Rodney Park was a single block of greenery in the heart of the city, bordered by the North American Building, the Du Pont Building, the post office and the library. Narrow ribbons of grass were hemmed by rows of neatly trimmed hedge and rows of small evenly spaced trees. Paths of concrete crisscrossed the park and there were two rows of benches - a row that faced the center of the park, and a row that faced the outer edges of the rectangular park and the buildings beyond. The benches had always been a temporary haven for drifters in the city, the derelicts, alcoholics, homeless, jobless, pensioners, or old men with no destination. Occasionally the benches were a resting place for a secretary awaiting her bus, an elderly woman weary from a day's shopping, a young student with his textbooks, or a job-seeker pausing to rest between prospective employees.
Carl Pawelski sat on the bench at the northeast corner of the park, the bench that faced the corner bus stop with its stretch of yellow curb and thin metal sign. He was a short and plump man with slick black hair receding slightly, thick mats of hair along the backs of his hands and the tops of his fingers. His face was almost absolutely round with a bulbous nose and a wide mouth turned down at the corners. A clown's face. A sad clown's face. His arms were too long and his shoulders were too narrow. When he walked he resembled an ape but it had been a long time since anyone had laughed at Carl Pawelski. Most men were quick to notice the thickness of his arms and thickness of his wrists. His hands clutched together in fists, became solid masses of hard flesh and bone that could crack a man's jaw as easily as most men swatted a fly and, although he resembled an ape when he walked, he moved briskly, lightly on his feet as if he could spring in any direction instantly with the deadline's of a fighter in a ring.
The world had become a ring for Carl Pawelski - an arena with himself against the world. Life had severed him from the mainstream where men and women laughed and loved. He was on a cold island that followed him wherever he went and he had killed and raped and stolen and battered his hard fists against the mainstream.
It had been a long time since women had laughed at the sad clown face. Invariably, when women saw the cold black eyes, they knew this was not a man to be laughed at. Women could instinctively sense the element in the cold black eyes although it was an element they would rarely speak of and rarely sense fully - their senses ordinarily registered only a glimmer of warning, like a red light flashing briefly deep inside them.
The cold black eyes were those of a rapist - an animal, devoid of pity and any emotion except hate and reflexive fear. As he rested on the bench at the northeast corner of the park, his black eyes were alive - their gaze devouring the group of secretaries and typists who waited at the corner for the bus - tracing every nyloned curve of calf, every curve of buttock and richness of breast. The variety of colors of skirts and blouses, the variety of hair styles or the purses they carried were invisible to his mind, unseen - eyes and mind seeing only their soft bodies, imagination crystallizing only a tearing-thrusting through soft flesh, violent explosions.
Carl watched as the bus arrived and the women boarded one by one. There was one woman superior to the others - a haughty poise, an expensive dress, a sparkle of diamonds on her bracelet - a tall dark-haired woman with gray eyes and a sensual red mouth.
He watched as she stepped up into the bus - skirt sliding to expose areas of smooth thighs. His lips curled toward a smile of satisfaction. He knew he had the power to fuck that woman - or any woman in the city.
CHAPTER ONE
She dressed in her Bermuda shorts, her green sleeveless blouse and thong sandals. She put on lipstick and combed her hair then stood before the mirror to survey herself. The blouse was too thin. It showed the slight darkness of her nipples through the fabric and, reluctantly, she took off the blouse, opened the bureau drawer to get one of her bras ...
The doorbell rang. For a moment she straightened and stared at her reflection in the mirror - stared at her round naked breasts and then stared at her face. She counted the rings. The mailman only tapped the bell once, the newsboy had an erratic pattern, and Rosina always rang three times. It was none of those and she guessed it was a salesman. Let him wait. She wiggled into the bra, slipped into the blouse again, and buttoned it
as she went down the stairs. In the living room, she made sure her blouse was tucked in securely with no wrinkles anywhere, passed a hand over her hair, and glanced through the rectangular panes. It was a salesman. Clearly a salesman. She opened the door.
He held a portable television in one hand. She listened to him awhile and said, "I'm sorry, we have a TV."
"Do you have a portable TV?"
He was short and fat and balding. He was ugly too, she decided. "No, and, really, we have no need for one."
"Do you go to the beach? If you go to the beach ... you'll be interested in this set. It's ideal to take to the beach."
"When we go to the beach, we go there to go in the water." His insistence was annoying. He was disgustingly fat and there were droplets of sweat on his face. He wiped at the droplets on his cheeks with a soiled handkerchief. Some droplets of sweat trickled down his upper lip to the edge of his mouth and he caught them with the tip of his tongue in a disgusting manner she had never seen before. He was suddenly looking at her body and studying her hips and legs. His eyes focused on the area of her loins and, although she knew he couldn't see anything through the Bermuda shorts, she felt a sudden chill at the way he so frankly studied the area ...
She began to close the door. He raised the portable TV and, oddly, he turned it on as if to show her how it worked. She watched the flickering screen, still closing the door against him. With some salesmen, you had to be ...
* * *
The bedroom curtains fluttered in the faint breeze. She watched them awhile and thought she'd taken a nap ... The fat salesman was in the bedroom with her and she first saw his reflection in the mirror, then saw him from the corner of an eye as he moved toward the bed. She was on the bed, she realized dully, and she tried to scream.
He moved still closer to the bed and she saw he'd removed his pants and shorts. She stared at his cock, turned her head away, and again tried to scream. There was no sound, as if he had somehow paralyzed the muscles in her throat, and she realized at the same moment that he must have somehow knocked her unconscious and carried her up here to the bedroom ... She tried to move her arms. They were powerless.
"Afraid to look at my cock?" he whispered. "Ah, honey, come on, look at my cock." She felt the bed sag beneath his weight and his hands gripped her head, turning it. His cock was only inches from her face; she watched the hardening of flesh, the thickening of veins, the drops of oily liquid that squeezed through the slit in the purplish knob, and then closed her eyes. His fingers were painfully tight as they held her head.
Clark! Save me!
His fingers moved to her breasts ...
Clark, come home!
He squeezed her breasts and fondled them. Her mind raced to the questions: What happened to my blouse? What happened to my bra? And, immediately, the answer: He removed them.
His fingers were more and more painful. He squeezed her nipples for a while and cupped her breasts with his hands again, squeezing still more painfully. His fingernails bit into the softness of her breasts.
Clark!
She drifted away from the bed and it seemed she was somewhere else where she could think slowly and carefully. What time was it? Sometime after noon, so there was no hope at all of him coming home to save her. He did come home for lunch now and then but today it was too late for that.
The man's fingers left her breasts and slid down the length of her body. Both his hands were on her thighs but now he seemed more gentle. "Open your eyes," the man ordered.
She opened her eyes as if it were a command she could not disobey. The bed seemed to be at an odd angle and slowly she realized he had propped pillows beneath her shoulders. He had removed her Bermuda shorts and her panties. She felt his fingers as they caressed her ... one of the fingers pressing between the lips of her cunt and against her clitoris. She had opened her eyes but was not looking at him or what he was doing.
"Watch this," the man ordered.
Again she obeyed as if it were a command she could not disobey. As she watched, he spread her legs, crouched between them, and slowly lowered himself. She stared at his cock as it lowered closer and closer. She began to tremble. The man alternated between watching the expression on her face and looking at her cunt, but he was smiling, always smiling, thick lips peeled across yellowed teeth.
"Here we go," the man hissed softly.
She felt the first contact of his prick and she shuddered. He pressed the knob between her love-lips and then she felt him sliding the hard length of his prick into her cunt, slowly, inch by inch.
"Ahhhh!" The fat man sighed with satisfaction as she felt the roundness of his stomach against the trim flatness of her own. With a clarity of sensation she had never experienced so completely with her husband, she could feel every inch of the man's cock within her cunt, every pulsating inch of hard flesh, could feel its warmth and heavy-throbbing. She continued to obey his command to watch and observe as his penis withdrew until only the knob remained lodged between her vagina lips, partially hidden from view by the fluff of her dark pubic hair. The man remained for long moments poised above her with the knob pulsating heavily against her vagina lips as if he wished to tease himself. She felt her moist lips trembling against the hard head of his cock as if trembling with a mixture of fear and excitement. The man laughed and looked into her eyes.
"You got a good, tight little cunt," he said. "And now you're gonna be fucked harder than you ever been fucked before!"
She saw the thick cock lunge viciously down into her cunt, a crushing, tearing pressure. He groaned with pleasure as he fucked her with long powerful thrusts and she began to feel as if he would split her apart. Despite the aching pain and the fear and the horror, she felt her insides grow tingling warm and felt herself oozing come against the length of the thrusting cock moments before she felt the wet gush of his come.
He pulled away from her and sat on the side of the bed while he lit a cigar. She watched unbelievingly as he puffed on the cigar a few moments and then climbed above her, squatting with his limp cock between her breasts.
"Rub my cock against your tits," he ordered.
She saw her hand move to his soft cock, take it and rub it against her breast. Slowly - as she worked and wondered why she could not disobey - she felt, his cock hardening.
He moved until his cock pressed against her lips. "Suck it," he ordered. "Suck it real good."
She drew the knob into her mouth and began to suck, tasting the mixture of their come.
"Lick it while you've got it in your mouth."
She obeyed, flicking her tongue at the mass of hard flesh within her mouth and feeling it grow larger and harder by the moment. She felt the hard length begin to throb as the taut flesh grew warmer.
"Suck it harder! Suck it harder!" Obediently she began to suck harder and heard the faint slurping sound she was making as she worked. He jabbed a finger into her cunt and fondled her clit while she sucked and, suddenly, he shoved his cock into her mouth as far as he could, her mouth filling with the warm liquid of his come. "Swallow it!" the man hissed, jerking his hard prick back and forth between her lips as it continued to pour. "Gulp it down!"
The bedroom curtains drifted lazily in the slight breeze. She watched them for a while through half-closed eyes and realized she'd taken a nap. She tried to fall asleep again and heard the children playing in the yards nearby. She wished they'd be quiet so she could fall asleep again.
Then, slowly, in a trickle of horror, she became aware of the various sensations throughout her body. Her lips were aching as if someone had kissed her too roughly. Her breasts and nipples were tingling as if someone had squeezed them, tingling as they did sometimes after Clark was too rough. Her cunt was throbbing painfully ... She sat up in bed and stared at her naked body. There were traces of drying semen on her thighs, droplets caught in the maze of her pubic hair ... the room was filled with odor of semen.
She looked at her wrist watch. Two o'clock. She pressed a fingertip against her aching cunt. Someone had made love to her only a short time before. And yet ... it couldn't have been Clark. Clark would be at the office ... Someone had raped her! She slid from the bed, pressed both hands against her loins, and began to scream.
CHAPTER TWO
In the corner of The Hub, Clark Vaughn watched as the couple across the aisle left their booth. Now he was essentially alone with Elaine. There were still about a dozen other people in the place - a quick glance over his shoulder told him - but that dozen could see only Elaine and himself from the shoulders up. The couple across the aisle could have seen everything but they were gone and chances were there wouldn't be anyone else in that booth until much later.
He sipped his tea and continued their discussion. "Tobin will never go any further with the company. He's lucky he's gotten as far as he has. I worked with him for a while in the Richmond plant and I guess I know him better than anyone else here in the main office. He started with the company, working with tools."
"Working with tools?" Elaine asked. Her soft red lips curved in a teasing half-smile as she asked the question. He hesitated, studying her mouth. She had a way of asking a question that was all her own. She smiled when she asked a question - smiled in a way with those soft red lips that made you want to explain fully anything in the world.
"'Working with tools' is an expression I picked up in the plant. It means a man starting out as a mechanic, you know, working with his hands and tools."
"Oh."
"So he's never had a college education. I know he's a damned good mechanic, but he doesn't have any concept of paper work. He can't comprehend paperwork. He doesn't understand how to simplify paperwork."
"I'm in favor of anyone who simplifies work." She unsnapped her purse and he watched her slender red-tipped fingers as she searched for her cigarettes. He lit the cigarette for her and continued to watch her hands. They were the softest woman's hands he'd ever seen, much softer than Alma's ... much longer and softer ... He lit a cigarette for himself and pressed his knee against her knee. Kneesies, he thought. A harmless game of kneesies.
* * *
It began a few weeks after they transferred him from the plant to the main office. When he first moved into his office, he was dismayed to find his secretary was a thin, gray-haired woman who pecked at the typewriter as if she hated it, and spoke to him and all men as if she hated men more than the typewriter.
Clark saw Elaine before she became his secretary. She was the kind of woman you couldn't help noticing. Tall, slender, long lovely legs. A beautiful face and bright dark eyes that flashed sometimes as if with an inner heat. And a set of rings on her left hand that sparkled whenever the sunlight touched them. At the company's annual office party, with a few martinis beneath his belt, he had made careful advances. And was not only rewarded by Elaine's hasty retreat, but also lectured by Buddy Allen. "Stay away from her, Clark. Looks good, is good, I guess, but God knows, nobody in this whole company's ever got in her pants and every man under sixty has tried."
That was the end of it for a while. She was Bill Medkeff's secretary and had been Bill's secretary ever since she went to work for the company. Apparently Bill had never gotten anywhere with her because once, in Bill's office, both of them bent over a blueprint Bill had spread across his desk, they had watched Elaine come into the office to give Bill a telegram and they had watched the sensual flash of her nyloned legs as she left the office and closed the door behind her. He'd asked Bill, half-jokingly, half-seriously: "Ever get any of that?"
"Nope. And nobody else will either, pal. Nobody but her husband. She likes to tease and play but she'll never let anybody fuck her."
The "teasing" part had been easy to understand but the "play" part eluded him. He asked, "What kind of play are you talking about?" But Bill had completely ignored the question and began talking about the blueprints before them.
Months later, when Bill Medkeff found a better job with Westinghouse and had removed everything from his desk, Bill had gone from office to office with the good-byes. In Clark's office, he closed the door and said, "Clark, I have something to give you. Elaine Bettinger. All gift wrapped and waiting for the taking."
"I'll take her."
"That's just it, pal, you can't."
"I know I can't!" Clark suspected Bill of being half-drunk, moved closer and sniffed slightly to detect the odor of alcohol. There was no odor of alcohol. He said, extending his hand, "Bill, we're going to miss you around here. Lots of luck."
"Luck I don't need. Ability I need."
"You have ability. Plenty of it."
"Thanks."
"What is, is."
"You too, pal. Plenty of ability, plenty of everything. Don't forget the greener grass. Keep looking over the fence."
"Stop in sometime, Bill."
"Stop in, hell! Pal, once I'm out that door, I'm gone forever from this goddamned place." They grinned at each other and Clark thought it was the end of their conversation until Bill snapped his fingers. "Christ! I almost forgot. We were so busy with our Mutual Admiration Society meeting, I almost forgot to tell you how I've got Elaine all gift wrapped and waiting for you."
"Yeah?"
"I heard your Miss Frostbite of 1908 is retiring. They're going to leave my job open for a while to show how goddamned unimportant I was and how little work I did, so Elaine has to be somebody's secretary. She told me it's a toss-up of either replacing your Miss Frostbite or else going somewhere in Accounting. I gave you a big buildup. Told her what a hell of a nice guy you are, all that crap."
"Thanks."
"I made a slip once and said she's a tease and likes to play. I didn't want to go into all the details while I was still working here but, pal, we're going to be about a hundred miles apart from now on, so I don't mind telling you. She'll never give you a piece of ass. The stupid girl is in love with her husband, saves all her pussy for him, something like that. But ... she'll tease hell out of you if she's your secretary. Certain times of the month, she gets a ... well, it's a kind of hot gleam in her eyes. If you work it right, during those times, she'll - "
The door opened and a group of men and women came into the office. Clark watched as they herded Bill out of the office amid a babble of voices. They had a going-away gift for him and they'd interrupted Bill's story.
The next morning, he stopped at Elaine's desk. She was dressed in a gray suit and had her hair piled in an elaborate honeycomb style. She looked up when he entered the office and smiled. He wondered if she still remembered the pass he'd made at the office party. He said, "I saw Bill yesterday and he reminded me you'll be looking for a job now. With Miss Devon retiring, I'll be looking for a secretary and I want you to know I'll certainly appreciate it if you'll fill the vacancy."
"Thank you, Mr. Vaughn. I've been trying to make the choice. It seems the Accounting Department has a lot of possibilities for advancement." She'd decided to take the job with Accounting and now she had prepared him for the eventual news. Too late to change her decision?
He idly straightened the IN basket on her desk and moved the pen holder to a more central position. He mulled the things Bill had told him and said, "I need a good secretary. I guess I can only promise to give you the best possible pay ... and promise not to chase you around the desk."
She smiled, blushing slightly, lowering her eyes and he was not sure the latter part of his little speech was right or not until later in the day when Charlie in the Personnel Department called him on the phone and told him that Elaine Bettinger would be working for him. Then he knew he'd said the right thing.
The first few months she worked for him, he made no move at all. He contented himself to look at her, to smell her perfume, to listen to the softness of her voice. He remembered what Bill said about her being a tease.
That part was right. The most subtle kind of teasing.
Her desk was in the outer office, at an angle from his own desk so he could not see her whenever she was at her desk, typing. Whenever she brought papers into his office, she had a habit of rolling her chair a few inches, turning the swivel chair toward the open doorway of his office, then rising and walking into his office.
But after she moved her chair those few inches she was in line with the doorway and he could see her. She also had a habit of not looking toward his office; a habit of spreading her legs slightly before rising from the chair and - in that position - allowing him a view of her thighs, the tops of her nylons, and garter straps. She never turned in such a position that he could see the V of her loins - as if she had mastered the precise position that would allow him only a view as far as the soft uncovered flesh of her thighs an inch or two beneath her loins. And a way of seeming completely unaware of the view she was giving him.
He remembered what Bill said about a "hot gleam in her eyes at certain times of the month" and discovered it was true. There were certain times of the month when her eyes were brighter, her manner became more friendly, her whole body seemed more sensual. He occasionally invited her to lunch at The Hub. He learned to recognize the "certain times of the month" as Bill had phrased it - the times of the month when it seemed her blouse protruded more than usual as if her nipples were hardened beneath it - times when she seemed to actually breathe more quickly, her eyes seemingly warm with an inner fire - and it was usually during those certain times that he invited her to lunch.
During one of the lunches at The Hub, he experimented by pressing his knee against hers, withdrawing it as if it had been an accident, then pressing again. As he did so, she began talking about her husband - an idle conversation but the truth hit him with an impact as hard as if he had suddenly grasped Einstein's theory of relativity.
He began talking about his wife and about the barbecue they'd had for the neighbors. As he talked and painted a word-picture of a happily married man, he felt her knee press against his. She loved her husband; she was happily married, but she wanted to play. As Bill had partially explained. She didn't want a lover, or an affair. She wanted only the excitement of teasing and playing.
After one of the lunches at The Hub and a period of playing kneesies, returning to the row of elevators and seeing they were crowded, he suggested they walk up the few flights. In the seldom-used flight of stairs, he said, "At the barbecue I was telling you about ... We had drinks afterward and it turned into a mess. Some of the couples began fighting among themselves and one of the wives wanted to go to bed with me."
"She did?"
"I told her I was an old-fashioned married man and I'd never cheated on Alma. I tried to get rid of her tactfully. Actually, I don't see any harm in a little fun, but I don't believe in going all the way. Going all the way, getting somebody else's wife always ends the same way."
She paused at the next landing and leaned against the railing. "Can we rest awhile?"
"We can rest here an hour if you want."
It was almost completely silent in the stairwell. He leaned against the ceramic wall and could hear the faint metallic whirring of the elevator beyond the wall. He thought he would have to pursue the trend of the conversation or drop it altogether, but Elaine asked, "What do you mean by fun?"
"Harmless things. For instance, at a party, I don't see anything wrong in dancing with someone else's wife. Maybe holding her a bit closer than necessary. Maybe kissing someone else's wife. What's wrong with only kissing?"
"I agree with you, Clark. I - Well, I have to confess, I'm happily married to one of the most wonderful men in the world. I wouldn't want to do anything to ... jeopardize my marriage. It seems most men have only one thing on their minds. One goal when they're dealing with a woman. The ultimate. .But I ... "
"But you don't see any harm in a little fun."
"Oh, no."
He moved closer to kiss her, but she moved her head slowly away. "We can't do that," she whispered. "The lipstick ... "
She was afraid to let him kiss her. They were at a landing between floors, but there was a possibility someone could enter the stairway from either the upper or lower floor and accidentally reach them in a matter of seconds. Not enough time to remove all the traces of lipstick if he kissed her. He had placed his hands on her waist when he tried to kiss her, and she guided one of his hands down across her stomach to her loins. He felt the contours of her body through the layers of her clothing and she slowly moved her hands to his cock, probing at it through the layers of his clothing.
That was what Bill had meant by play!
But it progressed much further than that. In the privacy of his office with the door locked, she had no aversion to his kissing her. His playing with her went to the extent that she allowed him to slip his hand beneath her skirt and slip his fingers beneath the leg band of her panties to play with her cunt. For that type of play she often sat on the edge of his desk with her eyes closed until she shuddered with her climax. She had two firm rules that Clark knew she must have also enforced with Bill Medkeff: while he played with her with his right hand, his left hand was always to be on the desk beside her and she always kept her hand on his left hand to constantly know its whereabouts; while he played with her, his fly must always be zipped up and his penis safely encased beneath his pants and shorts. The rules were her precaution that he should not suddenly be overcome by desire while playing with her and unexpectedly slip his penis into her.
Once, while playing with her and she was very near her climax, he felt the soft moist warmness of her cunt tight around his probing finger, he did become overcome with desire to fuck her, snatching his left hand away from the desk ... unzipping his fly. But she slid from the desk and ran from the office before he could thrust into her. She had started to react the moment she felt his left hand leave the desk and although he'd used his right hand to grab her wrist, she had broken free, biting his hand with surprising fierceness.
She was always eager to play with his cock and to give him a climax but she had equally well-thought-out precautions against his suddenly being overcome with desire and taking her. The only way she would give him a climax was if he knelt on the floor with his pants down around his ankles. While he knelt, she crouched in front of him and, with his prick aimed at tissues spread on the floor, grasped his cock with both hands, playing with him until he spurted sperm onto the tissues. In such a position, with his pants tangled around his ankles, he was almost powerless, almost completely in her power because of his inability to move abruptly.
If anyone had ever told him that someday he'd be kneeling on the floor while his secretary gave him a "hand job," he would have said he was out of his mind. But the truth was that the situation had evolved slowly over a period of months and, while not as satisfying as fucking, there was a satisfaction almost as complete as fucking and one more unusual.
It was uniquely satisfying to kneel there before a woman as lovely as Elaine, to look at her long blonde hair and the crevice of her breasts visible above the neckline of her blouse, to look at her soft red lips, moist and parted slightly, as she breathed heavily, to look at the beauty of her nyloned legs as she knelt there and grasped his prick with her soft red-tipped fingers ... watching the blur of her red-tipped fingers as she worked on him ... watching the gleam of excitement in her eyes, the rapid rise and fall of her breasts ... and watching the widening of her eyes as he exploded onto the tissues ... hearing her soft sigh of satisfaction and pleasure.
From playing with each other, they progressed to the point where she allowed him to kiss her breasts and suck on her nipples. Thinking that if he could lick and suck her pussy he might be able to get her so excited she would want to fuck, he had licked and sucked her pussy several times. Each time, as he knelt on the floor before her, she had reached a climax, but he had never succeeded in getting her so excited that she wanted to be fucked.
She had, a few times, knelt before him and licked his cock. And kissed it, leaving red smears of her lipstick up and down the entire length. And sucked it on a few rare occasions - but only briefly, never keeping at it long enough for him to come.
He rationalized that she was not normal, but she was better than a considerable number of other women in the world who were not normal. Weren't there some women who liked to be beaten and whipped? Although he could never understand exactly why she didn't want to go so far as fucking, with all her peculiarities, Elaine was much more satisfying than some other types of not normal women.
* * *
"Clark?"
"Yes?"
"This is Rosina."
Rosina began to sob hysterically. He waited a few moments and tried to calm her. His words had no effect on her, and then a man was on the other end of the phone. He listened numbly as the man explained there had been some trouble at his house and he should return as soon as possible. When he asked what kind of trouble, the man said he would rather not say over the telephone. When he asked where Alma was, the man told him his wife had been taken to a hospital but was not in a critical condition.
Rosina was on the other end of the phone again, now more composed. He asked her which hospital Alma had been taken to and was told the Delaware Memorial Hospital. When he asked Rosina to tell him exactly what happened, he learned his wife had been raped.
CHAPTER THREE
At the hospital he was shunted from one place to another, from one nurse to another, until finally one of the nurses, after several phone calls, located a doctor who had treated his wife. He was asked to go to the waiting room on that particular floor and was told the doctor would stop there to discuss his wife's condition.
A tall, thin, bald-headed man was also in the waiting room, sitting with his legs crossed and glancing through the pages of a magazine with unseeing eyes. Clark sat for a moment, lit a cigarette, then rose and stood near the large glass panes that lined one of the room's walls. The corridors were temporarily empty and he studied the numbered doors, wondering if Alma was behind one of those doors. A small neon sign said MATERNITY and there was an arrow indicating the direction to be followed.
As he stood there, with the tasteless cigarette occasionally raised to his lips, two nurses came down the corridor. An intern casually pushed a stretcher on large silent wheels. At first, Clark thought it was a patient being carried to an operating room, but then he noticed the person on the stretcher had been completely covered with a white sheet. There was no indication that there was a person beneath the sheet except for the white featureless shape of a head and the long form of a body with twin white hills of feet. The nurses were both young and attractive; their breasts jutting sharp peaks against their starched uniforms.
"He has a high fidelity, all right," one of the nurses was saying in a low voice. "But, believe me, when he invites you to his apartment to hear it, he has another kind of high fidelity in mind." The nurses giggled softly and the intern smiled, not looking at them, staring instead at the length of the corridor before him. "I trust Lew," the other nurse said with mock emphasis. "I'll listen to his high fidelity if he wants me to. You can't talk me out of it."
The trio passed beyond his angle of vision. Their voices drifted to him from farther and farther down the corridor until there was a faint closing of a door and the voices vanished.
He stubbed his cigarette in the sandpit of the nearest ashtray and whirled nervously when he heard elevator doors opening. He hurried into the corridor, fully expecting it to be the doctor he was waiting to see, but instead there was another of the stretcher devices on those silent wheels - this one with a woman obviously pregnant and in labor. She moaned and clutched at the sides of the stretcher, while the nurse moved her steadily in the direction the neon MATERNITY arrow indicated.
He went to the window and stood with his hands clasped behind his back, staring down at the grounds surrounding the hospital and the blocks beyond, the rows of brick and concrete structures. Nothing to worry about, he told himself. Alma will be all right.
There was a church near the hospital and a cemetery between the church and the hospital. He stared down at the irregularly spaced and irregularly shaped stones and allowed his gaze to drift back to the city before him. He could see red and yellow neon, the message indistinguishable because of the distance but somehow reminiscent of a bar's neon sign.
It struck him then that the hospital was a central place - it had a dual function for the city. Men and women died in the hospital and men and women were born in the hospital. It was a central place, a place in which the people of the city were both removed from life and brought to life; in a sense, the most important heart of the city ...
"Mr. Vaughn?"
"Yes." His own voice sounded strange in his ears.
"I'm Doctor Walker."
"Yes? My wife?"
The doctor was tall and oddly young-old with a face that appeared young but heavily filled with wrinkles. His hair had been cropped to a semblance of a crew cut but spotted with gray hairs. "Your wife is doing well. She's under sedation right now."
"How badly was she hurt?"
"Not seriously. Did the police give you the full details?"
He frowned. "I heard she was ... "
"Assaulted? Yes. It appears she has been assaulted."
"What do you mean appears? Don't you know?"
"That's for the police to decide, Mr. Vaughn. It's not in our jurisdiction to make a decision, only to treat the patients who arrive here."
"Well ... has she been hurt? Has she been ...?"
"Other than the evidence of sexual attack, there are only some minor scratches on her body. No evidence of any severe blows or physical damage."
"Where is she? I want to see her."
"You can't right now. We're still in the process of the examination. I'll tell one of the nurses to let you know as soon as you can see her."
The doctor left and a few minutes later he remembered he'd forgotten to thank the doctor for the information. The tall, bald-headed man had also left the room. Pete and Rosina came. And Paul and Beatrice. They asked how Alma was and he relayed the information the doctor had given him. Rosina huddled in one of the chairs and began to sob softly. Beatrice knelt beside her chair and tried to soothe her.
He told Paul and Pete it was good of them to come, but there wasn't really any need for them to wait around. He'd be all right, he told them, they should go home.
"Nonsense," Paul said. "This is what neighbors are for."
He felt Paul's hand on his shoulder, clutching it. For a moment their concern about Alma and himself brought a wet sting to his eyes. Then, glancing around the room, he noticed Beatrice as she knelt beside Rosina's chair. She was wearing that damned green dress - the green dress she'd worn the night he'd fucked her - and from the way her eyes widened when she saw him staring at the dress, he knew the memory had flashed into her mind also. Paul's words echoed. This is what neighbors are for. And he fought the wild urge to laugh at Paul, Beatrice, himself, the hospital, the world.
CHAPTER FOUR
No one except himself would ever know exactly how Alma was. She was one of the most pure women in the world. He'd met her at a church bazaar. She had been behind one of the counters, the counter that sold stuffed animals and he'd bought a huge giraffe, lying about it and saying he'd give it to his niece as a Christmas present. He'd gone to the bazaar to find Becky. Becky had said she'd be there that night and for the past few months he'd been making it with Becky. His sole motive in going to the bazaar had been to meet Becky and then take her somewhere in his car and fuck her.
But one look at Alma and he forgot Becky. Alma was beautiful. It was more than a beauty of her body, there was a kind of beauty in her eyes and in her face he'd never seen before. She was like an angel who had been brought to earth and placed in the body of a girl. Talking with her that night, he learned where she lived and discovered her mother was also at the bazaar. Since they would have to take the bus home, he offered to drive both of them home. He began dating her and, while he was in college, he wrote to her. During the first summer vacation, he began dating her again, and they were married before the next semester. She worked to help pay his way through college and he rarely cheated on her. The only times he ever did cheat on her were those rare times when there was something irresistible, something that seemed to throw itself at him. He never went out looking for other women. With Alma as a wife, it was never necessary to look for excitement with other women and whenever he did slip and fuck another woman, his conscience nagged him.
* * *
They had an apartment near the campus. A third floor apartment in an old brick house of which the bottom corner apartment had been converted into a grocery store. In September, when it was still warm enough to leave the windows open, he would sit at the old-fashioned wooden desk and wait for her, struggling to keep his mind on the books before him, rarely succeeding, his mind always turning to her as she came homeward from the office on the other side of town. The fresh smells of vegetables and fruits drifted through the open window and often he would close the books and wait for her, feeling the excitement build in his blood. Alma, Alma ... Sitting there, he was able to visualize her as she left the office, smiling and saying good-night to all the other office workers. He could see her standing in the elevator ... visualize her skirt, her panties beneath her skirt, her cunt beneath her panties. Her cunt but his cunt too, since they were legally man and wife, she had been a virgin and no other man had ever touched it. His cunt - up there beneath her skirt and panties at the top of her beautiful legs - coming closer and closer toward him with every passing minute ... down the steps from the office building ... down Maple Avenue as Alma's high heels clicked sharply, rapidly.
Then there would be no need to visualize - she would come into the apartment, sometimes with a bundle of groceries or a package from a department store in one arm, and she always locked the door behind her, secondly depositing whatever she might be carrying, then coming to him, kissing him with that warm hungry mouth. They had been married only a few weeks and this was when the newness was still there - the discovery of each other's bodies, the discovery of each other's passion.
"Hello, darling."
"Hello." The verbal greeting - immediately after the kiss, while they held each other, while he stared into the depths of her clear gray eyes. She always called him darling but he could never bring himself to use any of those terms and - after the kiss and greeting as if they had been separated for centuries - they would both begin to undress, Alma with a shyness that never quite left her.
Sometimes he allowed her to undress herself completely, but often he would be naked before she finished and he would come to her while she still wore her nylons, garter belt, panties. She always shivered as he removed her panties and he eased her back onto the bed so her body, from her hips to her head, rested on the bed with her legs over the edge of the bed, her feet flat on the floor, shoving his prick into her soft warm hole while she was still wearing her nylons and garter belt, looking down at the beauty of her body stretched out before him gloating mentally as he began to fuck her. This is my cunt, this is my woman!
During the earlier days of their marriage, he had not been so abrupt. To overcome her incredible shyness, he had devised a game, whispering to her, "I brought something for you to play with, Alma."
"What is it?" her response as part of the game.
"Here."
And, obediently, with that ingrained shyness, she would look at his penis, her gray eyes widening slightly, her red lips parting with fresh excitement. "What do you call it?"
During the first few weeks of their marriage and the first few attempts at the game to ease her into their married sexual life, he had referred to it as his prong, cock, or dick. Those names had always seemed to shock her despite the fact they were married and he had eventually formed the habit of responding, "A new type of car."
"It doesn't look like a car."
"It is." He would insist, touching her breasts and holding both of them with his hands, squeezing them and gently digging his fingertips into the soft curves of flesh, occasionally kissing her while he felt her breasts ...
"It doesn't have any wheels." Her dark eyebrows arching, a faint, pretended frown crinkling the smoothness of her forehead.
"Yes it does. Feel them."
And that shy touch of her soft fingertips on his cock, the sensation itself more satisfying than a climax with Becky on the backseat of his car. Becky the tramp, Becky who a dozen other guys had fucked, Becky so eagerly removing her panties, so eagerly grasping his cock and pulling it into her body.
Alma's breath warm on his face, Alma shivering with her excitement, partially shy and partially burning with her desires - Alma doing all the things he wanted her to do because she wanted to be a good wife. He lowered her to the bed and, fighting the urge to thrust roughly into her, moved a hand between her thighs, exploring the tender moist flesh. "I see a garage where I can park the car."
"My garage?" Her eyes were closed now, her red lips parted over her perfect white teeth.
"Here comes the car."
She always repressed the gasp of pleasure or pain or a mixture of both - he was never quite sure. During the first weeks of their marriage, the game ended, at that point, in the wild union of their bodies, but after they had been married awhile, she continued the game. "The garage is too small."
"The car is in."
"But the garage is too small. You'd better take it out."
So he would withdraw until there was only a fraction of an inch union, remaining there, kissing her again until she began to squirm beneath him, and then thrusting into the soft tunnel of her womanhood again and again, faster and faster, harder and harder, until the end of the great wet explosion.
As they became more and more acquainted sexually, she lost more and more of her shyness although it never seemed to leave her completely. She was always eager to please him sexually and when he suggested that they do it "dog style," as he'd read about in a book, it was delightful to watch the shy way she poised herself on her hands and knees, asking, "Is this right, Clark?"
"Yeah ... that's okay, honey." And then guiding his shaft between the soft smoothness of her thighs, up and into the tightness of her pussy.
She was always willing to try any of the positions he said he'd read about ... her sitting in a chair with him kneeling before her ... her sitting on the bureau while he stood before her, trying any and all of the positions he wanted to try because of her willingness and eagerness to be a good wife in all ways.
Sometimes they took showers together and, going to the bed with their bodies still warm and fresh from the shower, he would press his tongue between her soft lovelips, licking the quivering bud of her clit until she moaned and writhed with pleasure. He coaxed her into sucking his cock, working up to it gradually by first getting her to kiss it, then to lick it, finally coaxing her into taking the head within her mouth and sucking on it.
"I'll do it if you want me to," she had told him. "But please, don't let it go off. I couldn't stand all that stuff in my mouth."
He had agreed and it had excited him tremendously to see his beautiful wife kneeling before him with her cheeks hollowed as she sucked on his cock. He knew she didn't like to do it - did it only to please him - and he kept his promise of never coming while she sucked him although it often took great effort, watching her perfect red lips circling his prick and feeling the wet soft warmness of her mouth. On those occasions, he had always held off to the last minute and then pulled from her, frantically shoving his throbbing cock in her cunt and often spurting on the first inward stroke.
During the last months of college, she reached the point where she spoke more freely during their relationships:
"I need a good fucking!"
"My lil' pussy is dripping with anticipation!"
"Ohhh, Clark, ram it in there! Fuck me!"
Or, grasping his cock and squeezing, smiling impishly, saying, "This is the biggest and hardest cock I've seen all day."
Her sense of humor, often subtle or offbeat, always pleased him and sometimes she would see if she could make him laugh at the most awkward times, such as while he fucked her, looking up at him with a curious and quizzical expression, half-raising herself on her elbows and glancing down at the meaty blur of his cock, asking, "Do you really love me or did you marry me just so you could fuck me?"
There were many other times, however, when she was far from a joking mood, times when the rhythm of his sliding prick made her gasp with excitement and caused her to murmur almost mindlessly, "I'm coming, I'm coming! Ohhh, I can feel it shooting in me! Keep on, Clark, keep on, fill up my cunt with your come!"
During those days, after their lovemaking, she always bathed and dressed. She prepared a meal and washed the dishes while he studied. After the dishes, she cleaned the apartment or carried a bundle of their clothes to the laundromat down the street. He graduated and was fifth in his class as far as his grades were concerned. As far as every other aspect of his college life, he was almost nothing. He had made few friends and he had spent almost no time in the college social events except the few he attended with Alma. She had become his whole life. He had his choice of the best job offers because of his high grades and soon after college they were able to afford the house they'd dreamed about.
By some quirk of fate, he'd married one of the best women in the world. She was pure without being frigid ... a perfect sexual partner without being a slut.
CHAPTER FIVE
"Alma?"
Her eyes fluttered but did not open completely. In a few moments she was asleep again. He moved the chair beside the bed and held her hand. Her hand was almost as white as the sheet, almost as white as the walls ... A nurse opened the door and then, as if she had entered the wrong room, quickly closed it again.
He decided he would only sit there and hold her hand and not try to awaken her again. If she awakened, he would talk to her but he would not deliberately awaken her only to talk to her.
Beatrice in that damned green dress ... He'd managed to almost forget it. Beatrice must have managed to almost forget it - or else she wouldn't have worn that same dress to the hospital. Everything had fallen exactly right for it, he told himself. He hadn't wanted to make love with Beatrice. Beatrice hadn't wanted to make love with him.
Everything had fallen exactly right, as it must have fallen exactly right for a million other men and women in the past, the circumstances precise, the intermingling of moods precise, healthy bodies hungry at the right moment.
Beatrice had called him on the phone. She said she'd been ironing and the fuses had blown. Would he replace the fuses ? She didn't know how to do it and didn't know if Paul had any spare fuses in the house. It seemed unbelievable that a woman over twenty-five didn't know how to replace a fuse, but he had gone down to the cellar and taken some of the extra fuses from the box there, dropping them in a pocket and casually crossing the two lawns between their houses. Later he was to wonder if any of the neighbors saw him going into her house ... or if any of the neighbors noticed how long he stayed.
Alma was visiting her mother. It had been a bad month and discontent had been building within him. Alma had been ill for two whole weeks. Their doctor said it was the flu, but it seemed much worse than the flu and she had spent most of the two weeks in bed. During that time, because of her illness, he had not attempted to make love with her. They made love once shortly after that illness, but it had been unsatisfying except in a purely physical sense because she acted as if she did not want him and did not enjoy it. The next day her menstrual period began. It was one of the worst she had ever had and made her so irritable that they were constantly erupting into bickerings and arguments which grew worse and worse until, at the end of her period - it seemed to last ten days - they were hardly speaking to each other. Sexual intercourse with her at that point was impossible because he would not literally beg for it. The days had passed and he had refused to show any desire for her, stubbornly waiting for her to make the first sign of her desire through one of her ways: a knowing touch, a sidelong glance, a sudden softness in her voice ... But the days had gone on and on and Alma, instead of showing any signs of wanting him again, had shown indications she might be able to forget sex altogether!
Then she went to visit her mother for the weekend. At that point they had made love only once during the past month.
* * *
When he reached Beatrice's house, she said, "I have a flashlight. I know where the fuse box is. At least I know that much! Show me how to do it and I won't have to bother you again."
"Unplug that iron before we change the fuses. If you were ironing, it's probably the iron that caused it."
"I unplugged the iron. I figured it must be that." She led the way to the cellar, walking beside him and shining the beam of the flashlight on the floor. Going down the cellar steps she went first and kept the light focused on the steps before his feet.
The cellar was littered with boxes of various neglected and useless items. Paul had talked about building a balcony on the second floor, and Clark now wondered why he didn't clean up the junk in the cellar and convert it into a recreation room instead of going to the much greater expense of building a balcony on the second floor level. He remembered Alma saying something about Beatrice and Paul having difficulties. It wasn't anything too serious, Alma had said. Nothing like Paul cheating ... But Paul had apparently been hitting the bottle heavily and it had upset Beatrice so much she had begun talking about a divorce.
As soon as he replaced the fuse, there was a flash of light from the bulb in the cellar ceiling. The fuse sputtered. Darkness again. He told Beatrice there must be a short somewhere in the house and since he had no desire to spend hours trying to find the short, he suggested she call an electrician. Passing through the cellar on their way to the stairs, Beatrice tripped and fell. The flashlight struck the concrete floor and the beam of light vanished. "Are you hurt?" he asked.
"I skinned my knee, darn it."
He lit a match and saw the flashlight on the floor nearby. When the match burned near his fingers, he blew it out and groped through the darkness until he found the flashlight. The glass shield and bulb had broken - he discovered the broken glass when he picked up the flashlight and cut one of his fingers. "The flashlight broke," he informed her.
"Jeepers. What next?" She had to lead him out of the cellar, up the stairs.
In the darkened living room, he said, "Try the lights in the other rooms. Some of them must be on a different circuit."
At the landing of the stairs to the second floor, she flicked the switch and the light at the head of the stairs came on. "That's better than nothing. Thanks for helping, Clark. I'm sorry I had to bother you. It should have been Paul's job but Paul is - Oh! You hurt your finger!"
"On the flashlight." There was more blood than there should have been from such a small cut. He was dripping blood onto the floor.
"I'll get a Band-Aid." She hurried up the stairs and - when she was halfway up the stairs - he could see her thighs dimly beneath the green skirt she wore. In a few moments she returned with a Band-Aid and carefully wrapped it around his finger, but he had stopped thinking about the cut - had stopped thinking about everything except Beatrice. She was using a kind of perfume Alma had never used and he inhaled deeply to try to identify it. As she finished applying the Band-Aid, he studied the visible portion of her breasts above the dress's neckline.
"There. Now ... maybe I could use a Band-Aid myself."
She stood at the bottom of the stairs and put her left foot on the third step, pulling her skirt back from her knee. He saw the bruised area on her knee but his gaze shifted to the expanse of soft thigh. His desire for her must have shown because she slowly turned toward him, pulling her skirt down and coming to him.
"Clark ... " It was a plea more than a beginning of a sentence and he was suddenly kissing her. As soon as their lips touched, he felt her hands on his shoulders and she pressed tightly against him. The soft contours of her body against his body were maddening and the bad month with Alma had temporarily deadened his love for Alma.
Afterwards, he realized Beatrice had been in an identical mood, deadened toward Paul by his drinking. But, at that moment, there was no thinking as they kissed, Beatrice standing on her toes with her arms around him; his arms around her so their two bodies were mashed together. Her large breasts were crushed against his chest but more than that, since she was standing on her toes, their loins were perfectly aligned and his cock beneath the confines of his clothes had hardened so much and struggled so hard to jut out straight, it had bulged his pants outward. He could feel, through his cock, the mound of her cunt through all the layers of clothing that he wore and she wore. She also could feel the hardness of his manhood through all their layers of clothing as she swayed on her toes, from side to side, back and forth, in a spiral motion, deliberately brushing her pussy against the hardness of his prick.
Once, as a boy, he had seen a piece of chocolate cake on the kitchen table. The next act he was conscious of was the act of eating the cake. With Beatrice it was like that. He was not conscious of any act between the act of standing there with their bodies pressed together and the act of fucking her. Suddenly they were on the floor and her green skirt was bunched high above her hips. He was thrusting into her and at the moment of pressing into her cunt, her legs flew to wrap themselves around his- heaving buttocks. He could not remember the removal of her panties, the removal of his own clothes; it was as if a portion had been cut from a length of film.
She moaned, "Ohhh, Clark, Clark! It feels so good!" She threshed her hips, and her cunt felt like a tight velvety hole filled with a warm liquid. He felt his come gathering for the burst and held back, wanting to keep on and on with the sensation of her tight wet cunt sliding up and down the length of his prick. Beatrice turned her head to one side, her eyes, half-closed, murmuring, "Fuck me, fuck me, fuck me." She shuddered with her climax, holding her entire body up from the floor, clinging to him with her arms and legs, her whole body trembling until the end of her climax when she eased her weight down to the floor and groaned, her head rolling to one side. He had stopped his own thrusting while she held herself up from the floor and as soon as she finished, he began to thrust into her again, more viciously than before, thrusting the knife of his cock into her again and again as brutally as he would have thrust a knife into the heart of an enemy in a combat for life or death.
When he finished, he rested above her on his hands and knees; sweat dropped from his body and he was afraid he'd hurt her, waited for some complaint but there was no remark about his roughness. She said, "Ohhh ... God ... that was wild ... wonderful!"
They kissed again and removed all their clothes. They went up to the bedroom and she took his cock in both her hands, looking down at it, squeezing it.
"Your cock is bigger than Paul's," she said. "Much bigger." She looked up at him, laughing. "Oooh! He'd kill me if he could hear me say that! But it's the truth, Clark. You have a bigger rock and you fuck better than he ever did!" Still holding onto his prick with one hand, she raised an arm and pulled his head down, kissing him with her warm lips grinding against his.
He slipped a finger into her cunt, gently stroking her clit and then sliding the finger into her vagina to feel the mixture of his come and her juices. He jerked his finger back and forth, feeling her vagina suck at it and hearing her breath quicken.
"Fuck me all night," she whispered. "We may never have a chance like this again." She jerked her hips as he continued fucking her with his finger. "We may never find another time when both Alma and Paul are away," she added.
She went to the bureau and removed a small mirror from one of the drawers. When she went to the bed, she placed the mirror on its wire stand to one side and, as he fucked her the second time, she watched his prick sliding in and out of her cunt and smiled as he spurted into her. "Keep moving," she pleaded. "I'm ... almost ... finished." He kept moving within her and she suddenly grasped his cock, grinding the knob against her clit, gasping with her climax as she continued to stare into the mirror.
CHAPTER SIX
There were no other cars in the recreation area's parking lot. Two girls were on one of the tennis courts. Far beyond the tennis courts, some boys were climbing the maze of monkey bars and a small girl was swinging on one of the swings. The recreation area was between the river and a row of houses. The houses were far enough away so that no one in them could see exactly what was happening at the recreation area. At the side of the tennis courts there was a low flat-topped cinder block building. From the direction of the parking area, the cinder block building appeared to be windowless and doorless, but he knew it must be either rest rooms or some sort of civic association building. The girls were young - somewhere between age of sixteen and eighteen, he guessed; but they were subtly different from most teen-age girls he had ever seen before - more browned, more muscular, more flush of color in their cheeks.
He lit a cigar and watched them. They wore pleated white skirts and white blouses. Their brown legs flashed in the sunlight as they ran across the concrete tennis courts and when one of them leaped high to strike the hurtling tennis ball, he glimpsed smooth thighs and a portion of pink panties taut over rounded buttocks. One girl was a blonde, taller and seemingly older than her dark-haired companion. The blonde's body was more ripe, breasts more obvious beneath the white blouse ...
He carried the TV to the side of the tennis court where they were playing and placed it on the ground by his feet. They continued playing and did not seem aware of him. When they finished the game and walked toward the low cinder block building, they only glanced in his direction. He smiled at them but they did not return the smile; did not notice his smile or chose to ignore it. He picked up the TV and walked rapidly until he was between them and the cinder block building, in a position where they had to walk around him and could not ignore him completely. They moved to walk around him and something in their expressions told him their parents had warned them about talking to strangers. "Great game, girls! Man, I wish I could play tennis like that!"
"Thank you," from the dark-haired girl, but both were rapidly moving away from him. He followed them to the building. The blonde pushed against the door marked WOMEN, swinging it partially inward and half-turning to see if her companion was following.
He had to work fast. Goddamned fast.
"How would you girls like a free TV? What do you say? Absolutely free. No gimmicks. It's an advertising stunt to get the public interested in this particular model. Absolutely free. And it works. See?" He caught their attention with the word free. Curious, the dark-haired girl turned to look at the TV. Now they were both watching him, the TV ...
He held it at chest-level, facing them, pushed the concealed button in the rear and watched their eyes. The dark-haired girl was the first to respond, then the blonde ... their eyes blank, suddenly unseeing. He moved closer, excitement hardening his loins and quickening his pulse. He had them under his command now. He could make them do anything. "You don't know what's happening, do you?" he asked softly. He watched their faces, threw away his cigar with a flick of his wrist. He decided to rephrase the question. "You'll do anything I want you to do, won't you?" There was no response from either of them. He added, "Nod your heads if you will."
Slowly, each of the girls nodded.
"You won't call for help, will you?"
They shook their heads. Studying their firm young bodies, he felt an increased hardening in his cock, a sudden tightness in his throat. He wished the car wasn't so far away ... it would be interesting to get both of them in the car and take them somewhere and slowly amuse himself with their bodies. But ... it would be too risky. Although he might get them in the car without any trouble, there would be the task of transporting them to a secluded place, through residential areas where someone who knew them might see them in his car and remember the car or the license number. Whatever he did with them, he would have to do it here ... now.
He moved closer to the blonde and slipped his hand beneath the pleated skirt, sliding his hand upward along the smooth firm flesh of her thighs until his fingertips touched her loins. He prodded at her slit through the thin panties and heard her breath quicken. Her gray eyes remained blank, focused on nothingness. He used his other hand to feel her breasts but although they were large and erect, there was no pleasure in that - through the layers of her blouse and bra, he could hardly feel the resilient flesh. He turned and looked at the distant row of houses again to reassure himself that no one could see what was happening here at the tennis courts. He was positive no one in those houses could see exactly what was happening but, he realized with a sudden alarm, it was possible for someone in the houses to see him standing there - although they might not be able to see exactly what he was doing, they could see, even at that distance, that there was a man standing there with the two girls.
He moved his hands away from the girl and toyed with the idea of making the girls move behind the building where they would be hidden from the row of houses. No. That wouldn't be good either. Then they would be in view of the children on the monkey bars and swings. "Go inside," he ordered.
The blonde turned slowly and raised her arm as if it had become leaden ... moving numbly into the rest room. The dark-haired girl followed and he hurried in after them. It will have to be fast, he told himself. As fast as possible, before another car comes ... He'd have to worry about a car more than anything else, he knew. Someone could walk to the recreation area; walk there from the row of houses or from another part of the park, but there were so many open fields around the recreation area - open fields on which there had been no one that he would easily be through before anyone on foot could reach him. A car could reach the area quickly ... too quickly ... could catch him off-guard ... He ran his tongue over his lips. They were standing there, waiting for further orders. He glanced around the room - wash basins, neat row of toilet stalls, frosted glass window ... Window. The window hadn't been visible from the parking area and, when he came nearer the tennis courts, while he talked to the girls, he hadn't noticed it. It would be perfect - although it didn't face the parking area, it faced the road that led to the parking area, and if he opened it, he'd be able to see an approaching car! He went to the window and against the frame but it wouldn't move. Somehow, the window had been nailed or fastened in place. He stepped backward and kicked it. The frosted glass shattered and fragments tinkled on the ground outside the building. He went to the shattered window, listened. The children on the monkey bars and swings were as noisy as ever - too far away to hear the shattering glass.
Now he could see the road approaching the parking area. "Stand by the window ... both of you ... side by side ... "
They moved woodenly. Like zombies, he thought. They're always like zombies, every goddamned one of them!
"Take off your panties," he ordered. He watched as they raised their skirts, their hands moving slowly in the process of removing their panties. He unbuckled his belt and lowered his pants, slid his shorts down from his hips, letting them fall around his ankles. Someday, he told himself, he'd overcome the way they always acted like zombies. There had to be a way to overcome it. One possibility would be to hypnotize a girl, or perhaps two girls such as these, get them in a car and take them somewhere ... somewhere where no one could hear their screams. Somewhere where he could break the hypnotic spell while he took them ... let them scream their fool heads off ... and then put them under hypnosis again, instructing them not to remember anything that had happened and returning them to wherever he had picked them up. That would have some life to it. This was like raping a damn zombie! They had removed their panties and stood with their arms at their sides.
"Hold up your skirts," he ordered.
The girls obeyed. When he saw their small soft cunts, he extended both hands, slipping his left forefinger into one cunt and his right forefinger into the other. Watching his fingers slide into the tender slits of flesh, he chuckled. A million men would have given a hell of a lot just to feel one girl such as the two he had before him. And he was able to feel both of them at once! His chuckling rising to a low harsh laughter as he slid his fingers back and forth in their tight cunts, he felt his cock straightening a fraction of an inch more until it jutted out straight before him, oozing and almost brushing the blonde's thighs. While he continued fucking them with his fingers, he leaned forward to press the head of his cock against the blonde's thighs.
He couldn't wait any longer. He stepped the short distance to the blonde and leaned against her, watching the thatch of her blonde pubic hair as he buried the tip of his throbbing prick into it and between the lips of her vagina. The soft lips tightly clasped the head of his cock and he grunted with pleasure - not only aware of the grip of her small cunt but also aware of the blonde hairs tickling the sides of his cock as he leaned forward. He pressed into her until they were completely joined, the grip of her cunt so achingly tight that it threatened to squeeze the come from his cock by its very grip. He began to rock back and forth. Beads of sweat appeared on the girl's forehead and he felt the faint trembling of nervous tension in her body. He knew his cock was hurting her although he could not imagine how much.
Her cunt was so goddamned tight it was causing a near-pain in his cock so it must be causing some pain in her cunt, stretching it so much, maybe something like an iron bar rammed inside her. She was good, one of the best he'd ever had, but not a virgin as he'd hoped. He fucked her a few strokes but stopped when he felt the come balling somewhere in his guts, about to shoot. He didn't want to fuck only the one! He wanted to keep his cock good and hard and fuck the other for a while. He would mentally compare the assets of both and the one who had the best cunt would be the one he would fuck all the way.
He pulled away from the blonde and sidestepped to the other girl. Before he pressed against her, he turned to look through the shattered window. There was no car in sight and he told himself he would have to be careful, remember to look through the window every few minutes, be careful not to become so absorbed in fucking them that he forgot his surroundings. He would probably be able to hear a car at about the same time it became visible. So, it would be good to be listening as well as watching.
The dark-haired girl moaned as he pressed the knob of his prick against her lovelips. He had to struggle to get the knob in, struggling much harder than he had with the blonde. She was a virgin, so much a virgin that sliding his cock into her was like sliding it into the grip of a soft but achingly tight and numbing fist. He continued to press until he felt the pressure of her stomach against his own. He had ripped through her cherry but his cock had been so numb from the tightness he had barely felt it. He looked into her eyes, laughed, then asked, "What's your name, honey?"
"Debbie Kessler."
"How old are you?"
"Sixteen."
"This the first time you ever had a cock stuck in you?"
He waited for the answer but there was none. He wondered if the hypnotic spell was not as strong as it should be, or if the hypnosis was somehow affecting her differently from all the others. Usually they obeyed every command and answered every question.
"Does it feel good, having a cock stuck in you?" As he asked the question, he raised a hand to her breasts and fondled them. He considered ordering her to take off her blouse so he could see her breasts and feel their naked flesh but decided that would be too dangerous. As it was, it would take him only split seconds to pull up his shorts and pants and rush out of the building if he saw a car coming. If a car came before he finished with them, before he had time to order them to put on their panties again, he could grab them and stuff them in his pockets, ordering the girls to resume their game of tennis as if nothing had happened. But if he ordered them to take off their blouses and bras, there wouldn't be time for them to get fully dressed again if someone should come to the area.
"No ... " the girl was finally answering. "It doesn't feel good ... It ... hurts!"
Studying the girl's face, he noticed her lips quivering as if she were about to cry. That would be unusual ... no one had ever cried under the hypnotic spell before.
"Aw ... Are you sure it hurts? Tell me it feels good."
"It ... feels ... good," the girl said mechanically.
"Say 'I like having your cock stuck in me.' "
"I ... like ... having ..."
"Say it fast," he ordered.
"I like having your cock stuck in me."
He laughed. Like parrots, he thought. The blonde was still standing there, holding her skirt up around her waist. He began to jerk his hips forward and backward, and the dark-haired girl began to moan. Her eyes were moist now and she seemed to topple backward a few inches until she was leaning against the cinder block wall. When he lunged against her, he crushed her against the wall as hard as he could. When he withdrew, the very tightness of the union seemed to pull her away from the wall. "Tell me you like to be fucked," he ordered as he slammed in and out of her.
"I like to be fucked."
Her response was better ... as if the hypnosis had worked but it had still been necessary to assert his authority. He felt his guts tighten, threaten to burst with his climax. He slid out of the dark-haired girl, stepped to one side, and shoved into the blonde.
With the blonde, he began to move faster and faster, pounding against her ruthlessly. Again, when he felt his ending close, he deliberately stopped to prolong it. "You've been fucked before, haven't you?" he asked.
The girl nodded slowly. The movement of her head sent sweat beads trickling down her forehead.
He leaned forward, kissing her, sending his tongue between the softness of her lips, into the warmth of her mouth. "How many boys have fucked you?" he asked.
"One."
"What's his name?"
"Herbert."
"Is my cock bigger than Herbert's?"
She nodded.
"Say 'Your cock is bigger than Herbert's.' "
"Your cock is bigger than Herbert's."
"Say 'You fuck better than Herbert.'"
"You fuck better than Herbert."
He smiled. And laughed inside. He delighted in making them say such things. He ordered, "Say 'Oooh, your big hard cock feels so good! Fuck me harder!' "
Her eyes were blank, unseeing. The beautiful mouth moved, the words came, "Oooh, your big hard cock feels so good! Fuck me harder!"
He watched her beautiful young face and her mouth as she spoke. Although the words were mechanical, it had a tremendous effect on him. He had withdrawn his cock to the very tip and now he lunged into her viciously. He lost all control and fucked her as hard as his thrusting hips could manage. His cock seemed on fire and he felt the gobs of come shooting into her. At the last spurts of his liquid, he leaned back and stared down at the slight mound of her pink stomach, wishing he had X-ray eyes and could see inside her cunt, see his hard cock spurting inside her.
He stepped back, sliding his limp prick from her, a few last drops of come oozing from the slit in the head and dripping to the floor. He stared at the blonde's cunt. The lips were still partway open, closing slowly as if numb and not able to close quickly and naturally. Twin rivers of his come trickled down her thighs.
He wanted to fuck them again but it would take something extra to get his prick hard again, something more than the desire. He told them to jerk on his cock and he watched their soft hands as they played with him. His cock hardened some, but they were too inexperienced and clumsy. He told them to get down on the floor and suck each other. They did it, but lay on their sides. He ordered the dark-haired girl to lay on the bottom with the blonde kneeling above her. They began sucking each other in that position and he watched the dark-haired girl suck the white mass of his come from the blonde's cunt. It excited him so much that he crouched behind the blonde and shoved his prick between the soft curves of her buttocks, into the tightness of her asshole. He fucked her in the ass a few moments and then roughly shoved the blonde's head away from the dark-haired girl's cunt, shoving his prick into it. The dark-haired girl kept sucking the blonde's cunt while he fucked, and he groaned as he shot another heavy load of come into the tight cunt beneath him.
He heard the car and jumped up, running to look through the window. It was a car at the top of the hill that bordered the recreation area. He began dressing and ordered, "play another game of tennis. You won't remember me and you won't remember what I did."
They moved toward the door. He followed, picking up the two panties and stuffing them in a pocket. He hurried out of the building and toward his car ... picking up the portable TV where he'd left it not far from the door.
The car was closer than he'd estimated it would be. Perhaps close enough for the occupants to notice he left the building from the door marked WOMEN? He fought the urge to turn and look at the car. From the corner of an eye, he could see the car had moved into a parking space some distance from his own car. He kept his head turned away and placed the TV on the back seat. He slid behind the steering wheel, closed the door, and forced himself to light a cigar.
Appear casual, he told himself. Appear casual. He puffed on the cigar for a few long seconds and then started the car. As he swung out of the parking area, he glanced at the tennis courts and saw the girls had resumed their tennis, exactly as they had been playing before, exactly as if nothing had happened.
* * *
This was the third time he'd caught two girls at once, he remembered. The first time had been in that park in Harrisburg. The girls had been about the same age as these two and at that time he had still been experimenting with the machine to see exactly what it could do. As part of the experiment, after he was sure the girls were hypnotized, he had ordered them to take off their clothes. When they obediently removed their clothes, he had then ordered them to suck each other. It had been excruciatingly exciting to watch their young naked bodies curled there on the grass, watch their mouths and tongues as they worked at the task. One of the girls, even in the depths of the hypnosis, had reached a climax, her body shuddering with a violence that jiggled her firm, apple-round breasts. She had sighed in the throes of her climax; he had suspected it was the first she'd ever experienced and he had been about to fuck one of the girls when he heard someone coming through the park toward them. Because of the danger of having to engage a third person in the hypnosis, he'd left the two girls and hurried away.
Later he had started to wonder - how many people could the machine hypnotize at once? Had he been foolish to worry about hypnotizing three people at once? Could the machine catch and hold three or four people at the same time?
Returning to the same park a few days later he had tried to find a group of three and had, instead, stumbled across a group of five. They were in a secluded area of the park by the river. There were no paths on the other side of the river due to the thick growth of brush there and bushes on a slight hill blocked the area from the nearby path on this side. He had left the path because he had heard the water and thought of sitting on a rock by the river, smoking a cigar before continuing his search.
It was the wrong kind of group. Four husky young boys and a single, miniskirted girl. From the expressions on their faces, they had been about to gang-bang the girl and, judging from the girl's expression, she had been eagerly awaiting the gang-banging. The girl sat near a tree and when he glanced in her direction, he caught the movement of her skirt as she pulled it down and brought her knees together. A boy sat next to her and he guessed the boy had been playing with her pussy. A few more minutes and the gang-banging would have started, each of the boys fucking her while the other three watched.
"What the hell do you want, fatty?" one of the boys asked.
"I ... " he faltered, not knowing exactly what to say. The boys were irritated because he'd interrupted them. They wanted to fuck the girl and they hated him because he was an unexpected intruder. "I sell TVs," he said lamely. "Want to buy a TV?"
"What are you ... some kind of nut? Selling TVs in a park! Go fuck yourself!"
One of the boys came toward him, hands balled in fists. If he had met any one of them alone, he would not have been afraid. He could have beaten any one of them to a pulp. Together they were too much and, like a pack of young wolves, brave in their combined strength. If all four of them jumped him at once, they could have torn him apart. Even while he thought about the odds, two more of the boys came toward him, hands in fists.
"It's the best damn portable TV in the world," he said rapidly, pushing the control button. "Runs on regular flashlight size D batteries, color, and picks up all the UHF channels. Look at the sharpness and detail."
They fell into it one by one. Although they had no doubt intended to jump him, they glanced at the screen as they came toward him. The boys stopped in their tracks. The girl was the last to look at the screen. She had been watching the boys and frowned in bewilderment when she saw them freeze in their tracks. Still frowning, she looked at the screen. The frown froze on her forehead as she saw the flashing hypnotic pattern. She had been about to raise one arm for some reason and the arm froze in midair, fingers of that hand slightly splayed. Her red lips were parted and saliva ran down the corner of her small chin. He knew then that the girl had been excited by the idea of the four boys attacking him. If they had been able to go through with it, she would have watched, drooling with excitement.
Under other circumstances, he would have fucked the girl and left it at that. But the boys had called him "fatty." They had said, "Go fuck yourself!" and he had to have some sort of revenge.
He ordered the four boys to take off their clothes. There was nothing about them to suggest they were homosexuals and the very fact that they had come together to gang-bang the girl indicated they were not. He ordered two of the boys to get down on the grass and suck each other, ordering the remaining two to fuck the first two in the ass. They had some trouble getting into the position, but they struggled into it and proceeded. He watched for a while. The boys were all muscular as if they were the kind who constantly took part in some sport such as baseball, football, or basketball. Their cocks were good-sized and sleek in their youth. Young cocks, he thought. Later on, their cocks will not be quite that sleek and the veins will show more.
He kept watching until he heard the girl whimper. He went to her and found her staring at the boys. The sight of the four hard pricks and two boys sucking each other while the other two fucked was causing a whimpering deep in her throat. Despite the hypnosis, the vision had gotten through to her mind. She had pulled up her skirt and was playing with herself in her excitement, although her eyes were glazed and he knew she would never remember.
He knelt beside her, lit a cigar, and listened. All he could hear were the boys groaning and grunting as they sucked and fucked. They were climaxing, spurting their come into mouths and assholes, but they kept right on since he had not told them to stop. He glanced at them only briefly and noticed two of their cocks go limp and then immediately harden again as they continued sucking and fucking. He wondered how many climaxes they would have in a row but the girl's flexing hands seen from the corner of an eye caught his attention and he turned to watch her.
She held her pussy lips apart while she tickled the pink bud of her clit with the tip of a finger. She had one of the largest clits he'd ever seen and it was standing straight up in the moist folds of pink flesh, quivering. She had two other fingers jammed in her hole as far as they could go, jerking them in and out with a fucking motion while the remainder of her fingers caressed the furry mound of her sex, fingertips running excitedly back and forth in the strands of hair. His eyes widened as he realized she was using all of her fingers in one way or another. She was an expert at playing with herself! He knew she must be some kind of nympho and he quickly removed his pants and shorts, shoving his throbbing cock into her cunt as he pulled her fingers away.
She was a slender girl with a narrow waist and overly wide hips. Her eyes rolled as he fucked her and her lips curled in a smile, despite the hypnosis. The whimpering turned to a warm and joyous moaning. He felt her cunt spasmodically clutching his sliding cock. She had one orgasm while he only began to fuck her and she trembled violently. He kept on fucking her as he felt her juices well up around the hard length of his prick, her hips jerked and she went "Uh-uh-uh" through parted lips as she came a second time, less violently. He shot into her and slid from her while her hips began still another rhythmic beat as if seeking a third climax. He dressed and found a smooth, dead tree branch about an inch and a half thick and about three feet long. Going back to the girl, he saw her still watching the boys. She had begun to play with herself again, although much slower now and not whimpering as she had before. He put the stick in her hands and said, "Here, honey. Sorry I don't have a dildo, but you can fuck yourself with this!" He watched a few moments as she began to fuck herself with the stick and then he left.
He reached an intersection and turned left - aimlessly. He had ceased to form plans and had fallen into a contented, aimless wandering. All the women in the world were out there waiting for him and he could fuck any of them ... any of the best!
CHAPTER SEVEN
"I was in the yard when I heard Alma scream," Rosina said. "I ran over here and then ... when I found she was upstairs ... I ran upstairs. I could see she'd been ... raped."
"Did you see anyone leave the house?"
"No."
"Did you notice any strangers in the neighborhood today?"
"No."
They had given him some tranquilizers and now, in his own home, nothing seemed real. Paul and Beatrice, Pete and Rosina, had been answering the lieutenant's questions. Sometimes he scribbled the answers in a small notebook, but most often he did not make notes. He remembered the lieutenant's name was Weinman.
"What time did you hear the scream?"
"One o'clock."
"You're positive of the time?"
Rosina nodded.
"How do you know it was one o'clock? Did you look at your watch when you heard the scream?"
"No ... But after I phoned for an ambulance and the police, I looked at my watch. It was five minutes after one. I didn't think about it then, but when the first policeman arrived and asked me when it happened, I remembered looking at my watch and seeing it was five minutes after one. I knew I must have phoned the ambulance and the police only four or five minutes after I heard the scream."
"Did you see Mrs. Vaughn earlier in the day?"
"No."
"Did you hear any other sounds during the day? Any other sounds that might have been sounds of a struggle? Think carefully. We've had cases where neighbors have heard strange sounds - being made while someone was being attacked - but they assumed the sounds came from a television or a radio or -"
"Wait. I did see Alma earlier in the day."
"What time was it?"
"I can't remember ... No ... I remember. I had just put some clothes in the washer. I came upstairs and I saw Alma going in her house. She was carrying a basket."
"A basket?"
"A clothes basket. Alma doesn't like to use a dryer. Except in the winter. In the summer, she hangs her clothes on the lines in the backyard. She says that makes them fresher. I guess it does but, personally, I don't have the patience to lug clothes up and down stairs and hang them outside on lines. It's easier to toss them in a dryer."
"What time did you see her with the basket?"
"I can't remember. I didn't look at my watch then. I didn't have any reason to."
The lieutenant turned to Beatrice. "Did you see Mrs. Vaughn any time during the day previous to the attack?"
"No."
"I remember," Rosina interrupted. "It must have been about a quarter of twelve. Because I watched the Lucy show from eleven to eleven-thirty. Then I went downstairs to put the clothes in the washer. By the time I came upstairs again and happened to look out a window and saw her, ten or fifteen minutes must have passed ... so it must have been about a quarter of twelve."
"You didn't notice anything unusual when you saw her going into the house?"
"No."
"So that means she was attacked between a quarter of twelve and one o'clock," Pete murmured thoughtfully. It was the first time he had spoken while the lieutenant had been there and everyone turned to look at him.
The lieutenant made a notation in his notebook. "That's all for now," he announced. "If any of you can add anything ... if you think of something else that might be a help, let me know."
Clark watched as his neighbors left. The policeman remained in the chair - motionless - but his gaze wandered slowly about the room as if seeking a clue that had previously eluded him. Clark felt some of the tension slide away from him. It wasn't the end of the world. Everything would be right again. Alma would soon be out of the hospital and home again. She would never forget the experience, and he would never forget the experience, but the horror of it would gradually diminish, the importance would gradually diminish, never vanish completely but dwindle down to comparative insignificance.
Helen Reardon had been raped, Clark recalled. By three men. Brutally beaten and left in a field to die. She had spent weeks in the hospital and there had been many months before she began to show any signs of emotional recovery. But, eventually, she had recovered almost completely. Both he and Alma had visited the Reardon's several months after the incident and it had been difficult to see any difference in Helen. She had laughed at jokes much the same way she had before, her appearance had hardly changed ...
The phone rang. The policeman answered, listened intently. When he hung up the phone there was a strange expression on his face and Clark listened with a new shock as the policeman explained Alma had ...
CHAPTER EIGHT
Alma rose slowly from the murkiness of the nightmare. She had gone through nightmares before but this was worse than any she had ever had before. This was pure horror, a running and falling with an unspeakable ugliness continually upon her. She rose slowly from the horror and the murkiness, with it slipping away from her, behind her, beneath her. At the last instant, she felt as if she had left a huge dark room echoing with screams.
The girl was pretty. White uniform. "Feel better now, Mrs. Vaughn?"
The girl stood there as if waiting for a reply but Alma could think of no reply. Where was she? What had happened? She closed her eyes and a mud of horror tugged at her ankles, a quicksand of horror grasping to pull her down into the huge dark room where her screams were still echoing - distant now but still heard faintly.
She opened her eyes again and found her hands were clutching the white sheets, her fingernails aching as they pressed against the mattress beneath the sheets. Her body was covered with sweat, her heart racing ...
The pretty girl in the white uniform smiled. "Everything's going to be all right, Mrs. Vaughn. I'll find the doctor ... "
* * *
She was alone in the room. Her body felt strange, as if someone had sapped it of strength. She closed her eyes again and the quicksand of horror was stronger. The world tilted and spun crazily until she was dizzy with the blur of images.
The fat salesman was looking at her naked body again, his thick lips peeled across yellowed teeth. Here we go, the words hissed. She felt him press his prick into her, heard his sigh of satisfaction, and watched as he fucked her faster and faster ... The fat salesman vanished. She stared at the walls of the room, her hands on the bed.
What happened to me? She could remember nothing. She closed her eyes and tried to remember exactly what had happened. The fat salesman returned in the darkness and, once more, she felt his hands on her breasts, felt the warmth of his breath against her face as she lay beneath him while he ... Up from the horror to the nothingness and amnesia of reality, down again to the horror of memory ... He stood in the doorway and held the TV before her. The screen was bright, spinning, sucking her to a bright whirlpool that ended on the bed with the voice: Ah, honey, come on, look at my cock, his hands gripping her head, turning it ...
She struggled without moving, screamed without voice. Up from horror, down to horror, endlessly through timelessness, struggling to remember the horror, to examine it in reality, and know what had happened to her; with it always escaping her, something always drawing the memory away from her so it could be grasped and known no longer than an instant, endlessly dwindling to oblivion.
Alma moved across the room and out of the room, down the hall. She felt his cock in her cunt, thrusting, throbbing, spitting. Even while she ran, she was somehow on the bed again with his weight crushing her and his hard flesh ripping and tearing her cunt. His voice echoed from the corridor walls and reached her ears in a whispery hundredfold as if hearing him speak a hundred times at once: You got a good, tight little cunt. And now you're gonna be fucked harder than you ever been fucked before! She covered her ears with her hands but the voice came through the solid flesh and bone of her hands. Suck it! Suck it real good! A voiceless pause in the nightmare but a pause filled with shifting sensations. His voice again, Suck it harder. Suck it harder! She felt the hard meaty mass of his cock in her mouth again and heard the faint slurping sounds as she sucked. He was shoving his cock into her mouth, hurting it, shouting, "Swallow it!" and she felt his warm come filling her mouth, sliding down her throat.
She was screaming now, the quicksand of horror always a step behind her no matter how fast she ran or how hard she screamed.
Men and women in white turned toward her, their faces pale and stretched as if they too saw the horror a step behind her. They moved toward her as if to seize her and hold her so the horror could step that one pace, reach her, engulf her, but they moved with the creeping slowness of snails on every side and she swept past them.
Doors with words, but the words were black against white, meaningless curvatures of black against white, and she placed every ounce of strength to flee the quicksand behind her. But it reached her and pulled her down to the horror. She was in the bedroom again, naked on the bed. The fat man was standing beside the bed and asking her where she kept all her money. She was telling him that there was some money in her purse and about the box on the top shelf in the closet. The box was out of sight and could only be reached by standing on a chair. She and Clark had thought of the hiding place and even while she told the man where the money was hidden, she wondered why she was telling him, as if she had been hypnotized and had to obey his every order ... The man was standing beside the bed, counting the money, more than five hundred dollars.
He was kneeling above her and laughing, shoving his penis into her mouth again. He said, "Give me another blow job, honey." She felt his cock swell as he slid it back and forth in her mouth, his thrusts becoming more and more vicious until her lips and tongue and the inside of her mouth were bruised and aching. The man grunted and she was strangling on his warm come ...
The quicksand of horror vanished and she was in the hallway again. She had run blindly and struck a wall. Running again to escape the quicksand, she passed through two rooms where more startled faces turned toward her and in the third room she saw the man in white, a young man who stared at her breasts because her white gown had parted and exposed her breasts, but the man stood before a metal box that hissed with steam ... Gleaming scalpels on a slotted platform, she had one of the scalpels in her hand, burning her hand, burning her throat ...
She fell toward the floor and saw it rush toward her but, at the same time did not see it and did not feel the floor. As she fell toward the floor she found the never-ending white glow as soft and peaceful as a cloud in heaven.
CHAPTER NINE
He opened his eyes and the world came into focus. He saw the shadows of the living room furniture and heard the rain. He realized he'd been sleeping. He stretched his arms above his head and his knuckles grazed the ceramic lamp on the end table. He listened to the subsiding sound and knew the lamp would not fall to the floor. It was an incident that had occurred frequently in the past - his height was such and the position of the lamp was such that when he lay on the sofa, stretched and accidentally struck the lamp, there was never enough force to send the lamp to the floor.
The rocking of ceramic against wood ceased. He listened to the faint sound of rain and heard the sound of a car's tires in a pool of street water. He strained for other sounds but there were none. He wondered where Alma was, thinking she might have fallen asleep in the bedroom, and immediately remembered she was dead. He had gone to the funeral and all their friends and relatives had been there ...
Clark yawned and stretched again, spreading his arms so he would not accidentally strike the lamp. His mouth tasted foul and he gradually recognized it as a stale taste of whisky, a deader staleness of too many cigarettes. What was it Hemingway said about cigarettes?" They leave your mouth tasting like the bottom of a bird cage. Exactly.
There was a numbness at the base of his skull but this wasn't a hangover. He'd slept it off. And felt fairly good, except for the hollowness in his stomach. He'd have to eat something, but first he'd have to urinate. He slid into a sitting position on the sofa. His clothes were damp in those areas where they had been against the sofa beneath his body. He ran a hand over his face and felt the stubble of beard, but gave priority to the items ahead as he had always done: One) urinate; Two) eat; and Three) shave.
He went slowly up to the bathroom and urinated. An instant later he felt the desire to have a woman - stronger than it had been in years; stronger than it had been since his bachelor days, and remembered he hadn't made love with a woman since Alma's death. How long ago had that been? A whole month. He went downstairs and turned on lights. He went to the door and glanced at the downpour, headlights of a car spotlighting the path of raindrops and glanced at the sky, then at his watch. It wasn't late. But the rain clouds had made the sky so dark it seemed as if night had arrived. He remembered that burst of desire to have a woman and decided to add another item to his agenda: Get a woman. The list was revised now: One) eat; Two) shave; and Three) get a woman. He moved into the kitchen, remembering how he had often been able to keep in his mind a continually shifting agenda of a dozen or more items. Now his life had dwindled down to basics. Three items. Previously there had been a need for a much larger agenda. Such items as remembering Alma's birthday, to buy a card, to buy a gift, to discuss a particular subject with her, to buy tickets for a play, shopping together for the household appliances and furnishings, visiting friends and relatives, the various items of household maintenance, and life.
Now it had all changed. No more Alma, no more anything associated with Alma. No more shopping, no more visiting, no more household maintenance. Down to basics. Body functions. There were only five main ones, he realized: Eat, Sleep, Piss, Shit, Fuck. All animals had to indulge in the first four. Most animals indulged in the fifth also.
Clark ate slowly and thumbed through the pile of mail scattered on the kitchen table, separating them into bills, junk advertisements, and an "other" pile. He threw the advertisements into the trash can by the sink and thumbed through the mail order catalogue in the "other" pile while he ate. He felt the metallic pressure in his pocket and removed the .22 nickle-plated automatic he'd bought, holding it in his right hand while he alternately used his left hand to eat with and to thumb through the catalogue pages. He paused to hold the gun at arm's length, familiarizing himself with the weight and feel of it. He realized there would always be a top priority to any agenda he might form in his mind from now on - find the man and kill him. It was of such a top priority that he would never assign it a number. Its importance precluded the assigning of a number. It was why he hadn't killed himself after Alma's death and why he hadn't joined her. It was the only thing he had left to live for - then he could kill himself because then life would be totally devoid of reason.
Thumbing through the pages of the catalogue once more, he saw a model in lacy pink panties and a matching lacy pink bra. There were other models on the two pages spread before him but his eyes focused on that one particular model, the shape of her breasts, the softness of her smooth thighs, the bare smile of her red lips. The desire for a woman came again, much stronger than before, a painful hardening of his cock and a shortness of breath. For a moment there were pinpoints of light dancing before his eyes, a darkness somewhere in his skull that threatened to engulf him but gradually receded. He laughed.
In the middle of a conversation about women and sex, Sam Raisner had once said jokingly to someone, "You better get a piece of ass. You got to watch out for that stuff or it'll back up on you." Perhaps there was some truth in it, although some doctors claimed there were no harmful effects from sexual abstinence. Perhaps those particular doctors were either undersexed or crazy. Since puberty he had never been forced to go very long without a woman. He had never gone more than a month in his whole life without a woman. With the maturing of his body, the growing of the sexual drive, he had married Alma and Alma had sufficiently administered to his sexual needs - three or four times every week, except for the period when she had been ill for two weeks and he had not touched her. Near the end of those two weeks, he remembered suddenly, he had experienced that same shortness of breath and pinpoints of light, sensation of approaching darkness. Perhaps he was more sexed than the average man; perhaps not, but the need for a woman was now clearly defined. He would fulfill it not because he wanted a woman but because it would be another bodily function to be taken care of the way he had urinated not long ago and the way he was now eating. He had to take care of his body and keep it healthy, alert. He had to take care of his body and all its needs until he found the man who had killed Alma ...
The front door chimes broke the silence.
Wally Stephenson. He wore a raincoat but it was unbuttoned. "How's that for timing? I get out of my car and it stops raining. Just like that." The smile faded. "How are you, Clark? How have things been going?"
"Fine. Come in." The sky had lightened some; the rain clouds as a mass were scurrying on the horizon he could glimpse above neighboring rooftops.
"We need you at the office, Clark. That's why I've come to see you - to make sure you'll be back with us Monday morning. We've saved a pile of work for you ... Oh, nothing monumental or back breaking, but some new and interesting projects." He sat on the sofa without bothering to remove his raincoat. He obviously didn't intend to stay long.
Clark stood before the sofa and stared at a point in the air above Stephenson's head. He fumbled in his pockets until he found a pack of cigarettes and placed one in the corner of his mouth. He groped in his pants pockets for his lighter and felt the .22 in his right pocket. He found a pack of matches and lit the cigarette. The matches had a bright orange cover, a cocktail glass tilted at an angle with bubbles in the glass's contents. Keenan's Cafe, curlicue script said beneath the glass. His mind turned sluggishly. He couldn't recall having been in Keenan's Cafe, but he could recall a heavy drinking period the past three or four days - a blur of memories of bars and nameless faces ... To hell with it. He slipped his hand in his pocket and touched the comforting metallic surface of the gun. What he'd done the past few days wasn't important. Nothing was important except finding the man ... and he'd have to phone Sid Weinman, arrange for a private talk with him ...
" ... I assumed you'd be back Monday," Stephenson was saying, "but they wanted me to check and make sure you hadn't forgotten."
"Hadn't forgotten what?"
Stephenson frowned. "Your leave of absence expires then."
"I ... won't be back Monday. I want my leave of absence extended."
Stephenson rose from the sofa. The raincoat rustled as he moved across the room. "It's your decision, Clark, but we need you."
"I appreciate that. If my absence is too much of an inconvenience, replace me. I'll understand your doing so is because of necessity." He was still staring at that spot in the air above the sofa although Stephenson had moved from the sofa. He felt Stephenson's hand on his shoulder but did not look in that direction.
"Come to work Monday, Clark. Your job is waiting. We've kept it open for you and, as I said, we've lined up some interesting projects. Everyone misses you ... they're all anxious for you to come back. I want you to come back. I need you. God Almighty. You know how you made those model plants? And Maclary got so damned fond of them? Because you weren't there, I had to make up one for Maclary myself. The new hydrofluoric plant in Richmond. Guess what? I left out one of the acid mix tanks and left out stairways from the third floor to the fourth floor. I think Maclary spotted it soon as I gave him the model, but he saved it until a meeting when Ozzie and everybody else from New York were standing around looking at it and then he said, 'Oh, Wally, by the way, how are the operators going to get from the third floor to the fourth floor? Fly?' He made me look like an ass in front of all the brass from New York. If you'd been there ... "
"I'm sorry, Wally. I can't come back Monday. I wouldn't be able to work."
The hand was withdrawn from his shoulder. The two men moved out onto the front steps.
"I'll tell Maclary. I can't extend your leave of absence - only Maclary can do that. Want me to set up an appointment for you to talk to him?"
"All right."
"Monday morning, eleven o'clock?" He chuckled. "Drag it out an hour and maybe he'll invite you to lunch."
"All right."
A pat on the shoulder and then Wally was moving rapidly down the steps across the flagstone toward his car. He opened the door and waved, that peculiar half-salute gesture he sometimes used. "Take it easy, Clark. Stop by the office and see me sometime Monday."
"All right." He stuffed his hands in his pockets and watched the car as it moved down the driveway and onto the street. The tires were audible on the film of street water ... the car turned the corner ...
* * *
There were no obtrusive sounds in the city. No kids were out playing on the damp grass. Lights in most of the houses. Now the neighborhood had settled down to its nightly TV, gradual relaxation leading to its oblivion of sleep. Tomorrow morning the kids would return with their raucousness. The world was turning slowly beneath him and as he stood there - looking at the shadows of houses, the city, the world - he felt acutely aware of the city and the world stretching away from his sole position. Somewhere out there in the city there was a woman he would fuck. He didn't know her - probably - but they would become well acquainted tonight when he stuck his cock in her. He had a whole month's sexual energy in store for her. And ... somewhere in the city - or perhaps beyond the city - there was a man he would kill. He didn't know that man either but someday they would become well acquainted. The .22 would kill him. Not the first slug, perhaps not the first few but the total of ten striking in a tight circle of the man's heart or stomach would kill him!
He threw his cigarette out on the lawn and watched the fiery arc. He inhaled deeply and the fresh damp air was soothing. Stephenson hadn't mentioned Alma ... And Stephenson had changed. Admitting the model plant blunder was entirely new. He'd never heard Stephenson admit any mistake before. Stephenson seemed more humble, as if a month had worn off some of his rough edges. Or - Stephenson had stood by Alma's grave also. Perhaps Alma's death had changed Stephenson.
"Clark?" Beatrice was standing on the lawn near the steps, looking up at him. She had moved silently across the lawn from her house.
He looked down at her but could think of nothing to say. There were important things to be done. One, shave. Two, phone Sid Weinman. Three, get a woman ...
"Want to see our balcony, Clark? Paul finished it today."
He turned to face her and his lips parted to say No, but then he remembered the time he'd fucked her. Everything had fallen exactly right then. That one instance they had been alone long enough to make it. Since then they had never been alone. Since then Alma had always been with him or else Paul had always been with her. He glanced at the driveway of the adjoining house and saw Paul's station wagon was gone. That meant she was alone in the house ...
She could be the woman.
CHAPTER TEN
"I'm taking care of Bobby and Judy," Beatrice explained. "You know Pete and Rosina won a week's vacation in Florida. They didn't want to go ... said what would a week in Florida be with two kids ... said they might as well go to Ocean City, New Jersey. I said it was foolish- not to take it since it was free and I volunteered to take care of the kids. My big mouth again." She shrugged her shoulders. They were moving across her front porch and she gestured with a finger across her lips. "Don't talk too loud. Rosina says they wake up if a mouse trips. And I always thought kids slept like logs!"
They moved silently through the house and up the flight of stairs. He noticed that each room only had one light on with the result that the house was semi-illuminated. He remembered that Paul and Beatrice had planned the balcony as long ago as last summer; he remembered the sketch Paul had drawn on a piece of paper on their picnic table.
"Here it is. Our pride and joy." Beatrice turned on a light.
He glanced at the aluminum plastic-webbed chairs, the small round table, the potted plants, the chaise lounge, the awnings that stretched above the screened windows. "Paul did a hell of a good job," he muttered.
"The breeze up here is wonderful. Feel it?"
He could feel the breeze against his face and chest. He lit a cigarette and turned toward Beatrice. She was wearing a tan linen dress that hugged the curves of her body. He looked at her long curving legs and remembered how it had been ...
She turned off the light. "We don't really need the light," she explained. "And, with the light, up this high, you feel as if you're on a stage! Have a seat, Clark. Paul went out to get some ice cream. We wanted to ask you over to see the balcony but we saw you had company, so Paul said to ask you to come over if your company left while he was getting the ice cream. He's so darn proud of this balcony ... you might think he'd designed a whole plant or something the way you do on your job."
Clark walked across the balcony and looked down at the lawn and rows of shrubs, the white picket fence that divided Paul's property from their neighbor's. Desire swelled in his loins. He turned away from the screened window and saw Beatrice in the faint glow of moonlight on the balcony. She was sitting in one of the plastic-webbed chairs, her legs crossed. He stared at the soft and curving flesh of her legs and the desire in his cock was undeniable.
She gasped when he pulled her up from the chair and crushed her body against his. He ended the gasp by pressing his mouth tightly against hers. He felt the roundness of her breasts flattened against his chest and he kept one arm around her shoulders to hold the upper portion of her body against him while he moved his other arm down - cupping her buttocks with a hand and pulling the lower portion of her body against him until he felt the pressure of her stomach and thighs and loins against his own body. She twisted an arm behind her in a futile attempt to remove the hand from her buttocks - and managed to twist her mouth away from his.
"No. Clark! No!" She had thought she was safe from anything such as this - safe because Paul would return soon; safe because Rosina's children were in the house and, in a sense, they were not alone. Paul didn't have the slightest idea he'd attempt anything such as this - or else he wouldn't have suggested Beatrice invite Clark over while he was away ...
"I need you, Beatrice. I want you, I need you so much, I -"
"No, no, no! Please, Clark ... " She began crying. His cock ached with the growing desire for her.
He thought, We made love before. Why not now? There will be time before Paul returns. But he knew it would be best not to use words, best to simply force himself upon her and, once he had taken her, there would be no turning back, she couldn't tell Paul. She had kept the secret of their previous lovemaking. Now she would have another lovemaking to keep secret.
In her attempt to escape him, she retreated against the brick wall of the house that served as the interior wall of the balcony. He held her there with the pressure of his body and slid his hands up beneath her skirt. He grasped the waistband of her panties and began pulling them down. She stopped fighting. One of her arms' dangled helplessly and she held the small fist of a hand against her open mouth as if to suffocate her sobbing.
As he pulled her panties down the length of her thighs, his knuckles brushed the furry patch of her cunt and with a new urgency to his lust, he unzippered his fly and drew his cock free of his clothing. He raised the front of her skirt to her waist and held it there while he stepped forward, the moonlight clearly showing the triangular target ... The tip of his manhood touched the triangular target. He slid the tip through the hair to crush into the soft warm crevice of her cunt ... It wasn't working. He managed to get the head of his cock between her labia and the moist velvety flesh felt maddeningly good but he could not get into her vagina. She was standing wrong, or he was standing wrong - it was hard to tell.
He slid his glands back and forth between her cunt lips and heard himself moaning softly. God. A whole month without a woman. He had not really thought about fucking until today but now, with his cock brushing against Beatrice's soft cunt, he felt as if he had a mountain of come in his balls and it would burst like a landslide at the slightest touch.
Something else was wrong. Beatrice was crying, shifting her position as she tried to keep him from shoving into her while he still kept her pinned to the wall. His prick skidded away from her cunt and between the round columns of her soft thighs. He jerked his cock back and forth, crazily enjoying even the slight pressure of her thighs on each side of his achingly hard shaft. A kind of madness gripped him and he placed his hands on her waist, jerking his cock between her two curved thighs, thinking with a pure madness that he would fuck her thighs that way and spurt his come against the wall behind her.
"Paul's coming back!"
He heard the slam of the car door. Paul's footsteps on the driveway. Soft whistling. But Clark's hips and his prick were independent of his mind. A month's gathered lust had severed all the strings. He kept on fucking her soft thighs until she frantically shoved against his chest. He stumbled backward and felt, in that moment of separation, his cock spurting a long steady stream of come into the darkness.
His breathing was ragged and he could hear Beatrice sobbing. He turned and shoved his manhood in his pants, zipping up the fly, only partly aware that a cloud must have passed before the moon because the whole balcony had suddenly turned black. He groped through the darkness until he felt a chair, dropped into it. He heard the scrape of another chair as Beatrice settled into it ... heard Beatrice's sobbing gradually subside and die.
"Beatrice?" Paul's voice calling from the first floor. "Beatrice?" The muffled sound of his footsteps on the carpeted stairs.
"Hi, Clark. Did Beatrice give you the grand tour? How do you like it?" A wind thousands of feet in the sky had moved the cloud away from the moon. The faint moonlight had returned to the balcony.
"Great job of engineering." His voice was too husky. He tried to correct it as he added, "You've qualified as an engineer for the firm."
"Chocolate and vanilla, Beatrice. That's all they had. I put it in the freezer."
Clark felt his heartbeat slow and he reached for the pack of cigarettes in his shirt pocket. Beads of sweat were trickling down his cheeks, itching the stubble of beard. The balcony was a dimly lighted stage and he watched the actors as they moved through their roles. The actor named Paul sat in one of the chairs and lit his pipe, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. The actress named Beatrice remained in her chair, but her shoulders suddenly hunched and she began to make a strange soft sound.
The actor named Paul had been talking. Meaningless words concerning the meaningless balcony. But he stopped when the soft sounds became a harsh sobbing ... "Beatrice? What's wrong, honey?"
"Ooooo."
"Beatrice? Are you sick?"
Clark watched as Paul rushed to turn on the light and knelt before his wife. He kept talking to her and stopped abruptly, grasping her chin with a hand and turning her face toward the light. Tears glided down the smoothness of her cheeks but the light also showed the smear of lipstick from her lips ... Beatrice's hands were twisting a small handkerchief in her lap. Paul looked down at her hands and, with an animal grunt, pulled her hands away from her lap, staring.
Clark felt a chill at the base of his spine. A cloud had passed before the moon. The balcony had grown dark. In the darkness, he had blindly and uncontrollably spurted his come. At that same moment, Beatrice had shoved him away. Her skirt must have fallen down at the precise instant of his spurting. She held in her lap, on the tan linen dress, a large pool of his come. She had been trying to soak it up into the small handkerchief - working futilely, the handkerchief was filled with the white substance.
"What the hell's been going on here?" Paul screamed.
"Ooooo."
"Beatrice!" Paul grasped her shoulders and shook her.
"It was all my fault," Clark heard himself say.
"I'll break your goddamned neck!"
Clark tensed as Paul came toward him. He eased his right hand in his pocket and touched the gun.
"No! We didn't do anything! We -" Beatrice hurried between them and clung to her husband. Her words were drowned in sobs for a while but she struggled to overcome the sobbing and only fragments of her sentences were understandable. "All mixed up - only kissed me - tried to - but he couldn't - I fought - must believe me."
Paul held his wife while she sobbed against his chest. "Clark, get out of this house before I kill you."
CHAPTER ELEVEN
He found Elaine Bettinger in the Accounting Department. It was strange to see her at a different desk. There were two other girls in the office. He didn't know them and they didn't know him. They only glanced at him and then returned to their work.
There was a small span of silence before Elaine turned and saw him. That span seemed frozen as if the world were deliberately standing still for him so he. could study her ... The soft red lips that always curved in a teasing half-smile whenever she asked a question ... The slender red-tipped hands, softer than any other woman's hands - much softer than Alma's ... The tall, slender length of her body ... The long lovely legs so beautifully encased in nylon ... The dark eyes that had occasionally flashed with that inner heat ...
He remembered those moments in the stairwell with her and the times in his office when they had locked the door and played with each other ... The details of the times she had perched on the edge of his desk were indelibly stamped into his memory and the smallest details would be as sharp in His mind fifty years from now as they had been a moment after the happening ...
Elaine sitting there with her skirt up around her hips, her nyloned legs parted. His hand between the creamy smooth thighs and one of his fingers beneath the elastic band of her panties, that finger in her cunt. That finger encircled by warmness and softness and moistness, that finger gripped by her vagina. Sliding the finger back and forth, it had been lubricated by the sweet oily substance of her joy and the sliding had become easier and easier although her vagina had gripped his finger tighter and tighter. He had felt the rhythmic pulsings against and around his finger and it had been a strange but remarkable experience to stand there and watch her beautiful body quiver with her pleasure. Her body fully clothed in the sense that she still wore her skirt and blouse, panties and bra, garter belt and nylons and high-heel shoes; but naked in the sense that her womanhood was exposed to his touch and his gaze.
It had been equally strange and remarkable those times he had knelt before her and she had gripped his cock with her soft hands - squeezing and jerking on it while she waited for the flow of male fluid. Equally unforgettable to have seen her there, kneeling before him - beautiful and desirable - wanting more than anything else in the world to sink his rod into her but forcing himself to accept her substitute for sexual intercourse.
During those first weeks and months when she was his secretary, he had told her he wanted her completely and had tried to make arrangements so they could meet after working hours, but she had never agreed to going further than the "playing." As Bill Medkeff had explained, she didn't want a lover or an affair, she wanted only the excitement of teasing and playing. She was something special. Elaine Bettinger was not like the millions of women who would take another man - she was balanced somewhere in-between, a woman on a delicious fence by having the excitement of other men feeling her and wanting her, and yet still having the clear conscience of being loyal to her husband.
She was like Bonnie McCreary, he realized. Little Bonnie McCreary who'd dated boys and allowed them to play with her pussy at the drive-in theaters while she played with them - Little Bonnie McCreary who'd always said no until one night she'd fallen off the fence - either because one of the boys had not been able to resist the temptation to forcibly shove his prick into her, or because she had eventually been overcome by her own curiosity or desire. In any event, Bonnie McCreary had fallen off the fence that Elaine was on. Little Bonnie had started screwing as avidly as she had played ...
Although he couldn't understand the reason for Elaine's fence riding - her seeming illogic of being willing to take a man's penis in her hand but not to receive it in her vagina - he had long ago reconciled himself to her peculiarities. Her peculiarities were not as drastic as the ones of the Go-Go girl in that bar, and in the tick of a microsecond, the memories flashed through his mind how Ed and he had spent half the night drinking and watching the Go-Go girl's gyrations on the stage. Finally the girl had headed toward one of the back rooms and Ed had whispered, "Come on, buddy. You'll have to see this!" It had seemed that half the people in the bar were crowding into the rear room and there, with the company of a dozen other men and two or three women, he had watched one of the most amazing spectacles he'd ever seen: the young Go-Go girl crouched on her hands and knees; a man beneath her thrust his cock up into her cunt, while another knelt before her and shoved his erect cock into her mouth, and a third man behind her thrust his cock into her anus. At first, watching the lustful rhythms of the men as all three of them mounted toward a completion, he had thought the girl had somehow been forced into this group sexual act but then, seeing the gleam in her eyes and seeing the shudderings of her soft flesh when she reached a climax as the three men almost simultaneously reached a climax, he'd realized with a shock that the girl enjoyed the group act and would have probably enjoyed it less without the audience!
"Clark!"
"Hello, Elaine."
"How long have you been standing there?"
He shrugged his shoulders.
"You should have said something!"
"You were busy."
She rolled her chair away from her desk, turned the chair toward him. Her knees were slightly apart and he remembered the trick she'd had of teasing him by giving him a view of her thighs. Now he could see only her nyloned knees but he was still getting a hard-on, his cock straining his shorts, dribbling.
She rose from the chair, came closer. "Is this your first day back at work?"
"No."
"When are you coming back?"
"I don't know. I talked with Maclary about it. I wanted to extend my leave of absence but he didn't want to extend it. He gave me a free lunch instead." He pretended to burp.
She was standing very close now. He could smell her perfume and look down into the depths of her eyes. He studied the mounds of her tits beneath her blouse and wanted to touch them. He glanced down at the width of her hips, the middle valley that was only hinted at by the tightness of her skirt, and he wanted to slide his fingers into her juicy cunt, feel the tender bud of clit ...
She frowned. "I don't understand ... If Mr. Maclary won't extend your leave of absence ... and you say you're not coming back to work?"
"I'm taking my four weeks' vacation," he explained. "I offered it as a solution and Maclary accepted. After my vacation, we'll talk about it again and make a decision."
She folded her arms beneath her breasts. It was as if she had completely forgotten their intimacy when she'd been his secretary; as if he'd never touched her ...
"Don't you think it would be better if you came back to work again?"
"I couldn't work. I won't be able to work until that man is caught."
"Oh."
She was frowning again. She shifted her stance, moving her long legs more apart.
"Have time for a cup of coffee?"
"Oh. I'm sorry, Clark. I have a gigantic report to type. It has to be done before -"
"Some other day?"
"Yes. Yes. Some other day, Clark."
He took a backward step.
"It was nice seeing you again, Clark."
"Nice seeing you again, Elaine. Don't work too hard."
"When you come back -" She hesitated, bit her lower lip, and glanced nervously at the two other girls in the office. "When you come back, will you ask for me to be your secretary again?"
"I sure will."
She smiled. "Good-bye, Clark."
"See you later."
* * *
He went through Rodney Park on his way to his car. He thought, Bitch! "Will you ask for me to be your secretary again?" Bitch! If he asked for her to be his secretary again, it would be the same as it had been before. Her letting him play with her. Her playing with him. Nothing more than that. Never anything more than that. She'd always carry that excitement home to her husband and expend it on her bed with him. A good, loyal wife ... Bitch!
Standing there before her in that office and looking at her beautiful body with all the erotic memories, his cock had gotten harder and harder, and he had wanted to fuck her more than anything else in the world. It had been impossible. It would always be impossible ...
He stuffed his hands in his pockets and felt the .22, which reminded Clark that he wanted to talk with the policeman named Weinman and see if he could help in the case.
When he reached his car and was about to place the key in the lock, he paused. It burst upon him. That nagging weight of guilt - that nagging urge to help capture and to kill the rapist. The truth he'd never faced fully - the truth he'd always managed to keep shoved aside until now. It was his fault Alma had died. Because he had sometimes gone home to have lunch with her. That particular day he had not gone home to have lunch with her - not been there with her to protect her ... Not been there with her because he had been with Elaine!
CHAPTER TWELVE
In a booth at Keenan's Cafe, after they both had the first drink and waiting for the second, Clark began, "I want you to keep me informed about the case. I want to know everything as it happens, all the steps you take to find the man who raped my wife."
Weinman's dark eyes narrowed for an instant. "All right. I understand how you feel. I'll keep you informed."
"I'm going to sell my house, Mr. Weinman. The equity that I have in the house plus some cash I have will amount to more than twenty-four thousand dollars. If you locate the man who raped my wife during the next month, I'll give you the entire twenty-four thousand. If it's the month after that, I'll give you twenty-two thousand. The month after that, twenty thousand. The month after-"
"I get it. An incentive to locate him as soon as possible. A two thousand dollar decrease for each month's delay."
"That's right, Mr. Weinman."
"Sid."
"Are you interested, Sid?"
"You're goddamned right I'm interested. If it took me a year to find the man, I'd still like the two thousand bonus. But ... I don't follow you. Why offer me money? I'm assigned to the case. I have to work on it The taxpayers are paying my salary."
"I want you to work on it harder than you've ever worked on any case in your life." Their second drinks arrived. Clark lifted his and sipped it. It was tasteless as everything had been tasteless since Alma died. He watched as Sid rubbed the palm of a hand across his face and shook his head slowly.
"Mr. Vaughn, you don't have to pay me a cent extra."
"I want to."
"No, what I'm saying is it'd be a waste of your money."
"You mean you won't take the money?"
He was surprised when the policeman laughed. "No. I'm not saying I won't take it. I'll take any money that's handed to me if it's a legitimate gift with no strings attached or if it's money I've earned. What I'm saying is you can't pay me to work harder on the case than I would ordinarily."
"I don't believe that."
Sid Weinman shrugged. "I said I'll take your money. I'm just telling you it isn't necessary to pay me extra."
"You don't want ... ?"
"Oh, hell, yes, I want money. Listen, I'm trying to be honest with you. I understand how you feel about your wife's death. I think I understand how much you want him captured and prosecuted. Look ... maybe I can explain it this way ... I do my best on every case."
"I find that hard to believe."
"Believe it or don't believe it, I'm telling you the truth. Look ... I'll give you an example. Last winter we had a screwy missing persons case where a boy said his girl friend was missing. He thought she'd been kidnapped or murdered. Digging into the case I found out she was a good-looking girl, and I mean really good-looking, the kind of sharp blonde who gives you a hard-on just looking at her. I figured she ... well, she'd been shacking up with the boy and they'd run out of money, so I figured she'd started working on one of the call girl circuits or in a whore house and was just keeping out of sight.
"In other words, I figured she'd skipped on the boy. It seemed obvious. That boy didn't have a penny, but I worked as hard on that case as I worked on the case where - the Farley girl. You must've read about the Farley girl in the papers. Her father had a hell of a lot more money than you do and before he began thinking she was dead, when he thought she was kidnapped and being held somewhere, he came to me - because I'd been assigned to the case - and started talking about paying me to work on the case in my spare time in addition to my regular time. I shut him up quick. I didn't want his money. I worked on both those cases equally hard. For the boy who didn't have a penny and for Farley who would've offered me thousands if I hadn't shut him up before he got around to specific amounts."
"All right ... I'll make the offer differently. The same amounts ... if you let me talk to the man before he's sent to prison."
Sid Weinman finished his drink. He lit a cigarette and said slowly, "If I find a suspect and I'm even personally positive he's guilty of raping your wife, I couldn't leave you alone with him, I couldn't let you 'talk' with him and blow his brains out when you're finished talking with him ... I couldn't do it. You can't take the law into your own hands. Maybe it sounds corny, but it's right. The question of guilt has to be decided by a jury. The matter of punishment has to be decided by an authorized judge."
"I didn't say I wanted to kill him."
"I think you've implied it."
Clark finished his drink and wondered how he could twist the policeman to his way of thinking. He said, "Are you afraid of the consequences if you accept the money?"
"I always consider the consequences. I've had chances of making some extra money in this town. Keeping my nose so clean has cost me a lot of promotions. I could give you some examples of good policemen who've been thrown off the force for various trumped up reasons because they wouldn't play ball. Think about it. If you have a town with a majority of sticky-fingered politicians playing footsie with a syndicate making more money each year than I.B.M. does ... and a group of good cops who do their job but still aren't adverse to some extra cash for only looking in the right direction ... Toss in a party like that an honest cop, the kind you see on television or in the movies, a cop that can't be bought ... Can you imagine the mess? He causes trouble every time he turns around ... trouble for the other cops, trouble for the politicians, trouble for the syndicate. So ... I always consider the consequences. I never take any money. They know I'm that way. It's taken me a hell of a long time to show them how I am. So ... I get assigned all the safe cases. Missing persons. The guy who goes berserk and kills his wife. The punk who robs the liquor store. The rape cases and the muggings. They never assign me to the big larceny cases, the illegal alcohol cases or prostitution cases or certain murder cases. If I took your money or someone else's money, I'd be giving them a hold on me. Sooner or later they'd find out and sooner or later they'd be buying me one way or another. I don't want money. I can't single-handedly reform this town. I just want to be a cop."
Clark tried to digest what the other man had said. He had never thought of the syndicate very often in the past and it had always seemed a myth perpetuated by some individuals for reasons he could never fathom. "I can't work," Clark said. "It'll be impossible for me to work until the man is caught. I won't be able to think about anything else until he's caught. I've been on a leave of absence. I wanted to extend my leave of absence but the company where I work balked on it, so I'm taking my accumulated weeks of vacation. I want to do more than just sit around and wait for the man to be captured. Is there any way I can help with the investigation ... any way ... anything?"
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
"Clark? Can I talk to you?"
He had been cutting the grass, the electric mower humming softly. He had noticed a car moving down the street but had paid no attention to it.
It was Beatrice. He turned off the mower, walked slowly to the sidewalk. She had parked directly in front of his house and when he neared the car, he saw the bags of groceries on the rear seat. He stopped when he reached the center of the sidewalk, remaining several feet from her car. "We shouldn't talk to each other. Someone might tell Paul. Any of the neighbors might tell Paul and he'll think I was trying to make you again."
"Clark, I ..."
"Did you tell him we had already made love?"
"Clark ... "
"I was stupid. We didn't have the time. Sorry about that. But we might have gotten away with it if you hadn't -"
"Clark, I couldn't help it. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."
"I'm sorry too. But all's well that ends well, isn't it?"
"Clark ... I don't know what to say. I'm so sorry ... I wish there was some way I could -"
"Some way you could make amends. I'll tell you how. Paul's working now, isn't he? So ... come on, let me fuck you and that'll make amends."
Her face reddened. "I wanted to explain ... When you came to the house that night ... after I called you about the fuses ... I didn't plan for it to happen, Clark. And I know you didn't plan it. It seemed to be something ... "
"It was something, all right!"
She closed her eyes, breathed deeply. He wondered if he could make her angry. He wasn't having much luck so far. She continued, "It seemed to be something that neither of us could stop. A lot of things all working together as if fate wanted us to be together ... just that one time. I wanted to tell you that night, Clark, afterwards ... " Her voice had lowered almost to a whisper. "It was something that shouldn't have happened. It shouldn't have happened but it did."
He stepped closer to her car. "I want it to happen again, Beatrice."
"No. Don't you see? It was different then. I knew you were having trouble with Alma. She told me about it. And I knew Alma was away for the weekend. I knew you must be lonely. I was lonely because Paul had -" She stopped as he reached the side of her car, leaned down, their faces inches apart.
"It can happen again, Beatrice. It can be as good as that first time. I know it can."
Her face twisted suddenly. Tears spilled from her eyes but she made no sound of crying. "It can't happen again. Don't you understand? Alma is dead!"
He had leaned against the car. He felt it moving beneath his hands and stepped backward. He watched as the car moved the short distance to the neighboring driveway, turned into it, and parked beside the house. Beatrice hurried into the house.
He went to the mower. He turned it on and listened to the electric hum, then turned it off. He went into the house to the bottle and somewhere near the last drops of whiskey he found what he wanted: Nothing. A Nothing that obliterated the knowledge Beatrice must have planned the blown fuse incident that first brought them together - she must have wanted him and planned the way to get him despite her denial. A nothing that obliterated the knowledge she no longer wanted him as a lover - because Alma was dead - because there was something in her that kept her from wanting a dead woman's man. A nothing that obliterated the knowledge he still wanted Beatrice ...
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
"What's wrong, honey?"
Sid Weinman turned toward the shadowy form of his wife. "Nothing."
"It's something. You've been tossing and turning all night. And keeping me awake." She turned on the light above the bed without warning.
He blinked rapidly. "I'll sleep on the couch," he offered.
"You will not. We'll sit here and smoke a cigarette and talk about what's bothering you. We'll either sit here all night talking about it or we'll figure out whatever it is that's bothering you. Get the cigarettes."
He went to the bureau and returned with the pack of cigarettes, matches, ashtray. She folded his pillow and placed it against the headboard so he could sit there comfortably. After he lit their cigarettes, she said, "What is it?"
"The Vaughn case."
"You haven't found the man yet?"
"No. And there's a lot of things about the case that are hard to understand."
"But you've had cases harder than the Vaughn case."
"I know." He inhaled deeply on the cigarette. "It's more than the case. It's Vaughn himself."
"You told me he wanted to pay you for working on the case, but you didn't tell me what answer you gave him. What did you tell him?"
"I didn't tell him anything. I'm stalling him.' I told him I'd think about it and let him know tomorrow."
"That's what's bothering you. You can't decide what to tell him."
"I guess it is what's bothering me. What in hell can I tell him? I don't want his money."
"Take his money. Don't be silly."
He knew she was joking. "He wants to help on the case. I've been thinking ... it might be a good thing to let him help."
"You always said you hate amateur detectives."
"I never said I hate them. I said they get in the way. But ... with Vaughn ... it might be a good thing to let him work on the case somehow. He's quit his job. Not exactly quit, but he claims he can't work ... won't be able to work until the rapist is caught. I think he has a guilt complex about his wife's death."
"Why should he? There's nothing he could have done."
"It's what he didn't do. I started asking questions at the office where he works ... You know, to find out if some jerk at the office knew his wife and wanted her so bad he raped her. There was nothing like that but one of the secretaries there thinks Vaughn and his secretary are having an affair. This particular secretary noticed that now and then Vaughn and his secretary would walk up the stairs from the coffee shop to the floor where his office is instead of riding the elevator. She claims it often takes Vaughn and his secretary fifteen minutes to walk up the three flights of stairs."
She whistled softly. "Hanky-panky on a stairway! We never tried that, honey."
"It doesn't make sense. I went up and down those stairways just for the hell of it. People use those stairways now and then. There's no way to lock the doors at the various levels. I don't think Vaughn is crazy enough to lay his secretary where somebody could see him."
She flicked her cigarette over the ashtray on her stomach. "You men always think of only the ultimate. There are other things besides laying."
"Such as what?"
"Such as holding hands and whispering sweet nothings. We women like to hear sweet nothings now and then."
He pulled the sheet aside and unbuttoned his pajamas. "I got your sweet nothing right here!"
"Beast!" She slapped his face lightly.
He crushed his cigarette in the ashtray. "But ... I think they were having an affair. Sometimes he went home for lunch. Sometimes he didn't. I think ... the day his wife was raped ... he was probably whispering sweet nothings to his secretary instead of going home for lunch. If he had gone home for lunch, his wife probably wouldn't have been attacked. The thing that bothers me is that it seems to be bothering hell out of him. I saw him the same day his wife was attacked ... and a few days later. He was upset then but now there's something new. He looks as if he's cracking up ... maybe he'll go berserk."
"So ... helping on the case might help ease his conscience. It might keep him from going berserk. What's his secretary like?"
"Beautiful."
"Did you walk up and down the stairs with her?"
He ignored her. "There's something else weird about the case. The detective who questioned Mrs. Vaughn at the hospital said she didn't remember being attacked ... only remembered waking up on the bed and knowing she'd been attacked. She couldn't give a description of the man ... claimed she never saw him."
She finished her cigarette and returned the ashtray to the bureau. She slipped out of her negligee and leaned against the bureau with her hands on her hips. "Vaughn will feel better if you let him help on the case. At least you can let him follow you around as you question suspects and all that. So ... let him go with you now and then. He'll be company for you too. He'll feel better if you take some of his money. So ... take some of it. Let him give you a couple thousand dollars for the privilege of bothering you by being with you when you question suspects. Tell him to make the check payable to the Trenton City Youth Center. It'll help pay for that bowling alley you were talking about and you won't be personally taking his money. Any more questions, Fearless Fosdick?"
"Why are you standing there with your naked tits swinging in the breeze?"
She knelt on the edge of the bed and walked across the bed on her knees until she straddled him. She grasped his cock with both hands and held it aimed directly at her womanhood as she lowered herself. She clenched her teeth with the intense joy as she completed the task of impaling herself upon her husband and began to slowly raise and lower herself, aware of the still greater swelling and hardening of his cock, gliding into the rhythm. "Any more questions?" she asked huskily.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
From his position at the bar, he could see the top of his car through the window that faced the street. It was early in the evening and there were only a few men and women at the bar. A gray-haired man and young blonde were dancing on the small dance floor off to one side while the jukebox blared. He sipped the beer and glanced at the car every few minutes. The TV was in the trunk. So no one would see it and try to get it. But, still, there was always the chance some punk might steal his car. They'd never know how much the TV was worth. If anybody ever stole his car and found the TV in the trunk, they'd probably sell it for a few bucks. Hell, that TV was worth millions!
He thought about the two girls at the tennis courts, remembered the pleated white skirts and the feel of their cunts. It had been good ... but not as good as he wanted. None of them were ever as good as he wanted. All of them, once they were hypnotized, were like zombies, it was always something like fucking lifeless slabs of meat.
One of the best times had been the time he caught the two young girls on that road in Maryland. It had been a back road, long and straight with fiat fields on either side. He had seen the two girls walking beside the road and stopped the car, holding up the TV. He had not said a word to them, it had not been necessary; they looked at the TV automatically and he had pushed the control button. As soon as he saw they were hypnotized, he ordered them into the car.
He had intended to rape one or both but soon found they were so young, he was actually afraid to rape them - partly because they were both virgins and there might have been a lot of blood splattered inside his car ... and partly because, although they were pretty little girls, their cunts were so goddamned small that it would have been painful and perhaps physically impossible to jam his penis into them.
So ... he had contented himself with playing with them. He ordered one of them to sit on either side of him and then he had unzipped his fly, his cock springing upward. Even in the depths of the hypnosis, the two young girls had acted startled, as if they had never seen a man's cock before, as if an exotic animal had burst into their presence. He had ordered them first to kiss and lick his prick; trained them to simultaneously start licking his prick down at the hairy base and then keep pace with each other as they licked toward the knob. He trained them to - when they both reached the knob - take turns drawing it into their mouths. It had been one of the greatest kicks in the world just to sit there and watch them work so industriously - watch the flicking of the moist pink tongues, the bobbing of the young heads.
He had removed their panties and played with their cunts while they worked on his cock. Jabbing his finger into them, he had been able to get both of them excited, but had not been able to bring either one to orgasm. They had not licked his cock hard enough, so he had experimented and told them that his cock was a large chocolate bar. He had used the hypnosis numerous times to order someone to do things even against their will, but he had never planted a "false suggestion" as he had seen professional hypnotists do so often on stages. He found that it worked perfectly, they began licking his cock harder and harder, murmuring, "Ummmm," smiling and covering his throbbing cock with a layer of their spittle.
From the licking, he progressed to teaching them how to simultaneously suck on his cock - not the glands but the length of it; one of them on each side fastening her mouth on that side as close to the base as she could get - both keeping pace sucking their way up to the top. During this process, his cock had grown throbbingly close to an explosion and he had ordered one of them to stick the tip in her mouth, keep it there. He then ordered them to use both their hands to jerk on his cock. The four small hands had obediently fastened themselves around his prick, many of their fingers overlapping and covering his prick completely with a jerking mass of soft fingers. They had jerked him off into the girl's mouth and he had ordered her to swallow all of it. After he rested awhile, smoking a cigar, he had ordered the other girl to suck his cock. It had taken a long time since it was so soon after another orgasm, but it had been long minutes of pure joy, playing with the girl's budding tits and her pussy while she kept sucking and sucking until finally he spurted a warm gob of come into her mouth.
Later, thinking back on the incident, he felt a regret that he had not raped both of them. He could have ordered them into one of the fields and taken both of them quickly. Virgins were rare as hell and he could have had two if he'd had more guts. He wasn't sure how old the girls had been, but they had been probably only a matter of months away from having their cherries taken by some stumbling, eager country boys. He could have had those two cherries himself.
But, despite the regret, the incident had been one of his most exciting - almost as exciting as the incident with the two girls at the tennis courts. He finished the glass of beer and lit a cigar. He toyed with the nagging problem. He could get any woman he wanted. Any woman at all if he could be alone with her long enough to hypnotize her and make her go somewhere with him. But where could he go?
Whenever he stopped at a house with the talk about selling portable TVs, if he wanted the woman, the only place he could take her was somewhere in the house. In almost every house, even in the cellar, there was no safe place to break the hypnotic spell and take the woman while she was fully aware of what was happening. There would always be the chance someone might hear her scream for help and always a chance she might somehow get away from him.
Hunting lodge? A hunting lodge might be good, he decided. If he could find a hunting lodge, rent one maybe, he could take a girl there, break the hypnotic spell and take her while she knew what was happening. Then it wouldn't be like a slab of meat, she wouldn't be like a zombie. Even if he had to tie her to a bed or something, it would be better than taking them when they were zombies. Hunting lodge. It might work. Find out where a good one was, rent the damned thing. Find a woman, hypnotize her, take her there. Tie her to a bed. Break the hypnosis. Then, while she knew exactly what was happening to her, rape her. She would be alive. She would scream and shake like hell ... When he was through with her, he could hypnotize her again, instruct her not to remember anything that had happened ... drop her somewhere ...
Another glass of beer had been placed before him. He watched as the bartender took the necessary coins and rang up the amount on the cash register. The bartender had assumed he wanted another beer. He drank more slowly. These damned bartenders could get you drunk, putting one beer after another in front of you. He couldn't afford to get drunk ... not with that TV in his car. Maybe he couldn't afford to get drunk ever again. When he was drunk, he had the biggest mouth in the world. When he was drunk he usually said anything that popped in his mind.
Hunting lodge? No, a hunting lodge probably wouldn't work. How in hell could you be sure a goddamned hunter might not be nearby ... might hear the woman screaming? It could be done with the woman gagged so she couldn't scream, but that would be half the fun, listening to her scream ...
Tonight he'd have something different, he decided. Tonight he'd get a call girl ...
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
When he left the bar on Washington Street, he noticed the heavy dark clouds rolling across the graying sky. After he maneuvered out of the parking slot, the first drops of rain speckled the windshield and in a few minutes he had to turn on the windshield wipers. He drove south through Trenton, slowly, soon turning on his parking lights. A new fear crept into his mind. Suppose he was involved in an automobile accident?
It was something that had never occurred to him before. An automobile accident could be almost as disastrous as having someone steal the TV. If his car were in an accident, if he were seriously injured ... the TV might be damaged beyond repair, or, equally disastrous, if he had to be rushed to a hospital, an investigating policeman or insurance man might open the trunk of the car and see the TV ...
He drove more slowly and toyed with the idea of building a secret compartment in the trunk to hide the TV. It wouldn't be too hard to do and, actually, a hidden compartment in the trunk of the car to conceal the TV would eliminate the worry of someone stealing it. He told himself that worrying about an automobile accident was foolish but it would be smart to build a secret compartment for the TV.
South of Trenton, on the other side of the bridge, near the Burger King, he pulled off on the side of the road. The rain was so heavy it washed across the windshield as if someone were spraying it with a garden hose and the road ahead was almost hidden completely. It couldn't last too long. Rain like this never did.
Realizing someone might see his tail lights and think he was on the road and moving, he turned off the ignition and the lights. With the vanishing of the dashboard light, he seemed suddenly engulfed in a wet darkness and a strange new fear swept over him. He could not identify the cause of the fear until he realized it came probably because it reminded him of the time Pop made him go out on the fire escape. It had rained then ... He must've been damned young then.
He'd been playing with a plastic truck in the living room, rolling it across the floor. Wooden blocks in the truck - ABC's on some surfaces of the blocks and carved figures of cats and dogs and trains on some of the other surfaces. He'd found the truck on the sidewalk. Some other kid had left it there, a big plastic truck, and it had been one of his favorite toys because he'd found it - it was completely his because Pop or Mom hadn't bought it for him - he had bought it himself by finding it and taking it.
A man had come to the apartment earlier. Mom called him "John." Mom and the man named John went into the bedroom and locked the door. He didn't pay much attention. Mom often went into the bedroom to talk with men. At first he had tried to remember their names and faces but then, when one he especially liked - one named Bill - never came again, and after he found it was hard to remember all their names and faces, he gave up trying and paid little attention to them. Most often Mom would give him some money for candy and he would go to the drug store five or six blocks away to buy Hershey bars. When he came back, the strange men were most often already gone. But, sometimes, when it seemed as if it would rain soon, his mother let him play in the living room while she talked to the men. They'd never bought him a raincoat. It was funny they never bought him a raincoat. Once or twice his mother had said she'd buy him one but she always stopped in a bar on their way uptown and, somehow, she never got around to buying him a raincoat.
Pop came home that day. He heard the key in the lock. He started to say something but Pop put his hand over his mouth and held it there tight. His father knelt next to the bedroom door, holding one of those big hands over his mouth ... listening. Mom and John were in the bedroom - talking, laughing. They stopped talking and then the man named John seemed to be grunting as if he was lifting something heavy and his mother seemed to be moaning as if something were hurting her. It didn't make sense but all he could think of was that something heavy had fallen on Mom and the man named John was trying to lift it away ...
His father carried him to the hall outside the apartment and told him to go play with his friend, Joey. He didn't want to play with Joey but he was too scared to say so. There was something strange about his father's face - twisted as if something were hurting him.
He went down the hallway to the fire escape and across the maze of fire escapes until he reached the living room window. Looking in the room from the fire escape, he saw his mother, his father, the man named John. His mother and John were putting on their clothes. His father stood in the bedroom doorway until John was dressed and hit John. John's face was bleeding when he went into the hallway. His father raised a fist as if he'd hit Mom - he was shouting something.
He started to scream, No! Don't hit her! but the words choked in his throat and tears blinded him. He rubbed at the tears and pressed his face against the brick wall before him - inches beneath the window. He wanted to look but he was afraid to look. He covered his ears with his hands to hide the sounds of his mother and father and it began to rain while he crouched there on the fire escape - raining harder and harder ...
He never saw his mother again. Pop changed after Mom left. He began drinking more and more. It seemed he was always trying to find a job. Sometimes there was hardly anything to eat and gradually, after Mom left, it seemed Pop didn't care ... didn't care about what they didn't have to eat, didn't care about anything ...
Pop died and then he was sent to the orphanage. He could remember many things about his father - could remember especially clearly the way his father held him so tight after Mom left that day ... could remember the walks through the park ... the heavy hand patting his shoulder, ruffling his hair ... But he could remember only one sentence from his father's lips.
Women are rotten, his father had said.
He could remember his father telling him to go play with Joey. He could remember other things his father had said but they were only memories of what he'd said. He could remember the movement of his father's lips, the tone of the words in his ears, heavy there as if they were huge objects fallen on soft ground ... Women are rotten.
He hated the orphanage - hated it so much he ran away twice and was returned twice. With the gathering of years, he understood exactly what had happened between his mother and John - exactly what had happened between his father and his mother - and bitterly understood his father had died an alcoholic because of the thing his mother had done with other men.
He learned to be good with his fists. Damned good before he left the orphanage because most of the boys who came to the orphanage were tough and you had to beat them or show them you could beat them before they'd stop bothering you. He became so good with his fists that no one bothered him, not even boys older and stronger than himself. Once there were three of them who tried to get him and they hurt him plenty, but in the end he beat all three of them.
The way the three ganged up on him taught him early that you had to have others on your side. Just for those times when a gang might try to jump you. Although he hated all the other boys at the orphanage, he forced himself to act friendly with some of them until he had his own gang.
He was never beaten. No boy had ever beaten him and no man had ever beaten him. He'd learned early. It's a tough world and you have to be tough to keep everybody from beating you.
* * *
He lit another cigar and when he glanced in the rear view mirror, he noticed the neon lights of the Burger King. Not many people eating hamburgers today, he thought, and he saw someone scurry from the building. The rain came harder as if a rain valve had been turned full force and he heard the rapid click-click of high heels on the sidewalk beside his car. It was a girl running along the sidewalk - the one who'd left the Burger King - and a fleeting glance told him several things: the girl was young, dark-haired, pretty. She was wearing a white uniform and a slick black raincoat over the uniform. While she ran, attempting to keep her hair dry, she held a folded newspaper above her head.
As soon as she passed his car, he placed his cigar across the dashboard ashtray and slipped out of the car. He followed the girl, running also, but running in a way that would appear to any observer as if he ran to reach a nearby building; it was not the purposeful gait of a hunter or an attacker. But he was shortening the distance between the girl and himself - slowly shortening the distance until now he could see the girl's legs beneath her slick black raincoat - see very clearly the white curved calves of her legs as they jounced along the sidewalk before him. He saw also why she was holding a newspaper above her head to keep the rain off her hair - she had one of those hairdos where the hair had been teased high. No hat or rain cap could have fitted onto that mass of fluffed hair.
Rain beat against his face and splattered on his shoulders. The rain came harder and he felt his body gradually becoming soaked through all the layers of his clothing. He didn't mind. He'd never minded getting wet. His mother had never bought him a raincoat. Getting soaked completely in a heavy rainfall was always a strange, pleasurable sensation he could never understand ... and yet the sound of heavy rain brought the ghostly voice of his father echoing in his skull: Women are rotten. Women are rotten. Women are rotten. The words and the hate echoing over and over again in his mind, engulfing him with sound and hate ...
He reached the girl and began to pass her on the sidewalk; both of them trotting side by side through the rain. He saw her pretty face flash a brief smile at him - for a moment she considered him a comrade in this running-through-the-rain-game and then he flung his arm around her neck, catching her in the crook of his elbow; pulled and hurled her into the alley. She stumbled and her head struck one of the brick walls. He was upon her instantly with a hand to cover her mouth but it was not necessary - the blow on her forehead had already cost her consciousness.
Kneeling beside her, he tried to raise her black raincoat above her waist but there was some difficulty so he stood and, grasping her ankles, turned her upside-down and shook her viciously until her raincoat and skirt fell around her chest. He dropped her to the concrete floor of the alley and unzipped his fly, drawing his hardened cock out to stab before the hulk of his body like a thick lance. He dropped to his knees and tore the girl's panties from her body.
The girl lay on her stomach and, still kneeling in the rain, he studied the soft curves of her buttocks. He separated her legs and, kneeling between them, grasped each of her thighs halfway between her hips and her knees. Still holding onto her, he rose and lifted her. Spreading her legs wider, he shoved his cock against the mat of her cunt. He jabbed again and again but could not get it in. He held her up with one hand and used his other hand to guide the tip of his cock between her labia. Returning the hand to her other thigh, he began to fuck her by jerking her body back and forth on the spear of his cock. Because of the odd position, he was unable to get in her completely but she had a good tight cunt and the position pleased him because he had never used it before.
Standing with her body impaled on his cock, he fucked her by a jerking of his hips combined with brutally jerking her unconscious form. He stared at the whiteness of his cock sliding in and out of the small hairy mat of her cunt and stared at her round white buttocks as the rain beat against them. Her face and chest rested against the alley floor, the slick black raincoat and the white uniform fallen and tangled around her arms and chest. He jerked her more violently as the rain poured down on them and he suddenly felt like a king! She was absolutely in his power - any woman could be absolutely in his power! He could fuck any woman any way he wanted!
He jerked her limp form faster and faster. His cock burst with fire, a steel rod shattering with the liquid of his come. As he shot his come into her limp body, he heard her moan as she regained consciousness and he knew he would have to kill her. She had seen his face and she had not been under hypnosis. She would remember who raped her, so he had no choice. He raised her legs higher, changing the angle until he held her almost completely upside-down, pulling the softness of her cunt toward him and burying his pulsating prick deeper in it as he shot the last of his come into her.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
She was a tall, slender girl, blonde-haired. She'd been wearing falsies. Naked, her breasts were round and well shaped but disappointingly small. He'd left the TV in the car outside the motel, deciding not to hypnotize the call girl. The girl had taken the money, undressed, went to the bed, and laid down on it. He studied her naked body as she spread her legs and realized she wanted to get it over with as soon as possible.
He grinned at her and pointed at the floor in front of him. "Come over here. Suck on my cock for a while."
"You don't need anybody to suck on your cock," she said. "You're ready." Her eyes focused meaningfully on his erect penis.
"I may not need it, but I want it."
She sighed. She shifted to a sitting position on the edge of the bed. "Come over here," she suggested. "I don't like to get down on my knees ... it hurts my knees. Okay?"
He walked to the side of the bed where she sat. She spread her legs so he could stand between them. She leaned forward and kissed the tip of his prick ... opening her mouth and leaning slightly until the knob slid in her mouth. He looked down at her as she sucked. She was good at it although she obviously didn't like it. He laughed. "You got the sucking power of a vacuum cleaner!"
She stopped, glanced up at him. "Ready now?"
"Naw ... Suck it all up. And swallow it. I like it. I think you're probably better this way." He patted the top of her blonde head.
For an instant he saw the flash of hate in her eyes. Then she closed her eyes and resumed her task. He kept watching the circle of her red lips around his stiff cock and concentrated on the sucking wetness. Leaning to one side to look farther down, he saw the hairy lips of her cunt parted in her excitement, saw the quivering bud of her clit in the pink folds of her flesh. A small wet circle had appeared on the bed sheet, and he knew that she hated sucking cocks but it still excited her. She'd rather be fucked! He felt his cock swelling larger and larger. He tried to hold back, but he spewed into the warm cavern of her mouth.
While she went to the bathroom, he stretched out on the bed. He'd paid for the whole night and decided he'd make her do it again. As soon as she came out of the bathroom, he said, "Suck it again. You're good."
She lit a cigarette, puffed on it before she answered. "How come so soon? You in a hurry to go somewhere?"
"Not in a hurry to go! In a hurry to come again!" He chuckled.
"You're a great comedian. What do you do for a living ... write jokes?"
"I didn't pay for sarcasm. I paid for you to suck my cock."
Again he saw the flash of hate in her eyes. "You don't know what you're missing. I could give you a good ride."
"I don't want a ride. I've had all kinds of rides. Good rides, bad rides, and rides on zombies."
"Zombies?"
"Skip it. Come on. Stop puffing on that goddamned cigarette and start puffing on my cock!"
She knelt above him but with her thighs straddling his prick. She grasped it and held it aimed toward her cunt.
"I could fuck you," she suggested. "You'd like it." She brushed the head of his slowly hardening prick against the strands of her cunt hair and pressed it against her labia.
"I don't want to fuck you and I don't want you to fuck me," he growled. "I'm tired of cunts. Christ! What's a cunt? You broads walk around like you got something great between your legs. But what the hell is it? A slit in your skin, that's all. Christ! I could go to a butcher shop and get a piece of meat and cut a slit in it and stick my cock in it and get the same fun!"
Her face reddened and she trembled in her anger. He felt a tremendous and unexplainable inward satisfaction. In a way this was better than the girls at the tennis court! They'd been zombies! This girl was far from a zombie, she was very much alive and hating his guts every minute but she'd have to do every damned thing he wanted her to do because he'd paid her!
"I'll bet you forgot how to fuck a girl," she goaded.
He laughed and seized both her breasts, squeezing until she winced with pain. "I didn't forget! Get started or I'll fuck one of your goddamned ears!"
She started. This time he made her work harder - holding back harder so she had to not only double her efforts but also work twice as long. She paused three times to rest but resolutely continued until his sperm flowed.
"You're good," he complimented. "Damned good. What's your name?"
"Connie."
"Connie. I'll remember that. I might ask for you again."
She rose from the bed and went to her purse. He watched as she removed a pack of cigarettes, lit one. She puffed a cloud of smoke at the ceiling, hate still smoldering in her eyes. "Ask for me again," she said. "Ask for me every day in the week if you want. You know what I'm going to do with all the money I'm making from guys like you?"
"What?"
"I'm going to buy a yacht. A real yacht. It won't take much longer and I'll be able to pay cash for it."
"Yeah? You make a lot of money getting fucked, do you? Bring me that pack of cigars over there, will you?"
She hesitated before she moved slowly to the bureau and picked up the pack of cigars and lighter, bringing them to him. He unwrapped one of the cigars and - as he was lighting the cigar - the word she'd said, the word yacht registered in his mind with more impact.
A yacht ... a boat was what he needed!
If he owned a boat, he could use the TV to hypnotize the prettiest goddamn woman he could find, take her out on the boat, way out on the water where no one could hear her scream, break the hypnotic spell - fuck her, let her scream her goddamn head off. "I've been thinking about buying a boat," he said. "Anyplace around here you can buy a boat?"
She shrugged her shoulders. "They might have some for sale at the marina at Barnes' Creek."
"Okay. Maybe I'll go there and buy one. If I buy one, I'll give you a call and you can come there and give me another blow job."
"I can hardly wait."
"But I'll give you a ride on the boat too." He looked at her as he waited for the answer. She made no answer, only glancing at him a moment. He knew she thought he was joking. She didn't believe he had enough money to buy a boat. He smoked the cigar and slipped a hand between her thighs, absently poking a finger into her pussy while she smoked her cigarette. A truck went by on the highway outside the motel and when the sound died, there was no other sound in the world.
She finished her cigarette and crushed it in the ashtray. She placed the ashtray on the bed beside him where he could use it for his cigar ashes. She rose, stretched her arms above her head and yawned. "It must be past midnight," she said. "You ever heard of that stuff they call sleep?"
"Yeah. I heard of it." He took the cigar from his mouth and studied the length of ash.
"Shall we get some of that stuff?"
"As soon as I finish this cigar and as soon as you suck my cock again."
"Again? A third time?" He noticed that her face whitened at the thought of doing it a third time. He wondered why she hated doing it so much. Most whores were used to it.
"I never get tired of it," he said.
"You can't make it a third time!"
"Want to bet?" He laughed. "No. We can't bet that way, can we, because you wouldn't try as hard!"
"You can't make it a third time," she persisted.
"I'll bet I can." He slid a hand beneath his pillow and withdrew his wallet. He pulled five one-hundred-dollar bills from it and gave them to her. He returned his wallet to its place beneath the pillow, directly beneath his head.
She was holding the five one-hundred-dollar bills with both hands, staring at them unbelievingly.
He said, "You make me come again and the five hundred is yours. A bonus."
"Hey," she said softly. "This is real money. You must be rich."
He smiled. The money meant nothing to him. He hadn't done any work since he got the TV set and with it he could get all the money he wanted, whenever he wanted it. He watched as Connie placed the money in her purse and then crouched above him, beginning to suck on his cock again. This third time, so soon after the other two times, would be the hardest of all. She had to suck for five minutes before his prick even started to get hard. He felt the come deep in his body, gathering for the third explosion into her mouth, but he could feel it gathering slowly and almost reluctantly. She grasped his prick beneath her mouth and began to squeeze and jerk but he told her to stop cheating. She obediently removed her hand and kept on working with only her mouth. He watched the beads of sweat gather on her naked body and listened to the sound of her harsh breathing. She was exhausting herself to earn that money and, as he closed his eyes to concentrate on the sensation of her lips and mouth on his cock, he realized that, with a woman like Connie, money was as good as a whip.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Clark sat in the chair by the door and watched Sid and the woman named Helen Kessler. Sid was seemingly emotionless as he scribbled in his notebook, although Mrs. Kessler paused often as she burst into tears. " ... I know she was raped," Mrs. Kessler was saying. "I know it. Debbie isn't the kind of girl to - "
Clark leaned forward in the chair, rested his elbows on his knees and entwined his fingers. He felt more and more uncomfortable and was beginning to feel foolish about his request to accompany Sid during the investigation of his wife's attack. Sid had called him on the phone and had told him to meet him here at this address, but had not explained how this case was related to his wife's.
His mind drifted to memories of Alma - sweet memories of how she had been when she was alive; painful memories of the void following her death. His head began to ache and he rubbed his forehead. He listened to only fragments of the conversation between Sid and Mrs. Kessler.
"When did you first suspect your daughter had been attacked?"
"After she returned from the courts - "
"Courts?"
"The tennis courts in the recreation area. You can see them from here. Debbie has gone there often to play tennis with her friends. We never dreamed - " Sobbing. "We never dreamed she'd be in any danger there. As soon as she returned today, I thought something was wrong. She looked so ... pale. And she looked as if something horrible had happened. I asked her if anything was wrong and she said no. I told her to go upstairs and wash. Supper was almost ready. She started to go upstairs and then I noticed - " Sobbing. "I noticed the blood on her skirt and legs. It wasn't much, but as soon as I saw it, I knew something was wrong. I went up to the bathroom with Debbie. I made her undress and - " The sobbing began again - this time edging toward hysteria.
Clark wondered where Mr. Kessler was. He waited for Mrs. Kessler to continue and while he waited he could imagine the mother and the daughter in the bathroom - the mother making an examination of her daughter - an examination the details of which she obviously did not want to put into words. As the sobbing subsided, she looked pleadingly at Sid above the edge of her handkerchief.
Sid said, "Did you call a doctor to confirm your suspicions?"
Mrs. Kessler nodded. "I called our family doctor and pleaded with him to come right away. He told me that Debbie had been attacked."
"Was there any evidence that Debbie had been hurt in any way? I mean - any evidence that she had been beaten?"
"No. I didn't notice anything like that. Dr. Rigby didn't mention anything other than the - " Mrs. Kessler rose suddenly and left the room. When she returned a few minutes later she seemed more composed.
Sid said, "Where is your daughter now?"
"Upstairs. She's sleeping. Dr. Rigby gave her some sleeping pills."
"I'll have to talk to her later. Before I talk to her ... can you tell me her version of what happened?"
Mrs. Kessler's eyes were red and swollen as she stared at Sid. "Debbie won't admit that anything happened. I told her she had to tell us what the man looked like. She refuses to admit anything happened."
"You said she was playing tennis in a recreation area near here?"
Mrs. Kessler went to the window. Sid followed. "See?" Mrs. Kessler pleaded. "You can see the tennis courts from here. We never dreamed anything would happen so close to home. But it must have happened while she was at the tennis courts. Now and then - after she left - I looked out the window. I could see them playing tennis ... "
"Come on, Clark. We'll be back in a few minutes, Mrs. Kessler."
* * *
Clark had to hurry to keep pace with Sid as he crossed the field to the recreation area. As soon as they reached the tennis courts, Clark noticed the broken window. Inside the building, near the broken window, there were specks of blood on the asphalt floor. For a while, Clark followed Sid as he roamed the area. Then, gradually, he wandered away, searching the area independently. He saw the cigar butt and knelt beside it. "Sid!"
In a few moments, Sid was kneeling beside him, studying the cigar.
"Do you think it might be a cigar the man was smoking?"
"It might be a cigar anybody was smoking. Maybe one of the girls smoked it."
Clark glanced at Sid's face. The abrupt sarcasm had caught him off guard. "Teen-age girls don't smoke cigars."
"Today teen-age girls will do any goddamn thing. Including giving a piece to somebody and then lying about it so their mothers think they were raped."
"Teen-age girls don't smoke cigars," Clark repeated.
"It could have been smoked by a man in the neighborhood. A cigar butt isn't a clue."
"And it might have been smoked by the man who raped that girl."
"We don't even know she was raped. That hasn't been proven yet."
Clark ignored Sid's comment. He rose and wandered through the parking area. He knelt now and then to study the few scraps of paper. One of the scraps was a cigar band. He started to mention it to Sid and then decided not to. Sid was right. A cigar butt wasn't much of a clue. The cigar could have been smoked by anyone. And it hadn't yet been proven the girl had been raped.
Sid was leaning against the cinder block building, thoughtfully smoking a cigarette. He said, "Something is wrong."
"You're damned right something is wrong. That girl was raped here."
"I'm starting to believe it. There are too many things pointing that way. And too many wrong things. Too many queer things ... The smashed window. Why should anyone break a window like that? The blood inside the rest room. The fact that it happened in an area like this ... Look at this place." Sid swung a hand in a circle. "This whole area is so goddamned open. This isn't the kind of place a teen-age girl usually welcomes a lover. Right where she can be seen from her own house?" He shook his head. "Everything is wrong both ways. It also isn't the kind of place a rapist usually chooses."
"What are you going to do now?"
He sighed, dropped his cigarette, crushed it beneath his foot. "I'll have to talk to the girl as soon as possible. I guess we'll go the whole route ... a complete investigation. I'll probably have to ask for another detective to help me. So ... you'll have to disappear for a while."
Clark looked into the other man's eyes. It seemed that Sid was almost bored and Clark realized this was Sid's daily work - at times perhaps as boring as the most routine office job. "You'll give me a call if anything new turns up?"
"I'll be sure to give you all the juicy details."
Clark remembered seeing a bar not far from the Kessler house. He decided he'd go there for a drink and had walked a few yards away when he heard Sid say softly, "Clark? Been wondering why I asked you to come here today?"
Clark turned to face the policeman, retracing some of his steps until they were closer. "I wondered about it. Then I decided you must think there's some connection ... the same man ... "
"Notice a similarity in the two cases?"
"No."
"Your wife didn't remember what the man looked like. Debbie Kessler wouldn't admit anything had happened."
The association came slowly to Clark. He said, "You're saying that this girl's not admitting anything happened might be the same as not remembering that anything happened?"
Sid nodded. "During the short time we had to question your wife, she couldn't actually remember being attacked. She only knew she'd been attacked because of her physical condition."
Clark moved still closer to the detective. His legs felt wooden and finally he was so close he could see the small black pupils of the man's eyes. "A hypnotist," he murmured.
"It has to be a hypnotist. A rapist-hypnotist. Your wife didn't remember anything. Debbie Kessler didn't remember anything. One of the first things I asked Mrs. Kessler on the phone was ... could her daughter give a description of the man? She said her daughter couldn't remember what the man looked like. You see, on the phone, she wouldn't say her daughter wouldn't admit she'd been raped. So I phoned you. It's more than these two cases, Clark. After I started digging into your wife's case, I started going over every rape case in the five closest states. Every case during the past six months. Looking for a pattern. Guess what? I found a pattern. There were dozens of cases that have no relation at all to the others. In those cases the men were found and arrested or else the circumstances were so entirely different they - "
"How many fit the pattern?" Clark interrupted.
"Four in Pennsylvania. Two in Maryland. One in New Jersey. Seven other cases where the victim doesn't remember what the man looked like. One case in Pennsylvania is typical. The woman was found in an alley. Her clothes were torn, her panties had been removed, and she'd been beaten. She was rushed to a hospital and an examiner determined she'd been raped. But when she was questioned, she couldn't remember anything. The police who handled the cases weren't excited about it. The cases were in different cities and different policemen investigated each case. The policemen in each city assumed the woman couldn't remember the man because she was suffering from shock ... because of temporary amnesia ... because of a wish to avoid publicity and a police investigation by claiming nothing had happened ... Oh, the simplest explanation ... Want to guess?"
"Tell me."
"A woman is walking down a dark street. Someone slips up behind her - unseen - knocks her unconscious. Drags her into some bushes or an alley and rapes her. The woman regains consciousness and has been raped but doesn't remember a single detail. In three of the cases I mentioned, it was assumed the women were knocked unconscious before they saw their attacker. That's happened now and then, of course. But now there are too many in the pattern. Nine cases where the women don't remember ... nine counting your wife and Debbie Kessler."
CHAPTER NINETEEN
The girl's hair was chestnut brown and had been done in a style that curled the brown masses in toward her neck, the hair at such a length it barely brushed her shoulders when she turned her head. Her eyes were large and dark brown - they reminded him of a doe's eyes for some reason he couldn't quite understand - unless it was because they were large and seemingly innocent. Innocent? It'd be interesting to discover if she was a virgin. There were no rings on her fingers.
Her eyebrows were pale compared to the shade of the hair on her head - thin arches above the doe eyes. Her lips were pale, as if she used only a very light lipstick or none at all. She wore a checked brown and white skirt, checked brown and white jacket, with a white blouse beneath the jacket. She had carried a white purse and white gloves when he met her. He'd disposed of the purse and gloves after going through the purse and removing the money. Out of curiosity, he'd glanced at the identification card in her purse. Her name was Katherine Elsinger and she was twenty-four years old.
She was one of the most beautiful women he'd ever seen. Slender and graceful. She had that fine-featured aristocratic kind of face he'd never seen in a bar and rarely seen anywhere except newspaper photographs on the society pages. Women such as Katherine Elsinger would never be found in a bar although they might be found occasionally in a nightclub. Even in a nightclub, they would always be escorted. Women such as Katherine Elsinger would never go to a nightclub to be picked up. There would always be plenty of men waiting to take them anywhere they wanted to go. And women such as Katherine Elsinger would never look twice at a man such as himself ...
He had tied her wrists together and tied her ankles together, tied a handkerchief across her mouth, propped her up on the V of bunks at the bow of the boat, and snapped her out of the trance. She had made muffled sounds beneath the handkerchief for a while and had struggled to break free of the cord around her wrists and ankles, but eventually she had ceased all struggling, realizing it was hopeless.
He poured the beer into the glass, sipped it. "Want a drink, Katherine?"
There was no response. He had half-expected her to nod her head. She continued to stare at him with those large brown eyes, her forehead occasionally wrinkled as she frowned at him. It was interesting to note there was no hate in her eyes - only fear and wonder. Fear at expectations of what he might do to her. Wonder at how she had arrived here.
"I couldn't give you a drink even if you did want one," he said. "I didn't think about that. To give you a drink I'd have to take off that gag and I don't want you screaming for help right now. It might be safe but I'd rather wait another hour. Then we'll be damned sure there's no boats wandering around this part of the bay and then we can have our party." He gulped the beer and told himself that when he finished this bottle, he wouldn't drink any more. The beer would deaden his senses if he drank too much. He didn't want to be half-drunk when he fucked her. He wanted to enjoy all of it as much as possible.
"Know where we are?" he asked. "We're anchored off a hunk of marshland in the bay. Nobody within miles. A boat goes by now and then but it goes by way out there. Too far away to hear anything we say or do." He chuckled and sipped the beer.
She began to struggle again, twisting on the bunk, struggling to break free of both the wrist and ankle bindings. Her nyloned knees parted a few inches during the struggle and he studied the opening between her knees although the lighting was so poor he could see none of her thighs. Noticing he was staring, she brought her knees together and ceased struggling.
He laughed. "Afraid I might see your pussy?" He placed the beer on the narrow table against the bulkhead. He stood before her and smiled down at her. "Listen, honey, don't worry about me seeing your pussy. Because there's no way you can stop me from seeing it." He lowered a hand and caught the hem of her skirt with the tip of his forefinger, pulling it slowly upward. She made gurgling sounds beneath the handkerchief and her eyes rolled wildly. He raised the checked brown and white skirt until he could see the V of red panties. "Red!" he exclaimed mockingly. "I'll bet you feel daring when you wear that!" He returned to his seat and sipped the beer again. When he saw she was watching him, he deliberately stared at her uncovered legs and V of her loins until her eyes closed as if she could not bear to watch him stare at her.
He lit a cigar. "I'll bet you're wondering what's going on. Want me to tell you? Maybe you'll appreciate it more if you understand. You see, girls are my hobby." He shrugged his shoulders. "Some guys save stamps, some guys play golf. A lotta hobbies. My hobby is girls. I like to look at 'em, I like to feel 'em, I like to fuck 'em. Can you think of a better hobby for a guy to have? I'll tell you ... it's a lot more fun than saving stamps or playing golf." He puffed on the cigar. "You know all about hypnosis, don't you? Sure you do. You're a smart girl. Well, believe it or not, I knew a guy who invented a machine that hypnotizes. Isn't that the greatest thing you ever heard? His machine did what the guy on the stage does with the watch swinging at the end of a chain ... only the machine does it faster and better. That's how you got here. Remember you were walking down the street and I got out of my car and showed you the TV? I hypnotized you and told you to meet me at that intersection of Naaman's Road and Marsh Road. You were there, right at ten o'clock, like I told you only you didn't know what you were doing because you were hypnotized. So I put you on this - "
He stopped abruptly as he heard the boat nearby. Alarm bells rang in his mind when he realized it could be one of the coast guard boats he'd heard about - one of the coast guard boats that periodically inspected boats to make sure they had the proper life preservers and fire extinguishers. What the hell could he do if a bunch of those coast guard guys started climbing all over his boat? The TV wouldn't work on a bunch of guys like that - not unless he somehow got them all looking at the TV at the same time. It would be tricky as hell and almost impossible to get them all looking at the TV at the same time if there were more than two of them at once. And, if they found the girl in the cabin, all tied up like that. .
He hurried out of the cabin, up onto the deck. He went to the railing and stared into the night until he saw the running lights of the other boat. It was a big one. It could be a coast guard ship ... Too late to turn off the cabin lights? His heart thudded. Hell yes. Way too late now. He should have a gun. He should have bought a gun a long time ago. Carting that TV all over hell, taking those women, the only smart thing to do was have a gun on you all the time. Just in case you hit a spot where you couldn't use the TV. Then you could use the gun ...
The other boat came closer. The engine churned lower and lower. He heard voices on the boat and recognized some of them as women's voices. The boat turned - as if seeing his boat - as if wanting a secluded and deserted place to anchor - the boat turned and sped away. He watched until the running lights disappeared on the dark horizon, then he returned to the cabin. He noted with disgust his own trembling. Things were beginning to shake him, shake him bad. The girl had gotten to her feet, hobbled a short distance from where she'd been sitting. Stupid as hell, because how could she get anywhere all tied up like that? He placed the palm of a hand against the soft mound of her cunt and shoved until she fell backward on the bunk, in a sitting position again but this time more awkwardly, with her hips too far forward on the bunk.
He finished the beer and found he was still trembling. He opened another bottle of beer and gulped it. Maybe it'd steady his nerves. He said, "How do you like my boat? First time I ever had a boat. Shopped around and found what I wanted and bought it. One thousand bucks. What do you think about that? Quite a hobby huh? But, I heard, some guys pay a thousand bucks for a stamp. Now ... you're going to be a helluva lot more fun than a teeny-weeny flat stamp." He shrugged his shoulders in the conversation with himself, then said, "And I'll sell this boat when I'm through with it. I might not get the grand back but I'll bet I get nine hundred. So, no matter how you figure it, this party with you will only cost me about a hundred. For a hundred, you can hardly buy a girl for all night who doesn't look like a pig. Whores cost more and more all the time." He chuckled. "Speaking of whores ... you know, it was a whore who gave me the idea for this boat."
The girl was moaning. It might be because of the awkward position she was now in. He went to her and lifted her to a normal sitting position on the bunk. He said, "Hot? Let's take off your jacket." With her wrists tied, it was impossible to slip the jacket off her. He took the knife from his pocket and cut the jacket apart, throwing the pieces to one side. He cut her blouse and threw the pieces on the floor. She was wearing a black bra. He cut the straps and pulled it from her breasts. The bra was padded and her breasts were disappointingly small. He put the knife on the floor and knelt before her, cupping her breasts with his hands in such a way his fingers touched her flesh but there was space between her breasts and his palms. "Not very big," he said with mock sadness and shook his head. "You hardly got two handfuls there. But ... if everything else is that small ... " He laughed and returned to his bottle of beer, finishing it.
"You know why I'm doin' this?" he asked, turning and glaring at her half-naked body. "Because all the others were zombies! That's right. Like zombies! The TV got them but it made them like zombies. Where's the fun in that? A guy likes a little life, spark, zip." He grinned at her. "You'll show a little life, spark, zip, won't you? You can bet your ass you will!"
He knelt before her again and unzippered her skirt, pulling it down the length of her legs and throwing it aside. He cut the red panties away and studied the chestnut-brown thatch of pubic hair, probing into her cunt, tickling her clit with a finger, and laughing at the way she shuddered.
She was a slender girl - slender arms and legs with a small waist. So light he could have lifted her and held her with one arm. So slender and small there wasn't one chance in a million she'd be able to get away from him even if he untied her. He undressed and used the knife to cut the cords around her wrists and ankles. He left the handkerchief around her mouth and decided he'd remove it later if she didn't snatch it off.
"Why don't you make a run for it?" he suggested. "There's the door. Get through that door, up on the deck, jump over and swim like hell, and you'll be free!"
He had expected she'd be too paralyzed by fear to move but with a surprising agility she darted toward the door. Before she reached the door, he caught one of her wrists and yanked so hard he pulled her tumbling backwards, onto the floor. He crawled above her and fought to get between her long slender legs. She tore the handkerchief from her mouth, screamed deafeningly while she clawed at his face. He slapped her so hard her arms were suddenly limp, her head lolling on the floor.
Then he came down against the length of her body, shoving his hard prick into the softness of her cunt. She groaned and, as soon as she regained consciousness, her sharp fingernails flew at his face. He felt a stinging wetness on his cheek as her fingernails struck and he hit her jaw with his right fist - holding back on the punch because he didn't want to break her jaw or snap her neck. Despite holding back on the punch, the blow split her lower lip and he thought he heard the crunch of some teeth.
Her eyes closed and she was still again. He slid his member up and down the length of her womanhood a few times and then stopped in something akin to disgust. With her unconscious, she wasn't any better than the zombies. Most of the fun had been the way she ran around and the way she screamed. He'd have to think of some ways to make her scream ...
He rose and walked around the cabin until he found his pack of cigars. He lit one and then sipped from the half-empty can of beer. His cheek felt as if blood was dribbling, reaching the edge of his jaw, and he glanced in the small round cabin mirror. She'd scratched his cheek bad and there were streaks of blood that had dribbled clear down to his jaw. He wiped at the blood and remembered that girl on the playground in Harris-burg. He'd been just a kid then ... how old? ... eight or nine? The girl had laughed at his face and said he had a nose and a face just like a clown. He'd shoved her to make her quiet but instead of making her quiet, it only made her scream and then the girl had come at him, screaming, scratching his face. Some boys in the playground thought he'd been hurting the girl although he hadn't done anything more than just give her a push - thought he was hurting her because of the way she screamed so much. So the boys had come at him - five of them, beaten him, and knowing he could never win against so many, he'd run home. At home - empty because his mother had gone away after that fight with his father, and his father was at work now - he'd stood before the mirror and studied the scratches on his face exactly as he was doing now. Then he had gone to the window and stood there, looking down at the playground. The silence of the apartment was a heavy weight and it was strange there were no sounds in the other apartments; it was as if the world had died - all except him and the kids down on the playground and they were only tiny dots from the apartment window.
He remembered the girl's laughter and the gentle shove he'd given her. He hadn't shoved her hard at all - just a little shove to make her stop laughing. She'd started screaming ...
There were no tears on his cheeks, but he felt as if there were tears somewhere inside him, hot tears like drops of acid burning and killing his soul. He'd only wanted to play with the boys down there on the playground - play a game of baseball or else just be with them. He hadn't had any intention of even talking to any of the girls on the playground or having anything to do with them unless it was just to "show off" in front of some and show them how strong he was by lifting something heavy or breaking something ...
He went back to the playground the next day, but the same girl and boys were there. The girl told the boys to "make him leave" and they did make him leave. He never played in that playground during all the years he and his father lived so near it. The nearest other playground was too far away to walk to and it seemed he never had the money for bus fares to get there, seemed he never had many friends when he was a kid. And, gradually, as he grew older, he saw again and again, the truth of his father's statement: Women are rotten. The girl in the playground had been a perfect example - laughing at his face and then screaming for no reason at all.
"Ohhhhhh."
The girl moaning broke the chain of memories. He turned away from the mirror and went to the girl. Her eyes were fluttering. He sat on her stomach but only allowing part of his weight to settle on her, supporting himself mainly by his knees. She opened her mouth to scream but he said, "You make a noise right now and I'll break your teeth. You want to scream? Okay. But I'll tell you when to scream. I'll give you plenty of chances."
The girl struggled for control, seemed to obtain it, and did not scream.
"See what you did to my face?" he asked her, pointing at the scratches. "How'd you like a few marks like that?" He took the knife and pressed the tip against one of her breasts. "Okay," he told her, "you can scream now!" and he drew a bloody line on the curve of her breast as she screamed, her eyes bulging and her body steel-taut beneath him. His cock hardened still more as she screamed and pearly drops fell to her stomach.
She fainted.
He rose and got the half-empty can of beer, held it above her and poured the liquid onto her face. When she regained consciousness, he knelt above her again, and held the knife near her other breast. "Okay. Scream!"
As he pressed the metal blade against the softness of her breast and drew redness, she screamed and fainted again. He rose and threw the knife aside. It was fun to use the knife and fun to listen to her scream, but the way she fainted so often was irritating. He hadn't cut her deeply, had only scratched the surface of her flesh to imitate a fingernail scratch. The scratches would heal as easily as a fingernail scratch, but she had seen the bloody marks on her breasts and must have thought he'd permanently disfigured her.
If only there was some way to make her scream without making her faint ...
"Ooooohhh."
As her eyes fluttered open, he went to her and picked her up easily. He hefted her weight and judged she was so light in comparison to his strength that he could easily toss her across the cabin if he wanted. He held her before him and maneuvered until he managed to press the throbbing knob of his erect cock between her moist cunt lips. She was fully awake now and screaming ... Holding her before him, he half-ran the short distance to the cabin bulkhead and slammed her against the bulkhead - flattening himself against her and the slamming-flattening action caused his cock to slide full-length within her. She moaned with the pain and he backed away from the wall to his original position, withdrawing his cock until only the tip remained within her, and then repeating the whole procedure of running while holding her before him, slamming her against the wall. He began to laugh. Great! Fucking a woman by slamming her against a wall!
She continued to scream and finally fainted but there had been a satisfyingly long interval during which she had remained conscious and he realized it was only the knife that made her faint so rapidly - the knife and the fear of being cut.
Later - he made her assume various positions while he fucked her, once he made her mount his erect prick, and once he made her suck it. He filled himself with her screamings until he felt numb - much like a man having finished a feast might feel - contentedly numb. He had shot his come into her three times but he had fucked her in more than a dozen positions.
And then, as dawn approached, he knew the end was near. He had enjoyed her as much as possible, there was nothing else to do to her or with her and he had to be rid of her before the dawn and, probably, fishermen who would see his boat.
So he slid his half-hard cock into her cunt and began to slowly slide it back and forth. He held the knife near her throat and whispered, "A new game." He pressed the sharp edge of the knife against her throat but not hard enough to draw blood. "The game is called, 'I come, you go.' Get it? I fuck you until I come. As I come, I cut your throat and you go!" He continued to fuck her and was suddenly aware that she was too still, her eyes too blank. He felt the area of her heart, and felt her wrists for a pulse. Nothing.
She had died and he would never know the exact time she had died. He wondered if he had accidentally broken her neck or if she had died of a heart attack ?
He rose and looked down at the naked female body and felt a strange mixture of pride and joy. He had used her thoroughly and felt pride in the way he'd not wasted any of the time with her.
CHAPTER TWENTY
"Shhhh." She turned halfway up the stairs with a finger across her lips. She held her shoes in her other hand and he - at her instructions - had removed his shoes, carrying them. They had crept up the wooden stairs outside the rear of the house with no sound at all and yet she had paused to warn him about silence as if he had made some sound.
He had met her at the bar not far from Debbie Kessler's house. Although it was obvious she wasn't a prostitute, she had been at the bar in search of a man. He'd decided to end her search.
"Never again," she'd said at the bar. "I'll never marry again if I live to be a hundred!"
"If you lived to be a hundred, nobody'd want you," a man at the bar remarked.
The bar closed at midnight and, after Clark had talked with her most of the evening, he offered, "Can I give you a ride home?"
"I only live a stagger from here."
"A stagger?"
"You know how people say a hop, skip, and a jump from here? When I've been drinking, I call it a stagger from here. That's why I come to this dump. It's only a stagger from my apartment. I wouldn't come here for any other reason, believe me. I don't like to drive when I drink. It isn't safe to drive when you drink. So ... I come here."
"Can I stagger you home?" he'd asked, grinning at her.
"You can stagger me home, honey. You can stagger me any time you want!" She was gazing deep into his eyes, smiling. He knew it would be good with her because she was hungry for a man. Most of the conversation during the evening had revolved around her ex-husband and how she occasionally dated men but kept telling them she didn't want to get serious again. She was fed up with being a housewife. But - obviously - she wasn't fed up with men and still needed them.
"I'd like to stagger you," he told her in a lower voice. They were at the end of the bar with no one on their right. With a glance down the length of the bar to their left, he saw no one was looking in their direction and he dipped a hand to her knees, resting the palm on her knees and making no attempt to slide the hand beneath her dress, but pressing the tips of his fingers against the soft inner parts of her thighs.
"Ummmm." She closed her eyes briefly, the smile wider. "I can hardly wait for you to stagger me, honey."
"I'll stagger you like you've never been staggered before."
"Ummmm." She sipped her glass of beer. "I'll bet you will. It's been a long time since I've been staggered."
The bartender was turning off some of the lights. Customers were leaving. He slid from the bar stool and nodded toward the door.
"You go first," she said in a low voice. "Turn left when you leave here. Wait about two blocks down the street. Some of the people here know me and they might get the wrong idea if they see us leaving together."
"Let me tap a kidney first," he said.
"Tap a kidney?"
"That's a medical way of saying I have to take a leak."
She laughed - so hard that others in the bar turned and looked at them for a moment. When he left the men's room, she was still at the bar and a man was sitting beside her, talking to her earnestly. As he walked by her, when her head was turned so the man beside her could not see her face, she winked at him.
Two blocks down the street, he waited beside a huge elm tree and itched to smoke a cigarette but didn't light one because the glow would have made him more conspicuous. He heard the tap of her high heels on the sidewalk when she was still a block away and he thought of Alma - how Alma had walked down a sidewalk - every bit a lady but still with such a lush swing of lovely nyloned legs she magnetized male eyes.
Alma. He wondered at the change in himself. He had never wanted another woman while Alma was alive. He had only taken other women when they almost threw themselves at him. Now that Alma was gone, he seemed to be content to take any tramp that came along. It was as if his soul had been separated from his body. His body needed a woman occasionally. It didn't matter who she was. It was a physical need such as eating and sleeping.
Her apartment was a second floor one with outside stairs. There were lights in windows of the first floor and it was at the bottom of the stairs she asked him to take off his shoes and carry them. At the top of the stairs, she silently opened the door and stepped inside, holding the door until he was inside. As soon as she closed the door, she was against him, pulling his head down to hers. He slipped his arms around her waist and pulled her against him.
He raised her dress with one hand and fondled her cunt with the other. Her mouth grew warmer and wetter beneath his mouth and he felt both her hands fumble at his zipper. She was trembling beneath the touch of his hand and, in her excitement, her own hands tugged rhythmically at his cock - tugging and squeezing so hard he had to warn her, "Wait - " grasping her wrists and holding her hands motionless.
She released her grip and led him into the bedroom. A grayness of a bedroom and he watched her undress, undressing himself. Naked, she came to him and seized his hard cock with both hands again, kissing him, whispering, "Fuck me! Ohhh ... fuck me! I'm dying for it!"
"Let's turn on a light," he said while leaning slightly backward and looking down at the grayness of her naked breasts and loins. He wanted to see her.
"We can't turn on the lights," she said. "I have a friend ... next house ... if she sees lights, she'll want to come over and talk all night with me. She's a nut."
"Oh."
"Wait a minute. Maybe we can compromise." She went to the bedroom windows and turned the Venetian blinds so the moonlight came into the room, illuminating their naked bodies. He wondered if the bit about the neighbor watching for evidence of her return was the truth or only an excuse to keep her body hidden. Was she ashamed of her body? Her breasts were large but sagging like hell. She had too much of a belly - a round belly that must have been held in place by a girdle and, by the glow of the moonlight, he could see her thighs were flabby. "Good enough?" she asked.
"Good enough."
She came to where he was standing, bent and peered down at his manhood. "God!" she exclaimed. "What a hunk of meat! It looks big enough to tear me apart! You won't hurt me, will you?" She giggled.
"I promise."
She hurried onto the bed and he followed. Upon sinking his rod into her, he found that her concern about his hurting her had been a pure fantasy or wishful thinking on her part. Her vagina was so large in diameter that he could feel the slippery soft flesh of it, but there was no tightness. Her hand had felt better!
He fucked her as fast as possible, trying to make up for the lack of pressure by an increased speed, but although she trembled beneath him like a bowlful of jelly in her sexual ecstasy and climax, he seemed to be further and further from completion. In a kind of desperation, he closed his eyes and pretended the woman beneath him was Elaine, and summoned all the memories he could of her: the way her soft red lips had curved in teasing half-smiles, the image of her long lovely legs, her hot dark eyes, the sound of her voice, the whispery feeling of her hair, the flash of her nyloned legs, the smell of her perfume ... and when the pretense reached a height, his cock pulsed gobs of sperm into the woman beneath him.
He rolled away from her, lay beside her but not touching her. She rolled on her side, facing him. "You fuck good," she said faintly.
"Not bad yourself."
"Want an encore?"
"Okay."
"Let me rest a minute, then we'll have a fucking encore."
He lay there for several minutes, his mind empty. She hadn't been as satisfying as he'd hoped. If it hadn't been for the way he'd pretended she was Elaine, he might not have reached a climax at all.
She was snoring.
Remembering Alma, Sid Weinman, Debbie Kessler, he decided to call Sid and find out if there'd been any new developments in the case. He also decided he wouldn't stick around to fuck his pick-up a second time. He was so tired he wanted a good night's sleep more than a "fucking encore."
In the glow of the moonlight that filtered through the slats in the Venetian blinds, he dressed again and went into the living room. He turned on a light and looked everywhere but there seemed to be no phone in the room. Realizing that some people occasionally had their phones installed in the kitchen of their apartments or homes, he went into the kitchen and turned on the light. There was a wall phone there and he moved a chair beside it, searching through his wallet for the slip of paper on which he'd written Sid's home phone number. He lit a cigarette and dialed. "Anything new on the Debbie Kessler case?" he asked abruptly when a muffled voice answered.
"Clark? Why in hell are you calling me this time in the morning?"
"Sorry. I've been up all night." To make it sound better, he added, "Thinking about the case. Couldn't get it off my mind."
"Call me tomorrow at the station, will you? Shit. If this is the way you're going to be ... calling me in the middle of the night, you can take your goddamned money and stick it up your ass."
"Sorry, Sid. I didn't stop to think about the time. I've had a lot of trouble sleeping since Alma died. Mornings ... nights, they all sort of blend together anymore. I'll call you tomorrow at the station. Good night."
"Wait. I might as well tell you now and get it over with. Things are starting to shape up. I talked with Debbie Kessler. I didn't like the way she sounded. She said nothing happened at the tennis courts but - because I didn't like the way she sounded - I had her taken to the state hospital and examined by the head psychiatrist there. Had to get her parents' permission for that and it took a lot of talking but it was worth it. The headshrinker at the hospital used sodium pentothal."
"That's the ... truth serum?"
"Right. I don't know how much you know about sodium pentothal but there isn't supposed to be any way to beat it. That is ... if you've killed someone and you've been lying about it ... or if you've been lying about anything at all ... it will make you a blabbermouth in nothing flat. Debbie Kessler, under sodium pentothal, still wouldn't admit she'd been raped ... and ... wouldn't admit she'd willingly had sexual intercourse with someone. You see the point? A doctor examined her and said she had sexual intercourse. She doesn't remember it. That means she was hypnotized. It proves our theory. I asked the headshrinker if he thought he could break through the hypnosis. He thinks he can, but he's not sure how long it will take. If he can break through, we'll know exactly what happened and we'll be able to get a description of the man."
Clark listened to the emptiness at the other end of the phone while he digested the information. Something was wrong ...
"Are you still there?" Sid asked.
"I ... I was thinking. I thought I heard you can't hypnotize a person to do something against their will. Something they don't want to do."
"That's a damned good question. I don't know. I'll have to ask the headshrinker about it. It's an old idea - that about not being able to hypnotize people to do things against their will. But it seems the Russians have overcome that with some of their brainwashing. I'd guess maybe it's true in some cases. You probably couldn't hypnotize a person into committing a murder. But ... this rapist must be doing something much different than that. Maybe he just places his victims in a hypnotic spell ... a kind of trance where they're powerless to do anything ... Then he rapes them. Then he hasn't actually forced them to do anything against their will."
"Are you checking all hypnotists in the city?"
"We're checking all the known hypnotists. Guess what? You can count all the professional hypnotists in the whole United States on your fingers and toes. It isn't a common profession."
"Then you shouldn't have much trouble finding the -"
"Wrong. I said known hypnotists. Professional hypnotists. Anyone can pick up a book on hypnotism in a library. And ... have you ever seen those ads for books on hypnotism?"
Clark's throat was suddenly dry. He remembered distinctly an advertisement he had seen on the back pages of a magazine. A drawing of a man and a woman. The man gesturing toward the woman with the woman seemingly in a trance ... Digging through his memory he realized he'd seen ads for books on hypnotism not just once but dozens of times in the past. He'd never paid any attention to the ads ... the same way he had for years driven by pet shops, seeing them but not seeing them, until he started raising tropical fish as a hobby. Then he'd been surprised at the number of pet shops he'd never noticed.
He said, "I've seen them." His throat was still dry. He glanced toward the kitchen sink and saw the row of glasses there, suddenly wanting a glass of water.
"That's a pretty thought, isn't it?" Sid asked. "The thought that the man we're looking for could be anyone ... anyone, anywhere, who sent for one of those books on hypnotism or got one through a library ... studied it ... and became good at it. Good enough to hypnotize a woman into a trance while he rapes her."
"A pretty thought." His stomach felt queasy. The implications were tremendous. No woman would be safe from a man with such a mastery of hypnotism. No woman - no matter if she was married or beautiful or rich or famous or young or virginal. Sooner or later a man with a mastery of hypnosis would be able to look into her eyes ...
"We're checking all the publishing companies that sell books on hypnotism ... asking them for their mailing lists. And checking the libraries. I doubt we'll come up with anything but we have to check them. Goddamn you, you've got me wide awake now, talking a blue streak. My wife is snoring. Hear her?"
As Clark listened, the sound of snoring that had been an unnoticeable, background suddenly became thunderous as Sid held the phone near her mouth and said, "When I'm through with you, you bastard, I'll wake her up and get a piece."
"Anything else new?"
"We questioned kids in the playground near the tennis courts. One of them said there was a black car in the parking area near the tennis courts. Another kid said there was a white car in the parking area. They couldn't tell us what make car. Nothing there. One of the kids said he saw a man with a TV at the tennis courts. That doesn't make sense. If the rapist drove a black car or a white car to the tennis courts, with the intention of raping one of the girls, why should he lug along a TV? He sure as hell wouldn't watch TV while he raped a girl."
"Anything else?"
"No. Yeah. You woke me up and ruined my sleep ... so now I'll give you something that might keep you awake a little bit tonight. A nice sick thought to mull over. I thought of it while I was working on this case. Now you can have it. I've worked on a lot of rape cases since I've been a cop. All kinds, all kinds of people. The man who raped your wife ... Debbie Kessler ... all the others who seem to fit in the pattern ... You might call him a maniac. Right?"
"I guess so."
"I had the thought today ... I'll bet there's a million maniacs walking the streets. But they don't have the guts to - Excuse me. Better way of saying it is they're not crazy enough to put their ideas into deeds. That's the only difference between the million walking around harmless and our baby. Good night. You ever call me again this late at night I'll break your goddamn nose." Click.
Clark hung up the phone. He went to the sink and turned on the cold water faucet. Standing there, drinking the glass of water, he felt as if there was something important in what Sid had said ... something he should have caught ... some incongruity ... some clue to the rapist's identity ...
He heard someone come into the apartment.
"Norma ?" It was a girl's voice calling Norma. He was frozen there by the sink with the glass of water in his hand. He remembered Norma's warning about turning on the lights - the warning that her girl friend would come visit her if she saw lights in the apartment. "Norma?" The girl was walking through the apartment.
There was a long silence and he realized the girl must have gone into the bedroom. He finished drinking the glass of water, and wondered if he should somehow announce his presence. No. Maybe it would be best if he could slip from the apartment unseen by Norma's friend. He placed the glass in the sink and walked slowly and quietly from the kitchen. Crossing the living room, he saw the girl had turned on the bedroom light and left the door ajar.
"Norma? Wake up, honey."
Glancing toward the bedroom, he saw Norma's legs and a girl's face poised above Norma's thighs. The girl touched Norma's cunt with a finger, gently. "Wake up, honey."
Leaning to one side, Clark saw the girl was completely naked. A slender young girl with narrow hips and budding, unripe breasts. A lovely face framed by a mass of dark hair.
"Huh? Oh. Peggy. Is Clark still here? Did he turn on the lights? I told him not to turn on the lights!"
"Clark?" the girl repeated, puzzled.
"Nobody, nobody," Norma murmured. "I guess he left."
"No. I'm still here." He went to the bedroom doorway. The girl named Peggy scurried from the bed and snatched at her dress - not attempting to put it on but covering her nakedness with it. In the instant before she partially concealed herself, Clark saw her young body was smoothly beautiful, the skin as softly textured as a pink velvet. By comparison, Norma's body suddenly very visible in the light, seemed old and coarse.
"Clark! I told you not to turn on the lights."
"I forgot."
"Why'd you get dressed? I thought we were gonna have a fucking encore."
He shrugged his shoulders. "You were sleeping. I didn't want to bother you."
"You call that a bother! Come on!"
The conversation with Sid had sobered him. He knew he'd been drunk when he came here with Norma. Norma was still drunk and now seemed more drunk than when she'd left the bar - as if the alcohol in her stomach had taken all this time to fully reach her brain. "In front of your friend?" he asked.
"Oh. Peggy, this is Clark. Clark, this is Peggy, my close friend."
Very close, he thought. But he only looked at the girl and nodded. The girl seemed too startled by his unexpected appearance to either nod or speak. She stood there by the bed, clutching her dress before her naked body. Clark studied the smooth lengths of her thighs and calves. Her shoulders were small, softly rounded. He felt a sudden burst of desire for her, a sudden irrational desire to cross the room, snatch the dress from her and fuck her - quick, hard.
"Come on," Norma repeated, spreading her legs. "Fuck me!"
Clark grinned. "We might embarrass Peggy."
"It won't embarrass her. She likes to watch people fuck. But that's all she likes to do as far as men are concerned. You've watched before, haven't you, Peggy?"
Peggy refused to answer, still paralyzed by Clark's unexpected appearance.
"Peggy's never had a man," Norma explained. "I've been trying to tell her how great it is but she's not convinced yet. Come on. Fuck me and we'll show her how great it can be."
"I'll fuck you tomorrow night if you still want to be fucked then."
"I want it now," she pouted.
"Tomorrow night. I'm too goddamn tired to get it up again. See you at Dino's tomorrow night?"
"To hell with Dino's. Buy a case of beer and come right here."
"Okay." He grinned. "See you tomorrow night." He paused at the doorway. "Glad to have met you, Peggy." Out on the darkened street, walking toward his car which was still parked near the Kessler house, he knew he had died. He, Clark Vaughn, the man married to Alma, the husband who'd hardly ever cheated, the husband who'd never wanted to have other women ... had died. The old Clark Vaughn had died when Alma died.
The new Clark Vaughn was unmarried, a widower, single, unattached. The new Clark Vaughn was at least temporarily jobless and purposeless. Except to find the man who attacked Alma. That was the main desire in the new Clark Vaughn. Other than that, the new Clark Vaughn had new tastes and desires. Now the new Clark Vaughn wanted a young girl named Peggy with skin as softly textured as pink velvet.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
"Hello, honey."
"You're right. To hell with Dino's. We'll buy our beer wholesale and save money." He nodded toward the case of beer in his arms. He stepped into the apartment and saw Peggy sitting at the card table. There were two chairs at the table, two glasses with half-melted ice cubes, an ashtray near the chair Norma had vacated - an ashtray cluttered with many lipsticked cigarettes as if the two women had sat and played cards for a considerable time, waiting for him. "Hello, Peggy."
"Hello." Her eyes were large and dark with extraordinarily long eyelashes. She lowered her eyes as if studying her cards, as if embarrassed by his presence again.
"We were playing canasta," Norma said. "Want to join us?"
"Christ, no. Canasta makes me sick."
"To each his own. Put the beer in the refrigerator. Open three bottles. Bring three clean glasses. And then sit down and keep your mouth shut until Peggy and I finish this game."
When he returned from the kitchen with the glasses and bottles of beer, he placed a glass near Norma, a glass near Peggy, and his own glass on an unoccupied side of the card table. He poured beer from the three bottles into the glasses. Peggy said, "Thank you," when he finished pouring the beer into her glass - looking up at him with a brief shyness, returning her attention to her cards.
He sipped his beer and wondered what the night would bring. It might be the most interesting night he'd ever had in his life. At least it was promising as hell.
The day itself had been lousy. He'd phoned Sid at the station but Sid had said they'd sidetracked him onto a liquor store robbery. "Incidentally," he'd said, "I forgot to tell you last night but I guess you realize ... You shouldn't mention our theory about the rapist being a hypnotist. Not until I tell you it's all right to talk about it."
"I'm not an idiot."
"I thought you'd understand that. You understand how the public is. That theory might leak out sooner or later but all the detectives working on it have been told to keep it quiet. That kind of theory about a hypnotist being a rapist could start a mild panic."
"Or a major panic. Anything new?"
"Someday I might get tired of hearing you ask that. Nothing new that I know of. Tomorrow we should start getting results from the publishing companies that sell books on hypnotism - copies of their mailing lists. Derickson, who's doing some of the leg work, checked the nearest professional hypnotist. Guess what? He's eighty years old. He lives in Philadelphia and the kicker is he went blind about ten years ago. That's a hell of a thing, isn't it? The next closes professional hypnotist lives in New York City. It's a good possibility. Derickson is checking it today ... getting some help from the New York police. One other thing came up. A girl has been reported missing. Katherine Elsinger. twenty-four. Moderately wealthy family. I don't think it's our baby, though, because it doesn't fit the pattern."
Clark sipped his beer and moved so he was standing beside and slightly behind Peggy. With the pretext of studying her cards and how she was playing the game, he studied the mass of her dark hair. She was wearing a sleeveless blouse and a pink skirt ... still sipping his beer, he studied the slenderness of her arms and could see down the front of her blouse a few inches - enough to see the soft mounds of her small breasts, the crevice between them, the edge of a white bra that enclosed them ... She was sitting with her knees slightly apart and abruptly seemed aware he was standing close to her. She stiffened in the chair and crossed her legs. She held the cards with one hand, tugged at her skirt with the other hand to pull her skirt down as far as possible. He wondered if Norma was right. Was Peggy a virgin? Thinking about entering that body as softly textured as pink velvet to discover the truth, his cock hardened achingly. He wondered if he could get Peggy - in addition to, or instead of Norma ...
Clark wandered to the window with his glass of beer and looked out into the night. The sun was settling on the horizon - a ball of redness settling on the roof of the nearest neighboring house as if that house were the sun's home. He studied the rows of surrounding houses and wondered what was happening in them ... how many men like himself waiting for the strange piece of tail? How many men, like the old Clark Vaughn had been, waiting to slip easily into their loving wives? The rapist, whoever he was, must surely have a warped mind - warped to some degree, because rape was unnecessary. There were a multitude of women such as Norma to be found everywhere - women who would willingly and -eagerly give themselves ... and a multitude of whores to be had for a price.
He wandered to the sofa and settled there, waiting. He lit a cigarette and finished the beer. He finished the cigarette. He picked up a magazine and pretended to read it. Norma and Peggy were playing a game other than the game of canasta. A game of "Let's-pretend-we're-not-too-anxious." He listened to the patter of conversation between them.
"Where are you getting all those black threes from, Peggy? Are you making them?"
"Up my sleeve," Peggy said, and since she was wearing a sleeveless blouse, both women laughed heartily at the joke.
Clark thought, Crap!
"There's another mixed canasta for me," Norma said. "You're going to lose."
"I have two natural canastas and two naturals are worth more than three mixed canastas."
Crap! He tried to concentrate on the magazine page and thought, Why in hell do women have to play hard to get even when they're not hard to get, or pretend they're not anxious even when they are anxious? Both of them must be anxious as hell to get at the sex of the evening!
"There," Norma said. "I'm out!"
"You caught me with ninety points in my hand," Peggy said disgustedly.
Crap!
He began reading the magazine article as the girls added up their scores. They folded the card table and Norma placed it in the closet.
"Want another beer, Clark?"
"Okay."
The two girls went into the kitchen. He could hear them whispering and he wondered if they were whispering about him. Norma returned and filled his glass, sitting on the sofa beside him. He finished reading the article and placed the magazine aside. "Who won?" he asked.
"I did. But not by much. Peggy is a good player."
"I'll bet Peggy's good at a lot of things." She was standing by the phonograph, looking through the stack of records.
"How do you mean that?" Norma asked. She brought her legs up onto the sofa with her knees toward Clark, touching his leg. Her skirt was taut across her thighs and, with the wide V of her legs in that position, it would be easy for him to slide a hand beneath her skirt, between her thighs, reach her cunt. He was positive she was sitting that way because she wanted him to do exactly that. "I didn't mean anything specific," Clark explained. "I just meant that Peggy must be good at a lot of things."
"Peggy's smart," Norma said. "She works in the IBM room at a finance corporation. She programs the IBM machines all by herself."
"Really?"
Peggy placed a record on the phonograph and music drifted from the speakers located around the room.
"Peggy likes you," Norma said. "She says you're a gentleman."
"I am. But how'd she find out?"
"Because of last night. Because of the way you wouldn't fuck me while she was here."
Clark burst with laughter. He fought for quick control and managed to stop before it had gone on too long although he still laughed silently. "I think Peggy's a lady," he said. This business of talking about Peggy as if she weren't there was awkward but Norma had started it.
"Why?"
"Because when I went into the bedroom, she covered her pussy as soon as she saw me." He managed to keep from laughing again, but it cost him a choking pain in his stomach. He remembered the line from the old Amos and Andy show, "He's a gentleman. He tips his hat as he passes the potatoes."
"Peggy is a lady," Norma confirmed. "And shy ... terribly shy. She's only had one date with a boy. That was when she was very young and the boy tried to fuck her. It scared her so much she hasn't dated a boy since. I've been trying to tell her sex is fun!"
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
"Are you comfortable, Debbie?"
"Yes."
"Completely comfortable?"
"Yes."
"Will you tell us what happened Tuesday morning at the tennis courts?"
"I played tennis with Judy."
"What else happened?"
"A man was there."
"Did he walk to the tennis courts or did he come in a car?"
"In a car."
"Do you remember what kind of car?"
"It was a Ford. I knew it was a Ford because it was just like Elmer's."
"Did the man talk to you and Judy?"
"Yes."
"What did he say?"
"He said he wished he could play tennis as good as Judy and me."
"Anything else?"
"He asked if we'd like to have a free TV."
"Anything else?"
* * *
Dr. Frank Nash sat at the girl's side and studied her profile. She was a pretty girl with that combination of pixy nose and full lips that reminded him so much of his own daughter. The nurse, Nadine Murphy, sat behind the girl. The double doors to the room had both been locked on the inside and he had folded the shutters across the high window. The mechanical kaleidoscope on the table before the girl supplied the only light in the room and it was a swirling, hypnotic light. Although he had not received a sodium pentothal injection as the girl had, or been subjected to the series of shock treatments as the girl had, he still felt partially lulled and almost hypnotized whenever he glanced at the kaleidoscope.
It had taken days to reach this stage with the girl, days of probing into her mind, probing deeper and deeper, with tremendous resistance all the way but still not quite as hard as digging into the worst of the schizophrenic minds. He glanced at the tape recorder. It had stopped when the girl's voice stopped and would start again when he or the girl spoke again. The girl had been silent a long time and he knew it was because they were passing through harder and harder layers. They might not get the girl to admit she'd been raped. This might be the end of it right now, with the girl admitting a man had been at the tennis courts.
"What did the man do, Debbie? You can tell us. You want to tell us."
"He showed us the TV."
"What did he say then?"
"He said we couldn't call for help."
"What else did he say, Debbie?"
"He said we would let him do anything to us." A long silence, then added, "He told us to nod our heads."
"And you nodded your heads?"
"Yes."
"Did he tell you his name?"
"No."
"Can you describe him, Debbie?"
"He was ugly."
"But ... what was he like other than being ugly? Was he tall or short? Fat or thin? Tell us all you can remember."
"He was ugly."
His entire attention focused on the girl's profile, Dr. Nash noticed the sudden twist in the girl's lips as if memory of the man's face in itself was unpleasant.
" ... And short and fat."
"How tall?"
"As tall as I am."
"Exactly as tall as you are?"
"Yes."
"How much would you guess he weighed?"
"I'm not good at guessing a person's weight."
"We won't be angry if you're wrong. You know we won't be angry if you're wrong in anything you say. Please ... give us your estimate of his weight."
There was an almost imperceptible shrug of her shoulders. "A hundred and eighty pounds."
"What color was his hair?"
"Black."
"Eyes?"
"Black."
"Was there anything unusual about him?"
"Nothing unusual. But he had a funny round nose."
"Round?"
"Like the kind clowns in a circus have."
"Was there anything else about his face?"
"There were some scars on his face."
"Recent scars?"
"No. Old ones as if he had a fight ... a ... long ... time ... ago ... "
The girl seemed to be drifting. He wondered if the kaleidoscope was having too much effect. He cleared his throat noisily and the girl sat more erect in the chair although she did not turn .to look at him. "What did he do next?"
"He felt Judy."
Dr. Nash rubbed his forehead. He had to get every detail ... every possible detail ... "Did he feel you?"
"Not then."
"What did he do after he felt Judy?"
"He told us to go inside the civic building."
He could assume they both went inside the building and there would be no need to ask, Did you go inside? He asked instead, "What did he do then?"
"He broke the window "
He resisted the urge to ask why the man had broken the window. Perhaps the girl wouldn't know. There seemed to be no reason for him to break the window. "What then?"
"He told us to stand beside the window."
"Then?"
"He told us to take off our panties."
"Then?"
"He took off his clothes ... "
"Then?"
"He told us to hold up our skirts."
"Then?"
"He fucked Judy."
The word coming so softly and yet so bluntly from the girl's mouth was almost shocking. But, he knew, despite the fact that Debbie had been a virgin, the word was more appropriate to her than the words mated, took, possessed, or even the word raped. Perhaps she and her girl friends had used the word quite often in conversations concerning sex, and now the word had come naturally to her. "And what did he do then, Debbie?"
No response.
"Did he rape you, Debbie?" No response.
"You can tell us, Debbie. You have no reason to be afraid to tell us." He cursed silently. It wasn't necessary to make the girl admit it, because it was obvious the man had raped her. But the fact she wouldn't admit it meant they hadn't broken all the barriers of the hypnotic spell. He said, "Is there anything else you can tell us? Anything else he said or did?"
The girl's lips moved for a while but there was no sound.
"I didn't hear you, Debbie. Can you speak a little louder?"
"He fucked me. He asked me what my name was and how old I was. He asked me if it was the first time I'd ever had a cock stuck in me and asked me if it felt good. I told him it hurt, but he made me say if felt good having his cock stuck in me and made me say I liked to be fucked. Then he fucked Judy again. He asked Judy if she had ever been fucked before and she said one boy had fucked her. He asked her what his name was and she said Herbert. He asked her if his cock was bigger than Herbert's, and made her say his cock was bigger than Herbert's, and made her say he fucked better than Herbert. He made her say, 'Oooh, your big hard cock feels so good! Fuck me harder!' He shot his come into Judy and then he made us lay down on the floor and suck each other. As I sucked Judy, I felt his come in her cunt and I sucked it out of her cunt and into my mouth. He got behind Judy and fucked her in the ass. I couldn't see him but I could feel him fucking her, because he kept shoving her cunt harder against my mouth as he fucked her. Judy had been sucking my cunt but he shoved her head away and I felt him fucking me. I kept on sucking Judy because he hadn't told me to stop and I felt his come shooting into my cunt. He heard a car so he got dressed and told us to play another game of tennis and told us not to remember what he did."
The word did ended in a howl. The girl leaped from her chair and ran across the room, the howl rising. She seized the kaleidoscope and hurled it against a far wall. She ran to the wall and clawed it.
Nadine had turned on the lights and rushed to the girl. Dr. Nash was slower responding and he heard himself say, "Dear God."
He held the girl while she tried to claw his face and screamed deafeningly, her face contorted, the cords in her neck uglily prominent. She had cut her forehead and blood spilled down her face, blinding one of her eyes. He pulled her across the room and Nadine unlocked the double doors. In the room beyond, the howl brought another nurse and an intern to the room and he stayed behind as they carried her away.
The girl's blood was on his jacket and shirt and tie. He felt the tightness behind his eyes - the beginning of tears but he squelched them by remembering the case last year in which three men had raped a young girl and mutilated her body. He had seen much worse than this and, he told himself, the newspapers are filled with things worse than this every day. He picked up the phone. "Stella, get me Detective Sidney Weinman of the Trenton City Police as soon as possible. If he isn't available, I want to talk to the police commissioner. I'll be waiting at extension 202."
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
"Want to take a ride?" Sid inquired. "Where to?"
"Harrisburg. I've had a yen lately to use some of the taxpayers' money to burn up some gas on a good long ride. This is the best excuse I've had recently. We've received the first answers from our requests for mailing lists from the companies that sell books on hypnotism. One name appeared on every list. As far as we can tell, he bought every book on hypnotism available. He might be our baby. Interested?"
"I'll get dressed right away."
"I'll be there in fifteen minutes."
* * *
During the long ride north to Harrisburg, there was little conversation between the two men. Sid was one of those drivers who devote almost all their attention to the road and surrounding traffic. There were no other developments in the case other than this one lead, he said. The man's name was George Schrader. Clark felt numb from the night with Norma and Peggy. Norma had said, "Why don't we show Peggy how sex is fun? Like I said, she likes to watch people fuck!"
Norma had leaned to kiss him with her warm wet mouth. While kissing, she guided his hand beneath her skirt. He had shoved the hand between her thighs, slipped a finger beneath the leg band of her panties, into the moist warmness of her cunt, stroking her clit rhythmically.
Peggy had been standing near the phonograph but came closer and watched them. Norma unbuttoned her blouse to expose her breasts and without being prompted, Clark placed a hand on her breasts, kneading them. It was the first time he'd ever felt a woman while another woman watched; it was oddly exciting to feel Norma's breasts and cunt while Peggy watched every move. Norma unzippered his pants and said, "Look at his cock, Peggy." Then, to Clark, she remarked, "Peggy hasn't seen many cocks. She likes to look at them."
She drew his throbbing hard prick free of his clothing. It jutted proudly through the opening in his clothes and he saw Peggy staring at it intently. Norma squeezed his cock, gently pulling on it. "What a hunk of meat! Want to squeeze his cock, Peggy?"
"No ... "
Clark laughed, goaded, "Come on, Peggy! The more the merrier!" His cock ached at the idea of Peggy also squeezing it! He had never had two women play with his cock at the same time and he wished Peggy would place her hand beside Norma's!
"No ... "
Despite Peggy's reluctance, Clark felt his excitement mounting. He would sure fuck Norma tonight - possibly two or three times. While Peggy watched. But would he be able to fuck Peggy also ? Sight of her sleek, slender legs made his prick grow still harder. Drops of lubricating fluid squeezed through the slit in the glands, running down the length of his taut flesh to Norma's fingers. Norma laughed and her eyes glowed with excitement as she massaged the drops against the hard surface of his cock. "Look at that! His cock is getting ready to fuck! But ... first ... kiss my tits!"
Clark obliged, fastening his mouth on one of Norma's nipples, kissing, sucking.
Norma sighed, the sigh turning to words, "I have an idea! Peggy, while he's sucking one of my tits, you suck the other!"
To Clark's surprise, Peggy knelt before the sofa, her head only inches from his while she fastened her red mouth on Norma's other nipple.
"Both of you feel my pussy at the same time!"
Having a helluva good time, giving orders, aren't you? he thought, but felt a new burst of excitement when he felt Peggy's slender hand brush against his own hand, felt her fingers occasionally touching his fingers as they both felt Norma's cunt, their forefingers side by side as they slipped in and out Norma's wet hole and then side by side as they both rubbed Norma's quivering clitoris. "Oh, Gawd!" Norma exclaimed. "I can't stand it!" She rose suddenly, tearing her body away from the pressure of mouths and fingers, began undressing. Peggy rose and stepped back from the couch. He removed his clothes and when they were both naked, Norma said, "Let's fuck dog-style!" She crawled onto the couch, kneeling there, waiting.
Clark crawled onto the couch behind her, inching his stiff cock toward her cunt. After he pressed the knob in her slippery cunt lips, he looked up at Peggy and continued looking at her as he shoved all the way into Norma's cunt, feeling the roundness of her buttocks against his stomach. He began to fuck. Peggy watched with wide eyes. "Get closer!" Norma shouted. "Watch all of it!"
Peggy knelt beside the couch and Clark began to fuck faster when the girl's face was only inches from his thrusting cock. "Feel me while he fucks me!" Norma shouted, her voice gurgled with her excitement, her buttocks heaving lustfully.
Clark watched as the girl's slender hands moved to Norma's cunt and caressed. Occasionally her fingers brushed against the sliding length of his cock and he fucked faster and faster, spurting his come into Norma's pulsating cunt.
* * *
At the door of apartment 4C on the fourth floor, a woman in a stained housecoat informed them that George Schrader didn't live there. "Ask the landlady, Mrs. Lofland, on the first floor," she said. "Maybe she knows where he went."
After Sid and Clark knocked on the door of the first floor apartment, after Sid had shown his identification and explained they were trying to find George Schrader, Mrs. Lofland said, "George died half a year ago."
Clark grunted. He'd expected George Schrader would be the man they were seeking. At various times, up and down the flight of stairs in the apartment building, he had touched the .22 in his pocket. He had promised himself he would shoot the man as soon as Sid and he were certain he was the rapist. He glanced at Sid.
The detective appeared unconcerned. He said, "Thank you, Mrs. Lofland. Sorry to bother you."
Mrs. Lofland closed the door and went to the window to look out at the two men as they got into the car. "Delaware license plates," she muttered half to her husband on the couch, half to herself. "I wonder what that was all about ...?"
"Policemen?" her husband asked. It was a hot day and he had taken off his shirt and undershirt. He scratched his hairy chest.
"Looking for George. Did you hear me tell them he died half a year ago? I wanted to tell them they should be looking for that horrible Pawelski. Remember ... he had the apartment next to George's ? I don't know why George was so friendly with him ... always talking with him ... always drinking beer together ... "
She went to the chair and sat so she faced her husband. She said: "Did George ever say anything about all those books on hypnotism?"
"No."
"Why should a man buy so many books about hypnotism? I always liked George but when Mary told me about those books, it almost made me afraid to talk to him ... afraid he'd hypnotize me.
"I saw a hypnotist on the Ed Sullivan show once," her husband said sleepily. "Made a man get down on his hands and knees and bark like a dog. I never could understand why those books bothered you. Why should George make you get down on your hands and knees and bark like a dog?"
Mrs. Lofland ran the tip of her tongue over her lips and studied her husband speculatively, wondering if she should say some of the strange thoughts in her mind - deciding she wouldn't because her husband would scoff. She pulled the handkerchief from her skirt pocket and blew her nose.
"Poor George ... he was such a nice man. And had such a nice job. They say he was an expert on that sub ... sub ... "
"Subliminal TV," her husband said.
"I could never understand that. Do you think that sub ... sub ... "
"Subliminal."
" ... Could make a person actually go out and buy a tube of toothpaste or whatever it was they were advertising?" She waited and when there was no response from her husband, answered her own question, "I don't see how something like that could make you buy something if you couldn't see it. They say you couldn't see that sub ... subliminal advertising."
She went into the kitchen to get a glass of water, returned to her chair. She rocked slowly in the chair and the creaking sound of the rockers was the only sound in the room until she continued, "I tried to tell them George never took sleeping pills. He told me that once when I told him how much trouble I had sleeping and had to take a pill every night. How could he die from an overdose of sleeping pills if he wasn't in the habit of taking sleeping pills? If you ask me, I think that horrible Pawelski made him take those pills."
She rocked some more and went on: "I told them that horrible Pawelski took George's portable TV. I saw him carrying it down the hall. But ... they didn't seem concerned at all." Her lips compressed with memory of how the policeman had remained so indifferent when she told him about the stolen TV after George's body was found. "George spent a lot of time working on that TV. Mary knew. She cleaned his room every week and she said he was always working on it ... worked on it for months. Do you think he put a sub ... subliminal in that portable TV?"
When her husband did not answer, she said, "I don't see why? Why should George put a subliminal in a portable TV to make people buy toothpaste and things like that?"
She realized her husband was asleep. She closed her eyes and her thoughts drifted to Mary. Poor sweet little Mary. Such a shy and pretty girl. Cleaned all the apartments better than anyone they ever had before or since. It had certainly been a shock when Mary became pregnant.
On the outskirts of Harrisburg, Sid said, "See what police work is? A lot of footwork, dull routines, dead ends everywhere."
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
As Sid reached his desk, the phone rang.
"Lieutenant Weinman."
"Sid, this is Frank Nash at the state hospital. We finished questioning the Kessler girl. It was quite a job but me managed to get some answers. Ready to write them down "
Sid hooked a foot around the leg of his chair, rolled it away from his desk, and dropped in it while he grabbed his pen and notebook. "Shoot."
"Debbie Kessler was raped by an expert hypnotist. For the record, he also raped one of her friends at the tennis courts, a girl named Judy. The man was driving a Ford. The Kessler girl described him as ugly ... short ... fat. The same height as herself ... which would be about five feet, five inches. Her guess on his weight is a hundred and eighty pounds. Black hair, dark eyes. A round nose. Scars on his face. Get all that?"
"Got it."
"I asked the Kessler girl if she knew what make of car the man was driving and she said it was a Ford 'just like Elmer's.' So ... perhaps you can find out from her parents who this Elmer is and then find out the style and year of car."
"Right."
"That's about all we have for you. This girl was definitely hypnotized and he must be an expert hypnotist ... judging from the way we had to dig so deep. From what the girl said, he apparently has a trick of carrying a portable TV and getting his victims to look at it to distract them while he hypnotizes them."
"The TV ties in. A kid near the tennis courts saw a man with a TV."
"Good."
"That all?"
"That's all we have to offer. I won't hold you long ... I know you have work to do. But I just heard on the news they found Katherine Elsinger's body. Do you think it might be the same man?"
"I don't know. I was in Harrisburg checking a lead. I haven't had time to check on the Elsinger case."
"When you catch the man, bring him here to the state hospital. He must be criminally insane. We'll have him committed until the trial. As you know, we have a special ward for the criminally insane. We can give him some special treatment."
Sid felt a chill at the tone of voice when he said special treatment. He said, "Okay. Thanks." He hung up the phone, glanced at Clark standing before his desk. "And sometimes you turn a corner and there it is right in front of you. Have a seat. I've got some things to do and then maybe we'll take another ride."
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
"Where are we going?" Clark asked. He knew Sid was excited and the excitement was contagious - his own heart beating faster, his nerves tingling.
"They found Katherine Elsinger's body. Someone raped her and killed her. Tied weights to her ankles and dropped her in the bay. Whatever he used to hold her down came loose because all the wires slipped off her ankles or broke, leaving only the marks. If this is our baby, he's all grown up now ... grown up to bigger games."
They were on the Kennedy Memorial Highway, heading south. Clark watched the speedometer needle climb to 75. It didn't seem fast enough. It was a four-lane highway and he estimated they could do 80 or 90 with no trouble. He resisted the urge to ask Sid to go faster and said, "Did the doctor at the hospital give you a description of the man?"
"Uh-huh."
"Tell me."
"So you can use that gun in your pocket as soon as you see him? Next time you carry a gun, buy looser clothing so the bulge won't be so obvious."
"Are you going to tell me what he looks like?"
"Ugly. Short. Fat. Five foot five. Hundred and eighty pounds. Black hair. Dark eyes. Round nose. Scars on his face. Promise me you won't shoot the first fat man you see."
"I promise."
"They found the woman's body near Chesapeake City. Her body is in the morgue there so we'll take a look at it and talk with the local sheriff."
Clark watched the road and the flash of green hills on either side of the road. He slipped his hand in his pocket and felt the butt of the gun ... "This case doesn't fit in the pattern, does it?" he asked. "We could be wasting our time ... "
"It fits in two ways. Katherine Elsinger is from this area which seems to be our baby's favorite hunting grounds."
"So he might have kidnapped her and taken her down to the bay?"
"Right. He tried to hide the body. Maybe that means he's smart enough to know he's been hitting too often around here and wants to move on to new hunting grounds. And there's something else that fits the pattern."
"Katherine Elsinger was last seen with an ugly, short fat man with a round nose?"
"No. She wasn't last seen with anybody. That's the funny part. The night she disappeared ... As she was leaving the house, her mother asked her where she was going. Guess what Katherine said?"
"That she had a date with an ugly, short fat man with a - "
"According to the files, her mother told the investigating officer that Katherine said, quote, I don't know where I'm going, unquote."
Clark felt a chill on his back. "As if she'd been hypnotized and instructed to meet someone somewhere ... "
"Exactly."
"My God."
"Clever little trick, huh? Just think ... if you were that good a hypnotist, you could see a broad almost anywhere. Hypnotize her, tell her to meet you -"
"What makes a guy turn into a rapist?" Clark asked suddenly. Immediately after asking the question, he realized it was a rather stupid question, but the thought had burst upon his lips.
"What makes a thief, a bank robber, a murderer?" Sid hesitated while he passed a truck that rode with its left wheels on the center line, almost forcing them onto the median strip while they passed. When they were safely beyond the truck, he continued, "I heard a psychologist phrase it once as an 'extension of a normal sexual impulse.'"
"Normal?"
"Wait. That's wrong. He said, 'abnormal extension of a normal sexual impulse.' A normal sexual impulse is to dominate a woman and screw her. Right? I think what the psychologist meant was that sometimes the impulse is so strong or the urge to dominate is so strong, it turns into rape."
"But that's like saying rape's a normal - "
"Not quite. He said abnormal extension of a normal impulse. He said something else too that might be true, might not, I never thought about it much. He said almost every man in the world is a potential rapist. Any man with a normal sex drive. What prevents most men from becoming rapists is ... well, the reasons are damned good ones. Common sense. Logic. Fear of discovery, fear of punishment. He said, almost any man could turn into a rapist if he knew he wouldn't be punished."
"Jesus! That psychologist should see a psychiatrist !"
Sid chuckled. "Maybe so."
Clark watched the road ahead. In the silence between them, watching the road, he remembered Beatrice. And how he'd almost raped her. At Norma's apartment, he'd had the impulse to rape Peggy. While slipping his rod in and out of Norma, he'd had the tremendous urge to jump on Peggy, sink his rod deep into her ...
Elaine ... at the office ... how many times had he wanted to screw her ... ? A thousand times. And since the act would have been completed in the presence of Elaine's unwillingness to go so far as sexual intercourse, the urge to screw her had, in a sense, been an urge to rape her. Logic and the fear of discovery and the fear of punishment had prevented him from forcing himself upon Elaine. Raping Elaine, he would have lost his job, his freedom, and one of the best wives in the world ...
"Want to hear something funny ?" Sid asked.
"I'm dying to hear something funny."
"Remember you found that cigar butt at the tennis court where Debbie Kessler was raped when you were playing cops and robbers with me?"
"Yeah?"
"Did you hear about the girl found in that alley ? Raped and strangled ?"
"I heard about it. Did you work on that case?"
"They assigned it to another detective. It doesn't fit the pattern of our baby but - "
"It could have been the work of the hypnotist, couldn't it? If a criminal has a pattern, that doesn't mean he always sticks to the pattern, does it?"
"Smart boy. That's what I wanted to tell you. Remember you found that cigar butt at the tennis court? And, even though they assigned the case of that girl in the alley to another detective, I went to the scene just for the hell of it and looked around. Guess what I found in the gutter between the alley where they found the body and the place where the girl worked? An empty cigar package. As if the rapist had smoked the last one and tossed the package in the gutter."
"What kind of cigars ... ?"
"Havana's."
"I also found a cigar band at the tennis courts," Clark said. "I didn't tell you at the time because you said - "
"I know. I told you a cigar butt isn't a clue. A lot of guys smoke cigars."
They were both silent for a long time. Finally Sid slapped the steering wheel with the palm of a hand, turned toward his companion, grinning. "Okay. I'll say it. Promise me you won't start shooting the first time you see a fat man smoking a cigar."
"I promise."
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Connie went to the window and raised one of the Venetian slats a fraction of an inch. She could see the main road and the railroad tracks on the other side of the road. As she watched, a train roared by. Even from the other side of the road, the noise was deafening. She went to the bureau, lit a cigarette, and studied her naked body in the mirror. She went to her purse and counted the money she'd taken from Pawelski. Five thousand and twenty dollars. She walked across the room to the chair where Pawelski still sat, staring straight ahead. She waved her hand in front of his eyes but his eyes did not flicker. She looked with disgust at his hairy naked body. He was ugly ... but stronger than any man she'd had before.
It had been a surprise getting the phone call from him. He'd asked her to come to Chesapeake City and at first she'd said no. Why in hell should she travel fifty miles just to suck his cock?
But then she'd remembered the five hundred dollars he'd given her to suck his cock that third time in the motel. He had made it a kind of bet, a crazy thing to do, but it showed he had so damned much money, he didn't care what he did with it. He'd sounded drunk over the phone and he said he'd bought a boat. She'd decided there might be some big money in it if she came and now she was damned glad she'd come ... Five thousand and twenty dollars was a hell of a lot of money. But the stuff about the TV was hard to believe. She went to the TV and looked at it closely. It seemed no different than any other TV, but Pawelski had said it was a special set - made by a man who'd worked on the subliminal advertising they'd outlawed from television broadcasting - a man who'd studied hypnotism all his life.
She took the gun from the bed and pointed it at his head. Would she be able to kill him ? Hell, yes. It'd be goddamned easy and besides, she'd have to kill him if she took the five thousand and twenty dollars. If she didn't kill him, he'd find her sooner or later and tear her apart with those huge hands. She took the pillow from the bed and tore a hole in it. She placed the gun inside the pillow and held the pillow against his head. It would work. She knew it'd work. All she had to do was wait for one of those trains to pass by - with all that noise, with the gun in the pillow, nobody'd hear the shot.
Was he telling the truth when he said all that about the TV? She looked at the TV doubtfully. He'd been so drunk last night, so stinking drunk, not making sense half the time, it was hard to know how much had been the truth and how much had been just drunk-jabbering. Part of what he said must be the truth because she had turned the TV toward him and pushed the button in the back. She had turned the TV off a few moments later, but he had looked at the screen before she turned it off and ever since then he'd just sat there with that funny look on his face as if he was hypnotized. So ... the TV could hypnotize a person as he'd said. But could it make a person do anything? She experimented as she had before. "Move your right arm."
He did.
"Move your left arm."
He did.
It occurred to her there was a much more interesting way to check the strength of the hypnosis. She said, "Touch your cock."
He did.
"Squeeze your cock."
She watched with fascination as his huge hand wrapped around his penis. She said, "Stand up and jerk off."
Her heart beat faster as he obeyed - standing up and sliding his curled hand up and down the length of his prick. She watched as it hardened and lengthened, swelled, and suddenly spat a stream of white sperm.
He had told the truth about the TV! It could make a person do anything!
A warmness burst deep inside her as she realized all the things she could make him do. She felt her nipples harden, her throat suddenly tight, her pulse pounding. He had made her suck his cock and swallow his come three times. It had been his way of humbling her. Now she had the chance to humble him!
Without actually planning it, she went to where he stood and grabbed his limp cock, jerking on it wildly until it became hard again. She stared into his blank eyes, then down at his cock in her hand, grunting as she clenched her teeth and jerked on it, only then realizing what she was doing. She realized vaguely that it was a kind of revenge - standing there and jerking him off. Hundreds of men had shot their come into her cunt and into her mouth. Now, finally, she was having a revenge, jerking a man off and shooting his come into the air! She laughed as her hand brought a long stream of come from his stiff cock - a long stream that spurted past her hip and splatted on the floor behind her. She turned to look at the white puddle and then ordered him to kneel before her. After he knelt, she held her cunt lips apart and ordered him to suck her cunt and lick her clit. She shuddered at the touch of his lips and probing tongue. She had an orgasm almost immediately but ordered him to keep on licking her cunt. Her second orgasm came a few minutes later and her legs felt weak but she ordered him to keep licking and to lick faster. His tongue slid faster and faster against her clit, bringing it to life again, making it tingle and quiver and drawing the third wet wonderful burst from deep inside her body. In those last moments before she gushed against his face, he was grunting with his effort and sounded like a pig as he licked and sucked her cunt.
The third shattering orgasm numbed her mind and body. She felt frozen in a state of complete joy and satisfaction. She heard the distant roar of another train and, as a shadowy image in a pleasant dream, she stepped back, removing her cunt from his mouth and holding the gun and the pillow against his head.
She had to kill him and it would be more than easy, it would be a pleasure. She smiled as the roar of the train grew louder. Everything he said about the TV was true! It must be the best hypnosis machine in the world! It was hers now, and she could have any man in the world, have the most handsome men in the world down on their knees, licking her cunt!
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
"Glad to meet you, lieutenant. Glad to meet you, Mr. Vaughn. Sorry ... You're too late."
"Too late for what?" Sid asked.
"We got the description of the hypnotist over the teletype. Jim Murphy ... one of our patrolmen ... started checking motels around here. One of the motel managers remembered seeing a man who fitted the description. Murphy called me. I told him to keep an eye on the man and I'd be there fast as I could. I got two other men but when we got there it was all over."
"What happened?"
"Murphy was waiting outside the room the suspect was staying in. The manager had noticed a blonde going in there. Murphy heard a shot while he was waiting for me. He thought the man had shot the blonde. The shot came right when a train went by the motel. Murphy shot the lock off the door, went in. Murphy got a hell of a surprise. Says he never saw anything like it before ... hopes he never sees anything like it again. The blonde had held a gun against Pawelski's head and blew - "
"The suspect's name is Pawelski ?"
"Carl Pawelski. The blonde had held a gun against Pawelski's head and blew his brains all over the room. When Murphy went in, the blonde tried to blow Murphy's brains outa his head too but took a chunk outa one of his ears instead. Murphy shot low ... didn't want to kill her. The bullet went through her stomach, hit her spine. They were both naked as jaybirds ... Pawelski and the blonde. They musta been screwing, the blonde saw how much money he had, decided to take it all. Want to see our collection ?"
"I wouldn't miss it for the world," Sid said.
Clark watched numbly as the sheriff nodded at the morgue attendant and the attendant pulled the sheet away from one of the corpses.
"Elsinger," the sheriff said. "Katherine Elsinger. Autopsy showed Pawelski had some fun with her before he dumped her in the bay."
The attendant restored the sheet over the dead woman's body, turned to the next slab, and pulled the sheet aside.
"Carl Pawelski. Fits the description to a T. See the scratches on his face? The Elsinger girl did that. Autopsy proves it from skin under her fingernails. We found bloodstains on his boat. Haven't checked it yet but I'll bet you anything it's the Elsinger girl's blood. If Pawelski wasn't already dead, we'd be able to hang him."
The attendant restored the sheet over the dead man's body, turned to the next slab and pulled the sheet aside.
"Not bad, huh?"
"Who is she?"
"Connie Cooper, a whore from Trenton."
"Quite a collection," Sid said grimly.
"Eye witness against her," the sheriff said. "Murphy caught her holding the gun a minute after she fired the shot that killed Pawelski. If she wasn't already dead, we'd be able to hang her. Want to see the motel where it happened?"
"And Pawelski's boat," Sid said.
Outside the Chesapeake City Morgue, Sid and Clark followed the sheriff to the car parked at the curb. Clark's mind was still filled with the image of the blonde woman's corpse ... the beautifully shaped body so white and cold with the hole in the center of her stomach ...
"See how police work is?" Sid mumbled. "A lot of footwork, dull routines, dead-ends everywhere. Sometimes you turn a corner and there it is right in front of you. Sometimes you turn another corner and find someone else has done all your work."
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
When Clark stepped into the cabin, he was startled by the strong mixture of odors - the odor of beer and sweat, a strange odor that might have been the odor of blood, and the lingering musty odor of sexual exhaustion. He watched as Sid examined the cabin, then he went up to the deck, leaned against the railing.
None of it seemed real now. None. The boat beneath his feet, the motel room splattered with blood, the bodies at the morgue, Alma, his life with Alma ... The other boats at the docks before his eyes ... the stretch of bay off to his right ... the sky ... the land ... They were all things. Things that could be seen, things that could be felt, things that existed but were not entirely real ... not very important ...
He lit a cigarette and his thoughts turned to Elaine, Beatrice, Peggy ... He felt the shortness of breath, the painful tightening in his loins - the sudden overwhelming desire for a woman ... Elaine ... He remembered the softness of her flesh beneath his fingers - the way she had let him touch every intimate portion of her body but had never let him pass beyond that act of playing ...
"Ready?"
He turned toward Sid, nodded.
After they reached the car, Sid asked, "Disappointed?"
Clark shrugged his shoulders.
"You wanted to be the one to blow Pawelski's brains out. Right? But the blonde did it for you."
Clark tried to grin. "Maybe it's better that way. If I'd killed Pawelski, I probably wouldn't have done such a good job. I would've aimed at his chest. The blonde did a real good job by blowing his head apart."
Sid opened the car door, paused. He nodded toward the rear seat that had been covered with suitcases, the portable TV, other items taken from the motel room. "See all that? Know what's going to happen to it? We have to take it back to Trenton since the blonde lived in Trenton and Pawelski's last address was in Trenton. All those items will be tagged and kept awhile. They'll try to return them to the blonde's relatives and Pawelski's relatives but chances are they'll never locate the relatives ... if there are any. In that case, all the items will be kept awhile and sold at an auction. That TV wouldn't last long in the storeroom at city hall. How about a consolation prize, a souvenir ?"
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
"Norma here?"
"She's working. She'll be home soon."
Clark placed the TV on the floor, glanced around the room. The clock on the far wall said it was only three o'clock in the afternoon. If Norma was working eight to five, there would be more than two hours he would be alone with Peggy ... Blind luck ... blind good luck ... He hadn't known that Norma would be working, hadn't known that Peggy would be in Norma's apartment. Wanting a woman, any woman, he'd stopped at the apartment expecting to find only Norma, expecting to make love with her ...
Peggy went to the phonograph, turned it off, and removed the record from the turntable. "I came over here to play my new record," she explained. "I don't have a phonograph. Norma lets me use her phonograph."
He had felt desire for Peggy the first time he saw her; had felt the desire increase each succeeding time he saw her. Now, looking at her as she stood by the phonograph, he felt the desire burst again, harder than ever.
She was wearing a white sleeveless blouse that hugged the curves of her small breasts, a short cotton skirt that emphasized the narrowness of her hips. Her large eyes showed she was afraid to be alone with him - afraid because of her fear of men, the knowledge of what he might try to do. "I'll have to go now," she said. "I have to - "
"Can you help me a few minutes before you go? Someone gave me this TV. I want to see how it works." Not wanting to allow her time to say no, he placed the TV on the card table
"Someone gave it to you ?"
* * *
The card table was littered with empty glasses, bottles, a scattered deck of cards, a score pad, ashtrays. Norma and Peggy had been playing canasta again. Most of the cigarettes were lipsticked on the ends, but there were some cigarette butts with no lipstick on the ends and he wondered if Norma and Peggy had "entertained" another man last night - again allowing Peggy to watch while the man fucked Norma. It was entirely possible, even probable ...
"Someone gave it to me but I don't know if the damned thing works or not. You stand over there and tell me how the picture looks while I fiddle with these knobs." He turned the TV on and listened to the faint hum from within the plastic case. He turned the adjusting knob. "Any picture yet?"
He noticed the case was badly scratched in some places. Chances were the damned thing didn't work at all - Pawelski had probably just carried it with him as a gimmick to distract his victims while he hypnotized them - something for them to focus their attention on. "How's that? Peggy ... ?" He raised his head to look at her and felt a chill at the total emptiness in her eyes. Her lovely face had paled almost to the whiteness of her blouse, and her slender body had become lifeless, frozen ...
He opened his mouth to say Peggy but the word never came to his lips. He remembered how he'd telephoned Sid from the kitchen and talked with Sid in the early hours of that morning - how he had later stood by the sink in the kitchen with the nagging sensation he'd missed an important meaning in the conversation with Sid. It struck him now. Sid had said: One of the kids said he saw a man with a TV set at the tennis courts. And, speaking of the rapist, why should he lug along a TV? He sure as hell wouldn't watch TV while he raped a girl!
He was standing slightly behind the TV ... unable to see the screen. Without thinking, he reached and turned the control knob to Off. The set being turned off made no difference. Peggy still stood before him, motionless, and he realized he had accidentally hypnotized her. Perhaps she would not awaken unless he ordered her to awaken.
He ordered her to lay down on the couch and after she had settled onto the couch, he went there and slowly raised her skirt. He removed her panties and then removed his own clothes, settling down onto her, sinking his stiff cock in her soft tight cunt and beginning to fuck her while his mind whirled with the concept of the power he now possessed.
He knew Peggy would never willingly have sexual intercourse with any man, so he tested the strength of the hypnosis by fucking her in a dozen different positions, ordering her to suck his cock and, finally, unable to delay longer, he shoved her down on the couch and fucked her until his come spurted into her velvety tight cunt. He ordered her to put on her panties and return to her own apartment, to awaken, and to not remember he had taken her.
Hours later, with the work table in his cellar covered with tools and parts of the TV, he found the device in the heart of the set, constructed behind the screen - the incredibly simple device designed to flash a pattern of varicolored lights in a rhythmic pattern.
He laughed then at the simplicity of it - a mechanical device no more complicated than a radio.
The truth had eluded Sid, eluded everyone.
There had never been any evidence of the device, only evidence of a hypnotist.
He wondered if Pawelski had invented it ... or if Pawelski had stolen it from someone. It was amazingly simple and yet, although simpler than other electronic devices sold by the millions to the public, this device was obviously the result of years of research and work by one man in secrecy.
He held it in one hand. It was so small it could be carried easily. The TV had been used only as a carrier, for concealment.
There were so many possibilities ...
EPILOGUE
On the sidewalk in front of the North American Building, Elaine Bettinger stood near the marble cornerstone and waited for her bus. A breeze toyed with her skirt and she kept her skirt from rising too far up the length of her thighs but allowed it to rise a few inches. She looked at the row of benches and the men sitting there.
She could see it in their faces as they stared at her legs - the lust showing as clearly as it had shown in Bill Medkeff's face, Tony DiRosa's face, Clark Vaughn's face ...
They wanted her - she felt a certain pride because they wanted her. It was wonderful to be wanted and satisfying to know they could never have her.
The bus was coming. The other women were moving toward the yellow curbing ...
"Elaine."
Someone touched her arm.
"Clark. What are you doing here ?"
"I can give you a ride home. My car is parked over there."
"Oh, thanks, Clark. Really, I shouldn't." She wondered how she could put it into words. How would it look if Mom saw her come home with Clark in his car? Mom had been staying with them ever since she married Jim - Mom was always waiting at the window - waiting to see her get off the bus at the corner - Mom with those bright gray eyes that seemed to see and know everything. It was because of Mom that she never allowed herself to go all the way with any other man after she married Jim. Mom had looked into her eyes after that date with that freckle-faced boy in high school and Mom had known. Mom had beat her with Dad's belt that night and she had cried all night ...
"I'll give you a ride," Clark insisted.
His hand was tight around her arm. There was something in his manner that told her he wanted to make love with her - he would, make love with her if she went in his car. Mom would see it, Mom would know it. Mom couldn't stop her from dreaming, Mom couldn't tell when she only let men play with her, but -
"I can't, Clark. My mother is staying with us. She - "
Clark was opening a large paper bag. She glanced at the mouth of the bag to see what it contained and knew for a moment it contained a darkness in which she was with Clark in his car parked somewhere, his hands on her naked breasts, his cock thrusting into her ...
