs to one's heart for a lifetime, at a cottage in the dunes. It was a bright, blue day: water and sky blended together to produce one single tone. The cottage had been loaned to Jose by a wealthy friend and it reflected the taste of the latter. A fine grand piano practically filled a room. It was here that Claudia sat and made music. Jose sat at the other end of the room smoking. The lines had gone out of his face and he looked once more like the man he had been when Claudia had first met him. The sun poured its warmth and light into the windows and set a fiery crown about Claudia's little head. She was playing some of Brahm's music and it quickened Jose's pulses. He crept closer to her with his noiseless catlike tread. Out of the corner of her eye Claudia watched him and a little smile played round the corners of her mouth. It stimulated her when she saw how much her physical presence meant to the man she loved. Now he stood behind her and she felt him pressing against her back. She leaned against him and his hands crept like great spiders over her breasts and closed about their round softness. Claudia closed her eyes. Her hands dropped from the keyboard as Jose's insistent mouth sought hers and their lips coagulated in a voiceless expression of their love. A passion out of control led them to the bedroom. To Claudia it did not seem as if they were actually moving but as though some unseen and irresistible force was sweeping them. He pressed her yielding softness to him again and again. His arms encircled her like a sinuous brown snake. Their legs and arms intermingled until they formed a brown and white pattern of desire. Then they began to move and surge like a tempestuous sea as they dove deeper into the labyrinthine waters of love. Claudia's half-closed eyes stared out of a little window which framed a small blue patch of sky. A bird soared across the space high into the heavens and it seemed to the girl as she lay there in mounting ecstasy that her inner being was freed and she too was winging her way through the blue vault of the heavens. She was passive through this particular coitus. She wanted so much to give Jose pleasure. She thought of herself as a life-giving fountain giving nourishment to a parched genius, and Jose was really as parched as the corn of his native Mexico. His fingers dug into her silken flesh as he eased himself of his fleshly burden.
There was no sating him on this particular day. All the sex energy he had stored up within him came to the fore. He was like an avid infant sucking with milk-drooling mouth its mother's breast. He leaped wildly out of bed and seized her in his arms and carried her about the room until the pressure of her snowy body made his blood heat again. He kissed her as she coiled her legs about his waist and her arms around his neck. His penis began to prod against her and she drew back her belly and impaled herself upon his sword, locking her legs about him in an iron sex-grip. It took a strong man to stand thus holding the sweet burden while his genitals throbbed and overflowed with semen, but Jose was equal to the occasion and one may say with more than a grain of truth that he did not "let her down."
They rested now upon the edge of the bed. "How strange you are today!" Claudia exclaimed as she watched Jose's penis return to life.
For answer he held her in his lap and lavished kisses and endearments upon her. He fondled her tender body with strong hands and his fingers left their amorous bruising trail, but it was pain-pleasure to Claudia. She loved it.
He raised her as she rested in his lap and then lowered her upon his spear. The entrance from a slightly different angle provided Claudia with a new thrill and made her cry out. But she was held in remorseless hands and she surrendered herself up to carnal delights as his throbbing penis worked its pleasurable way into her depths. They looked into each other's eyes and smiled, understanding that they were contributory factors in the union. There is something wonderful in the knowledge that man is the only animal who is able to perform coitus face to face. Claudia felt Jose's eyes enveloping her as he trained their dark softness upon her. Now his hands grasped the delicious whiteness of her buttocks and heaved her to him as though he meant to run her through with his sword of sex. She squirmed in his grasp and set his organ tingling as she pressed its length within her. She sat alternately limp and loose and stiff and active as she drew the love-juice out of him, causing him to exclaim in delight. The warm flow spurted over
;her glands and into her innermost recesses with a poignancy that was hard to bear. A white trickle ran down her thigh as their mutual gush blended. She tightened her hold on him as she quivered convulsively and drained her ducts of their fluid.
The melting moment over, they dropped back upon the bed to lie in a state of blissful exhaustion.
"Every experience I have with you, Claudia," Jose said, "merely intensifies and increases my appetite. It is strange that constant repetitions do not dull the edge of desire."
"Does exercise weaken or strengthen your muscles?" Claudia asked laughingly. For answer Jose rubbed his face in the fragrant softness of her bosom. "The heavenly pillows!" he sighed.
"You're the first man they have ever put to sleep," Claudia teased. "Look," she continued as she held his lifeless organ in her hands.
"Yes, look," he grinned at her as it began to lift its drooping head.
"I'll bet you don't make it," Claudia challenged him as the noble-headed fellow faltered on its slow rise.
"I'll take that bet," he replied.
The bet hung in the balance as his organ alternately rose and fell. At last Jose took the thing into his own hands and put the thing under Claudia's armpit as she sat in the chair. It didn't take long for the blood to pour into his shaft and swell its walls against her. It felt like the beat of an enormous pulse against her and sent the blood pounding through her veins. Now it stood pointing in the direction of love as Claudia dropped her arm.
"A sign-post along love's highway," said Jose.
"It points to love as certain as a needle on a compass."
"Come, let me thread the needle," said Jose impatiently.
Claudia backed up before his onslaught and he caught her as she reached the bed. She fell backwards upon its softness and her crotch rested just on the edge, affording Jose an excellent view of the rosy nest in its bower of curling hair. Like a homing pigeon he drove into the tempting slit, thrusting his rapier in up to the hilt. He stood over her and his position gave him an unequaled view of her ruby-tipped breasts and snow-capped belly and the tender lips of her orifice as they clung hungrily to his thrusting organ. She moaned gently like the sighing of the wind through the boughs on a calm evening. She raised herself on her elbows so she could see the love-play as Jose's third leg walked all over Claudia's heaven. She reached out a questing hand for his sac, the nourisher of his fruitful tree. When she had it she began to press it with cunning fingers to accelerate the flow of the milk pressure. He in turn stroked her wide-spread thighs, which assumed gigantic proportions as their softness was spread before him upon the yielding bed. How well Jose knew the power of those two thighs which had entwined about him so often! The wonder of her silky skin with its delicate network of blue veins never failed to thrill him. How fragile, yet how strong was the female body in its transports!
There is a limit to human endurance and on this day Claudia and Jose were exploring those very limits. They spent themselves in one final burst of love's nectar, then dressed themselves to motor back to Chicago.
As they rolled through the flat country, through scabrous towns, soiled like the fringes of a long gown on a muddy day, they came into the city of youth just as a reddened sun was reluctantly dissolving into a sky which resembled a careless painter's palette.
When at last they climbed the stairs to the studio, they were pounced upon by innumerable friends and acquaintances who had gathered to celebrate the fact that Jose Vidal had won the grand prize with his masterpiece, Nude with a Red Comb. He had gone away a moderately well-known painter and returned a few short hours later to find himself the toast of two continents. Success, honor and worldwide acclaim were his, and who can say what else, for the asking.
From that day on his attitude toward Claudia underwent a complete change. Always superstitious, Jose attributed to Claudia the main reason for his success. Like some highly impressionable aborigine he began to pay her an awesome respect which at first amused her immensely. She felt flattered at the consideration and reverential affection he displayed for her. But it did not take long before she found his adoration from afar boring. He was like an overly solicitous husband during the pregnancy of his beloved, constantly underfoot with useless cushions and other comforts. It took Claudia considerable time before she could grasp the psychological background which underlay this about-face of Jose. He had placed her upon a pedestal as a kind of lucky star and felt that any violation of her person would be taken by the fates as an act of desecration.
The entire thing began to grow more insane with the passage of time. Claudia happened upon Jose pressing his face into her soiled undergarments. He looked ashamed and backed away before her. He began to pry into her most personal acts. He would often enter the bathroom while she was on the stool and offer some ridiculous reason for the intrusion. He would remain for minutes while Claudia defecated. It appeared to afford him the keenest pleasure.
He burst out into a veritable rash of fetishes, each one more annoying to Claudia. One day she came upon him as he was chewing upon the feet of her discarded hose. She was nearly hysterical as she scolded the peculiar artist. She could not understand the psychic changes the man had undergone. So far as Claudia was concerned he was no longer of any use to her.
Because of the memory of the past and of what they had been to one another she clung to him. At times she blamed herself for the tremendous part that had gone out of him in the creation of his masterpiece. He had put too much into it. That day he had spent with her before he had been showered with universal acclaim had merely been a kind of an extension of the passionate mood into which he had engulfed himself. And now his sexual urge had spent itself and he was diverting his libido into disgusting channels.
Claudia definitely decided to leave him.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Although Claudia had made up her mind to leave Jose, she still lived with him in the studio, waiting for the little twist of fate that would bring her a solution to this new and perplexing problem. Always in her moments of doubt and indecision she had encountered some person who crystallized all that was amorphous within her. Claudia was mentally at loose ends. She knew she would leave Jose at the first opportunity.
The artist now rode on the crest of the wave. Fame and fortune were his at the height of his manhood. But life with him became increasingly unbearable for Claudia. His demands upon her grew more and more exacting and peculiar, but fortunately he had little time to devote to his perverted and decadent pleasures.
One afternoon Claudia sat alone in the studio. Jose had gone to a women's club luncheon. He disliked doing so, of course, but that kind of thing was a necessary evil. Claudia sat absently turning the leaves of a book of verse when the antique door knocker sounded. She answered its summons to find herself face to face with a slender young Chinese of medium height. He held his hat in his hand and her first impression as he bowed deeply to her was one of sleek, jet-black hair with a clean white line running exactly through the middle, fine eyebrows and long lashes. And now, as he straightened and broke into a smile, there was an attractive flash of white teeth and his soft brown eyes held a strange appeal to her. He spoke in a smooth, cultured voice with a crisp British accent.
"I'm looking for Jose Vidal, the artist."
"I'm sorry to say that Mr. Vidal is not in at present. I expect him later in the afternoon," Claudia told him.
He made his courteous little bow and turned as if to leave.
"Pardon me." He gave her an intense look. "Are you not his model?" There was a suppressed note of excitement in his tone.
She nodded her head and smiled. "Yes, I posed for Jose."
"Then perhaps I can talk over my mission with you. My name is Lee Moy. I am operating for a syndicate a club which no doubt you have heard of: 'The Chinese Lily.' I was wondering whether we could persuade Mr. VidaJ to do a series of murals for our supper club. We are considering a new fall opening and we wish to decorate our place with something a bit novel."
Claudia was silent for a moment. "Don't you think, Mr. Moy, that for your purpose you might do better with one of your own artists, a good Chinese painter who might depict the scenes of your country with greater warmth and fidelity."
He smiled. "Your point is rather well-taken. However, we have great faith in Mr. Vidal as an artist and his signature upon the murals would be of great value to us in the way of publicity. And, by the way, I will stipulate that you pose for him."
"In the nude?" Claudia asked.
"You would be beautiful in nature's costume or any other," Moy told her earnestly.
Claudia found his ardor intriguing. He was extremely good to look at. His skin was a light beige color and accentuated the whiteness of his teeth and the blackness of his crisp little moustache.
His clothes were unobtrusive perfection. She was flattered by his obvious interest in her and thought him very handsome.
"Won't you sit down, please, Mr. Moy?"
He seated himself with amusing alacrity. "When my club is all completed you must come. You will be my special guest."
"How special?" she smiled.
He showed her his white even teeth. "Very, very special, indeed. In fact I would like to make you my guest before the club opens. Why not this very moment?" He became excited at the idea. "Yes, I cannot bear to think that you will spend such a lovely afternoon in this stuffy studio. I insist that you allow me to take you somewhere for a little drive."
Claudia hesitated, then shrugged. Why not? She was finished with Vidal. This man was obvious interested in her. She liked him very much. The fact that he was Chinese meant nothing to her. It even lent to him a certain romantic touch. He was probably very nice and very amusing. Yes, she told him, she would be glad to go.
They descended the stairs together and entered his expensive motor car.
They got along splendidly from the very beginning. They seemed always to have something of interest to say to one another. If there was a halt in their conversation, it was one of sympathy. They understood each other's silences well. Claudia discovered that Moy had gone to the finest schools in Europe and America and was a power in the Chinese section of Chicago. She found in him a refinement surpassing that of any other man she had yet known. Still, she felt she could detect a deeply buried strain of Oriental cruelty within him, but that only increased the danger. Some women love danger. Claudia was that kind of woman. She resolved to let her acquaintance with Moy run a natural course and to follow where it led.
They stopped at a little country cottage for tea. They were miles from the city and all about them was idyllic seclusion. It took the stiffness out of the pair and made them feel as though they had been friends for a long time. There is something about the country that seems to rub out barriers and inhibitions and to make progress between two persons move along naturally.
They lingered over the teacups and smoked cigarettes, chatting idly of this and that.
Moy said, "You must be leading a most interesting life in your capacity as a model. It must be fascinating to view a man of great talent close up."
Claudia smiled with a trace of bitterness. "Geniuses are not to be lived with. For them there is only seclusion. They should hibernate like the bear and then come out of their dens lean and weak and hungry to devour everything in sight before they go back to the travail of creating. They have no normal life and do not desire such an existence. I am quite certain they are correct in their instincts."
"There are compensations," Moy ventured.
"Perhaps. The only one for a woman would be an all-consuming love. Lacking that, it would be ridiculous to go on."
Moy's hand slid over hers. "I sense that you are suffering."
Claudia was quiet all the way back to town.
When they got there, Vidal had just returned and he and Moy spent considerable time discussing the project. Vidal at last agreed to the terms and the subject matter and Moy took his leave. Claudia was certain that relief lay in that quarter, but for the time being she decided to go along with things as they were.
Jose was too busy to molest her much, and Moy found his contact with the artist a splendid approach to seeing her. Vidal was quite indifferent and Claudia spent many hours with Moy. They were a striking and familiar couple as they haunted the smartest spots in town. Heads turned and necks craned as the inevitable "Who is that?" reached their ears in sibilant whispers. Claudia soon became accustomed to being seen in Moy's company. She knew he burned for her, but he kept himself under rigid control and she admired him for it. He would only yield under the greatest of strains. It was a result of his Spartan training and Oriental philosophy. He possessed an almost feminine delicacy and consulted her wishes about everything.
In the meanwhile, Vidal was progressing with the panels. Moy invited the girl to come down to the club one night, to view a panel Jose had completed. The large establishment was in picturesque disorder during the period of decoration. They had just begun; the half-finished and the completed stood side by side.
The panel, a nude of Claudia upon a background of Chinese landscape, was hung over the world-famous bar. There was a lovely harmony between the golden brown of the gleaming length of bar and the dazzling ivory of the smiling girl poised like some houri out of an Oriental garden of paradise. How well Jose had captured the melting tones of her translucent flesh. He had drawn her standing on tiptoe, her arms thrown backwards over her head and all the glorious curves were highlighted and thrown into greater prominence. Moy's lips trembled as he studied the picture.
"What a feeling for flesh the man has! I suppose living with him has made the thought of another man impossible." He looked at her intently. She gave him the answer he desired. "All Jose's sensuality is expressed on canvas . . . and nowhere else."
He seemed enormously relieved, and continued to stare at the picture of the beautiful woman beside him. Claudia tugged at his sleeve. "You're not going to keep me here all night while you study me in the nude, are you, Lee."
He flushed. "The man is a consummate artist," he said, but he was fooling no one. Claudia knew he was hers if she but willed it. She determined to play out the cards until she was absolutely positive that Vidal had degenerated beyond all repair. That evening she came to an irrevocable decision.
She had made preparations for going to bed and left her room for a moment to get some toilet articles she kept in the bathroom. She had of necessity to pass through the studio. As she entered the large room she saw Jose sprawled over the floor, his face buried in some of her soiled undergarments. He was sniffing like an animal and rolling over and over in strange ecstasy. Now he sat upon the floor and grasped his tumescent penis and was rolling its length with the palm of his hand against his belly-masturbating while he continued to sniff the perspiration-stained underclothes. Claudia was sickened by the sight and forever after she retained that horrible picture of unmanly pollution. Jose Vidal was besmirched for Claudia.
When she rose the next morning she told Vidal that they had come to the parting of the ways. He ranted and raved and staged a spectacular show, but in the end Claudia left him looking after her with dull, expressionless eyes.
She found a pleasant room in a nearby apartment-hotel and managed to get word to Moy. He came to see her almost immediately.
"I am most happy to find you have severed your connections with Vidal," he told her in the rather formal manner he was addicted to. He did not push the matter any further at the moment. Instead, he insisted upon taking her out to the Dells. The well-known nightclub furnished an excellent background for the new mood Claudia was in that night. The gay music and surroundings and a few highballs put her into a receptive mood and she danced with Moy many times. Stiff respect began to thaw as the warmth of her body bore against him and they moved in sensuous rhythms. They both stood about the same height and made a handsome and distinctive pair as they glided over the dance floor, the cynosure of all eyes.
When the dance was over and they walked back to their table Moy whispered to her, "You are intoxicating. Vidal must be a fool to let you go so easily."
Claudia smiled. She had learned that with many men most of the thrill lay in the hunt. Their interest ceased with the capture. Moy did not know it, but he was in for a real chase; only he would be the hunted where he thought he was the hunter. Women are a selective sex.
When they drove home that night through the scented night the fields looked ghostly in the dark. The Lindbergh Beacon cut a sharp path through the murky skies. All of nature had a mysterious touch, like a landscape of Corot. Claudia rested her head upon Moy's shoulder and felt him throb beneath her weight. The scent of her hair set his heart pounding. He could look down and see the lovely curves of her breasts as her crumpled gown hung slackly because of her half-reclining position. The ripe fruit hung from the beautiful bough for someone to pluck and, by the eternal Buddha, Moy was determined to be that someone.
Night after night the little comedy went on. Moy's patience was little short of frightening. One night, however, the break came.
Claudia had suggested they stay in. Moy fell in with her idea enthusiastically. They could have a dinner sent up and spend the evening in Claudia's apartment. The weather was quite threatening, too.
"Let's make it something special," Claudia suggested, and she lit candles instead of using the harsher and more prosaic electric light. They dined in the golden glow of the tapers, facing each other across its tender radiance, which did wonders toward setting off Claudia's beauty. Moy could scarcely keep his eyes upon his plate.
"You sparkle," he said to her in a voice thrilling to hear, "like a beautiful gem on a background of velvet. Your face is round and full and mysterious like a tropical moon that hangs close overhead. Your hair is a soft black casque which frames the ivory perfection of your face. You are like a flower, like . . . "
Claudia stayed his flow of speech with a gesture of her hand. "Are you making love to me, Lee?"
He was taken aback by her directness. "I suppose I am," he said. "What man could do otherwise? If I have offended you . . . "
"You couldn't offend me," Claudia told him.
He smiled his pleasure.
They finished the meal at last and cleared away the little table. Claudia threw open the casement windows which looked out upon the great lake shimmering in the distance. A light rain was beginning to fall like a benediction over the city.
"I think I'll change into something a bit more comfortable, if you'll excuse me a moment. I'll get you a drink when I return, Lee."
"Don't be too long," he told her.
He knew how lovely the girl was, but he was not prepared for the vision that greeted him when she returned in a daring, filmy negligee.
"Here's your drink, Lee," she said in her throaty voice as he held out a trembling hand.
"You look like a proud fairy ship rising out of a frothy sea of lace," he said.
She smiled her thanks and sank gracefully upon a long divan. He dropped easily upon a cushion like a true Oriental and he put his glass to his lips without taking his liquid eyes off her. Her flowing, warmly rounded form made a mockery of the gauzy covering. It only made her person more maddening to the masculine eye. One fine leg was outstretched and one delicious line melted into another until the swelling of her thighs could only be hinted at. Moy ran his finger inside his collar. His legs felt weak beneath him. He finally pulled himself up and nervously began to pace the room. Claudia acted as though they were sitting in a crowded restaurant. Her quick eyes saw the bulging rise of the front of his trousers. Poor boy, she thought. Well, a little suffering wouldn't hurt. It would only make the end sweeter. She would show him that she was not an easy prize to win.
She lay there and smiled, wondering how it would happen. How did an oriental, a Chinaman, make love? It would be a thrill. He was handsome. She had noticed the envious glances of the other women as Moy had dined and wined her as though she had been a princess. A yearning began to grow in her for physical contact with this slender young man who was so obviously all that a man should be. He stood over her and she pretended not to notice that his hands were opening and closing. She moved over a little. "Sit down, Lee, and stop that pacing up and down as though you were a tiger."
He laughed without any amusement in his tone and sat gingerly upon the divan as though he were afraid their combined weight would send them both crashing to the floor.
"Tell me about Chinese girls, Lee," she said lazily.
"There isn't much to tell, Claudia," he replied. "Women are not held in great esteem in my country. But we have no girls in China like you. Over there a woman is a chattela piece of goods-but here a woman commands."
"Can I command?" she asked provocatively.
He fumbled for an answer. Out of the corner of her eyes she saw his hands caressing a piece of her negligee. She moved closer to him.
She pressed him. "Would you take orders from me, Lee?" she asked in a sultry voice. He raised his eyes and she returned the look steadily. They met as on a field of battle. Moy was a worthy antagonist. She saw the color rise in his dark cheeks.
"If I thought you were playing with me . . . "
The masterful sound of his voice sent shivers through her. That was more like it. She was a lusty woman. She wanted poetry and distinction and culture, but above all her system craved virility. She sensed that Lee Moy possessed the latter. At any rate she was determined to find out.
"Then what would you do?" she challenged.
He raised her to her feet and looked deeply into her eyes. The spark flared into a flame. His hands held her shoulders and then slid down to her waist, resting on the sweet support of her hips. They burned through her scanty attire. Her red mouth parted slightly and her teeth gleamed whitely behind their crimson curtain. His lips closed on hers and he drank the honey-sweetness and her body began to ache with desire. They clung together in the silence until all they could hear was the combined beating of their hearts. She beat her hands upon his chest and at last he reluctantly released her so that she could draw her breath. She staggered as he led her to the divan. She had never before encountered so explosive a quality in a man. He snuggled close to her and his hands flew over her body like butterflies. He gave her no peace as he touched the erogenous areas in her body. Claudia gave herself up to the anatomical virtuoso. She brushed his temples and his cheeks with the incredible softness of her full lips until she felt him quiver. He tried to tell her to stop but it was too late. His unruly organ had exploded in his trousers. He was so mortified that he almost rushed from the room. Claudia led him to the bathroom.
"You will pardon me. It has been such a long time since I have been with a woman. The very thought of you has been enough to excite me, but when you kiss me like that I am no longer responsible for what I do. I get that feeling when I close my eyes and your wonderful face appears before me. I must beg one thousand pardons for having acted like a schoolboy."
Claudia watched him as he cleaned up in the bathroom. He took off his trousers and a long slender organ dropped out, driving her insane with desire. It was shaped like a banquet cigar. As he rubbed it with a towel it began to climb once more and the sight of its amazing length was almost more than Claudia could endure.
"You see!" Moy said proudly. "It comes back fast."
They went into the other room again and Claudia reclined once more upon the sofa. Moy showed his temper and his knowledge of female psychology by starting all over again. He understood the cardinal rule which every intelligent man applies to his sex life. A woman must be wooed separately for every sexual experience. Nothing must be taken for granted. Women, even more than men, have a great capacity for self-deception, and given half a chance will make a Romeo out of any buck-toothed cigar clerk. The Tin-Pan-Alley artist who wrote the song with the refrain, "I know you're lying but I love it," knew his women.
Moy was laving Claudia's body with his tongue. He pulled her nipples and sucked them with his hungry thrill-seeking mouth until they glowed like a cherry in the middle of a charlotte russe. Claudia looked down with joy upon her lover. To reach its finest heights the sexual act, like most things in life, is giving and taking. Now a dark slender finger was parting the lips of her orifice and he was rubbing his phenomenal penis upon her thigh. She spread her legs to prepare for love's feast. She raised her left leg to make entrance easy for her partner. He bent over her and pressed his body against her elastic flesh and it molded against his. Who can describe the joy Moy felt at having at last reached his goddess? In how many dreams did he hold Claudia in this same position and awake to find himself wetting the bed like an adolescent, and now he was knocking at the heavenly gates.
He drove his rigid staff into her and she began to move her hips as though someone had put a handful of gravel under them. Farther and farther he sank into her until it seemed he would never stop. She took his sweet length into her until it seemed that his penis would drive into her heart. She felt a choking sensation. She drew back her hips, but he was relentless in his lustful passion. He continued to press her backward until she was an actual prisoner of love. Claudia's ivory limbs joined about his waist and strained him in sweet embrace. He pressed his mouth to hers once more and their tongues ran riot in lascivious caresses. Her hips twirled and he drilled his spear into her with a vengeance. The moist insides of her vagina walls pressed upon his organ sending his brain reeling with delight. Claudia opened her eyes to see the flushed face of Lee above her. She derived an extra thrill when she saw his face almost smoking with sexual fury.
He tried to withdraw his dagger but her frenzied arms would not release his sweet burden.
"Stay with me, darling!" she cried. "Stay with me to the end."
And the end was not far off or long in coming.
The stored-up juices in Lee's sac began to plead for release before the heavy glands should burst beyond mere swelling. Nature's laws are always obeyed. The semen began to squirt into Claudia's love-cup. From an intermittent stream it changed to a mighty boiling gush which threatened to engulf both of them. Claudia released her fluid almost simultaneously and the tremendous flow overran her receptor and sped in rivulets over her fleshy thighs.
They clung to each other during this peak moment in life's flat chart with the desperation of a shipwrecked sailor to a piece of driftwood. When they had both spent so deliciously and completely, Lee allowed his organ to remain in its nest.
Claudia murmured, "Oh, it feels so good. Don't ever take it out."
"Never fear, my little blossom," Lee assured her. "I have found my lover and I mean never to let her go."
They remained wrapped in each other's arms. Their heat rose with the progress of the rain outside which was coming down in sheets. It began to come in through the window in a fine spray that felt delicious to their passion-wracked frames.
"Perhaps you should get up and close the window," Claudia whispered.
"It's not my window," Lee told her. She was already beginning to feel the swelling of his straining organ within her and she decided that a little rain wouldn't do much damage. Anyway, Lee had promised her a new oriental rug.
Her fingers went down to where they were so closely joined in bliss. His object had the hardness of a piece of walnut.
"Do all Chinese possess such long and hard things?" she asked.
He did not answer, for he was otherwise employed-gainfully so, one might add. With marvelously quick recuperative powers he was filling the juncture of her thighs with man-meat once more. Her sensitive insides responded to the touch and agonizing waves of pleasure swept through her. He reamed into her with his prodigious tool as though attempting to touch every nook and cranny in her vagina. He did not miss a sensory area. He nipped at her ears and lips with his amorous teeth; his hot breath titillated her entire being. She pressed his buttocks to her to absorb his offering up to the hilt. They jealously prolonged the act this time to fully savor its keen delight. They hoarded their imaginations like a miser hoards his gold and gave themselves up fully to a perfect rhythmic coitus. For thirty minutes they expended their energies in prolonging the mechanics of the act until human flesh could no longer stand up beneath the tantalizing strain. Nature has provided a fuse, when passion reaches an unendurable poignancy, to prevent the human system from becoming short-circuited. That fuse stood Claudia and Lee in good stead as their safety valves opened and released the warm, soothing orgasmic flow.
That night Lee taught Claudia many things of love. He was almost a satyr in his sexual capacity. It was like a meeting between two voracious animals. Sensation ran riot on the first evening of their carnal acquaintance.
At last they dropped back, exhausted from their exercise, and lay in that twilight state of heavenly lassitude. They asked for nothing more than to lie in each other's arms, half-asleep and half-waking. The rain came drifting in through the window.
The following day Claudia moved into Moy's apartment which was located upstairs of his club. She reveled in the oriental splendor of his home. Colorful silken tapestries hung over the dark teakwood walls; priceless Ming vases and exquisite examples of Chinese art lent a careless air of rich profusion to the entire place.
Moy installed her in his home as though she had been some ancient princess. Claudia could not help being touched by his consideration. For a long time she was happy in her new arrangement. No one could ask for more. Her every wish was anticipated. It was tremendously exciting at first to be thrust right into the heart of Chinatown. Moy introduced her to the mayor and many of the Chinese colony's famous characters: operators of dope dens, brothels and hatchet men. She was caught in a swirl of life few people have any conception of. She became familiar with the crooked little streets and the domino players lounging about the tea houses. Through some mysterious grapevine telegraph everyone in the district seemed to know her and they bowed and scraped as she passed. Lee Moy was a power among his people.
He kept her dressed in the most modest and expensive garments the town afforded. He delighted in showing her off and basked in the admiration she received on their tours of the city. He was known everywhere. The Chinese Lily was one of the show places of Chicago. Now that the club was newly decorated, it was thronged each night with gay and wealthy pleasure-seekers. This was no dine-and-dance for a clerk on his Saturday night off. The supper club attracted the finest clientele in town. A nationally famous orchestra and first-rate entertainment coupled with an excellent cuisine made Moy's establishment the nocturnal center of the metropolis. Here would sit the great ones, chatting, dining, and perhaps gambling until the early morning hours. Like most of the large clubs, Moy ran an elaborate gambling casino in conjunction with his regular business. As a result he was pretty much occupied until the night's activity drew to a close. Claudia had the run of the place and soon began to act in the role of an unofficial hostess when she got bored with lounging about upstairs. She fitted into the hectic nightlife well. When she grew tired she would go back to the apartment and sit before the large window with its French blinds and peer out in the streets, watching the panorama of city life unreel itself. There always was something happening in Chinatown. The blue patrol wagon would speed down the little streets, its bloodcurdling siren going full blast, and pull up before an unimpressive entrance; immediately dozens of Chinese would pour out. Beneath the eternally placid exterior were many subterranean crosscurrents, and not even Claudia ever got to the bottom of these.
Moy was very fond of seeing Claudia in native costume. He lavished gorgeous gowns and kimonos upon her. Slowly but inevitably they began to sink into an alien form of life, at least while they were at home. First clothes, then food, and then companionship underwent changes. They became accustomed to eating from a sitting position on the floor. The venerable elders of the colony became habitual dinner guests. Claudia drifted into a dual personality. But their sex life was as feverish as ever.
They would arise in the afternoon and lie abed toying with each other. That was their best time when they were fully rested and could apply their finest energies to the fulfillment of the sexual congress.
Instead of tiring with constant repetitions of their fleshly performances, they grew avid for variations of the act. Moy, particularly, was fond of watching the process of his organ as it moved in and out of Claudia's vagina. It seemed to afford him added gratification. They employed a narrow table and Moy would recline at full-length as the girl straddled his body with her legs barely touching the floor. From this position she could gradually settle her sections of hot moist flesh upon his rigid phallus until its cushions enclosed the organ completely. She would sit quietly while he felt her inner softness closing about his organ like a sponge. Then she would sway slightly and swing his penis like a pivot within her, sending the sensations reeling. She would look down upon him with her burning eyes and he in turn would reach up and sink his slender fingers into her snowy breasts and watch the blood ebb and flow.
In such amorous dalliance the day would fly by until the late afternoon shadows lengthened and Moy would dress for the business of the evening. Together they would dine later at the club. Claudia was often tempted by some other sleek young oriental, but she kept her head, realizing the fatal consequence of such conduct.
Life flowed on in an even stream until Moy decided to employ a housemaid. He gave the position to a sister of a friend. To be an employee of Lee Moy was regarded as an honor in the colony. Since he was entertaining more and more in his apartment to keep in the good graces of his countrymen, acquiring a servant was a matter of sheer necessity.
The girl's name was Lily. At least that was what Claudia called her, since she could not master the liquid Chinese. Lily was tiny and slender as a willow tree. Her walk was celestial music. Her face was round and bland like a full moon and her long almond eyes shone in her ivory-yellow face. Her glossy black hair gleamed like a dark pool in the moonlight and her voice was the love song of a thrush.
Claudia felt drawn to the silent, soft-moving girl from the first. She had that strange feeling people sometimes get: that they have known each other in some remote past. It seemed to Claudia that she had always known Lily.
So far as Moy was concerned, the girl might just as well have been an article of furniture in his home. The rare exotic beauty of her thrilled Claudia. She found Moy's apathy toward her unaccountable.
She would engage the girl in conversation just to hear the delicious catlike tones of her voice. Lily had a shy way of looking up at Claudia that pierced her. She was a tiny oriental doll.
"Don't you think Lily is the most beautiful thing you ever saw?" Claudia asked Moy one afternoon.
He looked up in surprise. "Beautiful?" he smiled. "You are beautiful, my darling; but Lily . . . " He laughed. "That is something else again. Pretty? Yes. That is all."
Claudia could not understand the depth of feeling she had developed for the girl. She derived far more thrill out of her presence than she did from Moy's. He seemed coarse and crude in comparison with this lovely child. When Claudia stood close to her she felt some strange power impelling her to reach out and clutch the girl in her arms. She wanted to feel her softness against her and smell the perfume in her hair. If she had known Moy was indulging in intimacies with this little oriental flower she could hardly have felt it in her heart to blame him. Rather, she would have been jealous and filled with envy. She meant to possess the tiny, delicate thing if it took her every resource.
It became a kind of fantastic game. Claudia's problem was to see how many times she could get Lily to help her with her clothes on some pretext or other. The girl would assist her shyly, and her fluttery touch would make Claudia giddy with delight. She tried to fight against her infatuation, but it only made matters worse. Now, when she had intercourse with Moy, she could only experience an orgasm by vicarious means, by substituting for his face and body a mental picture of Lily. As for the little domestic, Claudia could not suppose what went on beneath her bland exterior. Everything she did was so correct and calm that it was impossible to imagine this fragile daughter of Confucius doing or thinking acts which were impure. Yet Claudia did not know for certain. It seemed to her that a love so powerful as hers must be reciprocated. It just had to be.
She began to parade her nude figure before the little servant girl, trying to get a reaction. One day the break came.
Moy had left for the club. He rather approved of her newfound attachment to their apartment. He liked what he thought was a domestic quality in her. Now Claudia could spend the entire evening with her tiny companion. She decided upon a ruse. She arranged a mirror near the narrow table she and Moy were accustomed to using in their sexual sport. As she lay upon the table she could look into the glass, which was in a remote corner of the room, and see what was taking place. Everything was in readiness as she bent her strong will to the task of seducing this little oriental flower.
"Lily," she complained, "I've got a pain in my back. I wish you would rub it for me."
"Gladly, Madame," the girl replied in her precise English.
Claudia stretched her pink and white voluptuousness upon the table. She lay upon her back and her rounded breasts, with their pink-red nipples, pointed straight up.
"Don't you think I have a nice body, Lily?" she asked in a lazy voice watching the girl's face in the mirror for any telltale emotion.
"Madame knows she is beautiful like a goddess," the little yellow girl replied, her voice shaking a little. "Will Madame be so kind as to turn over so that I may rub her back?"
Claudia turned over, her splendid buttocks making a pulse-quickening picture. Lily began to rub her nude body to Claudia's great satisfaction. The little oriental's body exuded a peculiar scent which affected Claudia to the roots of her being. As Lily bent over her to minister to her so-called "pain," Claudia watched her face in the mirror as she lay with her back to her adored one, her chin resting on her folded hands. To her astonishment, a change was coming over the tiny one's features! A passionate look of longing and intense desire was imprinted upon her pretty face as her hands were imbedded in the soft, yielding flesh of the white woman. Her eyes glowed like coals in her mobile face. The onrush of emotion was too sudden for her and she began to tremble.
"What's the trouble, Lily?" asked Claudia. "Do you feel sick?"
The girl shook her head and stubbornly continued to manipulate Claudia's back.
"A little towards the side," Claudia told her. And the poor girl began to stroke the wonderful softness which lay before her. Her hands slid towards where the breasts began to swell and rise in triumph.
"That's it! That's where it hurts!" Claudia cried and she nearly swooned at the touch of the amateur masseuse. Lily caressed the skin until it glowed and Claudia felt the first sign of a liquid warmth within her. She turned over with a sigh.
"I've got an ache here too, Lily." She pointed high up on the fleshy pillar of her thigh.
Lily put a shaky hand on the spot and began to knead it with her fingers. Claudia had no need for a mirror now. The girl's face was white beneath her delicately yellow skin. She was a simple book to read now. Her fingers stole up higher and higher upon her lover's thigh until she was touching the glorious pubic section. Her fingers stroked the glossy ringlets which curled Claudia's scarlet gash of sex. That ineffably gentle touch upon her pubic hair was the last straw so far as Claudia was concerned. With a throaty sound she crossed her shapely limbs and imprisoned the flowerlike hand between them. She began to ooze gently inside as she thrashed uncontrollably about the table. The girl gave her a startled look of a trapped animal and fainted dead away. Claudia leaped from the table and caught the other's childlike form as she collapsed to the floor. She carried her like an infant to the couch, where she held her in her arms and nestled her against her breast, uttering little cries of love. She then smoothed the delicate little brow and chafed the narrow wrists of the child of the East. She loosened her dress at the neck and felt the lust surging within her when she saw the tiny breasts with their pointed nipples. She bent over and kissed the firm little apples. Gradually Lily began to come around. Her incredibly long lashes fluttered upward as her ivory lids drew apart and her humid eyes timorously sought those of Claudia. She tried to move, but this time Claudia would not be denied. She held the girl firmly and set about winning her confidence. She knew Lily felt drawn to her.
"You do like me a little, don't you dear?"
Lily blushed and buried her head with childish modesty into Claudia's fragrant bosom. Claudia pressed her close. "You're nothing but a baby," she whispered, and drew back the imprisoned girl's head and kissed her tenderly upon the lips. She felt the girl's body tremble in her arms.
"Tell me, honey, has anyone ever kissed you before?"
The yellow girl shook her head.
Claudia kissed her again and let her moist mouth linger. This time the other girl returned the pressure and her body grew more taut as she felt vague and troubled stirrings within her.
"Do you like to be kissed?" Claudia asked her when they drew apart after their lingering embrace.
Lily's eyes sparkled. "It gives me a strange feeling and all kinds of things seem to run around inside of me. I have a yearning for something . . . I cannot put it into words."
What a child, thought Claudia. How fortunate she was to have this lovely little plaything all to herself! She bounced the happy Lily upon her knee as though she were dandling a baby, and indeed the little oriental was not much larger. There rose in Claudia a nameless and perverted passion. Above everything else she was going to have this girl. She, and she alone, would induct her into the erotic rites. But she would go slow.
Like a decadent old roue who, after a lifetime of libertinism, develops a lust for adolescent girls, so Claudia seethed with a terrible and undeniable desire for this little Chinese sprite. She fondled and caressed the girl gently and in such a manner as not to make the practice seem loathsome and unnatural. She won the child's confidence first. They did not go beyond a mutual exchange of confidences that night. Claudia made it all appear as though she were merely an older sister. In fact they soon adopted the ancient subterfuge of the daughters of Lesbos, that of referring to themselves in some assumed relationship Claudia was "Big Sister" and Lily was "Little Sister."
The game continued, unknown and unsuspected by Moy. He did not know, as he was in transport, that his place in his mistress' heart had been supplanted by another. Claudia was clever enough to simulate a passion which was already dead.
Whenever opportunity afforded, Claudia continued her subtle assault upon her little servitor's untutored passion. She derived a decadent delight from watching the dormant and hitherto unbanked fires within the child begin to smolder.
CHAPTER NINE
This variation of the eternal triangle continued unabated, Moy's business made increasing demands upon his time as the weather turned cooler and the social swing rose to new heights. This left Claudia free to continue her assault upon the tiny servant's virtue.
Claudia would steal behind Lily, as the dainty little girl was performing the various tasks about the apartment, and take her in her arms. Lily would struggle a bit and then the strength would go out of her. Claudia experienced the most lascivious sensations as she felt the rigidity leave the other girl's delicate body. She would caress her gently and fondle what she could of her without seeming too crude. Inside, she felt the flood of passion rising like a turbulent sea. She would kiss her tiny lover until her breath would choke her and the carnal desire became unbearable. Lily's face would wear a frightened look and Claudia's better sense would force her to desist for the moment; but it was becoming increasingly difficult for her to do so.
She could not throttle the burning desire to see Lily's undraped form. She would lie awake at night and see the diminutive figure with its smooth soft skin the color of old ivory. She would reach out in the dark to clutch the lovely vision to her, and her frustrated arms would grasp nothing. When she thought of what she would give for a glimpse of the oriental girl's form, she grew frightened of the intensity of her desire.
She grew more cunning.
One afternoon she sat talking with Lily; the proximity of the girl made her hands twitch nervously. "Lily," she said, "I was reading an article the other day about Chinese women, and the author had many strange things to say."
The girl looked up with interest. Claudia continued: "He wrote that there were many physical differences between the oriental woman and the woman of the West. It came as a revelation to me. He said that many of the Chinese girls have but one breast."
The Chinese girl broke out into her musical laugh. "That is ridiculous. We have the same form as the white woman."
Claudia pretended to be unconvinced. "Well, I don't know. Although I do not believe everything I see in print, nevertheless I do not see how a reliable publication would print such a statement unless there was considerable truth in it."
"Of course it is ridiculous," Lily cried. "I will prove it to you!" She quickly pulled the bodice of her dress down over her shoulders, slid off the straps of the chemise and proved conclusively that oriental girls were double-breasted. Two small pear-like breasts pointed, nipples like accusing fingers, directly at Claudia. The latter was only able to restrain her excitement by a great effort.
"Well," she said indifferently, "that seems to prove that your women have two breasts; but the writer also maintained that the sex organ in the Chinese female was slanted like the eyes. This seems strange to me because that is not the case in the women of my race. See?" And she lifted the dress she was wearing up to her waist. She wore no undergarments and the fat-lipped crease was visible in its forest of glossy hair.
Lily stared as if fascinated. She pressed her tongue slowly over her dry lips. Claudia moved closer and took the girl's hand in her own and passed it over the converging lips of her cleft.
"You see; that is how the sex organ of a white woman is. I suppose yours must be a lot different. But then, the various races have all kinds of peculiarities."
Lily spoke haltingly, "I don't think there is any difference between that part of my body and what you have shown me."
"That should be easy to prove," Claudia returned, her voice a challenge.
Lily hesitated and then slowly removed every stitch of clothes and stood before Claudia with downcast eyes, her hands unconsciously guarding her femininity. Claudia's eyes swept over her slim nakedness. Lily's parts were put together with loving care. So delicately formed was she that any other woman by comparison would appear coarse. She was that rare type which would delight only the discriminating, the initiated. She was like some extraordinary wine with so faint a bouquet that it would be noticed only by the finest palate.
"Sit down, child," Claudia said gently and the trembling girls sank on the couch. "Now spread your legs so we can see," ordered her mistress.
The girl slowly spread wide her beautifully turned limbs and Claudia sat on the floor with her legs beneath the couch. Her hands, resting on the girl's knees, spreading her legs. Her mouth was perilously close to Lily's sex. She stared at the girl's delicate orifice, which rose out of a downy growth of hair like a little foothill of flesh. Claudia moistened her finger and touched the vulval lips. The girl stirred uneasily, but her eyes were closed and she uttered no protest. Claudia continued her gentle friction and the girl's beautiful rounded belly began to quiver. Now Claudia probed deeper and deeper into the vaginal tract.
"What are you doing to me?" the girl whispered, but she made no effort to put a stop to Claudia's questing fingers.
Slowly her vulval lips began to part before the stimulus of the insistent fingers. From a sitting position the girl sank supine upon the couch, her very gesture indicating surrender. Her breath was coming with great rapidity, and to all appearances her emotions were no longer under control. Claudia continued to excite the girl, while at the same time she brushed her full moist lips over Lily's warm body. She laved her firm breasts and experienced such emotions of desire as she had never known before. "Oh, Claudia dear! Go on! It feels so nice!"
Claudia worked to put the girl on fire. She drove her finger deeper into the girl until she encountered the resistance of the hymen. She determined to deflorate Lily as suddenly and as painlessly as possible. Cunningly she stroked the sensory centers of the girl's body until she worked her passions into a state where an actual orgasm was acutely necessary.
When Claudia had her practically out of her head with feeling, she tore into Lily's hymen. Lily gave a little cry but she was in such sexual heat that the pain was almost negligible. She soon felt that delicious moisture within her, and her nervous system was unknotted by the soothing inner flow. Now she was lying in a blissful state of complete relaxation, her delicately veined lids with their incredibly long lashes drooping over her cheeks. Claudia immediately ran to the bathroom and with a moist towel wiped away the small amount of blood which had begun to flow as a result of her defloration.
The girl remained reclined in a state of lassitude. "Claudia," she whispered. "I feel so strange. It is as if I heard the heavenly angels sing. What was it you did to me?"
"I loved you, Lily," Claudia replied.
"I like being loved," the little girl said shyly and Claudia put her smooth white arms about her. "I love you too," the little girl answered as she pressed her honeyed lips against those of her mistress.
That was the start of what was to Claudia the most intense feeling of affection she had ever borne anyone. She tolerated Moy's caresses, but that was all. Sexually he had ceased to exist for her. Especially now that she had won over Lily to her practices. The little Chinese thought that the entire thing was some sort of game and that Claudia had made a new and delightful playmate of her. And now it was she that took the initiative and it was Claudia who pretended to be bored. She would climb into her lap and curl up like a kitten and press her lips to the white girl's mouth. Moy's departure became a signal for their orgies. They could hardly wait until he had taken his leave to begin. Then they would divest themselves of their clothing almost immediately and begin the love-play. Claudia was so enamored by the strange beauty of the yellow girl that she almost derived sufficient gratification from, mere contemplation of her charms and her physical nearness. As yet there had been no actual cunnilingus. Claudia had never performed the perverted act, but some irresistible force seemed to rivet her eyes upon the other's sex and make her lips move. She yearned to imbed them in the Oriental's crotch.
One afternoon, shortly after Moy had left, Lily seated herself in Claudia's lap. The usual kissing and fondling followed. As Claudia's lips closed about the girl's tiny rosebud of a mouth, she sensed a new and reciprocal passion within her. She knew the time was ripe. She sucked in Lily's mouth and, by clever manipulation, soon had her throbbing with desire. This time she meant to go all the way. She kissed the yellow girl's slim throat and ran her hands over her slender hips. Lily was more responsive now than she had ever been. She locked her arms behind Claudia's neck and rubbed her firm breasts against hers. Their tongues met in moist ecstasy. Claudia lifted the tiny bundle of nerves and carried her into the bedroom. They lay tightly enfolded in each other's arms, senses flooded by the uprush of emotion. Claudia's fingers stole to the girl's sex and began their manipulation. Lily started to squirm and moan under Claudia's touch and when the latter carried away her hand it was moist. She was no longer able to control herself and she pulled the little Chinese girl to the edge of the bed and knelt beside her, spreading her legs wide and holding onto her knees, driving her face into her crotch and her tongue into the widespread lips of her vulva. What sensations came over her as her sensitive tongue explored the girl's inner regions, as the delicate taste buds felt the stimulus of the salty, sticky emission. She licked her vagina like a kitten laps up a saucer of cream. The girl could only make little animal cries as she experienced the nerve-jarring touch of Claudia's tongue. A tremendous need for sexual appeasement came over Claudia as she watched Lily in her throes. She seemed to derive additional gratification because her subject was so responsive. She jumped into bed and mounted Lily and pressed her sex against her. Their clitorises met and they began a wild friction which soon resulted in relief.
That quieted them for the moment. It was Lily who recovered first. "Where did you learn to play like this?" she asked Claudia with unbelievable naivete. "I never played such wonderful and exciting games before. I never read of such things in books."
Claudia smiled. "That is called French play," she told her. "All the French children play like this."
The answer seemed to satisfy the little servant. She was silent for a while and then she said to Claudia, "I like this game. Let us play some more!"
They were locked in mutual embrace and began to work up carnal heat anew. This time Claudia suggested that Lily be the active one. Nothing loath, the girl bowed forward between Claudia's drawn-up legs and darted her tiny pink tongue into the rosy slit between her legs.
"It tickles," she laughed, but she went on with the act. When Claudia began to seep with semen from her orifice, Lily accelerated the speed of her tongue. She possessed an instinctive talent for this sort of thing, for there was nothing repulsive to her about it. She had built up no taboos or inhibitions concerning the morality of the act. It may be said that the child was amoral rather than immoral.
Claudia experienced a splendid and satisfying orgasm and was happy that she had found a marvelous partner for sexual expression.
Later one morning at breakfast Moy said rather curiously, "Did you ever notice how Lily's eyes follow you about like a faithful dog. I never noticed that before. There's something strange about it . . . " And he shook his head.
Icy fingers of fear clutched at Claudia's heart. "Oh," she said, "she's nothing but an affectionate child. I feel toward her like I would toward my own sister."
Moy dismissed the subject and the two girls continued in their feverish affair. Claudia tried to be as discreet as she could under the conditions, but the little girl was getting out of hand. She was so simple in the ways of life and its conventions that she did not realize the enormity of their offense in the eyes of society. Lily took the initiative now. She was a born cunnilinguate. Both were caught in a whirlpool of sensuality.
Claudia scarcely left the apartment now and Moy was looking at the two with uneasy eyes. He was no fool, but the average man does not think in terms of lesbianism. Such a revelation always comes as a stunning surprise. Claudia was still safe so far as Moy was concerned, unless they were caught in the actual performance.
Claudia was often forced to leave her lover to go about with Moy, and the little girl would become insane with jealousy. She was increasingly hard to handle. For the greater part of a week Claudia and her sweetheart had been separated by circumstance. One day they found themselves alone.
Lily twined herself about the larger girl like a vine. Her fragrance, like wet violets, assailed Claudia's nostrils and her blood frothed within her. They met that day on an amorous battlefield and many were the perverted caresses that were exchanged between them.
"I nearly died, I missed you so!" the diminutive Sappho exclaimed as she buried her face between Claudia's plump breasts. "I can't go on living without you!"
Claudia was alarmed by the girl's passion for her, but gave herself up completely to the pleasure of the moment. The daughter of the East had buried her face between Claudia's thighs and was working upon the orifice. Soon the lips parted and the entire mechanism of the female sex apparatus yawned before her. She drove her tongue in deeper than she ever had before. Claudia's reaction to her onslaught only renewed her fury, and soon she was able to see her clitoris leap to rigidity like a little finger. Her lips closed about the small projection and she felt the shudder running through Claudia's body.
"Nibble on it! Nibble on it!" cried the white girl as she felt herself torn by erotic emotion.
Lily complied and Claudia's passion knew no bounds as at last the torrential stream within her started to flow. When Lily began to taste the emission she too felt within her the craving for satisfaction and she reversed her position until her own sex cavity was over Claudia's mouth and her feet were about her head. In this manner they both sated themselves by simultaneous cunnilingus.
It seemed to Claudia that they had reached the zenith in lesbian satisfaction. She was weary and worn after this wracking bout with Lily, who seemed never to tire of their erotic play. Claudia lay exhausted in her arms until the lateness of the hour made it imperative that she dress and leave for the club where
Moy was expecting her. There was something special that evening and he had asked her to come.
When she arrived, Moy greeted her. She looked lovely, as always.
"My dear," he said in a pleased tone. "You do me credit. You are absolutely ravishing tonight."
Sexual indulgence seemed to take no toll from the beauty of Claudia, although she felt far from fresh. Her strength lay in her remarkable recuperative powers. Even now, after the hectic and sapping afternoon she had spent with Lily, she felt new vitality seething through her.
"What's all the excitement for?" she asked Moy.
"Killer Jones, the new world's heavyweight champion is running a party tonight for the newspaper boys. He's bought out the entire club. He's a pretty wild sort of fellow-a Negro, you know-and there may be trouble."
"Why should there be any trouble?" Claudia asked.
"Oh, very likely nothing will happen but he has a reputation for eccentricity. Nobody knows just what he will do, not even he himself. He has been called a second Battling Siki. But he certainly is a tiger in the ring," he added admiringly.
Claudia looked forward to an exciting evening. Even so glamorous a spot as the Chinese Lily lost its glitter if you hung around often enough. The prospect of seeing the giant Negro who had just recently won the championship was a thrilling one. At least it promised something different and unusual.
Killer Jones swaggered in at eleven o'clock, followed by his manager and trainer. When Claudia first saw him her first impression was a dark mountain. All she saw was shoulders. He was attired in evening dress and the severe black and white of his formal clothes brought out the darkness of his skin. He wore a big broad smile and his teeth behind his well-shaped lips were dazzling to behold. His features were surprisingly regular and his hair was smooth and sleek upon his head. He betrayed none of the marks of his profession except for slightly thickened ears. His motions had the lazy grace and swiftness of a jungle animal. Wherever he stood he rose head and shoulders above the rest. He radiated natural vigor and energy. And when he laughed it was like the booming noise of a bass drum. He was everywhere at once: talking, laughing and drinking. The newspaper men stood in awe of him. When he moved, they were careful to give him plenty of room. Waiters hovered solicitously in attendance. He looked at them with a slightly bored air of one to the manner born. In truth, one year before, he had been a stoker on a Mississippi steamboat.
Nothing untoward occurred until late in the evening, when a nervous waiter spilled a little wine on his coat sleeve. The poor fellow shriveled with fear as the giant Negro slowly and dramatically rose to his feet and clutched him by the collar with one huge black paw. All activity in the club ceased. All eyes were focused on the black giant to see what he would do. He doubled his great fist and shook it beneath the hapless waiter's nose. The crowd watched with bated breath.
"If he hits him, he'll kill him," muttered one famous sportswriter.
At this moment Claudia laid one dainty hand upon the coat sleeve of the enraged fighter and looked up at him out of her clear dark eyes.
"Why not strike me?" she said, her voice filled with disdain. "I could probably put up as good a fight as he could."
He looked at her, a little taken aback by her scorn, but liking the looks of her as she stood between him and his intended prey. This one was class. Jeez, the broad was beautiful! If a guy could only make something like this! He sent the waiter sprawling with a flick of his wrist and turned to Claudia with a little bow.
"I'm sure sorry to have made you any trouble, ma'am. I guess I just lost my head. I'm really very sorry 'cause you are the prettiest lady ever I did see."
The commotion in the club subsided as Claudia and Jones stood talking together. Moy came up to them to see if everything was going all right. When he saw that possible notoriety had been averted through the prompt action of Claudia, he whispered in her ear, "Keep him entertained if you can and perhaps he will leave the club the way he found it-in one piece."
Claudia seated herself at Jones' table, to his evident delight. His direct simplicity was very appealing to the girl. "You look to me like one of these here angels right out of heaven," he told her.
"Aren't you afraid I might rise up right before your very eyes like little Eva?" she asked him.
"If you does, your old Uncle Tom'll try to rise right up there with you."
The killer's manager was trying to get him to leave.
"Time to go home, son," he told Jones. "You gotta get in a lot of trainin' tomorrow. Can't hang around this place all night."
The big black seared him with a look. "I'm the champ, ain't I? Then what the hell you orderin' me around for? Lay off, see?" There was cold menace in his look and his manager drew back as though stung.
Now he turned his attention to Claudia and pleaded with his eyes. Drops of inky perspiration stood out on his forehead. Claudia looked at him, calmly enjoying his apparent discomfort. He was a child with a stick of dynamite in his hand.
"Do you get around here much?" he asked.
"Oh, once in while," she replied.
"That's too bad," he said disconsolately.
"What's too bad?" she inquired.
"Too bad you don't go nowhere else besides this here joint, cause I ain't so welcome in the white man's place, even if I am the champ."
"You're here tonight," she reminded him.
"Yeah, but that's only special. It was hard for 'em to refuse to entertain all the newspaper boys. But any other time, they don't want me and I know it and so do you."
Claudia watched his great knotted fingers moving nervously over the snowy tablecloth. He was rolling a pair of sugar cubes as though they were dice. What would happen to anyone caught in the grip of that massive hand. She felt it clutching her soft white skin and alternate tremors of heat and cold flittered through her body. She played with the idea in her mind. She must be insane, she told herself, to even harbor the fantastic notion of ever having anything to do with this barbarian, and yet . . .
"You must have dozens of women," she led off, watching him out of the corner of her eye and pretending to herself that she was asking the question just to make conversation.
"I've known my share," he said carelessly.
He would have, too. He had many attractions for women. Young, strong, rich, and nice-looking, in a rugged way. No wonder they felt drawn to him.
The orchestra was playing a hot tune, and below the table she could see his long, narrow feet move in time to the music.
"Like to dance?" she asked.
"Yeahman!" he said enthusiastically. "I sure does love to move my bones, and I shakes a mean hoof, I does. I got a cup I once won in a Lindy Hop contest when I was in Harlem. If we was somewhere else I would ask you to tangle with me."
"What's somewhere else?" she asked him, her body throbbing with a new illicit excitement.
"You mean you'd dance with me and maybe go out with me?" he asked, his eyes rolling in his head at the thought.
"I might," Claudia murmured in a voice so low that Jones had to bring his head close to hers; her hair brushed his face. He was trembling with suppressed excitement. He had never imagined that he could ever get so close to this white queen, and now that he stood on the threshold, he could hardly contain himself. He decided to gamble all on one move. That was how he fought in the ring.
"Would you come to this address?" he whispered; he reached in his pockets and came up with a card. He slid it to her across the table unnoticed. "I'll be there every evenin' between ten and one," he told her. "I'll be looking for you." His piercing gaze made Claudia drop her eyes. What was she letting herself in for, she asked herself. She had her hands full now with keeping Lily from getting out of bounds and deceiving Moy as to her relations with the little servant girl. And now she was preparing for a new liaison with a black man. She must be out of her head. A Chinaman was bad enough, but a Negro--where would she wind up if she continued her journey along the trail of lust? Where would it take her in the end? She would tear up the card the first chance she got. This shadowy giant was no person to play with. He was dangerous and it might be as much as her life was worth to cross him. Her caution told her that she had best not begin an alliance that could only end in one way. She could hold off other men, but not this crude son of Goliath. Yes, she would tear up the card.
The sound of his deep, rolling, musical voice stopped her stream of consciousness. He said with a world of urgency in his voice, "You'll come!"
Just then Moy walked over to their table and held out his arm. Claudia took advantage of his presence to rise and say goodbye. As she left the Negro, she threw a last look over her shoulder and saw him standing as though made of stone, his eyes burning a hole into her body. There was no more pleading in his demeanor, but a certain wordless domination, almost hypnotic, which seemed to beat at the base of her brain. She shivered. Yes, she must tear the card up. But in her heart she knew she lied.
Her life swept on the next few days in the same old way. Lily's hands were always upon her. Moy made his demands, too; but the Chinese girl was like a gutting flame. She learned new sex-tricks every day. She made Moy's act of intercourse seem childish.
Claudia was depending upon her more than she realized. She, herself, was an oversexed girl, and had it not been for the tiny oriental nymph, Moy would never have held her as long as he did. It took a real man to pacify the torrential lust of this woman.
It was on a Tuesday afternoon that Claudia found herself sitting on the lounge of her apartment, immersed in thought. What was she going to do about Killer Jones? It was like the rhythmic sound of a creaking wagon wheel. You tried to get it out of your head, but you could not, no matter how hard you tried.
Two arms encircled her neck from behind. It was Lily. Claudia tried to brush her away. She was not in the mood today. She was distraught and worried. Lily was insistent and her hands slid beneath her dress. Claudia began to quiver despite herself. Lily pressed her tiny mouth to hers and her pink little tongue began to dart into Claudia's with amazing rapidity. Claudia struggled to free herself from this insatiable tyrant, but to no avail. She felt enveloped by lips and arms and legs. It was impossible to pry the lustful Lily loose. She wanted to cry out, to free herself, but suddenly she wilted. The little Chinese was too much for her.
When Lily felt her mistress' body sag in her arms, she uttered a triumphant cry. She had nothing more to learn from Claudia. Now it was she who dominated their love-play. She disrobed the beautiful form of the now docile white girl and stretched her out on the lounge. She began with her slender feet and worked upward with her tongue over the delicately turned ankles and rounded knees; and then where the thighs began their glorious swell; and at last into the final goal-the female orifice. Claudia was mere clay in the hands of the skillful child who molded her to her will.
No longer did she sweep this small yellow creature into her arms and do with her as she liked. It was turnabout. She had become the passive one. She felt the strong little hands turn her over until she reclined face down upon the lounge. Something warm and soft was flowing over her rectum. She turned her head and saw Lily applying her educated tongue to her rear orifice. Innumerable sensations crowded in upon her as the youthful disciple of Eros performed the Sapphistic rites. Now the girl turned Claudia on her back once more, and this time she pressed her negligible weight upon her, rubbing her sex upon Claudia's. Her own clitoris was so prominent that she was able to produce considerable friction, and soon both girls were in the throes of the orgasm. Claudia could only lie quietly under her ministrations and thus ride out the storm. There was something almost repulsive in the manner Lily would grunt and perspire as she thrashed about and twined her limbs about her.
They had just finished and Claudia was engaged in putting on her clothes while Lily, still nude, looked on. The door opened without warning, and Moy stood framed in the doorway. His quick eyes took in the scene.
"What's going on here?" he asked harshly, his eyes mere slits in his face as he stared at them with suspicion.
Claudia felt as though she had turned to ice. She lost her head for the moment; her mind a blank. For the life of her, she could not give out a logical utterance. Lily broke the silence as she draped her dress over her naked body.
"I was not feeling well and Madame was rubbing my back for me to see if she could take some of the pain out of it."
Her transparent lie brought a sneer to Moy's lips. He gazed at her with so deadly a look that she shrank back in fear. He advanced toward Claudia and she backed up against the wall. His hands were claws ready to tear her throat. Only Lily's horrified scream saved the white girl from sudden and violent death. Her outcry served to bring Moy to his senses.
"I will have the girl examined by a doctor, and if the examination will show what I think it will, you will be in a difficult position, my dear," he said in a cold, menacing tone.
Claudia realized her life was in danger. She had to clear out before Moy could have the girl looked at. A physician could tell in a moment that the girl had been deflowered.
"You're entirely mistaken, Lee," she told him boldly, finding her tongue at last.
"Perhaps. But tonight you do not leave your room and Lily goes back to her family. Don't try any tricks. There will be a hatchet man outside."
He left her to simmer in a mess of her own concoction. She thought of leaping from the window, but the distance was too great. She thought of waving to strangers in the street to attract their attention, but that would not work either. The telephone! She ran to it and found the instrument in working order. Who should she call? The police? No, that would embroil them all in the toils of the sensational press, and oceans of printer's ink would splatter her over the yellow front pages.
She paced up and down the apartment searching for a solution; suddenly she thought of Killer Jones. She ran to her purse for his card. She found it buried beneath a few bills and the usual feminine knick-knacks. The card read: "Cotton Cave-665-47th Street." A telephone number was scrawled across its face. Claudia dialed the number, her heart bursting within her. She heard the ringing at the other end of the line. A Negro voice answered, "Hello there?"
"Let me talk to Killer Jones," she asked.
The voice at the other end sounded dubious. "He pretty busy right now, I dunno . . . "
"Tell him it's the white girl from the Chinese Lily. He'll understand."
There was a sound of a chuckle at the other end. "Yes ma'am, I do that. Jes' hold the line."
She clung to the receiver. She could hear the faint sound of music and laughter and tinkling glasses. After what seemed ages, she heard the unmistakable booming tones of the Killer.
"Is that you, honey?" His voice was filled with eagerness.
"Yes, it's I. You've got to come here right away. I'm in trouble."
"I'm practically there now, honey."
"Wait!" she cried and she explained the situation.
He laughed. "Ain't no old Chinaman gonna get this boy-no sir! I fix all that. You just wait for me, sweetness."
Claudia hung up the receiver with a profound sigh of relief. He would get her out of this, she knew it. She sat down and tried to compose herself.
She did not have to wait long. There was a sound of a muffled cry and the impact of a fist against flesh.
"Are you there, honey?" she heard him whisper.
"Yes. But you'll have to force the door."
He laughed shortly. The door began to tremble before the power of a massive shoulder. It made protesting squeaks and then flew open. He smiled his great toothy smile when he saw her waiting for him.
"All ready, sweet stuff?"
Claudia had thrown her belongings into a bag and she was set to leave Moy behind with nothing but his memories of her. Out in the hallway they stepped over the limp body of the Chinese guard, and a moment or so later they were spinning into the night in Jones' high-powered car.
He drove with frighteningly reckless abandon. Wherever he went he was waved at. Traffic policemen extended him courtesies as he swept grandly over the Southside boulevards.
With a screeching of brakes he pulled up before the "Cotton Cave," a typical club with a stairway leading below the sidewalk. As they got out of the car, a grinning Negro doorman saluted Jones rapturously. Tattered Negro boys came crowding about the ebony giant from all directions. "It's the champ!" they cried. "How you, Killer?"
The prize-fighter dug his hand into a pocket and sent a silver shower of coins through the air. There was a joyful shout as the boys fell on hands and knees to scoop up the money.
Jones took Claudia by the arm and they descended grandly into the Cave. A roar greeted their entrance. The black boys in the band struck up a few bars of He's a Jolly Good Fellow, and a howling mob surged about them, all eager to grasp the champion's hand. Such a reception might have been accorded an ancient monarch. They were led grandly to a table near the dance floor.
Once Claudia was seated she took advantage of the opportunity to look the place over. It was a typical black and tan night club with the usual intimate arrangements. Most of the seating was set up in the form of booths so that the habitu's could have plenty of privacy. Many alliances between black men and their white lovers were better maintained in secrecy, so far as those involved were concerned. There was also a fair share of white men with pretty mulatto girls. The lights were purposely very dim. They seemed to fight vainly to gleam through the tobacco-laden air. Gin appeared to be the favorite drink, and bottles were all over the place. The clientele apparently had money and was recruited from the higher circles of the city; dress clothes were quite common.
The floor show was going on when Claudia and Jones made their entrance. It was fast and dirty. Many of the sallies were for the benefit of the large Negro. He was the idol of his people and the target of all eyes.
Two Negro girls attired in scanty shorts and brassieres, with little boxing gloves on their hands, came out and did a tap routine. One of them bore a banner across her breast, "Killer Jones, the Champion" and the other bore the name of Jones' last victim. The routine ended as the "Champion" defeated her "opponent."
"You certainly are tops around here," Claudia said wonderingly.
Jones laughed. "Me? I'm number one in this town. Ain't nuthin' I can't get if I just ask for it." He reached across the table and buried her slim hand in his black, feverish paw. "I'm askin' for you," he said as his smoldering gaze set her heart leaping wildly.
She hesitated. The floor show was over and couples were crowded on the floor. She parried for a time. "Let's dance," she suggested and rose halfway out of her seat before he could object. They slid out on the tiny dance floor. Though tall for a girl, Claudia's head was several inches below the big fighter's chin. They moved together like a ship upon the sea. The floor became more and more crowded with couples and dancing became impossible. Saxaphones wailed, and trumpets gave out silvery muted sounds. Claudia stood on tiptoe as she felt herself being rocked in Jones' oak-like arms. He pushed one leg into the juncture of her thighs and she could feel the rising of a great lump against her. She closed her eyes and her lips began to quiver. She heard the thump-thump of his heart against her ears as she rested her head against his deep chest. The music came to an abrupt stop. "Tha's all. There ain't no more," sung out the band leader and the dancers cleared the floor. Claudia felt the huge Negro shaking like a leaf beside her. She understood his trouble well. And all around them she saw the envious eyes of other women. A feeling of pride began to stir in her. Of all the women he knew he had singled her out, and she had the power to make this veteran of fifty fights tremble with desire for her. She glowed with the consciousness of her power over him.
"Honey," he was saying. "Why can't we get right on outa here. Let's go over to my place. What d'ya say?"
"If you promise to behave . . . "
He stared at her with a menacing look which had turned many an opponent sick with fright.
"When a lady is as pretty as you are," he told her, "I ain't promisin' nothin'. "
Claudia hesitated, not sure of what to say.
Jones had her by the arm. "C'mon, you're goin' with me."
He led her out of the place and back into his car, then drove to the hotel he lived in. Eyes followed them curiously as they stepped into the elevator. He ushered Claudia into his place and closed the door after her. "Now we're alone," he said, a smile of joy illuminating his dark features.
He tore off his clothes until all he had on was a pair of gaudy shorts. He was proud of his magnificent body and Claudia could only look with open-mouthed awe at the tremendous rolling biceps that ebbed and flowed in dark waves beneath his skin.
He took her in his arms and pressed his full lips to hers. When he released the girl he said, "Gal, your lips is like the taste of honey!" He put his long fingers on the hooks of her dress. "Let's us see what you got." There was a dangerous gleam and a hungry look in his eyes as he fumbled about with passionate hands. He tilted back her slender throat and sank his dark mouth into its softness like a knife. Claudia protested feebly, but it was like attempting to stay a voracious tiger. He tore the garments from the shivering girl and at last she rose like a flower from out of the shreds. She cowered before him in her tempting pink and white nakedness. He bent over and opened her arms. When he saw the round globes of flesh he could no longer contain himself, and his black arms snaked about the girl from knee to waist as he strained this white goddess to him, pressing his face deep into her breast.
Claudia was powerless, both physically and mentally, to stand off this primitive animal. She was torn by an unaccountable emotion: a mingling of repulsion and attraction. But her inherent passion got the better of her and she began to respond to his bone-crushing caresses. An enormous bulge strained against the pair of shorts he wore and Claudia's hands stole to his sex organ. When she had felt its hugeness, she dropped it as though she had come in contact with a live coal.
Jones read the hesitancy in her mind and he immediately snatched her up in his arms and bore her into the bedroom. They lay side by side in the intense darkness. His arms cut into her fragrant softness. His long fingers ran through her hair and she lay in his arms, thrilling against the toughness of his muscular body. And all the while she felt the middle leg throbbing against her like a policeman's club suddenly come to life. Her hands sought out his enormous tool.
"You'll tear me apart if you ever try to put that thing in me, Champ," she said.
"Don't you worry none, baby. I puts it in and it stays in," he replied. And he began to prepare the way for entrance by fingering her orifice. When he had her vaginal tract sticky with sex fluid, he put the great head of his spear against her vulval lips. At last he was started on the thrilling journey. Inch by inch he eased into her, spreading the uterine passage until the poor girl was crying out in pain. But nothing could have compelled the black man to desist, because he was no longer responsible for his acts. He was beyond control. Her very tightness inflamed him. Deeper and deeper and deeper he sank his penis into her until, with a last unbearable painful thrust, he was in most of the way.
"Stop! Stop!" Claudia cried. "You can't get in any further!"
The maddened Negro desisted and contented himself with lying in this position. Claudia saw red pinwheels exploding in the surrounding darkness. She reached down and grasped his scrotum at the root of his prodigious penis and began to manipulate it with her fingers to induce the flow of semen. Soon she felt the warm flow within her and knew that he was spending. It seemed to Claudia as though a never-ending geyser was spurting into her. At last he had finished his ejaculation.
"Next time," he said, "I puts old John Henry in all the way."
Claudia shivered. She knew she could not hold his great length within her. She looked down to see the mighty organ in the process of tumescence. A horrible fear grew in her. This man would do her irreparable injury if she allowed him to penetrate her again.
She rolled his club between her fingers and closed her legs about its length and drew away from him in sharp jerks. In this manner she practically milked the semen from him and assuaged his passion.
Jones was forced to leave for an exhibition in St. Louis. Only his manager prevented him from taking Claudia with him by pointing out the effect of public opinion upon such a procedure. Jones left her in his apartment, promising to return the following evening. He finally left and Claudia sat alone in his apartment, wondering . . .
CHAPTER TEN
Claudia did not go out of the room that day. She knew she would have to leave the Negro's apartment and vanish from his life forever. But where to go this time? Life had been one man after another to her since she had left home. It was good to leave the confining ties of home and soar off on experimental flights of your own, but somehow you always tired of endless flitting about like a bee, stopping here and there on the way to sip a little honey. It all led to nowhere. Claudia had had her share of men. She knew what they were. A quotation came to her: "Halfway between the gutter and the stars . . . " She had lost her illusions about men along with life in general, and perhaps it was all for the best.
She picked up a section of a newspaper that was scattered about on the floor. She looked idly through it. The same old stuff! "Drunken Laborer Slays Family of Five"; "Chorine Says Wealthy Scion Promised her Marriage"; "PJ.
J. Valgerholtz Predicts Upswing in Business by Spring." She was sick of it all. She turned another page, and her heart stood still. The type undulated in waves before her horrified eyes. "John Fenton, Weil-Known Rural Physician, Ailing." She crushed the paper in her hands. Her father was ill, perhaps dying, and she-she was in a Negro's apartment, her body still aching from his caresses.
She threw her things together and ran out of the hotel. She waved to a cab and was soon careening madly to the La Salle Street Station. Fortunately a train was leaving in half an hour. Claudia purchased a few magazines to make the journey less nerve-wracking and settled herself in the train. But she couldn't read. A wave of sudden nostalgia swept over her. Home . . . why hadn't she thought of that before?
The drab outbuildings of the city were quickly left behind as the train rolled toward home. Gradually the open fields began to rush into view, with here a horse and cow, and there a litter of pigs. The land began to lose its flatness, and green hills broke up the level monotony. The sun began to sink in the west, and the sky broke out into a riot of color. It grew dark and peace descended over the lonely girl with every mile she left behind. Already the memory of the past was growing dim. She was looking toward the future.
At last the train rumbled into the station. Claudia was home! She got into one of the rickety old cabs which stood near the station and she was soon wheeling through the odorous darkness.
"Where to, Miss?" asked old Andy at the wheel.
"The Fenton place," she directed him.
He turned and looked over his shoulder in surprise. "The old doctor is a mighty sick man. Why, for goodness sakes! It's little Claudia Fenton."
"Yes, it's I, Andy." Claudia pressed her gloved hand upon his arm. "Stop a minute."
He halted the car and she got out of the back seat and sat beside him. "How is he, Andy?"
"He's a pretty sick man, I guess. Your absence didn't help none neither," he told her, his voice filled with reproach.
"That's all right," she told him. "I'm home now."
He drew up to the old rambling house and helped her with her bag. With a wave of his hand in farewell, he meshed his gears and left her standing in the darkness. She was home. Her knees buckled beneath her as she climbed the stairs. She hesitated a long time before she lifted the quaint old-fashioned knocker on the door. How would they receive her? What would they say? What would she say?
A face appeared at the window, the door swung open and Claudia faced her mother with tears streaming down her cheeks. Neither said a word, but clung to each other, united by silent affection.
Her return lifted the old doctor out of the dark alley into which he had fallen, and soon he was well onto the road to recovery. Claudia was filled with remorse when she realized how much suffering she had caused her parents.
After all, she was an only child, and she had come late in her parents' life.
Gradually she drifted back into the life she had known before her flight to Chicago. She fell back easily into the slower tempo of the little town. It got to be amusing after a while to imagine the various lives the men and women of the place led. She felt as though she could write a "Spoon River Anthology" about the cross-section and undercurrent of the village. Out of her great sexual experience Claudia now possessed a great fund of knowledge concerning the inner workings of people. She understood the tremendous part sex plays in the lives of men and women. She neither overestimated nor underestimated the significance of erotic passion.
She permitted herself to fall into a kind of doldrums. She relegated herself to the role of an onlooker in the midst of "the maddening crowd." Though the town was small, there was considerable social activity. It was not long before Claudia was eagerly sought out by the young men of the village. She conducted herself with such gracious lack of prudery among them that they all voted her "a swell sport."
She found her new life pleasant and a change from her passionate existence back in Chicago. Arthur, who had been the first man to drink from her fount of joy, had moved from the town, and secretly Claudia was glad, because it saved her that much embarrassment and possible exposure. Not that she was incapable of taking care of herself, but it was just as well that he was out of the way. She had nothing to worry about. She had drunk deeply of the well of life and was now prepared for a more normal existence.
She recognized this lull in her life for what it was. Soon the seething tide of life would surge over the bit of tranquil beach she was standing on and sweep her back into the maelstrom.
For days the fires of passion and lust were cold within her. It was as though she were gorged with the endless feast of flesh. It would be a long time before she would be ready to dine on the same food.
She threw herself into intellectual activity and read widely upon many subjects. She resumed her music. She played tennis once more and took up riding. All these things were outlets for her dynamic energy. Her life moved as smoothly as an expert skater over ice, but one afternoon she ran into Tommy Thomas.
She was on an errand for her mother, and as she was walking down the main street she bumped into a tall young man who was preoccupied in reading a letter. He looked up in amazement.
"Claudia! By all that's holy! Where have you been? Why didn't you write? But come with me and tell me all about it."
He dragged her into the little candy shop, which had stood on that particular spot ever since she could remember, and they sat together in the friendly intimacy of the little booth.
"You're looking as wonderful as ever," he told her.
She studied him a while and said, "You look a little thin, Tommy. Too much work over at the school?"
"You know what is the matter with me," he said quietly.
Claudia felt some of the old thrill. "No," she replied. "What is the matter?"
"You."
"Me . . . ? What have I got to do with it? That belongs in the dead past."
"Maybe to you it does, but even though you went away, you've never been out of my mind."
"Asleep or waking?" she said jestingly.
An expression of pain creased his face. He changed the subject. "Can I buy you a soda?"
She studied him intently. Gradually it dawned upon her that he was sincere. "Why, I was only a kid when you first met me," she said wonderingly.
"I've met many girls since, but I never saw one I thought about twice."
"But, doesn't the fact that you had me before make any difference to you? Don't you feel that you already have possessed all that I have to offer?"
"No man will ever have all that you have to offer. You will always remain a promise to every man you know."
"Somehow you sound awfully different, Tom, not that you weren't the nicest man I ever knew."
His face brightened remarkably. "That's all I want to know. When are you going to let me see you again?"
"Friday."
"What's the matter with tomorrow?"
"Friday."
He laughed. "Just a one-word woman."
Old Mr. Johnson hobbled over with the sodas and they sat in his ancient little shop laughing and chattering over nothing. Claudia was recapturing her youth.
He insisted on walking her home and she felt once more like the little schoolgirl she had been when they had first met. They walked down the streets of the little town, nodding here and there to friends and acquaintances, feeling the sweetness of being young and alive and in love. They stopped before the gate to her home and dawdled like a couple of kids. He held her hand and it seemed to Claudia that that gave her greater pleasure than many of her wildest transports. He left her at last and Claudia skipped up the stairs, a bright vision of the life to come shining before her.
Friday night came and so did Tom with a great bouquet of flowers. Claudia was curious to know where he would take her. She certainly would not refuse to go to his little cottage, but she felt that it would be indelicate on his part to expect her to. She need not have worried. They went on a typical town-folks' evening. They drove about in the quiet country and then came back into the little village.
Tom proposed a picture show and Claudia's eyes expressed their thanks. They sat in the peaceful gloom and watched the flickering shadows on the screen, happy to sit close and to occasionally touch hands.
They went for a little walk through the main thoroughfare and stopped for a sandwich in the crowded restaurant. Everyone knew each other. They had all grown up together. Claudia reflected upon the difference between her own home town and the chilly metropolis she had so recently left. You could die in the streets of Chicago, she idly thought, and no one would give you a passing thought.
They sat around and joked and kidded one another until it got rather late. Tom drove her straight home. As she left him she kissed him swiftly upon the lips and flew up the stairs. That was the beginning of their courtship.
The weather turned colder and snow fell. The surrounding country was transformed into a fairyland. The earth was covered with a soft, white blanket of snow.
It was Saturday afternoon and Claudia sat reading. She heard a lot of noise and she went to the window. A great horse-drawn sleigh filled with sweatered young people stood outside. Tom came bounding up the stairs. "Come on," he cried. "We're all going out to Thatcher's pond. Take your skates."
Claudia changed into a warm sports outfit and went happily with Tom to join the others. They piled into the great sleigh and were soon rolling and tumbling with the others.
It was a marvelous, crystal-clear day and the runners of the big sled sang through the hard-packed snow. The horses steamed and exuded a pleasant sweaty smell. Claudia and Tom lay huddled together beneath the blankets like the others. Her cool cheek rested on his. He made no effort toward undue familiarity. Claudia began to wonder. Has he lost all desire for me? she thought. Is he just fed up with trying to amuse himself? It was marvelous the way he was treating her. She felt an uprush of love and affection for him, but, she told herself, she would have to be sure.
At last they pulled up before Thatcher's pond. They piled out of the sled one on top of the other, rolling in the deep snow. There was a little cottage on the bank of the pond and soon they had a lively fire going inside. Some thoughtful soul had remembered to bring a few bottles of liquor along and it was received with grateful thanks after the brisk ride. The others all piled out to skate around on the smooth pond. Claudia and Tom lagged behind in the cottage. Before they understood just what had happened they found themselves alone in the cozy room. They were silent for a long time. Tom was studying his skates, which he held in his hands. He looked up to see the girl eyeing him. He spoke first.
"Claudia, what do you think of me?"
"How do you mean that?" she said, taken aback by his abrupt opening.
"I mean what do you think of me as a person? Do you think I'm desirable? Do you think some girl could learn to love me?"
Claudia smiled. "Surely you must know you are an extremely handsome and desirable young man. A girl could not help but feel responsive toward you. Why do you ask?"
"I'm not thinking of just any girl," he said slowly. "I'm thinking of you. You're all the girl I want. I've never been able to get you out of my mind and now I'm sure I don't want to."
"Doesn't the past mean anything to you?" Claudia asked.
"What can it mean?" he said passionately.
Claudia gave him a deep look. "Do you mean to say that the moments we spent together and the liberties I allowed have made no impression upon your regard for me?"
"They have only served to make me love you more."
"Then you are one man in a million," Claudia told him. "I'm sure that most men expect chastity in their wives. At least that has been the custom for thousands of years."
"Damn customs! I only know what I want you!" And he drew her close to him.
She yielded to his strong embrace, and the softness of her body swept away his control. There was little room for doubt about his feeling for her. Their lips met and they both were seared by the contact. His hands slid down her waist until they rested upon the fullness of her arching hips, and he drew her against his groin. She could feel his penis against her, and she ached with desire. Some little voice within her told her not to let herself go this time. She obeyed its command.
"No! No! Tom, let me go!"
His arms slowly relaxed and dropped from her. He walked over to a window and looked out. Claudia pressed her hands to her head to sweep away the rush of blood. The room whirled about her.
Tom turned toward her, his face white. "Forgive me," he said in a low voice. "I didn't mean to insult you."
"Let's forget it, "she told him. And they went out of the cottage to the pond. He kneeled to put her skates on for her, and his hands trembled as they came in contact with her slim foot.
They drifted over the glassy ice and joined the others in their frolic. A cool, biting wind fanned their flushed faces and whipped away some of the body heat. They skated with all the speed and power their limbs were capable of. Only with physical exhaustion could they dull the edge of desire.
Claudia determined to behave as though nothing had happened. She saw Tom following her with his eyes. What would happen next? What tack should she take with him? Was he really sincere, or did he merely wish to assuage his physical desire? Claudia couldn't be sure. Well, she would play out the game, and whatever did happen was all right with her. She was certain she loved Tom, and almost as certain that he reciprocated; but she wanted to be sure.
The long shadows of the fading winter afternoon touched up the snow-covered landscape until the scene was one of unbelievable beauty. They all retired to the cottage now and piled up the old fireplace with wood. The room was entirely dark, except for the crackling fire which shot hot tongues of flame into the room and threw eerie, flickering shadows across the ceiling.
Weenies were roasted and bottles uncorked. The party attained new gaiety. A radio had been carried along and was tuned in on a sizzling Negro orchestra which filled the warm room with pulsating jungle rhythms. Couples got up to dance. They drifted into corners and stayed there, clinging to each other. Claudia could see the bodies of men and girls melting together as if in coitus. Kissing and fondling became more open. Laughs became shrill and looks more provocative. A couple suddenly got up and disappeared into one of the other rooms. Outside, the snow was gently coming down.
Tom nestled close to Claudia. In the golden light cast by the fire, her face had a new, rich beauty. He reached out and took her hand. She turned slowly and gazed into his eyes. A new understanding seemed to flow between them. She lay in his arms, unafraid, feeling his warm breath upon her cheek. As for Tom, her body was a scorching flame on his. His arms encircled her slim waist below her swelling breasts encased in a thin wool sweater. He could see the tiny rose color of the nipples. He bent over and kissed her gently upon her full lips. She did not resist. He encircled her around the waist and thighs and lifted her on his knees. She buried her face into his chest. The scent of her hair rose to his nostrils, and a pulse began to beat at the base of his brain. Something inside him cried out for possession. He had to have this woman! He was going to have her; his arms tightened until Claudia moved restlessly in his grasp. She looked into his eyes and understood.
"You want me, Tom, don't you?"
"Yes," he managed to say.
"I want you too; but I'm asking you not to take me here. I'm not innocent or afraid. I don't have to tell you that because you, above all, know that I have never held back to make myself seem more desirable, or to play the part of a cheap coquette."
"Yes. That is true. You gave yourself to me because you liked me and because you are a warm, living woman-a real woman and not some cheaply virtuous prude."
"It's good of you to say that to me, Tom . . . "
"It's not good of me, but it's the simple truth."
"Then," Claudia continued, "you won't make it difficult for me here."
"No," Tom replied slowly. "I couldn't refuse you anything you might ask of me."
She kissed him happily. "You won't regret it, Tom."
"I don't know about regretting it, but I could use a good cold shower right now."
"How about me? Do you suppose I'm made of stone?"
His hands pressed her soft flesh as he drew her close. "Only your heart is, Claudia . . . "
When she got home that night, Claudia lay awake a while thinking. Somehow she could not help but believe that if she had yielded to Tom's demand that afternoon she might have lost him. More than ever she was convinced that he was the man for her. She had seen a good deal and was certain that Tom possessed the requisite maturity and intelligence to make married life successful. She knew that he was not taking her lightly. There were to be no girlish subterfuges for her, she decided. Her cards were going to be put on the table. He knew what he was getting. She was not going to swathe herself in a flimsy veil of prudery and pretense of being something she was not. She had lived her life boldly and well. Now she meant to be true to one man; and she was certain she had found him.
Several days went by and Claudia heard no word from Tom. She was tempted to give him a ring, but she realized that the issue was up to him rather than to her. There was only one thing she could do and that was to wait. Fortunately, women are good at this sort of thing-they have to be.
On Friday night Tom called and asked if he could see her. He drove up shortly afterwards. They sat in the parlor for a little while, and then Claudia asked whether he would like to go out. Tom seemed relieved when they left the house. Apparently he was not so sure of her.
"Where will we go?" she asked.
"How about your place," Claudia asked without hesitation.
"Will you . . . really?" he asked in surprise.
"Yes," she said with a little smile. Tonight would answer a few questions for her.
He drove to his small cottage at breakneck speed. When they drew up to the door, Claudia gave a little cry of surprise.
"Why, Tom! You've had the place painted!"
He was pleased. "And that's not all. Wait until you see the inside."
They made a complete tour of the pretty home. It was a sight to gladden the heart of any woman. Beautifully furnished and in perfect order.
"You're a marvelous housekeeper, Tom. Taking courses in domestic science?"
"Don't kid me, young woman. I've got old Mrs. Fagin coming over a few afternoons a week to straighten things out. Here, give me your stuff."
He took her coat and hung it in the closet. When he came back into the room, he saw Claudia leaning over the window sill looking out into the glistening mystery of the winter night. He forgot all his good resolutions when he saw her curving hips straining as if to burst from the shining black silk of her clinging dress. He stood quietly and drank in the picture she made. His eyes traveled over the fluid lines of her body, starting from her slender ankles and swelling calves, with the white skin gleaming beneath the flimsy silken hose, to her flaring hips, which dipped in at the waist to bell out gently again at her breasts.
She turned suddenly and caught him staring at her. He reddened. She smiled. "Aren't you going to kiss me, Tom?"
He crossed the room swiftly and took her in his arms. He felt her tender flesh molded against his body. His hands slid over the smoothness of her and then he pushed her away roughly. She followed him with troubled eyes as he dropped abruptly into a chair, burying his face in his hands.
She crossed over to him. "What's the matter, Tom?"
"You know what's the matter."
"Yes," she said slowly. "I suppose I do. Come here and sit beside me."
She took him by the arm and forced him to sit with her on the couch. "You used to be a man . . . " she said with a challenge in her voice.
He looked up at her with burning eyes. "Don't play with me!"
Claudia looked down. "I don't feel in the mood for play."
He was on her in a moment. He pressed his lips to hers and it seemed an eternity before he drew away. She lay full-length upon the couch. All thought of resistance was out of her. If this was the way he wanted it, that was the way it was going to be. His hot eyes seemed to devour her and his hands were in a thousand places at once. She felt her dress being slowly lifted and a warm hand slid between her white thighs. His mouth sought hers and clung in moist rapture. Her breasts rose and threatened to burst their silken confinement. They overflowed her brassiere like half-moons, and the sight of the swelling flesh drove Tom mad. He ripped the flimsy bit of silk from her body and buried his face into the milky, fragrant flesh. Out of half-closed eyes Claudia watched his lips and hands take their fill. She was a bottomless well giving nourishment to an arid waste. She knew a deep sympathy and understanding for Tom. She knew what he was going through.
With trembling hands he took his elongated organ from out of his trousers and nervously sought the entrance. Claudia reached down and guided the large head into her cavity. He rested his weight upon her and began to thrash about in the grip of the irresistible erotic emotion. Claudia aided him the best she could. She arched her back and bore upward against his thrusts. She dug her heels into the back of his knees, and soon he began to spurt the pent-up semen into her. A last long flow and he had done. The tension left his body and he went soft. His nerves had become relaxed. He felt a delightful peace he had not known for months. He told that to Claudia as they both lay there.
She smoothed back his hair. "You feel better now, don't you dear?"
He saw the affection she 'had for him, and a feeling of shame rose in his conscience. "I feel as though I had taken you against your will," he said as he withdrew his object and got to his feet.
"Did I act as though you were taking me against my will?" she asked sweetly.
"No," but his tone was full of doubt.
"Let's go into the bedroom, Tom, and relive old times."
He picked her up and bore her into his room. They disrobed slowly, each watching the other and when Claudia bent over to remove her shoes, he kissed her on her snowy bottom. She stood on tiptoe and kissed his lower lip and rubbed her stomach against his, sending sensations through him as her growth of pubic hair brushed against him. He gathered her into his arms and they tumbled into bed.
For a long while they lay quietly, savoring their nearness, glad merely to feel the pressure of flesh. His hands stroked her, and she was passive under his caresses, finding unspeakable delight in the touch of his hard hands. He cupped her spongy breasts and took the pink nipples in his mouth, letting his lips run over their blue-veined softness. He felt her charms harden between his lips. Her nipples projected like little needles; her breath began to come in sharp spurts. He reached a hand down along her snowy limbs and sought her gash of sex. His fingers felt the hot-lipped crease and she nestled closer, spreading her rounded limbs. His hand was buried in her nest of curling black hair. His heart was flooded with warmth and affection for this adorable creature. He was not lying to himself now. This woman was meant for him. It was not only that she made so wonderful a sex-partner, but her entire attitude was so fine. She was such a generous person; she had the "large heart." She asked nothing for herself but love and affection. She understood that life meant giving.
He looked deeply into her dark eyes swimming with emotion. He bent his head and covered her rosebud mouth with his and gently injected his proof of masculinity. Inch by inch he entered her soft vagina. It was like sinking into a pool of quicksand. He felt her vulva taking hold of his penis with velvet fingers and drawing him deeper all the time. A delicious warmth flowed into his bones.
"Claudia, darling," he whispered tenderly. "Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could go on like this always . . . just we two?"
She smiled up at him, her soul in her eyes. "My heart is in your keeping," she said softly.
He let his body down upon her and she found the burden sweet.
Claudia and Tom let nature run its course. They experienced coition in its highest and most intelligent form. It should be a physical meeting of two persons of opposite sex who are genuinely fond of one another. It is not a thing to be hurried and desecrated, rather it is a noble expression of one of man's finest instincts and should be properly brought to fruition.
This night Tom loved Claudia with more than his body. It was something difficult to put into words. He felt, somehow, that he was dedicating himself to a wonderful purpose. He knew that he and this splendid girl-woman would go on from there, would face life together in all its aspects. He was consummating marriage without benefit of clergy-it is true-but he knew that they were sealed this night forever.
He wiggled his buttocks, feeling that he wanted to get as close as he could to this woman-his woman. She responded by rotating her powerful loins in perfect synchronization with him. It was like breasting the waves on a surfboard. They made soft noises of rapture as they blended together. The warmth of their friction released a heady perfume from Claudia's pores, and the very odor itself nearly sent Tom off into a premature orgasm.
The girl surged upward, and her breasts flattened against his chest and made sweet pillows of love. Her snowy limbs encircled his strong body in a true lover's knot.
The heat of the moment caused them both to break out into a slight perspiration which acted as an unneeded aphrodisiac. In perfect unison both began to loose the seminal juices. They were in the sweet convulsions of lubricity, their bodies rouged with carnal heat. They glistened as though covered with oil. His nozzle began to shoot the lover's balsam into her burning crevice, and she released her reservoir of lust's lotion in reply. The flame of love burned brightly as they spent themselves. And, as every peak implies a let-down, they were soon only able to cling one to the other with limp clasp. They were unmindful of the creamy overflow upon their thighs.
They rested thus in perfect harmony. At last Claudia stirred.
"Feel better, Tom?" she asked.
He kissed her. "I feel wonderful, thanks to the sweetest girl in the world."
"Do you really mean that?"
"Dear, you know I do."
"You're sure you're not saying that because you happen to feel good after that long dry spell you must have gone through?"
He laughed. "There was no need of a drought, Claudia, darling. It was just that I couldn't think of having another girl so long as I knew you were around somewhere."
"He can tell great big lies with the greatest of ease . . . " Claudia sang softly.
"Why the devil can't you ever take me seriously?" Tom demanded in anger.
She released herself from his grasp and stretched herself like a supple tigress. "It's too late to argue, Tommy. How about a bath?"
He muttered under his breath, but helped her into the tub, watching her as she lay at ease while he drew the warm water. He felt a pleasant sense of intimacy. There was something to this marriage business after all. It might grow dull with some women, but not with someone like Claudia. She must know how he felt about her, yet she was willing to give herself to him without any promise of marriage. He felt moved by her courage. She had acted in direct contradiction to the time-honored devices of most girls, who flaunt the lure of their bodies as an incentive toward marriage. They did not have the courage and the imagination to offer "samples," so to speak, of what they had in store for their future husbands. Perhaps if such a thing were more common, it might be productive of less sexual maladjustment and more marriages founded upon a sound basis with an infinitely better possibility of success.
"Soap my back, Tommy, dear," she asked in her appealing and unaffected way.
"G'wan do it yourself, you lazy baggage."
She pouted at him and he soaped her back with gentle hands. He watched her indulgently as she frolicked in the tub. At last she was finished. She rose in slim white splendor, her damp hair curling darkly about her brow. He put a towel about her and then went out in the other room to bring her a cigarette. He put it between her lips and lit it for her. She tweaked his nose. "You're a dear," she told him.
He hurried through his bath. If only he could prolong this night forever, he thought. He could not bear to think of letting this girl out of his arms. He found an extra pair of pajamas for her, and they went into his little living room and huddled together smoking a cigarette. He found a little whiskey in a bottle, and they divided it carefully between them.
Through the window they could see the first rays of light streaking the sky. It was growing chilly and Tom brought out a heavy blanket and wrapped it around her.
"I don't know what you're thinking about, Tom, but I've got a home and I think I had better go there."
"You're not going home for a long while," he told her.
"It won't do you much good to hold me for ransom. Business has been pretty bad lately."
"Claudia," he dropped on his knees before her. "Let's be serious for a moment."
"Yes?"
"Will you marry me?"
She was silent. Many emotions gripped her. This moment was the culmination of her life. It would mark an end and a beginning. She lifted his face in both hands and looked long and intently into his eyes. He returned her look unwaveringly. She kissed him lightly on the lips and his arms went about her. They clung together and watched the day break-a dawn of a new day for them both.