Maslin was a clean, quiet, respectable suburb of New York City, where only the nicest people lived and their children were brought up in the proper fashion of the community-confining passion games to the privacy of the home. Like Roger, the attorney's son-Roger who would put the Marquis DeSade to shame. Like Ken, who had a lovely sister named Alice; like Alice, who had a lover named Penny. Nice, clean, upstanding children in a nice clean town-a nice clean town that harbored a teenage club known as The Lustmongers, where Roger called the turn and the members had Alice and Penny-and Maggie, and Mitzi-at their warped beck and call. A town where no girl was a virgin and every girl-whether she preferred boys or girls-was a wanton. Where no kid had a choice except to be a in-slave or a slaver. Where the home movie projectors in the paneled game-rooms shown films that were only a come-on for the orgy to follow. It was welcome to Maslin, a nice, quiet sin-suburb of Hell!
CHAPTER ONE
Maslin is a good town. It is a clean town. It is a town full of freshly painted houses and freshly mowed lawns and carefully pruned trees which line the streets to provide shade in the summer and a haven for numerous birds.
Maslin is also a rich town. By ordinance it is illegal for any house to be assessed at a value of less than fifty thousand dollars. The houses are not trim little white ones. They are indeed trim, but they are also big. They are costly colonial split-levels, or English Tudor style, or even Virginia ante-bellum with tall pillared porches and roofs which follow the classical style of architecture.
The money which enabled these houses to be built came from a variety of sources. Some of the money is a consequence of some very successful medical and legal practices. Doctors and lawyers abound in Maslin. Other houses were built with money made from some lucky killings on the stock market. Still other houses were built with money that came from the war. During World War II, many of the men who now own homes in Maslin were owners of small clothing or button or hard goods manufacturing business. The war suddenly increased the demand for the products these men made. The clothing manufacturers began manufacturing army uniforms. The button manufacturers made buttons for army uniforms. The hard goods manufacturers began making parts for tanks and guns. By making parts and uniforms a little more cheaply and shoddily than they could in peace time, the manufacturers managed to reap great profits. They live in grand style on these profits now in their fifty thousand to one hundred thousand dollar homes in Maslin.
But Maslin is a clean town. The builders or real estate agent who tries to sell you a home here will be sure to point that out, and if you do not happen to look down and notice that his fingers are crossed, you might have every reason in the world to believe him.
The streets are immaculate. There are no crowds here as there are in New York City-a forty-five minute commuter train ride away-to litter the pavements with cigarette butts and chewing gum wrappers and torn newspapers. The residents of Maslin are proud of their little suburb and they attempt to keep the streets clean. They are aided in their attempts by a highly efficient sanitation department which each day comes through every street in town with refuse trucks and sweepers and sprayers to clear away whatever waste material might have accidentally found its way to the sidewalk.
The lawns are kept manicured even in winter. Not long ago one of Maslin's wealthy residents took a trip abroad for two months. Before he left town he told the gardening service which clipped his lawn every week that its help would not be wanted while he was gone. The grass on his front lawn grew some four inches during his absence. When he returned home, he found a summons waiting for him. He appeared in court and was fined one hundred dollars for permitting his lawn to become unsightly. The lesson was not wasted. His lawn today is as freshly cut as anyone else's in town.
Ah, yes, a real estate agent might tell you, Maslin is a sparkling town, a clean town, a town that seemed to have been created for bringing up children in the proper environment. No one but the highest class of people live here.
By high class people, of course, the builder or the real estate agent means wealthy people-people who can pay high school taxes to the municipal authorities so that their children will receive the best education possible. They are people who send their children to college, who buy their children's clothing at the suburban branches of New York City's more expensive department stores, who give their children brand new cars to play with so that they will not feel underprivileged.
Just the same, people in the market for a house in Maslin usually do think that wealth and position in life are synonymous. Wealth buys escape from the city, the real estate agents tell them. Wealth-twenty-five thousand dollars cash down and the rest on a ten year mortgage-buys lawns and trees and clean air, to say nothing of clean living. Listen to a real estate agent talk:
"You won't find any slums here. You won't find any gangs or muggers. There's nobody here except people who want the better things in life.
"New York City? You can have it. Say what you will about the convenience of living in midtown Manhattan. I wouldn't take it on a silver platter. Why, just the other day I was reading in the paper about how a gang of hoodlums cornered a perfectly respectable girl who lived in Park Avenue. They dragged her down to the basement of some building and, uh, well to be quite frank about it, they raped her. You won't find anything like that happening in Maslin. No sir! Maslin is a clean, quiet suburban town."
They were in the basement of a clean, typically quiet suburban red brick colonial home in Maslin and they were about to rape Alice Seever, a perfectly respectable girl.
They would not have been considered hoodlums. On the contrary, they were the perfectly respectable sons of some perfectly respectable Maslin home owners. To be more specific, they were the sons of a machine tool manufacturer, an attorney, and an import-export man. One of them was a high school student and the other two weren't doing badly at their studies.
They were well dressed, as befits the sons of wealthy men. Their neatly pressed slacks were of expensive worsted and flannel. Their shirts, although ordinary oxford cloth button-downs which had been informally left unbuttoned at the neck, had cost about eight dollars each at the Maslin branch of Argauer's Fifth Avenue.
Alice Seever, who was fifteen, was also well-dressed in informal but expensive clothing. The tight pastel blue sweater which hugged her young pointed breasts was pure cashmere and had cost in the neighborhood of thirty dollars. The tailored tweed skirt which seemed to cling to her rounded backside and her long youthful limbs was equally expensive.
She was a pretty girl. They looked at her greedily, lustfully, merely because she was so pretty. Her com plexion was creamy white and they knew that under the tight sweater and clinging skirt would be more creamy white skin, lots more of it.
They were intent on exposing that creamy white skin to the light and to their touch. Even so, they still noticed her blue eyes and the long strands of golden hair which flowed loosely over her shoulders and down her back.
Her blue eyes were wide open with fear. She cowered in one corner of the basement-a finished basement which had been made over into a combination game room and television room-and there was a nervous tremor in her voice as she spoke.
"What-what do you think you're doing?"
Her back was to the wall and the three boys formed a semi-circle around her. There was no place that she could run to. There was no escape. The pickle-pine paneled wall to her back, and the semi-circle of strapping teen-aged boys in front of her made it impossible to bolt and run. She could only run into the arms of one of them, and that was what she was specifically trying to avoid. She asked what they thought they were doing, but she already knew without asking.
Roger Cantrell, the attorney's son, moved out of the semi-circle, stepping closer to her without bothering to uncross his arms which were folded across his bfload chest.
His dark eyes gleamed maliciously from under a shock of straight black hair which had been expensively barbered only a few days ago to give him a clean-cut appearance.
"What do you think we're going to do?" he sneered "Do you think we came over here to play checkers?"
"But this was supposed to be a party," Alice said. "An ordinary party."
"Alice baby," Roger said, "it is going to be a party.
A real great party. You're the hostess and you're going to entertain us. That's what parties are for."
"You were supposed to bring some of the girls from school over," Alice said. "You were supposed to bring Sue and Barbara-"
"Yeah, we were but they couldn't make it," Roger said, his voice mockingly apologetic. "They all had too much homework to do. We tried very hard to get them, but they were all too busy. I'm terribly sorry, Alice."
"Terribly sorry," David Van Klumpes, the import-export man's son mimicked. He ran his fingers through his blond crew cut. "You have no idea how sorry we are."
"Gee Alice, I apologize," said Pete Andrews, the son of the machine tool manufacturer. "I didn't mean to let you down. I'm so embarrassed I could blush. I feel like blushing all over." With that he jestingly covered his handsomely chiseled face with his hands as if he were overcome by shame.
"You'd better go home," Alice said nervously. "Go home. Nothing's happened. Nothing bad happened yet Nobody's in trouble. Go home."
But something bad had already happened and Alice knew instinctively that the worst was yet to come.
It was Friday evening. They had called-or rather, Roger had called earlier. He told Alice that he and David and Pete wanted to have a rather informal, last-minute party. Pete and David already had dates, Roger said. Pete and David were going to take their girls to the movie down at the Maslin Theater, but it turned out that the girls had already seen the movie.
Roger said that he had no date for the evening, but that he'd like to be Alice's date. And since there was a furnished basement in Alice's house where they could all dance and listen to records, would it be. all right if they all came over?
Alice said it would be just fine. She had never dated Roger before, but he was very good looking and a very bright guy. She knew that because she was in his high school English class. Besides, her parents had gone away to a country resort for the weekend. They wouldn't be there to stand around at the party foolishly and make everyone feel uncomfortable.
It had seemed like a perfectly natural thing to ask the boys to come over. "Sure," she said, "come and bring the girls."
And then she spent the next half hour primping before a mirror, combing her hair, putting on lipstick, applying just a touch of mascara to her eyes. After that she fixed up the game room in the basement. She filled a bowl with potato chips and another one with pretzels and put them in the game room. She made sure there was plenty of soda on the ice. She went through a pile of records, sorting out the lilting rock 'n roll and twist tunes from her father's classical symphony stuff so that the gang wouldn't have to hunt for dance music.
But a half hour later when the door bell rang and Alice opened the door, she had the first inkling that this wasn't to be an ordinary high school party. The three boys were standing in front of her house without the other two girls.
"Where's Sue and Barbara?" Alice asked them.
"Oh, they'll be over a little later," Roger lied. "They'll be driven over by Sue's father. Don't worry about it."
Moments later they all went downstairs to the basement and Alice busied herself playing hostess to the boys. She got out some glasses and filled them with soda. She put a Chubby Checker record on the phonograph. She smiled just a trifle uncomfortably, like any nervous young hostess, and said, "Make yourselves at home."
"That's exactly what we're going to do, Alice old girl," Roger said.
"We're going to make ourselves very much at home," Pete said. "We're sort of going to play house."
"I don't understand," Alice replied.
"What he means," Roger said, "is that we're going to make believe this is our house and we're all married. You're going to be the wife, and we're all going to be the husband. You're going to do what a good wife is supposed to do for her husband, Alice. You're going to put out for us, all of us."
Once their meaning had become clear, she tried to throw them out. She told them to go away.
She might as well have told the walls to collapse, or the ceiling to cave in, or the Maslin City Council to pass a law permitting shanties to be built within town limits.
The boys didn't move. They stood perfectly still, each with his arms folded across his chest.
She was in the center of the floor, not far from the record player. She backed away from them.
"Get out," she said.
"Think of it, Alice," Roger said. "You're our wife. We just came home from a hard day at the office. No girls in the office. Just a lot of men. It's one of those very funny offices where they don't happen to have any stenographers or girl file clerks or things like that. So we haven't seen a woman all day long, and now we get home and our beautiful wife is waiting for us. All that blonde hair! Those nice pointy breasts under her sweater! Man oh man, it's good to get home to a nice piece after a hard day in that funny old office."
She snapped, "Get out!" but they ignored her.
She took another step backward and then a second and a third.
"Hey, where do you think you're going, Alice?"
David said. "You aren't running away from your husband, are you? That isn't a nice way to treat your husband. It isn't nice at all."
"My brother's going to be back any minute," Alice said. "You'd better get out of here before he comes back. He isn't going to like this."
"Who are you talking about?" Roger sneered. "You mean Kenneth? Don't make me laugh. I spoke to him in school during gym class today. Would you like to know where brother Kenneth is? I'll tell you. He took his nice new Cadillac and drove into New York. He's going to be there for a long time."
"He-he changed his mind," Alice said. "He just stepped out for a minute to get some cigarettes. Hell be back any second."
"Come on, don't give me that bull," Pete said.
"You don't expect us to believe that, do you?" David said.
"He'll be back any second," Alice said desperately. "Get out of here. Get out before he comes back."
"I think it's very sweet of you to try to keep us out of trouble," Roger said. "Hey fellas, isn't it sweet of our darling wife? There's only one trouble, Alice. When a guy goes just around the corner to pick up some butts, he doesn't take the car with him, and Ken's car happens not to be in the driveway."
"It's in the garage," Alice said.
"Tch, tch, then it must have been stolen," Roger said. "The garage door is open and I didn't happen to notice any cars in it when I came in. You're not kidding us. We know where Ken went. He told us all about it."
"He's getting a girl of his own at the moment," Pete said. "Every guy has to have a wife and Ken's no different. He told us all about it in the gym locker room. He said he was going into New York and he was going to hang around Seventh Avenue and Fifty-first Street until three or four o'clock in the morning."
"That happens to be when the girls come out," Roger said. "And they aren't ordinary girls either. They're very special girls. They're sort of what you'd call salesmen and they're selling a very special kind of product."
"In other words, they're whores," Pete said. "Your nice brother Kenneth went to New York to buy himself a whore."
"You're lying," Alice said. "Kenneth wouldn't do a thing like that. He-"
"It isn't very nice of you to call your husband a liar," Roger said, a cruel leer twisting his lips. "Can't you have any consideration for your poor tired husband? He just came home after a very hard day in his weird old office without women. All he wants is a fling in the hay with his dear sweet wife. And you're going to give him that fling, Alice. You're going to give it to every one of us because by some very strange coincidence, we all happen to be your husband. Hey, Alice, why are you walking backward? You're going to bump into the wall."
She continued going backward just the same, conscious that their eyes were moving over every contour of her body as if their eyes were hands that were touching her and caressing her.
They all smiled and began to step toward her. Each time she stepped backward, they advanced a step. It was almost like a dance. She put her left foot back. They each stepped forward. Right foot back. Three left feet moved ahead a step.
Back. She had to get away from them. They were taking big steps now, closing the gap between themselves and her.
Another step back. Three steps forward. Another back, then another She felt her back thump against the paneled wall and she froze. She had been so intent on watching them, on not letting them out of her sight lest they try some trick she wasn't expecting, that she had backed herself right into a corner.
The semi-circle around her tightened.
And that was where she was now, standing with her back to the wall-quite literally to the wall while she told them to go home and they laughed.
"I'm going to scream," Alice said. "If you don't go away I'm going to scream."
"Go ahead and scream," Pete said. "Scream your bloody head off. See if I care. This house is built like a fallout shelter. Solid all the way through. Your screams wouldn't carry past the basement ceiling. When they build a house in Maslin, they make the walls solid enough so that the neighbors can't hear each other's arguments. They won't hear you if you scream either, so go ahead and scream if you want to."
"Well what do you-what do you think you're going to do?" Alice said. "I'm not going to-I'm not going to do what you want me to do."
"Alice baby, you don't have any choice in the matter," Roger said. "It's not as if you're a casual date who can say yes or no. You're our wife You have to do things like this That's what wives are for."
"I'm not your wife," Alice said "Get out of here. You're crazy! I'm going to call the police if you don't leave "
"Hey Roger," Pete said, "she's going to call the cops What do you think of that? She'd actually call the cops on her own husband!"
"I don't think she'll call any cops," Roger said. "She's going to be too busy making it with her husband to call the cops."
He moved forward again, stepping rapidly this time.
Roger's hands rested on her shoulders. She tried to wriggle out of his grasp.
"C'mon, Alice baby, that's no way to behave," Roger said.
"You should be nice to your husband," David said. "Let go I" Alice screamed.
But Roger wouldn't let go. His hands gripped her shoulders firmly and he pulled her close to him.
"Kiss her, man," Pete said. "Kiss her good and hard."
That was exactly what Roger did. He pressed his face against hers, sinking his mouth into her full red lips.
She tried to fight him off, her fists pounding ineffectively against his back.
"Tch, tch, what a nasty wife!" David said.
"Very tempera mental," Pete said.
Her body squirmed in an effort to get away from Roger, but he only held her more tightly and pressed his mouth harder against hers. She felt his tongue snaking out of his mouth and squirming over her lips in an attempt to force its way between them. She turned her head away.
"She's going to be a difficult one," Roger said. "I think I'm going to need some help."
"Well, we'll help you," Pete said. "Want us to mess her up a little bit for you?"
"Do you hear that?" Roger said to Alice. "Your poor old husbands are so disappointed because you won't come across for them that they want to hit you. That's how fed up they are. You don't want them to hit you or do you?"
Alice opened her mouth wide and screamed. It was a loud scream that seemed to shake the very walls of the basement.
"Want us to hit her?" David asked above the screams.
"No," Roger said. "No, let me do that. I'm the first man who gets to her tonight. It only seems right that if anyone hits her, I ought to be the one to do it."
She was still screaming, a loud and hysterical scream that seemed to have no end.
Roger glared at her, his cruel eyes appearing very angry.
"Listen Alice," he said loudly, "I'm giving you one chance to shut up and do what we want you to do. Just one chance, understand that? If you don't shut up, I'm going to give you something to scream about. I'm going to give you something you won't forget so easily."
But there was no end to the screaming. It seemed to go on ceaselessly.
"Okay," Roger said, "you asked for it."
He balled his right hand up into a fist, brought it back and then drove it hard into her stomach. The wind seemed to rush out of Alice's body. She doubled over in pain and moaned softly.
"That's better," Roger said. "Now well give you a little something else to remind you to obey your husband the way a good wife should."
He relaxed his fist, flattened his palm, and slapped her face hard with his hand.
He slapped her again.
And again.
Dark red marks appeared on her face where his hands had connected with her cheeks. She stood up against a torrent of blows and then she couldn't take it any more. Her knees seemed to give way under her and she sank to the floor, whimpering.
"That's better," Roger said. "That's a lot better."
"Want to carry her upstairs to the bedroom?" Pete asked.
"No," Roger said. "The floor's as good a place as any."
While the other two boys watched, Roger lowered himself to the floor. He lay down next to Alice and put his hand on her pointed breast, squeezing her flesh through the soft wool of her sweater.
The touch of his hand brought life back into her body. She flushed with shame and anger, grasped his hand and pushed it away.
"Hey, she's fighting again," David said.
"Don't worry about it," Roger said. "She doesn't have much fight left in her."
He tried to kiss her again, bringing his mouth over hers. When she moved her head away, he reached out, grabbing her long blonde hair and tangling it in his lingers.
"Now try to move your head away, Alice," Roger said. ",See how far you'll get this time."
She did try, responding to his taunt as his mouth came close to hers once again. She twisted her head away.
His grip tightened on her hair and he yanked hard. Alice yelped loudly as her head was jerked back.
"See what I mean?" Roger said to the two boys. "She doesn't have much fight left."
With that he brought his mouth down on hers. She felt his lips sinking hard against her own, his tongue darting around once more, seeking an entrance into her mouth.
He pulled her hair, very hard this time. Her mouth opened in agony and his tongue easily found its way in and brushed across her tongue.
His free hand moved back to her sweater, slowly pushing it up and exposing the bare white flesh of her belly.
"Hey, look at that white skin." David said excitedly. "Don't worry," Pete said. "You'll get some in time."
Roger pushed the sweater up to her neck and shoulders. His face was still covering hers but the other two boys could see the shiny white silk of the bra that tightly encased her breasts. Roger cupped his free hand and covered one of the silken cases.
"Don't do it like that," Pete said. "Take it off. Take that bra away from her."
Roger tried, his hand struggling to get under her back and unfasten the hooks that held the bra in place.
"It's no use," Roger said after a while. "She's still wiggling around too much. I'm going to need some help."
Pete and David nodded. Without a word they stepped forward, each of them grasping one of Alice's wrists.
"Good," Roger said. "Now, pull off her sweater first."
The two henchmen rudely grabbed the sweater by the edges an pulled. Roger let go of her hair for a moment so that they could get the sweater over her head. The sweater came entirely off and was kicked aside.
"Now her bra," David said.
"I want to have the pleasure of taking it off," Roger said. "All I need from you guys is a little help holding her still. Pull her hands back and hold them down."
"I have a better idea," David said. "Well stand on her hands."
They did exactly that. They pulled her arms over her hand and pressed them flat against the floor. Then David and Pete each stood on one of her palms, the heels of their shoes cruelly pressing against her hands, punishing the skin and bones and nerves mercilessly. Her whimpering turned into an agonized wail.
"Hey, she's screaming again," Pete said.
"Don't worry about that," Roger said. "Nobody's going to hear."
Roger's hands worked their way under Alice's body, found the two hooks that held her bra in place, and released them. The bra came loose. Roger pushed it up, away from her breasts.
The three boys cast their admiring gaze on the two perfectly matched globes of flesh, each coming to a point which was capped with a small pink nipple.
"Look at those," David said.
"Wow!" Pete exclaimed.
Alice was still wailing, tears streaming from her eyes, a dull throbbing pain pounding through her hands.
"Somebody get her skirt off," Roger said. "Pete, you go around to the other side and pull down her skirt."
"Sure," Pete said happily. "Dave, put your free foot on her hand when I take my foot off it."
That simple maneuver was accomplished. Then Pete walked around the girl's prostrate form, got down on his knees, and began tugging on her skirt.
"It won't come off," Pete said.
"Of course not," Roger said. "You have to unzip it or something first."
Roger turned his attention back to the girl's breasts, cupping each in his hands and rubbing the pink nipples with his thumbs until they turned to hard red dots.
Pete meanwhile busied himself with her skirt. It wasn't an easy job because Alice was kicking wildly in an attempt to fend him off. Just the same, he skillfully avoided her kicks, found the catch and zipper that held her skirt tightly around her waist, and unfastened them. After that it was an easy job to pull the tweed skirt off, despite her kicking.
When it was off, Pete's eyes glued themselves to her long white legs and rounded thighs.
"What about her panties?" Pete asked. "Do you want me to get them off too?"
"Of course I want you to get them off stupid," Roger said. "I'm not going to get very far while they're still on."
"My pleasure," Pete said.
Pete's hand rested momentarily on the silky nylon surface of her panties, lightly caressing them where they covered Alice's abdomen and the softness below. Then he grasped the panties firmly by the elastic band and yanked them down.
"They're off," Pete said. "She's completely naked now."
"She sure is," David said. "What now?"
"Just hold her still," Roger said. "I want to get my own clothes off."
They held her, David pressing down on her hands, Pete keeping her legs as still as he could while Roger hurriedly removed his own clothing.
Hysteria gripped Alice now. The combination of shame and pain did something strange to her, something which resulted in a frenzied twitching of her nude body and an almost blood-curdling scream.
"Want us to hit her again?" David asked.
"No," Roger said. "Let her scream all she wants now. From here on, a little fighting is going to be fun. All right, get off her. I go first."
Pete and David moved away. With that, Roger almost leapt on her His hands moved down, forcing her legs apart, and then moved up to her breasts.
Her ear piercing screams filled the room. She fought W keep Roger away, pounding on his back with her fists, then scratching at it furiously with her sharp fingernails.
It didn't do any good. Her heaving hips and wildly flailing legs couldn't throw him off. She groaned with the first sharp jab of pain.
"Hey," David said. "Look at that. She's doing the twist!"
"Go man," Pete said, his eyes fixed on the couple on the floor. "Go man, go!"
"Y'know," David said to Pete, "I'm glad he's softening her up for my turn. I don't like that much fight in a girl."
"Don't worry," Pete said. "By the time I get through with her, she'll be plenty softened up for you."
"By the time you get through with her! It's my turn next," David said.
"Uh uh, mine," Pete replied.
"Tell you what," David said. "I'll choose you for it. I'm odds, you're evens. Okay?"
"Okay," Pete said. "Ready?"
"Sure."
"Once, twice, three, shoot," Pete said.
It was a simple way of choosing who would go first. Each boy had his choice of sticking out one finger or two. Then they'd count fingers. If each boy stuck out one finger, or if each stuck out two, it was evens, and Pete would win. But if one of them stuck out two fingers and the other one finger, then it would be odds and David would win.
"Once, twice, three, shoot."
The fingers flashed.
"Hah!" Pete exclaimed. "It's evens. I'm next."
They turned their attention back to the couple on the floor. Alice's body was still writhing and twitching now, but not in quite the same way that it had been before. , The fight was slowly ebbing out of her and passion was replacing it. Even against her will, her body seemed to be catching up with the momentum of Roger's. The touch of his skin against hers was exciting her as she had never been excited before.
They watched her hips, undulating up and down like clock work. Then, as their eyes bulged, Alice's legs suddenly came up and wound themselves around Roger.
"Hey, isn't that something?" Pete said.
There was no answer. David's attention was fixed on Alice. He saw her body rising and falling, faster and faster.
And then the two bodies on the floor shuddered. "It's my turn!" Pete shouted happily. "It's my turn now!"
"Don't get so excited," Roger said. "Everybody's going to get his turn. Everybody. Isn't that right, Alice?"
Alice said nothing. There was a dull, sad look in her eyes.
CHAPTER TWO
As soon as he got to the Times Square area, Kenneth Seever, Alice's brother, found a parking garage and put the car there. He had a junior license, which entitled him to drive during the daytime in a town like Maslin, but which did not entitle him to drive at night or to drive within New York City limits. He was glad to get rid of the car before a cop stopped him.
It was now nine o'clock. It had taken him exactly one hour to drive from his home in Maslin to Times Square.
He had plenty of time to kill. Or least he thought he had.
Kenneth Seever had never done this kind of thing before. He had heard about guys who had, though, and he wanted to give it a try.
According to the rumors and the stories that were going around among the high school guys in Maslin, prostitutes walked the streets just north of the Times Square area after four o'clock in the morning when the bars closed. Nobody knew exactly why they chose the hour of four a.m., save that most of the people disappeared from the streets at that hour except for the people who were looking for prostitutes. Hence there was less of a chance that some outraged tourist would make a fuss and cause such an uproar that the police would be forced to chase the girls off the streets.
For the police knew that the girls were there. They had to. The area was patrolled by cops twenty-four hours around the clock. Just the same, from four a.m. until dawn the girls were able to patrol the streets without trouble from the cops-or so Kenneth Seever had heard.
He had seven hours. In seven more hours he'd find out whether what he'd heard had been true.
Seven hours was a lot of time to kill. Kenneth wasn't sure exactly how he wanted to spend the time. He decided to take a walk.
He walked slowly north on Times Square, looking in shop and restaurant windows, staring at people. They seemed like perfectly ordinary people, men and women out on the town for the night. People shopping. People on dates.
He passed a book shop. The sign over the store , window simply said, "BOOKS". In the window there were piles and piles of paperbacks, all with similar sounding, spicy titles. All paperback covers were adorned with scantily clad girls, girls who wore nothing but filmy night gowns or lacy underwear or torn blouses that barely seemed to cover their bulging, forward-thrusting breasts.
He pressed his nose against the window, gazing at the book covers and the book titles. After a while, he decided to enter the store. He walked through the front door.
Inside, a number of men were browsing through the stacks of books and magazines. Kenneth joined them. He picked up a copy of a magazine entitled "SLAVE GIRLS," a thin pulp magazine whose cover showed a partially clad girl hanging from a wooden beam by a rope tied to her hands.
He gazed at the photographs between the cover. One of them showed a girl in tight silk toreador pants and a tighter silk blouse who was stretched out on a table, her arms and legs tied tightly together, while a heavily built man leaned over her with what looked like a red hot branding iron.
Another photograph showed a blonde, her body covered by nothing save a filmy black slip. Her arms were being held by two brawny men with mustaches while a third held a cigarette lighter to her feet.
Further back in the magazine the situation in the photographs seemed to be reversed. A women wearing high boots, skin tight blue jeans, and a cowboy vest that barely covered her breasts was applying a riding crop to the bare back of a cowering man.
Then there were two girls in high heeled shoes and net stockings and sequinned bras standing over the prostrate form of a man. Each girl had one foot raised, as if she were going to bring her sharply pointed heel down into the man's flesh.
Kenneth moved oh, pouring through the other magazines, flipping through books, wondering what lay between the covers of some books that were encased in cellophane wrappers.
After a while he left, just as a tall man with a blazing red beard entered the store, turned to the man in the stained shirt who seemed to be the manager, and asked, "How's my stuff selling this week, Harry?"
"Pretty good," Kenneth heard the manager say. "There's been a big run on that college book you just put out. Know which one I mean?"
Kenneth didn't hear the answer. He was already outside, walking north again.
He passed a brightly lighted penny arcade. Inside, people were busy at a number of penny and nickel games. Some were shooting with electronic rifles at moving bears that turned around and reversed the direction of their motion every time a hit was scored. Others were operating variations of pinball machines, or playing a game that was in many ways similar to bowling.
One machine caught his eyes. It looked like a telephone booth, only it was larger. Inside the booth was a wax statue of a gypsy woman, and painted on the booth was a sign saying, "One Penny Tells Your Fortune. Madame Zamba Knows All, Sees All, Tells All."
Of course it was a fraud. Kenneth knew that Madame was nothing but a wax statue and that the booth was nothing but a machine wired to eject a ticket with a printed fortune on it every time someone fed the machine a penny. Just the same, he was curious to see what printed fortune would be waiting for him.
He pushed his way through the glass door of the penny arcade, fished through his trouser pockets, found a penny, and put it into the proper slot in Madame Zamba's booth.
Immediately, the booth began to make a whirring sound. The head of the wax statue, attached to a hidden motor, began to nod back and forth sagely. A moment later, a small printed card came through an opening in the window through which Madame Zamba seemed to stare. Kenneth picked up the card, turned it over, and read his fortune.
"Tonight is your lucky night," the card said. "Do not be afraid to enter into a business deal if the opportunity presents itself, for the rewards you reap will be great. If you go ahead boldly, a small expenditure of money will reap great dividends for you."
Well, Kenneth thought, that seemed to be correct. He was expecting to enter into a business deal this evening. He was going to enter into a deal with a prostitute, and for the small expenditure of twenty dollars or so, he was going to reap great dividends in bed.
Or at least he expected to.
He stuffed the fortune card into his pocket and walked out into the open air again, thinking about expenditures and dividends.
He supposed that he was lucky. A lot of boys his own age would consider twenty dollars a great deal of money, hardly a small expenditure. But it was different with him. His father was a wealthy stock broker, and twenty dollars meant nothing. It was only a week's allowance to Kenneth.
It was a pretty good life, Kenneth mused. He had twenty dollars a week spending money and the use of one of the two family Cadillacs. The allowance was for entertainment only. His clothing and food were quite naturally purchased by his father. It was a damn fine life as a matter-of-fact.
Of course, Kenneth's father would have been outraged to think that Kenneth's twenty dollar allowance was being spent on such unworthy matters as prostitution. But then, there were a good many things that would have outraged Kenneth's father, had he known about them.
For example, there was the Lustmonger Club that he had joined with Pete Andrews, David Van Klumpes and Roger Cantrell. It was a secret organization-as secret as an organization can get.
The aim of the club, as the club's name implied, was to enable its members to participate in as much lustful activity as they wanted to. Of course, a lustmonger is one who literally sells lust rather than obtain it for himself, but that didn't seem to bother the members of the club. They liked the name and it stuck.
The Lustmonger Club had only been organized a few weeks ago, but it had been organized carefully, the moves of its members plotted way in advance. The four boys were going to lure four girls into a club by one means or another until the club had exactly eight members.
Then the fun was going to begin. There were going to be parties, wild, lurid sex parties. They were going to trade girls, get in bed with several girls at a time. It was going to be a ball, a wild, endless ball.
But of course, they had to build slowly. Right now, the other three members were working on some girl together, urging her to join the club. Anyway, that's what Roger said they were going to trade girls, get in bed with several girls at a time. It was going to be a ball, a wild, endless ball.
But of course, they had to build slowly. Right now, the other three members were working on some girl together, urging her to join the club. Anyway, that's what Roger said they were going to do earlier in the day, while the four boys were changing from gym clothes to street clothes in the high school locker room.
Kenneth had listened to the plans as Roger, the leader, out-lined them.
It was going to be a rather extra-ordinary seduction that would lure the first member into the club. As a matter-of-fact, it wasn't going to be a seduction at all.
"To put it bluntly, I think we're going to have to rape her," Roger said, "I mean, I don't know who she's going to be yet, but whoever she is, that's the fastest way I know of getting a girl to lose her virginity. We're going to rape her silly."
Kenneth asked what the point of raping a girl was. It hardly seemed likely that a girl who was raped would then willingly join her attackers' lust club.
"She doesn't have to be willing," Roger replied. "Once she's raped she has no choice in the matter. Don't you see? What girl is going to admit in public that she's been raped? No girl in Maslin would, because then she'd never live it down. She'd be the subject of everybody's gossip. People would all be talking behind her back. The whole high school would be talking about it.
"No girl wants to be whispered about in that way, and that's just where we stand to win. When we finish with her, we'll tell her that if she ever spills what she knows to the cops, the word will be spread all over town. The newspapers will get hold of it and then the whole world will know."
"I don't get it," Kenneth interrupted. "How is that going to keep her in the club?"
"That should be perfectly obvious," Roger said. "We'll also tell her that if she doesn't join the club and do exactly what we want her to do, we'll spread the word around anyway. Of course we really wouldn't because then we'd get in trouble. But the girl won't know that. She's going to think that she has no choice in the world but to join the Lustmongers. From there on in it'll be easy. We get a few more girls in, and after that we've got it made."
David smirked. "You're a regular evil genius," he said to Roger.
"Oh, it's nothing," Roger said with a wave of his hand.
"I may be wrong," Kenneth said, "but I don't like this idea."
"What's the matter?" Roger said menacingly. "You're not finking out on us, are you?"
"No, nothing like that," Kenneth said. "I just don't like the idea of raping a girl, that's all. It doesn't seem quite fair to me."
"It doesn't seem quite fair," Roger mimicked mockingly. "Did you ever hear anything like that? It doesn't seem quite fair! Listen, Ken old buddy, this isn't a Fair Play Club. We're the Lustmongers. We're not exactly dedicated to being fair. We're dedicated to getting girls and getting them good, if you know what I mean. "I know what you mean," Ken said. "I just don't happen to like the idea."
"Oh yeah? Wanna quite the club now while the quitting's good?" David asked.
"No," Kenneth replied. "I didn't mean that. All I want to say is that maybe there's a better way of fulfilling the club's aims. For example, we could all go into New York tonight and pick up a prostitute. They're supposed to be all over Seventh Avenue in the Fifties after four in the morning."
"Are you crazy?" Roger said incredulously. "Ken, at four o'clock in the morning I expect to be sound asleep. I don't expect to be just starting."
"Well then, maybe we could just sort of seduce girls into the club," Kenneth said.
"Sure," Pete said. "We stand a fat chance. What girl in Maslin would willingly join a club like the Lustmongers? You must be out of your head."
"I'd like to give him a punch in the head," David said angrily. "He's finking out on us, that's what he's doing. He's a chicken, a dirty lousy chicken-"
"Hold it!" Roger snapped. "Everyone stop before we have a real fight. That's all we need now. If some teacher comes along and finds us fighting, we've had it.
Now everybody listen. I have an idea. Since Ken doesn't want to come along tonight, he doesn't have to."
"But he's out of the club," David said sullenly.
"No, he's not out of the club," Roger said. "He can still stay in the club, but he's going to work especially hard to stay. If he wants to stay, he's going to have to bring two girls into the club by himself-all by himself. Nobody's going to help him. Meanwhile, we'll get the other two girls ourselves, and we'll use them by ourselves until Ken brings us two girls to make it a total of eight members."
"Hey," Ken said, "that's not fair. I'll have to do twice as much work as everyone else, and meanwhile you guys will be having fun."
"Well, that's the way it's going to be," Roger said. "If you don't want to come along with us tonight you'll have to do something to prove that you really want to be a member of the Lustmongers. You do want to be a member, don't you?"
"Sure I do," Kenneth said
"Okay then," Roger said.
"Hey Ken," Pete said. "What are you going to do tonight if you don't come along with us?"
"I'm not sure," Kenneth said. "I think maybe I'll go into New York and pick up a prostitute."
His remark seemed to stir up a sense of mirth in his companions.
"This is too much," Pete said between chuckles. "Don't tell me you really think you're going to get some whore to come all the way out to Maslin just to join our club! What are you, some kind of nut?"
"I didn't say I was going to try to get a whore to join the club," Kenneth said. "I merely said I was going to pick one up. I'm just going to have a little bit of fun with her, that's all."
"But what about recruiting girls for the club?"
David said. "When are you going to start on that proj ject?"
"Tomorrow," Kenneth replied. "Tonight I'm going to have some fun of my own. Play first and work later. That's my motto."
"Well go ahead," Roger said. "But don't forget that if you intend to stay in the club, you're going to have to get two girls for us in a hurry."
"Don't worry," Kenneth said. "I'm going to get you your two girls. Incidentally, have you picked the girl you're going to bring in tonight yourselves?"
"Not yet," Roger said. "I have a few people in mind but I haven't picked on any one in particular yet."
"Well who do you have in mind?" Ken asked. "Anyone I might know?"
"Could be," Roger said with a smirk. "Could be."
It got to be four a.m.
Kenneth felt tired. He had been pacing the streets for a total of seven hours and his feet hurt him. He inwardly chided himself for having come to town so early. He could have stayed in Maslin until one or two in the morning and still arrived in New York in plenty of time for some action.
Well, that didn't seem to matter now. It was time.
Several blocks south on Forty-second Street, the lights of the movie marquees went out as the last of the late theater-goers left to return home. The bars on the side streets were now all shut down. In restaurant windows, men in white aprons were listlessly mopping floors and putting chairs on table tops.
It was time. The very air around him seemed to be whispering it. It was time.
He walked north on Seventh Avenue for what must have been the twentieth time. But his pace was different now. It was still slow, but it was a measured slowness.
Before, he had merely been ambling along, killing time. Now he was forcing himself to go slowly. He wanted an opportunity to look closely at the women he was sure would pass him, and he wanted to make sure that they would notice him too and understand what he was looking for.
The Great White Way lost some of its whiteness with the disappearance of the theater marquee lights. The streets seemed surprisingly empty. The crowds had disappeared and in their place were occasional small knots of men, many of them with hats pulled down over their eyes, all of them much older than Kenneth. He wondered what they were doing there and what they were waiting for. Probably, Kenneth thought, they were waiting for women too-or else they were pimps, the men who lived on the earnings of prostitutes.
The blocks seemed to slide away beneath his feet. The numbers on the street signs grew higher. He was at Seventh Avenue and Forty-fourth Street, Forty-fifth Street, Forty-sixth Street She stepped out of a doorway at Seventh Avenue just above Fifty-second. One moment it was as if there was no one there. The next, she was almost directly in his path, her slim legs more than a foot apart, her hands on her hips.
She was tall, perhaps an inch or two taller than Kenneth in her high heels. A lightweight yellow coat was over her shoulders. It parted in front to reveal a low cut dress of light blue satin that clung tightly to her wide hips and her full breasts.
Her skin was a light brown and her cheekbones were high. Her long black hair flowed loosely over the yellow coat. Her eyes, dark and flashing, bore into Kenneth's.
"You are going somewhere, no?" she said, the Spanish inflection of her voice indicating that she was Puerto Rican.
"I'm not exactly going anywhere," Kenneth replied a trifle nervously.
"Then you are looking for something."
"I think I'm looking for you," Kenneth said.
She smiled at him. "Well then, perhaps you have found me."
"Could be," Kenneth said. "It depends on how much it would cost me."
She moved closer to him, so close that he could almost feel her body pressing against his.
"It is twenty-five dollars with me," she said in a half-whisper. "It is a very good price for what you will get. You will like it."
He whistled softly. Twenty-five dollars was more than he expected to spend. He had the money, but just the same he didn't want to overpay. The woman might be trying to gyp him and his pride wouldn't allow him to stand there and be gypped.
"Twenty-five's a little bit too much," he said.
Her smile flickered, struggling to hold itself in place, but her eyes gave away her annoyance. Anger and disappointment flashed in them.
"Twenty-five dollars is the price," she said. "I am worth it. I do not come cheap."
"I don't have twenty-five dollars," Kenneth lied.
She looked at him carefully, her eyes scanning the expensive fabric of his coat and trousers and the gleaming shine of his cordovan shoes.
"It is twenty-five dollars," she repeated.
"Twenty," Kenneth said.
Her eyes left him. She glanced up the street to see if there might be another prospect coming, someone who would be willing to pay her price. No one else was around.
"All right," she said "For twenty."
"Where do we go?" Kenneth asked.
"I have a place," she said, hooking her arm around his. "It is not very far. Come with me."
He walked with her to a shabby brownstone on West Fifty-fourth Street near Ninth Avenue. Here the glitter of Times Square was gone. The block was drab and grimy. Each doorway was cluttered by ash cans, while the walls of the buildings were scrawled with chalk epithets-many of them unprintable-in both English and Spanish.
She guided him through the doorway of the brownstone and up a flight of dark smelly stairs. At the second landing she stopped in front of a wooden door, inserted her key in the lock, and then ushered him into a single room furnished with a double bed, a battered dresser and a sink that Kenneth guessed hadn't been washed for a month.
"You can put your clothing there," she said, indicating a single rickety chair that seemed to be the only other furniture in the room. "And you must pay me now."
He handed her a twenty dollar bill. She looked at it for a moment, stuffed it into her purse, and began to undress slowly.
The yellow coat slid away from her shoulders. Then she reached behind her, got hold of the zipper of the blue satin dress, and pulled it down, removing her arms from the sleeves. Then she lowered it over her hips and stepped out of it.
She had nothing on underneath save a lacy black bra which seemed to strain against the weight of her breasts, and a matching pair of lacy black panties. She removed the panties and the bra quickly and finally stood before him, tall and proud, her big breasts thrusting forward like ripe melons.
"You want me, no?" she said throatily.
"Oh boy, do I want you!" Kenneth said. His eyes traveled over her breasts, her narrow waist, and her long trim thighs.
"Then take me," she said.
Kenneth's clothes were off by now too. He moved her, put his arms around her, and squeezed his body against hers, feeling the flat of her abdomen rubbing like silk across his belly.
"Not here," she said "On the bed."
He lay down on the bed with her and passed his hands over her huge breasts, gently caressing her light brown skin, making her nipples turn to stiff points.
She moaned and her hands groped for him, found him.
"Take me," she said. "Take me, boy."
He cut her off, sinking his mouth against hers and pushing his tongue into her mouth. His tongue met her tongue. Almost immediately, an electric charge of passion seemed to pass between their bodies.
Her hands found his chest and tickled it gently. He responded by trailing his mouth over her body, kissing her neck, her shoulders, her breasts, and then the two hard nipples.
She moaned again and Kenneth could feel her body moving under his.
She said something in Spanish that he couldn't understand.
He put his hand to the velvety skin of her thighs, delighting in their smoothness. More words in Spanish came from her lips, a hissing, never ending stream of language that Kenneth guessed was a description of exactly what he was doing to her.
He did more.
He felt her hips begin to twist under him. She wound her arms around his neck and held him tightly. The words were pouring into his ears, a torrent of hot Spanish as her hips undulated up and down with ever-increasing speed.
"Take me," she cried in English again. "Take me, boy."
He took her.
He took her good.
CHAPTER THREE
The tears wouldn't come.
The image of the three boys closing in on her stuck in her mind, lodging sutbbornly and painfully, like a fish hook. The dull ache in her body made it even harder to chase the memory away.
It all seemed so unreal. She kept wishing it was a nightmare, that suddenly she would open her eyes and look around and know it was nothing but a bad dream.
She opened her eyes.
In the half darkness she could see the dim outline of the furniture in her room. She could see the light from the street lamp outside forcing its way between the cracks of the Venetian blinds which covered her bedroom window. She could feel the bed beneath her and the nubby fabric of the bedspread.
And she could still feel the ache in her body and she knew that it wasn't a dream no matter how hard she wished it were.
She had been raped, violated by three boys, and now she was their slave.
She didn't have any choice. Roger had warned her that if she dared tell anyone what had happened to her, the word would be all over town almost instantly. It would be in the newspapers. She'd be shamed in school.
"You've had it, Alice old girl. You can string along with us now and keep your reputation clean as a whistle, or you can go rat on us if you want to. Shall I tell you what's going to happen if you rat on us Alice?"
She hadn't replied. She merely looked back at him through shocked, tired eyes while he out-lined exactly what would happen.
"You're going to get a reputation if you rat on us, Alice. You're going to get a reputation you'll never be able to live down. Every newspaper in the area will run the story. Everyone in town will point at you and whisper behind your back that you're the girl who got it on the floor of her own basement. You won't have any dates in school, Alice, unless it's from guys who think that maybe you went down for us willingly and who want to knock off a piece of their own. Any guy who calls you will be out to make you. He'll be out to squeeze a hunk of your breast and take off all your pretty clothes and run his hand up your thigh.
"And you'll be ashamed, Alice. You'll be ashamed fike you've never been ashamed before. You won't be able to look anybody in the eye. Besides, if the case ever gets to court, my father will get me a real smart lawyer. Should I tell you what a real smart lawyer will do? He'll make out a case that'll make you look like the villain. We'll testify that you went down for us willingly. You'll look like a bum and a tramp. That's why you're not going to rat on us."
Still she made no reply. She continued to stare at him dully, and Roger continued to talk.
"But you're going to do more than keep your mouth shut, Alice. You're going to bring us more girls with nice pointy breasts and nice long legs. We have a great club going here. We're the Lustmongers, and you've just become a Lustmonger girl. You're working for us from now on."
Pain turned to resentment and resentment to anger. She heard herself snarl, "You're crazy!"
"Not as crazy as you think," Roger had replied. "As a matter-of-fact we know exactly what we're doing. We're going to have the greatest sex gang in the history of the world. We're going to have some girls and some guys, and we're going to have these wild, wild parties. We're going to do some pretty interesting things at these parties. We're going to all make it together in the same bed. We're going to have girls making it with girls while the guys watch. We're going to have girls doing strip teases, except the strip teases are going to be better than burlesque house strip teases because at the end of the strip teases the Lustmongers see, every Lustmonger is going to get a chance to make it with the girl who just stripped."
Alice bit her lip and closed her eyes and turned her head away in disgust.
"Go ahead, close your eyes," Roger had said to her. "You still can't help hearing what I'm saying. Listen, Alice-I'm going to tell you some more of the things the Lustmongers are going to do with you and girls like you."
And then he proceeded to outline a long list of perverted activities in which he expected to participate with Alice-activities which involved the use of mouths, and tongues, and hips and other things.
"I'm not going to do it," Alice sobbed miserably.
"Sure you're going to do it," Roger replied.
"I'm not."
"You're going to do it, Alice. You're going to do it, and you're going to recruit other girls to do it for the same reason that you're not going to tell the cops what we did to you. If you don't co-operate with us, we're going to spread the word around town that you went down for the three of us in your own basement. That's why you're going to do exactly what we say."
She knew then that she was trapped, pinned to the wall. She'd have to do everything they told her to do. She didn't have any choice.
Now, lying on her bed in the darkness, Alice was trying to figure out how to get another girl to join the club.
Roger said there were two ways to bring in new girls. One of them was to find a girl who would be perfectly willing to join in all kinds of sexual activities. Roger said that there were girls who really enjoyed that kind of thing. There weren't many of them, Roger said, but they did exist and they could even be found in a nice quiet suburban town like Maslin if someone searched hard enough to find them.
Alice wondered if she actually knew girls like that girls who appeared perfectly normal and sedate in school, but who deep down were a seething, boiling kettle of sex.
She forced herself to make a mental list of all her girl friends. Some of them had boasted that they had gone pretty far with boys. Alice had listened to idle chatter about boys unbuttoning blouses, boys removing lacy bras, boys putting their hands and their lips and their tongues on girls' breast in the back seats of parked cars.
Alice guessed that some of the girls who talked a great deal about things like that had actually gone further. Probably, some of them had gone all the way with boys, letting strong male hands pull down their skirts and panties and then complete their lustful designs.
Alice shuddered. She couldn't imagine why a girl would do a thing like that willingly. She had always been taught by her parents that sex was something reserved for people who were married. Single girls, especially teen-age single girls, weren't even supposed to think about things like that.
That was what her parents had taught her. That was what they had emphasized over and over again.
She grimaced and thought bitterly that if her parents had been home this evening instead of having gone away for the weekend, she wouldn't be in this mess now. She'd still be an ordinary fifteen year old high school girl, a sweet unspoiled virgin with no idea that boys could be brutal and cruel and vicious, without the ugly memories of what had happened a few hours ago.
But of course, her parents were away. It seemed to her that they had always been going away for weekends and long vacations, ever since she was a little girl. When she was younger and when Kenneth was younger, a maid would stay in the house with the Seever children. Now that both Alice and Kenneth were in their teens, they were left alone in their big house to fend for themselves.
And what had happened to the Seever kids while their mother and father were off at some country resort playing golf and dancing and drinking themselves silly?
The answer was ugly and obvious.
Alice had been brutally attacked, and now she was the unwilling slave of a bunch of teen-age deviates, their agent, who would be luring other girls into the same lustful trap in which she herself was caught.
And Kenneth-if Roger and Pete and David were telling the truth-was off in New York City spending time with a prostitute.
Well, Alice thought with relief, at least Kenneth's not a member of Cantrell's gang. Kenneth wouldn't participate in activities of that sort.
That thought gave her some relief. She couldn't imagine her own brother in the Lustmongers. Not only would it be totally unlike Kenneth to join, she thought, but if Kenneth were a member of the Lustmongers, she'd have to participate in some of their perverted activities with her own brother.
But of course, that was impossible.
Or least she thought that it was impossible.
Somewhat relieved, Alice forced herself to think about the problem at hand again. How was she going to get some girl to join the Lustmongers?
She thought of ten girls who at one time or another had spoken to her about their activities in the back seats of parked cars with various boys. They had all seemed to have enjoyed their experiences. Maybe one or two of them were the kind of girls Roger had spoken about-the kind who might enjoy performing in numerous sex acts with a number of boys.
Just the same, Alice didn't have the vaguest idea how she could find out whether these girls would enjoy it. She couldn't merely ask them, or at least she didn't think so. If she asked a girl point-blank whether, for example, she would consider climbing into bed with three boys at once, the girl would want to know why Alice had asked a question like that. And then Alice would have to explain why. And then, if the girl wasn't interested in joining an organization like the Lustmongers, she'd undoubtedly begin to gossip about Alice.
And gossip was exactly what Alice was trying to avoid.
Which left only one alternative.
Alice would have to lure another girl to whatever place the Lustmongers would be using as their lair. She'd have to pick on an innocent girl, a virgin, a girl very much like herself.
She'd have to lie, promise there'd be a party or a dance or something of the sort. She'd have to use guile and lies and dirty tricks.
She imagined leading the girl into a party room in some other big Maslin house. She imagined Roger and Pete and David closing in on the girl, backing her against the wall, reaching out for her with their lecherous hands and ripping away the girl's clothing.
"Oh no!" Alice sobbed aloud. "Oh no, I can't do it!"
The flood of tears finally came. She wept aloud, her whole body shaking with huge sobs, her tears soaking her pillow.
She didn't want to do it. She didn't want to make another girl face the same ordeal that she herself had faced this evening.
But just the same, Alice knew even as she wept that she had no choice. She'd have to bring another girl into the club.
She was bound to the Lustmongers and she couldn't escape.
Kenneth let himself into the house at five-thirty in the morning.
It had been a quick and quiet drive home. The expressway had been almost completely devoid of cars at this hour of the morning and he had pressed his foot down hard on the accelerator pedal of the big Cadillac, driving seventy miles an hour all the way home.
At Roaring Rock Road Exit he had made a turnoff, as usual. From the turnoff it was only a mile to his house.
He closed the door behind him and tiptoed across the living room and up the stairs. He didn't want to wake up Alice.
He wondered what Alice had done during the evening. He hadn't had much of a chance to speak with her.
Probably, he supposed, she had either sat home studying or she had gone to the movies with one of her girl friends, or even with a boy. Now that she was fifteen and a high school sophomore, a lot of guys called to ask her for a date.
Kenneth was proud of that. He was proud of his sister. She was pretty-no, more than pretty. She was beautiful and she was going to become even more of a beauty in a few years.
And she was his sister, his very own flesh and blood.
A nice kid, Alice. A nice sweet innocent kid who'd get through high school and then college and who'd then marry a very substantial guy and live blissfully ever after.
Or least Kenneth hoped it would be that way.
Sometimes he worried about Alice. He knew that when his friends looked at her their looks disclosed more than admiration. There was lust behind some of those looks. There was the desire to kiss her and to touch her, to squeeze her firm, pointed breasts and to push up her skirt, exposing the white fullness of her thighs.
Of course, Kenneth thought with some measure of relief, with most of the guys these desires remained dormant. It was all think and no action. Most of his friends might go to sleep dreaming about what they might like to do to Alice, but they wouldn't dare try it.
Others might try it half-heartedly, but Alice would put a prompt stop to their attempts. Alice was a good girl, properly brought up and morally trained. She'd never consent to any shenanigans.
What would happen if a girl like Alice got into the club?
For a moment, Kenneth shuddered.
Then he laughed it off.
He made his way up the carpeted stairs, his feet sinking deep into the plush wool nap of the floor covering, and made his way to his room, pausing only momentarily in front of Alice's door.
Her door was closed and no ray of light forced its way through the crack between the door and the carpet. If the lights were out, Alice had to be asleep.
Kenneth went into his own room, closed the door behind him, and began to undress rapidly, the barest trace of a grin on his face. He felt supremely happy. He had thoroughly enjoyed his evening in New York, and the more he thought about it, the more he was glad that he had decided to spend the evening with a prostitute rather than with the Lustmongers. He could have his fun with Lustmongers some other time.
Of course, the Lustmongers wouldn't let him have any fun with them until he brought in two girls of his own.
That was going to be something of a problem. Getting two girls to join the Lustmongers wouldn't be the easiest job in the world. It would involve some sharp judgment and some trickery maneuvering. Just the same, Kenneth was pretty sure he'd be able to accomplish it.
As a matter-of-fact, he had one girl in mind already.
Her name was Maggie Lubbock.
Sultry, sexy, fleshy, redheaded Maggie Lubbock.
Maggie was sixteen, exactly Kenneth's age, and a high school junior. Kenneth had dated Maggie the previous year and the results had been extremely rewarding.
At the time, Kenneth was too young to have a driver's license, but of course that didn't stop him from using his father's Cadillac. His father and his mother were out of town most weekends, and what they didn't know wouldn't hurt them.
On weekends, when Kenneth dated Maggie Lubbock, he always took the Cadillac along.
It was an easy matter to take the car. The garage was inevitably locked, but the key to the front door of the house also fit the garage, so it was no trouble at all once the garage door was opened to get to whichever of the two Cadillacs his father hadn't taken for the weekend. And since the garage door was always supposed to be locked, Kenneth's father had seen no harm at all in leaving the keys in the car.
The car was a wonderful asset to Kenneth while he was dating Maggie. It gave him prestige. Even in Maslin, girls got a big kick out of riding around in a big, powerful car. More important, the Cadillac gave Kenneth a convenient place to neck with Maggie-a bed on wheels.
Kenneth remembered the last time he dated Maggie Lubbock, the time when what started out to be a necking session turned into more than that.
It had been a warm spring night and Kenneth had taken Maggie to a drive-in movie. Kenneth couldn't remember any more what the movie had been about. He hadn't paid too much attention to it in the first place. Like most people, he considered drive-in movie theaters to be nothing more than legalized lovers' lanes.
Within a few moments after he had nudged the big ear into a parking space near the immense screen, Kenneth slid his arm around Maggie. She didn't move away. By this time, having Kenneth's arm around her was pretty old stuff.
But even though he had put his arm around Maggie dozens of times before, Kenneth still got a thrill from it. He felt Maggie nudge closer to him. Through her filmy blouse, he felt the flesh on her arm, full and firm.
He looked at Maggie and he looked at her blouse. It was one of those blouses that would have hidden nothing if she hadn't been wearing some discreet underwear underneath it. Even with the underwear, Kenneth could see the color of her skin, the upper part of her chest, and the deep cleft where her breasts suddenly plunged forward, only to be hidden by a silken slip.
He looked at her face. Her features were small and even, save for her mouth which was inevitably pushed into a pout, her full under lip protruding slightly over her full upper lip.
He gazed at her face and her lips only for an instant, and then he moved still closer to her and kissed her, feeling her lips pressing against his.
It was still old stuff. He had done this dozens of times before too. He decided to do something else, something he had also done frequently, but not as frequently as he had put his arm around her or merely kissed her on the lips.
Boldly, he let his tongue snake out of his mouth and into hers. He felt it slide between her teeth. It met her tongue. The two tongues circled each other.
He grasped her more tightly, pressing her body hard against his, letting her heavy round breasts squeeze into his chest.
She gasped for air and little animal sounds came from her throat.
He let her breathe, moving his lips away from hers and to her neck. He rubbed his lips against her neck's velvety skin and she responded by moaning and rubbing her hands back and forth across his back.
Then, Kenneth decided, it would be perfectly reasonable to do something even a little more daring, some thing he had done only a few times before.
He let his hands slide to her full breasts. He cupped them, squeezing them through the whispy material of her blouse.
"Oh Kenneth," Maggie moaned. "Oh Kenneth, don't!"
But she didn't mean it. Kenneth had known Maggie long enough to know that when she said don't in that tone of voice, she really meant do.
So he did.
And then he became even more daring. His hands deftly began unbuttoning the front of her blouse, one button at a time, until the thin material parted in front of her. Then he put his lips to the cleft between her breasts.
"Don't I" Maggie said again.
And again, Kenneth didn't bother to take her seriously.
His hands moved to her shoulders and pushed the straps of her slip down her arms so that the slip's bodice fell loose in front of her. After that, it was a simple matter to unhook her bra.
He unhooked her bra, pulled it away from her, and gazed with pleasure on the large full globes of silken flesh.
He touched her bare breasts, putting his hands over the nipples and rubbing them until they grew hard.
She pushed his head down, Indicating that she wanted her breasts to be kissed. Kenneth complied, covering them with his mouth, running his lips across her pink nipples to send tiny shudders of delight through her body.
This was as far as he had ever gone with Maggie. Now he felt that it was time to go even a little farther.
Slowly and deftly, he let his hand run the full length of her body, over her bare shoulder, across her naked breast, down over her waist, and her hips, and one of her thighs, and her leg.
Then his hand began moving up again, but this time when it reached her knee it crept under her skirt and crept up her thigh, all the way up to the top of her stockings.
A familiar sensation came over him. It was the sensation of passion and it made his hands tremble. He felt a mysterious force suddenly come alive in his body.
Maggie said don't again, but her tone of voice was different this time. There was a certain urgency in it, a certain pleading which indicated to Kenneth that this time she really meant it.
He had heard don't pronounced this way before too. It always seemed to happen just as soon as he was overtaken by passion.
Not again, he thought.
"Don't," Maggie said.
"Please Maggie," Kenneth said. "Please."
"No Kenneth," Maggie replied. "We mustn't. We're going too far. It's dangerous."
"Please Maggie," he said again, his voice almost a whine this time.
His hand was still on her thigh, high up on her thigh, resting on her velvety skin. He could still see her bare, full breasts.
"Maggie, I'm begging you."
"No, Kenneth."
"Maggie, for goodness sakes."
"Kenneth," she said, "We have to stop this. C'mon, let's watch the movie."
She grabbed his wrist, pushing his hand away from her thigh.
It was then that he finally let himself say it.
"Maggie, I love you."
After that it was easy, fantastically easy. His hand moved back up her thigh and she didn't protest one bit. It moved even higher, exciting her, driving her wild, making her body writhe and twist and heave-and still she made no move to stop him.
He let his mouth move back to her breasts. He glued it there and meanwhile his hands became fantastically busy. They detached all the clips of the garter belt that held her stockings in place, and then he grabbed hold of the silken material of her nylon panties and pulled them down, all the way down to her ankles.
An instant later he was on top of her, the two of them lying on the front seat. His mouth was running all over her body in crazy circles, while her hands caressed his body, exploring him and exciting him more than they ever had before.
He held her tightly, his arms around her. He was practically squeezing her to death.
The tempo of their passion grew. Outside the movie ended and the newsreel began, but they never noticed it. They were too engrossed in what they were doing to each other.
It was happening faster and faster. Kenneth could hear the sound of Maggie's breath in his ear, could smell the perfume of her hot body.
She lost complete control of herself and so did he. It seemed to last forever. The pleasure was endless. Their bodies drove on, frantically seeking complete fulfillment, working harder and harder to reach that goal.
Her tongue went haywire in his mouth, wriggling against his. Her eyes were tightly closed.
They might have been selling peanuts and popcorn outside. Or they might be closing down the drive-in for the night. Or an atomic bomb might have fallen, for all Maggie and Kenneth knew. They knew nothing but each other, nothing but the supreme pleasure each was giving the other.
Until finally they each knew that they had experienced the most supreme pleasure of all.
When it was over, Kenneth drove Maggie home without waiting for the second feature. He kissed her goodnight.
That was the last time he had kissed her, and that was a year ago.
He hadn't meant it when he said that he loved her. He knew even when he was saying it that it was a lie and a trick to get Maggie to do what she otherwise wouldn't have done.
And once she had done it, Kenneth didn't see the need of dating Maggie any more. There were other girls he wanted to date. There were other girls he wanted to seduce as he had seduced Maggie.
When she discovered that Kenneth wasn't interested in her any more, Maggie took the news very badly. She had a terrific crush on Kenneth, and needless to say, she hadn't given herself to him casually. She really thought he loved her.
She will come back, Kenneth thought.
That was fine as far as Kenneth was concerned. He needed a girl to come running now. He needed two of them as a matter-of-fact, but one would do for the moment, and Maggie would be a perfect one. The Lustmongers would go wild over her.
Like a spider building a web to catch a fly, Kenneth carefully plotted the moves he'd make to bring Maggie into the Lustmongers. It wouldn't be hard, but he wanted to make sure it would be done just right. He wanted the Lustmongers to admire his work.
There was a moment's discomfort while he considered how badly Maggie would be hurt when she discovered that what he wanted was not to resume their old relationship, but instead to trap her into joining a perverted sex gang. He had hurt her badly once already. The second hurt would be worse. Much worse.
Well, Kenneth thought, the Lustmongers weren't supposed to be a social welfare agency. What they were doing wasn't supposed to make a girl feel better. If he wanted to be a Lustmonger, he'd have to get accustomed to the idea that somebody was going to get hurt in the process.
CHAPTER FOUR
Downtown Maslin has a reputation for looking quaint. Some decades ago, before World War II's profits brought in the influx of wealthy suburbanites, Maslin was hardly more than a quaint old town, a little town at that, a town where a few old famines had lived for generations.
That's all changed now. The forests around Maslin have been cut down to provide room for more expensive Maslin homes. Just the same, the downtown section remains-a few narrow streets on which a country grocery store and a country Gifte Shoppe and a country ice cream parlor still remain, looking almost the same as they did some twenty or thirty years ago when the population of Maslin was one quarter of what it is now.
True, business is not as good for the downtown merchants as it once was. Off on the north side of Maslin, smart money built something called "The Million Dollar Mile," a mile-long roadway where the suburban branches of the big department stores, and a chain store supermarket and a chain shoe store rose to do business in edifices of modern glass and concrete.
Just the same downtown Maslin still has a certain charm which draws some of the suburbanites to its old, quaint store fronts and its overpriced goods.
Typical of these old downtown establishments is Stamm's Ice Cream Parlor. From the ceiling of Stamm's still hang old crystal chandeliers which have been there since 1892 when Stamm's was founded by the late Augustus J. Stamm. The counter is long and made of marble. There are several marble topped tables placed around Stamm's where the customers may sit sipping strawberry ice cream sodas just as people did here in the last century.
The charm of Stamm's, like the charm of several of the other downtown business establishments, is an attractive thing. Perhaps that is why the Maslin high school students choose to do their soda-sipping here rather, than at the modern drug store on the Million Dollar Mile.
It was three-thirty in the afternoon, and Alice Seever was seated at a marble topped table at Stamm's sipping a strawberry ice cream soda. Sitting next to Alice, and also sipping a strawberry ice cream soda, was Penny Pringle, one of Alice's high school classmates.
Penny Pringle was fifteen years old and she was a very pretty fifteen. Her dark hair was up in a neat pony tail. She had dark flashing eyes, and dark, almost olive skin. Like Alice Seever's, Penny Pringle's body was developed to an extent far greater than ordinary for a fifteen year old girl. Penny had full, rounded breasts, a narrow waist, and a pair of hips that were as full and as round as her breasts. All of her well-developed anatomy was encased in a tight red sweater and a trim plaid skirt which managed to emphasize rather than hide her figure.
Despite her pretty face and figure, Penny Pringle was quite an innocent girl. Naive might have been a better word for it. Alice knew that Penny was naive because she had known Penny for years, ever since the two of them had begun the first grade together at Maslin elementary school. Penny was a shy girl who didn't have many dates because she usually avoided boys. Boys seemed to embarrass her. It was almost as if they belonged to a world which Penny felt she wasn't ready for yet. Despite her figure, Penny gave people the impression that she still hadn't really matured.
As a consequence of this impression, boys usually avoided dating Penny. It would have been too much like dating an eleven year old girl. Even when boys did date Penny, there seemed to be an unwritten rule that they were not to touch her. Penny didn't make the rule herself. It merely seemed to most boys that Penny wasn't the kind of girl you'd try anything with no matter how much you were tempted.
As a consequence of all this, Penny was naive very naive.
Which suited Alice Seever's ends perfectly.
Alice wasn't happy about the whole thing. She knew that what she was about to attempt was wrong.
For what she was about to attempt, to be frank about it, was to lure Penny to the Lustmongers.
Alice had chosen Penny carefully, from among all her acquaintances. She had chosen her willfully, deliberately, with the full knowledge that she shouldn't be doing it, but with the equally full knowledge that Roger and the other Lustmongers were pressuring her for a girl and that they wouldn't stop pressuring her until she brought them a girl.
She took a long sip of her strawberry ice cream soda and then she began.
"Penny," Alice said, "I have a problem."
"What kind of problem?" Penny asked.
"Well," Alice said, "it's sort of a boy problem. You see, I've been invited to a party tonight and the boy I'm going with has a friend who doesn't have a date. My date asked me to get a date for his friend."
"Gee, that is a problem," Penny said. She didn't understand that Alice wanted her to be that blind date. It was typical of Penny's naivete in matters of this sort.
Alice paused and then began again.
"It is a problem, Penny, and that's why I was wondering if you could help me."
"I'd like to help you," Penny said, "believe me I would. The only trouble is, Alice, that I don't happen to know any girl who could be a date for your friend's friend. None of the girls I know are free tonight."
"Well what about you?" Alice said. "Aren't you free tonight, Penny?"
"Me?" Penny said. "Me?"
"Yes, you. How about it, Penny? The party's probably going to be a lot of fun. A lot of interesting people will be there. How about coming along?"
"Well I don't know," Penny began dubiously. "I mean, what would somebody want with me at a party?"
"Come on, you're kidding me!" Alice exclaimed. "Why, you're a very pretty and a very charming girl, Penny. You'd be great at a party."
"You're kidding," Penny said. "I wouldn't be any fun." She hunched up her shoulders in a shrug. "Maybe you'd better get somebody else."
"Penny, you're the one who's being silly," Alice said. "Believe me, people would love you at a party, you really ought to come. You'd have a great time."
"Well, I don't really think-"
But Alice interrupted her.
"Say you'll come."
"What kind of party is it?" Penny asked.
"It's a supper party," Alice said. "It's going to start in about an hour and it'll last until late at night."
"Late at night?" Penny said. "I don't think I can come then. My mother doesn't like me to get home later than eleven even on a Friday night."
"Well, that doesn't matter," Alice replied. "You can leave whenever you want to. One of the boys will drive you home. Most of them have cars."
"I'm not supposed to drive in cars either," Penny said. "My mother says that it's not right for young girls to drive around in cars with boys. It's dangerous.
"Dangerous! Don't be silly!" Alice said laughingly. "Penny, how old are you?"
"Fifteen, the same as you," Penny said. "You know that. We've been in school together since the very beginning."
"Of course I know that," Alice said. "And I've been driving around in cars with boys now since I was a thirteen year old kid. Believe me, Penny, there's nothing dangerous about it. Nothing at all. What in the world do you think could be dangerous about driving around in some old car with some old boy?"
"Gee, I don't know."
"Well neither do I," Alice said, "and if there was anything to know I'd know it because I've been driving around in cars for a long time now. Believe me, all this talk about driving around in cars with boys being dangerous is just nonsense, pure, plain nonsense."
"Well, I guess you've convinced me," Penny said.
"Then you'll come to the party?"
"Well, I still don't know," Penny answered. "You said it was a supper party, didn't you?"
"That's right."
"My mother wants me home for supper," Penny said. "I don't know if shell give me permission to go to a party and miss supper."
"You won't miss supper," Alice said. There was a trace of annoyance in her voice. It was pretty exasperating trying to persuade Penny to go to the party. "They're going to serve supper at the party, so you won't miss a thing. Listen, why don't you phone your mother and tell her you've been invited to this party and you'd like to go. She'll probably give her permission. As a matter-of-fact, shell probably be thrilled to know you're going to a party. Most mothers are thrilled to hear that their daughters are being invited places."
"You think so?" Penny said.
"Sure I think so."
"Well, okay then. But there are a couple of things my mother will probably ask that I don't have answers for. Maybe I'd better ask you what I know my mother is going to ask so that I can have all the answers ready."
"Sure," Alice said. She took another sip of her strawberry ice cream soda. "Go ahead and ask."
"Well, for one thing, where is this party being held?"
"It's at 23 Arbor Lane," Alice said. "That's the home of one of the boys. We'll have the run of the whole bouse because his parents are off in Europe."
"What boy?"
"His name is David Van Klumpes," Alice said. "Do you know him?"
"No," Penny said.
"Well, he's a senior at Maslin High School. His father's in the import-export business. Right now both of his parents are in Rotterdam. His father is working on this big business deal to bring a load of surplus wooden shoes back to the United States. They're going to sell them as flower pots in gift shops or something like that. Anyway, his father's closing the deal in Holland and his mother went along for a vacation, so we'll have the whole house for the party."
"I don't think my mother is going to like that," Penny said.
"What won't she like?"
"The idea that this boy's parents aren't home," Penny said. "My mother always says that I shouldn't go to parties where nobody's parents are. Dangerous things could happen."
"Here we go again," Alice sighed. "What kind of dangerous things could happen? Penny, this is just like that car business. It's nothing but rumor. Nothing dangerous happens at parties just because some old parents aren't around to watch. The only thing that could possibly happen would be that the party would become more fun-and that's because there wouldn't be a bunch of old parents around to watch us and make us feel uncomfortable."
"That could be," Penny said. "Just the same, I don't think my mother will like it."
"Don't worry about it," Alice said. "She doesn't have to like it-just so long as she doesn't know about it."
"You mean I should lie to her?" Penny said, her dark eyes opening wide.
"No, don't lie to her. Just don't mention the fact that David's parents won't be around. That's all you have to do."
"Well, okay," Penny said. "If you think it'll be all right. But you'll stick close to me at the party, won't you Alice? I mean, you'll make sure everything works out fine?"
"Of course I will," Alice said, a strong note of irony in her voice. "You can rest assured that I'll be responsible for anything that happens to you. Now, call your mother and ask her permission to go to the party. If she says you can go, I'll call the boys and tell them to pick us up right here at Stamm's."
"Fine," Penny said at last. She took a hurried sip from her soda straw and then headed for the telephone booth.
Alice watched her, bitterly reflecting that this innocent girl was going to be ruined tonight and that she, Alice Seever, was going to be the one who was ultimately responsible. It was a dirty trick-a mean, dirty trick.
Alice felt terribly guilty. She wondered how she had been able to look Penny straight in the eye and tell her all those lies about how safe the party would be.
Alice supposed she was sinking. She had been brought down low by the Lustmongers and now it didn't even seem to matter any more. She'd probably go lower yet.
Penny skipped back to the table a moment later, her face all smiles.
"Mom says I can go!" Penny said. "Of course, I have to be home by eleven."
"That's all right," Alice said. "I'll make sure you get home on time. Now, if you'll excuse me for a moment, I want to phone the boys and tell them to pick us up as soon as possible."
"Sure thing," Penny said happily, unaware of what was about to happen to her. "Go ahead."
When she learned what kind of party it really was, Penny Pringle did what could quite naturally be expected of a girl like her.
She resisted.
But it was no good. It was like trying to resist the winds and the tides and the passage of time. The four lust mongers she faced-Roger and David and Pete and Alice-were like an irresistible force. They overwhelmed her. She was beaten even before she began to fight.
They had all been careful not to reveal their intentions to her too soon. The car, a big Buick sedan, had appeared at the ice cream parlor only ten minutes after Alice placed her call. All three of the boys were in it, but there was no way Penny could have known that the boys were licking their lips because they were waiting for the inevitable scene that would follow in a few more minutes.
They played it cool, and they were conscious that they were playing it cool. They all made pleasant chitchat with Penny on the way back to David's house on Arbor Lane. They talked about perfectly ordinary things, the kind of things you would expect high school kids to talk about. They discussed dancing, and music, and the English mid-term exam and what colleges they hoped to attend. It was nothing out of the ordinary.
But when they got to David's house, the entire mood suddenly changed. Penny sensed it almost immediately. David unlocked the front door and held it open for his friends. They walked into the big, plushy carpeted living room. Then David locked the door, double locked it, and bolted it with a chain bolt.
And Penny shivered.
"Why are you locking the place up so tight?" she asked David.
"Take off your coat," David ordered coldly, ignoring her question.
"Sure," Roger said, slipping off his own coat, "take off your coat and make yourself at home."
Penny didn't like Roger's tone of voice any more than she liked David's. She glanced up at her four companions and noted with alarm that their eyes were really fixed on her. They were staring at her with a strange, almost wicked kind of coldness.
"What about supper?" Penny asked. "Who's making supper? Are Alice and I supposed to prepare it? C'mon Alice, let's go into the kitchen."
"Not so fast," Pete snapped.
"But-" Penny began.
"But nothing," Roger said, a leer on his lips. "We're not ready to eat yet."
"Well, that doesn't matter, does it?" Penny said. "I mean, it takes a while to cook supper and even if you're not ready to eat at this very moment-"
"We have a different kind of meal planned, Penny old girl," Roger said.
"What-what do you mean?" Penny asked uncomfortably.
"I mean just what I said," Roger replied with a sneer. "We're not going to have an ordinary meal. It's going to be sort of a drinking meal. We're going to drink wine, Penny. Nice red imported wine."
"I'll get the wine," David said, disappearing into the kitchen for a moment.
"Wine?" Penny said, her eyes wide with shock. "You mean you're going to drink?"
"That's what Roger said," Pete replied.
"But I don't drink," Penny said. "I never took a drink in my life."
"You don't have to worry about that," Roger said. "We're not asking you to drink. As a matter-of-fact, you're not going to be able to drink. You're just going to help us take our drinks, that's all."
"I don't understand," Penny said, her voice cracking with alarm. "Alice, what is all this?"
But Alice didn't answer. Instead, she cast her glance to the deep piling in the rug, avoiding Penny's eyes.
"Let me explain," Roger said. "You see, we're not going to be drinking the wine out of ordinary glasses, and we're not going to swig it out of the bottle either. We're going to drink it out of a-well, you might call it a vessel." His eyes greedily traced the outlines of Penny's voluptuous curves
"And you're the vessel," Pete chuckled.
"Alice," Penny cried, "what's going on?"
"Let me explain," Roger said "It's all very simple We're all members, of a little club, a special sort of organization And we like to drink wine out of vessels. Should I tell you what the best kind of vessel in the whole world is, Penny. The best kind of vessel is a young, ripe girl, a nice untouched virgin like you. We pour the wine into certain parts of you-the navei, for example, or the mouth. Then, when you're lying nude on the floor with all that red wine running over your white skin, we drink it up. We lap it up with our tongues."
"I'm leaving," Penny said, jumping to her feet.
"Not so fast," came a stern reply from David who had just returned from the kitchen with a bottle of imported red wine.
"I'm leaving-"
But she didn't get very far. She didn't even get a chance to take two steps before David grabbed her roughly by her red sweater and pushed her back to the couch.
Penny put up a struggle, kicking and biting and pounding with her fists, but the boys only seemed to enjoy the fight while Alice stood by calmly, watching the whole thing.
"You'd better give in," Roger warned. "You're going to give in sooner or later anyway and the longer it takes the harder it's going to be for you Alice knows that Hey Alice, tell Penny about what happened to you when you put up a fight."
Alice told her, revealing all the details of what the Lustmongers had done to her the previous week, sparing Penny not even the most intimate or brutal facts.
"See what I mean?" Roger said when Alice was finished. "You'd better give in now, if you know what's good for you."
But Penny still refused to give in. Pete advanced toward her, grabbed the bottom edge of her sweater, and tried to pull it up above her smooth belly. Penny lashed out quickly with her fingernails, letting them trace deep red scars on Pete's cheek.
Pete stepped back suddenly, like a wounded cat. "You shouldn't have done that," he said. "Are you going to hit her?" Alice asked with alarm. "No!" David snapped suddenly. "I have a better idea. I kind of expected that whoever Alice was going to bring would put up a fight, so I made special preparations for it down in the basement."
"What kind of preparations?" Roger said. "I think you'll like them," David replied. "See, my father keeps a whole jungle gym down there, barbells and ropes and a chinning bar and everything. He likes to work out when he's home. He says it keeps him physically fit. Anyway, one of the things he has is that old chinning bar. So I rigged something up down there this morning. I have two short ropes tied to the bar. I figured, if the girl Alice brought refused to go along with us, we could hang her from the bar by the ropes and then beat some sense into her. Should we take her down there?"
"That's a pretty good idea," Roger said cruelly. "C'mon, let's drag her down there."
"No!" Alice shrieked.
"Shut up!" Roger said to her. "Shut up, or you'll get more of the same yourself."
A few minutes later they were all down in the basement. Penny was suspended from the bar by two ropes which cut into her wrists and held her with her hands raised over her head, and her feet some three inches away from the ground. Agony showed on her face and tears poured from her eyes.
"Now," Roger said, "how about it, Penny old girl? Are you going to be a vessel for us, or are we going to have to beat you into submission?"
Penny shook her head.
"Okay," Roger said. "You asked for it, Penny kid."
"Hey," David said, "You're not going to beat her with all her clothes on, are you? That sort of takes half the fun out of it."
"Of course I'm not going to let her keep her clothes on," Roger said. "Let's take them off for her."
Roger and David advanced toward Penny. She kicked out wildly, her feet flailing the air.
"Look out!" Pete called.
But it was too late. One of Penny's wild kicks connected, her heeled shoe banging brutally against Roger's stomach.
He winced and then looked up at her through narrowed eyes.
"Okay, Penny old girl," Roger said through gritted teeth. "You're going to get it now, baby. You're going to get it good."
A moment later all three boys had grabbed her. They worked quickly, pulling off her skirt and then her thin nylon panties. One of them pushed up her sweater while another unhooked her bra and threw it in a corner of the room.
And then they stood back, sucking in their breath, looking at her full, bare breasts, her narrow flat stomach, her full hips and slim legs.
"It sure is going to be a shame to beat the daylights out of that," David said.
"It's going to be fun," Roger said. "Which one of us is going to do it?" Pete asked. Roger glanced around the room. His eyes burned into Alice.
"She's going to do it," Roger said. "Alice has the honors. Hey Dave, do you happen to have something Alice can do it with?"
"I'm prepared for that too," David said. "I knew we'd need something like this."
From a corner of the basement room he produced a cat-o'-nine-tails, a long whip with nine rawhide thongs at the end.
"That's going to be just fine," Roger said, glancing at the implement. "Here Alice. Go ahead. Beat her silly."
Alice stepped away as Roger tried to hand her the cruel leather instrument of torture.
"What's the matter Alice?" Roger taunted. "Getting scared? You can't be scared now. Just remember that. You're a Lustmonger now. You're in this as deep as the rest of us. You don't have any choice."
Alice nodded dully and took the cat-o'-nine-tails from Roger. She held it in her right hand, brought it back slowly, and then swung it toward Penny.
There was a loud, sharp crack. Penny screamed as the leather thongs slammed against the bare flesh of her taut stomach.
"Again," Pete cried enthusiastically. "Again Alice."
The nine-tails cracked again, this time cutting into a lower part of Penny's anatomy. The nine pieces of leather left nine angry red welts across her thighs.
Penny's body writhed with pain. Her face twisted up in agony.
"Again!"
"Again, Alice baby. Hit her again." Another cruel crack. The tails this time cut across Penny's full breasts, leaving flaming marks as deep a red as her small, up-tilted nipples.
The girl's legs kicked wildly but she couldn't reach anyone this time. Her shoes flew through the air with the force of her kicking and landed useless on the floor.
"Hit her again."
Another crack, then still another. The blows rained down on her mercilessly. The boys began clapping their hands in rhythm to the blows and then chanting to keep count. Their eyes burned with cruel lust.
"One, two, three, four, hit her again, hit her some more."
The cruel crack of the whip still another time. The girl's eyes wide with pain. Her mouth twisted into a horrible contortion. Her lips and waist writhing madly, trying desperately and futilely to escape the blows.
"Five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten-"
The boys' eyes bulged. They were enjoying this enjoying every moment of it. Even Alice seemed to be caught up in the rhythm of it all. She closed her eyes swinging the whip in time to the counting and the clapping of the boys. She almost welcomed the sharp whip crack every time it came. She was getting lost in the sound of it. Her conscious mind seemed swept away. She wanted nothing save to please the other Lustmongers, and to keep up the sharp tempo of the cracking whip.
"Eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen-"
"Hit her again Alice!"
"Beat her to a pulp, baby!"
"Fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen-" A shriek ended it, a blood curdling, piercing shriek that chilled those who heard it to the very marrow.
"That's enough," Roger commanded suddenly.
Alice dropped the cat-o'-nine-tails.
"Now," he said, his eyes boring into Penny, "do you think that you'd like to be a nice ordinary vessel for us."
Penny limply nodded her head in assent
"Good," Roger said. "Cut her down."
They did. They stretched her out on the floor, letting her lie on her back. David uncorked the wine and handed the bottle to Alice.
"You do the honors," David said. "You're our first official pourer for this initiation. We have a great new member." He glanced at the nude figure of the girl on the floor.
"Open your mouth," Roger ordered. The girl obeyed meekly.
"Now," Roger said, "I'll tell you all what you're going to do. First of all, Alice is going to pour some wine into Penny's mouth. David, you're going to drink the wine from her mouth. Then there's going to be some wine in her navel. Pete, that's for you. And as for me. Know what I mean, Alice?"
Alice nodded.
"Fine then," Roger said. "We're going to work her over. We're going to work her over until she goes out of her skull. We're going to get her so wild drinking that wine that she won't be able to resist us. And then we're all going to take her, one at a time. Everybody understand? Okay. Pour the wine, Alice."
Alice obeyed, pouring the wine where Rogers told her to. It spilled out, running over the girl's mouth and stomach and other parts of her body.
The boys paid no attention. They knelt over her. each one working vigorously.
She heard her friend Penny moan. She saw her body writhe, then twist, and then it slowly went wild as the boys worked her over expertly. It went completely out of control, wriggling with a passion that Penny had never known before.
Alice watched. She saw Penny's mouth open, her eyes half closed with passion, until the girl was finally pleading and begging for the boys to have their way. They had their way with her for a long time.
CHAPTER FIVE
"Oh Kenneth, it's been such a long time," Maggie Lubbock sobbed.
"I've missed you so much." Maggie said, nuzzling against his shoulder. "I've missed you terribly."
"I've missed you too," Kenneth lied.
"Then why-why didn't you call me?" Maggie said. "You should have called me. Kenneth."
"I don't know what to say, Maggie."
"That's all right," Maggie said, running her lips across Kenneth's face. "I knew you'd come back. I knew it for certain. When you left, I thought I'd die. I sat home for days. I was afraid to leave because I thought you'd call. Then it occurred to me you wouldn't call for a while."
Kenneth touched her breast lightly, feeling its fullness beneath the material of her blouse.
"See, I knew that you were just a young guy," Maggie continued. "And I know how it is with young guys. You had to sew your wild oats. Believe me Kenneth, I understand that. You do believe me, don't you?"
"Of course I do," Kenneth said with a false display of tenderness.
"But I knew just the same that you'd return," Maggie said softly. "I knew that because you said you loved me, and if you loved me you'd have to return just as soon as you finished sewing your wild oats."
"Uh huh," Kenneth said.
"Kenneth, I want to tell you something."
"Sure," Kenneth said. "Go ahead."
"It's kind of embarrassing-for me, I mean. But I feel that I have to tell you about it anyway. Do you mind?"
"No," Kenneth said, "I don't mind at all."
"Well, I keep a diary," Maggie said. "I know it sounds pretty childish, but just the same I keep a diary I've kept it ever since I was a little girl. And I wrote something in it last year when you suddenly stopped calling and stopped seeing me. Do you know what I wrote in it?"
"No," Kenneth said.
"I wrote in it that I knew you'd return. I still remember the words by heart. Want to hear them?"
"Sure," Kenneth said. "Go ahead."
"I wrote, 'Kenneth hasn't called me in two whole weeks. I know he's going around with other girls. The gossip is all over Maslin High. Just the same, I know that some day my old, dear Kenneth will return, for he loves me.' That's what I wrote."
"That's very touching," Kenneth said, moving his hand to her other breast.
"And I was right," Maggie said. "You did return, just as I knew you would. You've come back to me. And you know something else? Not only do you love me, but I love you, Kenneth. I love you with all my heart. I'd do anything for you. Anything in the world."
"That's good," Kenneth said.
Inwardly he chuckled Maggie Lubbock didn't know how good it was, nor did she know that when she said she'd be willing to do anything for Kenneth, she'd be forced before long to stick to her word.
It was going to be painful for her to stick.
"We have so many things to talk over," Maggie said.
"Lots and lots of them-lots and lots of things to talk about," Kenneth agreed.
"Do you know something?" Maggie said. "For the whole year that we've been apart, I haven't gone out with a single other boy. Honest I haven't. Oh, a lot of boys called me and asked me for a date, but I wouldn't go out with any of them. I wouldn't have gone out with a single one for all the money in the world. I just sat at home waiting for you to call."
"I appreciate that," Kenneth said. "Believe me Maggie, I really do appreciate it, and more than you'd believe."
"Oh Kenneth," Maggie sighed, "I believe you! I believe anything you say."
"And I appreciate that too," Kenneth said. "That's what I like best about you Maggie-your faithfulness."
"Oh, I knew you would!" Maggie exclaimed. "I just knew it! I've known it all along."
"Believe me Maggie," Kenneth said with a false show of ardor, "all the time I was running around with other girls, my thoughts were constantly on you. I went to bed dreaming about you, even when I was in bed with another girl. I thought to myself, Gee, Maggie may be running around with me still-in her dreams of course. She doesn't see anybody. Everybody in Maslin High says so. She's still there waiting for me."
"You really said that to yourself?" Maggie asked.
"Yes," Kenneth replied. "Yes, and to tell you the , truth I felt like a real rat doing it. I felt like the worst rat in the world. I knew I was doing wrong, Maggie."
"Oh Kenneth, I forgive you!" Maggie sobbed.
"That's another thing I liked about you," Kenneth said. "You're so forgiving. You're the most forgiving person I know."
"Not for everybody," Maggie said. "Just for you. You're the only one I could forgive. I couldn't forgive anybody else for doing things like that."
"Well, I'm glad to know it, Maggie."
"Kenneth," Maggie asked, "tell me the truth. Were there lots of other girls? Were there really many of them?"
Kenneth forced himself to blush. He dropped his eyes as if he were ashamed to admit it. "Yes," he whispered.
"And did you-did you go all the way with them? With all of them?"
"Oh, not with all of them," Kenneth said modestly. "Just with most." , "And did-did you enjoy it with them?" Maggie went on.
"Well, sort of," Kenneth said.
"But not the way you did with me, right?" Maggie asked. "You didn't enjoy it as much with them as you did with me?"
"Of course not," Kenneth said.
He chuckled inwardly again. He was putting on a good act The words, "Of course not," had seemed to escape suddenly from his mouth, as if the very idea that he could enjoy any girl as much as Maggie was an outrage.
Naturally it wasn't an outrage. He had left Maggie because there hadn't seemed to be any reason why he should continue seeing her After all, he had already seduced her. The girls he seduced afterward were just as good as Maggie, no better and no worse.
And this was just another seduction It was an easy seduction at that. All he had to do was to keep stringing Maggie along, keep agreeing with everything she said, keep acting sympathetic. Any moment now she'd surrender to him again. She'd surrender her body entirely and she'd be glad of it.
Kenneth would be glad of it too. He had every reason to be glad of it.
In the first place, Maggie looked great this evening. Her thin silk blouse tightly hugged the outline of her big, full breasts. The simple flare skirt she was wearing didn't hide her hips. Besides, the flare skirt would be a help. It could be pushed up easily, much more easily than a tight skirt could be pushed up. Yes, Maggie looked great. Her red hair had been freshly bobbed and set. Her eyes seemed to glow.
But there was another reason why Kenneth would be glad. Maggie was about to become the first of the two recruits Kenneth would have to get for the Lustmongers. After Maggie, he'd only need one more to become a full fl-edged member.
"Kenneth," Maggie said, "there's still one thing I don't understand "
"What's that?" Kenneth asked.
"Well, why did we have to come here? This isn't your house."
"I know," Kenneth said. "It's David Van Klumpes' house. Do you know David?"
"Only vaguely," Maggie answered. "I know who he is. I've seen him around school. But I don't know him personally."
"Well, David's a friend of mine," Kenneth said. "See, I knew that you'd want to be alone with me-"
"You're so right!" Maggie exclaimed.
"Yeah. Well anyway, my parents are home and your parents are home and I thought that David's place would be perfect for us. His folks are off in Europe on business and he's going to be out tonight, so I asked him if we could use his house. He was perfectly willing, so here we are."
"Oh Kenneth!" Maggie sighed.
"Maggie, Maggie, Maggie, I've missed you so much!" Kenneth breathed into her ear.
The next moment his hands were busy. He cupped both her breasts through her thin silk blouse, squeezing them gently. Maggie purred like a contented kitten.
He pressed his lips against hers, absorbing the warmth of her mouth. Automatically, her lips parted to admit his tongue into her mouth.
Kenneth's hands slipped from her breasts to her shoulders. He held her to himself tightly, feeling the pressure of her full breasts against her chest. Her body seemed to grow hot next to his-fiery hot.
It was a perfect spot for a seduction. Nothing could have been more perfect than the immense couch in David Van Klumpes big, empty living room.
He began to unbutton Maggie's blouse, slowly parting it in front until he had fully exposed the lacy bra that covered her breasts. Her body heaved with great sobs of passion and her big breasts strained furiously against the bra, trying to force themselves free.
Kenneth helped free them. He motioned to Maggie to prop herself up on her elbows. She did so and Kenneth reached behind her and unhooked the bra. It almost popped off, and her big breasts, round globes of willing flesh, sprang free. Maggie lay back again and Kenneth's hands hurriedly covered the great shining globes, caressing and squeezing them until the two pink nipples which capped her breasts turned as hard as iron.
Maggie reached up and with her hands deftly unbuttoned Kenneth's shirt. When it was fully unbuttoned he pulled it off and then lay on top of Maggie, rubbing his chest back and forth against her breasts, feeling their smoothness, silky and hot, burning into him, Maggie shuddered deliciously.
"Take me Kenneth," she breathed passionately into his ear. "Please, take me, take me. It's been so long. For the love of heaven, take me fast."
But Kenneth didn't want to do it fast. He wanted it to last a long time. He wanted to enjoy every single moment of it before the Lustmongers got their chance.
He lowered his head and took one of her breasts into his mouth, sucking at the hard nipple and then sliding his tongue back and forth against it.
Maggie shuddered again. Her whole body began to undulate rhythmically. She was hot-a burning hot feminine body, waiting and begging and pleading to be taken by him.
"Please Kenneth," she pleaded again. "Please don't make me wait."
His hand crept to the hem of her skirt and pushed it up slowly, uncovering first her round dimpled knees, then her firm white thighs. He ran his hand slowly up one of her legs, lightly brushing it over her skin, past her knee to the soft insides of her thighs.
She moaned and flung her arms around Kenneth's neck. She put her lips to his mouth and glued them there. She forced her tongue into his mouth and let it wiggle about crazily.
Her breath began coming in short, impassioned little gasps. Kenneth felt his own passion rising to a fevered pitch and he knew it was time.
He struggled momentarily with what remained of his own clothing, hurriedly pulling them off. Then he pulled her panties down over her knees and down to her ankles.
Her legs moved to accept him.
He could feel her holding him tightly, her breasts squeezed beneath his chest like soft foam rubber between a vise. Her hips were writhing madly, going faster and faster. Her eyes were forced closed with the heat of passion.
He was taking her. He knew it and he was glad of it. There couldn't be anything better in the whole world.
He was taking her, and for the moment that was all that mattered. He didn't care about anything else in the world. The Lustmongers passed completely out of his mind. The only thing on his mind at the moment, was the mad sensation of Maggie Lubbock beneath him, Maggie's body responding willingly to his, giving in like a happy slave girl.
He was taking her and she was enjoying it and he was enjoying it too, and that was his whole universe.
The universe grew larger.
And hotter.
Planets were swimming insanely around stars. Meteors exploded and lights flashed, and for one joyful instant, the universe encompassed them both and sucked them into the fiery cosmos of nothingness.
And then it ended.
It was over, and Maggie's limp body was under his and Maggie was sobbing happily.
"Oh Kenneth, I've waited so long for this. I've waited so long for your return. I knew you'd come back to me. I knew we'd be happy together again."
Kenneth didn't answer for a while. He lay still trying to catch his breath At last, when his wind was restored, he turned to Maggie and smirked.
"Do you really think we'll be happy again?" Kenneth said. "Do you think we can hit it off right this time?"
"Sure I do," Maggie said. "If I didn't I would never have done what we just did together."
"But to be happy together, we have to make certain allowances," Kenneth said.
"Of course we do," Maggie said. "Love is a give and take relationship."
"That's what I mean," Kenneth said. "It's all give and take. Each partner has to give a little and take a little. I think we'd better have a talk about that, Maggie."
"Sure," Maggie said, "although I'm not sure what in the world you're talking about. What are you trying to do? Are you teasing me?"
"Me tease you?" Kenneth said. "Don't be silly."
It was another lie. He certainly was teasing her. She didn't know what he was getting at yet, but Kenneth knew exactly what he was saying and why he was saying it. It was a form of mental torture. He was going to hurt her by getting her to agree to become a Lustmonger girl without even knowing she was going to agree to it.
"What are you getting at?" Maggie asked. "You seem to be talking around something or other and I don't know what it is."
"Well, let me ask you a question," Kenneth said. "Maggie, do you remember a little while ago you said you'd do anything for me-anything in the world?"
"Of course I do," Maggie said.
"And you meant it, didn't you?"
"Naturally I meant it. Kenneth, if I didn't mean it then I wouldn't have said it. I'm not in the habit of saying things I don't mean. I'd do anything for you."
"Anything at all?"
"Yes, anything at all."
"Well, let's take a hypothetical case," Kenneth said. "Suppose I was in trouble and I needed help. Would you help me?"
"Kenneth, that's a silly question," Maggie said. "You wouldn't even have to ask me."
"But suppose I did ask you," Kenneth said. "Suppose I came to you and said, Maggie, I need your help. Would you be willing to help me no matter what it was you'd have to do?"
"Of course I would," Maggie said. "Why? Do you need money? Is that it? Because if you need money, I'll be glad to give it to you. You know that."
"Well, this isn't exactly a money problem," Kenneth said. "I have all the money I need. My dad takes care of that."
"Then what are you talking about?" Maggie asked. "Sometimes I think that I don't understand you at all."
"Well let's put it this way, Maggie. Suppose I said to you that there was something I wanted very badly but that I couldn't have it until you did something for me. Would you do something for me then?"
"Sure I would. Kenneth, it's silly for you to even ask."
"Well Maggie, I'm glad then," Kenneth said. "You see, there is something I want and need very badly and that I can't get without your help."
"What's that?" Maggie said. "Tell me what it is and I'll help you. I promise I will."
"You really promise?"
"I said I promised, didn't I?"
"Yes, you did," Kenneth replied. "Well, here's my problem. Some of the guys in Masline High formed this club. It's a very good club, only I can't get into it until you help me out."
"Why Kenneth, I'd be glad to help you," Maggie said. "Just tell me what I have to do and I'll do it."
"You want me to tell you?" Kenneth said. "Do you really want me to?"
"Yes, for goodness sakes. I don't see why you're being so mysterious about the whole thing."
"I'm not being mysterious," Kenneth said. "I just want to be absolutely sure that you'll help me. I want to be positive that you won't be angry or back out of it or anything like that."
"Don't you know me better than that, Kenneth?" Maggie said. "I'll be glad to do anything you want"
"Great," Kenneth said. "Then I'll tell you."
"Sure, for goodness sakes, tell me."
"Well, to put it frankly, I want you to participate in a sex orgy with me."
Maggie blushed for a moment and then smiled She thought It was all a joke. It was just Kenneth's way of being funny.
"Oh, come on, you're kidding," she said.
"No Maggie, I'm not kidding. I'm perfectly serious."
"But you can't be serious," she said. "I've never heard of anything so ridiculous in my whole life."
"You think I'm kidding then?" Kenneth said.
"Naturally I think you're kidding," Maggie answered.
"You really don't think I'm serious?"
"I really don't."
"All right then," Kenneth said. "Watch this."
He sat up suddenly, cupped his hand to his mouth, and yelled, "Okay fellas, c'mon out." The door between the living room and the dining room of the Van Klumpes house suddenly swung open.
Wearing cruel leers which seemed to twist their faces hideously, David Van Klumpes, Roger Cantrell, and Pete Andrews walked into the room.
They wore nothing but their leers. They were completely nude.
"Hello, Maggie old girl," Roger said.
Maggie suddenly bolted upright. She didn't say a word. Shock took away her voice.
"Glad to see you, Maggie kid," Pete said His eyes took in her full round breasts and the pink nipples which capped them.
"It sure is great to see you, Maggie baby," David said.
"What is this?" Maggie gasped. "What's going on here?"
"It seems to me you don't hear very well," Roger said.
"She hears very badly," Pete said.
"You see, Maggie old girl, if you heard properly you would have heard yourself promise old Kenneth here that you'd do anything for him-anything in the world. Well, it just so happens that a moment ago you also heard Kenneth ask you to participate in a sex orgy. You have to do it, Maggie old girl. You promised him of your own free will. I heard you promise him myself."
"Besides," David said, "just as Kenneth told you, it's the only way he can get into our club. Welcome, Maggie kid, to the Lustmongers Club."
"What is this?" Maggie exploded. She turned angrily on Kenneth "Get me out of here!" She tried to cover her naked breasts by folding her arms over them. "I've never been so embarrassed and humiliated in my whole life."
"You haven't seen anything yet," Kenneth said.
"All the time you were-all the time I was giving myself to you, these boys were hiding behind the door. This is an outrage!"
"It's no outrage," Roger said smoothly. "It's merely a new game the club has."
"Sure," David said. "We were only playing a game.
That's wny we were hiding, Maggie kid."
"Well I happen not to like your games," Maggie said. "I don't like them at all."
"That's too bad," Roger's oily voice crooned. "It's a great new game, Maggie. It's called Hide-And-Go-Sex. And want to know something, Maggie? You're it I"
Maggie reached suddenly for her clothes. She wanted to get dressed in a hurry. She felt compelled to cover her nudeness. She didn't want the greedy eyes of the boys on her.
But she couldn't put her clothes on. Kenneth quickly snatched them up, rolled them into a ball, and flung them across the room, totally out of her reach.
"What did you do that for?" she shouted at Kenneth.
"Maggie kid, don't yell," David said. "It isn't nice to yell You'll wake up all the neighbors."
"That's right," Roger said. "You shouldn't yell at Kenneth. He's only doing what he has to do If you walk out of here now with all your clothes on, he'll never get his membership in the Lustmongers."
"And it wouldn't be very nice of you to keep him out of the club," Pete added. "After all, you promised you'd help him. If you run out of here you won't be helping him at all. As a matter-of-fact, you'll be hurting him."
"You wouldn't hurt me, Maggie my love, would you?" Kenneth teased.
"I didn't promise to do anything like this," Maggie said. "I-I didn't know that this was what you meant by helping you. I didn't even have the vaguest idea that this was what you meant."
"Well just the same, it was," Kenneth said. "And now you don't have any choice but to do exactly what you're told."
"Oh, yes I do," Maggie retorted. "I'm getting out of here right now."
With that she leapt to her feet and began running across the living room to the corner where the bundle of her clothes lay in a heap. She didn't get far. Roger deftly stuck out his foot as she ran across his path. She tripped and fell hard on her stomach and face.
She gave a sharp cry and then lay on the floor moaning and sobbing.
"That's a good girl," Roger said. "You just lie there while we take care of you."
"Hey, I have a better idea," David said. "Why don't we give it to her standing up?"
"Standing up?" Pete said. "You must be crazy. How can we give it to her while she's on her feet? Besides, what makes you think she'll even be willing to stand on her feet while we give it to her? Gee, you must be completely out of your head."
"No, I'm not," Pete said. "I know exactly what I'm talking about. After all, there are four of us and only one of her. And come to think of it, we'll only need two guys to hold her up. One grabs her by one arm, and the other grabs her by the other arm. The two guys who have her arms keep her standing while the other two take turns at her."
"Not a bad idea," Roger said. "But I have a slight refinement of that idea that I think you'll like. Instead of us taking care of her one at a time, why don't we take care of her two at a time? We'll save precious minutes that way."
"That's really insane," Kenneth said. "How can two guys make the same girl at the same time?"
"Don't be ridiculous," Roger replied. "If you can't see how then you lack imagination. Okay guys, grab her."
Maggie Lubbock put up a struggle, but all her struggling was useless. The four boys overpowered her, dragged her to the center of the living room floor, and forced her to her feet. Then, while Kenneth held her firmly by one arm and Pete held her firmly by the other, Roger and David went to work on her.
David took the front. He tried to kiss her. Naturally, she turned her head away.
But that didn't stop David. He grabbed a fistful of her red hair and yanked hard on it until she was forced to turn her head back to him. He put his lips against hers, sinking into the fullness of her mouth. Then, just to get even with her, he bit her upper lip. His teeth sank in deep as he took pleasure in feeling the soft flesh of her mouth yield painfully.
Maggie let out a loud howl of pain.
"Better shut up, Maggie," Kenneth said. "You still have a lot to go before you're through with us."
David's hands were as busy as his teeth They slid across the front of Maggie's body, pressing against her breasts, forcing the pink nipples to grow hard even against her will.
David moved his body against Maggie, pressing his stomach against hers, letting his thighs touch the front of her thighs.
She howled and squealed, but it was all no good. The four of them were too much for her.
While David was busy in front of her, Roger was just as busy in the rear. His hands were anxiously running across the firm flesh of her backside and the backs of her thighs, tickling and squeezing and pinching.
Despite Maggie's struggles, it soon became apparent that her senses were beginning to give in. While the boys watched with pleasure, her hips began to rock back and forth with a slow, involuntary motion.
"That's it," Roger said. "She's ready for us now. Are you ready, David?'
"Sure," David said.
"Okay then, go!"
The two sudden jabs were painful. She howled. She howled much louder than she had before.
But her howling only increased the passion and the fury of her attackers. They took her brutally and rapidly.
When David and Roger were through, they changed places with Pete and Kenneth, and Maggie began howling again.
By the time her howling was over, she was the most recent acquisition of the Lustmongers and she knew that she was chained to them as long as they wanted her.
CHAPTER SIX
It happened that several days after the Lustmongers trapped and raped Penny Pringle, Penny's father and mother, Mr. and Mrs. Nathaniel j. Pringle, went South to spend two weeks in the Miami Beach sun.
They checked into a beach front hotel and headed for the beach where they met several other couples from Maslin and suburban communities very much like Maslin. There were some extremely wild parties in the cool of the Miami evening during which some extremely sordid events occurred.
During these events, Mrs. Nathaniel J. Pringle was a willing participant, but while she felt the strange hands of several men probing her breasts and thighs, and while she heard the impassioned moans of the woman in the next room who was being probed by none other than Mr. Nathaniel J. Pringle himself, Penny's mother was still able to pride herself on the fact that her daughter was a good girl. Her daughter, Mrs. Pringle told herself, would never end up doing things of this sort in a Miami Beach hotel room. Her daughter, she thought proudly, was being brought up right.
In point of fact, Mrs. Nathaniel J. Pringle was extremely wrong. It was true that Penny Pringle had been lectured sternly on the subject of morality by both her mother and her father. It was equally true that while her mother and her father were in Maslin-which wasn't often-Penny had, for the past fifteen years, done her level best to heed their admonitions.
But, it is also of worth to point out that Mr. and Mrs. Nathaniel J. Pringle were very rarely in Maslin these days. At the age of forty, Nathaniel J. Pringle had sold his enamel pot and pan business for a very sizeable return. He had invested this return in substantial blue chip stocks which paid interest to the tune of some six per cent.
Now that they were able to live on their interest, Mr. and Mrs. Nathaniel J. Pringle were making up for the years of their marriage when life was all work and no play. In fact, they had thoroughly inverted their old way of life. Now it was all play and no work.
The games they played, unfortunately, were not exactly what one would call moral games. They took frequent and long trips-cruises to the Virgin Islands for purposes not at all connected with virgins, jaunts to Florida where all too frequently the wet sand was used not for romping in the sun but for romping beneath the moon in the nude, excursions to ski resorts where most of the sliding was done on slippery bedsheets rather than on snow.
It was easy to play these games. There are many couples in the world just like the Pringles and they all have a way of successfully seeking each other out. The consequence of all these almost-young people with too much time and too much money on their hands is something known politely as wife swapping.
On the evening that Penny Pringle had been raped by the Lustmongers, it may be recalled that Penny first called her mother and asked for permission to attend a party. Now, Mrs. Pringle didn't know whose party it was, and to tell the truth, she didn't bother to ask. She didn't bother to ask because she was too busy. She and Nathaniel were leaving for Miami the next morning and she was busy packing. Besides, her mind was on a certain Simon Strubolli, a married man with a very pretty wife. It was pretty well understood by this time that while Nathaniel Pringle would give a few thrills to Mrs. Strubolli, Simon would be thrilling Mrs. Pringle at the same Miami Beach hotel. Mrs. Pringle's mind was on what Simon's hands and other parts of Simon's body would be doing to her, rather than on poor little Penny.
THE END result? While Mr. and Mrs. Pringle were lusting it lovingly with their friends on the beach, poor little Penny Pringle was now a full-fl-edged member of an organization which would make her parents' beachside activities look like parlor games.
Poor Penny had no one to turn to. Ordinarily, a girl in as difficult a fix as Penny might turn to her mother, but of course that was impossible because Penny's mother was in Miami, a turn of some fifteen hundred miles.
But Penny had to turn to someone for solace. That was absolutely necessary for someone in Penny's position.
At the same time, Penny couldn't turn to just anyone. She couldn't reveal her horrible secret to any silly Nelly from high school who came along. Most girls wouldn't understand and if there was anything that Penny desperately needed right now, it was someone who would understand her.
She turned, therefore, to the one person who could least be expected to give her sympathy, but who could, at the same time, understand exactly what she was talking about. She turned, in short; to Alice Seever, the girl who lured her into the Lustmongers in the first place, the girl who had stood calmly by while she was hung by her wrists from the chinning bar in David Van Klumpes basement, the girl who had seen her brutally stripped, the girl who had relentlessly applied the biting tongues of the cat-o'-nine-tails to her bare flesh.
Penny Pringle, with tears in her eyes, was crying on Alice Seever's shoulder.
The scene of Penny's tearful cry was her own bedroom. She chose her own bedroom because it was the most private place she could imagine. It gave her a sense of security to be in her own room. It made her feel safe and she wanted very badly to feel safe. Besides, save for herself and Alice, the whole house was empty. The Parents Pringle were far, far away.
"It's terrible," Penny sobbed, her cheek against Alice Seever's warm, fleshy shoulder. As she sobbed, tears spilled from her eyes, ran down her cheeks, and formed a wet spot on Alice's sheer blouse. The blouse clung to Alice's skin where it was wet, and at the same time, the wet spots on the blouse became translucent, almost transparent, revealing droplet-sized portions of Alice's fair skin.
"It's terrible," Penny sobbed again "How could you, Alice? How could you do such a terrible thing to me?"
"There, there," said Alice, patting Penny's head, "Don't cry."
"Don't cry?" Penny gasped. "How can I not cry? You tricked me. You did a dirty thing. You got me into that house with all those boys and then-and then-" Her voice trailed off into sobs.
"I couldn't help it," Alice said. "Believe me Penny, I just couldn't help it. I-I didn't have any choice. You know that. I didn't have any choice for the same reason that I'm afraid you don't have any choice, Penny. The Lustmongers have us over a barrel."
This weak attempt at consolation had no affect on Penny save to increase the mighty flow of tears and the thunder of her sobs, so Alice tried again.
"Look Penny, we're both in the same boat," Alice said. "I don't like what's going on any more than you do. In fact I hate it. I hate what I had to do to you, and I hate Roger and I hate David and I hate Pete and I hate their filthy faces and their filthy minds. But what can I do? What can anybody do?"
Poor Penny kept right on sobbing, so Alice patted her gently to soothe her. Unfortunately, she accidentally patted Penny right on one of the tender sore spots where a few days before the angry lashes of the cat of nine tails had cut her. Penny winced and gave a short cry of pain.
"Oh dear, I'm sorry," Alice said. "I didn't mean to hurt you. Honest Penny, I really didn't."
"That's-that's okay," Penny said, still sobbing.
"Penny, are you still hurt?" Alice asked. "I mean are you still physically hurt?"
"Yes," Penny sobbed.
"Is it bad?" Alice asked. "It isn't infected or anything, is it? Honest Penny, I didn't have any choice. If I didn't do to you what they wanted me to do, they would have done it to me and they still would have done it to you themselves. Honest, Penny."
"I believe you," Penny sniffled. "But it does hurt bad. It still hurts, Alice. It hurts all over."
"Is it infected?" Alice asked again. "Penny, maybe you need a doctor."
"I don't know," Penny said.
"What do you mean, you don't know? You have to know."
"But I don't," Penny cried. "I really don't."
"Well why not," Alice said. "Haven't you looked?"
"No, I can't look," Penny said. "I mean, I'm afraid to look. Every time I look it reminds me of what happened-all those boys staring at me and touching me and-"
"I understand," Alice said sympathetically.
"So I don't look any more," Penny said. "I just keep it covered up by my clothes, and when I get undressed or change clothes or take a shower or anything like that, I keep my eyes closed so that I won't have to look at it. I don't want to see what they've done to me."
Alice understood. She looked warmly into Penny's tearful eyes and hugged Penny to her comfortingly, feeling Penny's heaving bosom pressing against her own.
And then, all at once, Alice took on a professional tone of voice, brisk, and business-like and competant something like a nurse.
"You'd better let me take a look, Penny. It may be that you're not hurt badly, but at the same time there's the possibility that an infection has set in. We don't want to chance that now, do we?"
"No," Penny whimpered. "I guess not."
"All right then," Alice said, still sounding very professional. "Better take off your clothes and stuff so I can see exactly how bad your wounds are."
"But, will that be any help?" Penny said. "I mean, suppose you find they're bad. Then what?"
"Then we'll take you to a doctor," Alice said briskly.
"But you can't take me to a doctor," Penny protested.
"What do you mean I can't?" Alice said. "Sure I can T can afford it. I have plenty of money."
"It's not the money," Penny said. "Don't you see, Alice, it's not the money at all. Suppose you take me to a doctor. Then what? Suppose he looks at the marks on me? Then what will he say?"
"He'll probably say you need some professional medical care," Alice said, but her voice faltered a trifle for she knew what Penny was getting at.
In fact, Penny got at it in the very next sentence.
"Yes, but he'll also want to know how I got those marks. How many fifteen year old girls walk into a doctor's office with cat-o'-nine-tails marks all over their bodies? Not very many."
"That's true," Alice said, still sounding as professional as her failing convictions would permit her to. "But we don't have to tell him about the cat-o'-nine-tails. and we certainly don't have to tell him about the Lustmongers. We could-well, we could make up some kind of story."
"What kind of story?" Penny asked. "What kind of story would a sensible doctor possibly believe?"
For a moment Alice seemed stumped. Then her eyes seemed to light up as she grasped the grain of an idea.
"We could-say, I know. We could say a cat did it, a wild crazy cat or something like that. It won't be the first time that a cat scratched up somebody."
"All over her body?" Penny said incredulously. "How could a cat scratch up somebody all over her body?"
"Well," Alice said, her conviction faltering more than ever, "maybe it was a very wild cat, a terribly wild cat."
"There is no such cat," Penny whimpered, "and you know it."
"Well, just the same, maybe I'd better take a look at those wounds of yours," Alice said. "C'mon, take off those clothes and let's have a look."
Penny, who was still sobbing bitterly, didn't argue any more. She was too upset to argue. Instead, she compiled with Alice's request.
She moved slowly, for her body ached. With a great deal of difficulty she managed to pull her sweater over her head. Alice gazed on a broad expanse of smooth olive flesh, the kind of flesh boys love to touch, perfect flesh save that it was crisscrossed with dozens of red marks where the cat-o'-nine-tails had landed with resounding force over and over again several days ago. The crisscross lines seemed to be everywhere. They led right up to, and under, Penny's bra.
"Better take your bra off," Alice said, her voice full of professional tones again. "The breasts are one of the most sensitive parts of a girl. We'd better have a look at those too."
Penny complied again, unhooking her bra and taking it off. Her breasts were olive, although of a paler olive shade than the rest of her body. Alice gazed at the dull, pointed breasts and the pink nipples which capped them. Penny's breasts were also crisscrossed with red.
"Do you think," Penny said, her eyes closed so that she wouldn't have to bear the sight of her own injury, "Do you think I'm all right?"
"I think so," Alice said. "It doesn't look terribly bad. I mean, I know it must hurt, but it doesn't look so bad that you'll never get over it. I wouldn't be at all surprised if in a week or two all of those red marks are gone. Just the same, maybe you'd better let me take a look at the rest of you."
"Okay," Penny said, her eyes still closed.
She struggled and removed her skirt and then her panties.
Alice sucked in her breath. Even though she was a girl, Alice was still forced to admire Penny's striking figure. Her eyes wandered like traveling minstrels from Penny's full firm breast to her narrow waist, to her wide round hips and soft thighs.
She snapped back into her professional mood as quickly as she could.
"You're all right," Alice said to Penny. "Believe me, you're going to be all right."
"Do you think so?" Penny sobbed Her eyes opened wide for the first time since she had begun taking off her clothing, thus permitting a fresh flood of tears to roll down her cheeks. "Do you really think so?"
"Of course I do," Alice said soothingly. "Naturally I do. If I didn't, I wouldn't say so."
"Oh, I'm so glad," Penny sobbed. "I'm so afraid Alice, so terribly afraid."
With that she flung herself into Alice's arms and wept, her damp face against Alice's soft bosom.
Alice let the girl weep after all, Alice felt guilty herself and this was one way of expiating her own guilt. She held Penny tightly and Penny held Alice tightly, and pretty soon both girls were crying very hard.
And then, something very strange happened. Perhaps it was the contact of their bodies. Perhaps it was Penny's nude flesh. Perhaps it was the warmth and mutual sympathy that passed between them.
Who knows what it was? The point is that it happened. After a while, both girls began feeling a strangely familiar sensation, a sensation tha seemed to overtake each of them at precisely the same time.
And they both knew exactly what it was.
What happened after that seemed almost perfectly natural to them at that time. Penny looked up at Alice, her full lips parted. Alice looked at Penny's full lips and put her own full lips to them.
At once their mouths were glued together in a wave of passion-passion that swept over them the way forest fires sweep over young saplings during a high wind.
Their tongues met. It was like electricity, or electromagnetism. It brought them even closer together, held them there tightly.
Alice let her hand slide across Penny's narrow and bare waist, and then she let it travel up to Penny's bare, firm breast. Alice's long fingers tentatively touched Penney's breast, brushing one of the nipples lightly. The nipple turned hard and Penny moaned, not from pain but from pleasure.
Next, Penny's fingers groped for Alice's blouse, unbuttoning it button by button. With the expertness that only a girl's slim fingers could have, Penny's fingers completely parted the blouse and then deftly removed Alice's bra.
Now Alice sobbed.
And then she moaned, as Penny's fingers touched her soft white breasts, squeezing the shimmering milk white globes of flesh, teasing Alice's nipples into rigid attention.
"Take off your blouse," Penny whispered into Alice's ear. "Take it completely off."
"Do you think we should?" Alice asked. "It's not right, Penny. It's not-natural."
"Listen," Penny said. "We've gone this far, we might as well go all the way. Besides, who the hell cares what's natural any more? Nothing matters any more. Nothing at all."
A split second later, Alice's blouse was completely off and lying on the floor. Her skirt came next, and then it was Penny's turn to suck in her breath as she caught her first view of Alice's full, rounded, milk white body.
A pair of white panties, encasing Alice's hips like a tight silk band, was all that kept Alice from completely nudeness. Penny's lips returned to Alice's and then moved downward, planting little kisses on Alice's neck, her breasts, her belly, and finally on her silken white panties themselves.
Then the panties came off, and Penny continued planting kisses, going lower, and still lower, until Alice's whole body shivered with delight.
Finally, Alice stretched out full on Penny's bed and Penny lay down on top of Alice and their lips met once more, their tongues slid over each other once more, and their hips began to heave in the rhythm of love.
It was hot. It was torrid and teaming and tinged with passion.
Breasts crushed against breasts. Nipples burned into nipples. Feminine belly rubbed across feminine belly while the two girls explored and excited each other with their hands.
"Take me," Alice sobbed. "Take me, I'm going out of my skull."
"Me too," Penny crooned into Alice's ear. "You're sending me. You're sending me completely out of this world, into outer space."
They were locked tightly in each other's embrace now. The clock seemed to stand still. All of Maslin seemed to stand still outside the window, as the mattress on Penny's bed slowly yielded and then rose again, yielded and rose, as the two pairs of hips on top of it alternately squeezed against each other and then separated over and over again.
It grew faster.
And hotter.
And even hotter and faster than that, until ft was a furious fire of lust, burning, scorching, destroying, taking everything in its wake.
They finished together, shuddering like two magnificent dishes of sculptured jello.
When it was over and they had caught their breath and settled comfortably in each other's arms, they began talking again.
"You know," Alice said, "you were right, Penny. What we were doing-whit we did-wasn't wrong at all. Not when you consider what we've been through."
"Sssh," Penny said. "You don't have to talk about it if you don't want to. You don't have to say anything. I understand."
"I know," Alice said. "And believe me, I understand too. Just the same, I think it's good to talk. It does us good to talk, if you know what I mean. It helps us get everything out of our systems."
"But you don't have to get it out if you don't want to," Penny said. "I mean, it's not necessary because I understand what's bothering you. I understand because the same thing is bothering me."
"You mean what we just did?" Alice said.
"Well yes, that too, although that's not quite what I had in mind. I was thinking more about the Lustmongers."
"What can we do about them?" Alice said. "How will we ever get away from them?"
"I don't know," Penny said. "Honestly, I don't know. I wish there was some way we could. I keep having dreams that I'm just walking out on them, saying I'm disgusted and fed up and I don't want to have anything more to do with them, and then just walking out. That's what I really want to do."
"But it isn't that easy," Alice said. "You know that We can't merely walk out on them, no matter how badly we want to."
"I know," Penny said. "That's the whole trouble. Do you know what they'd do if we ever tried walking out?"
"Do I know?" Alice said bitterly. "How could I help but know. Sure I know. They've told us over and over again. They'd start talk about us. It would start in the boys' locker room at Maslin High School, probably, and then spread all over town."
"We'd be the laughing stock," Penny said.
"Worse than that," Alice said. "We'd never be able to hold up our heads. The whole town would be crawling with rumors about us."
"They wouldn't even be rumors," Penny added glumly.
"But we've got to do something," Alice said. "We can't just sit around and be victims forever. It has to Stop somewhere."
"But where?" Penny asked. "I don't see any way out of it."
"Neither do I," Alice said. "But one things is for sure. We've got to stick together. There are no two ways about it."
"Of course we'll stick together," Penny said, planting a tender kiss on Alice's breast.
"We have each other and that's something," Alice said.
"Alice," Penny said, "Alice, I'm glad we're together. I'm really and truly glad. Without you, I don't think I'd be able to stand what's happened. I mean that even though you were the one who got me into all this."
"I'm sorry," Alice sniffled guiltily. "I didn't mean to hurt you, Penny. I mean, I knew that you were going to be hurt I knew it all along. But just the same I didn't mean any real harm by it I didn't do it maliciously, you understand. It was just that I had no choice."
"I understand," Penny said.
"And let me tell you something else. If I knew a few days ago what I know now. about how I feel about you and all that, I would never have chosen you, Penny. I would have picked someone else."
"But that's the beauty of it," Penny said. "Don't you see? That's the consolation prize. If you hadn't picked me, then we wouldn't be here together now. You wouldn't feel about me the way you do, and in turn I wouldn't feel about you the way I do. When you stop to think of it, we've gained something from all this. We've gained each other."
"Penny," Alice said, "tell me something. And do me a favor-tell me the truth. No lies. Please, please don't lie to me."
"I won't lie to you," Penny said. "You should know better than to think that. Go ahead and ask me whatever it is you want to ask."
"Well Penny-" Alice began, and then she hesitated.
"Go ahead," Penny said. "I'm listening."
"Penny, I don't even know how to ask this."
"Well whatever it is, it seems to me that the best way to ask is to just come right out with it C'mon now. What is it?"
"Do you love me?" Alice said. "I mean, after what we've just done together do you love me, because well, because I think I love you, Penny."
Penny's eyes blurred with tears.
"I'm so glad you asked that!" she sobbed. "Really I am. I'm very glad, because I do love you, Alice. I love you very much."
With that they kissed, a long, tender kiss that brought their bodies together again and made them feel terribly happy.
"We've got to stick together," Alice said. "That's the only way. If we stick together, nothing can harm us."
"We can laugh off those boys," Penny said with conviction. "What they do to us-whatever they do to us-it won't mean a thing, not a blasted thing because well have each other."
"I won't ever beat you again," Alice sobbed. "Even if they try to make me, I won't do it. I'll absolutely refuse."
"No," Penny crooned into Alice's ear. "Even if you don't want to, you'll have to, but that doesn't matter. It won't mean a thing, Alice. It won't make a bit of difference because I'll understand. Even if I'm screaming with pain, tearing my throat out with yells, inside I'll be laughing at them I'll be able to laugh it off because I'll know that it doesn't count. It doesn't count one damn bit because the only thing that really matters to me is you."
"And if they make me beat you," Alice said, "I won't mind either. I'll know just what you know, that we love each other and that's all that counts."
"You know," Penny said, "It reminds me about what I've heard about guys in the army. I've heard this story a lot. There are a lot of guys in the army who don't want to be there. They hate it and the only reason they're there is because their draft boards made them go. So they laugh it off. They stand at attention when some sergeant tells them to, and they march and all that, but inwardly they're only laughing at it. They're not taking it seriously at all."
"That reminds me of a story I heard once," Alice said. "There were a bunch of guys at one army base once who hated it. They hated it so much that they formed an organization called DTA. That stands for Damn The Army. They even had DTA buttons made up and they wore them on their fatigues."
"What happened?" Penny asked.
"Well, some big shot general came by and asked what the DTA buttons were for. Naturally the guys wouldn't tell them that DTA stood for Damn The Army. So they made up a story. They said that they were all going to be teachers when they got out of the army, and that DTA stood for Developing Teachers of America."
"Did the general believe them?" Penny asked.
"Well, not exactly," Alice said. "He ordered them to take off the buttons and then he put them on an extra-duty detail. He made them seed his own front lawn. And let me tell you what they did. All the DTA guys seeded his lawn, all right, but right in the middle of the lawn they planted radish seeds in rows that spelled out DTA. Can you imagine what happened when the lawn started growing and right in the middle of the grass were all those radish plants spelling DTA?"
"He must have blown a gasket," Penny said.
"Not only did he blow a gasket, but he ordered all the DTA guys to pull up the radish plants. So they did. They pulled up the radish plants and then, right in the middle of the lawn, the letters DTA were still there spelled out in dirt. It was weeks before the general's lawn looked right again."
"Hey that's great!" Penny exclaimed. "And that gives me an idea. We can form our own organization. DTL. Damn the Lustmongers."
"Yes," Alice bubbled happily. "Damn the Lustongers. Damn them all!"
And then Alice was on top of Penny, making warm, tender, beautiful love to her.
CHAPTER SEVEN
One of the highlights of the bounteously furnished Cantrell home was the movie theater. Roger Cantrell's father, Cuthbert Cantrell, loved what he called "The Cinema" almost as much as he loved his law practice and the money it brought him. Much of that money had gone into various pieces of camera equipment with which Cuthbert Cantrell filmed rather elaborate home movies, which somehow turned out to be just as dull as anybody else's home movies.
Just the same, Cuthbert Cantrell had invested not only in some terribly expensive movie making equipment, but in some rather fabulous movie showing equipment as well. This equipment included a miniature movie theater, seating an audience of twenty, which took up the entire third story of Cuthbert Cantrell's three story ante-bellum style mansion in Maslin.
At the moment, Cuthbert Cantrell was not home. He was trying a big anti-trust case in Washington D.C., several hundred miles away, and he wasn't expected home for another week. His wife, Millie, was also away. Millie had a sister in California and Millie was paying her sister a visit.
Despite the absence of the two senior Cantrells, the movie theater on the third floor was very much occupied. Their son, Roger, was there, and with him were his two Lustmonger friends, David Van Klumpes and Pete Andrews.
David and Pete were slouched lazily in two of the front row theater seats. Roger stood in front of them and spoke.
"I suppose you're both wondering why I summoned you here," Roger said.
"You said it," David Van Klumpes piped up. "It's a Wednesday night, Roger. I have homework to do. There's a big mid-term in history coming up and I'm supposed to do well on it."
"Me too," Pete said. "How am I going to do well on an exam if I sit around here instead of studying at home?"
Roger glared at both of them.
"This is an official Lustmonger meeting," he said harshly. "When the Lustmongers have a meeting, you come. Just remember that."
"It's easy enough for you to say that," Pete said. "You don't have to take the history mid-term. I'd like to see you call a meeting when you have a mid-term coming up."
"Well you will-if you stay in the Lustmongers long enough," Roger replied. "Frankly, I'm not so sure you will. I don't like your attitude. You're pretty damn unco-operative. If you want to stay in the Lustmongers, pal, you'd better co-operate. This is no organization for slouchers."
David and Pete shifted uncomfortably in their seats and then sat up straight.
"Well there's still something I don't understand," David said. "I'd like to have it explained to me. If this is an official Lustmongers meeting-"
"It is," Roger interrupted.
"Well I didn't say it wasn't," David snapped. "All I was going to say was that if this is an official meeting of the Lustmongers, how come there aren't any girls around? How can we be Lustmongers without any girls to be lusty about?"
"This is a business meeting," Roger said by way of an answer. "At a business meeting we're not supposed to have any girls around. We're just supposed to discuss business."
"Well, gee," David said, "if you don't want to do anything except discuss business, why do we have to do it here and take time out from our studies? Why can't we just talk it over in the locker room at Maslin High?"
"Because this is very important business," Roger said. "Besides, I had a surprise for you. Something other than business. But if you're going to get so snotty about coming to meetings, you can forget all the surprises. I'm not going to show you what I had in store for you."
"What kind of a surprise was it?" Pete asked.
"Another girl, I'll bet," David said. "That's it. He has another girl for us."
"I guess so," Pete said. "What is she, Roger? Blonde? Brunette? Redhead? Raven hair?"
"No, wise guys," Roger said. "If you must know, it wasn't a girl. I didn't have anything of the kind in mind."
"Then what was it?" Pete asked.
"C'mon, Roger, tell us what it was," David added.
"No," Roger said. "I don't think I should. Not if you're going to be so damn snotty about it. I think I'll keep it all to myself."
"Oh don't be a spoilsport," Pete said.
"I'll be anything I want," Roger humphed. "I don't have to give you guys the time of day."
"Look who's talking about being snotty now," Pete said. "Should I tell you something, Roger? You're snottier than anyone else in this organization."
"You can call me anything you want," Roger said. "You can't make me let you in on what I was going to let you in on merely by calling me names."
"Fine then," Pete said. "Forget we even came." He suddenly rose to his feet. "Let's go, David."
Roger looked worriedly at Pete and David as they rose and began walking toward the door, over which there was a red "EXIT" sign just as there would be in a real movie theater.
"Where are you two going?" he demanded "Come back here!"
"Not on your life, Roger old boy," Pete said. "Not until you apologize."
"Apologize for what?" Roger said.
"Being nasty, that's what," David snapped.
"Okay, okay, I'm sorry," Roger said.
"How do we know you're sorry?" David asked.
"Well, I said I'm sorry, didn't I?" Roger said. "You said you wanted an apology and I apologized. I'm sorry. There. What else do you want?"
"Well, I'll tell you what I want," Pete said. "I want to know what your surprise was. Tell me that and maybe I'll forgive you."
"Me too," David said.
"All right, all right, I'll tell you," Roger said. "Just sit down and I'll tell you."
"Why can't you tell us while we're standing up?" David asked. "What's wrong with standing up?"
"Nothing's wrong with it, stupid. I'd just prefer that you sat down," Roger said.
"Did you see that?" David said accusingly. "He called me stupid. Me What did I ever do that was stupid? Will somebody please tell me?"
"Oh, let him say whatever he wants to say," Pete said. "C'mon David, let's sit down and hear whatever the big surprise he has for us is."
With that, both boys took their seats.
"That's better," Roger said. "Now, I have a big surprise for you, something I've been saving for a night just like this, a nice dull Wednesday night when there aren't any girls around and there doesn't seem to be anything else to do except study for some silly old history mid-term exam. Well, there is something else to do and we're going to do it. Of course, I was going to save it for after the business meeting-"
"Can that business meeting garbage," Pete growled.
"Okay, forget the business meeting for a while," Roger said. "To get on to the fun part-"
"Yes, please do," David said, stifling a yawn.
"Well, I'm going to," Roger said. "Here's what I have to say. I guess you guys could have figured out why you're here if you had any brains-"
"Is that another insult?" David bristled.
"No," Roger said. "It's not an insult I was merely about to point out that we're in my father's movie theater. We're here for a purpose. That's natural enough, isn't it? We're here for a purpose, and the purpose is to show movies."
"Oh, cripes no!" Pete exclaimed. "Not some more of your father's damn home movies. I've heard about those. Look, Roger, you're a very nice guy and all that, but I really don't want to see pictures of you being fed pablum when you were a baby. I've heard all about your father's home movies. Lousy shots of dull things, together with stinking little cute titles like 'Baby's First Meal' and 'Baby's First Step' and 'Summer Vacation, 1959'. No sir, I can live without that."
"Those aren't the movies I had in mind," Roger said. "I know what you're talking about. To tell you the truth, I'm sick of those too. If I have to watch myself coughing up pablum one more time, I'm going to start coughing things up again. But those aren't the movies I meant."
"Well, what movies did you have in mind?" David asked.
"That's an interesting story," Roger replied. "You see, I took a little trip into New York yesterday and I saw a man about something."
"About what?" David demanded.
"Well if you'll shut up, I'll tell you. I saw a man who happens to deal in movies. Not ordinary movies either. He deals in very special kind of movies imported from France, if you know what I mean."
"I think I'm beginning to catch on," David said.
"Well, it's about time," said Roger. "I happened to purchase a couple of reels of these movies. I've spliced them all together and now we're going to watch. I don't think the Lustmongers will have to apologize to each other for seeing these movies either. They're in perfect keeping with the aims of the club."
With that, Roger stepped over to an electronic control panel and turned several switches. At the turn of one switch the house lights dimmed and went out. Then when a second switch was turned, a light began flickering on the screen at the front of the theater. The title, "THE HOUSEWIFE" appeared in white letters against a black background.
"Hey," David "cried out, "is this going to be a talking picture or a silent movie?"
"A silent movie of course," Roger said. "Words would be wasted on a movie like this. Watch and you'll see why."
They all watched and they saw why.
A picture of a house flashed on the screen, an ordinary suburban house in an ordinary suburban town very much like Maslin. A milk truck pulled up in the driveway in front of the house and a perfectly ordinary milk man stepped out with two bottles of milk and walked to the front door. He rang the bell and waited.
Suddenly the door opened. Standing in front of the door was a woman about thirty years of age, clad in nothing but a very flimsy and filmy black nightie that failed to hide her two perfectly pointed breasts and the dark areas of the nipples that capped them.
Somebody in the audience whistled but nobody reprimanded him. They were all too busy watching the film, their eyes glued on the striking blonde woman in the night gown, on her long trim legs and hips and belly.
The milk man appeared to say something to her. She appeared to reply, her full luscious lips mouthing something that looked like an obscene word. The milk man nodded, smiled, put his two bottles of milk down in the doorway, and followed her into the house.
The camera then cut to the interior of the house. It was a richly decorated interior, full of plush carpeting and expensive furniture. The woman in the transparent night gown lay down on a long couch and beckoned to the milk man to sit down next to her. He approached her cautiously and sat down.
She reached up with long, slim fingers and began unbuttoning the milk man's shirt. Meanwhile, he was busy with his own fingers. They crept under her night gown and brushed across her breasts, finally cupping them and squeezing them gently. The woman's full mouth shaped some words of appreciation.
Slowly, while the milk man fondled her breasts, the blonde managed to take all his clothes off, first removing his shirt, then his trousers, and finally, with his cooperation, his underclothing.
Then the real action began.
The milk man took the woman's breasts in his mouth after first parting her night gown and removing it. The woman's body began to squirm, her hips writhing passionately. This only encouraged the milk man more. He moved his mouth lower, planting passionate kisses all over the woman's bare, well shaped body. Her legs began to kick wildly and her hips jerked in furious spasms.
The camera moved in for a close-up of her face, It was a very beautiful face with high cheekbones and smooth skin and very full lips which now were partly open. Her face contorted with passion, the woman slowly stuck her tongue out and then moved her face forward so that she was touching his body Slowly, she began to circle it, caressing him until he too, was writhing.
And finally, it was no hold barred. The woman grasped the milk man tightly between her strong legs. The two of them began moving together like meshed gears, going faster and faster until they were moving at an incredibly speed.
"Wow!" David yelled. "Look at that! Just look at that!"
"Shut up," Roger said.
Pete said nothing. He was too engrossed in the picture to talk or even to hear David.
The camera moved back to the woman's face. She seemed to be enjoying her experience with the milk man tremendously. By watching her face, it was possible to see exactly how much she was enjoying it and how close she was to completion.
She smiled at first. Then after a while her smile disappeared. Her eyes closed tightly and through her parted lips it was possible to see her clenched teeth.
The camera moved around to get a bird's eye view. Her thighs were shown, tight around the milk man, moving back and forth, back and forth, more and more rapidly.
The camera moved closer down for a few finer points of the scene. The lens focused on her long fingernails, very long fingernails, which were gouging into the milk man's bare back, gouging deeper and deeper, making long dark marks.
And finally the biggest moment came. The entire couch shook beneath them. The blonde woman's face relaxed and her mouth opened wide, gasping for air.
A moment later the words "
THE END" flashed on the screen.
"Hey," David said, "that was pretty good."
"Pretty good. Is that all you can say?' Roger asked.
"I think it was great," Pete said. "Simply the greatest. I've never seen a movie like that one before."
"It beats what you can see in the sex movies around Times Square in New York," David said. "I went to one of those once. Sure, they have a lot of pretty girls in them. You can't deny that. And the girls always take off some of their clothes too. I mean, they parade around with hardly anything on. But the pictures never get as good as this."
"Of course not," Pete said. "If people went to a movie like this in public, the cops would probably close in on them."
"All right, all right," Roger said. "Enough talk. This is only the first movie. Remember, I said I bought several. The next one will be coming up in just a second, so keep quiet and watch."
"Sure thing," Pete said.
Just then the next movie began to flash. This one was entitled "GIRL ALONE". The camera focused on a girl of about fourteen years of age. She had dark hair and big, pointed breasts. She was wearing an ordinary cotton blouse, against which her breasts protruded like huge spears. She was also wearing a tight pair of blue jeans.
The girl was alone in a bedroom. The camera flashed around the room, showing the narrow single bed, a dresser, and a big, full length mirror against one of the walls.
As the camera watched, the girl stood up and walked in front of the mirror. She stared at herself for a moment, proudly appraising her jutting breasts and trim hips. Then she slowly wiggled her body like a Turkish belly dancer, all the time keeping her eyes glued on her own mirrored figure.
She stepped so close to the mirror that her breasts pressed against it. Then she brought her face to it and let her lips press against their own reflection. For a moment she closed her eyes, as if she were enjoying the kiss of her own image through the flat glass. All at once she opened her eyes and stepped back.
Her hips continued to wiggle.
Her fingers went to her blouse. She opened the top button, then the next one, then the third and the fourth and the fifth. She pulled off the blouse and threw it away as if it were annoying her. Free of it, she stepped to the mirror again and pressed her bare belly against the glass. Once more, she let her lips kiss their own mirror image.
Her bra came next. She reached behind her, contorting her arms for a moment to release the hooks which held the encumbering cloth of the bra tight around her. Then she pulled her bra off and her large pointed breasts sprang free.
Roger, in the audience, licked his lips.
She approached the mirror for a third time, pressing her pointed breasts to it, squeezing them flat to the glass, straining to see the reflection of her pressed nipples. Her eyes closed. She kissed herself again.
Then, as if someone had put on a record full of wild, sensual jungle music, she began to dance like a girl gone mad, her body twitching and undulating, her legs kicking high, her long hair flying about her shoulders in a tangled blur. Faster and faster she danced, her mouth open, her eyes flashing but all the time glued on the mirror.
Somehow, during the course of the wild dance, she managed to get out of her blue jeans, pulling them off and stepping out of them. Then she continued her wild dance, moving faster by the minute, wearing nothing but a tight silk band around her hips. Her mouth seemed to move in an obscene invitation. Her lips out-lined words that told exactly what she wanted and how she wanted it.
At last the band of silk around her hips came off. She didn't throw it away. For a moment she held it in front of herself, rubbing it back and forth across her breasts, feeling the touch of the silk against her nipples.
When at last she tossed the silk aside, she was in a frenzy of passion. She grew wilder by the second, pressing her entire body flat against the mirror, her mouth, her bare breasts, her flat abdomen, the fronts of her thighs.
The camera concentrated on her twitching backside. It twitched slowly at first, then faster. Then it began to move back and forth until it seemed obvious that she was banging her pelvis against the mirror, attempting to obtain some sexual satisfaction from the image behind the glass.
She danced until she seemed to have worn herself out. She fell to the floor, bathed in her own perspiration. The words, "
THE END" flashed on the screen again.
"Wow, that one had me crawling up the walls," David said.
"This is murder," Pete agreed. "It's pretty damn frustrating watching all this and not having a girl around. Believe me, if there were a girl around I'd know what to do to her. After one of these movies she wouldn't stand a chance."
"I know," Roger said. "Don't worry. A little frustration is good for you. It helps build up your libido for when there is a girl around. I have a funny feeling that the next Lustmonger meeting is going to be a dilly."
"What about the movies?" David asked. "Are there any more of them?"
"Why?" Roger asked. "Don't tell me you want to see more of them."
"Of course I want to see more," David panted. "C'mon Roger, stop teasing us. Are there any more?"
"Well, there's one more," Roger said, his hand on the switch that controlled the projector. "But I don't know if I ought to let you see it."
"What do you mean by that?" David said. "We're Lustmongers, aren't we? This is a Lustmonger meeting, isn't it? We have a right to see the last movie."
"Well, what about the business meeting?" Roger asked. "Remember, this was supposed to be a business meeting."
"If I hear one more word about business before you show that next movie," Pete told Roger, "I'm going to sock you in the teeth."
"Okay," Roger said, "you don't have to get sore at me. I was merely mentioning that fact that a business meeting happens to be scheduled. If you want to see the movie just say so."
"I said so a million times already," David groaned.
"Fine," Roger replied. "Well see the last movie then. Only one thing-as soon as this movie's over, we'll get down to business. Okay?"
"Okay," David and Pete said simultaneously.
The last film was entitled "FAMILY SIN". The camera first focused on an old shack, the kind a sharecropper might live in if the sharecropper happened to live in the hills of Tennessee. It was an old, ramshackle building with loose shingles and broken windows.
The camera dollied closer. There was a family group in front of the shack. The group consisted of four people who were obviously the mother, the father, and their two children.
They seemed frozen for a while, as if they were statues. Then suddenly the father moved. He lept to his feet, and for no apparent reason he pulled his heavy leather belt from the loops of his trousers and walked menacingly toward his daughter with it.
The camera moved in for a close-up of the daughter. She was a very young girl, perhaps ten years of age. Her eyes were open wide with fear. The father stepped closer, waving his strap.
The camera moved back for a long shot. The little girl turned around and ran as fast as she could. The father ran after her, his long strides gradually closing the distance between them. In a moment he had caught up to her. He caught her by the scruff of the neck, hoisted her to his shoulder, and carried her back to the rest of his family which was still sitting like statues In front of their home.
Calmly, the father seated himself at a wooden bench in front of the shack, turned the girl over his knee, pushed up the skirt of her jumper and began to spank her with his belt through her underclothing.
The girl squirmed. Her short legs kicked wildly, but the more she kicked the harder her father hit her.
The spanking seemed to rouse the other two members of the family from their lethargy. Suddenly, the mother jumped up, picked up a birch rod that had been lying on the ground next to her, and walked slowly toward her son, staring at him through steely eyes.
He seemed to understand what she was going to do, and he seemed to be willing to let her do it. She pointed at him. Quite compliently he stood up, lowered his trousers, and turned around. The woman raised the birch rod over her head and then brought it down hard on her son's bare backside.
The camera moved back for a long view again. What the camera saw were two people being beaten the little girl by her father on her thin underpants, and the son on his bare backside by his mother.
After a while, the action progressed further. As if they both had tired of beating their children at once, the father and mother dropped their implements of torture and hurriedly began ripping off their clothes. The son did the same thing, pulling off what remained of his clothing.
The girl, however, refused to get undressed. This failed to hinder the father. He grabbed his daughter roughly and began ripping away her jumper, shredding the material into tiny bits.
The girl tried to get away from her father but he held her tightly by one wrist. She yanked and pulled to free herself, but she couldn't. At last, when all of the clothing had been ripped from her body, the father began to touch her all over, his fingers gliding over her flat chest and tiny nipples, her round, slightly protruding belly, her short little thighs.
Meanwhile, the son was kissing his mother. The mother lay back on the grass, her eyes closed, her mouth open. Her hips began to roll like waves on a calm sea.
The camera flashed back to father and daughter. She was pounding him with her little fists, but all to no avail. He seemed to be laughing at her struggles. Her arms flailed wildly as he grabbed her by the hair, brought his mouth close to hers, and kissed her hard.
The camera dollied back for one last long shot as the inevitable began to happen. The four figures filled the screen. The boys in the audience didn't know which couple to look at first. Too much was happening. Wherever they looked, the screen was full of parts of nude bodies, arms and legs, thighs, big breasts, little breasts, mouths, lips, tongues.
The shameful orgy finally ended in the inevitable way. The words "
THE END" flashed on the screen to the accompaniment of gasps from the three boys in the audience. The lights went on. Roger stood up.
"Okay," he said. "Is everybody satisfied."
"Satisfied!" Pete exclaimed. "Man, are you kidding? I'm not satisfied. I'm just frustrated. I won't be satisfied until I get a girl of my own."
"That'll come," Roger said. "Everything comes in due time. All you have to do is wait until the weekend. Meanwhile, if you don't mind my bringing it up, we still have business to attend to. That's what the meeting was called for in the first place."
"Oh no," David sighed. "Don't tell me he's talking about business again."
"He sure is, Pete said. "And this time I think we'd better listen to him. After all, we've had our fun."
"Thanks Pete," Roger said.
"Go ahead," David said to Roger. "Talk."
"Well, thanks," Roger said. "I thought you'd never let me get around to it. Now, as you may have noticed, there's one person missing from this meeting tonight. I'm talking, of course, about Kenneth Seever."
"He's missing for a good reason," Pete paid. "He was supposed to bring two girls into the Lustmongers before he becomes a full-fl-edged member. So far he's only brought in one. That leaves him one more to go. He's not even a member yet, so who cares if he's missing?"
"Good thinking," Roger said dogmatically. "I like thinking like that. One of the reasons Kenneth isn't here this evening is that he still isn't a full-fl-edged member. He isn't entitled to be here. But there's another reason. Does anybody know what that reason is?"
There was a long silence while Pete and David scratched their heads, trying to think of the reason.
"Come on," Roger said. "You can do better than that. Think, damn it. Think. You two are acting like dunderheads, you dunderheads."
"Hey, I know why," David said at last.
"That's a good boy," Roger said. "Now tell me, what's the reason."
"It's-well, is it because of his sister, Alice?" David said.
"Yes, of course it's because of his sister," Roger replied. "We have to talk about him and his sister, and that's why I didn't want him here. This is important business, but it's not business Kenneth can hear about yet. Now, you tell me what the problem is."
"That's easy," Pete said. "Kenneth's not going to like finding out that his sister's in the Lustmongers He's not going to like it at all. Just as soon as he finds out that Alice was the first girl we got into the Lustmongers, and that we got her by raping her, he's going to blow a gasket."
"Exactly," Roger said. "And that's why I called the meeting. There are two things we have to do The first is, we have to keep Kenneth away from meetings until he brings in his full quota of girls."
That's all very fine," Pete said, thinking brightly, "but what are we going to do once he gets his last girl? Are we going to keep him out of the club for ever?"
"No," Roger said, "we're not going to do that. But I have another idea. We're going to make them make it with each other?"
"Together?" David said incredulously. "You mean Kenneth and Alice together?"
"Sure," Roger said. "Don't you see? Once they've made it together, they'll be stuck in this club together. What brother and sister are going to admit that they undressed each other and then-"
"Y'know," David said. "I told you this once before and I'll tell you again. You're an evil genius, Roger, a regular evil genius."
"I know I anV' Roger said proudly. "Tell you what. Now that the business part of this meeting is over, what would you say to seeing the moves over again?"
Nobody voiced an objection.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Mitzi Matson was troubled by bad dreams. She had been troubled by bad dreams ever since she could remember and now that she was fourteen, the dreams still wouldn't go away.
In some of her dreams she was being chased through an endless forest by giant snakes. The snakes never seemed to catch her but that was only because she ran so fast to get away from them. She would run and run and run until she could feel her heart pounding against the walls of her chest, and still the snakes would continue their relentless pursuit until at last the dream ended with Mitzi jumping up in bed and screaming aloud.
Other dreams were equally terrifying. Sometimes, even happy dreams would end in fright. Once, some years ago, she had dreamed that she was a princess and that she had a pet unicorn, a milk white unicorn with a horn in the middle of its head.
It started out as a perfectly happy dream. She was dressed in the finest clothing imaginable, in satin robes and silken scarves with ropes of pearls such as were befitting a princess. Each day she would go out to the castle garden to feed the unicorn spicy bay leaves and whisps of tender grass which it would nibble from her hand.
But one day, the unicorn seemed to be in a terrible temper. She approached it cautiously, a cluster of its favorite bay leaves in her hand, a sweet smile on her pretty lips.
"Here unicorn," she said. "Here are some spicy bay leaves which I have gathered for you and you alone."
But the unicorn only snorted contemptuously at her, anger in his pinkish white eye. Then the snorts grew louder and finally, for no apparent reason, the unicorn charged at her, his head low, his horn pointed straight at the middle of her belly.
Naturally she turned and ran.
The unicorn ran after her, his horn still pointed dangerously in her direction, loud snorts emmanating from his nostrils. He chased her directly across the garden to the garden wall. Poor Princess Mitzi ran into a corner and was trapped. Then, the unicorn pawed the ground with his hoofs, snorted one last time, and began shredding her fine royal robes with his pointed horn, tearing away her strands of pearls and her silks and her satins until she was bare.
When at last she was nude, the unicorn backed away and then charged toward her. Mitzi screamed aloud. The unicorn was going to stab her with his horn. He was running toward her at a furious rate. Mitzi's screams echoed through the garden. Until, again, she awoke.
Dreams of this sort had made a veritable wreck of Mitzi. She was unable to sleep very well, for her nightmares were always waking her. She always seemed to have bags under her eyes, indicating her sleepless nights. She was high strung and jumpy, afraid of harsh words or harsh looks. People who stared at her too hard or too long would remind her of the unicorn or the snakes with their beady, piercing eyes. Boys especially, for reasons Mitzi could not understand, seemed to remind her of the creatures of her nocturnal terror.
At the same time, Mitzi was terribly in need of company. Her dreams were so frightening that she felt she had to talk to somebody about them. She didn't want to be alone, for in her loneliness the images of the snakes and the unicorn would invariably pop back into her mind.
Unfortunately, there wasn't anybody with whom Mitzi Matson could talk. Her parents were impossible to talk to. George and Phoebe Matson were much too involved in their own problems.
George Matson was the night managing editor of one of the big newspapers in New York City. He began work at one o'clock in the morning and he finished work at nine in the morning. By the time he got home to Maslin. Mitzi was in school. And by the time he awoke, after having slept away the day. Mitzi was in bed for the night with her terrible dreams. Mitzi hardly even knew her father.
George, of course, would have been somewhat shocked to learn that Mitzi had terrible troubles. He prided himself of knowing his daughter, although, to tell the truth, his important New York job made knowledge of either of the two women in his family impossible.
For example, George did not know that Phoebe Matson was carrying on a torrid love affair with their next door neighbor, Will Stempler. Will was a widower and he had no children, so his affair with Phoebe was not a difficult matter for him. Every evening at eleven forty-five, when George Matson left to catch the late train to New York, Will would merely go to his front door, open it, and admit Phoebe, who generally spent most of the night at Will's house, returning to her own home just before George was due back.
The consequence was that Mitzi was left alone in her big house. When she cried out at night, there was no one around to hear her. She might as well have been left alone in a cave.
In time, Mitzi came to be so accustomed to the idea that her parents were not at home to answer her screams, that she no longer felt she could confide in her parents. She cut herself off from them, telling them nothing about her personal problems. She would merely greet them whenever she happened to see them-which was rare-and let her secrets remain hidden in her breast.
It might be pointed out that by the time she had become fourteen, Mitzi's breast was rather well endowed. In fact, both of them were. Despite the fact that they were not particularly large, they were full and well rounded. Her stomach was flat and her legs and thighs, although not particularly long, were indeed particularly shapely. Add to this a very pretty face with a pert upturned nose and crisp, curly black hair, and you have Mitzi-a very pretty girl although a very frightened one.
Mitzi was so pretty, in fact, that even Dr. Benjamin Block, Maslin's wealthy psychiatrist had noticed it. Dr. Block. 57 years old, had been practicing psychiatry for some time now, and he was undoubtedly the best psychiatrist in Maslin.
Despite his skill, he was puzzled by Mitzi who had been sent to the doctor by her mother. In one of her more perceptive moods, Phoebe Matson had decided that there must be something wrong with mitzi. She promptly took Mitzi to Dr. Block's office.
But Dr. Block couldn't figure out what was bothering Mitzi for the simple reason that Mitzi wouldn't talk about it. True, she needed someone to confide in, but Dr. Block with his devilishly pointed red goatee and piercing blue eyes hardly seemed to Mitzi to be an ideal confidant. In fact, after a few sessions on the psychiatrist's couch, she was suffering from a new nightmare in which Dr. Block was chasing her, ready to stab her with his pointed beard.
Dr. Block attempted to break down his patient's reticence by complimenting her. That was when he told her she was pretty and paid tribute to her face and her hair, although he carefully avoided mention of her nicely rounded breasts. The compliments didn't help. It seemed to Mitzi that the doctor was buttering her up for the kill, that at any moment those piercing eyes would flash and that beard would come alive, stabbing and piercing her.
Terrified, Mitzi Matson sat-or rather lay quietly on the psychiatrist's couch, refusing to tell him what her problems were, refusing, in fact, to tell him anything. The doctor did all the talking. By the time a month had passed, Mitzi had heard a great deal about the problems of Dr. Benjamin Block, but Dr. Block had heard nothing about Mitzi's problems. He gave her up as a hopeless case.
Phoebe Matson was so worried about Dr. Block's despair that she took Mitzi to still another psychiatrist, Dr. Lawrence Morse. But even Dr. Morse, peering at Mitzi through thick, tortoise shell glasses, was unable to get through to her. In due time, Phoebe Matson herself despaired. Having despaired, she went back to her next door neighbor's bed and that was the end of that. Mitzi was on her own.
At this very moment, Mitzi was on her own with Kenneth Seever. She was seated in Stamm's, Maslin's ice cream parlor, slurping away at a chocolate sundae.
Ordinarily, Mitzi would not have been sitting in an ice cream parlor, especially not with a boy. Places as public as ice cream parlors terrified her and boys terrified her even more.
But Kenneth Seever was different. He didn't have a devilishly pointed red beard like Dr. Block, nor did he have piercing blue eyes, nor did he have thick tortoise shell glasses. He was very soft spoken and gentle, and he was very kind.
If there was one thing Mitzi couldn't understand, it was why Kenneth Seever had bothered to ask her to go to Stamm's with him after school. Kenneth had never spoken to her before today. She didn't even think he knew that she existed.
Apparently, however,. he did know. During the lunch hour he had approached her in the school cafeteria. Approaching her wasn't hard since Mitzi usually sat alone. Kenneth sat down next to her and struck up a conversation.
As Kenneth spoke, Mitzi responded shyly. It was many minutes before she even dared to look Kenneth straight in her eye, but when she finally got up enough nerve to do so, Kenneth was looking back. His face was kind and sweet, and he was asking her to meet him after school at Stamm's for ice cream.
Mitzi got up all the courage she had, and accepted.
Now she was sitting with Kenneth over the remains of her sundae, and meeting him seemed like a very good idea. Kenneth was easy to talk to-terribly easy. Mitzi supposed that in time she could even get up enough courage to tell him about her terrible nightmares.
Kenneth would listen carefully, Mitzi thought. He would listen to every single word she spoke, taking it all in with mature wisdom. And then, he would tell her what to do to make all the bad dreams go away.
Mitzi felt herself growing excited. At last she was going to put an end to the haunting terror. At last there was going to be an end to her nightmares.
She wanted to tell Kenneth about them right now, right at this very moment, only she didn't dare. There were too many people around. The ice cream parlor was much too public. Someone might overhear her and she didn't want that.
Just as she finished the last of her sundae, she finally decided that she would tell Kenneth if he'd let her. She'd tell him this very evening.
She leaned across the marble topped table and whispered softly.
"Kenneth, I want to tell you something."
"Oh?" Kenneth said. "What do you want to tell me?"
"Well," she whispered, "I can't tell you here. I mean it. I really can't."
"Well where do you want to tell me whatever it is you have to say?" asked Kenneth.
Mitzi glanced around nervously.
"Could I tell you-later this evening?"
Kenneth smiled in what Mitzi was sure was a warm, kindly manner.
"Of course," he said. "Tell me any time you want to. Say whatever you'd like to say. I'm always ready to listen."
"Could you pick me up later this evening?" she said. "I have to go home now. There's some studying I have to do and after that I have to have dinner."
"Sure," Kenneth said. "I'll pick you up later this evening if you want me to. Just tell me what time."
"Well, how about around eight o'clock?" Mitzi said.
"Eight o'clock's just fine with me."
"And when you meet me," Mitzi went on, "would you take me some place? Some place where we can be all alone and talk without anyone overhearing us? I don't want to be overheard."
"Of course," Kenneth said. He smiled broadly. It was such a kind smile, Mitzi thought. "I'll take you to a very quiet place. There won't be a soul around except you and I."
"Oh thank you!" Mitzi said happily. "Thank you so much, Kenneth!"
"That's okay," Kenneth said, still smiling. "Think nothing of it, Mitzi."
A few seconds later, after Mitzi had left Stamm's to go home for dinner, Kenneth's smile became even broader. Then he began laughing. He laughed so hard that the entire ice cream parlor began to shake.
When he had finally stopped laughing, he stood up, went to the telephone booth, and called David Van Klumpes to reserve his basement for the evening.
Promptly at eight o'clock in the evening, Kenneth Seever parked his father's big Cadillac in the driveway of Mitzi Matson's house and rang the doorbell.
Mitzi came to the door with her coat on.
"Let's go," she said.
"So quickly?" Kenneth asked, surprised. He had never seen a girl who seemed so anxious to fall into a trap.
"I just have to talk to you right away," Mitzi said.
Indeed, she needed desperately to talk to Kenneth immediately. All the fears and apprehensions that had been growing in Mitzi's breast for years and years now were practically at the surface, waiting anxiously to be released. She was impatient to talk it out once and for all.
"All right," Kenneth said. "My car's in the driveway."
"Are we going to talk in your car?" Mitzi asked.
"No," Kenneth said. "A friend of mine is away for the evening. His parents are away too. They're in Europe. So I thought we'd go to his house to talk. There couldn't be a quieter, more private place in the whole world."
"Fine then," Mitzi said. "Let's go to your friend's house."
Which is exactly where Kenneth took her. He opened the front door of David Van Klumpes' house with a key that David himself had supplied, and he led Mitzi down a flight of stairs to the basement where he helped her remove her coat and then sat beside her while she poured out the story about her terrible nightmares.
Kenneth listened carefully, even though he had several other things on his mind. One of them was the way Mitzi looked. She looked quite good in a light weight one piece dress which highlighted her full breasts and her trim hips. David looked at her dress, imagining what was under it and how it would look when the dress came off. He also looked at her pretty legs and dimpled knees, now covered with flesh-tinted stockings, and he imagined what fun it would be rolling those stockings down over her legs and removing them.
At the same time, Kenneth didn't let his attention wander too far from Mitzi's story about the snakes and the unicorn. He took it all in, aware that once he fully knew and understood her problems, they could be used against her.
When Mitzi had finished revealing her innermost secrets, Kenneth spoke.
"Would you like to know what I think?" Kenneth said.
"Yes," Mitzi said, her eyes still fixed on Kenneth's face.
"Well, it sounds to me as if you're afraid of sex, if you know what I mean."
"No I don't," Mitzi said, her face suddenly turned to an ashen gray. "I'm not sure I understand what you mean at all."
"Well," Kenneth said, "put it this way. No don't, come to think of it. Let me ask you a couple of questions instead. In the first place, Mitzi, have you ever loved a boy, and have you ever made love to a boy? You know, all the way, no holds barred, that kind of thing."
"No," Mitzi said. "I haven't."
"Well, I think that's all tied in with your problem," Kenneth said. "Look, even your hands are trembling. They're shaking like the dickens. Why?"
"I don't know," Mitzi said.
"Well I'll tell you why," Kenneth said. "Because I mentioned sex, that's why."
Mitzi's face turned even more ashen.
"Can't you see what it is?" Kenneth said. "You're scared of sex. It frightens you silly. All I had to do was mention it and the color drained out of your face and your hands began to shake. It's sex you're afraid of, that's what."
"But how does that explain the dreams?" Mitzi asked. "What do my dreams have to do with sex?"
"That's simple to explain," Kenneth said. "No problem at all. Any psychiatrist could explain it to you, if you'd let him. You see, snakes and unicorn horns and things like that are sex symbols. They stand for what you're really afraid of. Of course, you're so afraid of it that even in your dreams you can't have real men with the real thing chasing you. That would scare you out of your wits. So instead, your subconscious substitutes snakes and unicorn horns for the real thing. When you dream you're running away from them, you're really dreaming that you're running away from men. That's all there is to it."
"And when I dream that they're ripping up my clothes and-" Mitzi began.
"That's right," Kenneth said. "You're really dreaming that men are ripping off your clothes."
"But what can I do?" Mitzi wailed. "What can I do to get over these terrible dreams?"
"Well, I have a theory," Kenneth said.
"What's that?" Mitzi asked.
"The theory? Very simple. I think you're afraid of sex merely because you've never had it. You don't know what's going to happen, so you expect the worst. But believe me, Mitzi, it's not bad. It's not bad at all. It's really very good when you try it. And nobody rips off your clothes or anything like that."
"Well, how do I know that?" Mitzi asked, her face still as ashen as before.
"Mitzi," Kenneth said, forcing himself to sound sincere, "there's only one way you'll ever find out. It's not going to be easy, but you're going to have to try. Mitzi, you're going to have to make love to somebody, go all the way and find out how good it is."
"Do you really think so?" Mitzi asked nervously. "Is that the only way?"
"The only way," Kenneth said solemnly.
"But, I'm frightened," Mitzi said. "I don't think I have enough nerve to try it. I really don't."
"You have to try it," Kenneth said, trying to sound like a professional psychiatrist. "That's the only way there is to get rid of your horrible nightmares."
"But, I just can't go into the street and pick somebody up and tell him to-to make love to me," Mitzi said. "Why, I wouldn't even know how to do it. Besides, it doesn't seem right to do a thing like that."
"You don't have to do it that way," Kenneth said. "In fact, Mitzi, it would be wrong to do it that way. There's a much better way."
"What way is that?" Mitzi asked.
"With me," Kenneth said.
"With you?" Her eyes opened wide.
"Of course with me. I'm your friend, aren't I?"
"Yes," Mitzi said hesitantly.
"And you know I'm your friend because you've been able to confide in me and in no one else, right?"
"Right," Mitzi said.
"Well, what are friends for if not to help out other mends?" Kenneth said. "I want to help you, Mitzi. That's why I'm offering to make love to you. It's for your own good."
Mitzi glanced at Kenneth nervously.
"I wouldn't set you wrong," Kenneth said soothingly. "You know me better than that, don't you?"
"I suppose so," Mitzi said.
"Good," Kenneth said.
The next moment his arms were around her. Gently, he pulled her toward him and kissed her lightly on the lips. Her lips were moist and she was trembling like a rabbit.
Kenneth knew that what he was doing with Mitzi was wrong. He was playing with the girl's sick mind. He was about to make it even sicker. Just the same, he had to do it. That was the only way he'd fill his Lustmonger quota.
He let his hand slide down and press against Mitzi's breast through her light-weight dress. Mitzi gave a startled little cry.
"Sssh," Kenneth said. "Don't be afraid. I'm not hurting you and I'm not going to hurt you."
Just the same, Mitzi continued to tremble as Kenneth's hand began to slide down from her breast, to her waist, to her thigh. And when his hand crept under her dress and began moving up her thigh again, she shrieked aloud.
"Quiet," Kenneth urged softly. "You're being frightened of nothing at all. Nothing."
"I can't help it," Mitzi said. "I can't. I just can't."
"But you have to."
"I can't," Mitzi said again. "Where's my coat? I want to go home."
"But you can't go home."
"I have to go home," Mitzi said. "I don't want to stay here any more."
Kenneth was about to continue arguing with her, but just at that very moment a closet door sprang open and Roger, David and Pete walked out of the closet with wicked leers on their faces.
"You're not going anywhere," Roger sneered. "You're staying right here."
"That's right, kiddo," David added.
"That's some story you told, Mitzi old girl," Roger said. "We heard every word of it, standing behind that closet door. Boy oh boy, snakes and unicorns. I've never heard anything like it. Old Ken sure know how to pick some weird girls."
"I don't know," Pete said. "I kind of liked the story, especially the one about the unicorn. Imagine being a unicorn and chasing a girl around and ripping off all her clothes. Frankly I think it would be great to be a unicorn for a while."
"Not a bad idea," Roger said. "I'll tell you what. We'll all be unicorns. You too, Kenneth. C'mon. We're all unicorns for the evening."
Slowly, the boys began moving toward Mitzi. She shrieked, jumped to her feet, and began to back away from them. Her twisted, unhappy mind began to play tricks on her. In her eyes, they actually had turned into unicorns and they were moving toward her, getting closer and closer, their long white horns ready to attack.
She began to run. The nightmare was coming true, only it was coming true with four times the terror of her nightmares, for there were four unicorns.
She was running madly, trying to find an escape from the basement, but there didn't seem to be any. So she ran in circles, and they chased her around and around the basement room, snorting loudly.
She felt her heart pounding. She had to get away from them. Her shapely legs pumped as hard as they could.
Still they kept after her, the four unicorns with the white horns, their snorts ringing in her ears.
Her heart pounded harder. She tripped suddenly and fell.
She screamed aloud as they did just what the unicorn of her dreams did. They were ripping away her light dress, shredding it into tiny pieces, snorting as the shreds flew through the air.
Next they were tearing apart her stockings, ripping them in little chunks from her shapely thighs and legs.
Her underwear came next. The beady-eyed unicorns were leering at her with delight now as they tore up her panties, ripped away her bra, and left her shuddering on the floor, her full rounded breasts bare and trembling, her trim hips squirming to escape the horns of the unicorns, her legs flaying about to keep them away.
But she couldn't stop them. She saw their horns, white and gleaming. They began to prod her. One unicorn rubbed his horn across her breasts, touching the soft pink nipples to make them hard.
Another was scratching the velvety insides of her thighs, deftly ducking her kicks.
And then they were all over her and she was being stabbed, stabbed everywhere. She felt a terrible rush of pain as the horns cut hard into her flesh, and then she sobbed as the unicorns continued to gore When all four of them had finished, Roger, David, Pete and Kenneth stood up and backed away from the sobbing hulk of flesh on the floor.
"Just look at her," Pete said in amazement. "She's shaking like a leaf."
"Ah, she'll be all right," David said.
"I don't know about that," Kenneth said. "She has some pretty serious mental problems. I'm not sure she's going to be all right."
"Well maybe we should ask her," David said.
"Sure," Roger said, grinning. "Go ahead and ask her."
"Hey Mitzi," David said. "Mitzi kid. Hey Mitzi, talk to me."
Mitzi made no answer. She continued to lie on the floor, her body still quivering uncontrollably.
"She's just faking," Pete said. "She just wants our sympathy, that's all. It's all a line to make us feel sorry for her. Pay no attention and she'll get over it."
"I don't know about that," Kenneth said again, his face full of worry. "I'm scared."
"Oh, don't be scared," Roger sneered. "Please don't be scared Ken old boy."
And then, more harshly, he added, "Remember, Kenneth, you're a Lustmonger. The Lustmongers aren't scared of anything. If you're going to be scared just because some little chick has a fit, you don't belong in the club."
"Maybe we can beat some sense into her," David said. "Look at her, lying face-down on the floor like that. Let's pick her up and slap her around a little bit."
"I really don't think you ought to," Kenneth said.
"Who cares what you think," Roger snapped.
David and Pete walked up to Mitzi's prostrate form, hoisted her up by her arms, and propped her against the basement wall.
Then Roger walked over, raised his hand, and brought it hard against Mitzi's cheek, making a resounding noise.
"Hey, stop that," Kenneth said, overwhelmed with guilt feelings. After all, it was he who had brought Mitzi down to the Lustmongers' lair. It was he who had gotten her into this. She was his responsibility.
But he couldn't stop it.
"Why should I stop?" Roger said. "I'm getting a kick out of this, if you must know. A terrific kick."
With that he slapped the girl another time, then still another, and another, the blows raining down ceaselessly.
Strangely, Mitzi didn't even cry out. A soft gurgling sound in her throat was the only noise she made. Her body continued to quiver, but it didn't wince with the blows.
"Hey," Pete said after a while, "you'd better cut that out. Something's wrong."
"What do you mean something's wrong?" Roger said, rubbing his palm which was sore from hitting the girl.
"Well look at her eyes," Pete said. "They're wide open, but they're blank. She doesn't seem to see a thing. Look!" With that he jerked his hand in front of her face several times.
"Well I'll be damned," David said. "She doesn't even blink!"
"Something's wrong," Kenneth said nervously. "Something's very wrong."
With that, Roger threw back his head, opened his mouth wide, and laughed a hollow, evil laugh.
"Of course there's something wrong, you idiots," Roger said, still laughing. "Can't you see? Can't you see what's wrong?"
"No," David said. "What's wrong."
"Well talk about that later," Roger said. "Right now, put her down. Just let her lie there. I want to make a telephone call."
"A telephone call?" David said. "Why?"
"Because the night is young and our boy Kenneth has just brought his second chick into the club. That means that he's reached his full quota, and that also means that the Lustmongers are going to have a celebration tonight. I want to call over the ladies auxiliary."
"Great idea," David said, "but c'mon, tell me what's wrong with Mitzi."
"Yes," Pete said. "C'mon, Roger, tell us what's wrong."
"You mean you still can't see?" Roger chuckled. "You really don't know?"
"Of course we don't," David said. "If we did, we wouldn't be asking you."
"Well, I'll tell you then," Roger said, roaring with laughter again. "Poor little Mitzi's had some kind of a mental breakdown. She's gone insane. Completely insane."
The basement echoed with Roger's demoniac laughter.
CHAPTER NINE
PENNY PRINGLE WAS BITING HER NAILS NERVOUSLY. Alice Seever watched her. Alice was as nervous as Penny.
"What are we going to do?" Penny said after a while.
Alice, sprawled across the top of her bed, shrugged. "I don't know," Alice said.
"Maybe we'd just better go over there," Penny said. "We promised each other that we weren't going to let it bother us."
"I know," Alice said. "But that was several days ago. Now that we really have to go down there again, I don't want to. It sends chills up and down my spine every time I think about what we're going to have to do for them."
"Well, if we have to then we have to," Penny said, gnawing on one of her thumb nails. "I don't see any way out of it."
"Maybe," Alice said. "Penny, give it to me again. What did Roger say to you? Tell me exactly what he said."
"I told you exactly the way it happened," Penny said. "Roger called me at my home about a half hour ago. He said the Lustmongers were holding a meeting over at David Van Klumpes' house. He said I'd better round you up and bring you over by ten o'clock. That's all he said."
"Nothing about what we're going to do there?" Alice asked. "Nothing about why he wants to hold the meeting?"
"Well, not exactly," Penny replied. "He did say that there was a new member in the club and that we were going to celebrate. But I didn't take any particular note of that."
"Then he did say something else," Alice said to Penny. "Now think hard. He must have said something other than that there was a meeting and that he wanted me and that there was a new member. Think hard, Penny. What else did he tell you?"
Penny bit her lip pensively.
"I can't seem to remember," she said. "Why does it matter? What's the difference, Alice?"
"I don't know for sure," Alice said, "but I suppose that if I knew more about what was going to happen at the meeting, I might be able to figure a way out of it for all of us, that's all. Maybe something Roger said will work against him. Maybe he'll trip himself up. Now come on, Penny. Think hard."
"I'm trying to think," Penny said. "Now let me see-oh, yes. He did say something else."
"And what was that?" Alice asked.
"Well," Penny said, "Roger mentioned something about a surprise. A very special kind of surprise."
"What kind of surprise?"
"I'm not sure," Penny said, "except that whatever the surprise is, it concerns you and not me. He said you'd be very surprised at the meeting-and he also said not to tell you about it. I guess that's why I forgot, Alice. I'm so scared of Roger that I suppose I make myself forget what he tells me not to talk about That's probably why I forgot about this surprise business until just now, when you forced it out of me."
"What did he say about the surprise?" Alice asked. "Did he say what kind of surprise it would be?"
"No, or at least I don't think so," Penny replied.
"Try to think," Alice said. "Think hard. You forgot that he even mentioned a surprise. Maybe you also forgot what kind of a surprise it would be. Think, Penny. Force yourself to think."
Penny wrinkled up her forehead and dug her teeth hard into her upper lip. The room was silent for a long time.
"Sorry," Penny said. "I can't seem to come up with anything."
"Are you sure?" Alice asked. "Positive."
"Penny," Alice said, her eyes wide with fear, "they didn't say-they didn't say that they were-that they were going to do to me what they did to you last time? They're not going to hang me by the wrists from that chinning bar and beat me, are they?"
"No," Penny said. "Or at least if they are, I don't know about it. Honestly, I don't remember Roger mentioning anything like that"
"I'm scared," Alice said. "Real scared."
Alice closed her eyes and for a moment she. could imagine herself in the place Penny had been some time ago. In her mind's eye, Roger and David and Pete were tying her to the bar.
Seconds later they were ripping all her clothes off, pulling down her skirt, tearing off her panties, pushing up her sweater and unhooking her bra.
And then, in her imagination, the beating began. Penny was being handed the cat-o'-nine-tails and Penny was being forced to strike her with it. Alice remembered the loud crack of the leather thongs. She could feel the hot tongues of the cat-o'-nine-tails searing into her milk white flesh, cutting away little pieces of skin from her thighs and waist and breasts.
"I'm scared," Alice said again, tears welling up in her eyes. "What am I going to do, Penny? What am I going to do?"
"Don't worry," Penny said.
"But I'm afraid they're going to hang me up and beat me," Alice said.
"They may not though," Penny said. "They may not have that in mind at all. You really don't know. There's no use worrying about something that may not even happen to you."
"But what if it does happen?" Alice asked. "I don't think I could stand it. It would be more than I could take, especially-especially if they made you be the one who has to beat me, Penny."
A loud, heart rending sigh escaped from Alice.
Penny looked at Alice tenderly. She put her arm around Alice and kissed Alice gently on the lips.
"Don't worry," Penny said. "I won't hit you. I'll refuse. They can't make me. If they try anything, I'll just flatly refuse."
"You can't refuse," Alice said unhappily. "That's
(he whole trouble. They had such a terrible hold over us that we can't refuse to do anything they tell us to do. If we could, we wouldn't be going over to David Van Klumpes' house at all."
"I suppose so," Penny said miserably. "You're right. We are trapped. But even so, if they do make me beat you, I won't do it hard. I'll hit you very lightly. I won't hit you with all my might."
"But they won't give you any choice about that either," Alice said. "If they tell you to hit me harder, there's nothing you can do but obey them. Why, they can even make you enjoy it. I hate to say it, but it's true."
"I don't understand," Penny said. "What do you mean?"
"Well, for example, the day they hung you up from that chinning bar and told me to hit you, I didn't want to do it. Honestly, I didn't. I felt bad enough about luring you down there without compounding the injury by being the one who had to-who had to do all those terrible things to you."
"Sssh," Penny said consolingly. She stroked Alice's cheek lightly. "I understand. You don't have to apologize."
"Yes, but there's one thing you don't know," Alice said. "There's something I haven't told you."
"What's that?" Penny asked. "What haven't you told me, Alice?"
"Well," Alice said, "I don't know if I can tell you even now It's so terribly hard to admit something like this. I don't know if I can do it."
"Sure you can do it," Penny said. "All you have to do is try. I won't be angry with you. You ought to know that by now."
"You promise? You promise you won't be angry with me?"
"Of course I won't be angry with you," Penny said.
"Well then," Alice said, "I'll tell you. You see, I didn't enjoy hitting you at first. I hated it. I detested it But after a while things changed. I don't know why and I can't explain it. All I can say is that after a while I was caught up in the rhythm of the thing. You know, the sound of the whip cracking and the clapping of the boys and the chanting and all that. Pretty soon, I was enjoying it, Penny. I really was-"
Alice's voice trailed off in a flood of tears.
"There there," Penny said. Her hand continued stroking Alice's cheek, brushing away the tears that poured relentlessly down the girl's face. "Don't cry. I understand. You couldn't help it."
"I didn't want to enjoy it," Alice said. "Really I didn't. But I couldn't help myself. And now-"
"I know," Penny soothed. "You're afraid that I'll enjoy it too."
"That's right," Alice said. "I am afraid of that. I'm more afraid that you'll enjoy it than I am of the pain I might feel."
"Oh?" Penny said. "Why is that, Alice?"
"Because of you and me," Alice said. "Because of what happened to us after that Lustmonger meeting. Something changed. We feel differently about each other."
"You mean that we love each other."
"That's right," Alice said. "You love me and I love you. And suddenly, just because we're in love, I don't want you beating me any more. It's not right. It's one thing to beat somebody you don't love-or to be beaten by somebody you don't love. But it's quite another thing when somebody you do love is beating you."
"Don't worry about it," Penny said softly. "Honestly Alice, you're a real worry wart. I told you before that "you were being silly. We may not have to beat each other at all. They may have something else in mind."
"Yes but whatever else they have in mind may be even worse than the cat-o'-nine-tails. It may be much worse."
"That's true," Penny said pensively. "With someone like Roger Cantrell in charge, you never know what they may come up with."
Then it was Penny's turn to close her eyes and imagine what might happen. She thought she saw herself at the meeting with Alice. Everyone was nude. Alice was on the floor, lying on her back, and Roger had an evil smirk on his face.
There was a good reason for Roger's evil smirk. David was sitting on Alice's bare stomach, his weight pressing hard against her so that she could barely breathe. Meanwhile, Pete had taken his initialed cigarette lighter and was applying it to the soles of Alice's bare feet. Alice was screaming aloud, her entire body writhing in pain. Meanwhile, Penny was being forced to do an erotic dance, whirling around in a circle, her hair flying loose, her firm breasts exposed to view.
"My God!" Penny exclaimed suddenly. "What are we going to do? What are we going to do, Alice?"
She sighed as the ugly vision vanished.
Alice desperately reached out and grasped Penny's hand.
"I don't know what we can do," Alice said. "It's all so terrible. There doesn't seem to be any way out of it."
With that, Alice flung herself full into Penny's warm arms and buried her face in Penny's warm, comforting breast.
They held each other tightly for a while, sobbing together like two lost souls. Penny finally spoke.
"Well there's one thing we still can do. There's one thing they can't take away from us no matter how hard they try. We love each other, Alice. We love each other, and even Roger can't destroy that."
"That's true," Alice said. "Even a no good rat like Roger can't destroy our love."
"Let's make love," Penny said. "That way, we can have something to think about even when Roger and the other Lustmongers are doing their horrible things to us. We can merely close our eyes and remember how good it was with each other."
"Maybe," Alice said. "Maybe you're right. While they're beating us, or doing whatever they're going to do, we can think about each other. We'll be able to blot out what's happening by concentrating on our love."
"Yes," Penny said. "And besides, we'll have something over them. We'll know something they don't know, something about each other. That'll be some consolation, too."
"You're right," Penny said. She didn't say anything more, for at that moment Alice covered Penny's lips with her own and then the two girls fell silent, concentrating on the pressure of their soft, moist lips against each other.
Penny felt her body growing warmer. She felt the tensions and fears which had gripped her slowly melting away. They were melting away thanks to Alice. Penny felt grateful to Alice.
Penny's hand moved up to Alice's full round breast and squeezed it through the soft wool of Alice's sweater.
Alice sighed and moved her hand to Penny's breast, cupping it through Penny's smooth blouse. Penny moaned.
They began to undress each other. Penny pushed up Alice's sweater and helped her remove it. Then, one button at a time, Penny began to undo Alice's blouse until all the buttons were parted.
When the blouse was off, Penny's mouth got busy planting dozens of small kisses on the bare white flesh of Alice's shoulder, and neck, and belly Alice returned the kisses, her lips soft against Penny's olive skin.
Then their bras came off. Penny looked at Alice's breasts, two shimmering milk white globes of full flesh each capped with a soft pink nipple, while Alice looked at Penny's breasts, full and firm and pointed.
Alice kissed Penny's breasts, gently at first, then a little harder. Her lips closed around Penny's nipples one at a time, and her tongue made excited little circles around them until they grew firm.
Penny's hands, meanwhile, caressed Alice's nipples until they too had turned to hard pink dots. Then Alice's mouth returned to Penny's mouth while each girl pressed her own breasts against the other's.
Their skirts came next. Each girl removed her own this time and then stared at the other girl's long rounded thighs, Alice's white and full, Penny's dark and slim. Each girl now was wearing nothing but a pair of nylon panties which hugged tightly to her hips and backside.
Then the panties too were gone and the girls came together on Alice's bed. Alice lay down on her back and Penny lay on top of her.
Penny began to move her body slowly, rubbing her belly back and forth against Alice's. Alice's belly felt hot, burning hot. Penny shuddered with delight.
Alice's hands began to stroke Penny's bare back. They ran from the nape of Penny's neck all the way down to her derriere, and then back up again. Penny returned the favor by stroking the velvet soft insides of Alice's thighs with her own slim fingers until she could feel Alice's entire body beginning to pulsate.
Their hips began to move together, slowly undulating up and down, up and down, like gently billowing waves.
Then, as their passion grew stronger, their hips moved faster. The waves seemed to be stirred as if giant tides were pulling at them. The sea grew turbulent. Whitecaps appeared at the surface of the waves.
A high, furious wind whipped the seas. The waves grew higher and began to roll toward the shore, pounding against the giant granite rocks which rimmed the shoreline.
Harder and harder the waves pounded. The sea roared as the waves crashed into the rocks. Gulls screeched overhead. The waves hissed.
And then the storm was over.
Alice and Penny lay panting for a while.
Finally, Penny spoke.
"I think we'd better be getting over to the meeting now," she said.
"Do we have to go?" Alice groaned. "It's so nice lying next to you here, in the privacy of your room. I really don't want to go any place. I'd just like to lie here with you all night long."
"I know," Penny said, "but we don't have any choice. It's almost ten o'clock and we're supposed to be at David's house promptly at ten. I'm afraid to think about what might happen if we don't get there on time."
"That's true," Alice said. "Maybe we had better get over there. We've had our fun."
"Yes," Penny said. "And they'll never be able to take that away from us. None of the Lustmongers will tonight. No matter what happens, we'll be thinking about each other."
"Penny?" Alice asked, suddenly alarmed. "You don't think they'll do something terribly horrible, do you? I mean something so horrible that no matter how badly we want to, we simply won't be able to concentrate on each other."
"Don't be silly," Penny said. "What could they do that would be that horrible?"
"I don't know," Alice replied, "but Pm worried.
I'm terribly worried."
"That's because you're a worry wart," Penny said. "It's just as I told you before. You're always worrying about things that may not even happen. If you didn't worry so much about things, you'd be a lot better off."
"Well, I guess so," Alice said without conviction.
"C'mon," Penny said "Let's get dressed and get over to David Van Klumpes' house before the Lustmongers throw a fit."
Kenneth Seever looked worried.
There was every reason in the world for him to look worried. For two hours now, the Lustmongers had been sitting around idly while little Mitzi Matson lay on the floor, her body still trembling, her eyes open wide but seeing nothing at all.
Kenneth was overcome by a wave of shame. Suddenly he felt awful about participating in the Lustmongers. It had been bad enough when he brought Maggie Lubbock in. He had played a terrible trick on Maggie, a horrible trick. He had taken advantage of her good feelings toward him. He had lied to her.
But somehow it wasn't as bad with Maggie as it was with Mitzi What he had done to Maggie was shameful, but what he had done to Mitzi defied description.
He shouldn't have picked on a troubled girl, he told himself Certainly not a girl as troubled as Mitzi. Now Mitzi was nothing more than a shattered hulk. She was alive. Physically she wasn't in bad shape But her mind was gone, completely gone. She was hardly anything more than a living piece of meat, a body without a funtioning brain.
And no one would do anything to help Mitzi She lay there on the cold floor and she might as well have been in Siberia for all the attention anyone was paying her. Roger had ordered hands off Mitzi and the order had been obeyed implicitely. David and Pete didn't even seem to care. Kenneth did care, but there was nothing much he could do about it. It was useless to try to defy Roger.
The evening was going to get worse. Kenneth knew that, for he had heard Roger announce that he was bringing over every female member of the Lustmongers and that they'd all be there by ten o'clock.
Kenneth wondered who all the female members might be. One of them, of course, was Maggie Lubbock. Maggie would be coming by herself, Roger said.
Kenneth squirmed uncomfortably. For the past week he had been slinking through the corridors in school in order to avoid Maggie. He didn't want to meet her gaze. He didn't think he'd be able to stare her in the eye. He'd be too ashamed to do anything like that.
Except, of course, tonight he'd be forced to stare her in the eye.
And he'd be forced to do much more. Roger said that he was planning a celebration and it was far better than even money that Roger's celebration would be the wildest orgy in the history of Maslin, or, for that matter, in the history of any place in the world. Roger didn't think small. If he said he was planning a big orgy, it was going to be a gigantic one.
Which meant that sometime soon Kenneth would be forced not only to stare at Maggie's eyes, but at the rest of her body too. He'd see her bare-breasts, her rounded backside, her narrow waist and long legs and everything else. It would be rotten and brutal and no holds barred.
And then there would be two other girls. Kenneth still didn't know who they were. They might be anybody, anybody at all. While Kenneth had been working to fill his own quota, the Lustmongers had filled theirs.
In a few minutes Kenneth was going to find out who they had filled it with.
He squirmed uncomfortably again. Why, one of those girls might even be his own sister! Imagine Alice in an organization like the Lustmongers.
The thought was too horrible. Kenneth closed it out of his mind.
Just the same, it kept creeping back into his mind. He imagined that Alice was being dragged down the stairs to the basement of David Van Klumpes' house. He imagined that Roger and David and Pete were ripping off all of Alice's clothing, and that then, Alice was being forced to do something indecent. Maybe she would do something indecent, say with Maggie Lubbock. Maybe Alice would even enjoy it.
Kenneth shook his head violently to make the thought go away.
He laughed at himself.
No, Alice wasn't that kind of girl. Alice wouldn't dream of doing a thing like that. Not in a million years.
But what if she were forced to do something like that? Kenneth felt forced to ask himself that question.
Fortunately, he had an answer.
There were seven hundred girls attending Maslin High School. Seven hundred girls is a lot of girls. Any two of those seven hundred could be the ones the Lustmongers had chosen for club membership. Thus, the chances were only two in seven hundred that one of the girls they had chosen would be Alice.
Kenneth laughed again. Why, right now Alice was probably sitting at home studying. Or she was with one of her girl friends and the two of them were studying. There was nothing to worry about-nothing in the world.
Kenneth's thoughts were broken off abruptly as Roger stood up in the middle of the basement room and clapped his hands for attention. The room, which had been alive with the buzz of Pete's and David's voices, suddenly fell almost silent. The only noise came from the throat of little Mitzi who was still making the meaningless gurgling sounds that had started more than two hours ago.
"I have an announcement," Roger shouted. "Everyone keep quiet."
The boys waited to hear what the announcement would be.
"Now, as you all know," Roger began, "tonight is a very special occasion. I've already told you that there's going to be a fantastic orgy going on here-a hell of an orgy."
"Yeah man," David shouted out, "a hell of an orgy."
"Shut up," Roger snapped, glaring at David. "I'm the one who's talking here."
"That's right," Pete said. "Shut up, David old boy. Roger's doing the talking."
"And I don't want any lip out of you either," Roger growled at Pete. "When I'm doing the talking, I'm doing the talking. Everyone else keeps quiet. You'll all get a chance to say what you want to say later on."
"Sorry," Pete said.
"That's okay," Roger replied. "Now listen. Thus far, our orgies have been comparatively small ones. They've been fun, but tonight we're going to have more fun. And there's a reason for that too."
"What's the reason?" David asked.
"I said shut up. I'll tell you why. The reason is that tonight we're going to have four chicks present. Four Lustmongers chicks. Not one or two, but four."
"Wow!" Pete excalimed.
"Are you going to shut up or am I going to have to make you shut up?" Roger menaced. "Now listen to me. In addition to having four chicks, we're also going to have four guys. Kenneth has finally reached his quota, so from now on he's entitled to all the privileges of the regular Lustmonger members. As a matter-of-fact, he is a regular Lustmonger member."
"Thanks for nothing," Kenneth said bitterly.
"And furthermore," Roger said, ignoring Kenneth's remark, "I have one other very special surprise for all of you today."
"What's that?" said Pete.
"Listen, if you guys don't shut up and give me a chance to talk, there aren't going to be any surprises for anybody. Now, do you guys want surprises or don't you?"
"We do, we do," David and Pete chorused.
"All right. Shut your mouths and I'll tell you what the final surprise is. The final surprise is liquor. It occurred to me the other day that during all of the Lustmonger meetings we've had so far, everybody's been cold sober. So far as I'm concerned, that's a stinking way to hold an orgy. Who wants to be cold sober during an orgy? And the first guy who answers that gets a punch in the nose. That was a rhetorical question, which means I know the answer to it already."
No one spoke up, so Roger continued his talk.
"Now, I've purchased three whole bottles of booze. Hard booze, not beer or anything sissy like that."
"Gee Roger," David asked suddenly. "Where did you get booze from? I thought there was a law against purchasing booze when you're only seventeen."
"There is," Roger said. "But I got it. Don't ask me howl got it. I managed. So now we have three bottles of booze and we're going to start drinking it before the other girls get here. All of us are going to drink it. Every single one. We're going to be loaded by the time the other three chicks arrive."
Pete began to wave his hand furiously.
"What is it?" Roger said. "Don't tell me you want to go the bathroom. If you want to go, just go ahead. You don't have to raise your hand. This isn't one of those classrooms at Maslin High."
"No, I don't want to go to the bathroom," Pete said. "I want to ask you a question. A very important question."
"Well, all right then, go ahead," Roger said.
"Are the girls going to get drunk too?" Pete asked.
"Of course the girls are going to get drunk," Roger said. "What kind of an outfit do you think this is. It's no fun if we're drunk and the girls aren't. Of course, just as soon as the girls get here they're going to get blotto."
"Well I might point out that one of the girls is here already," Pete said. "I'm talking about little old Mitzi here. And Mitzi can't drink. She can't do anything any more. All she does is lie there and shake and gurgle. How are we going to get her drunk?"
"That's simple," Roger said. "We're going to pour the stuff down her throat. She may be insane now, but that doesn't mean her body still can't absorb liquor. And since you asked about it, Pete old boy, you're going to be the one who pours it down her throat. Now, let's break open the bottles."
A few minutes later, they were all drinking heavily. Roger, David and Kenneth sat in a circle, passing one bottle around from mouth to mouth. Kenneth forced himself to get the liquor down. It burned his throat, but in a way he was glad he was drinking it. It helped him to forget about Mitzi.
Just the same, he couldn't help glancing over to the side of the room once in a while. Pete was there, kneeling over Mitzi's quivering form. Alternately, Pete raised a bottle to his own lips and took a sip and then forced the bottle into Mitzi's mouth and made her swallow.
Poor Mitzi, Kenneth thought. Poor little mixed up Mitzi.
CHAPTER TEN
Within a half hour they were all drunk. Kenneth was as drunk as the rest of them, his head spinning from the alcohol which diffused through his system and made his head reel.
Roger was lurching across the floor, his steps uneven, his fast speech slowed by the liquor, but still accurate.
Pete and David were sitting still. David and Pete had gotten together They were sitting next to Mitzi's senseless body The alcohol had worked on Mitzi too. Meaningless sounds were still coming from her mouth, but the twitching in her body had slowed considerably. "Look at her," Pete said, nudging David. "Even Mitzi's drunk. Of course, she doesn't sound drunk, but she doesn't sound any different either."
"Man, you're not making any sense," David said. "You're talking pure nonsense."
"Am I?" Pete said. "I'm not making any sense?"
"Nope," David said, putting his hand on Mitzi's bare breast. "No sense at all, man."
"Hey, what are you doing to old Mitzi-to good old Mitzi?" Pete said. "What are you trying to do, feel her up or something?"
"Sure," David said, squeezing Mitzi's breast hard. "What's the difference? Mitzi doesn't feel anything anyway, man. She's a nut, that's why she doesn't feel anything. She's nuttier 'n a fruitcake."
"What do you think we're going to do with her?" Pete asked. "I mean, when the meeting is over tonight, what d'you think's going to happen to little old Miss Mitzi here? Are we just going to leave her lying here until she starves to death or what?"
"I don't know," David said. "And if you want me to tell you the truth, I don't care. Man, I'm too smashed to care. C'mon, help me feel her up, Pete old kid."
"Why should I?" Pete asked. "What's the point of it if she doesn't feel anything?"
"Well, I'm not sure she doesn't feel anything," David said. "She might feel something for all I know. Just because she isn't saying anything-"
"She hasn't said anything for hours," Pete interrupted. "She hasn't done anything except lie there and make all those funny noises in her throat."
"Well sure she hasn't," David said. "But that doesn't mean she can't feel anything. Maybe she does feel things. Maybe she feels everything, only she's not telling anybody about it. With girls like her-girls who go nuts I mean-you never know. C'mon, help me feel her a little bit."
Pete shrugged. "I might as well," he said. Then he covered the breast David wasn't holding. He cupped it in his hand and put his thumb on the nipple, stroking it back and forth.
"Nah, she doesn't feel a thing," Pete said. "Look, I've been rubbing her nipple back and forth for a long time and nothing happens. It's still as soft as it ever was."
"Well, maybe that's because you're not trying hard enough," David said. "You aren't half trying. I'll tell you what. I'll bet that if you kissed that old nipple of hers a little, you know, really kissed it hard, it would get stiff. It just has to, man. The fact that a person is crazy has nothing to do with whether or not her nipple gets stiff."
"Well, okay," Pete said. "I'll give it a try. I'm not guaranteeing anything, though. Frankly, I don't think that there's a chance in a hundred that we're going to get anywhere with a chick who's so crazy that she can't even flinch when you jerk your fist in front of her eyes."
"Try it, wise guy," David said. "You never know anything until you try."
"I'll try then," Pete said. "But I'm still not guarantying anything."
Pete bent over Mitzi's form, put his mouth to her bare breast, and kissed it hard for several minutes.
"You see?" Pete said finally. "Nothing's happening. Nothing in the world is happening. Let's stop trying to get poor old crazy Mitzi all heated up and have another drink."
"No," David said. "We can get Mitzi heated up if we try. We really can."
"Well what do you want me to do to her?" Pete said.
"Keep working on her breast," David said. "Work on it over and over and over. Sooner or later something's bound to happen."
Pete turned his attention back to Mitzi's breast. He covered his mouth with it and kissed hard on it. He let his lips squirm around it in little circles.
At last his eyes seemed to glow. He pulled himself away from Mitzi's breast.
"Hey," Pete said. "You're right, David old pal. She is beginning to respond. Look, her nipple got hard."
"That's great," David said. "Really great. Tell you what. You keep working on that breast and I'll work on this one. Pretty soon we should have her going like a burning barn."
"Great idea," Pete said.
Each of the boys then took one of little Mitzi's breasts to their lips. Slowly, as their lips and tongues did their work, a change came over Mitzi. Her hips began to writhe slowly.
"Look at that," Pete said. "Didn't I tell you? Didn't I tell you we could get her going?"
"You sure did," David said. "No, wait a second. I did. I was the one who said we could get her going. You didn't agree with me. Remember?"
"Man, I don't remember anything," Pete said. "My head is spinning around in circles like the end of the world was at hand."
"Well, the end of the world isn't at hand," David said. "And now we have a problem."
"What problem is that?" Pete said. "I don't know about any old problems."
"Well, that's because you're dumb," David said.
"What do you mean I'm dumb?"
"I mean what I mean. You're dumb. If you weren't dumb you'd know what the problem is, man, because we have a very big problem facing us at the moment."
"What kind of problem?" Pete asked.
"Simple. Now that we've got Mitzi all heated up and all, what are we going to do to her? We can't just leave her lying here like this. It isn't fair to her, if you know what I mean."
"I don't know about that," Pete said. "She may be all heated up, but those funny noises are still coming from her throat, and she doesn't seem to see anything. Those eyes of her are as blank as income tax forms that haven't been filled out."
"Well, her eyes may be blank, but from the way her hips are going, I think she wants a little hunk of man. Look at those hips of hers. They're working like trip hammers."
"Well, I don't know," Pete said. "The whole idea of making poor old Mitzi bothers me. Maybe the way her hips are going is just one more sign that she's nuts. That's possible too, you know. It could be that her crazy hips are like her crazy eyes or her crazy throat. She doesn't know what she's doing. She doesn't have any idea."
"Y'know," David said, "sometimes I get fed up with you. I'm pretty damn fed up. Who cares if she knows what she's doing, just so long as she wants to do it."
"Well I care," Pete said. "I don't want to be responsible for what happens to a crazy girl. No sir. Count me out."
"Fine," David said. "You're counted out. Pack up your marbles and go home. See if I care. I'm going to make it with good old Mitzi when you go. Good old nutty Mitzi."
"You really are?" Pete said.
"Of course I am. Now scram."
"Hey, wait a minute," Pete said, suddenly putting his palm on Mitzi's bare thigh. "I know what you're up to. I'm wise to your tricks, David old pal. You're just saying that so I'll go away. You want me to go away so you can have old Mitzi all to yourself. Just as soon as I go, you're going to make Mitzi all by your lonesome."
"That's right," David said.
"Well, you're not going to do it," Pete said. "I may be drunk, but I'm still a Lustmonger. All for one and one for all, that's what I say. Share and share alike. If you make old Mitzi, I'm going to make her too. She doesn't belong to you exclusively. She's club property, man."
"Okay," David said. "You can make her. I don't mind, just so long as I go first"
"No," Pete said stubbornly. "I want to go first"
"Why should you?" David said. "It wasn't your idea to make old Mitzi. It was my idea, so I should go first."
"I don't care whose idea it was," Pete said. "First come, first serve I"
"But we're both here together," David said.
"Well then, we should both make it with her together," Pete said. "That's the fair way to do it That's the only fair way."
"I don't want to do it together," David said. "We did it that way last week. I want to do it one at a time."
"Then let's choose to see who goes first," Pete said. "I'm odds and you're evens."
"Uh uh," David said. "I have a better idea. Let's have an undressing race. Whoever gets undressed first wins and he can have Mitzi before the other one has her."
"All right," Pete said. "That sounds fair enough."
Both boys rushed to get undressed, Pete unbuttoning his shirt, David rapidly pulling down his trousers. Then, while Pete struggled to get his trousers off, David hurriedly ripped off his own shirt without bothering to unbutton it. Buttons sprayed like water from a fire hose.
"I win!" David shouted a moment later. "I win!"
"Okay, okay, you win," Pete said. "You go first."
"You're damn right I go first," David said. "I win, therefore I have to go first"
"All right," Pete said sullenly. "You don't have to rub it in."
"Don't worry about that," David said. "I have better things to rub in. Look."
While Pete watched, David lay down atop Mitzi's bare body. He rubbed his chest from side to side across her breasts, meanwhile digging his teeth into her bare shoulder.
"Hey, that's pretty good rubbing," Pete said.
David didn't reply He was too busy with his hands, pushing them between Mitzi's thighs, rubbing and stroking them high above the knee.
Suddenly Mitzi's body began to tremble again. It trembled even harder than it had been trembling before Pete had begun to pour the bottle full of liquor down her throat some minutes earlier.
"Look at her, man," Pete whispered. "She's shaking again. She's shaking all over."
But David was too occupied with taking her to reply While Pete watched, David covered her mouth with his, forced his body between her thighs, and slowly began rocking back and forth.
"Wow man, I've never seen anybody shake so," Pete said.
Still no answer. David's rocking motions increased in speed. So did Mitzi's trembling as her entire body shuddered under David's weight for what seemed to be several long, long minutes.
At last, thoroughly satisfied, David rolled away from Mitzi.
"It's your turn now," he said to Pete.
Pete was about to climb atop Mitzi's body and do what David had done when suddenly the room was filled with the sound of Roger's voice.
"Attention everyone. The big moment has arrived."
Pete froze. He wanted to take Mitzi now. He wanted to take her badly. But Roger was glaring in his direction and he didn't dare move toward the form of the girl on the floor.
"They've just arrived," Roger announced in a loud voice. "The other three Lustmonger girls are here. I hear them upstairs. I'm going up to get them. The rest of you stay down here."
Roger bounded up the stairs. Meanwhile, everyone else in the basement remained absolutely still-everyone, that is, save Mitzi, who continued trembling and gurgling. A moment later Roger came down the stairs. Behind him were Maggie Lubbock, Penny Pringle and Alice Seever.
The three girls came down the stairs like shy virgins, their eyes lowered to avoid the glances of the boys. They were ashamed of their membership in the Lustmongers. They were ashamed of what they were going to be forced to do.
Kenneth, who had been sitting alone in one corner of the basement nursing a liquor bottle, suddenly looked up and saw Alice. His jaw fell.
A moment later he was on his feet, shouting at his sister.
"Alice! What in the world are you doing here? Are you-are you in this thing too?"
At first, Alice made no answer. She was overcome by shame.
But a moment later she realized that her brother had no right to be shocked at her appearance. He was a Lustmonger himself. And since he was a boy, he must have joined voluntarily. Nobody forced boys into the Lustmongers. Only girls were lured in against their will.
"Alice," Kenneth was saying, "how could you? How could you dare get into an organization like this?"
With that, Alice rushed angrily down the stairs, her long blonde hair flying behind her, flew to Kenneth, and lashed out with her fists, pummeling his face.
"How dare you act shocked at me I" she shouted. "You have your nerve. It's because of you and your friends that I'm in this mess in the first place. How dare you!"
"Hey, look at that!" David shouted gleefully. "Sis is beating up her big brother. This is a gas, man. A real gas."
"Oh really?" Roger said. "Well, I have news for you. It's going to get gassier. We're going to have a real ball tonight, and both Kenneth and Alice will participate. But, they're the grand finale-the big conclusion. I don't want them together yet. Pete, David, pull them apart."
Responding to Roger's orders like well trained automatons, Pete and David rushed between the fighting brother and sister and yanked them away from each other.
"Good," Roger said, when Alice and Kenneth were apart. "Now, the program will begin. First of all, I want you two chicks to start drinking." He handed a half empty bottle to Penny and another one to Maggie. "Drink it. Drink it all the way down."
Both girls looked reluctantly at the bottles they had been handed.
"Drink it I said," Roger growled. "Drink it or you'll find out just what kind of things the Lustmongers can do to you when they're really mad."
Both Maggie and Penny raised their bottles to their lips. Maggie, who had been accustomed to drinking, was able to swallow the burning liquor without any trouble, but Penny gagged after one sip.
"Drink it down, I said," Roger snapped at Penny.
"I can't," Penny said, tears beginning to well up in her eyes. "It doesn't seem to go down. I can't."
"Oh, yes you can," Roger said. "Drink it, or I'll ram the whole bottle down your throat."
"You leave her alone," Alice said to Roger. "She can't drink it. Just leave her alone."
"You just shut up," Roger snapped back. "I'll tell you when it's your time to do anything. Right now you just sit there with your pretty full mouth shut, or I'll bust you in your pretty mouth with my fist."
Alice cowered.
"Now drink that," Roger ordered Penny. "Drink it all down. Make believe it's medicine or something. Just put it up to your lips and swallow."
Penny tried. She raised the bottle and managed to take about five gulps before her stomach rebelled. She reeled, dropped the bottle to the floor, and then collapsed.
"Well, I suppose that'll do," Roger said. "I suppose Penny never had a drink before, so a few swallows will get her pretty drunk. Maggie, how are you doing?"
Maggie held up her bottle to show that it was completely empty.
"Good girl," Roger said. "Good girl, Maggie. Now, come down here and stand in the center of the floor. That's right. Don't stumble, Maggie old kid. Don't fall. I want you to be very graceful. You're going to do a dance for us, Maggie kid."
"What-what kind of dance?" Maggie asked.
"Don't hiccup," Roger said sternly. "I don't like to see girls hiccupping."
"I can't-I can't help it," Maggie said.
"You did it again," Roger said angrily. He lashed out with his palm, striking Maggie with a resounding slap across the face. Maggie began to weep.
"That'll teach you," Roger said. "Now. Dance. I want you to dance, and while you're dancing, I want you to take off all your clothes. Do you understand?"
"I understand," Maggie said. "I understand perfectly."
For her third hiccup, Maggie received a second slap. A moment later she was dancing, her hips slowly swinging back and forth as her hands began to work the buttons of her blouse.
One at a time, while her hips swung back and forth to imaginary music, the buttons of her blouse parted, each partition revealing a bit more of Maggie's inviting flesh.
Her bra came off after her blouse was removed. She continued to swing back and forth, her full breasts bobbing gently up and down like rubber balls on a calm lake.
"Touch them," Roger commanded. "Touch your breasts with your hands Stroke them all over."
Maggie obeyed, rubbing her hands over her breasts as she continued dancing, stroking her own nipples until they stood at rigid attention like wooden soldiers.
"Now take your skirt off," Roger said. "Go ahead. Unzip it and take it off."
Maggie followed the order perfectly. Her breasts shook and trembled while her hands worked the zipper of her skirt and then lowered the skirt from her hips.
She was dancing now in nothing but a pair of silken panties that failed to hide a single outline of the flesh that lay beneath them.
"Take those off too," Roger ordered. Once more Maggie obeyed.
Then, while Maggie continued dancing, Roger turned his attention to Penny Pringle.
"Strip," he told Penny "Strip fast."
Penny too obeyed Her clothing came off rapidly and then she was standing completely nude while the boys gaped at her olive skin, pointed breasts, long rounded thighs and legs.
"Now dance around Maggie," Pete commanded. "And while you're dancing, rub your body against hers.
I want to see your breasts touch her breasts once in a while. And I want to see your belly touch Maggie's body."
Penny obeyed again, her hips tantalizingly twitching, her breasts pointed toward Maggie.
Meanwhile, Pete took advantage of the fact that everyone's eyes were on Maggie and Penny. He lept on top of Mitzi's body and began to take her quickly and viciously, hurrying so that he could finish before anyone noticed him.
"Penny, I want you to kiss Maggie's breasts," Roger ordered. "Kiss them one at a time, but keep on dancing while you're doing it."
"No!" Alice shouted, her heart filled with jealousy at the idea of Penny kissing another girl. "Don't do it. Don't do it, Penny."
"You shut up," Roger growled at Alice. "You're going to get yours in a little while, so just shut up."
Penny had to bend from the waist in order to reach Maggie's breasts with her mouth. She bent as she had to, giving her audience a full view of her rounded derriere.
"Kiss them harder," Roger commanded. "Go ahead Penny, get them in your mouth."
Penny obeyed. Maggie shivered with passion at the touch of Penny's wet mouth against her nipples.
Meanwhile, Pete finished taking little Mitzi. He rolled away from her, feeling thoroughly satisfied with himself, but just at that moment Roger noticed him.
"Hey, what do you think you're doing?" Roger said angrily.
"Nothing," Pete said sheepishly.
"What do you mean, nothing?" Roger said. "What were you doing to Mitzi?"
"Well," Pete said, hanging his head, "I was just trying to knock off a quick piece, that's all. I didn't mean any harm by it Honestly I didn't"
"It's not Pete's fault," David said. "It's Mitzi's fault. She shouldn't be lying all naked on the floor trembling like that. It does funny things to a man to see a girl like Mitzi shaking so. I mean her breasts and all, the way they shake."
"All right," Roger said. "If it's Mitzi's fault then she has to be punished. Drag her over to the center of the floor."
Pete and David took Mitzi's legs and pulled her to the middle of the room.
"Now," Roger said, "one of you get the cat-o'-nine tails and beat the dickens out of Mitzi. Beat her until her skin begins to peel off. She deserves it."
"I'll do it," David said.
"No," Pete said. "Let me do it. She almost got me into trouble with Roger. It's only fair that I should be the one to beat the daylights out of her. It's only fair, man."
"Okay," David shrugged. "You punish her then, Pete old bean."
Pete found the cat-o'-nine-tails. He raised it over his head and brought it down with all his might over Mitzi's bare belly.
The gurgling in Mitzi's throat grew louder.
"Hit her again," Roger said. "Beat the daylights out of her."
The cat-o'-nine-tails rose and fell several times, cutting once more into Mitzi's belly, then into her breasts, then into her thighs, and legs, and ankles.
The gurgling grew horribly loud and the trembling in Mitzi's body turned to violent spasms.
"Keep dancing," Roger shouted to Maggie and Penny. "Keep dancing, damnit. Maggie, now it's your turn to kiss Penny's breasts. Kiss her breasts the way she kissed yours."
The dancing and the beating kept up for some time. Perhaps it was a half hour. Perhaps it was an hour. In their drunken state, the Lustmongers lost all track of time.
After a while, however, they seemed to tire of their sport. It was no fun to watch Penny and Maggie any more. By now that had progressed to much more intimate games than merely kissing each others' breasts. They could hardly continue dancing. Their hips were rocking not from the rhythm of dance, but from the rhythm of passion.
And as for Mitzi, it was tiring to watch her whole body jerk and twitch. Besides, she was beginning to bleed severely.
"That's enough," Roger commanded. "Penny and Maggie, if you want to you can stop dancing and make it with each other now. Go ahead, find yourself a corner some place and make it. We won't stop you."
Penny and Maggie looked at Roger gratefully and then rushed to the quietest corner of the basement.
"And stop beating that damn little girl," Roger said to Pete, his voice reflecting his annoyance. You've done enough of that."
Pete dropped the cat-o'-nine-tails.
"Now," Roger said, "we've come to the grand finale. It's time for what I've been planning for two weeks now. Alice and Kenneth, step to the middle of the floor. C'mon, c'mon, step lively. I don't want you two stalling."
Meekly, Kenneth and Alice walked to the center of the room.
"Now," Roger said to Kenneth, "take off Alice's sweater. Go ahead. Take if off."
Kenneth reached toward Alice and then suddenly dropped his hands to his side.
"What's the matter?" Roger said cruelly.
"I can't," Kenneth replied. "I just can't do it."
"What do you mean you can't do it?" Roger said.
"You're a Lustmonger, aren't you? A Lustmonger can do anything-anything I tell him to do."
"But I can't," Kenneth said.
"Why not?" Roger demanded.
"Because, Roger, she's no ordinary girl. She's my sister."
"I know that, stupid," Roger said. "But that has nothing to do with it. When you're a Lustmonger, it doesn't matter who you undress-not even if it happens to be your sister. Now quick, get her sweater off."
Alice closed her eyes and clenched her fists nervously as Kenneth grasped the hem of her sweater and pulled it up over her head.
"Help him get it off," Roger ordered. "Go ahead, Alice, help him get your sweater off."
A moment later, Alice's sweater was lying on the floor, a pile of soft wool fluff. Roger's eyes burned greedily into Alice's black bra.
"Now, get her bra off too," Roger told Kenneth. "Don't be squeamish about it. Atta boy, walk around behind her and unhook it. That's it. Now pull it off, that's it. Now, walk around in front of her."
Alice blushed a deep crimson as Kenneth's eyes fixed on his sister's shimmering white globes of flesh.
"Now," Roger said, leering evily, "I want Alice to take off Kenneth's shirt. Go ahead Alice, take your brother's shirt off."
Alice obeyed Roger just as her brother had done. While Kenneth stood still, she parted the buttons of her brother's shirt. Kenneth tried not to be aroused by the process, but it was very difficult. He saw his sister's full white breasts pressing against his shirt front. He felt their pressure through his shirt as her fingers deftly worked at his shirt buttons. He smelled the powerful odor of the perfume rising from her hair.
When Roger had seen to it that both Kenneth and Alice were bare from the waist up, he ordered them to take each other's clothing off from the waist down. Reluctantly, they obeyed again.
By this time, everyone's attention was turned toward Kenneth and Alice. Pete and David stared hard at them. So did Penny and Maggie who by this time had finished satisfying the passions which had overcome them as a consequence of the wild dance which Roger had forced them to perform.
Everyone watched.
"Now," Roger said, his own eyes bulging, "I want you to lie down on the floor, Alice. Go ahead. Lie down on the floor. No stupid, not that way. On your back."
Alice obeyed.
"Lie down on top of her," Roger told Kenneth. "Go ahead, damn it. Lie down on top of her."
"No!" Penny Pringle shrieked suddenly. "Don't do it. Don't do it, Kenneth."
"Who asked you?" Roger snapped at Penny.
"I don't care who asked me," Penny said, jumping to her feet, her eyes burning fervently. "It's wrong. That's incest, and it's the evilest thing the Lustmongers have done so far. I won't allow it. I've been lured into this. All right, I admit it. I'm trapped. But there are limits to everything."
"You asked for it sister," Roger snapped. With that he balled his hand up into a huge fist and rammed it hard against Penny's jaw. Penny fell unconscious.
"That's for defiance," Roger said, standing triumphantly over Penny's still form. "And the next person who defies me is going to get the same thing."
"Wait a second," Kenneth yelled, leaping away from his sister's body. "I defy you. Yes, me too. This is a revolution, Roger." A blinding light seemed to sweep over Kenneth, the blinding light of reform. "This has gone far enough. I'm not going any further."
"The same goes for me," cried Alice, leaping to her feet. "You're a rat, Roger. A regular stinking rat."
"No, no," David mumbled in a drunken attempt to defend his leader. "You have it all wrong. Roger's not a rat. He's an evil genius, a regular evil genius."
"Call him whatever you want to," Alice said. "I'm not participating in any more of your rotten lust orgies. I quit."
"Me too," Kenneth said.
"Hey Roger," Pete said. "Sock them in the jaw the way you did to Penny. Sock them the way you promised you would."
"No," Roger said. "I have a better idea. I'm going to do what I said I'd do to Alice if she ever dared quit the club. We're all going out on the town now, all of us except Alice and Kenneth. We're going to get in Kenneth's father's car. It's parked out in the driveway the big Cadillac. We're going to drive right to the middle of downtown Maslin and we're going to shout out at the top of our lungs that Kenneth and Alice undressed each other."
"Yeah," David said. "And while we're at it, well tell them that they made it with each other too."
"No, we won't," Roger said. "Just shouting that they undressed each other at a wild party will be enough."
"But, why shouldn't we say that they made it with each other?" David asked. "What's wrong with that?"
"I'll tell you what's wrong," Roger said hypocritically. "It's not true. And you know as well as I do that it's not right to lie. Now c'mon, let's all get dressed. Get dressed, Maggie. Get dressed, Penny. No, she's still out cold. I'll tell you what. Pete, you put Penny's clothes on for her, and David, you get Mitzi into her clothes."
David, Pete and Maggie rushed to obey Roger's orders. A few minutes later, when their bodies were all more or less covered, Roger led them up the stairs.
They got into the big Cadillac which Kenneth had borrowed from his father, after first heaving the unconscious Penny into the back seat. Little Mitzi wasn't put in either the front or the back seat. Some quirk in Roger made him order that Mitzi's quivering body be shoved into the trunk of the car, and that order was followed along with all the others.
"You drive," Roger said to David.
"Me?" David said. "Why me?"
"Because, just as soon as we get downtown Pm going to be too busy shouting what Kenneth and Alice did to drive," Roger said. "I want to tell everyone. I want to have that pleasure myself. So you drive."
"But, I'm a little bit high," David said. "I mean, man, I must have drunk a half a bottle of that booze all by myself. Man, my head is spinning."
"That doesn't matter," Roger said.
Meanwhile, still in David Van Klumpes' basement, Kenneth and Alice were hurriedly getting dressed, embarrassedly avoiding each other's glance as they rushed to get on their clothing.
At last, when they were fully dressed, they turned to face each other, full of shame, full of repentance.
"I did a horrible thing," Kenneth started to say. "I did-"
But he didn't have a chance to finish.
Off in the distance they heard a crash, a loud, reminding crash which seemed to shake the entire block.
"The car!" Alice screamed.
"Oh no!" Kenneth said. "Not the car!"
But it was the car, two blocks away. Even at that distance the horrible clash of steel against steel could be heard as the speeding, drunkenly careening Cadillac spun out of control and crashed head-on into an oncoming trailer truck.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
WHEN THE POLICE GOT TO THE WRECKAGE, they found that there wasn't very much to salvage. Both the Cadillac and the trailer truck were total wrecks, although the truck driver had miraculously managed to survive with only minor cuts and bruises.
"I don't understand it," he told the police. "These kids today, you never know what they're going to do. I was going along in my own lane at a sensible forty miles an hour, which was well within the normal speed limit. Suddenly, this Cadillac came along. It must have been doing ninety. Honestly, ninety miles an hour And suddenly it jumped into my lane and slammed into me before I could pull off the road. They must have been drunk. Do you think they were drunk, officer?"
"I don't know," the policeman said, nodding his head sadly. "I don't even know whether it pays to run an alcohol blood test on a corpse. The skid marks are all in your favor. We don't have to prove they were drunk to prove that it wasn't your fault."
The policeman shook his head sadly again. The only survivor among the Cadillac's passengers was a little girl, about fourteen or fifteen years old. She was found in the trunk of the car, her eyes blank, meaningless gurgles coming from her throat. The ambulance doctor who had rushed to the scene pronounced her completely insane.
"Poor kid," the policeman said, "How do you think it happened? How did she go insane?"
"It must have been the shock of the accident," the ambulance doctor said. "It shocked her out of her wits."
"Do you think she'll get any better?" the truck driver said. "I feel awful about this."
"Don't worry," the policeman said. "It's not your fault. You couldn't help it, buddy."
"I don't think she'll ever be sane," the ambulance doctor said, gravely, "Of course, I'm not a specialist in this kind of thing. But I've seen cases like her before. I don't think she'll ever be able to communicate with anyone again. We'll never know how the accident happened, I'm afraid."
"Well, I can't let it go that easily," the policeman said. "We're going to have to check this whole thing out thoroughly."
And he did check it out thoroughly, he and his colleagues in the Police Department. A check of the big Cadillac's license plate numbers led them to the big house that belonged to the Seever family.
When they got there and rang the bell, there was no answer. They forced in the door and, upon entering the house, they were greeted with the smell of gas. They rushed to the kitchen where they turned off the oven jets and then they made a thorough search of the house.
They found, in the living room, what they hoped they wouldn't find. The lifeless bodies of Kenneth and Alice were in there, Alice sprawled limply across the couch, Kenneth seated in a big arm chair, as if he had gone to sleep calmly.
"And just think of it," one of the policeman said. "Their parents aren't even home. Off on a vacation or a business trip, I suppose."
"Probably," another officer said, clucking his tongue. "Well, what can you expect? The parents go gallivanting off and leave their kids behind. The kids are bound to get into trouble. It can't be helped."
"Hey," the first policeman said. "What's this?"
"Looks like a folded piece of paper to me," the second replied.
"No Look, it's a-why, it's a suicide note."
The note had been scribbled hurriedly in Kenneth's hand. It said:
To whom it may concern:
We have done something horrible-too horrible even to put in words. We are both overcome by our shame and guilt. We want to repent, but we know of no repentance which could cleanse us of our guilt. Therefore we are taking this way out. It is the only way that we know.
The note was signed by both Kenneth and Alice. The officer read it aloud, tears in his eyes.
"What do you suppose they meant by this shame and guilt business?" he asked his colleague.
"I don't know," the other officer replied, "but it must have been pretty bad to make them go and do this."
The policemen, of course, could never know how had It was. A or could they know of the scene that had taken place just before Kenneth and Alice decided to take their own lives.
After the crash, they had rushed to the scene of the accident. They found no sign of life. Even the truck driver, who survived, was still unconscious-temporarily stunned by the impact of the collision.
"My God," Alice sobbed. "They're all-they're all dead."
"It's horrible," Kenneth said, tears streaming from his eyes. "It's the most horrible thing I've ever seen."
And it was the most horrible thing anyone could ever expect to see. Inside the twisted wreckage of the Cadillac there was nothing but an ugly mass of broken bones and bleeding flesh. Skulls were cracked. Legs and arms were twisted grotesquely.
Most horrible of all was Roger, whose head had keen driven through the windshield by the force of the crash and then severed from his body by the sharp glass.
Fearfully, Alice and Kenneth returned home. For a while they tried to get up enough courage to go to the police and tell them all about what had happened. But they soon realized that such a measure would only bring more shame and suffering.
"Imagine what our poor parents would say," Kenneth told Alice, his voice full of remorse. "Imagine how they'd feel knowing that all this had happened because-because I decided to join a club full of perverted juvenile delinquents. I was one myself. If Mom and Dad hear about it, they'll die. I couldn't subject them to the shame of knowing what I had done."
"No," Alice said. "It's not all your fault, Kenneth. It's everybody's fault. My fault too. I shouldn't have let Roger trap me. I could have walked out before I did. The other girls could have done the same thing. Sure, it would be embarassing to have the word leak out that I had been raped. But I would have gotten over it in time and that would have put an end to the Lustmongers. The police would have come along and locked up Roger before everything came to this horrible end.
"But I was a coward. I was more interested in saving my own feelings than in saving other girls from my fate. So now it's come to this."
She burst into a new barrage of sobs. Kenneth patted her shoulder gently in a vain attempt to console her.
"Think of the parents of the other kids," Kenneth said. "Not only our parents, but their parents, too, would be shocked to hear about the Lustmongers. It's bad enough for them to think that their kids got a little drunk and then killed themselves in a car accident. But if they knew about the Lustmongers, then-why, I don't know what would happen. I don't even want to think about it."
"But the worst part of it all," Alice said, "is that we escaped. It's so horrible. We'll have to go through life knowing that we're just as guilty as they were, but I that we won't be punished nearly as much. No matter what the law does to us, it won't be as bad as what happened to David and Pete-and Roger and Penny and Maggie and poor little Mitzi. I feel so guilty.' So terribly guilty."
"You're right," Kenneth said. "How much can they punish us? The worst they'll do is lock us up in reform school for a few years. And to tell you the truth, I don't think they'll even do that. Dad will probably hire the best lawyer in the state for us, and we'll get off with a suspended sentence."
"But we can't get off with a suspended sentence," Alice said. "It's not fair. It's not just. We've done wrong and we have to be punished for our wrong doing."
It was at that point that Kenneth and Alice Seever decided that the only way they could be adequately punished was to punish themselves. Kenneth got up and locked the front door of the house. Then he went through the entire mansion, closing all the windows. Finally, he went to the kitchen and turned on the gas.
It was a very sad time for Maslin. A terribly sad time. The various parents of the Lustmongers came home from their jaunts and their cruises and their weekends and their business trips when they learned the awful news about their children.
The news, fortunately, was hushed up. The parents of the Lustmongers had money, and in addition to talking, money can sometimes prevent talk. The publishers of the various local newspapers were paid well to keep the story of the car accident and the double suicide out of the news columns.
Several quiet funerals were held.
You can see their graves if you want to. Rent a car in New York City and drive out to Maslin, then turn off to the left past the center of town and drive south for five miles. The cemetery is there, big and expensive and imposing.
The markers are simple, in keeping with the cemetery setting. The grave stones are all the same size, and only the names of the people lying under them, the dates of their births and deaths, are inscribed on the stones.
Stay all day, if you care to. Sit under the cool shade of one of the big oak trees that grow between the neat rows of tombstones. Sit on the neatly clipped lawn, and stare at the stones, and contemplate how easily the seeds of evil can turn to death and destruction.
Or contemplate, if you will, how differently it all might have turned out if only the parents of people like Roger Cantrell or David Van Klumpes or Alice and Kenneth Seever and the others had stayed home, caring for their children, instead of gallivanting around the world, carelessly spending their money.
Think about what parents are for. And wonder, if you care to, whether money brings satisfaction and happiness. Perhaps if the parents of the children who lie under those graves stones had spent a little less money on themselves, and a little more time on their children, this all would not have happened.
Or, get in your car and drive still another five miles south for an illustration of what misery success can bring. After all, the father of little Mitzi Matson is a very successful man. Why, just the other week he was promoted from night managing editor of his New York City newspaper to daytime managing editor. He got a five thousand dollar a year increase in salary to go with his promotion.
But, in the course of obtaining his success, his daughter has gone mad. South of town you can find her, an inmate of the West Lake sanitarium.
Little Mitzi is no trouble to her caretakers. No trouble at all. She lies very still in her oversized crib. Thanks to drugs, she no longer trembles. Of course, the meaningless gurgling sounds still pour ceaselessly from her throat. And of course, she will never be able to tell anyone what happened to her as long as she lives.
Just the same, she is no trouble. Three times a day a nurse comes to refill the bottle hanging over her bed with an ordinary solution of glucose and other nutrients. A tube leads from this bottle to her arm. At the other end of this tube is a needle which connects directly with one of her veins. All day long, liquid food is poured into little Mitzi's blood stream, for she can no longer swallow food by herself, and she must be kept alive.
And so, she is kept alive. The nurse fills her bottle and empties her bedpan, and on and on she lives her meaningless life while people tiptoe quietly around her crib.
Perhaps, before the sun goes down in this lovely suburban area, after you have visited the cemetery and the West Lake sanitarium, you might like to go house shopping. There are some lovely houses up for sale, if you happen to have the price of them. Great, imposing colonial mansions-split levels-ranch houses with panoramic picture windows.
It is not hard to see one of these houses. All you have to do is go to the office of the real estate agent in downtown Maslin. His office is bound to be open, even on weekends, for it is on weekends that most people go shopping for houses.
Let him take you around some of the buildings that are up for sale. Let him show you their firm foundations, their thick walls that do not even permit loud noises to penetrate them. Let him show you solid copper plumbing and excellently engineered heating systems.
Then, perhaps if you really seem interested in the house, if you look as if you'd like to buy it, he'll tell you all about the advantages of living in a town like Maslin.
Maslin is a good town, he will tell you. It is a clean town. It is a town full of freshly painted houses like this one, and freshly mowed lawns like the lawn in front of this one, and carefully pruned trees which line the streets to provide shade in the summer and a haven for numerous birds.
He will point out that the streets are immaculate. He will note that there are no crowds here as there are in New York City-"only a forty five minute commuter, train ride from your office," he'll say. There are no cigarette butts and chewing gum wrappers or torn newspapers littering the streets.
He will tell you proudly that the lawns and kept manicured even in winter. He will wave his hand, as if he were blessing something, over the vista of beautiful houses and tell you that Maslin seems to have been made for bringing up children in the proper environment, for only the highest class of people live here.
Why, just the other day, a young couple were shopping for a house in Maslin. The husband was perhaps thirty-five years old. He was wearing a new, expensive suit that reflected his new, highly paid job in New York. His wife, some seven months pregnant, held his hand tightly, her eyes glowing as she took in the sight of the big ante-bellum style mansion they were thinking of buying.
"You won't find any slums here," the real estate agent said earnestly. "You won't find any gangs or muggers. There's nobody here except people who want the better things in life."
The young matron bit her lip pensively.
"Well, I don't know," she said. "I rather like New York. I rather like the excitement of the city. I like its variety. I like a lot of things about it."
"That goes for me too," her husband said. "There's something else I like about New York. It's quite convenient to work. I don't have to spend time traveling to my job. I can have more time to' spend with my family when I don't waste an hour and a half or more every day travelling."
"Oh, don't worry about that," the real estate agent replied. "You'll find that most parents out here spend all the time they want to with their children. Frankly, I think some of them see so much of their kids that they can't wait to get away."
"Well, maybe so," the young matron said, "but I still rather like New York City."
"New York City," the real estate agent said, almost as if he were muttering an obscenity. "New York City?
You can have it. Say what you will about the convenience of living in mid town Manhattan. I wouldn't take it on a silver platter. Why, just the other day I was reading in the paper about how a gang of hoodlums cornered a perfectly respectable girl who lived on Park Avenue. They dragged her down to the basement of some building and, uh, well to be quite frank about it, they raped her. You won't find anything like that happening in Maslin-"
"Well, just the same-" the matron began, but the real estate agent, impassioned by his own spiel, cut her off.
"No sir! No ma'am! Maslin is a nice town. A clean, quiet, suburban town. You listen to me. Move here. Bring your kids here. You won't be sorry and neither will your kids. Not for as long as they live."
