STRIP ALLEY is the story of a girl who misunderstands life and of the rugged man who cares for her. Often violent, sometimes tender, it exposes the lust of men climbing a ladder built of sin. And of those who fall from the ladder. STRIP ALLEY ... a street of sin on which everybody used somebody else ... sometimes in death. Young, too innocent for the alley, careless with her favors this is Lola Champ, a stunning blonde who plunges wildly toward total destruction.
PROLOGUE
She arched her body as she felt Betty's mouth over hers, moaned deep inside as the tip of her probing tongue found a mate. Her eyes closed as her already large breasts swelled under the movements of soft hands, hands that made her ache and almost cry with want, a hungry, feverish want that sucked the air up out of her lungs.
For a moment she tensed, frightened that this was wrong, that the cheap room and the girl did not belong in her life. Then, suddenly, she began to relax. Was this worse than what had gone before? Was it worse than some man-pig who overpowered her, ripped her naked and had his way? Was it worse than loving a man who had turned to a cheap slut simply because she hadn't been there to satisfy him? Was it worse than the woman who lived next door to her parents, giving herself to every man on the block, never sure as to the identity of the fathers of the children she bore?
Hardly.
And what did anybody expect on, where sex had a price and sin was sold by the pound?
"Please," the dark-haired girl whispered. "Oh, please!"
Once again her nude figure came alive with excitement unable to wait for a passion she had never known before, a passion that challenged whatever morals she had left.
"In a second," she told the girl, suffering because a second seemed like eternity.
Desperately, she tried to remember why she was in this room and just how she had gotten there.
And then, suddenly, she could no longer deprive herself or the girl.
It would take too long to remember.
So much was in her past.
So very, very much...
But, later, she did remember...
CHAPTER I
Lola Champ should have waited for the light at the intersection to change but she was too impatient and she crossed the street, dodging a steady flow of traffic.
She didn't notice the flat chested girl who regarded her with envy or the young fellow in the red convertible whose interest in her swaying body caused him to bump the car in front. All she was thinking about was her job in a plumbing supply house that paid fifty a week, before deductions, and that filthy Stew Wallace who assumed he owned more than just his business. If the other girl in the office was willing to submit to a married man of fifty-five, to have his fat body struggling to possess her, that was the girl's own affair. Lola would have none of it. She'd made just that one mistake the night of her senior prom and if she gave herself again the man would probably be Floyd Landers. But it wasn't only her job that made her unhappy. She was also unhappy at home. People who knew her family she was the only child said they were lucky to live on Front View Place, overlooking the bay, but Lola had a somewhat different opinion. Because her father was a highly paid steel worker he was an experienced man on bridges, he could afford the house but they simply didn't belong in an above average neighborhood. Oh, her father tried to make friends, and Lola admitted this, but her mother overdressed, used too much makeup and conducted herself as though she was still back on the farm, yelling at the pigs rather than talking to people. For this reason and others such as her father getting drunk and sleeping on the lawn the Champs were not accepted. This hurt Lola and she felt it, considered the house more of a prison than anything else. Sure, the fellows in the area asked her for dates but because of her parents it was obvious they only asked her for one purpose. Her refusals were friendly yet firm and she continued to go out with Floyd, which wasn't very often because he was rather tied down with his bar on Kent Avenue.
Somebody whistled at her but she didn't pay any attention to that. She was used to men having the opinion that she had one primary function on earth, a function which she should share with them. Even Floyd had caught the disease that originated from her curves. How long he suffered was her decision. Certainly the boy who had taken her to the prom hadn't suffered but that had been mostly due to too much gin. Later, she had suffered, afraid that she might have a baby. She hadn't.
Lola was a tall girl, five-eight and much taller than that in high heels. At work she wore flats but that didn't rob her thirty-eight inch hips of the sensual sway and an invitation which wasn't intended. There were times when she thought her hips were too large, partly due to her nineteen inch waist, but after she compared them to her bust, high and thrusting and forty-two, she guessed her measurements were pretty well distributed. Because of her height, her legs were long, tapering down from rich thighs to a pair of trim ankles. She took pride in the fact that they looked just as good bare as they did in nylons. Not many girls could claim that.
Her breasts strained against the white blouse and the bra annoyed her. She disliked a bra and when one wasn't necessary she didn't put the thing on. Of course this was hardly possible during the summer since all of the material which was comfortable was so thin a man could see through it.
Friendly males, including Stew Wallace whom she did not consider a friend, told her she was beautiful and she was willing to accept their appraisal. Her long, naturally white-blonde hair undoubtedly contributed to the impression and the deep blue of her eyes was also an additional factor. Her eyebrows were her own, carefully arched, and, rising, tended to express her mood when she was curious about anything. She had a small nose above full red lips which resembled, in color, the red of crushed berries in an open field of golden grass.
It was a long walk to her home and while there were buses in Cedarville she usually ignored riding them except when it stormed.
Cedarville, she thought, normal population about a hundred and fifty thousand but at this time of the year, early summer, the number staying within the city almost doubled. They came for vacations or conventions, to sun on the beaches or to spend their time in bars or nightclubs. Basically, it was an unhealthy economy because so much of everything depended on the weather and changing habits of tourists. The visitors created jobs but once the season was over the jobs were gone, too. Many businessmen were dissatisfied with the present arrangement and they were trying to bring in new industry.
At Center Street she turned left into a small alley. This cut across to Kent Avenue and made the route shorter. It wasn't that she was in a hurry to reach home. She seldom went home immediately after work. Her mother was usually out, pushing her presence onto other people who were too polite to insult her, and it was pleasant to stop in at Floyd's bar and have a few beers. Unlike many girls, she didn't have a weight difficulty and she could drink quite a lot of beer and remain sober. Her father, about her height and very rugged, could tolerate beer but yelled for vodka and drank himself stupid. Her mother, a gin drinker, wasn't far behind him, except that she managed to get into bed and didn't sleep on the lawn.
Kent Avenue was rather wide, heavily traveled, but no one could claim that it was the best location in the city for a bar. Most of Floyd's customers were factory help and the big money was spent downtown on Bracket-Street. Because of the girlie shows Bracket Street was more commonly known as .
Floyd's bar was in a brick building on a corner. His parents, who had formerly owned the bar, had retired to Florida and he lived alone in an apartment on the second floor. They hadn't given him the business. He'd signed a legal agreement with them and he made monthly payments on the mortgage.
She found him alone in the bar, sitting behind it and reading a newspaper. The absence of customers was to be expected. Friday, until late in the evening, was poor for his business. The factories paid on Wednesday or Thursday and after a bout with the bottle the men had to wait until after they'd shopped for groceries and count what money they had left. This money, providing there was any extra, was bar money.
He put the paper away and stood up. He was a big man, an inch over six feet, and powerfully built. At twenty-five, four years her senior, he still retained all of the muscles that had made him one of the best football players in the history of the city. His hair was black, cut short "so I don't have to bother to comb it" and his face was more rugged than handsome. Still, it was an honest face and she never got tired of looking at him.
"Another week done?" he inquired and grinned.
She took a stool at the bar.
"Yes, thank goodness. At least that Wallace won't be staring at me until Monday morning." He drew a beer for her.
"Your father was in, tanked to the ears. He got mad because I wouldn't serve him. Then he fell asleep and I had a fellow who wasn't doing anything drive him home."
Lola sighed in disgust.
"He won't stay put and you know it."
"No, but I don't want him having a wreck and say later that he got it in here. When a man is drunk I turn him down. I don't care who he is. Then, before he fell asleep, he got mean. He said no damned man who owned a bar was going to marry his daughter. I told him I didn't know that we had ever discussed marriage."
"We haven't and no couple should unless they're serious."
While she drank her beer he removed an envelope from a drawer. Now and then he had forms to fill out and he asked her to help him with them. He oould estimate his receipts within a dollar but when it came to details he threw up his hands and surrendered.
"You may be angry with me," he said and tapped the envelope on the bar.
"For what reason?"
"Just that I stuck my nose into something personal as far as you're concerned."
"How?"
He filled her glass again, still holding the envelope, and drew a short beer for himself. Floyd wasn't much of a drinker while he was working and the only time he had off was when a retired man came in to take over for him. Of course this made his hours too long, more than eighteen out of nearly every day, but the business didn't warrant a steady bartender.
"You read about the beauty contest the Community Expansion Corporation is running, didn't you?"
"Probably I did."
"A girl has to be at least eighteen and not over twenty-four to enter. She also has to be single."
"That has nothing to do with me."
"It should."
"I don't know why."
"Easy. You're beautiful. You've got a shape. You hate your job. Any girl who wins this contest has an opportunity. People will notice her. She'll become important, a public figure no pun, Lola. A modeling job might open up for her. Who can say how far she might go?"
"I doubt anybody would hire me as a model."
"Of course they might."
"No. I tried one of the agencies after I graduated from high school. There's only one in this city anyway. I had the face. They agreed on that. My waist is narrow, which was a help. But well, my breasts are a trifle large for the average modeling assignment. I suppose I could work for a catalog house if there was such a thing but there isn't. Only a few stores use models and these are the high fashion type. You have to be very small to qualify."
"The contest is Sunday."
"Is it?"
"They charge a dollar for people to get in and the profits go toward their Expansion Corporation. I think several thousand are expected to attend and they have weeded entries down to twelve. It isn't a talent contest, as so many beauty contests are becoming, but a real beauty contest. Personality counts but so does the girl's figure. She'll appear on the mailers sent out by the corporation and they're operating on the theory that sex sells."
Lola carried a large pocketbook and she dug inside it for cigarettes. He was faster than she was and he lit one for her. A pack of cigarettes would last him two days if he didn't get upset over something and then he was as bad as a chain smoker.
"Well, I won't worry about it," she said. "I didn't enter."
He drew another beer for himself.
"Did you read the application blank in the paper or the rules?"
"I don't remember. I guess I wasn't that interested."
"There were two ways to put in your name. Either you send it in yourself, along with your picture in a bathing suit, or somebody who thought you had a chance does it for you. I frankly, I couldn't see why you should miss it but I was lost for a picture. All the choice for the finalists were based on photos. They didn't have the time to actually screen all of the girls but I guess it was faster and less complicated that way. Just as I was about to mention it to you, I recalled a snap I had taken of you out at one of the beaches about the middle of June. You were wearing a black suit, real tight, and I had the snapshot enlarged. I gave up hearing from them but today they sent me a letter. Somehow they had misplaced the letter and they'd like to have you in the contest. They-"
"Floyd!"
He shrugged.
"It's up to you. I was merely considering your welfare and the possibilities. But they have to know by tonight. If you don't accept they have to pick an alternate."
He handed her the envelope and she read the letter. It was an introduction to the committee who would select a winner and brief instructions about the procedure. Suits could be either one or two-piece and a gown wasn't required. A few prizes were listed but except for a hundred dollar government bond they didn't amount to much. A hairsetting free. A pair of shoes. A piece of silverware which would be worthless without the rest of the set. Mostly junk, she decided. Surely they ought to be able to do better than that.
"Where's the advantage to all this?" she asked.
"None if you don't win. Win and it's up to you to make out of it what you can. The local papers are hooked up with the photo wire services. Millions may see your picture. Girls have gone ahead on less."
She laughed. Her laugh was low, sultry.
"Are you trying to get rid of me, Floyd?"
He shook his head.
"Hell, no, but you know this business I'm in. I get along but it's tough. Often I think of marriage but what can I offer a girl? An apartment over a bar and go on working so many hours that I seldom see her? That's no life and any girl would want more than what I could give her.
How could you raise kids here? Let them play in the street and get knocked down by cars? I wouldn't be guilty of bringing a girl into such a mess. After the bar is paid off it'll be different. I can start on a house then and hire somebody, work a regular shift myself and let the other man take up the slack. But that doesn't say that you or any girl has to sit around while I'm doin' these things. You're working for that creep. He pays you fifty a week and you come out of it with less than forty. Why not earn twice that if you can?"
She thought about it. Maybe she would marry him if he came right out and asked her but she saw his point of view. Marriage was only good when there were children in it and during her early years she had known poverty. That was why her parents were so careless with their money now they didn't know how to handle it. And she didn't want poverty, or any touch of it, for her own children.
Again she read the letter. What did she have to lose? Very little, if anything. Not even a day's pay because the judging was on Sunday. Stew Wallace docked her for every day she didn't work. He didn't do that with the other girl but in the other girl he had more than a fast typist. He had a girl who would go to bed with him or climb into the back seat of his car. Later, the girl would talk about him, saying that he should sell out the plumbing business and open a stud farm. The girl's intimate descriptions were lurid, bordering on filth, but it was impossible for Lola to escape these confidential reports. Apparently the girl was as pleased with Wallace as he was with her but none of it made any sense to Lola. The night of the prom she had expected more from the boy but it had ended in an emotional disaster for her. All that had lingered when he had invaded her, panting, was the memory of the initial pain, a horrible fear of possible pregnancy and the crying need for satisfaction which had failed to reach her. Of course he had coaxed her afterward but she had refused. Angry, he had dropped her off in front of her house.
"I don't know," she said to Floyd finally.
"Don't you have any confidence in yourself?"
"Yes, I imagine I have that but to get up in front of all those people-"
"It's no worse than going to the beach."
"That's one way of thinking about it," she admitted. "But being put on display might frighten me. And if I lost everybody has an inner ego, don't they?
"True. Nobody wants to lose but you can be a good loser. Losing doesn't mean it won't help you. Consider it as an honor."
An honor? Because her curves were wild and men liked to look at her? What if she was forty-five, her mother's age, and she drooped? Would the male animal stare at her then? Or was there something more beautiful about a woman than just her body? If there was, her mother certainly didn't have it. Friday night. Her father was already drunk and her mother would get that way. If they were capable and her father crawled into the house they would be like pigs in a pen. She'd hear them down the hall, her father mumbling and her mother saying that if he couldn't be a husband in that one special way she'd find a man who pleased her. In the morning her mother would plod, naked, through the hall, not giving a damn about anybody or anything, her heavy breasts reminding Lola of National Dairy Week, her mother's stomach fat and flabby. At least she could be discreet and her father was just as big an offender. Several times Lola had walked into the living room, not knowing they were there, seeing them as they took from each other what seemed to be so vital. To her, it was revolting. Yet she was forced to admit that this was a certain type of love indulged in by many people, an act which couldn't wait for privacy and demanded an immediate release.
"I'm flattered," she said, smiling. "For you to believe that I have a chance."
He placed his elbows upon the bar.
"Then you'll do it?"
"I haven't decided. It's like getting an ice cube dropped down the back of your dress you don't know what to do right off."
"I should warn you. Some of the girls are professionals."
"Really?"
"At least two from the strip joints on Bracket Street. Maybe their morals could be improved upon but there's nothing wrong with their bodies. And they know how to appeal to men."
She considered the challenge from a different angle. The few models who worked locally made fairly decent money. If she came out of the contest as a winner she would be somebody. As of now, she was a nobody, a beautiful girl who sat at a typewriter from eight until five, with an hour off for lunch, and who felt her back crawl whenever Stew Wallace looked at her.
"I'll call home," she said. "Just in case-"
"You'll get your dime back."
And she did. There was no answer. It was too much to expect. Friday night and her parents blew up like a bathtub full of cleaning fluid that somebody threw a lighted match into. She was distressed with the idea of going home. Lonely, nobody there, but a whole lot better than two drunks who didn't know what they were doing or, except for one thing, why they were doing it. If her father slept on the lawn the only way to wake him up was to turn on the sprinkled and because of the shortage of water this was forbidden except for one hour early in the evening. So in the morning he'd be there, stretched out in the sun, incapable of swatting at the flies that buzzed around his head. And tomorrow nothing to do except clean her room and listen to the complaints about hangovers. The hair off the dog that had bitten them, they'd say, which meant the same performance all over again.
"Tell them I'll do it," she said when she returned to the bar.
"Don't let me influence you." He was serious. "You aren't, Floyd. I you were right about the dime. I got it back."
"They may object."
"Their objections to what I do can't be any stronger than the objections I have for what they do."
The rules required that she sign a form and she signed it, filling in the personal information about herself. Bust. Stomach. Hips. Height. Color of eyes and hair. Occupation.
"This has to be delivered," he said. "Fifteen minutes, no more. Will you tend the bar?"
She wasn't clever behind the bar but any man who came in looked at her more than they did their drinks.
"Of course."
"Give me an extra five. I'll pick up the old man and grab a night off." He laughed. "Life begins at twenty-five. That's me. For others at twenty-one. That's you."
He kissed her briefly on his way out and she moved around the bar to take his place. The motor of his car protested outside, hesitating, and finally barked into life. It was quite an old Ford, a fifty-five but it was a convertible and she enjoyed the wind racing over her when the top was down. He carried a charcoal burner in the trunk, a container to keep beer cold, and some Sunday mornings they cooked breakfast at one of the picnic spots in the country. There was no real fun in this for her but he couldn't open the bar until one on Sunday and she went along with him because he enjoyed it.
No one came in for a while and their relationship punched at her mind as a boxer punches at his opponent in the ring. Two years she had been dating him and it was the same with them today as on their first night. Oh, he kissed her more and she experienced a certain longing and a few times they had indulged in heavy petting. On the last date he had opened the front of her dress, unhooked her bra and explored her twin treasures in the darkness hanging over a country road. The embers of a woman's desire had leaped into flames that night but he hadn't gone beyond this. She was a trifle ashamed that she still sensed the keen edge of disappointment, an inward, silently screaming frustration that continued to remain a frustration.
Wrong? Probably. No, not probably. Of course. Any hunger of the flesh outside of marriage was morally wrong. Yet when you liked somebody and you wanted him to appreciate you well, how far was too far? She had barely known the boy the night of the prom but he had impressed her, at least for then, and the union of their bodies had arisen from a mutual understanding. Tonight is tonight. Tonight you enter the unknown and tomorrow it will be known. You will not forget. Your body is for man and man alone.
A few men came in, late from their shifts, and ordered beer. Friday. Beer night. Not Wednesday or Thursday ngihts when everybody thought he was rich. A half dozen quarters. A loose dollar the wife didn't know about. An advance on a pay that wouldn't be earned until the following week, then a he to the wife by the husband that his company had figured his pay wrong. Yes, the company might correct the error and they might not. Who could fight with the boss? Only the family of the boss had that right.
The old man returned with Floyd. His name was Charlie somebody something or other and he was as slow behind the bar as a mule pulling a loaded cart uphill.
But he didn't drink ulcers and he was honest. The regular customers knew him and they were patient.
"I saw pictures of the other girls," Floyd told her. "Compared to you, they've got nothing other than the guts to go into the contest. A woman may examine you to see if all you've got is real."
She favored him with a smile.
"You could verify that."
He grinned.
"Cripes, do you think I talk."
"How can I be sure."
"Well, I don't."
It soon became apparent that there wasn't any excuse for hiring Charlie. Floyd wasn't one to throw money away and they seldom went to any of the better night spots. Not that she cared about that. She didn't. But it got a little boring just sitting at one of the tables in back and drinking. She would much rather go for a ride in his old Ford and she mentioned this to him. All he did was say that his tires were in poor condition and he got more beer for them from the bar.
About eleven he dropped a quarter n the juke box and asked her to dance. She agreed, wearily. She liked to have his arms around her but he wasn't much of a dancer. As for herself, she could dance up a storm. Even when her father had made a small salary, trying to sell steel instead of putting it up, she had taken dancing lessons. Tap. Toe. Ballroom. Ballet. The works because, as her mother said, no other girl on the block did these things.
"I hope I haven't set it up so I'll lose you," he said as they swayed to the music.
"Why would you lose me?"
"If you win."
"I haven't won anything yet and I probably won't. They claim you have to sleep with somebody to win one of those things."
He lowered his head and his mouth brushed over her lips lightly. His hand on her back slid down. "I know one guy who'd like to sleep with you."
"Now, Floyd."
"Are you offended."
"Of course not. It's an honest statement."
"Amused."
"Maybe."
They resumed drinking after the three numbers. He had confidence tha she would become a beauty queen and somehow she felt very close to him.
"We could go upstairs where it's quiet," he suggested abruptly.
Of course he didn't know it but that killed the night for her. She had never gone up to his apartment and the meaning of what he said was too blunt. It was all right to be wanted by a man, perhaps to joke a little about sex, but, his thought was like a man asking her if she wanted five or ten dollars for her favors. Undoubtedly she was being unfair but that's exactly how she felt. She couldn't help that. They'd had two decent years together and there was no sense to spoiling their relationship.
"I'd better go home," she decided.
"What will you find at home?"
"Not much. A place to sleep. After drinking all this beer I won't hear them. That'll be a relief."
She guessed she was wrong about the quantity of beer she could hold without having it effect her because she weaved some as they went outside. As usual, the bugs that came up from the bay were clustered around the neon light and they crawled all over the windows. Big bugs. Little bugs. She hated the things.
There was a blanket on the front seat of his oar. This was necessary due to the fact that several springs stuck through the upholstery. Of course he needed a new car but he wouldn't go into debt for one. She admired him for that. It was a solid opinion and more people ought to have the same attitude. Her parents, for instance. Up to their necks in bills and booze. What would happen when her father eventually retired? Didn't they ever look ahead? No. They looked at today and let tomorrow take care of itself.
"You're going wrong," she said when he swung left at the corner.
"This takes us through the park."
"I know but I don't feel like sitting out there tonight."
The breeze would turn her hair into a mess but she didn't care. Wind blown. He often said it excited him, reminding him of some lovely creature waiting for her mate in the jungle. She smiled. Well, this wasn't the jungle and when she mated with anybody ever again it would be after the plain gold ring was on her left hand. Once a girl started with a man she wasn't inclined to stop. Take that girl who worked in the office and the elderly Stew Wallace. Three or four times a week, either with Wallace or somebody else. Only trouble could come from that. Nine months of trouble.
She must have gone to sleep bceause she suddenly realized that the car was no longer moving. She yawned and opened her eyes. Overhead the night was dark with just a few stars. From the bay came the blast of a boat whistle. Somewhere off to the right cars whipped along the street. But here there were only those who came to love. This was the park. Clay Park, two hundred acres of midnight secrets. During the day wives pushed their baby carriages along the paths. At night some of these wives returned with men who weren't their husbands. Many others didn't have legal husbands and those who didn't work drew welfare checks. About fifty a month for the girl and twenty a month for each child. Not one child. A lot of the girls didn't stop with one. They kept on having babies by various men until, finally, they lost their children to a city agency.
"You're my beauty queen," Floyd said as he put his arm over her shoulders.
"That's sweet but you aren't a judge."
"I can judge you all right."
She allowed herself to be pulled in close to him. Now his hand dropped down to rest gently over one full breast.
"Most fellows think a girl is complicated."
He kissed her on the side of her face.
"Not after he gets to know her. A girl is human. So is a man. Maybe some things are more important to a girl than they are to a man but when you add up all the differences and the normal desires which are about the same, you have just one package that fits."
Generally his mouth was quick to go to her lips but he was slow that night. It wasn't that he didn't kiss her. He did. He kissed the lobe of her ear and he kissed her low down on her neck. She told herself that it was crazy to respond the way she did but a rising sense of delight stormed through her. Instead of her customary deep breathing when he held her tight her breathing became shallow and rapid, almost as though she couldn't breathe. Her mouth came open and she sucked air down into her lungs. Her mouth was still open half way when his mouth smothered it, causing her to gasp and making her twist toward him.
She tried to protest after that but her protests were feeble and emotionally insincere. She assured herself that this was not the night of the prom. This was another night, a wonderful night, the kind of a night a girl yearned for and gave herself to completely. This was a night when moral standards were discarded in favor of the basic instincts of male and female.
He unbuttoned her blouse, reached behind her and found the hook on her bra. Then his hands were in front, pushing the bra up and out of the way, his giant fingers hurting her. She moaned and fastened her mouth to his. But she jerked her head away from him as soon as his tongue began its wild search.
"Help me," she pleaded. "Help me, Floyd. Don't let me do anything that I shouldn't."
"Not even what you want to do?" His voice was thick.
"What I want to do and hating myself tomorrow aren't the same."
But she didn't mean it enough. That was the trouble, not meaning it enough. Maybe it was the beer. Maybe it was the night, a night that was destined to come for them. Or maybe she wanted to live, free and without restraint. She was confused and she didn't know the reason. Her mind refused to function. Only her body was willing to do that. Only her body and she had no control over herself.
Moments later she whimpered from the instant, hot stab of pain that shook her but the pain didn't last long. Her lips parted under his mouth and she moaned deep inside, the sobs nearly strangling her as the heights of passion gripped every ragged nerve end. She clung to him desperately, her whole being alive, demanding. She felt as though she was climbing a mountain, walking no, running up a trail of untold beauty. And then, without warning, she was on top of the mountain, running too fast, unable to stop, crying out as she plunged off a cliff and went hurtling downward into the blackness of the night.
Afterwards he took her home. She put her clothes together as he drove. He didn't have much to say and she said even less.
She knew why he didn't feel like talking.
Most men wanted to be first with a girl.
And he hadn't.
CHAPTER II
The morning sun spilled across her as she lay on the bed, staring up at the ceiling. Her head ached some and she felt terrible. The one thing she had promised herself she wouldn't do with Floyd was now done and a part of her past. She blinked her eyes against her tears. Or a part of her future if he had made her pregnant.
"It's like a ball game," the girl in the office had said once. "If you try to steal a base and you're careless you can get caught."
She wiped the tears from her eyes and rolled over to sit on the edge of the bed. Well, there was no use worrying about it. What was done was done and nobody could change that. If a girl liked a man she sometimes went the limit with him. It was wrong she didn't deny that but not all things in life were right. And Floyd cared for her. She had to consider that. While a man might expect to conquer and own a virgin there were a number of reasons besides sex that robbed a girl to lose that which she never possessed a second time.
Voices came from downstairs and she guessed her parents were up. They sounded as though they were fighting. That was typical of Saturday. It was a day for battle, a good day for them to fight.
She arose from the bed and cast her shortie nightgown aside. She stood facing the mirror and she smiled at her reflection in it. No, she didn't require the support of a bra. Her breasts curved firmly underneath and jutted forward, their centers dark and rich. Without thinking she brought her hands up to them, forming warm cups, remembering how they had hurt the night before. Yes, he had known her there in the car. She had given to him all that she could ever give any man. Slowly her hands drifted down over her body. No matter what she thought she couldn't honestly avoid the fear of pregnancy. Some girls never became pregnant but with other girls it only took one mistake, a few minutes of surrender. Her body...
She was proud of her body, proud that it could'explode in the arms of a surging male. Perhaps a girl didn't need a terrific figure to please a man there were men who were attracted to the intelligent type but being beautiful certainly wasn't any road block on the way to love.
She walked to the window and looked across a portion of the city to the bay. She could see the long pier where people sunned themselves or walked and the white sails of boats. Far out a freighter moved north. Going to New York. Boston. Somewhere. It didn't matter.
Several large hotels rose up near the waterfront, gleaming in the sun, and in back of these was . where the girls disrobed and the men hung onto their drinks. She didn't know much about the alley except what she had heard. Most of the girls were imported, products of a carnival in distress or the fading burlesque circuit, and the majority of them made pretty good money. Stew Wallace went there a lot and he said some of the shows were as hot as a gas burner turned up high. He also said that in a few of the clubs the girls mingled with the customers while other clubs forbid this. Even then he claimed that many of the girls were available to the right man for a price.
Swinging away from the window she picked up a robe, shrugged into it and left the bedroom for the bathroom at the end of the hall. There were two and a half baths in the house, one on the lower level.
She showered and tried to scrub off the guilt of the night before. But, naturally, it wouldn't scrub off. The guilt was inside, imbedded. Still, if she loved him, why should she feel guilty? It was a question which she couldn't answer. She had never felt the real warmth of love at home and she didn't know what it was. She only understood that it was supposed to be more than the mere physical but if she used the conduct of her parents as a measuring stick she was hopelessly lost. All they seemed to have in common were their sexual desires and very often they disagreed about that.
Back in her bedroom she dressed in skin tight slacks and a red blouse that permitted her to go without a bra. The voices resumed downstairs. Yes, they were fighting. What about? Simple. Anything. Anything at all.
She found them in the kitchen. Her father's gray hair stood on end, his heavy chest was bare and brown from the sun and he had a cup of coffee in front of him. He sat there, stirring the coffee, probably wishing that it was a shot of vodka.
Her mother leaned against the refrigerator that wasn't paid for and on which they got a lot of payment notices every month. She wore an expensive blue robe which she had purchased from a mail order firm on time along with some other things and it was so snug that it made all of the flabby lumps of her body more prominent. Her hair was a tired brunette shade and since she hadn't yet applied any makeup her face also looked tired.
Gus and Cora Champ.
Lola's parents.
"That lousy bitch down the street ain't gonna tell me how to play no cards," her mother said. "Just because her husband happens to own a store she thinks-"
"Oh, shut up," Gus Champ interrupted her. "I don't care about your troubles with some stupid women. What I want to know is about this gas bill. Didn't do like I said, did you? Couldn't bother to call them last fall and tell them I didn't want no budget plan for heat. Sure, it's great during the winter because you pay the same every month but when summer comes crash! They charge you for what they didn't collect on before and you have to come up with it. Ask them to wait and it's like telling a dead man to get up out of his grave." He stirred his coffee and glanced at Lola. "Where were you last night."
"Out with Floyd." Her father's face became angry. "I've got no use for that slob."
"Because he refused to serve you drinks."
"I had money to pay with."
"Just the same."
Okay. To hell with it. Stick up for him."
She poured coffee for herself. She left it black, hoping that it would help her headache. Sinking down onto one of the kitchen chairs, she wondered how she could tell them about her entrance into the beauty contest. They had one code for her and another for themselves. Her mother had drummed away at her about the eligible males living on Front View Place, several of them on their way to becoming doctors or lawyers, but she wasn't interested in any of these fellows. They were a pack of hounds but her mother was so blinded that she couldn't see this. The fellows weren't thinking about marriage. They took a girl's measurements and wondered how far she would let their hands wander or more.
"You take care of the gas company," Cora said to her husband. "You know how busy I am."
"Yeah. Hoisting a gin bottle and running all over the street. Lookit the living room. A bear's nest."
"I was just now thinkin' about that."
"And you ain't done no laundry in two weeks."
"The man didn't come for it."
"So what did I buy a washer and dryer for?"
"You're dumb, Gus. You want I should get my hands all red? It ain't nice to go to somebody's house and-"
"The living room. What if the Clemsons stopped over? They gotta sit on the floor?"
The Clemsons lived next door. They were in their thirties, had three children and they were struggling while he climbed the executive ladder in some company.
"They won't," her mother stated firmly. "Poor woman, he ought to have some kind of an operation. She comes over here yesterday, bellering her pretty head off. The last baby in February and he got to her again."
"Him? Or somebody else?"
"Naw. Not her."
"Cora, you're as blind as a bat in daylight. If the garbage man wasn't in such a gosh awful hurry he could get into bed with her."
"You've got a filthy mind."
"Well, it's my mind and I'm stuck with it."
"Don't brag. I'm stuck with you."
"Good thing you are. You wouldn't get another taker."
Lola lit a cigarette and inhaled. There was no use postponing what had to be said. If she entered the contest without their knowledge and they learned of it later they'd be furious. Their fury didn't frighten her but she felt it only sensible for a daughter to confide in her parents.
At first, they accepted the news in silence. Her mother poured out a slug of gin and her father got out his bottle of vodka. But their silence was only the calm before a storm.
"Nobody but a whore goes into one of those things," her father said savagely.
"That's not fair," she defended herself. "There may be some bad girls but lots of nice ones enter beauty contests."
"I ain't about to believe it."
"Anyway I agreed."
"Without coming to us, huh."
"I tried to call you."
"Last night?"-Yes."
"Well, I was here but I couldn't be bothered with the damned phone."
Lola's eyes flashed.
"Of course you couldn't be bothered, anymore than either one of you bother about a lot of things. All you care about is getting drunk and ramming around to the bars."
"That's my business. Dammit, it's my business."
"And this is my business."
"I ain't about to permit it," her mother said. "I've got some reputation up here to worry about. It ain't easy meeting those people and you ain't gonna stab me in the back. Naw, you ain't. Nobody's gonna do that, least of all you. My own daughter, paradin' half naked and maybe naked before the parade."
"There's nothing wrong about it," Lola insisted. "I'm sick of my job and that miserable Stew Wallace. If I car get ahead this way I don't understand why I should do it."
"You'll come out of it with a gut," her father said "Some man's brat. You think I'll feel sorry for you? I won't. Those girls get their crowns in a bed. But some of them get more than that. They-"
"It ain't fittin', " her mother broke in. "And I don't like the way you been goin' lately. Not a bit, do I like it. You and that Floyd and his cheap bar. Girls today don't know nothin'. They just go with a guy and get themselves knocked up. I seen it coming, you not datin' these boys on the street, decent boys, and givin' it away to that big ox.
They tore into her and the more they fought against the contest the stronger her convictions became that she would go through with her plan. Who were they to preach and curse? What did they represent that she could respect? And her mother, standing, shouting at her, the robe open down the front, unashamed of her flabby breasts and bulging stomach. Not even enough pride to wear something under the robe. Just a partially naked woman, screaming, spewing words out of the gutter.
"Whoring tramp, ruinin' me and your old man after all we've done. Useless, tradin' on your sex because you want a miserable buck. I you go into that and you got no home here no more."
Lola arose from the table. This had been building up for a long while, a simple climax to the opposite forces of human nature. If they could only analize what they themselves were there wouldn't be any problem. But they couldn't. It was beyond them, lost in a sea of misunderstanding that arose out of former poverty. Today her father made good money but they had stepped up into a social atmosphere where they didn't belong, yet wished to join; and they were unable to cope with the situation. However, she didn't consider it unusual and she didn't exactly blame them for their failure. They were part of a generation that had experienced drastic economic changes, solving some difficulties and creating others.
"Do it your way," her father flung at Lola. "You will anyhow. Show them your body and get down on the flat of your back. Have yourself porked and raise a kid without no father. But don't come to me with none of your sob stuff."
She went upstairs to pack, taking only the clothes which were suitable for the season. The rest she could send for. She fought the tears but it was an effort in which she failed. In spite of what they were, she loved them and this hurt. It hurt terribly but it also made her more determined than ever. Of course she would have to look for another job. She had paid board at home but it would be more expensive living somewhere else. Her mother would miss the board money. This money her mother had spent on gin.
She heard them come upstairs. Her mother laughed, obviously dismissing the loss of a daughter, and Lola knew where they were going. To their room. To bed.
Another orgy of the flesh, possibly ending in a drunken brawl that would rock the house hard enough to crack the foundation.
At noon she left the house without seeing them and carried her suitcase toward the bus stop. One of the boys home from college offered her a lift in his new car but she declined. He had a bad reputation and he had gotten a maid who worked for his mother into trouble. Money had bought him out of that scrape but the incident apparently hadn't taught him anything except that a quick check from his father solved a lot of things.
The bus wasn't crowded and she got off at Freedom Avenue which was considered to be the fashion section of Cedarville. Her present bathing suit had several moth holes in it and she could hardly appear on a platform in diat. The holes might get larger and create more interest than she desired, especially in one intimate area.
She tried two stores before she found a suit which pleased her with some reservations. It was black, a two-piece affair, but the factory must have run short of material when making the top and this barely covered her. On the other hand, if this was a sex appeal contest she might as well go all the way or not at all. Throw them out as far as they would go and let the hungry men look. High heels, making her taller, her legs longer. A pulled in middle with a deep navel. Hips that threatened to burst out of the lower half. Let them see what all men wanted to see. The female, a tool for the male, to be loved or exploited. Perhaps both. The male who did not suffer through pregnancy but without whose help there wouldn't be any pregnancy. Nine months, or seven, frequently eight, growing bigger, feeling the growing inside of you. Then, in a hospital, you lost your swollen stomach after the ordeal and your child and responsibility became very real.
It was more difficult for her to find a beauty shop that would shampoo and rinse her hair. And she had to get a man who talked like a woman. She was disgusted with him and glad to get out of there.
She paused near a theatre that featured a foreign film that was for adults only and counted her money. The suit had cost too much and the beauty shop had seen her coming a mile away. Not quite enough left to pay for a room in a respectable neighborhood. She glanced at her check book. Not a great deal in the account but it would help some. Her Christmas bonus from the previous years, only half of what the other girl in the office had received because she had earned it in bed. Add to this the few dollars she had put into the account whenever she could, or thought about it, and she had the comfortable feeling that she wasn't exactly broke. But for a stranger to cash one of her checks no, a stranger wouldn't do that. Checks were easy to write and not all of them were good. Still, there was Floyd at his bar and he wouldn't object.
It was too hot to walk and she took a cab over to Kent Avenue.
"Conventions," the elderly driver said. "Those clowns drive you nuts."
"They mean money in the bank."
"Who cares? A bunch of guys who sell wire. A lot they care about wire. It's booze and women they want. They can't get enough of either."
"So is busy."
"Yeah. The strippers shedding down to almost bare and the pros who work the bars."
"Don't they ever get arrested?"
"Sometimes but it's easy for them to pay their fines."
She settled her fare with the cabbie in front of the bar and entered. The Mets were playing some team, probably losing again, and Charlie was behind the bar. He didn't pay any attention to her at first but the eyes of the other men made up for his lack of interest.
"No personal checks cashed," he said when she asked him.
She was provoked.
"But you know me, Charlie."
"I also know what Floyd said. No personal checks."
"All right. Where is he?"
"Upstairs."
She could have waited but she knew that a lone girl at a bar was only asking for attention, most of it as pleasant as finding a snake in her bed.
She excused herself and returned to the street. The door upstairs squealed as she pushed it open. It was dreary in the lower hall and it smelled of old dust. What it needed was a dose of Clorox and a brisk mop in a pair of eager hands.
At the top of the stairs she knocked on the first door she came to. He shouted, wanting to know who it was and she told him. Pretty soon the door opened. He grinned when he saw her suitcase and the paper bag in her hand which contained the bathing suit.
"Taking a trip?" he asked.
"Looking for a room."
His grin became wider.
"I've got rooms."
"Thanks but I don't think that would be wise."
"Well, come on in."
She slid past him into the living room. The furniture wasn't new but it was in good condition. The walls were painted blue and the ceiling white. A thick rug covered the floor.
"I lost my unhappy home," she said, trying to sound amused but feeling an emptiness that losing anything is apt to cause.
"Because of last night?"
"No. Over that beauty contest."
"Are they that narrow minded?"
"When it comes to me but they do what they want."
"And you wouldn't give up?"
"No. It well, I said it was unhappy and that's the truth. Drinking and fighting, wanting to be something they aren't. They are not concerned about anybody. I had about my fill anyhow." She put her suitcase down and then the bag into a chair. "It was just a bomb in the family that exploded. Somebody had to get hurt. Probably all of us felt the blast."
"Have a beer?"
"We were onto that last night and my head just stopped aching."
"All right if I have one?"
"Yes, and oh, okay. Just one for luck."
She sat down on the davenport and waited for him to return from the kitchen. She had been a trifle nervous about seeing Floyd again but there really wasn't anything which should cause her to be nervous. He had taken her into his arms and she had joined herself with the hard male, rising to him as the hunger in his body met and satisfied hers.
"About last night," he said as he brought in the beer.
"Don't be sorry."
"Aren't you?"
"No, and if I was it wouldn't do any good." He sat down beside her.
"I wouldn't like it if you have been seeing anybody else during these past couple of years."
"I knew you were upset about that."
"Well-"
"No it was just once. After the prom at school. I once, Floyd. Once before. Once because I didn't know what I was doing."
"But you knew last night?"
"Yes, I knew."
"And you aren't sorry? You said you weren't." She stretched out her legs. The tight slacks annoyed her.
"I know what I said, but Floyd, wouldn't any girl be a little sorry? Actually? Doesn't she feel that she lost something beautiful which she can't ever reclaim?"
"I can't tell you. I'm not a girl. Anyhow that's not the real question, is it? The big point is what are we going to do now?"
"I'll know better after tomorrow. Besides, why aren't you working?"
"Because I stayed up all night drinking."
"That isn't like you."
"What if I did?" He was angry, then, more calmly, "Lola, I did the wrong thing about entering you into this beauty contest. It was simply that I was proud of you and thought you should. But what if you win? Where does that leave us? You'll have offers and I'll be stuck with this bar. If I wasn't buying it from my folks and I didn't want to let them down, I'd chuck it and get a decent job. Or find a buyer. That's tough. Anybody with money hunts for a place on . If they can't settle there they buy a joint that's big enough for a girlie show. The city has gone nuts in that respect, all the way nuts. The nuder the girls the bigger the profits. If I but--getting into that racket takes a lot of cash. Charlie has some money and he knows this bar. He couldn't put in the hours I do but with a bartender he'd double his income and have an investment to leave to his relatives."
They talked for quite a while but they didn't drink much. She saw that he was depressed. She also realized something else, at least two things, as he kissed her. He wanted her as he had taken her the night before and the longing was just as great for her as it was for him. But she told herself it was a form of physical insanity which was far stronger than her mental convictions, moral or otherwise, and that submission was foolish.
"No," she said when he wanted her to go into the bedroom.
"Are you turning me down"
"I only ask that we be reasonable. We could continue now-but once it stopped I'd have to pull myself out of the wreckage."
"Okay." He was disappointed. "I can see your side of it. Almost. Marriage is pretty impossible right now and I feel you aren't certain about me. You're dunking of getting pregnant and me walking out on you. I wouldn't do that but how do you really know? I guess a girl would be curious about the risk she takes. Except that you don't have to take a chance. It's the fellow's fault if a girl gets trapped.
"But it's the girl who's burned."
At six he had to go down to relieve Charlie but they made some arrangements before that. There were three bedrooms in the apartment and she could use one. He promised not to molest her and she saw no harm in accepting. Staying there saved money and this was an advantage.
Her room was small but clean, the bed soft, and as he had gone she undressed and showered in the bathroom. The water didn't run evenly and some of it was rusty but it was hot and she enjoyed it.
After she toweled she put on her shortie nightgown and watched television for a while. The reception was fair but she thought the programs dull. She supposed this was because she was too concerned about herself. Now that she had the opportunity to win a beauty contest she wanted to win it. However, it was an honor even though she lost. She wished that it could be conducted along the lines of the big contests, with talent thrown in and considered in the final judging. She was capable of dancing madly; tearing her body apart with every motion, each movement an intense gesture of pleasure.
At ten she went to bed, lying in the heat and looking up into the darkness. Beneath her window a couple of cats made a brief racket and there was the sound of the lid of a garbage can clattering upon stones.
She was still awake when he came in. Early, she thought. Saturday night was a long night and he seldom got away from the bar until almost four in the morning. This included cleaning up and getting the last drunk outside. He was afraid of fire and he would never let a drunk spend the rest of the night slumped over a table. All it required was one careless match and the insurance company had a problem.
"Are you asleep?" he inquired from the doorway to her room.
She turned her head. He loomed big in the shadows and she thought she could almost smell the male animal.
"No, Floyd. But I didn't expect you so soon."
"Slow night. Anybody in business who supports that race track is out of his mind." The race track was fifty miles to the north. "All it does is drain money out of the city. That's money you never see again. Must be a disease. Customers of mine who make sixty or seventy a week bet their last buck on some horse that doesn't know which way to run."
He talked about how there was always something to slow down his cash register. Christmas and people spent their money on presents. After that it was taxes, then Easter and new clothes. A few had kids graduating from high school and in June that was an added expense. Just as soon as these things were out of the way the race track opened up.
She didn't listen to him very closely. She bit down on her lower lip, struggling to overcome the ache of longing which filled her body. This time it wasn't beer. It wasn't the stars overhead, clouds drifting slowly below them, or the romantic privacy of Clay Park. This, what she felt, was the raw passion of an animal, untamed, too fierce and savage to capture and hold. "Floyd," she said softly and sat up.
"Yes?"
She worked the shortie nightgown up over her head. She reached for the brief bottom part but she had forgotten to put it on and she fell back on the bed.
"Make me," she whispered. "Make me, Floyd."
She didn't have to ask him more than once.
"I'll make you," he promised.
He did, there on the bed, the beautiful violence of his body belonging to her as nothing had ever belonged to her before. Again she climbed the mountain but this time her climb was more rapid, her whole being living as only a man could help a girl to live.
At dawn they slept.
Together.
Unable to part.
CHAPTER III
Central Stadium, seating capacity thirty thousand. During the fall the local community college tried to play football there and in the spring they returned with a baseball team which was usually almost worse than not having any team at all. The summer brought with it band concerts, some very good bands, stock car races on Saturday nights and a county fair along about the second week in August. The stadium was owned by the city and the operation lost money on a fairly regular basis.
Lola felt like dropping into the ground when she saw the crowd. Every seat was taken, the glare of white shirts in the sun nearly blinding her. Colorful banners hung from poles and the platform in front of the judging section was painted as red as a dying sunset.
Registration. There wasn't much to that. Just her identfication and proof of age, a few questions about her family history which she told the man she would rather not discuss.
"I assume they objected."
"That's correct."
"Well, at twenty-one you're your own boss."
She doubted this very much. Her mind told her one thing and her body did something else. Now that she had experienced the delights of being a female her impulses shot holes in her morals the way a machinegun spews bullets at an enemy. And, in this, she was both the defender and the enemy. Maybe she was weak for the moment, but all things passed and probably this physical urgency would pass.
"The dressing room under the stands," the man told her.
Floyd had hired Charlie and he was buried somewhere with all those white shirts, she wished he was with her, to give her confidence, but she located the dressing room without too much difficulty.
It wasn't very attractive. There was a sign that said the dressers and mirrors, one for each girl, were through the courtesy of a local furniture store. On every table a dozen red roses represented a donation from a florist.
"Table three," an elderly woman told Lola. "Every girl is competing but please be friendly."
"Of course."
The brunette on her right proved to be far from friendly-
"I suppose you'll bounce them for the judges," she said, her lips curling. "Hardly."
"I know your kind. Every judge gets his share and . "
"I resent that."
"Don't pay any attention to her," the girl on Lola's left said. "She's sore at the world."
"Shut your mouth!" the brunette flared.
"I won't," the other girl retorted stubbornly. "All you've done since you got here is bitch. If I were you, baby, I'd button my big mouth. It's about the only thing you've got that has any size to it."
"Why, you-"
The woman broke it up and she lectured the brunette. Sullenly, the girl began putting lipstick on her lips.
"I'm dead," the girl on Lola's left said. She had dark hair and deep brown, sensitive eyes. "I wouldn't be in this thing if it wasn't for my boss. He claims that if I win it'll bring more customers into his club."
"Club?"
"On . I shed my clothes for a living. If I was a man I'd dig ditches instead."
"Then you don't like it?"
"Oh, I don't know. I suppose it could be worse. Three shows a night and the smoke so thick you could chew it and spit out cigarettes. Barney is okay but I'm not in love with Art Nells."
"I've never heard the names before."
The girl laughed.
"You don't look the type who would. Barney owns the club Barney Wilks and Art is my agent. He gets a percentage of what I earn. They don't come any more miserable than Art but he knows the clubs and he keeps a girl working. I'm not a mover like some girls. I go for the same city and a steady routine."
During their conversation the girl introduced herself. She was Betty French, Lola's age, and she had been stripping since the age of eighteen. She was engaged to a sailor who still had two years of duty left and after he was discharged they "hoped to marry and live on his father's farm.
"We'll have a baby as soon as we can," the girl added. "Some of the other strippers whore it up with the men but if it paid off in gold bricks I wouldn't buy that."
Betty and the brunette girl were relaxed but the other girls, including Lola, seemed to be tense, their nerves tight with excitement.
"Shape up," the woman yelled.
Floyd hadn't guessed wrong about each girl being examined to discover whether or not she concealed anything beneath her suit which would add to her appeal. All of the girls had good figures, healthy young bodies, but Lola was the tallest of the group and she knew that her breasts were larger, her stomach smaller.
"Cow," the brunette said to her. "Honey, a cow needs a bull."
Lola ignored the remark and fought her way into the two-piece suit. All of the other girls except the stripper wore one-piece suits and it was obvious they didn't approve of an entrant exposing so much flesh. One girl complained.
"That's a matter of personal choice," the woman said. "What's suitable for the beach is acceptable here."
Some organization had provided the officials with robes and the girls wore these as they walked out to the platform. A band played when they marched across the grass and the crowd cheered.
There was a chair on the platform for each girl and they sat down after removing the robes. The crowd cheered again and the judges, two men and a woman, smiled. Lola had the strange feeling of being naked, her lush curves viewed by thousands, ravaged by male eyes.
The speech by a gray-haired man was a necessary ordeal. He headed the Community Expansion Corporation and since he had a captive audience he seized the opportunity with zest. Yes, Cedarville was moving forward to take it's rightful place in the society of prosperous industrial cities. There was an adequate supply of water for all, eager public utilities, fine routes of transportation, available land for home building. Yes, the city still want ed its tourist trade how could he offend the strength of the city's present economy? and he promised those who were visiting that each year would be more pleasant for them. Newer and better hotels would spring up and there would be a wide selection of modern motels. It was a boring speech, kind of sick with all of its' empty public appeal slop.
Naturally, the representatives of the press were very much in evidence. None of the wire services because the contest wasn't important enough for them, but men from the city papers and a few other papers outside the city.
Each girl received applause from the crowd as she arose from her chair, walked back and forth across the platform and displayed her charms. Of course the amount of applause varied, depending upon what the girl had to offer.
At first, Lola thought nobody was going to clap for her at all. She crossed the stage, slowly, deliberately, her hips swinging. She stood tall and regal in her black heels and her long legs resembled ivory pillars. She held her head high, her lips smiling, her long blonde hair tumbling to her naked shoulders. Her breasts plunged outward against the top of her suit and her cleavage was a warm canyon between two perfect hills. Hills. The hills of pleasure and life. The hills that the mouth of a child would one day seek, because in this she believed. A child, born of its mother, satisfied its normal hunger from the mother.
She finally stood, waiting, hopeful, praying for the sound storm that came from thousands of hands. And it came. Tremendously.
The stadium rocked to her beauty and the photographers raced forward. She was fairly certain she saw victory in the eyes of the judges but she couldn't be sure.
It was a long time before a decision was reached. There were eliminations. The brunette was one of the first to be dropped and the look of defeat in her face was quite typical of the expressions that came across the faces of most girls who knew the bitter taste of not being quite good enough.
The final selection was between Lola, the dark-haired Betty French and a redhead who might have won if she'd had a more attractive figure.
"My father owns the hotel where the judges are staying," the redhead explained. "This is just a friendly gesture on their part. With my thirty-fours I can't match you girls."
The choice came hard and fast.
"Lola Champ, Queen of Cedarville!"
She cried a little when the crown was placed upon her head by the president of the Community Expansion Corporation. Shouts and clapping thundered through the stadium. Somebody handed her a bouquet of flowers and she was led from the platform, along with her closest rivals, to a waiting convertible.
Cheers bombarded them as they toured the stadium and, thrilled, Lola waved to the crowd. Hundreds of cameras found her and registered her smiling face and wonderful body. Paper cups and streamers flew through the air. It was like the gaiety of the county fair only, for Lola, much better. They had recognized her beauty and she was queen. She was prominent now but never again would she quite experience the delights of these few moments.
Later, in the plush office of the stadium manager, she met the newspapermen and photographers. "What are your plans, Miss Champ."
"I gee, I haven't got any."
"How does this feel? "Terrific."
"Any special man in your life?" '
"Well yes. Yes, I guess you could say he's pretty special."
"Lucky fellow, huh."
"Maybe."
"Where do you work?"
"For a plumbing supply house."
"Gave you some real nice fittings, didn't they?"
"I doubt if what I have came from any plumbing supply house. Anyhow, it wasn't a very nice question and I wish you wouldn't print it."
"Bet your family will be proud of you."
"And I bet they won't."
"When can we interview them?"
"I doubt if they'll give you an interview."
The photographers were the biggest nuisances. They wanted her to assume all sorts of different poses and they must have asked for her measurements about half a dozen times. After she was finished with them she met the free lance photographer whom the corporation had hired to pose her for the organzation's industrial mailer.
"You were a good choice," he said.
"Thank you."
He was about thirty and fairly handsome. "When can I work with you."
"I get off from my job at five."
"That's no difficulty. You have a natural loveliness and it shouldn't take very long. But I want to warn you that this isn't a sex photo as such. The judges selected you on the basis of your sex appeal and while we'll use it we'll do so in good taste. I like black on you and I think a tight black dress would be very good. The front should be low but not too low. Dark stockings have more shocking power than the average nylons and with your long legs, showing just enough knee, they should be perfect. I I'll seat you on a large globe of the world so that we give the impression the whole world is watching Cedarville That may seem corny to you but a lot of people make money growing corn."
They made arrangements to meet at his studio at about six on Wednesday and she excused herself.
It was a fairly long walk to the dressing room and number of people, both men and women, congratulate her. She smiled, murmured her thanks and moved on, giving the men something to stare at.
Betty French was already dressed and talking with a small man near the entrance to the dressing room. She didn't look at all like a stripper. In a rather plain suit, she had the appearance of a professional secretary who earned a decent salary.
"I didn't want to do this," Betty said, halting Lola. "Any girl in her right mind stays six blocks away from Art Nells but he put the pressure on me to meet you."
Lola nodded and looked down at Nells. He was about five-seven, rather thin, and while she guessed him to be no more than thirty-five he was almost bald. His eye were a very pale blue and they were inclined to be cold calculating. Even his brief smile lacked any particular feeling.
"Snowed 'em under, huh, kid?" he asked. His voice was as cold as his eyes. "Let's just say that I won."
"What kind of a job have you got now."
"I work in an office."
"Gettin' rich?"
"Who does on fifty a week?"
He laughed and lit a cigarette.
"That's sucker money."
"Perhaps."
"You dance, huh?"
"Most girls dance." It was a rude reply, at least 'til way she said the words, but she didn't like him and ski couldn't be friendly with anybody she didn't like. If she tried to pretend it only disturbed her.
"You pokin' fun at me?"
"No."
"Look, Art," Betty said. "Why don't you give her a chance to cool off? It's been a great day for her and-"
"Baby, I'm talkin'. I don't want nobody yakkin' it up while I'm talkin'. " His glance roamed the swells of Lola's breasts. "You got a pair of knockers, kid. So all right. So you've got a pair. And you beat the brains out of your skull for fifty bucks a week. I could shove you into more money if you work in a strip joint. Three shows a night and fifty a night to start."
She didn't think about it seriously just then.
"I'm not interested," Lola said.
Betty tugged at his arm.
"You see, Art? I told you-"
He shook her off and dug a card out of his pocket.
"That's my office, kid. I get in at noon and leave about four. If you decide you want to put your body to work I'll give you a deal. Maybe you're no stripper but Betty here is all pro and she could show you the pitch. And don't think you go all the way down to naked when you work for me in a class joint. You don't. Yeah, you bare your breasts but the G-string stays on. The dames who are losing their sex are the ones who have to go all the way and I send them to dives. Then there is extra dough you can pick up which is no affair of mine as long as I get my percentage. That's appearing at a smoker where there's only men and you take off everything except your skin."
She accepted the card and entered the dressing room. As she sat at her table she stared at the card. She couldn't imagine herself doing anything like that in front of an audience. On the other hand, it was probably no worse than what she did with Floyd. She wasn't married to him and he not only saw her nude but he also possessed her. For all she knew she might already have the start of his child inside of her. Slut, she told herself. Tramp slut. She had asked him the night before and she was ready to ask him again. Ask. Plead. Let him take her on a bed or the hard floor. And that morning, locked together in love. She had heard of this but she hadn't believed it. like the female dog her family had once owned. Her father wouldn't pay to have the dog spayed and a big hound had gotten at her in the backyard. The attempt of her father, while she watched from a window in fascination, to free the animals had failed. He had cursed, kicking the dogs, but he hadn't stopped the female from having a litter of pups.
Lola dressed and waited outside for Floyd. The stands were empty and she didn't know where he was. She felt lonely, wanting to share her victory with him. Thousands of men had admired her but only Floyd would enjoy the passion of her body. Maybe they could drive out of the city into the country and love as animals under the trees.
A half an hour...
An hour....
She gave up and walked toward the front of the stadium. She had been busy with the press in the manager's office for quite a while and possibly he had concluded there was no point in hanging around. She couldn't blame him for that. Sunday afternoon usually brought a number of customers to the bar and it was difficult for Charlie to handle the steady demand for drinks. Of course the people waited but most of them had places to go and they only spent about two-thirds of what they intended to spend. Some other bar got the third that was left.
A cab drifted along the street and she waved it down.
"Hot," the driver said as she got in. It was the first thing that a lot of cab drivers said.
"Terrible."
"Been to the beauty contest."
"That's right."
"Waste of money. They're all fakes. They rig it in advance and throw the plum to some doll without a brain in her head."
"Well, they didn't judge brains in this contest," she admitted and told him to take her down to Kent Avenue.
She relaxed as he drove. Yes, she felt proud of herself. Why shouldn't she? Proud of her body; proud of her sweeping curves for which Floyd and other men lusted, and proud that this honor had come her way. Where could it lead? Of course she didn't know where it would lead but she had the feeling that most things were possible for those who tried. Nobody walked unless they used their legs. Nobody became a success merely by wishing or dreaming.
Art Nells...
The little guy who was the agent for the strippers...
She smiled, amused. The hate of her parents would be complete if she ever stripped for a living. She considered this as being unfair because their own personal lives weren't any example for her to follow. Her mother, sloppy and half naked around the house drinking gin, plotting as to how she could climb some sort of a social ladder. And her father, sometimes drunk on the lawn, sometimes sober enough to take care of her mother's physical needs in almost any room where they got the urge.
When they reached the bar she paid the driver, tipped him fifty cents, and stepped from the cab. The bulky pocketbook, which contained her bathing suit, banged against her leg and she walked over to one of the windows and looked inside the bar.
Floyd's car was parked at the curb but he wasn't working. Her smile was more tender for him than the smile for her parents. The bar wasn't too crowded a lot of the people went to the beaches on Sunday and Charlie could manage. What she would give Floyd upstairs was better than any money he could throw into the cash register. No man had enough money to buy from her what she gave him.
The shoes hurt her feet and she took them off before she went upstairs to the apartment. But that wasn't her only reason for removing them. If he was in his bedroom she'd disrobe in the living room and go to him in an overpowering, desperate hunger.
She froze in the heat as soon as she was inside the apartment.
Voices. Floyd's voice and the voice of a woman, a voice that she recognized instantly. Voices that came from his bedroom.
"You'd better go," he said.
"What? And give up a good stud?"
"Please. It was a mistake. We both know that."
"Hell, you were anxious enough."
"Sure when it's thrown at me. As soon as you found out I was waiting for her-"
"Why not? The blonde bitch, she thinks she's so swell. Well, she isn't, is she? I know what a bed is for and you found that out. They made her queen but I cornered her king. Okay, honey, if you're king do me a favor for your slave."
Sick, she listened to the girl's sudden cry of pleasure, the obscene oath that escaped Floyd. On stiff legs she walked past the room, refusing to look at them upon the bed, knowing what she had to do, her love for him, if it had been love, drowning in a river of disgust.
She crammed her things into the suitcase, snapped it shut and wiped the tears from her eyes.
They didn't hear her leave the apartment.
As soon as she was outside on the sidewalk she slipped on her shoes and began walking. Walking. Away from him.
CHAPTER IV
The rooming house was close to the plumbing supply house, just three blocks from it. Her room was small and depressing, the furniture belonged in the city dump or had come from there but the rent was cheap. Rent was a factor. A girl could win a dozen beauty contests and still be broke. So far she hadn't seen any of her prizes and she didn't know when she would.
She met the woman who owned the house at the bottom of the stairs. The woman was quite friendly and in her sixties. She held a newspaper in one hand.
"You didn't say anything about winning the beauty title, Miss Champ."
"I didn't think it mattered."
"Of course it doesn't matter but I'm awfully glad to have you staying with me."
"Thanks."
"Men will be after you."
"I couldn't care less." Right then she didn't.
"Well, they will and that brings up a little rule I have. Only girls room with me but they can't have men upstairs. If they go somewhere else and they have a man that's no concern of mine but I prohibit it here."
"You don't have to worry about me."
"I imagine I don't. You've got class."
Class, she thought as she walked to work. Some class. How low did you go before you hit bottom? Not far. She had hit bottom with Floyd, submitting to him regardless of the possible consequences. If it wasn't for that brunette she'd be with him now, not caring about her job, caring for just one thing that he could offer her.
Of course his infidelity was a blow, a staggering hammer blow between her eyes. Yet it tended to prove one thing to her. Man was basically eager to please himself. The women could be twenty-one or forty and he received his thrill in the same manner. If the woman was a prostitute he paid her. And if a female liked him for what he seemed to be he had her body for nothing. She didn't suspect his motives. She believed in him. In return for this the slob went to bed with somebody else. Love, a one-way street for the girl while the man drove in both directions.
The other girl, Terry, was not in the office. This was strange because Lola was late and Terry was generally prompt on Monday morning. Stew Wallace seldom arrived until after nine. He took a three mile walk before breakfast in an effort to lose some of his huge belly but the walk only made him hungry and he ate more than he should.
Lola worked in the outer office, going from one machine to another, driving herself nearly crazy the first of every month when bills had to be sent out. Wallace had an office of his own, private and quite plush. He said the atmosphere influenced the salesmen who called on him and helped his credit rating. The plumbers who bought supplies went to a building next to the office and a young fellow filled their orders. Bills were sent ova daily for posting but the smallest load was on Monday which represented the sales made on Friday.
She sorted out the mail the man at the sales counts picked it up at the post office on his way to work and she placed the checks which had arrived in a neat pile There was some sales literature and she took this stuff into Wallace's office and left it on his desk. He was energetic and he read everything that arrived but it didn't take him long and most of the time he scanned through girlie magazines. There was a red leather sofa in his of face and when Terry closed the door behind her, Lola knew what it meant.
Back at one of the desks she stamped the checks and made out a deposit slip for the bank, running off the total on an adding machine. Next she began posting Friday's bills to the proper ledger accounts and she had almost completed this when Stew Wallace came in.
He was a careful dresser, always neatly shaven and smelling of lotion, but she couldn't look at him without thinking of a hog. His neck was thick and he had a double chin. Because of his full face his eyes seemed small but actually they weren't. They were simply the gray eyes of a greedy, lustful man. In contrast to him, his wife was tiny and very delicate. She was a chronic complainer regarding her health and she changed doctors on a schedule that was truly amazing.
"I saw you out at the stadium yesterday," he said. "I didn't know you were going to enter."
"I didn't know it myself until Friday night."
"Won't be able to hold you now, will I?"
"I don't have any other plans.'
"Shouldn't you?"
"How can I plan when I have no idea what it's all about?"
He lit a cigar. He could afford good cigars but he smoked the least expensive brand on the market. They had a terrible odor to them, like a burning automobile tire.
"Some people were critical of the contest. They were of the opinion that a girl shouldn't be chosen on the merits of her sex appeal but I disagree with them. If they're going to judge beauty then the whole female figure has to be evaluated. Once beauty is combined with personality you have a winning number."
She shuffled some papers.
"I don't know where Terry is," she said.
"She came in Saturday morning and she'll be off for the rest of the week."
"Oh. A vacation."
"No. Some guy started a fire for her." I see.
"Got her pregnant. She's having the kid taken from her."
Lola flushed slightly. Stew Wallace and his dirty magazines and his filthy mind. "Then you-"
"It wasn't me. I like girls but I can't father a child. The doc says it's the mumps that wiped me out in that department. Rugged. My wife wanted a baby real bad in the beginning but we didn't know then. That's the reason she gripes so much. She feels she never became a full woman and she wouldn't adopt anybody else's baby. We even went as far as putting in a request but she changed her mind."
He left her and Lola did some minor work. Terry. Well, it happened, didn't it? You had your fun and after that you had your problem. But she thought Terry must be very cruel to go through with an abortion. A kid didn't ask to be conceived and he had rights which he couldn't express. Besides, it was dangerous. Just a couple of years ago they had found a girl in Clay Park, dead, the ground soaked with her blood.
The phone rang and she answered it. Most of the calls went to the sales department so the phone didn't bother her very much.
"Wallace Plumbing Supply."
"Cripes, I'm nearly out of my mind," Floyd said. "Where are you."
"Working."
"I know that but why did you move out on me?"
"Ask yourself the same question."
"I did, all night long, but how can I answer that?"
"There's an answer."
"I suppose so."
"And if you want an answer it was the brunette."
"He swore softly.
"You'd quit me because of her?"
"For her or any other girl."
"But Lola. Honey. I was wrong, Do you think I'm so dumb I don't realize I was wrong? Hardly. Only the fault wasn't all mine. I came down to the dressing room to meet you and I happened to ask her where you were. She asked me if I was your boy friend and I said I was. Then she told me I wasn't to wait, that she had gotten chummy with you and we were to wait for you somewhere else. That sounded straight to me, no more than what any girl might have said. I suggested we wait in the bar but she claimed she needed a shower and I took her upstairs. It was hot out at the stadium so it struck me as being reasonable. Only only she came out of the bathroom wearing nothing and right off she was alter me. No man can take much of that from a fairly pretty girl. He-"
"Floyd, I'm busy," she lied.
"Don't you care?"
"I-"
"Nobody is perfect."
"I realize that. I Floyd, I have to think. I don't know just now how I feel."
"You have my word that I'd never do the same thing again. She could be a movie star and I'd throw her out. She had her laugh. She used me and hurt you just as she'd hoped to hurt you."
She replaced the phone without saying any more to him. What could she say? She longed for the strength of his arms but at the same time she resented his weakness for a vicious girl who only wanted to destroy or injure her. Still, a person had to forgive and forget. Life was too short to be burdened by hate or a grudge that was the product of an unfortunate incident. Being a beauty queen was fine but she recognized the fact that it wasn't her whole future. Because of her desires she belonged with a man on a steady basis. Not belonging in sin but belonging in marriage. What if it was difficult for them in the beginning? A few couples had everything they needed on their wedding day but most people had to work for what they received.
Before she went out to lunch Wallace dropped a ten in front of her and asked her to bring back a bottle of brandy. The thought dismayed her. He became very aggressive when he drank too much and the language he used was worse than that she had heard at home.
She had a hamburger and iced tea in a small diner that was crowded with factory workers. Most of the men worked in a glass factory and because of the terrific heat inside the plant they wreaked of sweat. However, they were a friendly group who appreciated any girl who was beautiful and maintained their silence, regardless of their secret ambitions. Those who had time for female company on the side most of the men were married-knew that either one of the waitresses behind the counter a faded blonde and a black-haired girl were available for a few dollars.
Wallace was waiting for the bottle and he told her to keep the change. She did, thanking him.
At two her mother phoned. Her mother was drunk and slobbering.
"You can come home," she said.
"Why? Did you run out of gin?"
"Shut up, wontcha? I'm trying to be nice. Ain't I get-tin' down on my knees to say I'm sorry? Me an' your old man were clear wrong about what we said. You figure that crock if you can. This phone of ours has been buzzin' all mornin'. Women up here didn't even know I was alive called and asked for us to come over. No special time. Any old time. An' the fellows, wantin' to talk to you, wantin' to date you up."
Of course she was somewhat pleased with the call but she knew the reason behind it. The reason was a selfish one. Now that she was a public figure her mother saw an opportunity to use her as a means of boosting her socially. As for the fellows she had nothing in common with them. They didn't want a girl if they couldn't get her in the back seat of a car and pull her skirt up to her hips. And some of the girls who were supposed to be so respectable were worse than the fellows. Many were neglected because of the outside interests of their parents and they sought the father image. Consequently they dated older men and when they were thought to be staying with a girl friend they slept with the men in hotels and motels. Their rate for pregnancy was almost as high as that in the slums but their people, who were shocked or pretended shock, had money and bought them out of their difficulties.
"You listenin' to me, Lola?"
"Yes, I heard you."
"You'll get a nice fellow up here, you will. Some fellow with cash and no damned ass in the bar business. Ain't no good for you, Lola, lettin' him pound away and gettin' his brat. What are you gonna do then? Live the way we usta, me and your old man, an' get a gut. for yourself every year?"
"I'll let you know," she said.
"Ain't nothin' for me to know."
"There is for me.'
"You aw, you damned whore, you ain't got no brains to amount to nothin'. "
"That's enough, Ma. Hit the gin bottle some more."
Trembling, she slammed the phone down. How could she go back to people like them? How could she inwardly love them, in spite of their actions, and watch them ruin themselves? She shook her head. That required more courage than she had.
The supply house closed at five but he kept her long after that with a couple of letters which he dictated, bawling out the customers for not paying their bills on time and buying for cash elsewhere. He was drunk and mean and in the morning he'd rip up the letters, probably call the customers on the phone and act as though it was homecoming week.
She typed furiously, wanting to get done. She had reached her decision. Floyd would smother her with his weight again but this time it would be in marriage. Being a beauty queen had already lost some of its glitter. What did it actually mean? Only that she was beautiful and that such a beautiful body as hers was destined for the pleasure of man. They didn't have to spend money on a honeymoon. She'd go down on the bed with him, prove to her lover that no girl was quite as capable in giving herself. Maybe she'd feel the pain and she'd lift to it, clutching at him, bringing him closer to her. The smooth flesh of her legs would become a crushing vise of passion, feeling the empty pit of her body fill with warmth.
Stew Wallace always had to see letters after they were typed and she took them in to him. The bottle of Brandy was almost empty, his breathing heavy and labored. He was standing beside the desk.
"You in a rush?" he wanted to know.
"It's getting late."
"It's never late until it's too late."
He was a big man but he moved around her very fast. She didn't realize what he was doing until he slammed the office door shut and he turned the key in the lock. Immediately she became terrified. He used the lock to keep others out when he was entertaining Terry or she was entertaining him and the sound of the key securing the lock was, to her, more like the sound of a pistol
"Please, Mr. Wallace. I-"
"Call me Stew." He laughed. "Stew and I'm stewed to the ears."
She glanced at the windows. There were two windows but they had iron bars on them to discourage burglars. Without the use of the door anybody needed a hacksaw to get out of that room.
"No. You're still Mr. Wallace to me."
He flipped the key into the air.
"How long have you worked here?"
"Three years."
"Like it?"
"The job is fair but I don't like the door being locked."
"Afraid?"
"Enough, but you have to understand that I'm not Terry or a girl you'd pick up in a bar."
"No. You're a teaser."
"If I am it's not intentional on my part." "Teased the whole crowd yesterday, didn't you."
"I don't know. I went there to win."
"Which you did."
"Yes."
"You could knock down seventy-five a week here, Lola."
She thought about marriage to Floyd. He wouldn't want her to work but they could use the money. Many young wives worked.
"Twenty-five dollars would be a big raise, Mr. Wallace."
"Sure. You knock down seventy-five as long as I can knock you off now and then. Mostly now. Right now."
She glanced at the telephone. If she could only dial the operator but that was useless. It usually required several minutes to reach an operator because of the summer traffic on the lines and he wouldn't give her a chance. She had to try and reason with him, if that was possible. She didn't attempt to kid herself as to why he had locked the door or why he had kept her until after all of the other help was gone.
"I'll go on working for fifty a week," she said. "If that isn't satisfactory you'd better get somebody else. I have a boy friend and-"
"You don't have to tell me. He owns a bar. He gets his regular, doesn't he? You can stand the other twenty-five and there's no harm done. You wound me up the first day you came to work and I never did get myself unwound. When a dame is the best I want her. I want her bad. And I get what I want."
"Don't misunderstand me," she said. "I'm not that kind of a girl. What Terry does is up to her and what I do is up to me. Nobody tells me what to do. I mean it, Mr. Wallace. And you ought to think of something serious. If you bother me in here it's rape. When you rape a girl you can go to jail. It just isn't worth it, is it? I mean, one girl is almost the same as another. Maybe you miss Terry. I suppose you do. But there are other girls in the city, lots of them. They say if you go to-"
"It costs you a fortune and most of the girls are like you. Teasers. Giving a man ideas and then walking away from him. Take that dress you've got on. Neat, isn't it? Neat and having a real battle to keep all of you inside of it." His eyes narrowed and his breath became even heavier than before. "Yes, neat and you don't need those straps you've got on under the thing. You don't need that dress or any of that other junk at all. Seventy-five a week and you just put out whenever I ask. Not every day but maybe three days a week. And a weekend in the country. I've got a cottage and I can get away. Friday until Sunday. Two whole days and just us. The place is on a private lake. Nobody around, nobody to see us. We swim naked and he in the sun on the sand. Yeah, I'd like that. You and me, naked on the sand. You'd get it then, even better than you're going to get it now. And you're going to get it. They can call it rape or just being with a girl. I don't give a damn what anybody calls it. I've waited too long to stop now. You can't kill lust. You can't burn it down. If I was going to the electric chair at midnight and I had one last request this is the one I'd make. With you, going the distance and then trying for the daily double. A winner, same as you win at the race track."
She began to tremble in terror, terrified by this moment and what it could do to her future. If he touched her she'd never be clean again. Almost any man would be better than Stew Wallace. Fat. Sweat pouring down his face. Those savage, anxious eyes that undressed her, smeared filth upon every curve. Huge hands, opening and closing, forming fists that could stun her.
He swore and lunged for her. She hadn't thought of the ash tray but somehow she picked it up and she caught him on the side of the head with it. He reeled and almost went down but he ripped the front of her dress open as he did so. She screamed and raised the ash tray again but he was powerful and the one blow didn't halt him. He called her a rotten name and punched her in the stomach. Pain caused her to double up and she lost the ash tray. Her moans filled the office as he straightened, blood streaming down the side of his face, and began ripping at her clothes. The dress came off her trembling body. She was standing now, fighting back, fighting for herself and for all that she was, but he was a madman who belonged in a strait jacket, and he hit her in the stomach again. The pain wasn't so bad this time because of the other pain still lingering. Horrified, she saw that he'd have her or he'd kill her. She didn't want to die. Nobody wanted to die. Maybe she could forget the abuse of a man but once she was dead there would be nothing to forget.
He grunted his satisfaction as he tugged at the bra and he took it from her breasts. Ashamed and disgusted, she closed her eyes, knowing how she looked to him. With each gasp for breath they became fuller, lifting up generously high and wildly appealing for the male.
"Nice fruit," he said thickly and grabbed her.
Her eyes jerked open and she slammed him in the face with her small fist. It served no purpose except to anger him more. His fingers dug into her flesh and she screamed. She only screamed once. It wouldn't do any good. The street was to desolate for anybody to hear her, Wallace threw her upon the sofa, slapped her so hard that he stunned her for a few seconds, and removed the rest of her clothing. She lay there sobbing, praying that something would happen to stop him and knowing that it wouldn't.
"Mine," he said as he came down to her. "Mine. You're mine. Me and you. Alone. The two of us."
Later, she couldn't remember how many times he violated her. She simply knew that this was rape by the male, that her suffering was almost unbearable, that if this was the man, the way men were, she hated all of them. And she vowed that someday she would repay this. She would make men long for her and then she would laugh at them in their misery.
She lay nude and used upon the sofa, unable to cover herself with anything, and he sat at the desk, staring at her drinking the remains of the brandy. He drank from the bottle. Half of his face covered with blood and some of the brandy ran down his chin.
"Call the police," she said. "If you don't I will."
He laughed at her.
"That would be a mistake."
"No. You made the mistake. I didn't give you my consent. That's rape." He laughed again.
"How about that check for a hundred dollars, made out to cash, that you cashed last week."
"That was for you."
"You can't prove I got the money. What if I say you stole it? You might not go to jail but everybody would think you're a thief."
Her eyes were bitter . She had cashed several checks for him, not just the one he mentioned, and she'd endorsed all of them. He had influence. People would believe what he said. If she left the city she couldn't use him as a reference if he was going to say that about her and whoever hired her would want a reference.
"My clothes," she said lamely. "I haven't got anything to wear."
He seemed to realize this for the first time."
"No, I guess you haven't."
"I can't go to my room without clothes."
He rubbed the bloody side of his face and thought about the situation.
"What makes me do these things?" he asked, lamely.
"I don't know. It's more than enough that you do them."
"I couldn't help myself."
"Well, I don't know about that either.'
"And you can't have a kid by me."
"That isn't the point."
Wallace got up from behind the desk.
"I've got a blanket in the car."
"Skip the blanket. Go out and buy me a dress."
"Where?"
"That's your problem. You owe me that much. You owe me so much I'll never collect."
She waited for him while he was gone. Her earlier decision about returning to Floyd faded rapidly into the past. She felt as cheap as dirt on a farm, worse than she had ever felt in her life. She couldn't go to him and pretend that she was clean. She wasn't clean and the slime from his hands still lingered upon her skin, invaded her whole body. Of course the rape wasn't her fault but there was more to it than that. Stew Wallace had demonstrated to her that man could be a beast, ruthless and cruel beyond all imagination, and she wasn't at all sure she should accept Floyd's explanation about the brunette. It seemed to her that all man wanted was sex and that he didn't care where or how he got his pleasure as long as he pleased himself.
She left the sofa and walked to the desk. The bottle was empty and she hurled it into the wastebasket. Then she stood there looking down at the swells, of her body, tracing out the marvelous curves with her hands.
. . .
Fifty a night to drive the men crazy. Fifty a night to expose herself, fan their morbid desires and give them nothing more.
Fifty a night.
Not bad money.
In fact, it was very good money. And she'd get even with the men. All of them.
CHAPTER V
Strip Alley was a dull section of the city during the day. Oh, the bars were open but nobody expected much business. Life came to the alley with the falling shadows of light and boomed through until four in the morning. That was an hour past the legal closing time but the customers and bar owners got around this by serving up drinks in advance. There was some question as to whether or not this practice was legal but if it wasn't no one interfered with the various clubs.
By actual count, thirty-one bars and clubs existed on but all of them didn't feature strippers. Strippers, even the poor ones, were expensive and the free spending trade, while careless with money, wasn't large enough to support too many girls. The clubs on the right side of the alley were considered to be the better clubs. Both men and women went to them and although the acts were sexy they weren't indecent or outside of the law. The left side of the alley, which was actually a fairly wide street, was quite another matter. In these dumps the girls shed all the way for their closing performance and during the hours prior to this, between shows, they mingled with the men who sought company. A sensible girl stayed away from these bars because the atmosphere was raw with female flesh, most of it for sale, and the men thought every girl who ventured into one of these dives was either a prostitute or an uncaring slut who gave herself away in return for a few drinks.
But the bars and clubs weren't the only feature of the alley. There was an antique shop that cluttered up the sidewalk with its junk and a beauty parlor where a stripper who was late could get a fast job done on her hair. Two novelty stores sold everything from Cedarville pennants to nude studies of women. Most of the nudes were of strippers working the alley or strippers who had appeared there in the past.
Art Nells had an office on a corner, up over a combination drug store and soda fountain. The man who owned the store was considered to be a clever abortionist, using a back room for his activities, and, due to the nature of the alley and the morals of its patrons, he seldom had to look for work in this rotten field.
Timidly, she knocked on the door of his office, and he yelled for her to come in. She hesitated for a moment, stiff and straight in a pale pink dress that was one size too small for her, and wondered if she was doing the right thing. It was a long step from working in an office to stripping in public. Yet she had considered it carefully and she had concluded that she could only become superior to man by using her body to the fullest extent.
She heard him swear before he jerked the door open.
"Cripes," he said. "You gonna stand out there, huh?"
"No, I guess not."
"I don't do business in no hall."
She walked past him and entered his office. It was a fairly large room with pictures of girls on the walls, a quarter of an inch of dust on the bare tiled floor, and papers piled on all but two of the chairs. The top of his desk was a mess and the ash trays overflowed with cigarette butts. There was one window in the room and if it had been washed in the last five years nobody would know it. Obviously, she wasn't impressed.
"Figured you'd show up," he said and waved her into the chair beside his desk.
She sat down and he took the chair behind the desk. He appeared very sharp in a neat gray suit and red bow tie but that didn't make her change her opinion of him. If it was possible to get a good stripping job without Art Nells she would have dismissed him from her mind. Unfortunately he had the better clubs along the alley under contract.
"What made you think that?" she inquired.
"Money. Offer a dame money and she'd stab her own grandmother to get it."
"That isn't a compliment."
"None was intended. This is my tenth year in the racket and I'm smart enough to know that the majority of girls strip only because they get paid for it. It's a job with most of them and nothing more. Sure, there are girls who get a kick out of it but that kind of a girl is dangerous. She belongs on the other side of the alley or she should work as a prostitute. When you toss your curves in a respectable club you have to be careful. You're out there to please the men but you have to avoid offending their girl friends or wives."
"T don't know why any woman would want to watch another one undress."
He nodded and stuck a toothpick into his mouth.
"Very few really care. They come to the clubs because they're curious or because they don't trust their men alone. For the most part, they regard stripping as a senseless gesture. That's because a woman looks at things differently than a man. The woman only recognizes what she actually sees but a man, when it comes to a beautiful girl, has a terrific imagination. It isn't so much what you show him but what he thinks you've shown him that counts."
"I understand." But, of course, she didn't.
"Some of these dumps along the alley will get into trouble. It's their own fault. They let the girls go too far, or the girls do it on the spur of the moment, trying to outdo the other girls, and this leads to an orgy. We avoid that sort of a thing in the clubs I handle. It isn't necessary and the law finally belts you in the teeth. If one of the clubs wants the girls to mingle with the customers I don't mind none as long as the girls have their clothes on. You can push men just so far. Push them beyond that and the roof falls in."
She got a pack of cigarettes out of her pocketbook and lit one. He took it away from her, removed the toothpick from his mouth, and she had to light another one. He had the manners of a cat on the dinner table.
"What do I have to do?" Lola asked.
"First, you've gotta be serious."
"I wouldn't be here if I wasn't."
There was no more warmth to his smile than she had noticed at the stadium. "The dough must have sounded good to you, huh."
"It isn't just the money."
"Crap. You wanta go to the bank every week."
A strange man, she thought. Very strange. He had the ability to speak with intelligence and yet it was a simple matter for him to talk like some punk in the slums.
"The money is fine," she admitted. "Any other reasons I may have are personal."
"I don't care about your private life and I don't give a damn why you're here. All that concerns me is whether or not you're in earnest. Starting a stripper off costs me money. Sometimes I think I'm a jerk for doing it. I can import pros, which is what I usually do, and they swing their bodies up and down the alley until there's no longer any demand for them. Then it's a different city and another club for them. A few, like Betty French, always manage to bring up the temperature. They're smart. They vary their acts just enough to keep the men coming back."
"Maybe I won't be able to learn."
"With that fanny and those tits you've got in front you don't have to know much. Girls with less are forced to promote whatever they happen to own. Few girls are beautiful all over. You are. If a man had to blow out his brains the next morning because of it he'd sleep with you and leave this world contented. Some of the girls make dates that bring them in fifty or seventy-five bucks. Now and then a girl can grab off a couple of hundred at a smoker. I don't arrange these things usually and I have to trust the girls for my cut. If she has a regular man, which isn't out of the ordinary, she takes care of him two or three times a week and strains her back going to the bank with the cash."
Lola crushed out her cigarette in one of the overflowing ash trays.
"I wouldn't have any part of that," she decided.
"How do you know?"
"I'm sure." But, she asked herself, was she? That rape had distorted her thinking. "I'm very sure."
"That's for you to decide."
"Of course."
He sat silent for a moment, studying her. His eyes reminded her of Stew Wallace, greedy and savage.
"You've got a gimmick," he said at last. "A beauty queen becomes a stripper. But we have to watch that, too. The pitch will draw a lot of important people and we can't go too far. You'd bring down the club if you took off your bra so I'm thinking that we should stick to a tiny net thing that doesn't leave you all naked up there. At least, we should start off with that in mind. You're going to be nervous in the beginning and if you show that you're going to spoil the whole effect. It's also a clincher to keep them spending their money to watch you. The men will know that some night the bra will come off and they'll slop through the booze while they're waitin. They do you sag?"
Hot blood rushed to her face.
"No," she replied. "How do I know?"
"You'll just have to take my word for it."
"I don't take anybody's word for anything. The first year I was in this business some stripper said I knocked her up. So I was dumb. I believed her. She didn't ask for marriage and I signed papers to pay her hospital bill and pay for the kid. I'm still paying, keeping my promise, but the kid isn't mine. She later married the guy who gave her the big night. So when I swallow anything it has to be food or a drink or a pill. I don't swallow anything else. And I don't buy unless I see the merchandise. I've had lots of girls come to me because of their bust measurement. They thought it was the inches that added up to becoming a stripper but they couldn't have been more wrong. They developed early, started wearing bras and let the muscles lose their tone." He paused. "Take off your dress and unhook your bra."
"But-"
"I said I don't buy what I don't see."
Naturally, she didn't want to do it but she was hunting for work and he had his terms.
She smiled suddenly as she stood up. She'd tease him, too, throw a torch to the desire inside of him. And he wouldn't have her. No, not this creep who made his living from her own sex. Never Art Nells. Maybe no man ever again. Maybe well, that wasn't the truth. Some man, eventually. A man who could make her feel wanted and necessary to him. Yes, some man. A girl needed that in her life. Once she knew the intense longing a man could satisfy it became a part of her, an ache, but not a part of her as the result of rape. This was the cause of her conflicting emotions, driving her one way when she wanted to go in another direction.
Moments later he sat staring up at her bare breasts, his eyes wide and searching all of her thrusting loveliness.
"Perfect," he said, apparently with some difficulty.
"May I dress?"
"I of course."
"Am I real?
"Hell, yes. Real. The night your bra comes off men will drop dead from the sight."
"I doubt that."
"Baby, you don't know men."
"Agreed."
They talked terms after that. He collected fifteen percent of what she was paid, based on her gross income, and the same percentage held true for whatever else she might do. She didn't think she would do anything else. She could walk along the gutter without falling into the sewer.
"I can take you down there," he said as soon as the contract was signed. "Down where?"
"Sue's Club."
"A woman owns it?"
"A former stripper. Her husband runs the thing."
"Is that where Betty French works?"
"Yes. She can be a big help to you."
"Then I've heard the man's name."
"Probably. Barney Wilks. Big guy with hair almost as blonde as yours. He was drifting through, bumming it, when he met Sue. She already had the club but where she got the money to buy it with I don't know. She's kind of a funny person, not at all like him. Distant beautiful, jet black hair, and on the cold side. They say she goes down for other men but you can't prove it by me. I haven't got the time to try and melt a cake of ice."
"Do they need a stripper?"
"Anybody could use a girl with your equipment after you're trained. Some girls can teach themselves because it's in their blood but I'd rather rush you and have Betty help you get going."
"Where do I meet her?"
"You meet Barney first and then you can go up to her apartment. She reads a lot and she never gets to the club before nine. There are two other girls for the show but the one is married and expecting a baby. As soon as she begins to get a belly she's finished."
They stepped out into the hall and he locked the office behind him.
"Gosh, you're short," she said.
"Shut up."
She realized he was sensitive about this and she apologized. He grunted and they went down the stairs to the street.
Lola had on heels and it seemed odd to walk beside a man whom she towered over by three or four inches. However, she knew that you couldn't gauge a man by his size. Some small men were more violent than big men. She supposed they did this to prove that they belonged, that they were men.
The sun was hot but there was a breeze and dirt and papers blew along the street.
"Pig Alley," he said and jerked his thumb toward the opposite side of the street. "Pig Alley, where the hogs live."
"Why have such places."
"Can't you guess."
"No."
"Some men asked for more than the decent clubs were willing to give. People who were out for money saw a chance to turn a fast dollar. One joint opened up and the others followed. Now several of the owners would like to sell. They made their bundle and the whole situation has gotten out of hand. It's bad for everybody. Once the authorities close them down they'll come after the rest of us. If a man meets a girl at a bar and they go off together that's their business, but when you provide rooms upstairs, rooms for that one purpose, you're inviting trouble. like the Clover Bar over there. Looks okay but don't let the looks fool you. Hit that dump after midnight and you're in for an education. Anything goes and generally does. Eight or ten rooms upstairs and all of them busy. You can't get away with that stuff. Some tramp will roll a guy and that'll be the end of it. If the owner was able to sell and somebody cleaned it out the other clubs and bars might reform."
Sue's Club was in the middle of the next block. It had a huge front, very imagine in different colored stone, and a giant neon sign, now unlighted, hung over the sidewalk with an arrow that pointed downward to the entrance.
It was cool inside and everything was plush, almost too modern. The wall to wall carpeting was thick and red and there was a rather large dance floor toward the rear which was surrounded by tables. The bar itself was to the right, a horseshoe affair which could accommodate about seventy-five people. The lighting was soft and pleasant.
"Drink?" Art asked her.
"What about me meeting the man?"
"He's probably out to the bank. The take in here at night is heavy and his wife makes him deposit every afternoon so that there isn't too much cash on hand. As I said, she's a cold bitch but she's also smart. Some guy with a gun could make a haul if he timed it right."
They sat down at the bar.
"Do they have beer?"
"Sure. Every brand you can think of. Some of it costs almost as much as a shot of liquor and that's plenty."
He had scotch and water. Two girls also sat at the bar and he told Lola they were strippers from another club that wasn't open on Tuesday. They were both well in their twenties, their faces heavy with makeup.
"Lonely," he explained. "It's a hell of a life for a girl when she can't plant her roots. Forty a night was the best I could do for them. The one used to be worth at least a hundred but she's lost her zip and she just goes through the motions. Eight years in the racket and she hasn't a five dollar bill that she can call her own. Be smart and don't let it happen to you."
They were on their second drink when Barney Wilks came in with his wife. She didn't pay much attention to Sue Wilks except for the fact that she had small, pointed breasts and narrow hips. It was Sue's husband who was the most fascinating of the two. He was a tremendous man, several inches over six feet, and he had the massive shoulders of a football player. His blonde hair was cut short and he had very frank brown eyes which never seemed to leave her face.
"A beauty queen turning stripper is a good pitch," he said. He had a better voice than many radio announcers.
"True," his wife agreed. "But fifty a night is too much for a beginner."
Art shrugged.
"It's fifty or nothing, Sue. I'm handing you a break but you have to pay for it. As soon as I start a charitable organization I'll send you a card and ask for a donation."
"Our money isn't yours, Art."
"So what? Give the girl a chance. If she doesn't pan out I'll share the price of some other girl to make up for it."
Sue's smile was just as cold as Art's smile. "Since when did you ever make up for anything? Most likely you don't even make your own bed." Art leered at her.
"That's the girl's job, baby. If she wrinkles the sheets she straightens them out."
"Look," Barney Wilks said to his wife. "It's a gamble but you know the competition we have in the alley. If I hire an exotic dancer every other strip joint puts one on. This is something they can't duplicate easily and die girl has got a figure."
"It's still too much."
"I don't care what it is. Once in a while you have to take a chance. You can't go down a flight of stairs without taking a chance. You could fall and break your neck."
Sue Wilks was a stubborn female but she finally consented to forty a night.
"It's up to you," Art said to Lola. He wasn't happy.
"And what if I am a success?"
"Then we can square it with you," Wilks' wife promised. "Nobody is out to cheat you but I'm not giving anything away either."
"I oh, all right."
Sue drifted off and Barney offered to buy a drink. Art refused, saying that he had business to take care of. Lola was a little sorry about the refusal. Something about Barney Wilks captured her and she wanted to know just what it was. There was a confident air about him which she admired, a calm determination which, for no reason at all, she respected. She couldn't think of the two of them in bed together because they were so opposite.
"Tough," Art said when they were outside. "She squeezes a nickel so she can make it smaller and turn it into a dime."
"It's okay."
His car was parked in a lot and he drove her over to where Betty French lived. The car was new, a snappy convertible, and he drove as though he had never taken a lesson or had the ambition to do so.
"You have to work up a routine," he said and raced a red light.
"How do you do that?"
"By being yourself. Select music that has some meaning to you. There's an oldie that comes to my mind. Something about what Lola wants Lola gets. Since that's your name it would add to the punch. The men will think that you just want one thing and every guy would be more than willing to give it to you. Some guys will lose what they have right there."
"I can sing." She ignored his remark.
"That might not be such a good idea. I don't know. It makes some sense but it might detract from you as a stripper. That we have to experiment with. But the music fits."
"Except for the fact that it's so old that some people might not remember or recognize it."
"Yes, that's a point. There are a number of ways of approaching this but the problem is how to approach it right."
He dropped her off in front of Betty's apartment building. The building was new and in a fashionable section of the city. Rent, she had heard, was very high. Her father had told her that. He had worked on the steel.
Betty's apartment was on the fourth floor and she answered the door almost immediately. She wore a purple robe and her hair was up in curlers.
"I guess you saw Art," she said, smiling.
"Yes, I signed a contract with him."
"Which hooks you and hell, come on in."
It was a nice apartment, spacious and comfortable, lavishly furnished. Even a girl who earned a considerable amount of money could find herself pressed to meet the expenses of it at various times.
Betty asked about highballs and she sat down to wait. There was a great deal about the girl which she liked, it was almost the same type of frankness which she had detected in Barney Wilks.
"I was just reading about ancient man and woman," Betty said and shoved a cold glass into Lola's hand. She crossed over to the sofa and sank down upon it. "I think a stripper can look at it somewhat more objectively than many people. The men watch you because they're sex minded or frustrated. Maybe we've progressed a lot in most ways but the need of a man or a woman is just about as it was. After a good strip show a man is ready to bed down and prove he's a man. That's the back door to sex and the ancient people were more openly honest about their feelings. Sexual excitement had a lot to do do with the start of the dance and this was to get everybody so worked up that the man would take his woman in front of friends. So we have progressed. Most of us use either cars or rooms."
"I guess that won't change much," Lola admitted.
"Keep that in front of you when you strip. Sometimes you can pick out one man and become interested in him. Swell. He's a male and you're a female. He might not know you on the street tomorrow but right then he wants something that belongs to you. If you please him you've got a fair chance of pleasing all of the men."
"And you leave him hanging in the air?"
"That's about it."
Lola tasted her drink. It was rye and she didn't care for rye with plain soda. At least ginger ale added something to the taste.
"How long is a routine, Betty?"
Betty frowned.
"How long? It all depends on the girl. You must understand that nearly all men are quickly aroused and easily satisfied. It's like going to an art exhibit. Some paintings will hold your attention while you will only glance at others. A few girls only need a few minutes to put on a solid act but many girls could dance nude for an hour and not get any real response or project themselves. This is due to the fact that a nude girl displays all of her flaws and just one simple thing can make a man lose his interest. Only a small number of girls have enough beauty to stand close inspection."
Lola crossed one long leg over the other.
"Art wants you to help me," she said.
"I expected that."
"It's a lot to ask and if you think-"
"Oh, I don't mind. Not really. Art is a skunk but he knows he can trust me. One of the other girls might show you all the wrong things to do. Jealousy is an ugly thing and you find plenty of it in this business. The more beautiful the girl the more she has to endure. If you can't accept that you're licked."
Lola could understand this. If a girl made her living with her face and figure she'd be a fool to invite competition. Yet Betty didn't seem to care. She thought this rather odd.
"Who headlines the show at the club?" Lola wanted to know.
"I do."
"And still you're willing to-"
"Help you?" Betty laughed. "Of course. I'm counting on my experience to keep me on top but if it doesn't I'm not going to cry any big tears. The pressure is always on the star of the show. She's the drawing attraction and she has to deliver. My contract runs for a year and they can't cut my salary no matter how good you are or how lousy I become."
There were a few things Lola had to get straightened out.
"You told me Barney owned the club," she reminded Betty. "He doesn't. It's his wife."
"I know. It was just a matter of speech, something that you might normally say about the guy because he's around all the time. She's a hard customer, that wife of his. If you cut her chest open you'd find a cash register instead of a heart. Maybe you can't blame her too much for that, though. A diamond isn't a girl's best friend. It's the old bucks that stand by a girly. If you don't believe me just try getting a newspaper without the price to pay for it."
Lola recognized' the necessity for money but she had also seen what it could do to people, like with her parents at home, if it was used without any common sense.
"Where would you teach me?"
Betty frowned.
"That is a problem, isn't it?"
"Enough."
"Do you have an apartment?"
"No. I rent a room. I can't afford an apartment. Until I get started it's going to be difficult to manage."
"Didn't you have a job."
"Yes, but something happened to it."
"Boss trouble?"
"More than twice what I needed."
"Dropped you, huh?"
"No. He locked me in his office and did what he wanted to do. It was awful."
"Well, that's a man for you." Betty lapsed into a brief silence. "You may. not want to do this, Lola, but I've got an extra bedroom. You could move in here until you're settled."
Lola was surprised.
"That's very generous of you," she said. "Honest."
"Why not? I have to pay the rent anyway and afternoons I can work with you. In a week we'll have you on the boards."
"That would be fine."
Betty got up and walked around the living room. She spoke slowly, her back to Lola.
"There's something that has to be very clear between us," she began. "I guess we all have some pride and we like to keep it if we can. The brunette who sat next to you in the dressing room at the stadium was a tramp, a jealous slut, but a lot of us are tramps. I'm afraid I led you to believe one thing, that I wasn't out for a fast dollar the same as some of the others but that wasn't true. Do you follow me?"
"I don't know," Lola confessed.
Betty turned and faced her. Her eyes were sad, dark pools of regret. It was the inner Betty tumbling outside, her feelings as naked as her body after she stripped.
"That sailor hell, he's a joke. I don't mean he isn't real. A year ago he was very real. I was working in a Baltimore Club then and he had shore duty when I met him. He knew I was a stripper. I didn't lie to him about that and he said it didn't matter. I know now why it didn't matter. I went to bed with him whenever he was free. We talked of marriage after he got out of service and of living on a farm in upper New York State. A dairy farm. Then he shipped out. I wrote him every day for a week until his first letter arrived. It was a Sweet Jane thing. He thanked me for my favors and asked what man was taking care of me then because if there wasn't anybody he had a friend who planned to visit Baltimore and the friend had paid him some nice money for my name. I bought out of my contract, quit Baltimore and came here. All I left was my forwarding address with the club owner in case Lee that's his name ever wrote again."
"Such a way to treat a girl," Lola exclaimed, shocked that anybody would do a tiling like that. Still the shock was tempered somewhat by her own experience.
"Maybe I'm wrong," Betty admitted. "Maybe I kept score on the world and got a stinking answer. If I did I can't help it. I booked with Art Nells, made a hit at Sue's Club, and the men began making offers. I was hurt and I accepted many of them. I still do if the man has a quick hundred he doesn't know how to spend any other way. Fifteen goes to Art if I'm in the mood to split and I clear eighty-five for myself. I I'm simply telling you this because if you stayed here you'd find out sooner or later, it doesn't have to effect you. All I do is close my bedroom door and what goes on in there concerns only me and the man."
This was a shocker and Lola swallowed the rest of her drink without realizing it.
"I I don't know what to do."
"Well, I can't decide for you."
"No."
"And I don't regard myself as a street whore. Most of those I date are respectable men who are very unhappy. I don't really like them, probably because of Lee, but they do have my sympathy. It isn't every night either. Two or three times a week is about average. The money goes into the bank. If I can't trust a man nobody can stop me from owning my own club someday. Do you know how long a moth lives? The kind you see at night."
"Not very long."
"No, but to the moth it's a lifetime. Short, when we look at it. So is the life of the majority of strippers. Short. You have to grab the cash while it's flying by you. Where do you go after you're done? Marry some guy who works for a living with his hands, takes care of the neighbor's wife while you're out shopping and wear cheap house dresses because your husband can't miss one bar on his way home? Will you settle for that? I'm damned if I will."
Lola thought this was a brutal outlook on life but she could understand the reasons behind it. She was bitter herself and she doubted if she had any more confidence in men than Betty had. Stew Wallace's rape was a vivid memory and ninety percent of her faith in Floyd lay shattered because of the brunette. If these two things hadn't happened but they had happened. These were part of her past and out of the pasts today was born. She had come close to forgiving Floyd, close enough to want to go to him, but if she did return to him she knew she would never feel clean until after she had explained to him about the rape. This was dangerous. She had no way of determining how he would react. Men had killed other men for less and while she hated Wallace she didn't want his blood on her hands. It was, she felt, far wiser to go on as she was, to let things drift and form some definite shape. She was young and she couldn't think of one excuse why she should rush blindly into a hasty marriage which she might not even want. Possibly and this had to be considered she didn't want marriage at all, now or ever. In her present attitude toward Floyd and men in general she couldn't see anything worthwhile in marriage.
"Another drink?" Betty asked.
"No, I guess not."
"Did I upset you with my case history?" Betty laughed and tossed her head, fluffing out her dark hair. "If I did I'm sorry but it's better to be frank about what you could expect here."
"I'm not upset," Lola said but she wasn't certain about this. "Nobody can tell another person what is actually right for them."
"But you don't approve?"
"I'm afraid not."
"Then you may change your mind about staying here."
"Possibly."
"Any hard feelings?"
"None. I admire anyone who is truthful. Whatever you hide generally comes back at you when you least expect it."
They made a date for her to come up to Betty's apartment the following afternoon and she left soon afterward.
It was a long walk to her rooming house through the burning heat but she objected to spending money for a cab. She still had some pay coming from Stew Wallace Out she knew she would never go to the office to collect it. And, too, she could think more clearly while walking, arrive at conclusions which would otherwise escape her.
However, that day she could only think of one thing.
Stripper....
Going almost naked for the leering men who lusted for her body, their physical longing for her positive in their eyes. Men as cruel as circling vultures in the sky, waiting for the last breath to leave some unfortunate creature.
Stripper....
Her steps quickened.
She smiled.
Stripper...
Somebody would get hurt.
CHAPTER VI
Betty worked with her for more than three hours the next afternoon. The girl was patient, quick to make a logical suggestion, but Lola discovered that the effort was exhausting. She had thought her office job complicated at times, a strain, but it was nothing compared to stripping.
"You've got a keen sense of music," Betty said at one point.
Lola swayed to the soft tones of the record player. The tight black panties rode up high onto her thighs and the black mesh bra threatened to give up the battle of trying to conceal her. Except for her shoes she wore nothing else, having removed the black dress according to Betty's instructions.
"Right now I don't know what I've got," she admitted, feeling very weary.
"Well, you've got one hell of a shape and if you have to be told that you haven't looked at yourself lately. I guessed a week but you'll be ready before then."
"Really?"
"Sure. Now let's have a drink."
Even the rye and soda was welcome to her dry throat. She glanced at the clock, remembered that she had to pick up dark stockings and mentioned her appointment with the beauty contest photographer.
"I shouldn't have to pose for more than an hour," she added.
"Then take in the show at the club but don't let anything the rest of us do influence you too much. Oh, you can get a few hints, only try not to enlarge on anything that doesn't come natural to you. The last girl to appear is a belly dancer and anything she does would be very difficult for you to adapt to yourself. I'm experienced and I couldn't do it. You have to train your muscles and that takes a great deal of practice."
Lola set her glass on an end table, picked up her dress and pulled it down over her head.
"What do you think about Art's idea on that Lola record?"
"We have a band behind us."
"Funny, he didn't tell me that."
"He probably assumed you knew. Any club with high prices has to have a band. They play to suit the stripper but a record is helpful if you're breaking yourself into a number. No club owner could afford to pay a band just to play for you while you fiddled around. But the record sounds logical. The song was written so you could make up your own mind what Lola wanted to get. A woman might think it was a mink coat or a new car but most men figured Lola actually wanted her sex in some bed. That grooves in an opening for you because they know you're Lola and every man in the club is going to want to sleep with you. When he finds out that he can't he'll pay me a hundred or go to the other side of the street where it's cheaper or he'll go home to his wife and wake her up."
"Do you have to mix with the crowd? There's so much of this that's beyond me."
"Naturally. No, you don't have to mix but you ll get along with Sue better if you do. It helps push drinks and there's no harm in it as long as you pace yourself and know how much booze you can carry. One of the girls is a lush and she's always drunk for the last show. It isn't healthy. You invite trouble when you aren't fully aware of what you're doing. You can go too far and insult some rich bitch who came to the club because her husband claimed Barney serves the best liquor along the alley."
"Thanks, Betty, but I have to run."
"See you."
"Of course. Later."
It was another hot day on the street and again she walked, just as she had walked up from her rooming house. Betty hadn't said anything more about her moving into the apartment but she was thinking seriously of doing so. First, there was her money situation which could become as desperate as the food problem in China very quickly. And, frankly, she liked Betty as an individual. She thought it a shame that such a pretty girl would sleep with men for money. It could only lead to an eventual arrest for prostitution or an unwanted pregnancy. Either disaster would be serious. A club owner might not care what one of his strippers did away from his place but if he had a name he didn't want her to get caught and reflect upon his reputation. Pregnancy was almost as bad. Some girls who went through their nine months put on weight which they couldn't lose afterward.
She bought a pair of dark stockings in a downtown store and continued on toward the photographer's studio. Some drunk made a nasty remark but she forgot about it immediately. She would have to get used to such things.
An unpleasant surprise awaited her at the photographers. She could see into the backroom and the girl who had placed third, next behind Betty, was seated upon a large globe of the world.
"I have some sad news for you," the president of the Community Expansion Corporation told her.
She leaned against a showcase that was filled with pictures of various people, probably former customers of the photographer. The man also rested an elbow on the glass top. She hadn't paid much attention to him during or following the judging at the stadium but she noted now that he had a strong, quiet face which was far more youthful than his actual years.
"I'm listening," she said. "Did you see the newspapers today?" i "No."
"Were you familiar with the rules of the contest?"
"About the age limits and being single, yes."
He tapped his fingers upon the glass.
"Perhaps I should explain. In most cases our rules wouldn't apply to the ordinary beauty pagent. We sought a girl who had the greatest amount of sex appeal because we want to have sufficient interest on the cover of our mailer so that it won't be discarded. Almost all of the real estate representatives for the big firms are men and a man appreciates a beautiful girl. That you are, Miss Ohamp. There were some people who thought we should have conducted our program at a higher level but no one denied that you were the most beautiful girl entered."
"Which clears up nothing for me." She was annoyed.
"Please. I'm coming to that. Our queen was to be a symbol of Cedarville, a pure and healthy symbol of loveliness. Because of the nature of our goal we imposed certain restrictions. The girl had to be morally sound and of good character. We expected that each girl was familiar with this requirement and that she would continue to conduct herself in the same manner as previously. Then one of the afternoon papers came out today with an ad about you in it, a big ad with a picture of you. It was an announcement that some club had hired you as a stripper. Surely, you can understand the position this had placed us in."
"I don't see why," she objected, feeling just a little miserable. "I won the contest and I was under the impression that this is a free country. The offer was made and I accepted it."
"You're right. This is a free country and that also gives us the right to defend ourselves. What if it became known to the people we approach that our beauty queen was a stripper? Where is the purity and the decency which we are trying to promote? I'd much rather have you on the cover than the girl inside but I do have to respect the consequences of my actions. It isn't my money which I'm spending. It's money which was donated by thousands of private citizens."
Her eyes met his for a moment.
"Then I'm no longer the queen?"
"I'm sorry. Truly. But you didn't respect the rules."
"Is this legal?"
"You could go to court to get your answer."
"I have no intention of doing that."
He held out a pack of cigarettes and she took one. She smiled as his lighter flared. Some prize for winning a beauty contest. One cigarette.
"The committee decided to remove you and take the runnerup. But we were more careful in our investigation of her. We checked out what she did for a living and discovered that she is also a stripper. After that we had to go to third place. The girl didn't want it but her father is in business and he convinced her of her civic obligation. We never held a beauty contest before and the next time we will be more exact."
Lola was disgusted. Being a beauty queen wasn't the ultimate in her life but having it taken away hurt. She though it unfair, especially in view of the fact that the present queen didn't actually deserve the honor. Girls with better figures and more personality had fallen under the selections of the judges.
"I wasted my time and shoe leather coming down here," she said.
"We didn't have any means of getting in touch with you. I called Stew Wallace's plumbing firm and he didn't know where you were. As far as he knew you quit and you weren't coming back."
"That's for sure."
"A fine man, Wallace."
"That's a matter of opinion."
"Well, I don't care about your personal conflicts." The door to the studio was open and he flipped his cigarette through it. "Sue's Club," he said. "Are you working?"
"No. I'm just learning."
"Not much money in that."
"They say you have to invest something to get a return."
"True. I do you have a car."
"I never owned one."
"Can I give you a lift?"
She shrugged her shoulders and his glance moved to the sudden lift of her breasts.
"I okay. It's better than walking."
They went out to his car. It was a big gray sedan and the seat in front felt like a wad of money.
"I'm Lew Travis," he said and started the motor.
"All right." It was a silly response.
The car rode gently over the rough street. Every year city workmen patched the holes left by spring thaws and the streets got worse. But taxes were already too high and they couldn't do anything else. There was some law about a debt ceiling and the city was up to that.
"Are you angry with me?" he asked.
"That's putting it mildly."
"I'd rather you weren't angry."
"How can you avoid it? You gave me something and then took it away from me." The brunette would have her laugh. "But I'm not going to worry about the whole mess. You and the rest of your people are the ones who have to justify what you did."
"That's true. Where do you live?"
"I'm stopping off at Bracket Street."
". "
"Call it what you want. . Tramp Street. Sin Hole. People call it almost everything so they can feel above the people who work there."
He slowed for a traffic light. The big car came to a gentle halt. "I don't feel above you."
"That's easy for you to say." But probably he wanted to get above her.
"But I don't. I see your point. You consider this as a chance and you're taking it."
"An opportunity," she corrected him.
"Well, whatever it is. But you're a beautiful girl. You can get more out of your beauty than collecting your pay after you've stripped for a bunch of men. I feel I guilty about what we had to do. Somehow I think I ought to make it up to you. Are you engaged?"
"No."
"A steady fellow."
"No."
"How old is your father?"
"Fifty, going on fifty-one." The conversation bored her.
"I'm five years older. A widower. My three children arc grown up, all of them married. They don't live in the city so my private life is my own. I have money and time. I oh, I loved my wife. She was an excellent woman but those who are left have to go on living. I stayed alone after her death for more than a year but a man shouldn't be alone. There are widows I know but they don't appeal to me. But with a young girl a man can reclaim some of his youth. I tried with one girl only she was dishonest and unfaithful. Any girl who is right can enjoy every comfort and luxury she wants."
"Stop the car," she said, sternly. "I'll walk from here."
"Why?" He was surprised.
"Because you pretend to be so moral, so dignified that you'd make a fool out of me, and yet you'd give me an indecent proposition." She was furious. "You lousy swells make me sick to my stomach. One set of rules for yourself and another set for the rest of us. Keep yours, Mr. Travis. I want nothing to do with you or your smutty mind."
"Now you are angry."
"Absolutely."
"Can a man prevent it if he wants to know you?"
"I know what you want."
"Even so it's-" "Me. Or any girl. Some girl who's ignorant and willing. What does she get out of it? Your baby and a bonus for her services? Look, Dad, don't come to our club. Travel the other side of the alley."
"I can't go there. I'm too prominent to be seen in those places."
"Excuse me while I bleed for you."
He didn't let her out of the car and he drove her to the club. He kept pressing the issue, about how it was better for a girl to sleep with one man in luxury, her financial future assured, than to strip for every man who had the money for a drink.
"Thanks," she said as she exited from the car but she didn't mean it. "Thanks, and the next time I meet you remind me to run to the other end of the city."
It was quiet inside the club, too early for any rush of business that amounted to anything.
Barney Wilks sat at a table, drinking coffee and reading a paper. She walked over to him. There was something magnetic about this fellow, a strange and, to her, a new force that resisted even the knowledge that he was married.
"Sit down," he said as she approached. "Got a good report on you from Betty. According to her there's been nobody like you since some naked dame rode a horse down a street."
Lola lit a cigarette. She guessed she was being a little juvenile. Just being near him caused her hands to tremble.
"You fixed me on that beauty contest," she complained. "It's no great loss but why did you have to run an ad."
"I didn't."
"Then who was it?"
"Art Nells. And, how did the ad fix you?"
She told him, leaving out the details surrounding her ride with Lew Travis.
"Prudes," he said. "They add water to flour and try to bake a cake. Some guy won't come in here but he'll sleep with his best friend's wife."
"When is your first show?"
"At ten. Another at eleven-thirty and the last as late as it takes to hold the crowd."
"That's a long wait for me."
"Relax. Have something to eat if you'd like and whatever you want to drink. There's no charge." He laughed. "We pay for decorations around here and when the customers see you they'll think we moved in a Christmas tree and lighted up the club."
She didn't know why she had to get away from him but she did. When she looked at him she thought of Floyd, not in terms as an individual but as a man who pleased her. This was the blue sky of her mind, matching the blue of the sea, but suddenly a cloud drifted across it. Now she saw the dark cloud of rape, the gathering storm that brought with it lust and brutality. This was a man's fist driving into her stomach, ripping the air from her lungs. Then came the sudden burst of pain, the conquest of her body by a creature whose face was half covered with blood.
Lola sat alone at a table and forced herself to eat a sandwich. The beer tasted better than the food but she promised herself she wouldn't drink too much of it.
Art Nells joined her about eight. This didn't please her but he represented her bread and butter and a person didn't take either one out of their mouth.
"You made the local radio news tonight," he said, grinning.
"How nice." Her voice was toneless.
"Booted you out of being queen, didn't they?"
"Moralists."
"Yeah, they've got the guts of a rabbit."
"How will that effect me here?"
"It'll help. We give out our story. You were too sexy and you would have set the cover of their mailer on fire or burned up a dozen post offices. Forty-four inch tits and a small belly. Hips that-"
"I'm only forty-two."
"So? Who's going to measure you? Some guy who gets it for a century note? Baby, he'll have his mind on other things."
"I wish you'd lift yourself up from the gutter and chin yourself on the curb." He smiled, coldly. "Where's the curb?"
"You wouldn't know. I doubt if you can reach that high."
His slap was fast and deliberate. Her head spun to one side and her ear hurt.
"No wise stuff, baby. None of that. You signed a contract with me and I made a deal here. I closed it over the phone. Six months, guaranteed. Forty a night with a bounce after two weeks if you throw the fat into the fire. Just don't be so damned critical of me. I need that as much as six inches sawed off my legs."
"Sorry," she murmured. Legally, he had her. "But I don't like that sort of language. I'm no ass, Art. For years I heard that at home until I was ready to heave. Nothing could be said the way it should."
He waved her protest aside.
"Forget it. Christ, a guy has a standard. Any guy. This is my racket, my living. Is it my fault that I run with the pack?"
"No, I wouldn't say that it was exactly. When you're exposed to anything long enough you're apt to accept it."
"Some things I don't accept."
"For instance?"
"Today. This afternoon. Three strippers come into my office. From the Clover Bar. Not bad to look at if you don't strain your eyes, but stupid. A guy gets the itch and it's fifteen bucks, tops. Whores. A few dollars a night to strip so they can make their contacts. Unreliable, all the way. Let one of them date up for a weekend in the country with a Jack and nobody could find her.'So they think the bar may be sold. They're worried. Nothing set yet on the sale but it's in the wind and the winds blowing up a gale. They're scared. Who wants them? I don't. Problems I've got. A dame should be clever. They aren't. A guy at a bar. A drink and a deal. Then upstairs."
"Who would buy a place like that?"
"Why ask me? Big guy, they said. Black hair. Has a bar on Kent Avenue and he's aiming at the moon. The only way he'll get there is if somebody builds a ladder up to it. You draw a certain crowd. The crowd expects certain things. A hot dame on a mattress. Chase the dames out and everybody leaves. What's left? Booze that you can't sell, a location that nobody else wants. You might better become a rag picker."
The beer tasted flat in her mouth. Floyd. Floyd, a hungry guy, no better and hardly worse than a lot of men, moving into the alley, taking the wrong side of it. Ugly. Insanity on his part.
"What are the girls like?" she asked.
"Dames," he replied, vaguely. "How do you describe a girl? She's got a face and hair on her head. She's got a couple of cannons for breasts or maybe she's flat as a board. She puts out or she doesn't. She's either knocked up or she's lucky. She's got a rump and a pair of legs. Some guy maybe wants her. Who knows?"
She refrained from making a comment about His statements.
"Is one a brunette?" she asked. "Not the one you're thinking about."
"What do you mean?"
"One of the girls in the beauty contest. Flora. A brunette. She's no stripper but she works out of the Clover Bar. A real bitch. She'd drain a guy dry of blood and then shoot him for dying. A nympho, always prowling. Probably she said she was unemployed. Nobody running the beauty contest could know unless they'd slept with her and the big shots sleep with high priced girls."
She excused herself and walked back to the pay phone. If Floyd was interested in purchasing the Clover Bar he was being very stupid. Or perhaps he didn't know what he was getting himself into. But that was a bit silly. Anybody with one good eye could tell what the others side of the alley was like. As dirty as oil scum on the surface of the bay. No, worse. Human beings on the path to destruction. Or already destroyed.
The dime clinked as she dropped it into the phone and she dialed the bar on Kent Avenue, lingering over the last number. She shouldn't interfere. It wasn't any of her business. He didn't run her life and she shouldn't try to run his.
The phone rang several times. Maybe he wouldn't answer. Very often he just left the phone ring until it stopped. He claimed it was a nuisance and that was the truth. Wives were always calling up, trying to locate their husbands. Some husbands didn't want to be found.
"Yeah?" he said.
"Lola."
"Huh?"
"Lola. You know."
"Oh, yeah. Sure."
"Floyd, are you drinking?"
"Not now. I was. A fifth of vodka. It doesn't last long."
She shook her head in dismay.
"Floyd, you're being an idiot. You-"
"Drop it, will you? You're nobody to talk. Win a beauty contest and then sign to become a stripper. Gave up your job for that, did you? Okay. We'll go neighbors. On Strip Alley."
"That's what I heard. The Clover Bar. You can't be serious."
"Why not?"
"Because well, because of what that place is. The girls-"
"Look, Lola. Look. The girls go. It isn't a big bar and I only need one good stripper. I'll be bucking the trend but I'm not afraid of that. It's a break to make some dough and I'm buying cheap. Not the building, just the bar. Charlie he wants this down here. I don't. This is okay for him but for a man who needs money it isn't paying for the hours you have to put in. I'm not robbing the guy. He came to me with an offer so I'm just shifting my cash from here to Strip Alley. The difference is that I'll make more up there. Unless-"
"Yes, Floyd?"
"Unless you came back, give up what you plan to do."
She resented this instantly. This was a hammer and he was trying to hit her over the head with it. Besides, both Art and Sue's Club could sue her for breach of contract. And what would they have? The same bar as before and the apartment upstairs. A marriage that she didn't want as yet. Then he'd get her pregnant and when she wasn't available he'd hunt for another girl. Fights. Undoubtedly a separation or a divorce. No, she couldn't accept that kind of a future with Floyd or any other man. She couldn't go into something that she really didn't want, haunted by the memory of the rape, the torment growing worse every day. It wasn't that she didn't want a man physically again. She held most of them in contempt but with the right male it was possible her thirst for satisfaction would be as great, or greater, than before. That was natural, wasn't it? She thought it was as natural as breathing. When she found a decent fellow who cared she would be ready to give him her body.
"Are you there, Lola?"
"Yes, I'm here."
"What about it?"
Somebody was waiting for the phone, a tall man who walked back and forth and chewed on a cigar.
"Forgive me for calling," she said. "We were on the same road for a while but we hit an intersection. You'll wreck yourself on the other side of the alley."
"Yeah, maybe. And what will you do to yourself?"
"Nothing."
She hung up and left the booth. The man with the cigar mumbled something and crowded past her, deliberately bumping up against her curves as he did so.
There were more people at the bar, several groups at the tables. A few women but most of the customers were men. The majority were tourists. You could tell that easily enough. They dressed casually and kept the waitresses running for drinks. The waitresses were cute little things in revealing pink uniforms. The material was thin, skin clinging, and the fronts of the uniforms were cut low so that when a girl bent over a table she showed a lot of herself. Some of the girls would date customers after closing and others wouldn't. Not all of them were single. A few had husbands who didn't earn enough to pay the usual bills. They fell in love too young and married too early. When the honeymoon was finished and they entered into the hard world of reality they discovered they weren't anybody special. They had to eat and pay rent or a mortgage and possibly save for the down payment on additional furniture or a car. Theirs, Lola concluded, were normal problems which invaded a high percentage of marriages.
A man stopped her at the bar and asked her to have a drink. She wasn't anxious for one but she saw Barney nod and she accepted.
"Beer?" the man repeated as she sat down on a stool. 'Aw, have a shot. A double shot."
"Thanks. Just beer."
The man was tall and thin, about forty, and he .said he represented a firm that sold bras and girdles.
"We wouldn't have much business if every girl was built like you," he observed.
"Everybody grows older."
"Yes, I guess they do."
She terminated the conversation when the man suggested they visit his hotel room. She explained, patiently, that she didn't do such things but there were girls who would and he shouldn't have any difficulty finding one.
While talking with the man Betty and the other two strippers had arrived and she joined them at a table. The introductions were brief and she didn't pay much attention to their names. Sandra. Anna.
"I hear the beauty contest officials gave you the shaft," Betty said.
"They certainly did. It was unfair. They jumped over you, too, because you're a stripper."
"We should worry. What did we miss? A bond and some assorted junk. I could make more posing for a girlie magazine or working in one of those hot movies. I get a load of that over there."
Lola turned her head. Sue Wilks, wearing white, sat at the table she had occupied with Art Nells.
"Are they friends?" she asked.
"I don't know. Sometimes I wonder if there's any more between them than business."
The five-piece band began assembling on a small plat form in one corner of the club and the other two girls departed.
"About Sue and Art Nells," Betty said. "I don't like to talk in front of those tramps because they'd sell you out for a postage stamp but Sue and Art are one of the mysteries of the alley. He used to be her agent before she bought the club and married Barney. She's a penny snatcher but he can get deals in here that nobody else could. I suspect he knows this to be true. It's a wile guess but fairly straight, don't you think? She's a frigid slut and there isn't a girl on the street that he hasn't had He-"
"Don't include me," Lola protested. Betty laughed.
"Give him time. He'll get at you, honey. I said that I wouldn't let him either but within a week the nasty little hornet had stung me. And don't count him short because of his size. He's all man when a girl is flat on her back. Maybe she hates him but after awhile she almost asks for his company. These hundred dollar a trip studs usually are a big disappointment."
"I'd kill him first," Lola declared.
"That's murder. And well, there's something else about Art and Sue. Tomorrow is Thursday but you won't see either one of them on the alley tomorrow. His office is closed and the phone in his apartment just rings and rings. Phone Sue's house and she's out for the day. checked Art's car once and he had driven more than two hundred miles. That was during the spring and she had left a glove that belonged to her on the front seat. This would seem to mean that they get together but why would they drive so far or why would he be interested in a sexless dame?"
"She can't be very much in love with Barney."
"Again, I don't know. He's a good manager, a hard worker, and maybe she's happy to let things go the way they are. He has nothing to lose in the marriage and a lot to gain. They have a beautiful home and money. To me, they are more partners than they are husband and wife. She there's another thing, too. A big, fat man comes in here once in a while and he sits and talks to her. Of .course talking with a customer is a logical thing for her to do but it somehow strikes me as being different with the fat man. They anyhow it's no skin off my fanny. I get paid regular. Who's crying?"
Betty left to dress for her act and Lola ordered a bottle of beer from a waitress, "waiting to watch the strippers and wondering about her future. She was afraid of Art Nells and she was willing to admit it. If he tried to assault her she might do something drastic. Yet it was one of those risks which she felt she had to take. She could earn big money, save as much as possible and move on to something better. She would be in a position to make men pay for the rape of her body but she was adult enough to realize that this bitterness wouldn't last forever.
The first girl, Sandra, came on at ten. Her body was fair, a little tired from the years, and her movements were too mechanical. It was obvious that she was just putting in her time for whatever pay she received. There was no excitement about what she was going to do as she-fell behind the music and began to disrobe, hardly any of the teasing which was such a powerful weapon for a stripper. She kept her legs too close together for her bumps and grinds but this only served to encourage Lola. She knew next to nothing about the profession and yet she was convinced she could do better than this. Of course the men applauded when she stood naked before them, except for her G-string, but she waited too long to retire to her dressing room and the effect of her nearly nude body passed its climax.
Anna was an improvement over Sandra, but the improvement was only slight. She was a better dancer and the men leaned forward, absorbed by her swinging figure. On the other hand, she shared much of Anna's shortcomings. She showed too much too fast and then she let the men stare at her too long.
In contrast, Betty came out as a sexy bomb in flowing, virgin white. The music behind her was smooth, easy to take. She toured near the tables, her smile frank and inviting, her eyes alive with what she felt inside of her. She built her act slowly, just as a contractor pours the foundation before he starts building a house. She played with the straps on her gown, pushing the front down so that her cleavage became prominent, then laughed at the men as she adjusted the gown and spoiled their view. As her movements became more torrid she gave the impression of shaking the whole building with furious bumps and grinds.
She removed the gown in sections, making the men ask for more, making them wait when waiting no longer seemed possible. Then, suddenly, she was naked from the waist up, the G-string below, her firm breasts heaving from her exertion. Somebody cut the lights for a moment and with a scream of pleasure Betty disappeared, taking her clothes with her. A roar of approval filled the club.
Art Nells walked out onto the floor. He waved his arms for silence and the band quit playing. There was a murmur of male voices, demanding that Betty return. But of course she wouldn't without her clothes. This kept the crowd until the next show and they spent money during that period.
"Most of you have read history," Art began. "You know that the West was won with forty-fours. Well, somebody else has a pair of forty-fours and she'll win more than the West. She'll win every man who walks into Sue's
Club. You'll climb the walls and crawl across the ceiling. Those of you who saw our ad in the paper today, and those who didn't, have a right to the truth. She won a beauty contest but those breasts of hers were too much lor the photographer to handle. She's so big where it counts that he'd have to take a picture of each one and paste them together. So the hot shots took the crown away from her and gave it to a girl who fits into one photo. They can have what they've got. I'll take what she's got and so will you. They Lola Champ, come up here. Because you are Lola and you are a Champ. Maybe you don't wear a beauty crown any longer but there's a crown in Sue's Club that the other girl will never get."
She thought she would be nervous but she wasn't. Her heels clicked on the dance floor as she crossed it. Her hips rode up and down as though they were being carried by waves in a troubled sea. When she reached him she turned and faced the men, seeing the hunger in their eyes which registered man's physical need for woman.
"Turn her loose," some man yelled.
Other men took up the chant. She smiled, knowing that she pleased them, assuring herself that not one of them could ever have her sexually.
"If you only could," Art said.
"If I could only what?"
"Strip."
She walked toward the band without hesitating. She wanted to strip partially, to go down to almost bare, to plunge them into the madness which Stew Wallace had displayed in his office during that long, horrible rape.
Yes, the band knew the Lola thing. They hadn't practiced it but they could get by.
"Lola was supposed to get it," one member said. "You'll get yours every hour on the hour."
The number was right for her and she drifted into it. Of course it was difficult to strip in a street dress but she compensated for that by humming the song and expressing the proper phrases as-ihey came up. "What Lola wants Lola gets.
Provocative, lifting the skirt of her dress as high as her creamy thighs, throwing her head back in utter abandon, grinding and bumping wildly to the steady clap of hands. Odd, she thought, that she actually enjoyed this. They craved all that she was and none of them could have her. None of them could-
Barney Wilks...
Big. A huge man who could crack a girl's ribs during an embrace. Young, married to a girl who was a wife in name only. Longing perhaps for what every man required, to purge a girl's body with his inner fire.
The band concluded the music but they began playing it over again. She was standing now, her red lips parted so that she could breathe easier. The dress had a zipper in back and she sought it with anxious fingers. They wanted to see her up there but they wouldn't. Almost, but not quite.
"What lover wants lover gets."
Changing the words, inflaming the men, pouring the emotional torture of desire into them. Desire that would never be realized, frustrations which they would carry away with them into the night.
The dress, off her shoulders, falling to her waist, hurling every male in the club into a river of longing. She pushed the dress down a little more. Chairs scraped as the men witnessed her tiny stomach, the deep hollow of her navel. Briefly, she caressed the cones of her breasts under the black bra, partially concealing her naked flesh which was revealed through the mesh material."
"Lola wanted something and nobody refused her."
She reached behind her for the hook on the bra and unfastened it. Her breasts tried to leap into the open but she held the bra close and kept them covered. Then with a laugh that belonged in a bedroom she let it slip a couple of inches, revealing a portion of her upper swells. She felt the nipples harden.
"Sorry," she said, teasing, she turned her back to them. "Lover got what he was after. Lucky him, lucky me."
No one could see her from the front while she stood in this position. She removed the bra so that they knew she was naked and quickly put it on again. Not too much. Just enough to make them desperate.
She didn't know where to go so she swung about and let them watch her get into the dress. The men roared their pleasure and her glance wandered over their faces. Her hand trembled as she worked the zipper up on her dress. She had sought revenge and it had partially escaped her. In fact, the opposite was quite terribly true. The rape was simply an incident which had happened. She couldn't allow it to ruin her whole life. A girl lived in the arms of a man, anticipated the initial discomfort but did not fear it. Rather it was a moment of delight because it was the forerunner of all the beauty that followed as the male and the female merged in the moments preceding the glorious completion in the flowing laro of love.
She returned to her table. A number of men came over to talk to her. She thanked them for their compliments but she refused their offers for drinks and she didn't go past the point of merely being casually friendly. Embers of wanting smoldered inside of her, leaving her stomach empty, the thrust of desire a burning knife in her chest. She couldn't lie about it even to herself. A lie solved nothing. She was a target of female flesh. Her emotions were no longer contradictory but very definite. Almost any man could have had her just then. Tramp, she told herself, willing to beg a man to bring her what she had known before the rape, to erase it from her mind, to go to bed with him so that none of life's pleasures would be lost.
"I'd like to talk to you," Barney Wilks said and sat down opposite her. "But I don't want you to think I'm being overly critical."
Handsome, she decided without difficulty. Full lips that a girl would know was upon her mouth. Giant arms to flatten her against him as the girl fought to get in closer, her breasts filling up, getting tender.
"Maybe I did get carried away," she admitted, smiling. "The music kind of hooked me out there."
He shook his head.
"It wasn't that, Lola. Nobody could object to what you did with your body. It was only what you said that cheapened you. It reminded me of a worn prostitute asking a man for two dollars on a street corner. Follow your routine, giving them a little more each time, but don't verbally suggest what your movements have already implied. Implication is, to me, one of the finer points of stripping. Men like to imagine things and men don't think alike. We wouldn't have much of a world if we were all the same. But, on the whole, you were excellent. Were you nervous?"
"No. I did it before I had time to get nervous or even think a great deal about what I was doing. I guess any girl who is told she's beautiful wants men to appreciate her."
Somebody called him away from the table a dispute about a charge and Art Nells came over.
"Baby, you sure ripped it into them."
"I don't believe Barney was too pleased with my comments."
Art lowered himself into the chair which Barney had just left.
"Hell with him," he said. "Anybody who didn't like it shouldn't have stayed in the first place. Still, you don't have to say anything if you don't want. That shape says it for you. It says some guy ought to be into it."
Drinks, a present from Barney, were brougt to the lable. A number of men continued to stare at her. Instead of resenting this she welcomed their interest. She noticed that the other strippers were seated with customers, talking and drinking. The man with Sandra had an arm around her shoulders and he fondled one of her breasts with his hand. She didn't make any effort to resist his advances.
She worked the next two shows in the same manner with the exception that she left out the remarks. Sandra was terribly drunk and they had to cut the lights on her before she went too far. Betty tied up some executive and she seemed to be dancing just for him.
Not until afterward was she aware that Floyd was amongst the sea of faces at the bar, seeing her as the other men. Art Nells had gone to one of the other clubs which he serviced, following Sue Wilks outside. Funny she thought. Two people who were different and yet there seemed to be something between them.
She wasn't drunk but she felt the effects of the beer and it made her more daring for her final appearance. She lowered the bra dangerously cupping her breasts with her hands, barely covering herself. There were calls for her to go all the way but she didn't, keeping that for another time when she would no longer be able to avoid it.
"How low can you get?" Floyd asked as she walked along the bar, catching her by the arm with such force that it hurt her.
"No lower than you're going."
"A week ago you wouldn't have done this."
"Probably not."
She freed herself and met Betty at the end of the bar. "Who's the guy?" Betty inquired.
"A friend."
"Kind of nice, huh."
"Maybe. I think he's buying the Clover Bar."
"He'd better lock the upstairs rooms. That's aiding prostitution. A guy goes to jail for that."
"I don't know what he's going to do." Betty swallowed a slug of rye.
"You were fine tonight, Lola. I could tell from the dressing room but I didn't catch you until just now."
"Thanks." Betty yawned.
"Here he comes. A wheel who can't stop talking about himself. I can put up with it. He's just another man with a hundred dollars to squander in bed."
Lola continued on outside. She thought of walking, then came to the conclusion it was too far and too late. She stood there, waiting for a cab.
"Lift?" It was Barney Wilks.
"Just hoping for a cab."
"Save your money. My car is down the street."
"But your wife-"-
"Gone. There's nothing for me to do in the club. The help can close up."
"Well all right."
His car was fairly new, a station wagon. She got in, speculating about whether or not he'd stop somewhere. It didn't disturb her. She liked him and he didn't have much of a marriage from what she knew. Her own existence was a hollow shell that cried out to be filled and satisfied.
"You must be tired," he said as he started the car. "Some."
He drove a block in silence.
"Think you could get up by ten this morning?"
"If it was necessary."
"Oh, it isn't necessary and you might not want to do
What I have in mind. Most people go out into the country for picnic lunches or suppers but I can't get away from the club for much of that. So I compromise. I cook breakfast over an open fire a couple of times a week. I thought you might like to go along with me."
"That would please your wife, wouldn't it?"
"She's away on Thursday and she thinks it's crazy anyhow." I see.
"But for me it's a change. I always go to the same spot near a brook. Maybe I fish and maybe I don't. It's just the idea that I can relax. I've been going alone but I'm getting tired of that."
She considered his invitation. She saw no harm in it, other than he was married, and she might come to know him better. Besides, she had never eaten breakfast in the open.
"Ten," she agreed. "Blow your horn in front of my rooming house." He laughed. He sounded pleased. "Swell. Ten. On the button."
He drove her to the address which she gave him and she got out. She smiled as she walked up to the steps to the porch. He didn't know that one kiss might have brought him all of her, the two of them straining on the front porch seat to achieve a pleasurable union, welded together as they gave and received in a moment of pas sion.
Dammit, she was lonely.
Every thought she'd had about stripping and hurting men had backfired. Yes.
Backfired.
Right then she needed a man.
All the way.
Or somebody else.
CHAPTER VII
It wasn't raining hard but nevertheless the rain kept coming down. Not a shower. A steady rain, just what the city required.
She wore tight white shorts and a brief matching halter. Had she realized that it was raining she wouldn't have dressed at all. Nobody would go on a picnic in the rain.
Five of ten...
Maybe it was just as well. A girl only got herself into trouble with a married man. Single men were the best. Floyd? Hardly dependable, risking everything on that miserable Clover Bar. Yes, it was better that she couldn't go on a picnic with Barney Wilks. Better, too, that she was away from Floyd. There weren't only two men in the world. There were millions of them, all of them demanding the same thing from a girl.
A horn blew three times down on the street. She picked up her pocketbook and paused at the door. If it was Barney she was foolish. Very foolish. She jerked the door open and stepped out into the hall. So she was foolish. Who wasn't at times? Not many people, she guessed. like her parents, common sense telling them what they should do and then not doing it, putting the mortgage money in a jar and later forgetting about the mortgage payment as the cash crossed over some bar that wouldn't trust them with an empty beer bottle.
"I'm writing to somebody," the woman who owned the rooming house said to Lola as she reached the downstairs hall. "How can they crown you a queen and then turn you into a peasant?"
"Well, they did."
The woman frowned thoughtfully.
"Yes, they may be right. I don't suppose stripping is very dignified. Probably they need that in what they're doing. But if they don't want strippers in the city why don't they close up ? "
"And lose some of the tourists? Never. They count their profits and race to the bank. They don't care where it comes from as long as they've got it."
The horn blew again, long and persistently, and she went outside. She didn't want her hair to get wet and she ran down the steps over to his waiting car. As she got in she noticed that he also wore shorts and a T shirt, both a dark blue color.
"I didn't expect you," she said.
"Thought not."
"Where can you go in this rain."
"Same place as I always go."
"Thanks, but I don't wish to get drenched. When I feel as though I should take a soaking I'll swim at the beach." He pulled away from the curb.
"It's all set," he said. "I'll put down the back seat and we can eat there. Plenty of room and you don't have to go out into the rain. I'll do the cooking. Me. The master chef. A few years ago I was making stew along some railroad track."
"Any reason for that?"
"None that's very valid. I had a yen to see the country. Four years in service after high school but that didn't cure me. I worked at a dozen different jobs just to get enough money to move on somewhere else. Then I struck Cedarville and I lowered the anchor. I was tired of going somewhere and yet not really going anywhere. Each town or city was supposed to be different but they were pretty much the same except for size. I met good people and people who weren't so good. Location had little to do with it. They were just people."
Houses and factories slid by. Natural gas was now pumped in through lines from upstate and the huge tanks stood silent, rusting, worthless. Then there were the freight yards, almost deserted. Trucks were responsible for this and the railroad no longer maintained a full schedule.
"What did your wife say?" she wanted to know. "About driving off?"
"Nothing. How could she when she wasn't at home."
"Not all night?' "I wouldn't know."
They rounded a traffic circle and headed north toward the hills.
"But if she wasn't in bed with you . "
"We have separate bedrooms. At least, her bed looked as though she'd slept in it."
"Separate bedrooms? When you're both so young."
"She says she'd get a baby the other way."
"Is that any great crime in marriage."
"For her, yes. She doesn't want a baby."
"Do you?"
He looked at her and grinned. "Doesn't any man?"
"Most but there are a few who are selfish."
"Man's instinct is to create."
"Can you separate that from what the average girl wants? I doubt that you can and be correct. Most girls feel that it's the ultimate experience in life."
"Yes," he conceded and slowed for a loaded truck in front of them. "That's one thing which a man can't fully share with his wife or his girl friend. Probably if he could there wouldn't be so many unwed mothers or deserted wives. Man's function is momentary, that of the girl spread out over the period of months."
She thought about this. One second at the right time, maybe a few seconds, the urge for man to invade what was no bigger than a speck. After a month it was almost an inch long, this thing that became a part of woman and fed from her body.
Lola lit a cigarette. It was raining somewhat harder now. The smoke from the cigarette sank down into her lungs, lingered and then, left them.
"Does your wife go away very often, Barney?"
"Every Thursday."
"Shopping."
"I don't know where she goes."
"Aren't you curious?"
"Oh, not especially. We aren't accountable to each other. That was settled before we were married. It wasn't my idea. She has her own convictions and I don't argue with her about them. Do I agree? To a certain extent but not all the way. I think people who marry should still remain individuals, only there is a closeness which should also be respected. Perhaps I shouldn't talk this way but you seem to be the type of person who can accept facts for what they are and in the night club business it's all glitter and gold. A man who is a customer is interested in no one except himself. He has fifty or a hundred or two hundred dollars on him. His wife is on a trip or she thinks he's at a meeting. He may be honest, married for several years, never cheating, but all at once he wants to break the pattern that's his life. His logical step is to find a girl, paying her if he must. He doesn't know that he can never actually buy her, that she would rather have him make her want him as a man, just because he is a man, instead of being paid money."
They were in the mountains now. The leaves of the trees dripped water and tiny streams were beginning to form in the ditches on either side of the road. One man had gone broke trying to start a housing project in the area. The view down to the bay outside of Cedarville was remarkable but nobody had yet driven a well with any appreciable success. Yet there were numerous mountain brooks that were active throughout the year.
He turned off onto a narrow dirt road. The ruts were deep and the car scraped bottom in several places. Once the rear wheels spun as they churned in the mud.
"Get stuck up here and you're really stuck." she said lightly. "You wouldn't get a tow truck for a week."
"Nobody else comes down here. At least, I've never seen anyone. For me, it's a place where you can think and be honest with yourself. I believe being honest with yourself is the most difficult thing in the world."
She stretched as they hit a bump. The shorts were too snug and uncomfortable. Her halter was just as tight and bulging.
The brook was very scenic. He parked close to the edge, directly facing a fairly wide pool. Slightly above this a waterfall rumbled as it spilled water into the brook. Beneath the waterfall a stick of wood spun aimlessly in a circle of white foam tinged with brown.
"This is where all of us belong," he said. "Nature. You can't beat it. Out here you can breathe. Being important or having money doesn't enter into it. You're a person, or two people, alone. Listen to the brook and the rain on the roof. Better than being in a night club with a band playing. If I could afford it I'd never leave here."
A sudden sheet of rain lashed the car. There was a wind and the trees bent from the blast of it. The morning was dark and gloomy.
"You can't cook in this," she said.
"It may stop. I don't happen to be very hungry anyway."
"Neither am I."
"Care for a can of cold beer?"
"Isn't it rather early for that?"
"Not if you want one. It's never too early to have what you want." She laughed. "I okay."
The beer was to the rear and he pushed a button to lower the windows. The electric motor squealed until the window hit bottom. He said something about why did it have to rain and got out. She thought he would get the beer right away but he opened the rear door and put the back seat down first.
He had the beer in an ice chest, next to a portable grill and a bag of charcoal, but he spread out a couple of blankets on the floor before he removed any of the beer. The rain continued to increase as he rounded the car with a six pack.
"Got drenched," he said once he was inside the car.
"I thought you might."
"All right with you if I take off my T shirt."
"Sure."
He put the six pack aside and got out of the thing. His chest was massive but there wasn't any hair on it. The. name Sue was tatooed on his shoulder.
"Branded you, didn't she?" Lola said, joking.
He glanced at the table.
"No. That was another Sue. I met her in California. She was a hopeful starlet but she wasn't doing very well at it. I might have married her if I'd been ready to settle down. I wasn't. I wrote to her a few times but she never answered. That's the main reason I met the present Sue. When I heard her name I thought it might be the same girl. She already had the club but she was away when I got there. I don't mean she was away for just a day but for quite a long while. Three or four months. Probably I would have gone on but I met Art Nells. He was sort of looking after things for her. That was a job for him because he was busy with other things. He offered me work as a bartender and I took it, mostly because it was a strip joint and the girls shed their clothes three times a night. I was shacking up with one when Sue came back from her trip. Once I found out it wasn't the Sue I had known in California Nells didn't tell me anything about her past I decided to shove off. I didn't. As I said, I was tired of new places, different people, and she made me an offer I couldn't refuse. Gradually, I broke off with the other girl and married Sue."
"Knowing she wouldn't be a real wife to you?"
"Yes. Knowing that." He opened two cans of beer and handed Lola one. "I doubt if I considered love then. A guy with my background wasn't likely to think of love. Probably it was something that I guessed would come later. The fact that I've never slept with her hasn't bothered me until lately."
"You've never slept with her?" This was amazing, two people who were married and didn't share each other.
"No. Not once. She needed a steady man to run the club for her when she wasn't around and that was all she wanted."
They drank their beer and he talked about fishing. He said it was an excellent day for it but that he didn't have any bait.
"Lizzards," he added. "Not the red kind you see on top of the ground when it's raining but the black ones that live under rocks where it's damp. They're slippery buggers. If I was by myself I'd hunt for them."
"Don't let me stop you."
"And miss being near you, having some beer and feeling fine?"
Hot blood rose up into her face. "Thanks, Barney."
He opened fresh beer. One of the cans slipped and some of the beer spilled onto her shorts. He wiped it off with his hand and for just a second his thick fingers dug into her thigh. Her eyes met his and he grinned. His hand reached the point where her thigh stopped, then-retreated.
"What do you think of Art Nells?" he wanted to know. "Not much. I understand his breed but I'm not sure that I understand him."
"He has a great deal of influence along the alley."
"Because he claims to handle the best strippers."
"I'm sure he takes his from every girl. I've seen good strippers work for maybe a few months and wind up on the other side of the alley. Why? What holds them? Why don't they move on?"
"You've got me."
"I haven't got you yet," he said slowly. "What do you mean?"
He picked up one of the empty beer cans and crushed it in his hand.
'You maybe I should come straight out with this. You can become a big name stripper if he'll let you. My guess is that he'll burn you out and he'll make you follow along after the others. He did it to them and he'll do it to you or Betty or any girl."
"But there's no reason for that," she objected.
"Oh, he has a reason. A stripper, no matter how competent she may be, has a limit as to how long she can be an attraction in a big club. This doesn't mean that she loses her beauty or her usefulness to him. A certain group of men trade on the other side of the alley. They want the girls naked and ready for bed. If a girl is beautiful she can command a higher price than an ordinary girl. Of course he's critical about what they do in those dives and you seldom see any of the girls near his office but I'm fairly certain that he controls them. You can't believe anything that guy says. Yet he has a great deal of power. Take the two girls who work with you and Betty. Neither Sandra nor Anna are very good. I refused to hire them. Sue did that. She claimed that you need one or two girls who'll take care of men after hours. I pointed out to her that Betty was already doing that but she said Betty aimed high, that not every man could afford a hundred dollars. That's partly why I asked you to come out here with me this morning."
"To tell me this?"
"Yes, and to warn you about what can happen in the future. He won't try to shift you for a while. That would be poor business. You'll bring customers into the club and your nightly rate will go up. If I had my way-"
"You'd do what?"
He moved closer to her.
"I'd buy up your contract or force him to sell it to me. You're too beautiful to find yourself ruined. Why do you think I asked you to leave out the words in your act? Simple. I don't want to see you tarnish yourself and I don't even want you stripping. Right now I don't have the money. Everything is in Sue's name but maybe I can raise the cash."
A heavy arm fell across her bare shoulders.
"That would bring on trouble for you with your wife," she said. "I won't lose any sleep over it. I'm fed up with the night club racket anyway. Give me a job on construction where I work eight hours a day and I'll be satisfied. I said I didn't think about love when I married her but I'm thinking about it now. A man has to have that in his life or he hasn't got a complete life. I'm not just talking about sex. Any guy who wants sex can find it on or somewhere else. Sure, the sex part of marriage should be good but it doesn't have to be all of marriage. You need common interests. There is none of that for me with Sue. I work long hours and she counts the money. Every week I get my pay the same as the rest of the help gets theirs. If we have a good week she says nothing. If we have a poor week she screams and blames me. I'm just a tool for her to use."
She snuggled next to him. A man should have more than that. A man deserved to share in the love of a willing female, to know and enjoy the pleasures of her flesh, to plant the seed of himself deep within her. And the girl, carrying his child, her figure distorted for the present, her breasts larger than usual. Then, finally, the child in her arms, three people instead of two, the cycle of love making a full turn. "That's cruel," Lola said.
"Yes, but out here I don't care too much about it."
A savage burst of wind rocked the car and nearby a tree limb snapped, crashing to the ground. Protectively, his arm drew her tight to him and she rested her head against his shoulder. She felt him bury his face in her hair and, without realizing it, she lifted her hand to her breasts. She heard him breathe hard and his other hand moved along her thigh, going up to where she was naked above the top of her shorts.
"Nothing there," he said. "Flat."
"Yes."
"But there's plenty upstairs."
"Sometimes I think I've got more than necessary."
"I was as bad as the other men last night," he confessed. "I wanted to see them. Art swears he did."
"That slob. He made me do it."
"Plus how much for extra."
"No extras."
She was eager for his kiss when it came, her lips parted in expectation. His kiss was gentle in the beginning, seeking to persuade her to give him what he wanted, but suddenly it became almost violent. She felt the tip of his tongue, met it with her own, knowing that this had to happen, that nothing could prevent it, that she had to kill the hate and mistrust which nursed itself on the bitterness of unfaithfulness and rape. Only with a man could she unlock the gates of her emotional prison, walk the road of love and experience all of the glory of being utterly female.
He found the tie on her halter and removed it, pushed her slightly away from him and groaned, his face covered with sweat, as he saw what he had wished to see.
"Hell," he said.
"Don't swear."
"But I'm a married man."
"I'm aware of that."
"Aren't you afraid?"
"Not now. Maybe later I'll be afraid."
"What if I gave you a baby?"
"What if you don't?"
The rain began to stop as they crawled over the front seat into the back of the station wagon. It was almost as though the elements respected this certain submission and conquest and wished to honor it. Even the wind became a whisper in the wet leaves on the trees. Only the sound of the waterfall interrupted the near silence.
Minutes later she lay naked upon the blankets. The floor of the car was hard but he made her forget about that as he took her. Pain filled her for an instant and then died. She fought to climb the mountain she had known with Floyd but somehow this mountain was a wall of rocks and she couldn't find any way of reaching the top. She moaned, begging him to guide her, rocked her head from side to side in despair when he failed and she was unable to accomplish it herself.
Afterward he said something about getting to the club but the mountain was a challenge inside of her and she brought him down to her again. She caught her fingers in his hair and guided his hot mouth to the swollen tips of her breasts.
"Guess this is what you wanted," he gasped.
She clung to him.
"Terribly," she admitted.
Now, this time, she saw a rope and she began climbing the wall of rocks. Her body ached as she struggled up the rope, moaning, wondering if the next important breath would ever come to her or if she would simply die where she was, wondering if-
She screamed sharply as the rope broke. Her body battered against the rocks as she plunged wonderfully downward.
"Cripes," he said when they were driving toward the city. "Cripes, this was some morning."
"The morning's shot. What about the afternoon?" He laughed.
"Hey, what do you think I am?"
"A man."
"Are you sure?"
Yes, but you can always go on making sure." He did.
In a picnic area alongside the road. Twice.
CHAPTER VIII
Lola moved in with Betty the next day. It was more convenient, nicer surroundings than the rooming house, and it provided her with a degree of privacy, a place where she could bring Barney whenever they could be together.
Frankly, and trusting Betty, she explained her reasons.
"You're giving yourself to the wrong man," Betty said.
"Tell me somebody better."
"The fellow who's buying the Central Bar."
"It's history for us."
"He was in last night and I talked to him. He's regular. Today he takes over and the girls have to go. There's no fooling with him on that."
"He'll lose the first dollar he ever made."
"That's a hasty conclusion. If he has just one good stripper he can hang on until he has a trade. Not every man in the alley is out to buy sex and those who buy cheap do business with girls who are very careless. A girl who charges ten or fifteen dollars has to run risks, stay on the prowl. She's apt to try and pick up a policeman in plain clothes. For a hundred a girl can take her time and carefully select her customers. Oh, they can catch her, too, but it's more difficult. She doesn't approach men directly. They come to her. Of course she sets the price but only after she's decided that it's safe, or as near being safe as anybody can possibly know. Some are regulars and these you don't worry about. They know you and you know them."
"I feel sorry for Barney," Lola said.
"Don't. He isn't suffering."
She sank down into a chair. It was four in the afternoon and she was tired.
"I wish I was free of Art Nells," she said. "You'll have to wait it out the way I did."
"But you aren't free."
"I am as of today and if I signed another contract it wouldn't be for the same amount of money. For a long while I was the headliner at Sue's Club but now the men want you."
"Gee, I didn't intend to-"
It's all right, Lola. I'm disgusted working there anyway. Some night the cork is going to blow out of the bottle and I don't want to be around when it does. Art would like to have me renew but I'm one girl who's got the guts to fight him. I know his game pretty well. He threatens to expose a girl as a prostitute and then he forces them into prostitution. Some of them are weak and have already given up to that. It doesn't matter to them and they accept his terms. When you're on the bottom of the heap there's nowhere else to go. Sure, I've slept with him and he sleeps good, but there it stops."
Lola was disappointed.
"Are you leaving the city?" she asked.
"No."
"Another club?"
"I guess so. He has his finger on most of them."
"Then how-"
"This fellow you know. Floyd. He can't afford a band ut I've worked with a juke box or record player before. It's what you show that gives you the total. So we'll turn the lights down and I'll go all the way, naked as a plucked chicken. After that I'll stay in back. No whoring at the bar for me. Maybe none of it at all. Maybe I like the guy. Maybe he's what he seems to be and he's right for me. Who can tell? He could be another Lee, another anybody. Men. Who knows about them?"
Lola experienced a twinge of jealousy. Still, it wasn't fair to feel that way. He didn't belong to her. She didn't own him or control his life. The decision as to how far they went rested between Betty and Floyd. She shouldn't complain or resent the situation. She had surrendered to a married man and she was anxious to do so again, forgetting about convention or the moral restraints of society.
"When does this start, Betty?"
"Tonight."
"Did you tell Art?"
T told him to go to hell. I told him he was a bull and he ought to get himself a steady cow. He can't go a night without having some girl. And that Sue Wilks bitch. They're linked together, those two. Her with her coldness and him running through the alley like a rabbit in a cage holding a hundred female bunnies for his own personal use."
"A person has to feel sympathetic toward Barney," Lola said, trying to defend herself.
"Why? Because he lets Sue wipe her feet on him? Can you respect a man who will allow that."
"Things aren't always what they seem to be."
"That's exactly what I mean. I put in my stint at the club. Nobody bothered me especially but there was an undercurrent of tension that you could almost touch sometimes. Sue seems to have a club over Barney but I've often wondered if this wasn't more front than anything else."
Lola went into the bedroom to dress. She had no doubt about the club that Sue wielded and crushed Barney to his knees. But she did admit that tension existed at Sue's. The night before Barney had talked to Art Nells for a long time. Art had done most of the talking. Probably it had been in regard to Betty. It would take a clever girl to replace her. Sandra and Anna were nearing the end of their assignments and they had indicated they were moving to one of the bars on the other side of the alley.
But, Lola told herself, would change. It had to change. Sin was on the increase, striking at the very core of the street, and just one error would cause an explosion as shattering as an exploding bomb in a wooden box.
She left the apartment without seeing Betty and she caught a cab near the corner. "? " he repeated. "That's right."
"Work down there."
"Yes."
"Doing what?"
"I'm a stripper."
"Guess you have the build."
"Thanks."
"Bother you?"
"No, but your questions do."
He said nothing more during the rest of the ride. Apparently she had offended him but she didn't wish to discuss her new profession. She was neither ashamed nor proud of it. Her feeling was one of detachment, as yet not settled. The swank set blamed the girls but if it wasn't for the men there wouldn't be any strippers. And some of the swank set did far worse than the strippers, swapping wives and husbands and indulging in orgies, a number of the wives having babies who could belong to almost anybody.
Her face was serious as she entered Sue's Club. Barney didn't want her to display her naked breasts but without Betty's assistance it would take more sex than she had been giving to entertain the men.
"Hey," Art Nells called to her, "Come here and rest your fanny."
He was seated at his usual table and she walked over to him. She wore a gold, curve hungry dress and he didn't miss a movement qf her body. Sighing, she sat down. He wanted her. Nobody had to tell her that. It was in his eyes, the curl of his lips at one corner that said he would rape her to have his way.
"What's the matter?" she asked.
"Some bastard. A wise punk who should have a rock tied around his neck and jump into the bay." His tone was harsh, angry. "Or maybe if he don't do it on his own he'll get help."
"Don't fight with me over something I know nothing about."
"You know the guy."
"I know a lot of people."
"Sick people."
"Maybe."
"This guy is sick. He's damned sick."
"Who are you talking about."
"The new guy at the Clover Bar."
"Oh."
"Threw the girls out."
"I thought you didn't approve of the bar or what went on over there."
"Can't I put my mind into reverse."
"That's what you're doing." It wasn't a reply.
"This side of the alley couldn't exist without the other side." , "Why?"
"Because a guy comes here for dames. Yeah, he'll stop at the bigger clubs to watch the strippers, hoping that he can saddle one up for the night. If she'll let him ride he delivers the mail and goes on home, whenever that is. But supposing she won't? Some of these strippers hate a man's guts. So he needs a bed partner. By then it's too late to take the time to look for a lonesome dame who may have to be sold a bill of goods, maybe even lead him on and disappear. Where is his answer? For a hundred bucks he could arrange for the best but he hasn't got a hundred. The answer is across the alley. Ten, fifteen, twenty-five dollars top and he has his fun."
"It's a filthy combination."
"Why should you gripe?"
"I'm not. It's just an observation."
He cracked the knuckles of one hand.
"You wanta do that chump a favor? You ever get it from him so good that you owe it?"
"I don't owe anybody anything."
He laughed.
"Baby, you owe me."
"Yes. Fifteen percent of what I make."
"Add another big five percent."
"No. We signed a contract."
"Which doesn't say that you'll work."
"Well-"
"The big five percent I collect in bed."
"Drop dead," she said icily. "And take the hook out ol my mouth, will you? Only Barney or Sue can fire me here."
"He waved to a waitress for drinks. "Let's get into the field and mow the grass," he said "This big guy is the first one to buck the trend here and
I ain't about to have it. There's also another thing. Betty is going to strip for him and that'll hurt this side of the alley. She has a following and the guys who got into her were money men. They'd wait for her last show and run up thirty or forty dollar checks. She's an ungrateful slut but how many girls aren't? You hump your back to get them good dough, a solid spot, and they bang you in the teeth for all your trouble. They let's get back to that friend of yours. You've got the time. Go over there and put the prong into him. He won't last here. He can't."
She didn't want to go over to the Clover Bar but she did. She supposed she had some obligation in view of their past relationship and it was the only decent thing to do. The authority of Art Nells was apt to be very final.
There was no one in the bar except Floyd. He was wiping the bar down, rubbing a light coat of oil into it. Compared to Sue's Club, the place was rather small but this also assured him of less overhead.
"You lost, Lola?" He kept rubbing the bar.
"No, but you are."
"Excuse me if I lost my map."
"Have you made any payment on this yet?"
Frowning, he paused in his work.
"Why the sudden interest?"
"I'm your friend, aren't I?"
"Friend? Can former lovers ever be friends?"
"I don't know why they can't?"
He dropped the rag, washed his hands and drew a couple of beers. She sat down at the bar. "All right," he said. "Friends. It's better than nothing."
"Did you meet Art Nells?"
"Yes. He came in. He said I wouldn't last."-
"Don't you believe him?"
"No. I think I know what I'm doing. We'll have three strip shows a night but no whores at the bar." She almost sneered at him.
"What about that brunette you had to have that one day, not waiting for me because she was right there, jealous and destroying what we had?"
"Grow up," he growled. "Mistakes happen. That was a mistake. She was in about noon and I told her to get lost. Way lost. Yeah, it's tough on the girls but if I have to use them as bait to earn money I'll go broke first."
"Yet you'll take on a stripper?"
"Only because I have to be realistic. You have no cause to dig at me about that. You're stripping, showing yourself off, letting men see what should have been ours in a bedroom. You-"
"Floyd, you don't understand."
"Don't I? Hell, I understand. You had a job but winning that contest upset you. Entering you was another mistake I made, the biggest one. How long did I wait for you to give in? A long time. Some girl would come into the bar, stay until closing, and I'd knock her off upstairs because I couldn't stop thinking about you. Grow up, I told you? That's a joke. I'm the one who should have grown up. I should have married you, no matter what business was like, and made you pregnant. If I'd done that I wouldn't be on and you wouldn't either."
She did her best to sway him but it didn't do any good. He got so mad at her that he wouldn't even sell her a beer.
"You must like Betty," she said.
"Betty's honest. She doesn't conceal anything."
"Really?" She held his stupidity in contempt.
"Yeah, really. A hundred a night and she puts it in the bank, less the cut Nells took. Crawling swine, taking money from girls when it's their bodies that earn it. I get along with Betty. Is that a federal offense? You're probably down on a bed with some man and I'm supposed to push it aside? Hardly. Not Floyd Landers."
He began to get busy and she walked out to the street. What could she do? More pointedly, did she actually want to do anything about him? In a way she did and in a way she didn't. She couldn't live with what had gone before or correct what she or others had done. That is, she corrected herself, it was useless to live in the past or attempt to decide the future of others. She had her own problems and so did everybody else.
"You see the guy?" Art Nells wanted to know as soon as she was inside Sue's Club.
"Yes, I saw him."
"What did he say?"
"Nothing much."
Art sneered.
"Nothing, huh? Well, you'll hear him squeal."
"Look, Art . "
"Shut up."
The other two strippers sat at a table but she took a stool at the bar rather than mix with them. They weren't her kind and they weren't friendly to her.
She ordered a bottle of beer the bartender gave her a cheap brand because she didn't have to pay for it and the smell of heady perfume swirled around her.
"You're doing rather well," Sue Wilks said to her.
Lola smiled at Sue but Sue didn't return the smile. Warmth, the girl lacked it entirely. A match for Art Nells any day.
"Thanks for the compliment."
"Can you push a little more to cover up for us not having Betty."
"I thought I'd have to."
"Ever pull the robe and negligee trick."
"Not yet."
"It's a dilly. We get somebody to pull a cot out onto the floor and you actually undress while the lights are lowered. Keep your back to the slobs if you want during the last few seconds. Then put on the negligee and robe. The lights come up again and you can tease them some more. Sit on the cot, as though you can't make up your mind about something, and show them as much of your legs as you can get away with. After a while you stand up and take off the robe. You understand? You don't want the damned robe and you don't want the negligee either. The negligee is thin enough for them to get an outline of your figure but the material is loose and you're still hiding most of what they're after. You end it with your-back to them again, the negligee off. Slowly, the lights dim as you turn. Cover yourself from the waist down with the negligee, bunching it up so you expose your thighs and legs. Drop the negligee just as the lights go out. Then get into your dress fast. Just your dress because you won't have time for anything else. When the lights come up you're dressed."
Lola didn't wish to go this far. She'd be willing to do so with a net bra to partially conceal herself but Sue was asking too much. Calmly, she explained to Sue how she felt.
Sue shook her head.
"Sorry, honey. You've got a contract and you're working for me. The only thing I can't make you do is put out but I can order you to strip. Why the stinking pride? Who do you think you are? I'll tell you. You're nothing but a beautiful blonde with a body, a body I'm paying for. Put on a good act and I might pay you a couple of bucks more."
She left her and walked over to where Art Nells sat. He never had a decent smile for anybody except Sue. Lola let air out of her lungs, inhaled more, and picked at the label of the beer bottle with her thumbnail. Her thoughts returned to Barney and what they had done out at the mountain stream and at the picnic area, how he'd come into the dressing room after the other girls were gone and he'd had her again, the floor in the room as hard as the floor in the station wagon, each wonderful moment a precious stone in the swirling, mounting ring of fulfillment.
When she went to the dressing room shortly before ten she found a robe and negligee piled on top of her table. Both were black. Black seemed to be the favorite color of many strippers. Probably it was due to its association with sin and the contrast against pink-white flesh.
"I ain't seen nothing of Barney tonight," Sandra said and inspected a mole on her leg. "Maybe he's gettin' his ashes hauled somewhere."
Lola smiled and said nothing. Barney was trying to raise money to buy her loose from Art Nells, perhaps enough so that he could quit his wife. Marriage? Yes, he had promised her that as he'd pulled her down to the dressing room floor, telling her not to worry about the consequences, saying that if she had his baby he'd claim it.
Since she was the headliner she went on last, following the other two girls. She didn't know where the cot came from but it was there. She laughed with the applause. She should have had that cot out under the trees or in the dressing room. She laughed some more. His weight would have crushed her to the ground or the floor anyway, each pound of him driving at her in sheer madness.
It wasn't so bad for the first two shows, although it was discomforting to be entirely naked in the soft lights. And she cheated at the end. She dropped the negligee all right but she didn't drop it until after the club was totally dark, refusing to let the men see anything except the creamy columns of her legs and a generous hint of her breasts.
As she waited for the third show at the bar Barney came in. He spoke to her for a moment, said he hadn't had any luck in getting money but that he was meeting somebody else later, and walked over to sit with Art Nells and Sue.
It was the last show that did it, bringing with it an incident that tore the night apart for her. Until the very end everything went smoothly, the lights dimming as they should, her back to the audience as she undressed, the music following her movements at just the right tempo. Then she was on the cot, wearing the negligee and robe, parting the robe and bringing the negligee up as high onto her thighs as she dared. The club was full, the hour late, but because of the light she was unable to distinguish faces. A pulse beat rapidly at the base of her throat, racing toward the time when she would belong to Barney again, this body of hers for which men lusted his to own and enjoy.
Standing now. Standing at the end of the cot, her mouth half open, playing with the belt on the robe, finally untying it, her mouth becoming a sensual part as she let it slide to the floor. Very slowly she reached for the hem of the negligee, paused while she indicated to the customers that she shouldn't. However, she lifted it as she turned her back to them, heard the frantic demands of the men that she not do this, that she not cheat them. She tossed her head, giving them a negative answer, waited for the lights to dim some more and, when they did, removed the negligee. Somebody whistled and there were shouts. A glass crashed from a table and fell upon the floor. The light in the club was that of late evening, shadows everywhere, almost impossible to see clearly. Once more she turned, facing the roaring mob, holding the negligee carelessly in front of her, counting the seconds until total darkness.
Darkness came amidst the groans of those who were disappointed....
She let go of the negligee...
Stunned for the moment, absolutely powerless to move, she found herself caught, beautiful and entirely nude, in the glare of every light that the club owned. A sob tore at her. She screamed, the shock of being degraded filling her, but nobody could hear because of all the racket.
Naked, still sobbing, she somehow managed to run back to the dressing room. She thought she might faint and she put her head down on one of the tables. She didn't know whose table and she didn't care. She only knew that nothing, not even death, could be worse than this. That rotten Sue had tricked her, used her, plunged beyond the fence of human reason.
Sandra brought her dress in to her.
"Cheap bitch," Sandra said harshly. "Wearing nothing at all, huh? I'm low but I'm not that low. Any guy who sees everything I've got puts his money in my hand first."
The door closed behind Sandra and, wearily, Lola got into her dress. She was through as a stripper, so sick of what happened that she almost heaved her insides out. Money or no money, contract or no contract, she had to get away from the alley with Barney. They could go somewhere else and make a new start. He had mentioned construction work and that paid fairly well. They wouldn't get rich but being poor was better than this.
She was ashamed to go out to the bar but she couldn't avoid it. There were things to settle. Decisions to make, a future to plan.
The bar...
Her own father, his face white, tears running down his cheeks from staring eyes. "How could you?" he asked. "It Dad, it was a mistake." His face expressed the inward pain which he felt.
"No," he said. "No Lola. You're the mistake."
She walked past him, searching for Sue and not seeing her.
The bar...
Floyd, standing at the bar with Betty. His head was covered with a huge white bandage.
"Floyd," she said, alarmed. "Floyd, what-"
"Brass knuckles. From behind. In the men's room, didn't have a chance. Nobody knows who did it."
"I'm thinking," Betty told him. "I keep on thinking, Floyd. The lights were down low for my act but there's something that tries to jar me." Betty looked at Lola. "What happened out there? Did you lose your mind."
"No. It was a trap."
"Nonsense," Floyd said, disgusted with her. "You brought the other side of the alley over here. Rumor had it you'd go beyond the limit. The rumor wasn't wrong. Hell, you're a ass."
She moved away from them.
The bar...
A hand grabbed her arm, halting her, and, startled, she wheeled on the man.
Fat, evil eyes, liquor breath washing over her face. "No," she whispered.
"I knew you were hot stuff," Stew Wallace said. "Please, I-"
"Baby, seeing what you are, I wouldn't touch you again if you sent me an invitation."
A powerful hand closed over the fat man's arm.
"Let her go," Floyd said. "Maybe she's a tramp but treat her square, fellow."
"Sure." Wallace released her. "With pleasure."
After this she hunted for Barney but she couldn't find him. She needed his strength and the assurance of his love. The trouble was he had gone. So had his wife and Art Nells.
She heard Floyd say something to Betty about his apartment and they left the club. "Mine or yours?" he asked Betty. "Yours. Some friend of mine might disturb us if we go where I live." Lola followed them outside. Impatiently, she waited for a cab. She never wanted to see Strip Alley again.
CHAPTER IX
Dawn crawled across the sky and invaded Lola's room. She was tired but she hadn't slept, afraid that Barney would push the buzzer and she wouldn't hear it. Only in Barney could she hope to find understanding. Barney would understand. He knew what his wife was. She was little more than a moral thief who stole the last ounce of dignity from her own sex.
It was cool in the apartment but she lay naked upon the bed. Naked, just as those men had seen her. Naked, the way she wanted Barney to find her when he arrived, the wet savagery of her lips telling him that no other man could ever have her, all of her body and her mind lusting almost disgracefully for everything that he was capable of doing to her.
Betty....
Down on Kent Avenue with Floyd. Down more than that. Yes, down. Down on her back, feeling the male of Floyd, offering him what she herself had surrendered.
Her father...
No one to brag about but she had sunk beneath him. It didn't really matter who was to blame. She was the one who had stripped, had placed herself in a position where it was easy to be embarrassed. She could have caught the negligee and held it in her hands. It didn't actually have to hit the floor. The illusion was there anyway, the men thinking she was naked, their minds creating images of her. Jealousy...
It stabbed at her, leaving an open wound. She reached for a cigarette, lit it and came to the conclusion she was being unreasonable. Betty had quite a sordid past but that wasn't an indication she couldn't reform. A girl improved or she went in the other direction. Possibly she would be good for Floyd and there was no reason why he should be deprived of that. Lola yawned. He had been quick to come to her defense as Stew Wallace held her fast. He hadn't approved of her performance, called her a ass, but it hadn't prevented him from acting in her behalf.
Lazily, she watched the smoke as it drifted upward Hadn't Betty said that a fat man often visited Sue at the club? Could this fat man be Stew Wallace? There was a chance of this being true but if it was she couldn't imagine why he would go to all that bother. He was successful in business and Sue wasn't a man's girl.
Just as she was putting the cigarette out the buzzer sounded. Quickly she arose from the bed and snatched up a robe. Betty? Perhaps Betty had forgotten her key Lola's tongue moved across her lips, wetting them expectantly. Barney. Barney had come to her and it would be all right for them, talking, loving, looking ahead.
She belted the robe as she crossed the living room. It wasn't exactly the right time for Barney. A book salesman perhaps. A man with a load of pots and pans. Somebody collecting for a charity drive.
She opened the door and Art Nells shoved his way into the apartment. His customary suit was missing. Slacks. A sport shirt open at the throat. Some kind of elevator shoes to make him appear taller.
"You've got no right here," she said.
"Shut up. I go where I want."
"You're not wanted."
He whirled and slapped her hard across the face. The blow stung. Then he shoved her roughly toward the sofa. She resisted but he was very strong for his size and she tumbled upon the soft cushions. The robe separated and he winked when he saw the satin smoothness of her thighs. She rubbed her face with one hand and fixed the robe with the other.
"Gave the boys a cheap thrill last night, didn't you, baby?"
"Through no fault of mine." He crossed to the door and closed it. "From now on you wear a G string."
"There isn't any more from now on." He sat down next to her on the sofa. She would rather have sat with a snake. "I enforce my contracts, Lola."
"Go ahead. Try it." He glanced around the room. "Nice pad, huh? Whores living it up."
"I'm no whore."
"What about Betty."
"Talk to her."
"You know more than I do, baby."
"I don't know anything except that I was fooled last night."
"Sue was a little sore. You can have a club closed when you do that." Lola's laugh was hollow. "Sue is sore? Why? She did it." ' "No. It was the guy operating the lights."
"Then ask him."
"I would if I knew where he is. Nobody knows and he moved out of his room. The woman said he had a i wad of bills."
Lola didn't believe this. She hadn't seen the man. j Somebody had to tell him what to do, didn't they? A man with a job wouldn't lose it over a thing like that.
"Please leave," she said, realizing that her request was wasted on him.
"Miss your roomie?"
"Not particularly."
"Like for me to tell you where she is."
"I know where she is."
"You don't. She opened up the Clover Bar this morning and she's waiting on customers. That Floyd-"
"Operate fast, don't you?" she asked.
"Sometimes but mostly steady."
"Brass knuckles. How brave are you, Art?"
He got up from the sofa and he didn't speak until after he had emerged from the kitchen with two cans of beer. She set hers on an end table.
"I don't get what you're leading into," he said. "If somebody knuckled him it wasn't me."
"You're lying."
"No. That's the truth. I was with Sue all evening except when she talked once to somebody else."
"A fat man? Stew Wallace?"
His face became whiter than usual. He frowned.
"Private affairs are none of your business. And I didn't knuckle that guy. A big fellow can come back from a knuckle blow that ain't right and where would that leave me? Six feet under the damned ground. If I was going after him I'd use a knife or a gun. I like a knife better than a gun. You can feel it going into a man's guts, twist it and the blood pours out. They can trace a bullet. What do they do with a knife?"
"You're horrible, Art."
"I place my own shots and I call them." He reached into his pocket and brought out a knife. The sharp, ugly appearing blade snapped into the open. "Maybe this is for you, baby."
She cringed, too terrified to do anything except tremble and think of that knife going inside of her. Why would he want to kill her? What excuse did he have for being such a beast?
"Put the knife away," she managed to beg him.
He pulled her robe apart and ran the back of the knife up one thigh. Then he pushed the knife up under the belt and cut it open.
"You want this, baby, or do you want something else?"
"Please, Art-"
"All of you girls are the same. I know what you do. You give it away, don't you? Huh? For kicks and some fun. Okay, okay. Ten guys after me for all I care but I'm the first today. You know? First. It's always better when you're first."
"Art-"
"Don't clown with me." He was almost shouting at her. "In the bedroom, slut. Take off the robe and get down on the bed. You want fun or do you want the knife? Girls like me, baby. I do things for them, lots of things. Have a kid by Art Nells and you'll never have to worry about the kid. That kid will know how to take care of himself. He'll be smarter than me. Dammit, he'd better. I ain't so smart. You think I run Strip Alley? You think I sit in the throne? Come off the clouds, won't you? I-"
"It's her," Lola said, refusing to look at the knife again. "Sue."
"Who cares who it is?"
"Not me. Just leave me alone."
She felt the sharp point of the knife touch her left breast. Her legs became weak, numb. She moved the fingers of her hands and she seemed surprised that this
! was possible. One insane thrust of that knife and she'd
I die.
"Come on, baby." With his freehand he opened the robe on the opposite side from the knife. Her right breast shoved into the open. She was too frightened to resist the search of his hand. "Come on," he repeated. "In the bedroom. And strip. Strip or I rip your belly open. I hear things. You're easy. You've gotta have it. Some guy has to pork you or you ain't happy. Swell. I'm a guy. Dames give it to me on the alley. For free and they ask for more, Don't get no ideas about running. No dame runs from me. Maybe I like a dame sort of regular and maybe I don't but no dame makes a sucker out of Art Nells."
He got to his feet and pulled her up from the sofa, the! pain in her breast where he held her spreading to her shoulder and bringing tears to her eyes.
She tried it, discarding her fear of the knife as he brought her in close. She used her right knee, driving it high and hard, wanting to destroy him, to see him double over in agony. Maybe if she could get hold of the knife--
She didn't. He was fast, letting go of her as he stepped backward, his face as black as the shadow of death.
"You'll pay for that," he said. "You'll strip in the lowest joints, grab fifty or a hundred bucks in the back room. Between acts, baby, you're for sale. You-"
"Art! Never. I'd-"
"In the bedroom."
She covered her face with her hands. First the slobbering Stew Wallace claiming her against her will and now this. But this was worse, far worse. Wallace was rich, frustrated, unable to give a child to any girl, but Art Nells was a sadist. Art and his knife. She didn't know whether or not he'd actually use it but there was always the risk that he would.
"The bedroom, baby."
She took her hands away from her face and walked toward it. This was one rape that had a price. Barney, Giant Barney. He'd put his powerful arms around Art, crack every rib, snap his back in a dozen places. The would find Art broken and dead, the monster of Strip Alley paying his final debt to society. And Sue Wills
Somebody had to do something about her, too. The alley could feature girlie shows but at the same time remain fairly respectable.
"You keep on working," Art said. "When a girl busts away from me it's only because I let her go."
She stood by the bed and laughed at him.
"Not Betty."
He waved the knife in the air.
"I'm not done with her yet. Barney. She had him going until you came along."
"You're scared of Barney."
"No. We're pals."
"He wouldn't be your pal if he knew about this."
"What's his is mine."
"You think."
"Hell, I know. He but I ain't here for that. And I ain't got all morning." He tossed the knife into the air and caught it. "Strip, baby. Strip or I mark you up."
The threat of violence was too great for her. She was too young to be disfigured or die and she had no way of fighting him. He was fast, his muscles like lightning steel and it was either her body or her blood.
He became impatient and he took the robe from her, running the point of the knife across her stomach as soon as he had done so. She fell back from him, caught her knees over the side of the mattress, screamed once and fell upon the bed.
'You're gonna have a man," he said. "I mean, you're gonna have another man."
She fought him on the bed but the knife, what he could do with it, horrified her and her efforts were useless. She moaned knowing that he was taking her physically, sensing inwardly that he was more man in this respect than most men. Had she been willing it might have been an unforgettable experience but she was revolted by his violation and therefore she felt nothing except that he was using her body. In some respects, it was more degrading than what Stew Wallace had done to her. Sharing her bed was the savagery of man, doing as he wished, the penetration of hate far greater than the normal emotional forces which asked that she be known.
"You ain't so bad," he said later as he stood by the side of the bed. "I've had it with those who weren't so good. Only you weren't after me the way you were after him."
"Him?" The word was just something to say.
"Barney. In the dressing room, on the floor with him, maybe wanting his kid and getting it, grinding your hips, taking everything."
Her forehead was cold.
"How did you know that-"
"Every room has a door."
She closed her eyes. Nothing was secret any more. Buy a new car and everybody on the block wondered how much you made. Date a fellow and they speculated about how often you didn't say no. Add a few pounds and right away you are pregnant. Strip and men like Art Nells had to take you beyond that. Love a man and there was both a glory in his love and a penalty for loving. Hate enough and you are destroyed.
He went out but she didn't hear the apartment door close behind him. It wasn't important. What was important was this rape, the second one, the torture to her flesh which, in some manner, would cost Art Nells his life. The knife. She wished she had it, the handle in her hand, the blade sunk into his guts. She'd slash, ripping him open, drain the filth out of his life.
She lay there for a long time, thinking. Conception, one tiny object invading another tiny object, the success of that object an achievement over millions of other similar objects. If that was true of her she wouldn't know now who the man was. One out of three. One, and you couldn't tell much when you first saw a baby. All of them looked pretty much alike.
Somebody came into the apartment. Art again. Desperately, she tried to locate a weapon. Yes, probably Art had returned for more of the same.
"Honey," Barney said from the doorway.
She started to cry. She couldn't help it. Why hadn't Barney been with her earlier?
"I'm sorry," she said finally, sitting up, swinging about so that she sat on the edge of the bed. "I'm trying to control myself but it's a nightmare."
"Art Nells?"
She nodded miserably, afraid to admit it but feeling that she should.
"Yes. Nells. With a knife. I couldn't stop him."
Barney walked across the room to a window. She guessed he was looking at the bay. Boats moving with their white sails catching the wind. The distant figures oi people who roam the beaches. Happy people. Serene. Contented. Upset. Unhappy. But they were people and not animals.
"She knows about us," he said.
"Sue?" Yes. Sue."
"I'm sorry. And I'm not. She's nobody for you. Nobody for any man."
"No. She's a bitch. A bitch with a pretty face. Ice in her blood. A stone for a heart. She there's trouble, Lola. On the alley."
"Because of me last night?"
"No. Trouble for the man in the drug store. Cops, they're covering the street, asking questions, getting tough. They even questioned me."
"Why?"
"Some girl. Terry somebody. Did I know her? No, I never heard of her." Barney spun on his heels. His face was worried. "You tell me. This guy has done dozens of abortions and this one missed. Somebody brought her there. But the man didn't wait. Then the fellow who has the drug store saw she was dying. He had courage. He called a doctor. For what? She died anyway."
Terry. Poor Terry. Lola worked with the girl, saw her go into Wallace's office, come out with her clothes wrinkled, her lipstick smeared. Mumps? Maybe and maybe not. Many men lied to protect themselves.
"That's bad," she agreed.
"Nells," he said, changing the topic. "I'll kill the bastard."
She saw Nells dying but she also saw the chair for Barney. His head was shaved and they put a metal cap on it. Where his trousers were slit they fastened wires. Smoke would arise from the cap as his body jerked forward against the restraining straps.
"No," she said.
He came over and sat down beside her. She craved the security of his arms holding her but she knew this wasn't quite the moment for it. There was too much to think about. Anything she could say to keep him from making a fool out of himself had to come first.
"I'll kill the bastard," he said again, his tone as cold as his wife's body.
She clutched his arm firmly.
"No, Barney. Maybe I thought of killing him myself but that's not the way to do it. And I can't go to the police. You know that's impossible. All those people saw me with nothing on last night. What would the police believe? What would anybody believe? They'd say I was loose and easy and that I probably asked for what I got. I we have to get away from this city, Barney. I don't care where we go or how we get there as long as we go."
"Go? On what?"
"Money? I don't know how much you've got."
"Very little."
She lay back on the bed and pulled him down beside her. It felt right being that way with him, just as it should always be for them. In a nice apartment such as this. Under the trees. Anywhere.
"We can get along," she said. "Nobody has any money when they're born. Let's pretend that we were just born, that tomorrow is ours. You'll find a job and I can work, too."
"As a stripper."
"I'd hate it but for you I'd do anything."
"Anything?"
"Sure. What girl wouldn't for the man she loves? If we stay here honey, it's murder for you to kill Nells. And it won't change what he did. No matter how dead he is he still used me." She paused, unable to straighten this mess out in her mind. "Just as I want you to use me. I want to feel that I'm having you and that I'm taking everything you can give me. I-"
His mouth sealed her lips. She turned quickly, pressed tight against him and closed her eyes. The sun was out now, pouring into the room. She felt the sun as his body strained toward her. She thought of a room somewhere else, a different room, but how all the rest of it would be the same for them. Maybe he would have to go to work at eight in the morning but she wouldn't let him go to sleep until he was exhausted and she would set the alarm for six so there would be time for what she needed from him in the morning.
Floyd...
They said you never forgot your first real lover and she guessed this was true. Regardless of what your lover was you always had a special place for him that nobody else could quite fill. It wasn't that you didn't love. The space just stayed empty. You simply couldn't do anything about it.
Her lips parted in response to the insistence of his mouth and her tongue slid forward to meet his. One of ll is hands explored the curves of her figure. Her breasts seemed to become fuller under his touch, her stomach smaller, the muscles of her thighs tight.
"This is better than the dressing room floor," she whispered.
"Yes."
"Or the car."
He fumbled with his clothes. "Hell, anywhere is all right."
It was as two panting humans joined in the strange and wonderful thrust of love, her pleas the commands which he followed in the only manner that was possible for a man. On the same bed she had known rape, trembled at the sight of an ugly knife, she now felt the roaring river of unleashed passion.
Later, they showered together. This was a rich and exciting experience for her, letting him soap her body and believe that he was hers to love forever. Her own caresses as she soaped him were fond, intimate, designed to arouse him once more.
"You need two men," he said.
"No. Just one. You."
"When?"
"Now."
Floyd, she thought as Barney carried her dripping wet to the bed. Floyd with the bandage on his head. Why was she thinking of him when she was in love with somebody else? Why remember a man who couldn't be trusted? Why, for that matter, think of anyone except Barney, or the rigid desire of him that raged to meet hers?
But afterward she had to admit to herself that she would probably never meet another man, including Barney, who could lead her up the mountain of physical and emotional pleasure in exactly the same way.
As they dressed he talked.
"Lola, it's important to get you out from under Art Nells."
She shuddered. She remembered what it was like to be under Art, to feel his weight bearing down upon her. "He won't release me," she said. "He's crazy about money."
"Sure. He'd rob the mint or break into it and print his own bills."
"I still have another man to see."
"But what am I supposed to do? Stay here and let him rape me again?"
"You can lock the door and let no one in."
"Yes, that's true."
"And it won't take me longer than the rest of the day."
She secured the door after he was gone and turned on the small portable radio to ease the strain of waiting.
The can of beer she had left on the end table was warm but she sat down on the sofa and began drinking it. She didn't actually want the beer but she was tense and it was something to do.
Run...
Well, it wasn't so easy when you considered it and weighed all of the possible complications. To be free was the wish of most people but a person had to regard the problems from a practical viewpoint. Actually, she knew very little about Barney but she knew from her father that the big money came in construction cut out of union jobs and that you had to pay to join a union. As for herself, she would either have to find a stripping assignment in a good club or return to office work.
The phone rang and she answered it.
"Can you come down to the Central Bar?" Betty French asked.
"Why?"
"There are some things you should know."
"Things? I know enough already. You're sleeping with
Floyd and if that's what you want you're welcome. You
"I'm not sleeping with Floyd."
"I don't believe you."
"Suit yourself, Lola. It isn't that I wouldn't sleep with him if I could. He just doesn't have the yen. He's got a candle the size of a rocket burning for you and it's just friendship between us. We drank beer last night and talked some. He slept in one bed and I slept in another. For once I could have been had for nothing and the guy wasn't interested. I he called long distance just now and asked me to get in touch with you. He said you might be safer in one of the upstairs rooms."
"Safer?" She was confused."
"Yes. He's into something big and it may be over his head. I'm praying that it isn't. He seems to figure you're in this somehow but he hasn't yet come up with the answer. I hell, the bar is getting busy."
"But-"
"Stop in."
There was a click and Lola held the dead phone in her hand. Finally she replaced the phone and went into her bedroom to pack. She didn't have the faintest idea where she could go with Barney but she felt that they must get out of the city.
When she had moved away from home she hadn't taken everything she owned with her and while she dreaded going there again it wasn't sensible for her to leave any clothes she could use behind.
A half hour later she caught a cab on the street.
"Front View Place," she told the driver. "Thirty-four. And wait for me."
"With the suitcase I thought you were moving."
"I am. Fast."
Her father's car was in the driveway and she braced herself emotionally for whatever her parents might say.
Something dirty? To hell with it.
They were in the kitchen. A half dozen empty boxes lay scattered upon the floor.
"You missed the. police," her mother said.
"The police?" Lola's eyebrows arched. "I haven't done anything."
"Just showed off your naked body for all those men," her father observed sharply. "But it ain't about that they asked."
"So what did they ask?"
"You worked with a girl in Wallace's office. She's dead."
"I heard that."
"Somebody found Wallace in his office this morning, all bloody. Took one real beating but wouldn't tell them who did it. Pretended he'd been robbed but nothing had been taken."
"The police can forget me. I know nothing about it."
"Well, they thought you might, working there so long. You ain't done no crime, not in that way probably, but they have to get to the bottom of things. Don't make no sense for a man to get messed up and not say who did it. Unless he's hiding something."
"Whatever he got he had coming to him," Lola said, hating Wallace. She nodded toward the boxes. "What are those for?"
"Movin', " her mother replied. "People don't like me around here none since you started strippin'. Society, huh? Crap. Rotten crap. The woman next door brags that there ain't a guy in six blocks who hasn't gotten her. I ain't no swell but I ain't a whore neither. It's your old man's job to take care of me in bed and when he has to quit doin' it I'll do without."
Lola found an extra suitcase in her room and it didn't take her long to pack. Her people would be better off, moving away.
They didn't speak to her as she passed through the kitchen. There didn't seem to be anything to say that hadn't already been said.
The cabbie drove her to . An alley, she thought. A filthy alley of sin and booze. An alley where morals were unknown and unwanted, where the lust of man and the weakness in woman presided. Now, at this time of the day, it slept, waiting for the night and the bright lights that brought with them the pulse of sex. Mary's. The Golden Bar. Lennie's. These and others, all the same, catering to the endless quest of man for the sight of or the possession of female flesh. Ten dollars or a hundred or for free, any way the man wanted it, as often as he could pay.
She tipped the driver for helping her into the Central Bar with her things. Nobody sat at the bar but that wasn't unusual. A bar filled up, emptied, filled up again, then died for a couple of hours.
"With those curves you should be a baseball pitcher," Betty told her. "A batter would strike out on one pitch."
She took a stool at the bar. The swells of her body fought a duel with the seams in the dress.
"What's this all about?" she wanted to know.
"I'm not sure myself." Betty frowned. "I just have a feeling that the alley is blowing apart and that somebody is going up with it. Way up. To hell and gone.
"Now you're being mysterious."
"Okay, but you're no mystery."
"No, but I might become one."
"That won't be so easy." Betty glanced out at the alley. "Art Nells was in here, trying to get me to renew my contract. He said you were like a wildcat when you were down on your back. But he got you, didn't he?"
"It was rape. He had a knife. I nearly died with him."
Betty laughed.
"All man, huh?"
"All pig."
Betty was silent for a moment.
"Look," she said. "There's no business right now and if I get any we can't talk." There was a strange shine in her eyes. "I'll lock the door and we can go up to one of the bedrooms. You honey, you need somebody to square you away on things. There was no mistake about those lights last night. That was planned, believe me. Too much is under the surface here, too much that you can't see."
Mostly, she went upstairs with Betty because she didn't want to risk meeting Art Nells again.
The room was small and hot and Betty killed a bee with an old newspaper. There weren't any sheets on the mattress but there were stains all over it. A girl's bra and panties, both ripped, were on the floor beside the bed. soiled with dust.
Lola stood at the window, looking down, and she wasn't aware that Betty had undressed until she turned around. The girl's nakedness surprised her but, somehow, she found it pleasant. Dark hair that fell to Betty's shoulders. A graceful neck and smooth shoulders below a flushed, smiling face. Jutting breasts that were the pleasure of men but which now no man could see. Just the hint of a bulge at her navel and beyond this the dark
I warmth of woman, flowing away into smooth thighs and
I tapered legs.
"Get comfy," Betty said and wet her lips with her tongue. "Well-"
"Are you afraid?"
"I no. No, I guess not. And it is hot up here." She began to undress, thinking of the shame of the night before, feeling that in this, with her own sex, there couldn't be shame.
"You're a fool when it comes to Barney," Betty was saying. "I know because I had a taste of him myself. When I first came to the alley he'd drive me home. I won't lie and claim that he didn't get what he was after. He did." She laughed. 'He was doing me a favor? How wrong can you get? He was just another man, except that he didn't pay. I almost found something with the sailor but I lost that, lost it because he used me as a whore. All any man wants is a whore who can please him, a pair of legs to pull him tight and let him free himself Don't let Barney kid you, honey. You're just a well for his pleasure."
Lola unhooked her bra and her breasts lifted forward They ached a little from being confined and she rubbed them gently. She didn't wish to believe what Betty said but men had used her, too, and this confused her thoughts. Silently, she shook her head. Barney wouldn't, he simply wouldn't-
She felt Betty's hands upon her arms, pulling her hands away and then Betty's own hands, very soft and anxious, going to her breasts. Her eyes fastened upon Betty's face, Betty was still smiling but her mouth was half open and she was breathing heavily.
"No wonder those men went crazy," Betty said, her voice uneven. "Anybody would." Her thumbs coaxed hardness into the tips and she trembled wildly for a second. "The men see how big you are up here, want to touch you the way I'm touching you, only rougher, hurt you with their teeth. Then they'll beg you to know them with your hands, first, ask you to plead for what they can give you. After that it's just seconds for them, not giving a damn about the girl, too selfish to help her, maybe hoping that the girl has a kid because that's what a man is built for."
She struggled some as Betty pushed her toward the bed but her head had a peculiar ache inside of it, like all of her blood was locked in her skull, and the constant movements of Betty's hands pleased her. At the edge of the mattress she hesitated, closing her eyes briefly, wondering if this was right or wrong. Then a soft knee pushed in between her legs and she slumped to the mattress, taking the hands and the knee with her.
The kiss that reached her mouth was not like a man's kiss. The lips weren't as harsh, more tender, yet parted all the way and demanding. Betty's tongue teasingly roamed her mouth and retreated, only to return again. She moaned and clung to the dark-haired girl, the hunger in her mouth going down through her body to where the final hunger of females existed.
"Let me," Betty breathed.
Later, Lola didn't know whether it had lasted for five minutes, an hour or a day. All she knew was that there had never been anything quite like this for her before and that there shouldn't be again. A girl could avoid a man but this was a love which only a few could kill.
Without speaking, they dressed and went downstairs to the bar. Betty drew her a beer and took a long shot of vodka for herself.
"How did I get into this?" Lola asked absently.
"You mean-"
"No. Not that. The rest."
"Simple. How does a horse get mired in the mud? He just steps into it. Then the fat man. Floyd said you used to work for him."
"Yes." She was beginning to think again now. "Where is Floyd?"
"Lie was in about eleven but he was somewhere else first. He planned to take over tending bar at noon but whatever he learned changed his mind. I noticed his right hand was swollen and he didn't have much to say."
Lola decided that it fit. Floyd, being curious, had gone to see Stew Wallace. Had he lost his temper and beaten the truth out of Wallace? If this was so why wasn't Wallace willing to name the man who attacked him? Wallace was important, respected, and, therefore, must be hiding something. But what?
"I think I catch the drift," Lola said. "It must have been Wallace he saw. His hand swollen, a man beaten. But how could this have made him go off?"
"Wallace is the fat man?"
"Yes."
"That sounds like blackmail to me, from some direction."
"I don't care. Wallace is a crud." Betty poured another drink for herself. "You jazzed yourself up, Lola."
"I did upstairs."
"Upstairs? Hell, that's not important. You get it one way or another. This mess is ending here and I wanted to know you before it did." She glanced at Lola's luggage. "But you're still sold on Barney Wilks, aren't you?"
Lola sighed.
"I don't know why you keep coming back to that. If we happen to like each other that's all there is to it."
"Floyd says he isn't any good."
"Sure. Jealousy."
"Far from it. I last night I was working out there on the floor. We had a fair crowd, the men who didn't know he'd kicked the whores out and stayed for my strip. The bar wasn't busy while I was shedding my clothing and Floyd took the opportunity to go to the rest room because some customer had told him die ventilating fan was stuck. I did my usual routine and the lights were turned way down. Afterward, when they found him, I remembered that I'd seen a man walk away from my act. Only a man who was caught short would do that-or a man who wasn't interested. But I knew who the man was. The man was Barney."
Barney? Lola didn't believe this and, suddenly, she didn't trust Betty. Maybe Betty loved her own kind but hadn't she tried to make it with Floyd? Lies. That was it. Lies. True, Barney hadn't been at Sue's Club but he'd been out trying to borrow money to buy up her contract from Art Nells.
"Have it your way," Lola said, coldly. "I'll stick to mine."
"Sure. Live and learn. Do you want to go upstairs again."
"Thanks, no."
"Oh, not for that. Floyd thinks you're in danger."
"The only danger I know of is Art Nells."
"And Barney."
Her chin became stubborn. Barney would get her away from Art and he'd quit his useless wife. They didn't need . All they needed was each other.
"I have faith in Barney," she declared, firmly.
"The same as faith in the devil."
"Please. If I have to suffer for what I do I'll make my own decisions. You're trying to nail me with some sort of a pitch. It isn't at all necessary or appreciated."
A few men came in for drinks and Betty turned the television set on to the local station. It only carried pro-yams from one of the major networks five hours each day and the rest of the time it featured music, plus any news flashes.
The news came on eventually and the announcer covered the story about the beating of Stew Wallace. She I hadn't realized he was so important, accepting him for what he was in the office, but he had a tremendous civic reputation. Director of a bank and a building and loan, held a seat on the planning board, a member of the board of directors for the community college and one political group had even suggested him as a candidate for mayor.
She stared down into her beer. It was sadly amusing how little most people knew about other people. A man paraded in a cloak of decency and all the while he was the tormentor of female flesh. Rape....
There in his office, his face above her, twisted, horrible, and his body linked to hers. Then the final, savage lurch as a part of him sped into her.
Stripper...
Except for the incident of the night before she hadn't regarded stripping as anything exactly evil. A man could buy all die girlie magazines he wanted and see an assortment of naked breasts. Big breasts. Little breasts. Small bellies and full hips. Well, when they reached another city she might have to return to stripping for a while, until he drove his seed inside of her and she began to swell with his child.
Another news report. Shocked, that's what the reporter; said. No one from the present mayor on down could understand it. They'd put some stitches in Wallace's scalp at one of the hospitals and they'd thought it best to keep him for a day or so. Oh, certainly, they checked the rooms about every half hour but it only took a few minutes for a man to hang himself with his belt.
Dead...
But for what reason? Wallace had a good business and a promising future, regardless of what his personal behavior was.
Then, in half an hour, there was more. Wallace, in spite of his success, had been deeply in debt. Indications were that his creditors had been considering moving in on him, leaving him as bankrupt financially as he was morally.
Lola tried to recall her former duties in his office. A number of times she had written out checks to pay bills and he had said he would mail the checks himself. However, the next month the old balance was still charged against him.
"They goofed," he'd say. "Forget it."
Obviously, the checks had never been mailed.
"He took the easy way out," Betty said at the conclusion of the news report.
"If it is an easy way."
"No, I guess it isn't easy. Life would have to be impossible for me to do that. I'd rather take on a gang in an alley for a buck a toss than stop breathing. But that won't happen. I'm going back home."
"Home?"
"Yeah. Maybe it isn't much but this alley is nothing."
About five she left the bar and walked across to Sue's Club. There was a picture of her to the left of the entrance and the caption below claimed she was the hottest thing since the Chicago fire.
She was tired and she sat at one of the tables. A waitress with a swish to her hips brought over a bottle of beer.
"You're okay," the waitress said. "But you had the wrong signal last night. Another one of those deals and we'll all be on the street or in jail."
The lights. Somebody blundered." Not Jake. He operated the lights and he bought me a drink afterward. He said those were his instructions and he was going away for a vacation."
"Who gave him the instructions?" Lola was angry, "How would I know?"
"Sue?"
"Maybe. She's a hard baby."
The waitress moved off and Floyd came in. He needed a shave and his clothes were rumpled.
"Dumb, aren't you?" he asked and sat down on the opposite side of the table.
"Shut up.'
"Things are going to bust here. You ought to be in one of the rooms over the bar." She laughed at him. "Who'd want to harm me."
"It depends on what that somebody could gain." The bandage on his head was dirty. "You saw Stew Wallace," she said. It wasn't a question. "I saw him all right."
"Why?"
"Because you used to work for him, I'm crazy about you and I thought he knew something I didn't. He misunderstood. I stopped him from bothering you and he thought Barney or Sue had sent me. I didn't know what to make of it until he said he wouldn't pay out another nickel, that he didn't have the money and they'd driven him broke. Not Barney so much as Sue and Art Nells."
"Odd," she murmured.
He nodded.
"That's the way it struck me at first but I hadn't gone to see him for them. I told him that. I asked him why you quit and he ordered me to get out, saying you couldn't prove anything against him. He said you laid for him because you wanted to. That made me mad and I hit the bastard. I piled him into the wall and slammed him again. I got the truth out of him then. About you."
"It was rape," she said.
"And that's why you left me?"
"Both because of that and the brunette."
Floyd shrugged.
"Well, he got his."
"He's dead. Hung himself."
"So I heard."
"Don't you feel guilty?"
"No." He shook his head. "Not at all. Sue and Art Nells are the ones who caused it. He was a beaten man there in his office and he had to talk to somebody. I didn't forgive him for raping you but I promised to do what I could for him with these characters on . Frankly, I didn't believe his story and, yet, it sounded true. It all began when Sue was dancing here at the club, before she bought it. Wallace took her out, slept with her, confided in her. She got to know everything about him, just as much as he knew himself. Then one night she told him she was pregnant. He denied fathering the child but, forgetting about his mumps, he wasn't in any position to prove that he hadn't. She laughed at him and demanded money. He was hooked. He was too important to go into court and he paid. A wad. Enough for her to buy this club. But that wasn't the end of it. She forced him to make weekly payments and the payments got higher and higher. He never saw the baby but he knew where it was being kept. I thought this was a lie and I tried to check it out, later, by phone. No luck. They wouldn't give me any information and I drove down there. The baby is in a private nursing home. I pretended to be one of Sue's relatives and I gained the woman's confidence. Sue and Art Nells visit there every Thursday and pay for the kid's board but they never go in and actually see the baby very often. She seems to dislike it. What Nells has to do with the baby I can't say. My guess is that it actually belongs to him."
Lola sipped her beer. What Floyd had discovered explained quite a great deal but there were still many things which she didn't know about.
"And that was the reason for beating him so much?" she asked.
"I didn't. He was-sitting at his desk when I left him." She frowned. "Then who-"
"I can't tell you. It's no concern of mine. I came over here to get you. We've both been wrong in several ways but it isn't too late to try and make them right."
"No, Floyd." She was determined. "There's too much to forget."
"People forget in time."
"Not all that we have to forget. Besides-"
"It's Barney, isn't it? he demanded, harshly. "Yes," she said. She didn't hesitate.
"Lola, he's no good. He's the one who knuckled me in the rest room."
"If you didn't see who it was you're only guessing. Betty can be vicious." She didn't add that Betty could be wonderful in a perverted way.
He argued with her but she wouldn't listen to him. Finally, he got up from the table and left the club. She doubted she would ever see him again. An old love had died. Beautiful once but now dead. When something died you dug a hole in the ground and buried it.
It was nearly dark outside when Barney sat down at the table with her. He was smiling, confident.
"Give me a medal," he said. "A battle star. One for victory."
She laughed, feeling wonderful with him. I'll give you my kiss."
"Better yet, hustle me a drink from the bar, huh."
"There's a waitress and . "
"Honey, this is a special drink."
She noticed when she returned with the beer that he had put her pocketbook on a chair but the tables weren't large and she didn't think anything of it.
"Sue wants to see you," he said. "As soon as we have this drink." He lifted his glass. "To us and all of the tomorrows to come."
"Where does she want to see me?"
"At the house. I'll drive you up in the station wagon but I won't go inside. I have no yen to ever see her again. She'll tear up your contract and apologize for last night and the rape by Art Nells."
"The rape?" Somehow, she wasn't keeping up with him.
"Yes. She told him to do it, to degrade you, just as she made the fellow turn on the lights so the men could see you. When she realized that these things didn't change my love for you she gave up."
Lola felt good as they exited from the club. Barney loved her and they were through with Strip Alley. In some other city they would find another beginning.
Sue's large home was in a fine section of Cedarville. The house set back from the street and a sloping lawn stretched down to the sidewalk. Bird baths were on either side of die stone walk.
"Just go on in," Barney told her. "She's in the living room. That's to the left, off the hall."
She got out of the car and moved through the gathering darkness to the house. This wasn't a pleasant task but it was one which she accepted. Their future was worth any price.
Horror, stark and terrible, greeted her inside the house. The ultimate horror of death and blood, two lifeless bodies lying sprawled on the floor.
Art Nells and Sue Wilks.
She screamed and fought to keep from fainting.
Art was fully dressed but Sue was naked from the waist up and she wore only a brief pair of panties below that. She was on her back, one leg twisted beneath her, the other leg and her arms outstretched. The whole upper part of her body was terribly mutilated, the work of a sadist.
"Don't get any ideas," Barney said from behind her.
She turned, frightened by the strangeness in his voice, and her fright became more intense when she saw the gun in his hand.
"Barney-"
"Stop crying, baby."
He shoved her into the room with such force she almost fell. "Barney-"
"Neat," he said and threw her pocketbook into the pool of blood which had once belonged to his wife. "The knife Nells owned is in your pocket book. I put it in there when you got the drink from the bar but it wasn't necessary. One way or another I could have fixed this on you, even after I pump a slug into that flat belly of yours."
She tried not to show the terror which she felt.
"You killed them," she said, miserably.
"Sure. I roughed people up for Art Nells, found women for him and he paid me a split. This morning I failed. Wallace didn't have any more money. They were getting ready to dump me but when Nells raped you he gave me a plan. He told some people about it along the alley, bragging, how he put it to you. So that gave you a motive to take your revenge. I told the man operating the lights to show you naked but I also told him it was Sue's idea which, in part, it was. It was set for you to become a whore, maybe by one of us knocking you up or driving you into it. All we wanted was results. Sue owned Nells but he couldn't convince as many girls as I could. Still, that isn't why she married me. Nells got drunk one night when I was tending bar and he said she was off having a baby that he'd given her and they were milking another man through blackmail. I threw a switch on her and blackmailed her into marriage, letting her know if she didn't marry me I'd bust up their fun. I-"
"Barney," she said in desperation. "How could you-"
"It was no strain. Hell, it was smooth. Nells and Sue were partners but they weren't in love with each other. They had Wallace in a jam when she got herself knocked up." He laughed. "Too bad you have to die, baby. I've gotten into some good women but you were one of the best."
"Please, I-"
"Sorry. You came here and you killed them. I came in, caught you and put a bullet into your gut. I didn't bring this about. They did. It was me or them. As her husband, inherit everything she has."
Lola knew he was serious about killing her. He might make a mistake and not get away with it but that wouldn't help her once she was in the grave. A violent shudder passed through her body. She had loved him freely, foolishly, and for this he'd kill her.
She suppressed a gasp as she saw the figure emerge silently behind him. Floyd. Floyd whose face was as deadly as the gun in Barney's hand. Floyd, ready to help her in spite of her stupidity and betrayal.
The blow was sudden and fierce, a kind of judo chop that must have numbed Barney's arm. Barney cursed, dropped the gun and spun around fast.
"Slob," Floyd said, coldly. "This is where you pile up with the garbage, fellow."
Barney was bigger than Floyd. She didn't know if Floyd could hammer the larger man into submission but she didn't wait to find out. She lunged for the gun. snatched it up from the floor and rammed it hard into Barney's back. He stiffened, knowing what it was.
"If it wasn't murder I'd kill you," she told him. Her voice was savage, filled with disgust and hate. "I'd give you exactly what you were going to give me. Only I'd empty the damned gun."
Floyd said something about having guts and slid past them to the phone. Barney's shoulders slumped as he heard Floyd talking to the police reporting a double murder. Then he replaced the phone and came over to take the gun from her.
"You followed us," she said, stating the obvious. "Why?"
"Well, Betty thought you might be going away with him and your luggage was still in the bar. You wouldn't go without that. It had to be something else." I see.
"And it wasn't only that. Barney deserved to get repaid for what he did to me in the rest room. I parked on the street behind him, lights out, but he followed you too fast for me to settle things. Then I heard you scream. I and, Barney, I heard what you told Lola. You'd better start thinking about the electric chair."
Barney worked his sore arm.
"Yeah," he agreed. "Yeah, I guess I should."
Together they waited for the police.
A couple of hours later the police dismissed them and she walked out to Floyd's car with him. There was only one thing they had missed that night. Other police had raided . As such, it would no longer exist.
He drove toward a remote area along the bay. He talked as he drove, saying that he didn't know what he was going to do for a living now but there was a construction job further north and they were hiring help. She assured him that it didn't make any difference to her about the kind of work he took.
It was dark where he parked the car. They were close to the water and she could hear the gentle lap of it against the shore.
"Level with me," he said, seriously. "What do you want me to do?"
She crept up against him and her left hand found the inside of his right thigh. Daringly, she moved her hand, arousing him. With a groan he twisted on the seat, facing her, his mouth an inch away from her wet lips.
