The girl crouching behind the towering stacks of baled hay in the darkness of the big barn, was afraid. Fear tightened her throat, filled her mouth with the taste of dirty brass. But not even the fear was as strong as the desire and excitement that had brought her here, where she waited for a man. One whom her uncle would surely kill, if he caught him with her. Heart pounding with impatience, body full of a strange and delicious fire, Sue Stevens leaned against the hay, wondering if the man would really come.
From a mile away in the west pasture, the sounds of bulldozers and other heavy machinery were a distant growling that never ceased. They were gouging out the new highway that would cross the Stevens' land. Sue shut her eyes, imagining that big, sun-bronzed, muscular figure atop the enormous yellow bulldozer. He was slamming everything out of his path with remorseless strength. He was handsome, and more completely male than any man she had ever seen before. His name was Ray Stone. Just the thought of him tautened her breasts that were as large and rounded as ripened grapefruit, and sent their nipples pushing at the fabric of the cheap cotton dress.
At eighteen, Sue Stevens was in rebellion against her uncle. A dour, hard-working man in his early fifties, he had taken her in after her father's death five years before. He had seen her schooled, fed her and furnished enough clothing to cover her nakedness, and no more. In return, he demanded that she do a man's share of the grinding work necessary on a farm. What spare time she had left he had insisted that she devote to joyless religion. In her life there had been no boys, parties, make-up or pretty dresses. She had struggled with this way of life as long as she could, but her body demanded another way of life. This was the reason for her waiting in the hay.
All of it had happened quickly. The work crew had moved in with their equipment. For a few moments, she had eluded her uncle's watchful eye and run down to the pasture. In wonder, eyes big and round, she watched the great machines and tough-looking drivers.
She stared so long at one man, Ray, that he felt her eyes on him. His muscled torso gleamed in the sun. When he had looked down on her, his keen brown eyes locking with her own gray ones, a sudden strange warmth boiled in her breast and groin. The same boiling was in her now as she waited.
While they stared at each other, she knew this man was going to receive her virginity.
She hardly remembered what he'd said. But he'd asked her name and introduced himself. And his eyes were like hands, running over her body. He saw her dark brown hair, drawn back so primly, the big gray eyes, the tilted nose, and the wide red mouth that seemed to be silently crying for the kisses it had never known. His eyes glowed as they roved over the big, upthrust breasts that were molded by the fabric of the too-small dress. They moved down over the slender waist to the full curve of her hips, and took in the beauty of long, long legs.
There had been no formality. It was as if a quick, unspoken agreement existed between them, as if she had something he wanted, and she was ready to give it to him. He asked her when he could see her, and where.
She had only a few hours during the week from which she was away from her uncle's prying eyes. They came on Saturday afternoons, when he always drove to town. She knew that he begrudged her even those, but leaving her behind, alone, was preferable to exposing her to the temptations of such city fleshpots as movies and dime stores. Her own voice sounded like a stranger's as she whispered her answer:
"In our barn. Saturday afternoon, three-thirty." He had merely nodded, climbed back up on the bulldozer, flipped a hand to her, and then sent the machine back into action. Sue had hurried home, afraid that her uncle had already missed her.
Then there had been long days to live through, waiting for Saturday. Her body retained that peculiar warmth, never diminishing. Days were not so bad, she had work that kept her busy, but the nights, when she lay in the darkness of the narrow bedroom that was hers, long after her uncle was asleep and the house was still, they were agony. Her body was filled with desire, thinking about Ray. Her flesh ached with want.
And, in the dark privacy, she would put her hands on her breasts, imagining that they were his hands. She would caress and squeeze them, feeling the nipples harden and stand erect under her palms. Her hips would begin to rise and drop in the motions of fucking, her long legs would spread and close.
Her hands would leave her breast and travel down her smooth, flat stomach to her long legs. She would stroke the inside of her legs, gently squeezing, liking the pain. She would hear her breath, coming in loud gasps as her hands probed. She would run them through the dark brown hair of her pussy, gently stroking the clitoris. Her other hand would find the opening of her vagina, and slowly she would insert one finger, then another. Two was all she could slip inside, because the pain would become unbearable. While her fingers stroked the clitoris, her head would move from side to side; she would moan until she remembered not to awaken her uncle. Her teeth would bite into her moist, red lips to keep from crying out. Soon she would reach her climax, coming in torrents of creamy, white juice, filling her hands and running onto the bed.
But now the time had gone by when she would have to masturbate. She had watched her uncle drive out to the highway in his battered automobile. When she was sure he was gone, Sue hurried to the barn.
"It can't be long, now," she whispered to herself.
She heard him before she saw him: the quick, firm footsteps outside the barn. Frantically she tugged at her dress and smoothed her hair.
Then the sliding door at the end of the barn opened. She saw the wide-shouldered form, outlined for a moment in sunlight, before the door closed again.
"Sue?" She heard him call. "Sue?"
She stepped out from behind the baled hay. She was not sure whether or not she would be able to speak.
"I'm here," she breathed at last.
With the door closed it was very dark inside the barn. Yet she was aware of him, approaching her, as if he gave off some sort of electricity to which her body was responsive.
Then he had stopped. After the bright sunlight, he could not see her in the gloom. His tone was impatient and harsh: "Damn it, kid, where are you?"
"Here, Ray. Here." It was a cry of eagerness. She ran toward him, threw herself against him, and heard his indrawn breath. Then his arms were around her. She buried her face against his chest.
"You did come, didn't you?" It was an out rush of relief.
He chuckled slightly.
"Yeah. You're damn right. You think I'd pass up a chance at something like you?"
His arms pulled her tightly against him. She felt one big, hard hand move down her back, and over the roundness of her firm ass.
Instinctively she flattened her breasts against his chest, ground her pelvis against his. She had seen farm animals in action. She knew the hardness she felt on her stomach was his answer to her hot, throbbing pussy. She pushed against his hard prick and raised her lips for his kiss.
She did not even know how to kiss. Her lips were closed. She was startled when he began to pry them open with his own, and his tongue began to penetrate her wet lips. Her mouth opened, her tongue responded. By the time the kiss was over, she was helpless. She would do anything Ray wanted her to.
He, too, was gasping when he raised his head. His voice was a little shaky:
"Damn it, is there any place-?"
"The loft. Up in the loft-."
Then Sue was climbing and he was right behind her, helping and pushing her with bold, hard hands that cupped each cheek of her ass.
The loft was a little lighter, sunlight rayed through cracks in the siding and gilded the loose, soft hay with which it was filled. In the light she saw that Ray's face was set and white. His eyes were aflame.
He pushed her down into the yielding hay.
"Take off that dress," he ordered.
"Do I have to? There's nothing under it."
"Damn it, I said take it off."
Sue obeyed. The fabric made a whisper as she slipped the dress over her head. Then she knew it would be worth it, when she heard his quick intake of breath.
"Hell," he breathed in awe. "Hell. What titties. What a body."
His admiration produced a strange reaction in Sue. All at once she was no longer afraid, she no longer felt dominated. She ran her hands up her hips and cupped her breasts, forcing them out, offering them to him. Her body made him helpless.
She felt competent, master of the situation now. With feminine deliberateness, she lay back in the hay, legs spread, her pussy shining through the dark, damp hair invitingly.
"Do you like me?" she asked.
He made a hoarse sound deep in his throat and lunged for her. She rolled away.
"You, too," she laughed. "You've got to take yours off too."
Without hesitation, his fingers worked swiftly at the buttons. In a few seconds he was stripped. Sue stared at his nakedness. His prick was rigid, standing almost level with his stomach. The head was swollen and red, moistened at the end with clear liquid. Her eyes traveled the length of it to his balls, almost hidden in the lush growth of hair, thick and curly. Her yearning grew stronger.
"Come here," she whispered.
He dropped into the hay beside her, his hand going out greedily to seize her breasts. The rasp of his calloused hands across them was welcome to her. Her own hands sought his hard prick, moving her hand down the length to his large balls, exploringly. He was the first man she had ever touched.
"So big," she said incredulously. "So very big."
He said nothing. But his lips went quickly to her breasts. She felt them tugging at her nipples, and her hips began a quick rising and falling. Her passion grew until she thought she would burst.
Her hands stroked his large prick, fingers wrapped around it, moving up and down. Her other hand fondled his balls. She ran her hand over the head and the liquid felt hot in her palm. She moaned:
"Please, let me see it."
He stopped sucking her titties and sat back on his heels. Sue raised herself on one elbow and stared at his throbbing prick. Her head moved toward it as if by some unknown force. When her lips came in contact with the head, they opened automatically and her tongue darted out and touched the tip. A shock rippled through her body. She felt and tasted the hot sperm. She took the head into her lips and gently sucked on it. She felt his prick jerk in her mouth and she pulled her head away.
"Ray," she urged him. "Ray, please." She pulled at him, tugging him on top of her.
His head went to her breasts again, his weight on her. A whimpering sound broke from her throat as he lunged down, forcing his prick between the hair and lips of her pussy. There was pain, sharp and instantaneous, but not enough to drive out the desire.
She locked his hard body with her legs wrapped around his waist. She raised her ass to meet his thrusting prick. After the pain, the loft seemed to recede as if she were out in space. She had never known that anything could be this good. It kept getting better and better. She heard herself whispering, more to herself than to Ray.
"So good, oh, so good. That hard prick is so much better than my finger."
And as he fucked her, her whisperings became audible to Ray:
"Shove it in more. Deeper, Ray. Please, never stop. Fuck me forever."
She urged him to move more swiftly and deeply. She clawed at him. His lips were all over her breasts now, and they were wet. His lips were on her throat, his mouth was covering hers, and the cries that escaped her went into his mouth and she filled it with her tongue, trying to drive it into his throat.
Dimly, she was aware that something in her had been caged for a long time, too closely caged. And now Ray was unlocking that cage, and a part of her that had never been free before, a very important part, was breaking loose; it would never be restrained again. This, she had a quick awareness, was what she was made for.
And it kept getting better and better. Until it could get no better. And it felt as if her body was splitting with ecstasy.
She screamed silently into his mouth. She felt her hot pussy grow hotter, then the swift torrent of come poured from her already slippery pussy, flowing around his prick, soaking his balls, and running down to her ass. And at that moment he stiffened and strained to her, pouring out his foamy come into her creaming pussy, filling her with its juice until it flowed out and mingled with her own offering.
They hung suspended in a place that was neither in the world nor out of it.
Then they dropped back into the soft warm hay. Sue knew that she would never be the same again, and she was glad.
* * *
Millard Stevens, her uncle, had forgotten his wallet. He didn't realize it until he was a mile down the highway. When he reached for the bandana that he always carried in his hip pocket, he realized that the wallet was gone.
He was not a profane man, so he did not curse. But his already thin lips tightened to an even thinner line, and his handling of the battered car was quick and jerky as he whipped it around in a turn.
He couldn't go into town without his money, this was his day to buy a woman.
He was a big, gaunt man in a cheap, brown suit so old it was double-breasted and wide-lapelled. His hair and eyes were gray, he was seemingly hewn out of granite. He liked to think of himself as a rock. A rock of righteousness and integrity that could not be moved.
It was his very righteousness that sent him, deliberately, to the house in town where he could buy a woman once a week. He hoped desperately that age would soon still the demands of that unspeakable part of his body, and the Saturday afternoon trip would no longer be necessary. But until that happened, there was no alternative except the quick, joyless coupling every Saturday afternoon with the flabby woman in the cheap hotel in the little town. It was his duty. It was the only way he could protect his and Sue's immortal souls.
It had been like that ever since his wife had died a year after Sue had come to live with them. His Creator had seen fit to give him more masculinity than he needed, masculinity that demanded an outlet. After the death of his wife, there was no outlet.
And there was the constant presence of his niece who, at fourteen, had bloomed into a full-blown Lilith.
He saw her constantly. Her body threatening to burst the seams of the dresses which, economy being a virtue, he made her wear until they were much too small. He could not escape the woman-sway of hips and buttocks when she walked, the rippling jounce of unhaltered breasts.
It was his duty to protect her. And he was horrified to find himself, instead, lusting after her.
He mortified his flesh and prayed for guidance, but none of his measures did any good. He was horrified at the damnable thoughts that kept blossoming within his skull. There were times when only the marshalling of all his will power kept him from seizing her, ripping off that skin-tight dress, and fucking that lush, white body.
The most horrible thought of all, was the certainty he'd somehow gained that she would not repel his advances.
Something had to be done. The souls of both of them were in jeopardy. It went severely against his grain to spend the five dollars demanded by the small-town floozy every Saturday afternoon, despite the fact that his farm was profitable and he'd received a tremendous sum for letting the highway cross his land. But there was nothing else to do, and like a man taking a prescription, he forced himself to visit her once a week.
He dared not miss even one Saturday. Already his brain was tormenting him with hot imaginings of Sue. She was nearly full grown now. He'd protected her from the world, but he could not protect her from himself in his thoughts. In his mind, he was nuzzling those large, firm breasts, kissing that white girl-skin beneath them, and fingering her lush pussy. His prick had grown to its full proportions with his thoughts and he stepped on the accelerator harder. He was not thinking now, only desire drove him. He took one hand from the steering wheel and placed it on the bulging, hard prick.
It was not long before he turned the car into the farmyard, put it in neutral, and left the engine idling. He entered the house.
"Sue," he bellowed automatically, always alert. "Sue, where are you?"
There was no answer, and Millard Stevens frowned. He'd told her to use the afternoon-house-cleaning. Had she violated his orders and gone traipsing off somewhere else?
For a moment he forgot his lust, he knew only irritation at her disregard of his instructions.
He hurried into the bedroom, snatched up his wallet from the dresser, and rammed it into his pocket.
"Sue," he bawled again. "Where are you, Sue?"
There was no answer from any of the rooms of the big, old farmhouse. He looked around the farmyard. There was no sign of the girl.
"Sue," he bellowed once more. Then he stalked angrily toward the barn.
He slammed open the barn door, staring into the gloom, momentarily blinded.
"Sue? Girl, where are you?"
The barn was silent. All the animals were out to pasture.
"Sue?" It was like thunder this time, as he entered.
He stood listening. Then he heard it. A soft, almost imperceptible rustling of the hay in the loft overhead.
Millard Stevens stood clenching and unclenching his huge, bony hands. His face was contorted in rage and puzzlement. Then, with a quick, decisive motion, he turned toward the ladder to the loft.
* * *
Sue could not find her dress.
It was buried under the hay somewhere, and she dared not dig for it. If she did, her uncle would surely hear. There was nothing to do but lie as naked and still as a cowering animal, praying that he would leave to seek her elsewhere.
Beside her, Ray was cursing silently, his square face grim. His hands were balled into big fists. His muscles rippled as he sat up and slipped into his trousers without a whisper of sound. Then he crouched as tensely as a cat ready to spring.
She saw and understood that he was a dangerous and violent man, this construction worker to whom she'd given herself. She prayed, for her uncle's sake, that he would not look for them in the loft. But then she heard his feet on the ladder.
Ray stood up. Sue cowered down in the hay, pulling wisps of it futilely over her nakedness.
"Sue!" Her uncle's voice blared again, close at hand. He was climbing into the loft, now. His hard gray eyes swung from Ray to her own naked body, burrowed in the hay.
Millard Stevens stood frozen for one instant, as he scrambled into the loft. Then he yelled.
"Whore," he bellowed. "Whore of Babylon! Jezebel!"
"Watch yourself, pop," Ray snarled.
Millard Stevens whirled toward the man. "And you, sir! Rapist, despoiler of the young. By God, sir, I'll teach you a lesson!"
"Uncle Millard!"
The scream was ripped from Sue's throat.
Neither she nor Ray had noticed the pitchfork lying in the hay.
But Millard Stevens knew it was there. He reached out and came up with it, and lunged for Ray.
Sue closed her eyes. The sharp steel tines were thrusting with swiftness at Ray's belly. She tensed for his scream of agony.
But it did not come. She looked again, just in time to see Ray move sideways like a cat.
The pitchfork tines sliced empty air where he had been.
Sue watched in horror as her uncle's forward lunge carried him, fork in hand, to the edge of the loft.
"Uncle Millard," Sue screamed again. But then he was gone, propelled over the side by his own momentum.
They heard the impact on the dirt floor below. They heard that, and they heard another strange sound, an agonized choking.
It had already stopped by the time that she and Ray scrambled to the edge of the loft and looked down.
Her uncle seemed to be standing upright, bent forward a trifle, his hands dangling at his sides. She took a closer look and saw that his knees were bent, that it was a wonder he didn't lose his balance. Then she took another look, and saw what was propping him up in that impossible way. The stout ash handle of the pitchfork was buried six inches in the hard-packed dirt of the barn floor.
Possibly Millard Stevens could have survived the fall. It was only fifteen feet. But no one could have survived impalement by the tines of the pitchfork, which had somehow caught him under the chin and gone on up through his head.
II
Ray abandoned the battered sedan on the outskirts of the city. He and Sue walked through a district of weary, scabrous old wooden houses. The front yards were dusty, small, and bereft of grass; the back yards: skeins of clotheslines were hung with tattered underwear. Ray led the way and Sue followed a half step behind, moving numbly, lost in a fog of shock. They had run for it.
Sue had done it without any conscious thought or volition, urged on by Ray. From the moment her eyes had landed on the impaled, contorted figure on the floor of the barn, she had quit all rational thinking.
But Ray had moved swiftly and surely.
"Hell," he'd grated. "Now we're in for it."
Quickly he'd dressed and dropped to the barn floor like a great cat. Sue watched him bending over the body, hands patting the pockets. She saw him pull out the fat wallet, glance in it, and grin tightly in satisfaction. Then he swarmed back up the ladder.
"Nobody will ever believe it was an accident," he told her. "Not with me fucking his niece in his barn." He found Sue's dress and tossed it to her. "Here, put this on. Hurry."
Obediently, she did as he bade. She felt empty, as if all emotion had been pumped out of her and only a vacuum remained. Too much had happened too swiftly, the ecstasy in the loft, then the tragedy. She could feel no grief for her uncle. His care of her had always been just a fraction shy of earning or deserving gratitude. He had never displayed any affection. It was just that she conceived of him as something made of stone; and you couldn't kill stone.
While she was dressing, Ray thought out loud:
"It's seventy miles from here to the city. We can drive it in just a little over an hour. I know where we can hide out there."
"We?" Sue said.
"We." His lips curled. "Kid, this session's cost me a damn good job and maybe a murder rap I didn't earn. But I'm not coming out of it empty-handed. There's a hundred dollars in the old rube's wallet. And there's you." His eyes glittered. "You're good, kid; real good. With a little more practice, you'll be the best fuck around. We're in this together, you and me, and we'll come out of it the same way."
Unable to think, she made no protest. She tried not to look at her uncle as they hurried out of the barn. Ray carefully shut the barn door. He grinned as he saw the car and heard its engine running.
"Don't even have to take the risk of going after my own car. It's a pile of junk, anyway. This will do just as good." He shoved Sue into the car, then hesitated.
"Any more cash in the house?"
She shook her head.
"Not that I know of."
"Well, no time to look." He slid under the wheel. "I can't stand still for any kind of investigation. There's too many other raps already against me." The car roared into motion. "How long will it be before somebody finds him?"
She shrugged.
"He never went anywhere, except to town on Saturday. Nobody ever came here. He and I worked the place alone. I don't know."
"Good." Tires screeched and dust boiled up, as the car rocked out of the farmyard. "Good, maybe it'll be a week or two."
Suddenly Sue tensed.
"Wait," she said urgently.
Ray stared at her. He slammed on brakes.
"What's the matter?"
"The cows," Sue said. "They've got to be milked. If they aren't, their udders will be ruined."
Ray grinned sardonically and shot the car forward again.
"To hell with the cows," he said. "Don't worry about the cows, baby. Your days of being a country girl are over."
So now they walked through the slums, and at last they reached the run-down edge of the business district. Buildings grimed with soot, uncleaned since the days of steam locomotives, lined a railroad yard. Beyond the rind of decay they formed, Sue saw the upthrust of the clean spires of skyscrapers. She had never seen anything like that before.
"Is that where we're going?" she asked.
Ray chuckled grimly. "Not hardly."
They moved along a sidewalk edged with pawn shops, second-hand clothing stores, and pool-halls. Neon signs flashed in dirty little bars. After a bit, Ray led Sue into one of the bars.
It was empty, except for the bartender. Sue wrinkled her nose against the stench of stale smoke and stale alcohol. But Ray sighed, as if he thought the stench were good. He wore the look of a man come home.
"Hi, Charley," he said to the man behind the bar.
Charley was a big man with a bashed-in face. Somebody had once wiped his nose across his cheeks with a fist, now it was merely plastered-down, flattened flesh. His eyes were like currants set in dough. He did not seem particularly pleased to see Ray. But when he looked past Ray to Sue, his expression turned more cordial.
"Hello, Ray." His voice was a rumble.
Ray perched on a stool and Sue followed suit.
"Let's have two whiskies, Charley."
"Sure. If you got money."
"I got money."
"Two whiskies it is then." Charley set out the drinks. Sue stared down at hers.
Ray's lip curled while Charley watched curiously.
"Hell," Ray snorted. "Go ahead. It won't bite you."
"I-I never drank whisky before. Uncle Millard said it was wrong."
"Well, I ain't Uncle Millard." His voice turned harsh. "Drink it, kid."
Obediently, still in that curious daze, Sue raised the glass. There did not seem to be much in the glass, and she swallowed it at a gulp. Then she gasped and wheezed, doubling up with her eyes streaming.
Ray guffawed:
"The water, dope. Chase it with the water."
Blindly, Sue groped for the chaser. The water quenched the fire in her mouth, and she sat up straight, blinking. Her brow knitted. That was odd. She had never felt anything exactly like the glow in her belly that was beginning to spread through the rest of her body. It was not unpleasant at all. Quite the contrary. Poor old Uncle Millard, she found herself thinking. He hated everything that feels good. He must have missed so much fun.
She looked at Ray. If one drink could make her feel so much better, undoubtedly two would restore her entirely.
"Can I have another one?" she asked a little hesitantly.
"Sure. Why not?"
Charley poured another one, and Sue tossed it off the same way, this time chasing it quickly. Charley opened his eyes a little wider.
"You learn fast," he said. "What you want, Ray? And where'd you get the broad?"
"Never mind where I got her. What I want is that spare room upstairs, if you still got it."
Charley frowned. "You on the run?"
"That your business, long as I pay?"
"No. But you'd better be able to pay. Fifty a week."
"I'll pay you better than that."
"Oh, you will?"
Ray nodded. "You'll see."
His eyes shuttled to Sue, and she was aware of them boring at her. She didn't care. She was feeling good, and she didn't care about anything. Not even poor old Uncle Millard, who'd missed all the fun in life. Well, it was his own fault. There had been times she'd have taken on Uncle Millard, just like she let Ray screw her, if he'd only asked. There had been times when she would have done anything just to break the deadly monotony of life.
Well, the monotony was broken now. She was already in a strange, new world, and she was no longer the same woman she had been. To hell with Uncle Millard and his pitchfork. She had Ray, and she wanted to fuck again. Only this time in a real bed with no worry about being caught. She wanted to spend all night fucking. It would take just about all night to quench the fire the whisky had built in her.
Ray was shelling money out of Uncle Millard's wallet.
"Fifty," he said. "That'll hold us a week. I'll make some arrangements with you before it's due again."
Sue was aware of Charley looking at her curiously.
"By golly," he grunted, "you may, at that."
She giggled. He wanted her, too. She could tell that, somehow. Well maybe, if Ray didn't mind, she'd let Charley stuff his prick into her. She'd wasted so much time, there was a lot of lost fun that had to be made up for.
"I want another one of those drinks," she said, amused by the thickness of her own voice.
"Le'me have the key to that room," Ray said to Charley. "And let me have a bottle of whisky." His lips peeled back from his teeth.
"Me and the lady," he said, "are going to have ourselves a ball."
* * *
She loved it. She loved it, she loved it. Everything about it. The things he did to her, and the things he urged her to do to him. She thought those things were fine. She'd frequently seen animals do them to each other. She saw no reason why they shouldn't be part of human lovemaking, too.
And they were such fun.
Ray was ready to quit a long time before she was. Outside, it was dark. Neon flashed on and off over all the dingy bars. Downstairs there was laughter and the raucous music of a jukebox. Ray rolled away from her.
"No more," he mumbled. "I'm not made out of iron. No more."
Sue writhed and twisted on the bed. The thing he'd uncaged this afternoon, a hundred years ago, it seemed now, was insatiably prowling in her.
"Please Ray," she begged. "Please." She used her lips and hands on him, trying to arouse him.
"Please please, please," she whimpered.
"Stop that, damn it." He slapped her, without warning. It was a hard blow, knocking her head around and sending her rolling off the bed. She flopped naked on the floor.
Even his slap felt good. It was better than nothing.
She stood up, swaying from all the liquor she'd taken in.
"Now, Ray," she said quickly. "Suck it, kiss it. Push your tongue up my pussy. Please. Please!" She tried to put her leg across his face, but he shoved her away again.
Never, in all her life, had Sue felt this way. She was so hot, it was unbearable. She wanted more and Ray could not give her more.
Groping in the dark, she found her dress and slipped it over her head. She patted her hair into place. Then she bent low over Ray. His breath was an even, hoarse rasp.
Sue smiled. A little unsteadily, she stepped into her shoes and opened the door of the room.
It led her out into a hall above the barroom. In an adjoining loft, stacked cases of beer and whisky loomed in the darkness. Ahead of her, she knew, there was a stairwell.
A moment more, and she was off the steps and into the garish light of the barroom. It stank worse than ever before, but she did not notice the stench now. All she saw were the men at the bar and in the booths.
One of the men at the bar was young and strong, like Ray. But his hair was corn-yellow, where Ray's was brown and lank. She sat down beside him, not sure in her own mind what she was up to, or what her next move would be.
Charley frowned at her. "Ray know you're down here?"
"Ray's asleep," she said.
"Then you'd better be asleep, too, babe."
She shook her head in defiance. "I'm not sleepy."
Charley shrugged. "It's your funeral."
She thought of Uncle Millard and the pitchfork, but she didn't even shudder.
"Gimme a whisky," she said.
The man was watching her out of the corner of his eye. She knew that. Somehow she was not surprised when she felt the pressure of a lean, hard, muscular thigh against the softness of her own. It was what she had been waiting for. She responded with her own thigh, shoving it wantonly against him.
He grinned at her.
"My name's Bill, and I think we'd both be more comfortable in a booth."
"Suits me," she said, smiling, and she followed him across the room. He let her slide in and then sat beside her. His thigh immediately found hers, and his hand came down on her long leg in a stroking, caressing grip.
She let out a little breath of satisfaction.
"Baby," Bill said, "I get the idea you're looking for fun."
"I am." She wriggled a little on the seat, and his hand moved up her leg, shielded from the room by his body, and came to rest in her lap, his fingers pressing gently. Sue spread her legs, allowing Bill's fingers to press between them and probe her pussy.
She put her hand on him, finding his prick stiff and throbbing beneath his pants. Feeling his fingers rubbing her pussy under her dress, she squirmed her ass. Her fingers hurriedly unbuttoned his pants and jerked his prick out in the open. She realized that not even Ray could match Bill's prick in size. Her fingers barely fit around it. It was hot and she could feel the tiny pulse beating in it. She ran her fingers up and down it, masturbating him.
"Yes, sir," she said. "Fun. It's what I'm after."
"I've got a room," he said tautly. "It's not far from here."
"Can I hold on to this?" she asked, squeezing hard.
"Honey, you can do anything you want with it, in my room." And he moved her hand and buttoned his pants.
"Let's go, hurry," she said, pushing him from the booth. Ray would sleep till morning, she thought. "I want it."
Bill grinned. He took his hands from her and said: "I'll buy a bottle."
A moment later, watched by a frowning Charley, Sue Stevens left the bar, her arm linked in that of Bill's. She was so excited by the prospect of being fucked some more that she did not notice the two policemen who brushed past her as they went out and who were soon engaged in deep conversation with a vastly concerned Charley.
Bill's room was in a boarding house, an old frame structure near the railroad yards. He let himself in with a key and they quietly went up the stairs. They saw no one.
The room was simply furnished. There was a big, squeaky bed with iron head and foot, a massive old dresser, and a chair. A single bulb dangled from the ceiling, done entirely in drab shades of brown. There was no carpet on the floor.
As soon as Bill shut the door behind him, Sue threw herself into his arms. She could not wait for what she wanted.
"Kiss me," she said frantically. "Kiss me." She opened her mouth wide, her tongue already gyrating.
He did. He held her closely, as Ray had done that first time early in the afternoon, a million years ago now. He held her, hands moving down over her ass, squeezing and cupping the cheeks, his tongue probing her mouth. It was a long time before she pulled her mouth away.
Eagerly, she began to unbutton his shirt. As each button gave way to reveal flesh, she began to kiss the flesh, her tongue tracing little circular patterns on it. She felt him shudder with delight.
A line of thin golden hair grew up his belly. When his shirt was open, and while her hands worked at his belt, her lips traced down that line. His lower garments dropped away. Her lips moved down the line of golden hair.
His pants and shorts fell away together. Now she was on her knees before him, staring at his hard, thick prick, standing straight out from the curly, golden hairs surrounding his balls, which hung from the base of his prick. She felt his hands tangle in her hair, pulling her face towards that angry, red phallus. When she felt the large head touch her lips, she put a hand on it to hold it still, then she slipped her tongue between her lips and touched the tip, tasting the hot fluid that had gathered at the opening. She ran her tongue around the head, then placing her hands on his ass, one cheek in each hand, she sucked his prick into her mouth. His hands in her hair held her head motionless. He drew his cock from her mouth and pressed forward again. She thought she would choke on the length of it as it slid far into her throat. Her lips were open as far as she could get them, but his penis was so large she thought they would tear at the corners.
She wanted this so much, it tasted so good and filled her mouth to the fullest, that she would not have released it even if it did tear her mouth. As his ass pulled back again, she placed one of her fingers on his asshole. After a little gentle pressure, she slipped it into his ass as far as she could. This seemed to excite Bill still further. He shoved hard, forcing his prick into her mouth, and Sue felt the head slide down her throat, past her tonsils. As he fucked her in the mouth, pulling his penis completely out and then shoving it down her throat, Sue worked her finger in and out of his ass.
After a moment, he said:
"Stop it, stop it. Let's get on the bed." His hand in her hair lifted her to her feet.
She smiled at him.
"Am I beautiful?" she asked. "Do you like to be sucked?" Before he could answer, she stripped the tight dress from herself in one motion.
"Beautiful," he whispered, seeing her breasts spring into freedom, nipples jutting. "Beautiful? Sue, you're-" He did not finish. Instead, he almost leaped at her, shoving her backwards on the bed.
"Want me to finish what I was doing?" she asked him, smiling up at him. He sat on her belly, hands cupping her breast. His face flushed with desire.
"What you were doing? I was doing it to you, honey," he said. "And I want to finish it."
She looked at his still swollen, red prick, aimed at her face. She saw it as he moved his ass along her belly, pushing the hard, throbbing, large phallus between her breasts until the tip was at her lips again. He leaned over until he was resting on hands and knees above her face. She pushed her tongue up and licked the fluid clinging to the opening, working her tongue around the head. She raised her head until she had pressed the angry prick against his belly and licked his balls, gently sucking them into her mouth. She placed her hand between his legs and fingered his asshole, pressing until it opened to accept the pleasure she gave. Bill raised his ass up far enough so the tip of his prick again was at her warm, wet lips. She opened them and sucked the head into her mouth. Bill pressed his ass down until Sue felt the hair tickle her nose. Bill's prick had slid down her throat so far, she could not even gag if she wanted to. Sue worked her finger in and out rapidly. Bill fucked her mouth slowly at first, allowing her to become accustomed to the hugeness of him. As he felt she was able to take him with comfort, he worked more swiftly.
As Bill fucked her in the mouth, Sue sucked with delicious noise, sucking hard as he drew away and letting it slide down her throat on the down stroke.
Soon she felt him stiffen and he jammed his ass down hard into her face. Sue pulled her finger from his ass and jerked her head away from his groin. But just as his prick left her mouth, he came in spurting jets of hot, thick sperm. Her mouth still being open, she caught most of it there, but some squirted on her face and hair.
As she swallowed his hot come, Bill sat up, angry.
"What the hell did you do that for?"
"You was too far down my throat. I don't want to strangle."
He looked at her, come splattered on her face, and smiled.
"You wasted the best part. It's all over your face."
"I swallowed most of it." She grinned. "So it wasn't wasted."
She got up from the bed and walked to the dresser where Bill had placed the bottle of whisky. Pouring some in a water glass she drank it down, her back to Bill. Seeing her rounded, firm ass, Bill's prick again began to stiffen.
Filling the glass again, Sue returned to the bed.
Offering the glass to Bill, she took hold of his half hard penis and toyed with it. Bill looked at the come still on her face and shrugged, taking the glass from her. What the hell, he thought, and turned the glass up.
"Would you like to try it a different way?" Sue asked.
"You name it, honey, I'll try it."
Sue lay on the bed with her back up. "I want it right here," she stated, pointing to her ass.
"Right here?" Bill asked, and fingered her asshole.
"Yes," Sue said, panting. "Hurry, put that big, wonderful penis in my ass."
Bill knelt between her legs and with his hands spread her ass cheeks apart, exposing the small round, dark anus.
"I don't know if it will work, it looks awful small," he stated, frowning.
"Try it, anyway," Sue moaned. "That's the only virgin spot left."
He held her ass cheeks spread as he pressed his prick down until the tip rested against the hole. He pressed and Sue groaned in pain.
"Don't stop. I want it there."
So he pressed harder and felt the ring open slowly. He slid his prick in, taking care not to hurt her more than was necessary. Sue moaned all this time, but she pressed her ass up to meet him. Soon he had all of his penis in her ass. After resting from the exertion, he started fucking her ass. Sue pressed back into his curved lap. Bill's motions started faster and faster. Sue raised up enough to push her hand under her groin until she held his large balls in her hand. She fondled them and he worked in and out of her ass. She felt him stiffen and his balls jerked in her hand. Then the hot, steamy come saturated her intestines. She felt him shoot loads of come into her, just when she felt he would not stop coming, he withdrew his limp prick from her inflamed anus and lay back with a sigh.
All at once, she was aware that she was bone weary, and that she ached in every joint and muscle. It was like coming out of a dream into reality. Things that had become hazed with sexual pleasure and fog of alcohol suddenly sprang back into focus. She remembered her uncle's body, and her flesh turned almost as cold as his must have been by now.
"Get off me," she begged. "Please, get off me."
He did not move. His lips worked wetly but he did not speak.
"Get off me now," she grunted.
"In a minute," he said. "I'm resting now, but I'll be ready again in a minute."
"No." She struggled, trying to get from beneath him. "No, I said. Please get off me."
He rolled free slowly, his once pleasant face clouding with irritation.
"What's the matter with you all of a sudden?"
"Never mind." She sprang from the bed and scooped up her dress.
"Hey, wait a minute." Bill stood up, one big hand clenching around her wrist. "Where you think you're going?"
"I-I don't know. But I've got to go. I've got to go somewhere."
His face had metamorphosed into something thoroughly ugly now. This was a slap at his ego and a shattering of his plans. His lips curled back from his teeth.
"You ain't going nowhere until I'm through with you."
"Please-" she said again. It was a whimper, like the cry of a trapped animal.
"No." He snatched the dress from her hand. He cuffed her backward onto the bed. "When I have a woman, I don't mean just once or twice. I mean I have her until I'm satisfied."
Sue raised her hands toward him off, and then she dropped them. She was exhausted, too exhausted to fight. And besides, what difference did it make-one more time, twice, three times? He or Ray, what was the difference?
"All right," she murmured wearily and lay immobile until he was ready for her again.
It took Sue a long time to find her way back to Charley's bar after the man named Bill had finished with her. She had not watched the route they'd followed when they'd left it, and besides, she'd been half drunk. She moved sickly through the dead streets of after midnight. All illusions were washed away, many truths beginning to form themselves in her mind.
The first one, and the most overwhelming, was that Uncle Millard was dead. He was dead and it was her fault, as surely as if her own hand had thrust the pitchfork. The lusts which he'd warned her against so many times had caused his death. They were lusts that she'd deliberately unbridled against his wishes. There was guilt there, monstrous guilt; it was not something she could escape.
The second truth was that she had had all she wanted of Ray. In this single afternoon, she'd had an education in sex that, for most women, would have been spread over months, if not years. She knew that, from now on, sex would be something important to her. It was something her body needed, subject only to the limitations of physical weariness. That was what Ray had uncaged in her: that need, and the knowledge of it.
The thud truth was that she and Ray meant no more to each other than if they were two animals who had coupled. She had seen them part with absolute disinterest once the physical gratification had been obtained. She and Ray were like that.
And the fourth truth grew out of the third. Because she meant nothing to him, she could not count on Ray for help or protection once he had sated himself with her. And she was alone in a big, hostile city, with no knowledge or experience of its ways. She could not go home again.
Sheer fatigue, and these cold realizations, depressed her until she hated Ray and herself. The only person she did not hate was Uncle Millard, and he was dead. Some day, she would cry for him, if she could find strength for tears.
Then at last, she saw Charley's sign. But it was off now, and dead. And there were no lights behind the plate glass windows of his place.
An even deeper fear struck through her. She hurried to the door and tried the lock. It did not yield. In desperation, she rattled the door.
Nothing stirred within. She shook the door frantically. It made a noise that vibrated out into the night, but it did not open.
Then she saw the sign. A neat placard, taped on the inner side of the glass of the door: THIS ESTABLISHMENT PADLOCKED BY POLICE.
She felt her eyes burn with apprehensive tears. She dropped her hands numbly to her sides. Ray-Something had happened to him. And to Charley ...
Now what must she do? Now where could she go?
Her weary brain refused even to try to formulate an answer. She turned slowly away from the door. And bumped squarely into the brass-and-blue chest of a huge policeman. He took her wrist, quickly and firmly, and said in a deep voice that did not lack gentleness:
"You must be the Stevens girl. All right, little sister, let's go."
III
The name of the place was THE MARY CHIT-WOOD HOME FOR WAYWARD GIRLS. Two miles outside of town, it was a huge, dark-brick mansion in the middle of a vast, rolling lawn. Privately maintained, it was not a penal institution; it was a charity operation. Its representative had been present at the court hearing. The case against Sue Stevens had been nol-prossed with the understanding that she would consent to remain at the home for not less than six months. There actually had been no case against her anyway. You could not prosecute a girl for having crept into a hayloft with a man. If that were done, most of the farm girls in the country would have been in prison, the court-appointed lawyer whispered to the judge.
So Millard Stevens was found to have come to his death through misadventure. His estate was tied up for administration, and by degrees, Sue learned what had happened to Ray.
For once, there had been none of the law's delay that Hamlet had complained of. The abandoned car had been found and traced that afternoon. Almost at that moment the foreman of the road job, wondering what had happened to Ray, came to the farm house looking for him and discovered the body in the barn.
Ray was immediately suspect, particularly since this was not his first brush with the law. He was known to frequent a bar called Charley's Place. A shakedown turned him up, sound asleep and naked in a rumpled bed.
"There had been a girl with him," Charley, anxious now to cooperate, told the police. Of course, that would have been Stevens' missing niece. After the padlocking of the bar, a stake-out had been put on it.
Thus came Sue to her first experience with a court. And thus she came, too, to the Mary Chit-wood Home.
* * *
"Now, my dear," Mrs. Wentz said gently. "There's nothing to be afraid of. Absolutely nothing. We're here to help you."
Mrs. Wentz was a large, billowy, matronly woman who wore too many rings on her thick fingers, and who had dyed her white hair a too-shocking shade of blue. She was the director of the Mary Chitwood Home, and this was her routine, welcoming interview with Sue, the one given every new inmate.
"I'm not afraid," said Sue, but it was a lie. She was afraid. Not of what might happen to her here, but of what had already happened. She recognized that her life had been torn violently out of its orbit. Like a run-away meteor, it was rocketing erratically into the unknown, with no course and no destination. That, after all the grim order of living with Uncle Millard, was what had frightened her.
"Because you'll never see that dreadful man again," Mrs. Wentz continued. "I understand there were several old charges against him, too. He'll be sent to prison, and you'll never see him again."
Sue did not answer. She had already forgotten Ray as a person. He was just a factor now, in this wild change that had taken place in her life.
"Here," Mrs. Wentz went on, "we are all one big, happy family. You may feel secure here, and welcome. We do have, certain rules, of course, and you'll be expected to abide by these. You will not be allowed off the grounds. You will be present at roll-call at six in the morning and again at eight-thirty at night. Lights are always out at nine. There will be no profanity, and no smoking is allowed. Certain tasks will be assigned to you; and you will be expected to execute them, since we must all work together. Remember, without work, there can be no rest. We are, of course, concerned with your rehabilitation, preparing you to five a moral and a useful life. So while you are here, you will be thoroughly tested to see in which direction your talents he, and you will be counseled by our staff psychiatrist. At the conclusion of your term-ah, I mean stay-we will endeavor to find gainful employment for you of a type to which you are suited."
Sue nodded, barely conscious of the content of the speech. She had already decided to make no trouble. She had had all the trouble she wanted.
Mrs. Wentz straightened in her chair.
"There's one more thing, my dear," she said in a different voice.
The change in her tone caused Sue to look at her keenly and to pay attention.
"While you are here," Mrs. Wentz said stiffly, a little embarrassed, "you will be in contact with no men except Dr. Forsyth, the psychiatrist. There are certain physical drives which you will have no chance to express. Do you follow me?"
Sue frowned. "You mean sex."
Mrs. Wentz nodded, not looking at Sue directly. Plainly sex was something which, in her opinion, could better have been omitted from the order of creation.
"Exactly. Now, we realize the strength of these drives. There is only one way of coping with them. And that is keeping busy with useful and satisfying work. Sublimating them, the doctor calls it."
Sue blinked.
"What else could I do, if there aren't any men?"
Mrs. Wentz's cheeks turned a mottled scarlet.
"Nothing, let us hope," she said. "But-occasionally we do have girls who are unsuccessful in coping with their drives. Sometimes they-sometimes they attempt to find substitutions for the objects of their desire. Do you understand what I mean?"
Sue puzzled, shook her head.
"What kind of substitutes could they find?"
Mrs. Wentz let out a long, sad breath at the necessity of having to put it in plain words.
"Sometimes, my dear, lacking men, they turn their attentions to members of their own sex."
Sue's mouth dropped open.
"What?"
"I mean that we have had girls here who have tried to engage in unwholesome practices with other girls. That is something which we absolutely will not tolerate."
Sue still could not comprehend. This was something omitted in her brief, gaudy education with Ray and BUI. She said:
"How in the world could one girl do that to another?"
Mrs. Wentz shifted uneasily in her chair.
"Never mind, dear," she said quickly. "We shall let your naivete be your protection. But if any other inmate-I mean guest-should try to do anything to you which you consider strange, I shall expect you to report it immediately."
Sue did not answer. She was thinking hard, trying to imagine how two women could possibly-she could not figure it out. It did not make sense. She wished Mrs. Wentz hadn't mentioned it. Just a moment before, she had been inert, her body bereft of passion, ready to begin the hard work that would atone for ah the trouble and tragedy she had caused. But now she was full of curiosity, and as she thought about it, she felt a warm glow begin to suffuse her body. She had resigned herself to the fact that there would be no sex in here. Now she had just found out that there was the possibility that there could be. She, too, shifted uneasily in her chair.
Mrs. Wentz pushed a button on her desk.
"Now," she said, apparently grateful that the interview was over, "the matron will show you to your room, introduce you to your roommate, and brief you in detail on your rules and regulations. If you observe all of them scrupulously, I'm sure you will find your stay here very pleasant."
* * *
Miss Bertram, the matron, had a face like a claw hammer and a figure like its handle. There was none of Mrs. Wentz's soft, embarrassed cordiality about her as she led Sue down a long corridor lined with doors. She took a key ring from her belt, stopped in front of one of the doors and opened it.
"Six-oh-two. This is your room, dearie. And you'd better be in it when you're supposed to be, understand?"
Sue nodded, but within, her determination to be the ideal inmate was growing smaller and smaller, eroded by the instant dislike and resentment of Miss Bertram which had flared in her. Miss Bertram was challenging in attitude, and seemed to expect her challenges to be met.
But Sue said nothing as she went ahead of the matron into the narrow room. Her eyes took in the furnishings briefly. Two cots, a dresser, and two chairs. That was all. Well, it was no more Spartan than her room at Uncle Millard's. It would do.
She saw, too, the girl lying on one of the cots. She sat up quickly as the door swung inward.
"This is your roommate," the matron said, in an icy tone which implied dislike. "This is Miss Lucy Harris. Miss Harris, Miss Stevens will share your room."
The girl called Miss Harris was perhaps a year older than Sue, but she was generations older in poise and manner. She stood up. She was much taller than Sue, with the bony figure of a high-fashion model. And she had a model's bony face as well beneath golden hair drawn back in a pony tail. Sue saw the points of the small breasts jutting at the plain, stripped uniform.
"Hi," said Lucy. "Glad to have company." Her eyes flicked to the matron. "Has old Hammerhead here been giving you the law and the commandments?"
"That will be enough, Lucy," Miss Bertram rapped out.
Apparently satisfied with the rise she'd gotten, Lucy relaxed a little.
"Come in," she said to Sue.
Miss Bertram stood there a moment, gaunt and forbidding, jingling the ring of keys.
"I'm not sure," she murmured, as if thinking aloud, "whether Miss Harris will be a satisfactory roommate for you or not, Miss Stevens. But it's the only vacancy we have at present. If you find you don't like her, you let me know, though, and we'll manage something else."
Lucy yawned and stretched lithely, like a long, great cat.
"Don't worry," she murmured, "Miss Stevens and I will get along just fine."
"That's what I'm afraid of," Miss Bertram rapped cryptically. To Sue, she said: "There is your uniform on your bed. Please bathe, dress, and present yourself at room 101 for preliminary testing by Dr. Forsyth, in one half hour. Do you understand?" Sue nodded.
"Say, 'yes ma'am.' " Miss Bertram flared.
Sue felt distaste rising in her.
"Yes ma'am," she said in a flat voice. She was glad when Miss Bertram wheeled and went out, and she was alone with Lucy Harris.
The tall girl sat back down on the bed, her eyes running up and down Sue's figure with strange appraisal.
"Well," she said. "You look a hell of a lot better than the last roommate I had. My last one was shaped like a hippo, and I think she must have dipped snuff before she came here."
Sue smiled.
"I never dipped snuff in my life," she said.
"No," said Lucy. "But with a body like that, I'll bet you've done plenty of other things."
Sue, already slipping her dress over her head, paused.
"Maybe," she said at last, and then she was naked. Lucy let out a low whistle.
"Gee whiz," she murmured. "If I had a pair like that, I'd go naked to the waist all the time. Don't you even need a bra?"
"Not so far," Sue said.
Lucy stood up.
"The shower's in there." She pointed to a narrow door in the side wall. Her eyes had a glint in them that, thought Sue, was more than ordinary appreciation and admiration of another woman's body. For just an instant she thought of the eyes of Ray when he had seen her naked. She felt a sudden, pleasing warmth on the insides of her legs, and in her breasts. Deliberately, but without knowing why, she hesitated a moment before turning to the shower room door, standing tall and poised so that Lucy could look at her. Then, almost tauntingly, she turned away and entered the shower.
* * *
Dr. Forsyth waited a little impatiently in the seclusion of room 101. It was furnished, with a long conference table, several chairs, and a big leather sofa which he had requested be installed for those cases needing intensive therapy. He was most anxious to see his new arrival. The last two he'd interviewed had turned out to be awful duds. There hadn't really been a totally satisfactory new girl since Lucy Harris had been checked in.
Dr. Forsyth leaned back in his chair. He was a tall, well-built, impeccable man in his early forties. His eyes, behind the glasses, which he wore more to give himself a professional air than because of any need, were very keen, his nose was straight and patrician. He looked austere, until one scrutinized his mouth closely. His mouth was full and sensual. It immediately betrayed the image he worked so hard to construct and maintain.
Forsyth's mouth twisted in a wry little grin. He was considered a public benefactor because he donated so much of his extremely valuable time to the Home. But he had his reasons. Where else could a man, who liked young and uninhibited girls, find such a clutch of them?
Forsyth was under no illusions about himself. He was, he knew, a very competent psychiatrist, and that was why he could not fool himself. He was sick, and some day his sickness would blow his career up in his face. It was inevitable and he knew it, but there was nothing he could do to restrain himself. When these new girls came to him for interviews, he had to explore, ruthlessly, their sexual inclinations. And those that he found attractive and willing, he had to possess.
He had a very good thing going here, a very good thing indeed. Few inmates completed their stay at the Home without at least a quarter hour on that big, leather sofa. And while that was spent being interviewed in depth, the interview was entirely physical.
But there had not been a new girl in several weeks, and it was the newness that appealed to him. Thus he waited with the expectancy of a lover, for his interview with Sue Stevens. He hoped that she would be as attractive and amoral as the dossier on her made her sound.
Then he goggled at the girl who stood there before him hesitantly.
She had dark brown hair, and a complexion as fine as the cream that went with strawberries. Her face was beautiful: large, gray eyes and full, pouting, wet looking lips. And her body-Dr. Forsyth felt his mouth grow dry and his body throb as his eyes moved down over her body. The large breasts jutted and strained against the twill fabric. The nipped-in waist, the sloping, sensual curve of hip, the fine, long, extraordinary long legs beneath the short, functional skirt; he could not help but feel a twitch of impatience, a shudder of pure lust.
"You," he said, trying hard to keep his manner cool, "must be Miss Stevens. Come in, dear."
Oh, he was thinking, you're what I've been waiting for, hoping for. You're exactly what I want.
"Please sit down," he told her.
Without a word, she sat. He liked that. She was obedient and susceptible to suggestion. So many of the girls were in rebellion against any kind of authority. They were the dangerous kind. You could make love to them with the greatest intensity, and as soon as it was over they would blow the whistle on you. He tried to avoid that kind, but he knew that some day one of them would blow his career sky high.
"I'm Dr. Forsyth," he said, going into his automatic welcoming spiel. "I'm here to help you. You understand that, don't you?"
She nodded, and his heart thudded as even that motion sent visible vibration through her breasts.
"Now in order to do that," the Doctor went on, "I must find out all about you. You understand that, don't you? I must find out not only what you want me to know, but even the things which you definitely want to keep from me. I must learn all about your personality. You understand?"
"I guess so," she said without much conviction, and he knew she did not.
The doctor explained to her that he would ask her questions to which she must answer, truthfully.
Sue nodded again, more confusion evident in her eyes now.
"Very well. Let's see. Sue Stevens, age 18. You ran away from home with a man who was wanted by the police. But first you were caught in a loft with him by your uncle, with whom you lived. Then an unfortunate accident ensued. No charges were filed against you, but in order to keep you from pursuing a life of delinquency, you were, with your own consent, sent here."
"I didn't have any place else to go," Sue said.
"You have a high school education, and you list among your abilities tractor driving?"
"I worked on my uncle's farm. I had to do a man's work."
"And you were alone on the farm with your uncle?"
"Yes sir."
"And how old was your uncle?"
"Real old. Older than you."
"Nobody else lived with you?"
"My aunt died after I came to five with them," Sue said.
"And your uncle did not remarry?"
"No."
"Did your uncle ever make a sexual pass at you?"
"At me? I'm sure it never entered his mind," Sue said with some surprise.
"Very likely not. You are a very attractive girl, Sue. You know that, don't you?"
"I'm all right," she said. "But Uncle Millard-"
"All right, so he didn't. But if he had," Dr. Forsyth looked at her keenly, "what would you have done?"
"That's a terrible question to ask."
"I must ask this if I'm to help you. And you must answer."
"I used to wish he would." Sue fidgeted on her seat.
"Why? Was he attractive?"
"No. It's just that sometimes I wanted a man so bad."
Forsyth congratulated himself. Strong heterosexual urge. What a waste it would have been if a girl like this had proved to be a lesbian.
"Let's see now, Sue, have you ever masturbated?"
Her mouth dropped open, her face went red. "I-I-yes."
"Now, Sue. My next question is going to be hard to answer, but please answer truthfully," Dr. Forsyth said. "Have you ever put a man's penis in your mouth?"
"Yes," Sue said, without much embarrassment now.
"With how many men?"
"Both men."
"You know, don't you, that such an act is classified as perversion?"
"No." She was getting used to his bluntness now, more willing to talk. "No. I didn't know much about sex. I just thought it was natural."
"And you liked it?"
She looked at him defiantly.
"Of course I liked it. Do you think I would have done it if I hadn't?"
"If you didn't know much of sex, where did you get the idea?"
"I'm from a farm, remember?" She looked at him with arched eyebrows. "I used to watch the animals do the same thing."
Things were going great, thought Forsyth. Now, if she stayed in this attitude, she'd be ripe, then she would be ready.
"One more question, Sue, and then we will stop for the day." Dr. Forsyth looked at his notes. "Did you ever touch the animals' sexual organs?"
"Just once," Sue said, looking into the doctor's eye. "We had a stallion on the farm and once I saw him all hot, his penis hanging down a foot from his belly. I got under him and touched it. It was so big, my fingers did not fit around it," she related, thinking back to the day when she was sixteen. Just thinking about it caused the warm glow in her groin.
"It got larger when I played with it. I raised my dress to my waist and sat on the ground and masturbated while I played. I had seen a mare lick that great prick once and wondered what it was like. It was hanging in my face. My finger was going so fast inside my pussy, and I got hotter and hotter. I pushed my face close to the end of that great prick and saw the hole in the end as large as a half dollar. I put my tongue to it and tasted the salty foam on it. I liked the taste and tried to get the head into my mouth, but it was too large. Instead I covered the head with my lips and tongued the hole. My tongue fit up into it nicely and I pushed it in far as it would go. I fucked my tongue into it faster than my finger was going into my pussy. When I felt myself coming, the horse came at the same time. He gushed into my mouth until it overflowed. But I did not stop trying to suck him. I tried to keep my tongue in the hole, but the pressure of his coming almost knocked me flat on my back. He came all over my face, blinding me. But I loved that salty taste and tried to put my mouth back on the hole. It was impossible. But soon he slowed until his come was just dribbling out. Then I put my mouth against the hole and drank the rest of his come. It was so white and hot. It filled my belly. After he finished coming, I licked his big, red cock until I had it dry. I was still hot and when it drew back into his belly, I tried to push my face after it. I even wiped his come from my face and clothes with my hand and licked that dry. Is that what you want to hear, Doctor?" Sue said hotly.
"That will be all for today, Sue." He smiled. "But I'll see you at the same time next week."
"You going to ask me any more dirty questions?"
"I'll do whatever is indicated at the time." He stood up and saw her to the door. "Just have confidence in me, my child. That's all. Just have confidence."
IV
She lay in darkness on that narrow bed, the voluminous flannel nightgown which she had been issued doubled up under her. Her eyes were closed in a half-drowse of sleep. Absently, beneath the cover, her hands were moving, stroking the smoothness of her belly, the soft flesh of the insides of her legs, just as she had done so frequently in the Spartan bedroom at Uncle Millard's.
That interview with the doctor had upset her. All those questions, all about sex, and that light, shining in his eyes behind those glasses. Instinctively, she knew what that light meant. He wanted her. But he had been afraid to ask her today.
She sighed, trying hard to yield herself to slumber. But then, on the cot across the room, she heard Lucy toss and twist. Her even breathing suddenly fractured itself and Lucy cried out:
"Let go of me. Let go of me. Don't you understand? Let me go."
Full of sudden concern, Sue was out of bed instantly and across the room. Lucy twisted on the cot as if in the clutches of Satan himself. Her hands flailed the air. Her pelvis rose and dropped.
"It's rape!" she cried. "Don't you understand? It's rape!"
Sue's arms went out compassionately, cradling the girl.
"Lucy," she said urgently, trying to break through the nightmare. "Lucy, it's all right. Wake up. Wake up."
Lucy twisted, bringing up her knees. She had kicked off the covers. Her nightgown had worked up and clotted under her breasts. Moonlight streaming in the window struck gleams from the writhing white flesh of the rest of her body.
But Lucy's hand suddenly knotted itself in Sue's hair. Without awakening, she said fiercely, intensely:
"Kiss me, damn it. Don't rape me. Kiss my pussy." And she pushed Sue's face down into the soft warmth of her belly before Sue knew what was happening or could resist.
Lucy let out a sigh. Her hand dropped away from Sue's head. She lay very still. It was as if the contact of flesh against flesh was what she had been both fighting and seeking in the nightmare that had been hers.
Sue could feel the pounding of the girl's life in the soft flesh beneath her nose and lips. Lucy's skin was very smooth, like warm velvet. There was a subtle, delicate perfume to it.
But not Sue. She was surprised to find her own breath coming in stertorous, excited gasps, and that she could still feel the warmth of Lucy's ass against her pussy, and the place on the inside of her palm where that rising nipple and jutted. She ran her hand over her own body. It was moistly excited.
Sue closed her eyes. This was getting off to a bad start. A very bad start indeed. This was very, very wrong.
She must forget the excitement the contact had engendered in her, and she must go to sleep. Reveille and roll-call would come very early tomorrow morning.
She lay quietly, trying to think of other things to take her mind off her excitement: Uncle Millard- the doctor had wanted to know if Uncle Millard had ever tried to fuck her. How she wished now her uncle had tried. She wished that she'd set out to seduce him herself. Because if only he had been willing, she would have been happy to accommodate him. Thus, they could have quenched their fires with each other and there would have been no need for any Ray. Uncle Millard would still have been alive. Damn Uncle Millard! Why had he been so inhumanly straight-laced when a little honest fucking would have saved his life and her future.
Then she found herself imagining what it would have been like with him, and that was no good at all. It only intensified the excitement that already churned within her. She grunted a word she'd heard Ray use and whipped restlessly to her side, pounding the pillow into shape.
That was when Lucy's voice came softly, blurrily, out of the darkness.
"Sue?"
She hesitated a moment before answering.
"Sue," Lucy's voice came again, questioningly. "Sue? Are you awake?"
"Yes," she murmured at last.
"I had an awful nightmare," Lucy whispered. "God, it was terrible. At least at first. It got better after a while."
"That's good," Sue said.
"Gee. I'm still shaking, though, and cold. Cold all over."
"Pull the cover over you."
"I already have. And I'm still cold."
Sue rolled over on her back. "What is it?"
"Nothing, I guess," Lucy said, a tinge of shyness in her voice.
Sue took a deep breath. "I suppose I could come get in bed with you. Try to warm you up."
"Would you do that for me?" Lucy sounded flattered, impressed. Sue slid out of bed and crossed the room on bare feet. She got into Lucy's bed. As she did so, the nightgown rode high again. She stiffened.
"No wonder you're cold," she murmured. "Your nightgown's all pulled up."
Lucy's flesh was naked against hers. And, truly enough, it was cool and goose-pimpled.
"The damn thing keeps riding up," Lucy said. But she made no effort to pull it down.
Instinctively, Sue slipped an arm under Lucy's head. The other girl rolled and pillowed her face on the softness of Sue's breasts. Even through the flannel that covered her breasts, Sue could feel the warmth of Lucy's breathing. One of Lucy's legs was automatically thrown across her body, pressing down, the knee right on Sue's pussy, nudging the clitoris.
Lucy snuggled her head comfortably between Sue's breasts.
"I'm warmer now," she said. "You went to see old Forsyth today, didn't you?"
"Yes."
"Did he ask you all kinds of questions? I mean, about what you like to do and that?"
"Yes," Sue said.
"Next time," Lucy said, "he'll take you on that big leather couch of his and fuck the hell out of you."
Sue stiffened. "What are you talking about?"
"Oh, he does it to me every time he interviews me. It's all right. He's not bad, and it's about the only way you can keep from going crazy in a place like this." She snuggled her face deeper. "But he hasn't had me down there in two weeks now." She rubbed her cheek against Sue's right breast, and the girl felt her nipples begin to tauten. "I guess that's why I had the nightmare, about somebody raping me."
Sue swallowed hard. "Lucy ..."
"Yeah?"
"Mrs. Wentz-today, she said that some of the girls would try to -"
"Yeah."
Sue had to fight to force out the words. "I've been thinking about it all day. What did she mean? How-?"
Lucy chuckled and stirred a feather of breath against Sue's breasts.
"Curiosity's aroused, huh? Well, sure. It happens."
"Have you-have you ever done it?"
Lucy chuckled again. "Listen, kid, if there's one thing I like it's my recreation in bed. The lack of a man isn't going to keep me from getting it-regardless of the rules of this cruddy place." Her leg, the knee pressing against Sue's clitoris moved slightly. Just that motion, along with Lucy's breath on her breasts and the warmth of Lucy's naked body against hers, was enough to send veins of warmth shooting through Sue's flesh. "You're sweet," she said. "You were sweet to come get in bed with me, to warm me up. You were sweet to come hold me like you did a little while ago, too. And to kiss my belly like that."
Sue felt blood burning in her cheeks. "I thought you were asleep!"
"And you'd never touched another woman's breasts and it seemed like a good time to satisfy your curiosity?"
Sue did not answer.
Then she felt Lucy's fingers, light as the brush of bird's wings, trailing down her naked stomach.
"I wasn't asleep," Lucy said. "Not after you put your arm around me, I wasn't."
"Wait," said Sue. "Wait, don't do that."
"You wanted to know, didn't you?" asked Lucy. "You wanted to know? And if you learn, think of the fun we can have. Think of how it'll keep this place from being a drag." Her hand slid lower.
Now Sue knew that she should pull loose, retreat to her own bed. Her curiosity had already got her in enough trouble as it was. But the uncaged thing was prowling again within her. It was awakened by Lucy's suddenly thrusting hand.
Sue closed her eyes. It was too late, now. She felt the sudden, adept, knowing fingers as they reached her pussy. Sue arched her body, her legs moved apart.
Lucy said hungrily:
"I'll teach you. Don't worry. I'll teach you." And then Sue felt her nightgown being pulled the rest of the way up.
Lips fastened themselves on her breasts. Lips tugged and pulled at her nipples; a tongue made traceries across the soft flesh. Sue moaned, and those lips closed on her own wet lips. She felt Lucy's tongue probe into her mouth, seeking each crevice. Lucy's tongue tasted sweet and Sue gently sucked on it, while those devilishly smart and damnably wonderful fingers kept on working in and out of her pussy.
Then Lucy's lips were moving all over her. Lucy was kissing her on the nose and eyes and on the ear lobes. Lucy's tongue was a flickering excitement within her ear, then moving down her throat and back to her breasts.
"Oh," Sue moaned. "Oh, this is fine."
Lucy did not answer. She had withdrawn her hand. She was on her knees between Sue's legs, her head lowering down to the inviting, wet pussy. Sue arched her hips up to meet the thrusting tongue. When she felt the tongue contact her clitoris, she moaned aloud. That wonderful tongue was working around and around. Suddenly it thrust into her vagina, far as it could go. Sue grabbed Lucy's head and pressed it to her.
It was a delicate but slowly building pleasure beyond anything Sue had known with the two men. Expertly, Lucy drew her up and out of herself, so that she felt as if she were floating. She was aware of Lucy's hand reaching up to hold and squeeze her breast as hard as they could. She was aware of the lapping and sucking noises Lucy was making. But most of all she was aware of the excruciating pleasure.
It was a pleasure that demanded total participation. Holding Lucy's head in place with one hand, Sue began to twist. She turned in the bed until she had Lucy's legs spread with that lovely golden pussy above her face. Sue looked at it and wet her lips. It looked so delicious. Lucy lowered her ass until her pussy was an inch from Sue's face. Sue tenderly brushed the gold hair with her tongue, raking it along the erect clitoris, past the vagina and ran it around Lucy's rose-bud of an asshole. She brought her tongue back to the clitoris and licked as Lucy was licking hers. She placed one hand between their bodies and took hold of Lucy's breast. The other hand she placed on one cheek of Lucy's ass, running her middle finger over the asshole. She watched, still licking the wet pussy, as her finger skid into the small opening. Lucy wiggled her ass in ecstasy. Sue felt herself coming. Her muscles in her pussy contracted as she squirted jet after jet of come into Lucy's mouth. Then she felt Lucy press down on her mouth hard and tasted the hot, steamy, creamy, white fluid as it shot into her mouth and down her throat, the ass tightening around her finger with each squirting. Sue sucked until Lucy's pussy was dry. Lucy rolled from Sue with a sigh and wrapped her arms around Sue's hips and ass, pressing her face close between the legs. Soon both were asleep.
* * *
At nineteen, Lucy Harris had already put a checkered career behind her. Her parents were well-to-do: her father a substantial leather-goods manufacturer in the Middle West. They were indulgent parents, proud of the patrician good looks of their daughter. Whatever she desired, they gave to her.
Lucy rewarded them by staying out of trouble and making excellent grades in high school.
Until the episode of William.
William was a good-natured, ugly, keen-minded boy from the other side of the tracks in Lucy's middling-sized home town. His parents were bums, true enough, but there was a spark in William that would not be extinguished. He proved it by winning a scholarship to the state university. It was during his first summer vacation that Lucy met him, and had fallen hopelessly in love with him.
She loved everything about him. The ugliness was so complete that it was somehow wholesome. The stammering inarticulateness that masked a constantly racing mind. True, to one who did not love him as Lucy did, he was a singularly unprepossessing sort of young man, but that was not reason for her parents to fly off the handle immediately when she told them that, once she'd finished high school, she intended to marry William.
They were horrified. She would not, they responded. Why, she could have her choice of any of the well-bred handsome young men of the town's best families. She should not and must not throw her life away on a homely, stammering nobody from down the slums.
Lucy was shocked. This was her first desire that had ever been denied. Nothing in her past life had prepared her for the denial. She had never fought her parents before, but she fought them now. She fought them by persuading William, who was as hopelessly enamored of her as she of him, to elope with her. They ran away in the night, very romantically, and were married by a justice of the peace.
Her father caught up with them before the marriage could be consummated and dragged her home.
Dazed, William went back to college, and she never heard from him again.
Lucy was dazed too, but not for long. After the fog of shock wore off, she began to be angry. Not with a fierce, outward, screaming and crying anger, but with a rage that burned inside her all the time. It was contained, but always at full, blue-white heat.
And she got her revenge.
She got her revenge by going to bed with any and everybody who seemed to show the least sign of wanting her. And by using her body to drag her own reputation through the dirt and shame, and to humiliate her parents.
They sent her to boarding schools. Inevitably she was thrown out, always involved in a scandal with a roommate.
They had her psychoanalyzed. She seduced the analyst.
At last, in desperation, they put her in the present Home. Here, theoretically, she would be rehabilitated.
But by that time, she was past rehabilitation. The flame of anger was part of her being. It was an anger that had expanded to take in not only her parents, but all authority. Too, it made a good excuse for an habitual, clamoring sensuality of body. She could indulge that sensuality and get revenge on her parents simultaneously.
So, already wise in the ways of sex, she could teach Sue Stevens much. But there were so many other things she could teach Sue as well. And did.
Sue had never danced. In the privacy of their room, humming in her ear, Lucy taught her how. She made a gratifyingly sensual ceremony of the teaching; body rubbing against body, teeth nipping ear lobes.
And having nothing to demonstrate with, and only verbally-how to use makeup, how to arrange her hair, and how to make the most of that superb body of hers. Table manners, and how to make small talk with a man, which, in circles more complicated than those of Ray, was occasionally necessary before the invitation to bed ensued.
Sue learned a great deal from Lucy, and they became fast friends. Even, in that unnatural environment, lovers.
* * *
It was, a month later, her fourth interview with Dr. Forsyth.
As she entered room 101 and closed the door behind her, she was no longer the scared country girl being sucked into the mysterious vortex of psychiatry. She was a woman-a woman who knew what she wanted.
"Ah, my dear," said Dr. Forsyth, rising from behind a table.
Sue turned and twisted the latch on the door. Then she faced the doctor and smiled at him. Her fingers unloosened the belt of her twill uniform.
Still saying nothing, she undressed for the doctor. She loosened the buttons at the back of the uniform and let it open and drop around her feet. Then she stepped out of it. Deliberately, she had worn nothing under it.
She had allowed him to fuck her on the second visit. Then she and Lucy evolved the plan. She made sure the doctor enjoyed himself on the third session.
Now, for the fourth time in his office, she would put the plan to work.
She smiled, a slow, carefully planned smile. It was utterly mysterious and seductive. She moved toward him, still not speaking, and put her hands under her breasts, lifting their silken and considerable weight upward and outward, proffering the hard, red tips of them to him.
The doctor came to her, trembling, unable to restrain himself, his hands on his clothing.
After he was naked, he bore her to the couch, his greedy lips slavering over the softness of her breasts. His body, as eager as his mouth, was thrusting and lunging.
The doctor raised his mouth from her breasts and held his penis in his hand, holding it toward her face.
"Suck it. Please, suck it." He was trembling with passion.
Sue took it into her mouth and sucked in until she had all of it deep in her throat. She sucked until she thought he would come, then pulled her mouth away.
"Fuck me. Put it in my pussy. Shove it in hard, balls and all," Sue groaned.
The doctor stood between her long legs and guided his hot shaft into the soft, moist pussy. He lunged a few times and then the moment came. When the doctor shot off into her filled cavity, wracked by the intensity of his fulfillment, and weakened by it, Sue clamped her legs around his waist tightly.
Her arms locked about his neck, pressing his grateful face down into the lushness of her breasts, she said:
"Now. Either you do what I want you to, or I'll scream. Loud, and over and over again, at the top of my lungs."
A shudder that was not passion wracked Forsyth. He said:
"What?" His voice was muffled by the tender flesh of her breasts.
She repeated herself and tightened her various grips on him. Not for nothing had she done a man's work on the farm. There was muscle under the velvety smoothness of her skin.
"You wouldn't dare," the helpless psychiatrist said, knowing with a sick coldness in his belly that she would. Knowing too, that it had come at last- the professional disaster into which his lusts had led him.
"Wouldn't I?" She made sure that, with his ear against all that soft flesh, he could hear the air being sucked into her lungs and feel the tensing of her diaphragm.
She could almost hear the racing of his brain, the calculation of his chances. Of course he could break loose from her eventually. But not in time to be dressed, and be able to deny her charges. Mrs. Wentz's office was just across the hall, and Mrs. Wentz would be charging in here like a maddened cow. Mrs. Wentz was not the type to take lightly the diddling of her charges by the staff psychiatrist. When his muscles relaxed, Sue knew she had won, but she did not loosen her grip.
"What do you want?" His voice was resigned.
"I want to get out of here," Sue said. "I want you to recommend that I be discharged, and I want you to see that Mrs. Wentz finds me a job. And I want Lucy Harris to come too, without her parents knowing anything about it."
"It's impossible," the desperate psychiatrist said. "Let me go. It's impossible."
"I think I'll scream now," said Sue in a conversational tone.
"Wait." Forsyth's voice trembled. "Wait a minute. Don't do anything hasty."
"Me and Lucy," said Sue. "I mean, Lucy and I. Both released on your recommendation. And Mrs. Wentz finds us jobs."
"I don't see how I can-"
"Look harder."
He wailed.
"No."
She grinned. "No?"
He sighed hopelessly. She became businesslike.
"Mrs. Wentz respects you. And we're in here at her discretion. You can think of a way. Or do you want me to scream? Do you know what will happen if I scream? Mrs. Wentz will run up to the door and find it locked. She'll pound on it. I'll fight you until then. Then I'll turn you lose and run to unlock the door. Mrs. Wentz will find me and you, naked. What do they do to psychiatrists whom they find naked?"
"Damn you," Forsyth said bitterly. "You witch. Damn you to hell."
"Well?" asked Sue unperturbed.
"I'll think of something," the doctor said wearily and slumped against her.
V
There are certain jobs in industry at which female technicians excel. These are the jobs requiring maximum manual dexterity in the handling of minuscule parts. They have an extremely high boredom factor as a result of repeating the same process over and over again, day after staggering day. It all but sends the worker into a case of shrieking insanity, or a fit of mumbling depression. There were a number of jobs like this at the Junction City plant of Missile Components, Inc. It was here that the obedient Dr. Forsyth saw that Mrs. Wentz found them jobs.
What Sue and Lucy had to do was this: they sat at a long table, through the center of which ran a conveyer belt. There were other women around them. The conveyer belt carried small tapped pieces of metal. As these descended on Sue and Lucy and the other women, they seized them, quickly inserted tiny screws in them from a bin before them, and put the pieces back on the conveyor.
They never did find where the pieces came from, what they were used for, or where they went after the conveyor dragged them away. It did not matter. All that mattered was that no tapped piece leave their station without a tiny screw in it.
"I always did want to screw for a living," Lucy commented, but to Sue, after the breadth and freedom of helping her Uncle Millard work the farm, it seemed rather foolish, useless, and confusing work. But, because the company was on a cost-plus basis, they were pretty well paid for it, and it took absolutely no conscious thought at all.
"It beats the Mary Chitwood Home, anyway," Lucy told Sue as they entered the apartment they had rented, one night after their shift was over. Sue had been complaining about the insane repetition of it.
"I don't know whether it does or not." Sue sat down on the sofa and kicked off her shoes. "It seems an awfully silly way for a grown woman to make a living. Just sitting there doing the same thing over and over again, day in and day out."
Her Uncle Millard would not have known Sue now. She had used most of her earnings from the past three months she'd worked at the plant to buy clothes. Because she had been repressed for so long, her clothes tended to run to the flamboyant. Her red dress fitted her like a second skin, modeling every jut and curve of her magnificent body. Her shoes had ultra high heels, on which she was slowly learning to walk with grace. She had found that those high heels made her buttocks move in an intriguing fashion when she walked. They were an important factor in evoking the whistles of men. There had been several in the apartment recently, mostly workers at the plant.
"Silly or not, it pays well, and there are a lot of men there." Lucy sat down beside her, also kicking off her shoes. "You don't want to forget all those men. They're what you might call a fringe benefit."
"Yes," said Sue, "I suppose so. But I don't know-the whole place gets on my nerves."
Lucy smiled with sympathy. "What you need is a martini. That batch I mixed last night is still in the refrigerator. I'll be back with a couple in a minute."
While she was gone, Sue relaxed on the sofa. Maybe Lucy was right, maybe she was just being persnickety. Obviously, compared to life on Uncle Millard's farm, she had it made. She was earning a fair living for the first time. She had money to spend. There were men who were willing to spend their own money on her, and from whom she could obtain a temporary satiation of that wild thing's desire when it prowled within her. She had new and beautiful clothes. She could wear as much, or as little, makeup as she pleased. She should have been in seventh heaven, but somehow, she wasn't.
Somewhere, something was wrong.
She took the martini Lucy brought her and drank it practicedly. She was very good at drinking martinis now. Lucy had been a good teacher. She did not gulp, she sipped.
"It still bugs me," she said after awhile.
"What?" Lucy looked surprised, as if she'd lost the thread of the conversation.
"Just sitting there in that big room all day sticking screws into holes. It's all right for awhile, but my God-to think of doing it for years and years ..."
"Who says we're going to do it for years and years?" Lucy asked. "I don't know about you, but I've got other plans."
"What kind of plans?" Sue set down her martini.
Lucy ran her hands down over her breasts. "Oh, maybe Europe, Paris, Madrid, Bonn, Basel, London
Sue laughed shortly. "You drank your martini too fast. Or-do you intend to make up with your parents?"
Lucy's face darkened. "Them? I'd see them in hell with their backs broken before I'd do that." The hatred that washed across her features for an instant made Sue shudder. But then Lucy regained her former gaiety. "No," she said. "No, I'll go without them. And I'll really live-"
Sue shook her head. "You're nuts. On what they pay us at Missile Components?"
"Of course not, silly. I'll go with a man. A rich, handsome man, sophisticated and charming ..." Lucy did a silly little pirouette.
"I don't understand. You can't be serious. Where are you going to meet a man like that? All they have at M.C. is dolts who do the same things we do, or engineers so deep in facts and figures that they couldn't go to bed with you without working out the equations for it first. Neither kind appeals to me, except as a temporary thing when I need them."
"I'm not talking about the men at Missile Components. I'm talking about men like movie stars, and playboys, and-and-"
Sue stood up. "You're out of your mind," she grunted. "Where do you think you're going to meet all these wonderful men? Hunched over a table at Missile Components, putting screws in whatever those gadgets are?"
"Nope. I'll meet them where they live. Pursue them in their own haunts, as they say in books. New York, Hollywood, Las Vegas."
"Uh-huh. And just how do you expect to get to those places? And after you're there, what makes you think you'll be noticed?"
"Oh, I'll get there. And when I do, I'll be as well-dressed and as lovely as any girl around. I won't have any trouble finding the kind of men I want."
"But it takes money," Sue said. "And where will you get the money?"
"We can get it." Lucy's face went sober.
"How? Where will we get it?"
"I'm not sure yet. I've got an idea-at least I think it's an idea. But there are a lot of ramifications to be worked out."
"What is it?"
Lucy deliberately looked mysterious. "That I'm not going to tell you-not until ah the details are clear."
"All right." Sue shrugged with lack of interest. Lucy was spouting a pipe dream, that was all. More and more, Sue had begun to see why her parents had found her a problem. She went from the depths to the heights and back again more quickly than any person Sue had ever known.
"Just thinking about it," Lucy said, "has got me all excited. Hasn't it you?"
"No," said Sue. "Because I don't know enough about it yet"
Lucy went to her and threw her arms about her. She pressed her body tightly against Sue's. Her lips were parted. Sue could see the moist pinkness of her tongue.
"Don't worry," Lucy whispered. "You won't be left out. Where I go, you go." Her fingertips caressed the back of Sue's neck. "And right now, I want to get in the bed with you."
* * *
The number and variety of people who work in a big manufacturing plant always breaks down into certain types, particularly the men. Among the men there are the loners, the shy ones, who keep completely to themselves. There are the wolves, whose personalities blossom only when around women, and whose speech, at such times, is always loaded with double-entendre, and whose hands are incurably restless. The glad-handers, the extroverts who know everybody in the plant, men and women alike; they are the kind of people who are always selling punch board chances, or tickets to a benefit raffle, and who are never without a little something of their own going.
Jud Martin and Bernie Hughes fitted neatly into this glad-handed category. Theoretically, they were gyro inspectors. Actually, they were the equivalents of the old time town criers. They circulated everywhere, always bubbling with the latest news. In addition, they were incurable wolves, and Sue's ass had more than one black-and-blue mark put there by the friendly pinching of the two inseparable men.
Sue liked neither of them. Jud Martin was too fat, his mouth was never entirely closed, and behind the constant good humor in his eyes, there was something secret and hidden. It was as if his exuberance were his only defense against the world, and, should it be stripped from him, he would be found naked, and shriveled, and vulnerable.
Bernie Hughes was a different case. He was a little weasel of a man, with long black hair so plastered down with grease that it might have been painted on him, and he wore a thin, black mustache. He did not move, he scuttled. He would come up without warning, pinch and pat, at the same time distracting attention from his hands with an outflow of news and dirty jokes in a high-pitched whine.
But there was no denying they got around. How they kept their jobs and still circulated as they did, no one knew. They seemed to cover the entire plant-not only their own shop building, but all the others as well, not to mention the engineering department. Let a draftsman drop his pencil in the drawing room and Bernie would know about it in the shop before it was retrieved from the floor. Let a welder burn his hand on a piece of hot iron in building Number One, and Jud would have made a joke of it in building Three before the company nurse had finished applying ointment.
The longer she knew them, the more repulsive they both seemed to Sue. That was why she was surprised when Bernie slid up to her one day as she was leaving the washroom and whispered: "Preciate the invitation, kid. You won't be sorry, Old Bernie, he'll make you happy tonight. You just wait."
Sue blinked at him in surprise. Before she could say anything, he had slithered off in another direction, lost in the high-ceilinged vastness of the huge room. Frowning, she sought out Lucy and repeated what Bernie had said.
Lucy nodded. "That's right. I invited them both up to see us tonight. I promised them we'd give them a good time."
Sue fought back her irritation. "That's pretty highhanded, isn't it? Not even consulting me?"
Lucy smiled coldly. "Don't worry. As you'll find out, we need them-both of them."
"Need them? What are you talking about?"
"Listen," she said, "you'll find out tonight. In the meantime, go along with me, will you, please? Help me hand these guys a first class time. It may turn out to be the most important flop in the hay you ever gave anybody."
"Well, the least you could do is tell me what you're driving at."
"When the time's ripe, honey. When the time's ripe." Lucy patted her arm. "In the meantime, will you go along with it? Will you help me? As a favor? It's important, I promise you it is."
Sue stared at her a moment, then nodded.
"All right," she said. "They give me the creeps, but all right."
* * *
Impatient, the men came early. They barged in, their hair plastered with grease and jowls reeking with cheap shaving lotion, while Sue was still soaking in the tub. She heard the clamor of their stale good humor out in the living room, and reached for a towel. Before her hand grasped it, the bathroom door banged open and Bernie slithered in.
His eyes goggled as he stared at her naked figure in the tub.
"God," he breathed in awe. "Oh God, look at the titties."
Sue fought back a sharp anger, a sick disgust. She conquered an impulse to scream and throw the soap at him. But Lucy had said these two men must be humored. These two men must be given a good time. So, instead of snarling, she smiled. It was a lazy, welcoming, deliberately invitational smile.
"You could have knocked," she murmured, climbing out of the tub, "but I suppose it really doesn't matter. I was ready to be dried anyway." She handed him a towel. "Here. You do the honors."
Bernie held the towel as if he didn't know what it was for. He seemed incapable of movement. He just stood there. His eyes shunting up and down the ivory smoothness of her body, lingering on the huge, big-nippled breasts glistening with water, and on her curved and rounded ass.
"Well," said Sue, "haven't you ever dried a woman before?"
"I-no. No, I ain't."
"You might as well learn, then."
Slowly Bernie moved toward her. Gently, hesitantly, he dabbed at her breasts with the towel.
"You'll never get them dry that way," Sue said, tauntingly. "Rub them. Rub them hard."
That seemed to break his trance. He did so, with a right good will. She heard the whistle of his breath through his nostrils, felt his hands kneading and clutching, through the layer of terry. In spite of herself, the ministrations of those hands produced a reaction in her. Warmth grew in her breasts and flowed outward from them, down her body. Her own breathing quickened.
"They're dry," she said thickly at last. "Dry the rest of me."
He moved the towel down over her stomach.
"There, too," she said, straddling her legs and pushing her pelvis out to his rubbing hands.
He was kneeling now.
"Jeez," he kept saying over and over again, as if it were the only word capable of expressing what he felt.
"That's it," Sue said. "Now, the insides of my legs. Rub the towel over my pussy."
Then, as Bernie ran his finger inside her pussy, she said sharply:
"No. Not inside. Keep your fingers out of there. Just dry me."
"But you're such a knockout. Jeez-"
"Just dry me," Sue said firmly. It was fun to tantalize, to torment him. And when she finally gave him complete liberty with her body, he would be that much more appreciative-for some reason that was what Lucy seemed to want.
"Now," Sue said at last. "Now, you can stand up. Hand me the negligee, please."
It was a rose-colored garment, as transparent as glass. She slipped it on without wearing anything beneath it.
"Now," she said. "Let's go join the others."
As she left the bathroom, Bernie trotted along behind her like a hungry dog.
Out in the living room, Lucy was tangled up on the sofa with Jud. She had put on a dress after her bath, but the top was down around her shoulders now, and Jud was slobbering over the white skin thus exposed. The skirt of the dress was up around her waist, and Jud was driving his finger in and out of her dew-covered pussy.
Sue stood over them. "All right, you two," she said sardonically, a little trickle of disgust seeping through her at the cynical animality of the scene. "All right. Break it up. It's time for drinks."
Lucy untangled herself, running one hand through Jud's slicked-down, taffy-colored hair, and pinching the cheeks of his moon-face.
"You heard what the lady said," she breathed. "Let's take a five minute break."
In the kitchen, helping Sue pour drinks from the pitcher of martinis in the refrigerator, she shuddered.
"He's like some kind of blob," she whispered.
"Then why put up with him? What's all the mystery?"
"You'll see. Blob or no blob, I'm going to pull out all the stops with him, and I want you to do the same. Whatever he wants, do it and no questions asked. We've got to get these two guys on the hook."
"I will not. I'll let them fuck me, but nothing else. They make me sick."
"Just this one time. If they want to be sucked, suck them. I promise you won't be sorry."
"I'm beginning to get a little tired of all this mystery."
Lucy patted her ass. "You won't have long to wait. Right after the fucking, we talk business."
* * *
Two martinis around later, Jud slapped his thigh impatiently.
"Goddamnit, I can't stand it any longer. The hell with this sittin' around. I want to fuck."
Bernie wiggled in his chair.
"Me too." He stood up.
Lucy and Sue had been keeping both of them at arm's length letting the fire in them build up. Now Lucy stood up lazily.
"Do you know," she drawled, "I feel exactly the same way. I think we should all go to bed."
Bernie was out of his chair in a moment, his thin hand gripping Sue's arm, his weasel eyes glowing.
"You said it. Which bed you want us to take?"
Lucy smiled.
"We only have one bed," she murmured, "but it's a big one." Bernie looked at her in surprise.
"All four, in one bed?"
"Why not?" Lucy patted her hair. "It'll make it so much more convenient when we ... change partners."
Bernie swallowed hard. "Oh boy," he said.
The light was on in the bedroom, and nobody bothered to turn it off. Sue followed Lucy unquestioningly. As Lucy slipped the dress over her head and stood there, slender, lovely and naked, Sue shrugged out of the negligee to let her own lush charms stand in striking contrast. Then, fighting down a twinge of repugnance, Sue lay down on the bed beside Lucy.
The two men raced to discard their own clothing. When Jud was naked, the two girls saw his penis, surrounded by sparse, straw colored hair. Even with erection, it was not much larger than a fat cigar, and only six inches long. He resembled a small boy. His testicles were of comparable size. Bernie's penis, when it slipped from his shorts, was of average size in length, but slim as a broom handle. The black hair, growing down his chest to meet at his joined legs, lushly covered his extremely large testicles. They were the largest Sue or Lucy had ever seen.
"Honey, you look as if you can come a bucket-full," Lucy said.
The two men literally leaped at them. Bernie lay beside Sue and his hands started working over her body as if he were afraid she would get away. His lips closed over one large pink tipped nipple and he sucked and chewed with vigor. Jud lay between the two girls on his back with Lucy leaning over his chest, tongue thrust deep into his mouth. Jud ran his hand over her firm, rounded ass, pulling the cheeks apart, squeezing brutally.
Bernie's fingers were darting into Sue's warming pussy, bringing the lubricating juices. She moved her hand down to that fantastically slim penis and closed her fingers around the length of it. Bernie started his ass in a fucking motion, sliding his prick in and out of her fingers. Sue warmed swiftly and reached for the small organ of Jud. Her fingers met the hand of Lucy, gentle squeezing the testicles. Sue massaged both pricks, moaning to the movements of the fingers inside her cunt. Eyes closed, she shut the two men from her mind, imagining handsome movie stars instead.
Feeling movement by Jud and Lucy, she opened her eyes and saw Lucy straddling Jud, legs spread, on her knees. As Lucy lowered her pussy down to the tip of the small prick, Sue held on to it and guided it in the opening. Lucy groaned as it slid up into her wet, hot cunt. When the two bodies met, Sue placed her hand in a position so she could finger the clitoris of her friend as she fucked up and down on the abnormally small appendage. Jud placed his hands on the two swinging, small breasts above his face and closed his eyes in ecstasy.
Bernie still fucked in and out of her hand, but his movements were getting more frantic, his lips eating on one breast and then the other. Both men went rigid at the same time, and Sue felt the hot come running out of Lucy's pussy stickly. In her other hand she felt the steamy, white fluid fill her hand as Bernie continued his screwing motions. The come splashed her rounded hip, covering her with the foamy stuff.
The two men relaxed with a sigh. Lucy crawled off Jud and, still on her hands and knees, smiled at the three beside her. Seeing the come filling Sue's hand and running over her hip, she crawled across Jud and placed herself on hands and knees, lowering her face to the still held, now soft phallus. With her tongue she licked the tip and sides, lapping up the cooling fluid. Then, this done, she licked the hand and hip of Sue, cleaning her of the offending stuff.
Seeing Lucy do this, Sue, not wanting to miss the salty taste of the come that she loved so well, sat up and leaned down over the soft, almost hidden penis of Jud and began licking the come from his balls and hair. The juice had cooled until no heat was left, but Sue did not care. She loved it just as well.
This done, the two men rose from the bed and looked at the two women lying side by side.
"Jeez-" Bernie whispered.
"You two really like it, don't you?" Jud said, a smile on his round face, making him look like the village idiot.
Turning, he left the bedroom and returned with the martinis.
"I'd like to see you two suck each other," he stated, not smiling this time. In fact, his face had a dangerous look on it.
"Me, too," echoed Bernie.
Without saying a word, the two still heated girls turned to each other. Putting their arms around each other's waist, tongues met and rubbed. The two men stood over the bed so as not to miss anything. Lucy rolled on top of Sue and pressed her pelvis down on her. Sue pressed back. With rolling ass, clitoris pressed to clitoris, the two girls tongued each red mouth.
Then with a small cry, Lucy turned until her face was above the moist cunt hairs of her friend. Spreading her legs and pulling her knees under her, she presented her gaping, red pussy to the face of Sue. As Sue raised her head to the inviting morsel, she spread her legs to the darting tongue of Lucy.
Sue felt her body being pulled around until her feet fell off the bed. Her ass hanging over, her legs were pulled up and ankles placed on someone's shoulders. Then she saw the slim prick of Bernie above her face. She watched as he tried to press the head into the small, brown hole of Lucy's ass. Lucy did not stop her ministrations on the pussy beneath her, but at the same time moved back, trying to take the object into her rear orifice. At the same time, Sue felt a small, hard thing pressing into her hole beneath the one Lucy was mouthing. Welcoming this added pleasure, she relaxed the ring and felt the small penis slip in. It feels just like a finger, she thought. Then seeing the difficulty Bernie was having above her face, she removed her mouth from the foaming pussy and pulled the stiff prick down to her mouth. Taking the red head between her lips, she tongued and sucked it. After awhile, she released it and seeing that it was sufficiently lubricated with saliva, she guided it with her hand to the small opening once again. Bernie pressed forward. Sue, holding the head at the hole, saw it press in until the head disappeared. Seeing that it was in, she returned to the angry pussy. With a prick in each ass, and a tongue on each pussy, the girls watching the motions of the pricks sliding in and out of the assholes, this brought on a groan from all four people. Then, instantly, come squirting from four different places, they moaned. Sue filled the sucking mouth of Lucy as she herself shot into Sue's mouth. At the same time the two girls felt their bowels filled with the come from the two men.
Instead of lessening, the heat in Sue grew, and she welcomed it. They tried many variations, but there came a time, at last, when the four of them were just an exhausted tangle of flesh, with all desire satiated. Sue found herself emerging from the haze of lust into a cold and revolting reality. Hastily, she dragged herself from beneath the weight of the two men who lay partially across her and partially across Lucy. The other girl moved too.
"Everybody happy?" she asked in a cheerful voice.
The reply of the men was a pair of exhausted sighs.
"Then, let's all get cleaned up. 'Til make a pot of coffee and then, it's time to talk business," Lucy said.
* * *
A few minutes later Sue returned, clad in a flannel robe that was a souvenir of the Chitwood home, one that was thoroughly un-sexy. She sat on the living room sofa with her legs curled under her. The sense of revulsion was growing in her steadily. For the first time since her encounter with Ray, she was doing hard, introspective thinking.
It couldn't go on this way. Not in this wild, profligate manner of gratifying her sensuality with just anyone. Sin, she thought, doing things like this is sinful-you always pay for it, somehow, sometime.
Then she fought down the thought with a cynicism learned from Lucy. What does a roll in the hay amount to? Just good clean fun. Why worry over it?
But that roll in the hay, the first one, the literal one, she knew what that amounted to. It amounted to a dead man, impaled on steel prongs. She shuddered.
It was as if, she thought, that slowly and interiorly, she was splitting in two. One part of her completely sensual, happy, only when there was a body-anybody-to satisfy itself with. But another part warning her solemnly, from the depths of a Puritan heritage, that such sensuality could only lead to disaster.
I've got to think about all this, she told herself seriously. I've got to think hard about it ...
But then Lucy was entering the room with a tray full of coffee, and there was no time to think abstract thoughts. For, it developed, Lucy had something very concrete to discuss.
She sat down beside Sue, and looked at Jud and Bernie, sitting in chairs across the room.
"I want to make some money," she said flatly. "Not just a little money-a lot of it. And so does Sue."
Jud blinked, then laughed shortly. "Hell, who don't?"
"All right," Lucy said. "You can make some, too."
Jud looked interested, and his little eyes narrowed in his dough face. "What you got in mind?"
"I've been gathering data," she said. "Did you know that over six hundred men work for Missile Components, Inc?"
"Six hundred and nine," Lucy nodded. "And all we need is two dollars from each one. Once a week, every payday."
Bernie straightened in his chair. "What are you talking about?"
"I'm talking about," said Lucy, "selling chances."
"Chances?" It was Sue who threw that in. "Chances on what?"
"Chances on us," said Lucy calmly. "At two dollars a throw."
For a minute, the room was silent. Then Jud stirred, whistling softly. "Now I get it," he said.
"Well, I don't." Sue uncurled her legs and sat up straight. Her face knitted in irritation. "What do you mean? I wish you wouldn't be so mysterious."
"I've got it all worked out." Lucy waved the notebook excitedly. "I've figured it backward and forward." She stood up and began to pace the room.
"There's always some kind of raffle going on out at the plant. Somebody always selling tickets for a chance on a car or a boat or a year's supply of rubbers. All right. Why don't we get in on that? Why don't we sell chances, too? Chances on us."
Sue stared at her friend in amazement. "Are you serious?"
"You're fucking right I am." Her voice was crisp. "I'm serious to the tune of eight hundred dollars a week. Look, it works like this. Bernie, what's your idea of heaven?"
"Heaven?" Bernie frowned. "Well, I guess to-to be shacked up in a hotel room somewhere for a weekend with a beautiful woman. One who'll fuck, suck, or anything I want, and have all the liquor I can drink."
Sue closed her eyes, remembering about Uncle Millard's long dissertations on the rewards of heaven. There seemed to be quite a gap between his conception of it and Bernie's.
"Sure," Lucy said. "It's every man's idea of heaven. And the way I figure, at least five hundred of those six hundred and nine men out at the plant ought to be willing to gamble two bucks a week for a crack at something like that, even at odds of two-fifty to one. What do you think, Jud?"
He was on the edge of his chair, his round face flushed.
"Why, hell, that's a natural."
"Yeah," Bernie blurted. "Yeah, I see it now."
Lucy looked smug. "I thought you would." She turned to Sue.
"You still don't get it, do you?" she said. "Well, here's the deal. We lease a house at the shore for the summer. It'll cost us about a hundred and fifty a month, the one I've got in mind. It's small, only one room. We pay Bernie and Jud a hundred a week each, to sell tickets for us. We furnish transportation, food, and liquor. Say a total of fifty a week. All right We sell five hundred tickets at two bucks a throw. A thousand dollars. There are two lucky winners. They get to spend a weekend at the beach with us, all expenses paid. We raffle ourselves off every week-don't you see? And we net, after expenses, seven hundred fifty dollars a week." She smiled. "Now do you see where I'm going to get the money to parlay into that trip to Europe?"
Sue stared, amazed at the neat, cynical simplicity of it ah. And at once the two split parts of her psyche began to clamor. It's a wonderful idea, one of them shrilled; it's a sin, wrong.
Lucy did not wait for Sue to speak. She whirled toward Bernie and Jud.
"How about it? You fellows-can sell five hundred tickets a week like that with your connections."
Jud looked thoughtful. "Why-Why, hell yes, I think so. Maybe more some weeks, maybe less others. Depends on the amount of overtime people are making." He stood up.
"But it's risky. It's damned risky. If we're caught it'll mean our jobs, and maybe jail. We'll have to have more than a hundred each."
"Sorry," Lucy said bluntly. "That's my limit." Then her voice softened. "But there will be," she said seductively, "additional compensation."
"What do you mean?"
"Did you enjoy this session tonight?"
"Wow," yelped Bernie. "Did we?"
"I think," Lucy said, "that we could work in about one of these a week, don't you, Sue? Just to make things worthwhile for the boys. After all, they can't plug the merchandise unless they know it's first class."
"Yes," Jud said, "that would make things worthwhile for us boys here. After all we can't plug the merchandise unless we know it's first class."
Sue shook her head. "I don't like it."
"What do you mean you don't like it?" Lucy's face was suddenly ugly.
"I mean-" Sue bit her lips. "I mean, it's like tarts. We'd be prostitutes."
"Well," Lucy whispered. "A sudden attack of conscience."
"Maybe." Sue's tone gained a little defiance. "Look, Lucy. We've had a ball, sure, ever since the Home. But where's it going to get us?"
"I don't know about you. It's going to get me to Paris. It's sure going to get me on the gravy train."
"Sure. All right. Even if it works-and dangerous as it is, I'm not saying it won't work. What I'm saying is, are we sure that's what we want to become?"
"Well," said Lucy cuttingly, "now look at her. Listen, my little dear, ever since I've known you, you've been perfectly willing to fuck and suck anything that walks or crawls. Why this sudden switch to nice-niceness?"
"It's not a sudden switch. It's something I've been thinking about." Sue's voice was intense as she tried to make Lucy see. "I didn't know anything about sex until a few months ago. I was a virgin. I was hot, and I was curious. I had to try things." Her voice trailed off for a moment. "Well, I've tried them," she said huskily, ruefully. "God knows I've tried just about everything there is to try. If there's anything I've missed, I don't know what it is, except ..." she hesitated, trying to make herself say the word, "except love."
"Love?" Lucy stared at her incredulously.
"Love," Sue said. "It's something I've never had. I've had sex, but I've never had love."
"Love," Lucy sneered.
"You make it sound like a dirty word."
"It is." Lucy's voice was bitter. "I told you what happened to me when I was fool enough to get mixed up in it." Her lips curled back from her teeth. "Listen, Sue, listen to me. Love's what people use to trap you with. As long as you love, you're vulnerable, you can get hurt. And who wants to be hurt? Stick to sex, it's better than love. Nobody can hurt you that way ..."
"Maybe it's worth being hurt for-"
"It isn't," Lucy said harshly. "Believe me, it isn't. I know. Now, are you going to be a little fool? Or are you going to come into this with me and make yourself some money." Her eyes bored into Sue's, lambent eyes, the eyes of a cat, ruthless.
Sue stood hesitantly, feeling silly, and foolish, and naked. What was the matter, anyhow? Why this sudden series of second thoughts, this retrogression in her outlook? Under Lucy's contemptuous stare, she dropped her gaze, and rubbed her eyes wearily. All at once she realized that the evening's bedding had left her exhausted and strained in every fiber of her body.
Maybe, she thought, Lucy was right. Lucy knew so much more than she did. Lucy was so much smarter, a great deal more clever ...
"All right," she said at last, flatty. "All right, I'll do it."
But her stomach felt oddly cold and knotted within her, and there was a chill along her spine. Is it just fatigue? She wondered. Or is it prescience?
"Good girl," Lucy said delightedly. "Then it's settled." She rubbed her hands together. "And we're on our way. Before long we'll be rolling in money ..."
"Yes," Sue said tiredly. "Yes, I guess we're on our way."
VI
The man's name was Vito. He was squat and shaggy, a gorilla wearing clothes who wrestled huge gears and bearings around the warehouse. His forehead was a great crest of bone that nearly obscured tiny, deep-set eyes, and he was barely articulate. But he knew what he liked: he liked women. When Bernie gave him the sales pitch, those little eyes lit up. His thick, loose lips grew moist, and his giant, hairy hands clenched and unclenched.
"Think about it," Bernie urged. "Just think about it, Vito. You've seen the Stevens girl over at coupling assembly. You've seen those titties she's got. Imagine, Vito-imagine being able to just wallow around on those and she'll do anything you ask her to, Vito. Anything. Ain't a chance at that worth two bucks?"
"Yuh," Vito said. "Yuh. You think I might win, huh?"
"Hell, yes. You got as good a chance as anybody."
"Yuh?" Words were an effort for Vito. The measure of his interest was how quickly he forced out the next sentence. "You can sell me more than one chance?"
"Sure. Sure, you can buy as many chances as you want. Only two bucks each. But, hurry." Bernie looked around furtively. "I got a lot of people to see and not much time, and I don't want to get caught."
"Yuh." Slowly Vito dug in his back pocket, and brought out a thick wallet. "Yuh. Five chances, Bernie. How much five chances cost me?"
"Five chances, ten dollars. Cash on the line."
"Ten dollars." Painfully, Vito thumbed through the wallet. He pulled out a ten-dollar bill, passed it to Bernie. Bernie took out a printed booklet, tore out five numbered slips, passed them to Vito. "Hang on to those," he admonished. "The winning number will be printed in the personal column of the morning paper on Friday. Nothing else, just the number. If you got the winning number, you bring the ticket to me. Ill handle all arrangements."
"Newspaper? I don't read no newspapers. I like television. Cowboy pictures."
"Well, no matter how much it strains, you look at the newspaper Friday morning. We can't post the number anywhere here in the plant. Somebody'd get wise."
"You make sure I win, huh, Bernie?"
"Sure, Vito. I'll do all I can for you. But it's a game of chance, you got to realize that. But I hope you win. Thanks, Vito, and good luck." Bernie scuttled off, leaving Vito standing there, a look of expectancy making his simian face almost dreamy.
While Bernie was making his rounds in the shops, Jud was walking through the drafting room, a roll of blueprints under his arm, trying to look as if he were there on business.
After awhile, he found the man he was seeking. He caught all the other draftsmen at coffee break, and his pockets were stuffed with money. They had leaped at the idea, making a riotous and obscene joke of it. Most of them had bought at least two tickets. The only one he'd missed was that new fellow, George. Now he caught him in the corridor and blocked his passage. Quickly he explained to George about the raffle.
George was in his early twenties, a chinless youth with a weak mouth and weaker eyes, behind thick glasses. His body was thin and stooped, his chest nearly concave. He listened closely, and when Jud had finished, he shook his head.
"No, sir. No, I couldn't get mixed up in anything like that. In the first place, I've just been married. You wouldn't expect a man who's been married to buy a chance, would you?"
"Why not? Hell, just because you've been married doesn't mean you can't fuck some strange stuff now and again." Jud went into a hard sell. "Think of it, George. A girl like Sue or Lucy all for yourself for a whole weekend. And willing to give you any kind of loving your heart desires. The ocean breeze, plenty of whisky, and a hot hunk of ass. What could be better than that?"
"No." George shook his head nervously. "No, I just couldn't. It wouldn't be right. It wouldn't be fair to my wife."
"So who cares what's fair when there's a good, young girl just ready for fucking. What's the matter, George? Don't tell me your bride's already worn you out?" George's face flushed.
"No," he said timidly. "As a matter of fact, she's a little cold. She don't seem to like sex at all."
"Then," Jud said, "there's no doubt you got to buy a raffle ticket. You're entitled to more than that, old boy. Trouble is, you must have married a frigid woman." He grew confidential. "That's what comes from buying merchandise without trying it out. Okay, so she don't like to fuck. Well, this Stevens girl and the Harris girl, they like nothing better. Two bucks, and you stand a good chance of being fixed up. So you don't win the first time? Law of averages says you got to, sooner or later. And what's two bucks?"
"Two dollars is all Rita gives me for cigarette money. If I buy one of those tickets, I won't be able to afford cigarettes."
Jud reached in his shirt pocket, brought out a nearly full pack and crammed it in George's pocket.
"There you are. That'll hold you for awhile. And look, if you win, I'll see they throw in a carton of 'em for you."
George hesitated. "Well," he said.
"Hurry," Jud said. "There's somebody coming down the hall."
George plunged his hand in his pocket with sudden decision and hauled out a lot of loose change. He crammed it in Jud's hand.
"That ought to be two dollars. I wouldn't do this if Rita would just-"
"Sure, sure, I know," Jud said and ripped off a stub and handed it to George. He told him rapidly about the announcement in the paper. He had just finished as a tall, young man with wide shoulders walked up and looked down at them with cold, blue eyes.
"Back to your table, George," he said firmly. "Break's over." Those cold eyes shuttled to Jud. "You, what's your name? Martin? What are you doing up here?"
Jud raised the roll of prints.
"Just had to come up here to check something on these drawings, Mr. Walker."
Curt Walker, at twenty-eight, was the youngest section leader in the company. The keen, cold eyes offset the handsome boyishness of his face. Jud knew that he was no man to be trifled with. As engineer in charge of the project which presently engaged both George and Jud, he had the power to dismiss either of them.
"Did you get it cleared up?" Walker asked.
"Yes, sir. It's all cleared up. I was just going back out to the shop."
"I think," Walker said, "that's a very good idea." And he stood there watching, as Jud beat a hasty retreat, feeling Walker's eyes cold on him until he, at last, turned a corner in the corridor.
* * *
Wednesday night, they reported in to Lucy. "How much?" she asked, as they sat in the living room of the apartment, Sue looking on.
Jud wet the tip of a pencil on his tongue and went on with his calculations. At last he let out a soft whistle.
"It's a goddamn gold mine." His voice trembled.
"Dammit, I asked how much?"
Jud's voice was Ml of awe.
"Sixteen hundred and forty dollars. A lot of them bought more than one chance. Some of them bought as much as fifty dollars worth of chances."
"And the cash is all in the bank?"
"Here's the deposit slip. It's all there, less our drag." Jud stood up. "But we got to have more, Lucy. Dammit, we never counted on it pouring in on us like this."
"You'll get no more," Lucy said, "until we see how it works out in the long run. Next week may be down."
"But a lousy two hundred dollars out of fourteen hundred? For the risks we took? Hell, that bird Walker in charge of my section almost caught me. If he had, I'da been fired."
"I said, no more. Not until we see how it works out."
"Now, listen, Lucy ..." Jud's face went ugly. "Bernie and I put in a lotta work on this-"
"Wait a minute," Sue said, speaking up for the first time. She had been dreading what was to come after this business conference. She did not want to be smothered under Jud's flabbiness, or to have to endure the small penis of Bernie, which gave her no satisfaction. "Wait. I think we can work out a deal. Jud, Bernie, which would you rather have? A flat hundred dollars and a session in bed, fucking and sucking, with Lucy and me, or a hundred dollar guarantee against a straight ten percent of the take?"
"Ten percent. Are you crazy? That would cost us another sixty bucks for each of them. A hundred and twenty dollars-just this week." Lucy looked shocked.
"Hush," Sue said firmly. "If I'm in this as a partner, I'm going to have my say. Which would it be, Bernie? Would you rather have sixty bucks more, or a night of my pussy and mouth?"
Bernie looked hesitant. "I don't-Well, hell, I could use the money, but I sure would like-"
"Make up your mind," Sue said coldly. "And you, too, Jud. If you boys really sell this thing every week the way you have this week, you can make some real money, too."
Jud stood up. "I think I'll take the sixty bucks," he said. "Sixty-four dollars to be exact"
"Me, too," Bernie said regretfully. "My old lady says the kids got to have some new summer clothes."
"All right," Sue snapped. "Write them a check, Lucy."
Lucy looked hesitant and angry. "Are you out of your mind? We could have laid 'em and it wouldn't have cost us anything?"
"They'll do a better job of selling if they've got a cash incentive. And if I've got to fuck a stranger every weekend, I'm reserving the right to spend my nights as I choose."
Lucy stared at her and Sue stared back. Their gazes locked like that for several seconds, and then Lucy dropped her head.
"All right," she said. "I'll write the check."
Later that night as they lay in the darkness of the shared double bed, Lucy said:
"You've been acting strangely lately."
Sue's body was tense. "Maybe so. I don't know."
"You didn't want Jud and Bernie tonight so you bought them off, didn't you?"
"They're slobs," Sue said. "Except for whoever wins these raffles, I'm through with slobs. I'm sick of them. People like Ray, Jud, and Bernie-just animals. There's got to be more to it than just the fucking."
"I see," Lucy's voice had gone gentle. She moved closer to Sue in the bed. "Am I a slob, too?"
Sue felt the warmth of Lucy's long body against hers through the sheerness of her gown. Some of the tensions went out of her.
"No," she said softly, "you're not a slob."
"I'm glad," Lucy murmured. Sue felt the soft touch of Lucy's hand on her breast. "I'm glad, because I'd hate not being able to put my hands on you like this."
She ran her hand down the flat stomach, lightly touching the hairy mound. Then gentle pulled up the sheer nightgown until it was bunched around Sue's waist. Sue turned on her side and put her arms around Lucy. Feeling the hand run up her back and then slowly down until it cupped one of her firm, rounded buttocks, she shivered with pleasure and pushed her tongue into the hotly seeking mouth of Lucy. She ran her hand down Lucy's naked back until she found the firm flesh of her ass, gently pressing her finger into the hole, feeling Lucy doing the same. This was not a feeling of real sex between the two girls. It was more of a reassurance. With fingers in assholes and mouths glued together, they fell asleep.
VII
Signifying quitting time, the harshness of a buzzer sounded through the huge room in which the women sat, inserting the inevitable screws into the unending, monotonous cascade of identical parts. Sue let out a sigh of relief, glad that the day was over. Not only was the maddening repetitiousness of the job beginning to make her nervous, but all day long she and Lucy had been subjected to the stares of an endless procession of men who had made excuses to pass by their place at the assembly table. Sue had kept her eyes down, but she had seen the men. Men of all kinds, unbearably ugly and attractively handsome. Lean and hard, fat and flabby, and thin and bony. Clean men and dirty men, intelligent men and stupid men. One of them, before the week was over would be her temporary fate.
She prayed, only a little consoled by the money in the bank, that it would be someone at least halfway nice, someone not completely repulsive.
Well, tomorrow she'd know. Tomorrow, the numbers they had drawn Wednesday night would appear in the paper. The victors would come to claim their spoils.
A few minutes later, she and Lucy had changed from the white uniforms they had to wear, and were strolling toward the bus stop.
"Look," Lucy said. "I'm going to take the downtown bus and put this ad in the paper. I've got to buy the whisky, too. Go on home and wait for me, unless you want to come along."
"No," Sue said, "I will go home."
"Okay." Lucy crossed the street to wait for the city-bound bus.
Sue waited patiently, too weary to think. Not wanting to think, anyhow. Wanting, in fact, desperately to stop thinking completely.
Last night, after going to sleep, she had dreamed. It had not been a pleasant dream.
Uncle Millard was in the dream. His stern face was reproving, his eyes sad. His chin and throat a welter of blood.
The face had, in the dream, simply stared at her. Once it had opened its mouth to speak, but nothing in the way of words had come out. Only blood, a torrent of it.
Sue had screamed-and awakened. She had lain awake, shivering for a long time before she finally was blessedly dreamless.
And all day, she had been depressed and nervous, as if the dream still haunted her.
Buses came and went, but hers never showed up. The crowd around her thinned out until at last she was alone on the corner. As she peered up the street, trying to see her bus, she did not see the squat form that shambled up on her other side, its gorilla-face stamped with lust as the little eyes roved over her body. She did not know the creature was there until one huge hand closed around her wrist.
She gave a little scream and swung around. It was as if an animal had been trained to talk, slowly, painfully, and barely intelligibly.
"Hey, baby," the creature said. "Did I win?"
"Win?" Sue felt her stomach writhe with sickness. She tried to look innocent. "Win? What do you mean? I don't know what you mean. And let go my arm."
Instead of releasing, the grip tightened, grinding bones and bringing tears of pain to her eyes.
"Now, look, don't try to fool Vito. Vito's got ten dollars in chances. Bernie said Vito'd win. Did I win?"
"Damn you, I don't know. I hope not." Sue tried to free her arm.
"You're pretty," Vito said in that mindless voice. His other hand came up to move across her breasts, openly feeling and squeezing them. "You're real pretty ..."
Sue said nothing. But she began to fight. Not by hitting or kicking, but twisting and pulling in a desperate effort to slip her wrist loose so she could run. It was like trying to break out of handcuffs. Vito's grip was inexorable.
That simian face, lips wet with lust, swam before Sue's eyes.
"Please," she said, not hearing the screech of suddenly-applied brakes in the street, or the slam of a car door. "Please."
Then, miraculously, the grip was loosened. She looked through a fog of pain to see Vito pivot, as a taller man behind him jerked him around. She heard a strange voice:
"All right, Vito, on your way."
"Now, wait a minute-" Vito protested, the words halting. "Now, I just wanted to find out-"
"I said on your way." The man's voice was like the snap of a whip. Clad in an expensive suit, he was between Sue and Vito now, his back toward the girl. All she could see was that he was tall, wide-shouldered, slim-hipped, and that his hair was brown, like hers.
But she saw a kind of respect erase some of the anger and sullenness from the gorilla-like face, and she saw him take a step backward.
"Awright, Mr. Walker," he said in that trained animal voice. "Awright, I didn't mean nothin'." Then he whirled and shambled off at a rapid pace.
The tall man turned. Sue saw that he was young, with striking blue eyes whose maturity belied the boyishness of his face. His voice was deep and crisp.
"That ape's in my section," he said. "I'll fire him tomorrow."
"Thank you. I mean-no, no, don't fire him." Panic flooded in on Sue. If Vito were fired, there'd have to be at least a hearing. And he'd spill the beans about the raffle tickets he'd invested in. "No, he didn't hurt me. Please don't fire him."
"Well," Walker said, "if you won't make a complaint, I can't. But he was obviously getting pretty fresh with you." He frowned. "Somehow, though, you don't look like his type of girl. He's not -he's not one of your boy friend's, is he?"
Sue's laugh had a reedy edge of hysteria in it. "One of my boy friends? Good Heavens-"
The tall man smiled for the first time. "I didn't think so. I'm Curt Walker, chief of section on Project 220. What's the trouble? Miss your bus?"
"It doesn't seem to have come. Something must have gone wrong somewhere."
"Well, if you're going my way, I'll be happy to give you a lift, Miss-Miss-"
"Stevens. Sue Stevens."
"Oh, yes. Well, how about it, Miss Stevens?"
Sue hesitated. Suddenly she realized that she wanted him to give her a ride very much. He was an attractive man, the most attractive man she had ever met. Young, handsome, clean, intelligent ... And then she sickened inside, wondering if he had bought a ticket in the raffle. She swallowed hard. His voice cut through the nausea that clawed at her:
"Please?"
At last she found the words.
"I-well, yes, thank you, Mr. Walker."
"I don't mind if you call me Curt. As long as I can call you Sue."
* * *
It turned out to be quite an evening. Instead of taking her home, he asked her to have dinner with him.
She agreed.
"I've seen you several times, down there at the assembly table," he said. "But I've never had the nerve to ask you for a date until now. I guess it was a lucky break that gorilla tried to get fresh with you."
"Perhaps it was," said Sue.
He took her to an unpretentious, little restaurant where the lights were low and the food excellent. Sitting there, across the table from him, listening to his easy flow of speech, Sue had a nagging sense of unreality. She'd never heard a man talk the way he did.
"You know what the poet says," he told her. "Sweetness is sometimes bitterness."
"Bitter?" she asked. "Why bitter?"
"Because I would be very bitter if you didn't go dancing with me."
"But, Curt, I really can't. My-my roommate's expecting me home."
"Your roommate's a girl, isn't she?"
"Of course," she giggled.
"Then what difference will it make to her what time you get home? While it will make all the difference in the world to me." He took her hand in his. His hand was strong and capable, yet there was gentleness in it.
"Sue," he said, "there are a million girls in the world a man can look at and never see. But the million-and-first-when he sees her, something clicks inside him. It's like fitting the last piece of a jigsaw puzzle into place. You look, and look, and at last you find it. The minute you find it, you know it's right. That's the way I feel about you. From the first moment-Click."
She pulled her hand away from his in confusion. All she could think was: suppose he's bought a ticket? Suppose he found out-
She knew what he meant about that click. She had felt it herself, from the first moment when she'd looked up at the tall form towering over her. When she looked into those blue eyes they had turned from ice into warmth.
"Curt, we've only known each other such a short time-"
"We've known each other always." His eyes bore into hers. "Haven't we? Haven't we, Sue?"
Again that swirling sense of unreality. For it seemed to her that they had.
Ray was a phantom out of a nightmare. So were Bernie and Jud and all the other cheap brutal men. They were all bad dreams.
"So," he asked, "will you go dancing with me, Sue?"
"Yes," she said.
* * *
Dancing with Curt, she could feel his penis, stiff and straining against her belly. He was aroused. And so was she. As they moved, she nibbled at the lobe of his ear in a minor frenzy. And he held her very tightly, so her breasts were flattened against his chest, and the pressure on them increased her desire.
She wanted him. Not as she had wanted other men. Not for her own gratification. But because she wanted to make him happy and knew she could. She had a gift to offer him, and the gift was her body. She had given her body often, but never in that spirit before.
Then the music stopped. They stood for a moment in the middle of the dance floor of the little nightclub, and then he said:
"It's hot in here."
"Yes," she said. "Yes, I think it's terribly hot."
"Should we leave?" he asked.
"I'd like very much to leave."
"I have an air conditioner in my apartment."
She took a deep breath. "Let's go there, then."
You could tell that the sole inhabitant of the apartment was a man. Curt Walker was evidently neat and orderly, like most engineers, a believer in a place for everything and everything in its place. There was a male austerity to the apartment: it was furnished for utility, not luxury.
He asked her to sit down and flicked on the air conditioner. The room was flooded with cool, chemical-smelling air. He went into the kitchen and returned with two highballs.
"How did you know I like bourbon and soda?" she asked.
"I just instinctively know everything about you," he said.
Sue shuddered. "I hope not," she whispered.
"This may well be the luckiest night of my life," Curt said.
Sue thought, she was not the girl he thought she was. The girl she really was would spend this weekend shacked up with some faceless brute, and probably continually drunk to drown her repugnance.
She half stood up.
Curt put down his glass. "What's the matter?"
"Nothing," she said. "I just think I'd better go."
"Did I say something to offend you?" Curt said, concerned.
"No, I'd just better-"
Then she felt his hands on her shoulders. She felt his chest against her breasts. "Please don't go, Sue," he said.
Then he kissed her. It was not like any kiss she had ever had before. There was passion in it, truly enough. But there was more to it. There was gentleness and, she was sure, love.
It drained her, emptied her of all resolve. She no longer cared whether she was a fraud or not. She returned his kiss with the same gentleness and love. All that was important now was to have him and make him happy.
The kiss broke.
"My God, Sue ..."
She rubbed her loins against his, the tips of her breasts against his chest. "Oh, Curt ..."
When he kissed her now, it was all passion. And Sue opened her mouth wide and accepted the full length of his tongue as the tip of it touched her tonsils.
This time, when the kiss broke, Sue tugged at the buttons of her blouse.
"Here," Curt said. "Let me help you."
He undressed her, gasping at each new revelation of her lushness. As the bra fell away, his mouth found first one hard tipped nipple and then the other. Sue was unfastening his belt. Soon, they were naked, except Sue still wore her sheer panties.
Curt bent to pull them over her hips. He slipped his fingers in the elastic band at her waist and slid them down, unveiling the lush growth of dark brown hair, curling gently, hiding her hot, eager cunt.
Kneeling in front of her, he gasped at the sight. Sue stepped out of her panties as Curt placed his hands on her buttocks and buried his face in the dark growth of hair.
Sue pulled him to his feet as she fell back on the bed. He lay half atop her, and half beside her. She took one of her breasts in her hand and rubbed its tip across his lips. He nibbled at it. His hands were hot and probing on her ass and pussy, trying to gather her all in at once.
Then, as she had with the first one, she gave him the other breast. Two gifts, she thought.
By that time, she was uncontrollable, herself. She wanted to fuck and she wanted to fuck bad, and she wanted to right away. After she had dropped her hand from her breasts, she let them rove over his body. She felt his penis increase in size as she touched it; placing one hand on his testicles, she rubbed the length of his cock. Growing frantic with passion, Sue pressed Curt on his back and bending forward, started kissing him on the chest, then letting her lips slide down his belly, trailing saliva from the tip of her tongue. He realized at once what she wanted and lay back.
Sue's tongue licked down to the great phallus, but did not touch it. She licked and kissed and nibbled around and down the insides of his legs to his knees. Curt moaned and sighed. Using her lips, teeth and tongue, Sue gently chewed, kissed, licked and sucked on his legs back up to his maleness, her head between his legs, tongue licking beneath his testicles, between the cheeks of his ass. As she licked up the crack to one hairy, round ball, she licked it into her mouth and gently sucked on it, first one and then the other. Then taking his stiff, upright, red, moist-headed prick in her hands, she loved on it with her lips and tongue. The clear pre-come gathered at the tip and she quickly and lovingly licked it off. Kneeling between his legs as she was, she felt one of his toes rubbing her pussy, and lowering her ass down, felt it enter into her. Then with a cry, she plunged that long, hard, angry prick into her mouth. Her sensual, wet mouth closed over the head and Curt shoved his ass up, thrusting deep down her throat. Sue sucked, licked and moaned at the same time, worshipping this man thing, out of her mind with only the thought of the feast she had filling her mouth. Her dark haired head rose and fell with loving caresses. She felt it grow larger and then jerk. Then she went into heaven as he shot load after load of hot, salty come into her mouth. She drank and swallowed all he was able to afford. Curt felt as though he would never stop. When Sue had taken all he could give her, she raised up and smiled at him.
"Oh, God, Sue. That was the most wonderful thing in the world," Curt said, tiredly.
Laying beside him, she fondled his now limp, soft penis while kissing his ear.
Curt turned his head and their lips met in a long tongue entwined kiss. Sue felt his manhood begin to stiffen again.
"I didn't think that would happen for awhile, yet," Curt said in surprise.
"I can keep it this way," Sue said.
After she had fondled it to full size again, she pushed him down and put her legs across his body with her back to his face. Holding his prick to guide it, she lowered her pussy down until she had all of him in her. Then leaning forward, resting her elbows on the bed on each side of his legs, she bounced her ass, riding him. Curt, seeing her rounded ass splayed over him, her asshole clenching and unclenching, put his finger to it, and, to his surprise, inside her ass with ease. He could see the ring open to accept it. Now Sue was riding his prick and finger at the same time. This threw her into such a fit of passion that she pressed her face to the toe that had been inside her, and began licking the pussy come from it. Lights flashed behind the closed lids of Sue's eyes. A moan whipped from her throat. It was too good to be borne. She tried desperately, driven by primeval impulse, to make her body one with his and clung to his legs tightly. At the same time, she heard a gasping hiss of his breath, felt the convulsions of his body that meant he too had reached that summit. Then they loosed a torrent of come, meeting each other deep inside her pussy. Curt squirted with such force, Sue felt as if she was raised from that fucking penis.
Then she was hearing words that no man had whispered to her before. As they sank back, side by side, he was saying them in her ear. Words like, "darling" and "love." She let herself drift in a pleasant haze as her body, completely sated for once, released its grip on her mind and allowed her mind to be satisfied by the words ...
After a while they sat up. He lit two cigarettes and handed her one. He put his arm about her and held her close to him, his fingers gently stroking the sweat-moist upper slope of one magnificent breast.
"I love you," he said simply. "There's no doubt about it at all now. I love you."
"I love you too," she heard herself say, surprised to find that she meant it. But there was a singing and a lightness in her now that was new to her. Love. Nobody had ever given that to her before.
"When can I see you again?" he asked as his hand tightened on her breast. "Tomorrow night?"
"Yes," she whispered. "Oh, yes." Then, without warning, she emerged from the fog. "I mean ..." She was remembering now. Tomorrow night was Friday night. The night she was to go to the beach with the lucky winner. She felt quite sick inside, and she had to fight back a sudden upsurge of bile that nearly made her vomit.
"I mean," she said, "no, not tomorrow night. Not until ... Well, I'm not free until next Monday night."
"You mean the whole weekend's spoken for?" he asked incredulously.
"Yes."
"Oh, I see." Curt's hand released her breast. "You're already dated for the weekend."
"Yes," she said, wanting him to put his hand back there. "Yes, I'm already dated for the weekend."
"Couldn't you break it?" There was urgency in his voice. "For me, couldn't you break it?"
Sue shut her eyes. "I wish I could." Why, she was wondering, why didn't I meet him before I got in so deeply I couldn't get out? But there was no alternative. The money had been collected and banked. All hell would break loose if the raffle didn't go as scheduled.
"But you can't. Well." He swung out of bed and ground out his cigarette. "This must be a very special guy you're dating."
"No. No, I mean-Oh, Curt, I don't know what I mean. It's just that I'm tied up for the weekend. But Monday night ... Can't you wait until Monday night?"
He seemed to relax. "I-guess I can, if I don't have any choice."
She got up, too, reaching for her clothes. "There isn't any choice," she said.
"Well," he said slowly, "that being the case, I suppose I'd better take you home."
She felt as if everything inside her had turned to lead. "Curt, please don't be angry with me. I can't help it. It's just the way things broke-"
"Sure," he said, "I'm not angry. It's just that ... God, I don't see how I can wait until Monday."
"You'll have to," she said, standing on tiptoes. "You'll just have to wait. But I'll be very good to you Monday night. I promise. You just wait and see."
Suddenly he seized her and kissed her with ferocity. That kiss melted her against his naked body. The clothes dropped from her hand. Her nipples hardened against his chest.
"Maybe," he breathed when the kiss was ended, "I won't take you home right away, after all."
"Maybe," she whispered back, "I don't want to go ..."
VIII
Vito was a very happy man. Just as Bernie had promised him, he had won. The little girl with the big titties was his for a whole weekend.
On the flickering, primeval level of intelligence at which his mind operated, he was aware that this was going to be the best weekend he had ever had. Vito had never known a girl like the girl he had won before. He had never, in his life, made out with a woman whom he had not had to pay. But he did not consider that he was paying this woman, any more than the child who gets a prize out of a candy box considers that he has paid for it.
Sitting beside her in the back seat of the rented car, he was nearly maddened by her perfume. It was going to take an hour to drive to the shore. Vito didn't see why that hour should be wasted.
He was wearing a sport shirt and shorts. He put one brawny, thick-furred arm about the girl beside him and dropped one big hand over her left breast. It was a huge breast: it more than filled his hand. He squeezed it delightedly and savagely, wanting to show her his strength. He was gratified when she gave a short exclamation of pain.
But she did not try to take his hand away. She had not tried that since the slender girl who was driving the car, the girl who sat in the front seat next to that kid George from the drafting room, had told his girl not to protest.
"Remember," the slender girl had said, "we've got to show these boys a good time."
So now the girl with the big titties, the Sue Stevens girl, only exclaimed with pain. But otherwise she was passive. He was encouraged by this, and the two big pulls he'd had from the bottle at his feet, so he set out to explore her body thoroughly.
He started at her ankles, running one big hand from there up her calf. He half expected her to clamp her legs together when he reached her knees, but she did not. Instead, she spread her legs automatically, and his hand groped up the smooth warmth of her inner leg and found the panties, moist with juice. Juice that Sue tried to stop.
Again he did something savage to her to show his strength, to prove how strong his hands were. He rammed two large, meaty fingers, panties and all, into her wet pussy. She moaned in genuine pain and lifted her ass off the seat in a jerking convulsion. But again she did not protest, and Vito blinked. She was the damnedest woman he'd ever messed with. She didn't even seem to know that he was there with her or mind ...
Sue had been appalled when she realized how ironic it was that the same man who had brought Curt and her together was the one who should keep them apart this weekend. And appalled too, by the utter, massive, completely dangerous bestiality of him.
He was showing his animality now. That huge, exploring hand felt as if it were ripping her apart, the other one seemed about to tear her breast off. And yet, in a way, the pain was not completely unacceptable. In one fashion, she welcomed the pain, as if it were a punishment foisted upon her for deserting Curt this weekend.
So she did not protest. She let those hands do what they wanted to, even though they pulled her body to its limits, and threatened to damage it. She let those gorilla-thick lips come down on hers, and she accepted the lolling tongue. And, as that hand between her legs did more and more brutal probing, she found that the simulated groans of response she had planned to make were no longer simulated. No matter what the depression of her spirit; her body had a life of its own that could be stirred quite independently from her mind. It could, in fact, mock her mind and oppose it. And that was what she was finding happening now. While her mind grew more and more revolted with Vito, her body found him more and more acceptable and slowly began to blank out her mind.
Up in the front seat, Lucy giggled at George.
"You're just like a greedy little boy," she accused. "How do you expect me to drive when you have your whole damn hand inside my pussy?"
George was drunk. He was both elated and guilty, and on top of that, he was drunk. He had been drinking heavily to build up his courage and assuage his guilt. Now, most of the guilt had vanished. He felt like a gay and courageous dog indeed, riding to a weekend rendezvous with a beautiful and desirable woman.
So he let his hands wander and do things that were truly bold.
She had the most delectable breasts. Small, but definite and eminently squeezable. He liked the velvety feel of the one he had in his hand which, his arm about her, was thrust down into her blouse. He liked the way the nipple moved under his forefinger.
He liked the softness of her ear lobe as he nibbled at it, and the smooth roundness of her long, slender thigh. She was so different, so entirely different from Rita. Compared to this girl, Rita was just a-a potato.'
That was it, a potato. The thought made him giggle, too. A round, faceless, featureless potato with a sliced place in it. A potato could call itself a carrot, or celery. It could put on airs, and refuse the attentions of those who just simply liked potatoes. But no matter what it did, a potato it remained, and so also remained Rita ...
He'd had to make up quite a story to explain this whole weekend to Rita. Though she allowed him no sex, she liked to retain control over every other aspect of his life. Sometimes he had a weird feeling that what she really wanted to do was to eat him alive. To consume him, smother him, so that there was nothing of him left ...
But it had been worth the effort it took to invent the story. The inspired fabrication about the necessity to spend the weekend accompanying Mr. Walker, the section leader, to Washington for an urgent conference had served two purposes. It had wrenched him from under her smothering mantle, and it had simultaneously made him larger and more impressive in her eyes. Now, eventually, it would sink into her that he was due more respect than she had given him ...
Lucy laughed again. "When you bite my ear like that, I can't keep my eyes on the road. It makes goose pimples pop out."
He squeezed her breast. "I can feel them."
"My," she said, "your hand's so soft. It feels like a woman's hand."
"How would you know? How many women feel your titties?" He was delighted with his quick comeback.
"You might be surprised," she said.
George's eyes widened. "You don't mean it! I mean, you're not-not ..."
"Lesbian? No, I'm not one of those, honey." She squeezed his prick, rigid beneath his clothing, making him feel nine feet tall. "But I like a change of pace occasionally."
George gasped. He'd heard of things like that, but he'd never met anyone who admitted to them.
"You're joking," he said.
George's eyes shuffled to the back seat. They goggled as he saw what the big, dangerous looking man from the shop was doing to the other girl. Vito had his complete hand inside Sue's pussy. Sue was sitting on the edge of the seat, legs spread, watching in fascination at the huge hand as it slid in and out of her.
"You haven't done it with her?" he whispered.
"Haven't I?" she laughed.
George felt a new kind of lust inflame him. It would be something to see, two women ... "Have you really?"
"That would be telling."
"Look," George said. "Look, that's something I want to see. Will you-will you put on a show for us?"
"A show?"
"You and her. I've never-"
Lucy laughed. "All right. If it will give you kicks. We intend to be in business a long time, and a satisfied customer is our best advertisement"
* * *
Somewhere in the distance, the ocean thundered and roared. Sue came out of exhaustion to alertness. She had never seen the ocean before. She fought her way through the fatigue that was the natural result of the spasm after spasm that had wracked her body under the brutal and straight-forward explorations of the man next to her. There was a strange, salty tang in the air that was vaguely stirring.
They were parked in front of a cottage surrounded by a growth of exotic plants. It was not a large one, and it was completely dark. The ocean seemed to be off to their right. As Sue got stiffly out of the automobile, she caught the full tang of the inshore wind. It revived her immediately.
Suddenly she wanted to tear off all her clothes and run in the direction of that thunder. She wanted to feel cold salt spray in her face, the impact of cleansing waves ...
But Lucy said: "Let's unload the liquor."
Sue and Lucy went ahead, switching on the lights. The men unloaded the supplies. In the dim illumination of an overhead bulb, Sue saw that the one room of the cottage was simply furnished. There was a table in the center, a wide bed on either side, and a stove and refrigerator. That was all.
While they were putting away the food, Vito hoisted a liquor bottle from the table and let a sizable fraction of its contents gurgle down his throat. He slammed it down and wiped his mouth with the back of his hairy hand.
"Now," he sighed. "Now, by jo, I'm ready ..." He seized Sue and spun her around. "You hear? Vito's ready."
Sue forced a smile and concealed the shudder that rippled down her spine. Slowly she moved from under the clutching hands.
"In a little bit," she said. "First, why don't we- why don't we all have a swim? I've never been in the ocean before."
She did not think she could yield any more to that hairy ape of a man, at least not right now. She wanted desperately to postpone their mating as long as possible.
"Nah," Vito said. "No swim." He gestured. "Bed."
"A swim," Sue said again. "A swim-" her brain raced "-Without clothes on. Wouldn't that be fun? A swim like that by moonlight?"
She saw the change come slowly over his face, saw the lights that began flickering in his eyes.
"By jo," he grunted, "that's different. Why not a swim?"
George looked excited. "You mean swimming naked?"
"Why not?" Lucy smiled. "I think Sue's got a good idea."
"Let's go," Vito grunted. He picked up a full bottle of liquor from the table. "I'm ready."
The four of them walked from the cottage toward the sound of the sea. The wind was clean and cool, and the sand was moist, and yielding underfoot. Sue felt the wind through her dress. She had never known that anything could feel as cleansing as that sea wind, it was almost like absolution.
Then they crested a line of dunes and looked down at the sea. It was illimitable in the moonshot darkness. To Sue it was as if she had just had her first glimpse of eternity. She threw glances up and down the beach: the strand was deserted.
Yes, naked, that was the only way to swim in the sea.
Suddenly eager, she whipped her dress over her head, unfastened her bra, and slid out of her panties. At that moment, the moon was unveiled as clouds drifted clear of it, and the beach was flooded with silver light. Sue stood for a moment in that illumination, letting it, and the sea wind, wash over her breasts, and thighs, and belly, and legs. Her eyes closed, her arms involuntarily outstretched. She heard the rasp of appreciation from George, the animal grunt from Vito. Then, without waiting to see if they would follow, she ran lightly, naked, across the wet sand and into the water.
It was like liquid ice. She sucked in her breath as she plunged outward and it rose about her, small waves beginning to batter at her belly and breasts. She was a good swimmer. Her uncle had insisted that she learn. Now she saw a bigger wall of water coming toward her at the gait of a running horse, and as it crested and posed, she dived under it. She felt it tugging at her, but she resisted it, and kept on outward. After a while she was floating beyond the waves, where the water rose and fell in the cradle-like motion of swell after building swell. She was looking up at a round and friendly moon.
Then something seized her and she screamed. At first she thought it was a sea-monster of some kind. Being an inland girl, she had no idea of what might lurk in this ocean. But as the big, hirsute paws closed over her breasts, and as, underwater, she felt the probing thrust of monstrous masculine animality, she knew that it was not a monster from the sea. It was another kind-it was Vito.
"Gotcha," he grunted with satisfaction. "Now."
Her feet probed frantically for the bottom, and found it. The water came up to her throat, his hands were squeezing and pulling, he was thrusting himself at her relentlessly. She closed her eyes. There was no escape, she might as well yield.
Sometimes her head was above water and she could breathe, more often it was not. In self-preservation, she locked her legs about his waist, her arms about his neck. She felt the shock of his monstrous prick enter her, as vast and gigantic as if he were indeed some sea-spawned primordial animal. The sea closed over her face as he crushed her down and their bodies burned, and she held her breath. Even while her lungs were bursting, his body was kindling fire in hers, and when her face broke the surface, her gasping was not entirely for breath, part of it was a marking of the rhythm he had struck.
The sea was clean; it was the place to fuck with this ape without revulsion.
"Oh," she said, and the gasps came like machine gun fire. "Oh, oh, oh, oh-" Her nails dug into the thick, hairy hide of the back of his neck. "Oh, oh, that big, huge, fucking prick. It's so big. Have you got all of it in? Oh God. It's tearing my insides out. I won't have a pussy left. But I don't care, fuck me. Push your monstrous prick in my aching pussy. Fuck me! FUCK ME!" She screamed in his ear.
His lips dragged at her nipples. Again they plunged beneath the surface. Just as the water washed over her again, the ecstasy became unbearable. She felt her pussy and insides throb with the pleasure. She came with more force than ever before. Her whole body shook. Automatically she screamed, sea-water rushed into her mouth, and she gagged.
But he did not let her up. She was dying of fucking and drowning all at once. Darkness swirled about her and she was too full of lassitude to fight. Still he would not let her rise. He had not yet come, and he thrust and thrust again, as if he did not care that she might be dead when he was through.
Her chest was on fire, now; all that mattered was air, but there was no strength left in her to fight for it. She felt the world receding from her. The blackness about her turned to a red mist. Only vaguely was she aware of the convulsion of his body that signified his massive ejaculation. She barely felt the straining of him against her.
But then, just in time, she was released, and bobbed to the surface. She flailed and gagged and retched, sucking in great breaths of air that tasted better than anything she had ever known.
"Damn you," she snarled at Vito's head bobbing nearby, when she could find the strength. "Damn you, you almost killed me."
He grinned slowly and without remorse. "Vito don't never let go till he's through."
Wearily, Sue allowed the waves to drag her inward. She saw the shore approaching, and at last she was on her hands and knees on the sand, her body aching.
"This is what you need, kid." She heard and saw Vito's powerful body beside her, offering her the bottle of whisky.
The raw whisky ran unendingly down her throat. She tried to force the bottle away, but he held it too tightly. He must have poured a half pint in her that way before he took the bottle away and she could gasp for air, a thin trickle of liquor running down her chin from the corner of her mouth.
"First aid for drowned people," Vito said.
In her exhausted state, the whisky hit her like a blast of TNT. All at once, everything was all right.
She forgot Curt. She forgot what had happened to her in the ocean, her narrow brush with death. She forgot everything except now she had ah she needed: liquor, a man with the largest prick she had ever seen, and a place to let him fuck her ...
She tightened her arm around his neck.
"Come on, Vito," she said thickly. "Come on, carry me up to the house and give me that beautiful, fucking prick of yours again."
* * *
The rest of the night was a blur.
She had already had enough liquor poured in her to make it so. But she drank more, and everything swam before her vision. Nothing seemed real except the raw hunger in her pussy and the repeated gratification of it.
First, for the delectation and edification of the men, there was the show which Lucy had promised George. The exhibition which she had promised to stage with Sue Stevens.
Sue participated willingly.
She and Lucy began it by dancing together in the middle of the cabin, quite naked, while the two men sat on the beds and watched. To some inaudible music, they moved in a slow, sensuous rhythm, body rubbing against body. Sue grew more and more amorous as they danced, and she found herself kissing Lucy's ear, and throat, and shoulder. Then, still dancing, she allowed her lips to trail lower, nuzzling and nibbling at the other girl's small, perfectly formed breasts.
The dancing stopped, then. Lucy halted and stood immobile.
Sue finished sucking and kissing Lucy's breasts. Slowly, her knees bending, she began to kiss the soft moistness of Lucy's belly.
Lucy took a wide-legged stance. She put her hands on each side of Sue's sea-wet head, and pushed gently downward.
Under the pressure of those hands, Sue dropped to her knees. The hands suddenly fastened themselves behind her head, pulling her face savagely into the out-thrust pussy of Lucy.
For a long moment the room was silent, except for the soft, wet, slurping sounds made by Sue with her tongue on the willing pussy. Then Vito gave a whoop, as if he were cheering a baseball team. "Thata girl. Go to it. Eat her pussy right off."
George groaned. "Hell, I can't stand this."
He seized Lucy, pulled her free, and threw her down on the bed. Blindly, Sue followed, groping hungrily. She found that delicious pussy, which she was so busily feeding on, and sucked again. George let out a groan of frustration. He was about to pull Sue free again when he halted. His groan, this time was of a different kind. He looked down and saw Lucy's greedy lips close on his throbbing prick, sucking it down her throat until it disappeared completely.
And then Vito was lunging across the room. Coming up behind Sue's waving ass, his huge staff held in his huge hand, he presented it to her willing asshole. He pushed, but it would not enter. It was too large. Sue stopped her ministrations on the slippery pussy and turned, taking as much of that monstrous penis into her mouth, which was only the head, she slobbered on it until it was dripping with saliva, then turning, she presented her beautiful, firm ass to him again. This time, Vito lunged and the head disappeared. Sue felt herself tearing in two, but the pain was heaven. She pressed her ass backward, never letting her tongue leave the dripping pussy below her face.
Putting her hand under Lucy's ass, she spread the cheeks apart and inserted her finger into the opening. Thus she fucked the girl with her tongue and her finger also. Reaching between her legs, she grasped the enormous, hairy testicles of her fucker who was rendering destruction in her ass.
George felt himself building up.
"Now, suck harder. I'm coming."
And Lucy did, she sucked with all her power. Her tongue straining to enter the small hole in the tip of his prick. She tasted the spurts of hot come as they filled her mouth and throat. She gagged as she tried to swallow the volume of it. But it ran out of her mouth and down the sides of her face. She released the still squirting penis to prevent choking and accepted the rest of the jets on her face, enjoying the feel as it hit her eyes, nose and ran down her cheeks. At the same time she was shooting come with such a force, she heard Sue gasp and choke but still take all of the offering. Sue heard Vito yell like a bull and felt the hot, thick come jet into her bowels, filling her to capacity. She felt it run out around his thick phallus and down to her pussy. Then Sue, much to her surprise, came, dropping her hot, slimy juices on the floor between her legs, and all at once everything faded as she dropped in her own come and slept the sleep of the dead.
The whole weekend was pretty much of that order: a drunken, incredible tangling of flesh, growing more and more discriminate as appetites jaded themselves. The only punctuation was an occasional swim.
On Sunday afternoon, not long before they were to leave the shore, Sue awakened from a drunken sleep. Her head throbbed and the weight of Vito, half flung across her, cut off her breath. It was very hot now, in the little bungalow. She was beaded with sticky sweat
Gingerly she slid out of bed, and with her stomach twisting with nausea, she took a good long look at things. Still tangled intimately, George and Lucy slept with rasping snores on one bed. Vito was like an inert grizzly on the other. He was lying on his back with his mouth wide open, his body black with hair, repulsively aroused even in sleep. Sue shuddered as she looked at his half stiff penis. To think that ugly thing was in my pussy, ass and mouth. She felt nausea churn in her stomach, all that come from that hairy prick in my belly now. She turned her head away. She needed a swim, God, she needed a swim. The cold water, the cold clean water ...
There might be people on the beach at this time of day. Quietly, so as not to awaken the sleepers, she found a bathing suit ... It was a bikini whose wisps would barely protect her from arrest, but it would offer the least interference between her body and the cleansing air and water which she needed.
There were only a few bathers on the beach. She plunged into the water, grateful for its shocking chill, and swam very far out and then turned over on her back. She closed her eyes against the glare of the sun and let the water cradle her.
Again she pondered the divided parts of herself. The uncaged, prowling part, that sought every gratification that it could find, overriding all will and all decency. And the other part-the part that seemed to lift and soar when she thought of Curt, the part that was capable of normality and remorse.
That part of her was in ascendancy now. She hated herself, even more than she hated all those people up there in the cabin. For a moment she was tempted, as the waters closed over her body, to let the waves carry her out to sea, endlessly. Somehow, it was, in that moment, very tempting ...
But she fought back the impulse and, at last cleansed, swam toward shore. She found a tidal pool deep enough to cover her body, in the shadow of some great rocks. She sank into it as one might sink in a bath tub, sheltered and cool and secure.
She had to do something. Things couldn't go on this way. She had to make a choice between those divisive parts of her. Either she must become all slut, as Lucy was all slut, abandoning herself completely to sluttishness; or else she must kill that part of her, renounce that prowling, hungry part of her, and take Curt and what he had to offer her and be satisfied with it. Right now, she was sure that if she could only follow the latter course, if she could only be in Curt's arms this moment, she would never want another man of any kind.
Yes, she thought, it's not too late. I can escape. Sure, I can-
Then a shadow fell across the tidal pool. Slowly she raised her head and looked up at the thick figure of Vito, the giant, sloping shoulders, the unnaturally long arms, and the trailing hands.
He wore only a pair of pants, no shirt or no shoes. He licked his lips.
"What you trying to do? You trying to run out on Vito?"
Sue closed her eyes for an instant, then looked at him straight.
"Go away," she said warily. "Go away. You've had your money's worth."
"Nah," said Vito. "Vito ain't had it yet. Time don't end till we get back to town ..." He stepped into the margin of the pool.
"Go away, damn you," she snapped thinly. "I said go away. If you don't, I'll scream."
He leered. "So scream? Who's to hear ya? Everybody's gone in."
Then, with surprising quickness, he bent to seize her wrist. Before she could jerk away, he was yanking her to her feet.
His breath in her face was foul with whisky and sleep.
"So now," he rasped, "one more time." He backed her against the protective rock, and rammed himself at her.
With long, sharp nails, she raked a five-lined gouge straight down his cheek, and blood streamed forth.
"Say no? Scratch, huh? I'll show you."
He was just a shimmering horror now, as a haze settled before her eyes and a great gong rang in her head from the force of the slap. A horror in which all the violence, so uncertainly hidden beneath the surface, was boiling up into play. She saw his hand coming toward her face again. The second slap numbed her nearly completely.
Then she screamed. His blows were breaking through the numbness. He was hitting her, slap after slap, on the tender flesh of her breasts, and it was excruciating. She felt them bobbing and dancing under the impact, each one of them suddenly a mound of fire. He slammed her in the belly, and knocked the wind out of her. She doubled over. He knocked her erect again with a slap to her chin, and hit her breasts again. She went sprawling in the hot sand.
Then he was kicking her. Wherever he knew it would hurt most. The huge, bare, splayed-toed foot slamming into her soft breasts, and her pussy, legs spread wide, caught the toes inside as he kicked between her legs, bruising that delicate, lovely thing from which he had received so much pleasure. She was screaming, over and over, as loudly as she could.
And no help anywhere.
Then, vaguely, she was aware that the kicking had stopped, though the pain went on and on. And Vito was grunting softly:
"Now, now, now, now."
Savagely he rolled her over on her belly. She flopped inertly, too weak to move.
Vito was after the one place he had not kicked. He wanted to fuck her in the ass again. But, she realized, it was still so sore from the first night. She could not take that huge penis in her ass again. He would split her. It would kill her.
"No, please. It's too sore. Please ..." she begged.
"In the ass," Vito grunted. With his hands he spread the creamy white cheeks apart, baring the brownish red, angry looking small hole. As he shoved his penis, so large now that it resembled a small tree trunk, slowly into her protesting anus, Sue fainted.
IX
The second weekend in June: Eleven hundred, twenty-eight dollars.
The third weekend in June: Twelve hundred dollars even.
The fourth weekend in June: Fourteen hundred, seventy-two dollars.
An incredible sum. And vacation time still to come.
"Two weeks with pay," Lucy said. "And what pay."
She paced the apartment, tapping a pencil's yellow length against her palm.
"What would it be worth, Jud? If a weekend's worth two dollars a chance, what would a week be worth?"
Jud's eyes gleamed. "Ten dollars a chance, easy."
"How many can you sell?"
"The word's getting around that these weekends are a real ball. Five hundred chances easy."
"Five hundred chances at ten bucks a throw. Five thousand dollars! And two weeks. Two times five-ten thousand dollars."
"Jeez," Bernie said. "Jeez."
Sue stood up. "No," she said.
Lucy whirled. "No, what?"
"I mean," Sue said, "no. I'm through."
"You're what?" Lucy narrowed her eyes. "Say that again."
"I'm through."
"You're crazy," Lucy snapped. "Didn't you just hear what I said? Vacation's coming. Ten thousand dollars. Goddamnit, don't you know how to count? Ten Thousand Dollars."
"I know how to count," Sue said.
"Then-"
"Then, it still stands. I'm through."
Jud scrambled up out of his chair.
"It's that Walker guy," he cried accusingly, in a voice of outrage. "That damn stuck-up engineer she's been going with. That's why she's trying to pull out."
Lucy's gaze was cold. "Is that it?"
"Yes," said Sue. "That's it. He's asked me to marry him. So-I'm through."
"Damn," Lucy said viciously. "I knew I should have broken that up."
"Listen," Sue said, "You've made good money. You can have all of it, too. I don't want any of it. I've let these weekend animals rape me in every conceivable fashion for it. I've let them beat me up. I've let them do things to me that made my stomach crawl. I didn't know there were so many odd balls in the world. I've sucked their soft, worn-out pricks so they could fuck me in the ass. I've let the two of them shoot off in my face and all over my body. I've had to stick my tongue up into their asses. All for the lousy money, but you can have it and we'll write it off. All I want to do is quit, now."
"No," said Lucy Harris.
"Yes," said Sue, full of defiance.
"I said, no, you can't quit."
"Look." Lucy tried to put a reasonable tinge in her voice. "Look, sweetheart, you can't quit now. Not with this ten thousand dollar killing to make. Let's get that first. Then you can quit."
"I told you," Sue said, "I don't want the money."
"Goddamnit," Lucy said, "I don't care whether you want the money or not. You're going to work right along with me on this. We started it together and we're going to finish it together. After vacation, I'll have all I'll need. I'm going to haul my ass out of here for Las Vegas then. But we've got these two weeks to sell out first."
Sue turned away without answering.
* * *
Lucy stood immobile for a moment. Bernie whispered: "Somebody stop her. Jeez, we can't turn loose a gold mine like this now."
"I'll stop her. Don't worry," Lucy said coldly.
"Nobody's going to stop me," Sue said without turning.
"You don't want Curt Walker to get a complete run-down on your weekend activities, do you?" Lucy said.
Sue tensed visibly. "You wouldn't dare," she said. "It would bring everything down on you."
"Listen," Lucy said, "how many times have I told you that I don't give a fuck for anything? How many times have I told you that I was crazy and didn't care whether I was or not? Well, I'm crazy enough to do that if you make me do it, if you double-cross me this way, and you know I am."
Sue did not answer.
"Don't you?" Lucy snapped.
"Yes," Sue said at last. Her shoulders were shaking slightly.
"We even took some indoor movies," Lucy went on. "Remember? One of the guys brought his camera, and we all got drunk and thought it would be fun to take movies? I've got some good film of you, Sue. Film that Walker would like to see. There's one shot in particular, where you're down on your hands and knees, with a hard prick shoved down your throat and one crammed up your ass. And, sweetie, you were loving it."
"Stop it," Sue said tautly. "Damn you, stop it."
Lucy came up behind her. She put her hands on Sue's shoulders.
"I don't want to have to get rough with you, baby," she whispered, nibbling the lobe of Sue's ear. "You know how much I like you."
Sue jerked away.
"But I can get just as rough as a file if I have to," Lucy snarled.
Sue turned slowly. There were tears streaming down her face.
"Ah right," she said at last. "All right, you win. I'll go along over vacation. But then I'm through. I don't care what you do. I'm through after vacation, do you hear?"
"I hear you, baby," Lucy whispered. "You don't need to shout."
* * *
They lay together in darkness, she and Curt Walker. Sated, his hand moved gently over her stomach.
"I love you," he whispered. "I love you, but you're driving me crazy."
"Why?" Sue returned his caress.
"These damned weekends of yours." The air-conditioner in his apartment made a constant hissing obbligato to their conversation. "What do you do on these weekends? Do you spend them with other men? Why won't you tell me?"
"I told you," she breathed, nausea at the deception she must practice thick within her. "I told you my mother's very sick. And that I have to go home every weekend."
"Yes," he said. "Of course. But-"
"Please," she said. "Please, just accept what I tell you and if you love me as much as you say you do, don't ask me any more questions."
She felt his body tense and then relax resignedly under her hand.
"All right," he said in the darkness. "If that's the way you want it."
"In just a week," he said, a moment later. "The plant closes down and everyone takes a vacation."
"Yes, I know."
"I thought," he said. "I thought, if your mother was better at all, we might ... we might go somewhere. You and I, together. You could phone your mother every night if you like."
Sue closed her eyes and took her hand off his stomach.
"I'm sorry," she said. "I'm terribly sorry, Curt." She heard the outgoing hiss of his breath. "Previous commitment, eh?"
"Yes."
"Your mother?"
"Yes. My-my mother."
He sat up quickly.
"Goddamnit, Sue," he said in a voice full of strangled anger, "you can't keep this up any longer. Mother or no mother, you can't go on playing both ends against the middle."
"Please, Curt." There was urgency in her voice. "Please, be still and listen to me a minute."
"All right," he said grudgingly.
She sought for words. "Curt. I promise you. As God is my witness, I swear it. After vacation, there'll be no more missing weekends. No matter what ... no matter what happens to my mother, if you'll just bear with me until after vacation, we'll never be apart again ... I promise."
He sat tensely, bitterly, for awhile without answering.
Then he said slowly: "All right."
Sue felt her muscles relax with relief at having surmounted this crisis. She put her hand back on his stomach, following it with her lips.
"Now," she said, "Now, my darling, just lie back. Lie back and let me suck your heavenly penis. I want to lick the length of it, and tickle the tip with my tongue, suck it until you fill my mouth with your wonderful, delicious come."
* * *
Since all the section leaders were present, the conference was a large one and filled the board room completely. In addition to the men sitting at the table, the younger engineers were ranked around the walls, standing.
Carlton Schmidt, recently made president of the company, rapped on the table authoritatively.
"I repeat," he snapped, "this rumor must be traced to its source and either verified or disproved. Now, if there is anyone in this room who has any knowledge or information about it, I want him to speak up."
The room was silent.
"I thought not," Carlton Schmidt said. "They never approach the section leaders. Nor any of the executive personnel."
"Let me get this straight," Tully, the vice-production man said again. "Let me explain, for the benefit of those who came in late. Our production curve's dropped way down, for no explicable reason. I've done a little investigation on my own, and I've uncovered a fantastic rumor. It seems that some sort of subterranean gambling game is going on in the plant, a sort of raffle involving women. The women ..." He looked embarrassed, "The women sell chances on themselves. The workers buy these chances, and the winners get weekends with the women, all expenses paid." He shook his head. "I know it sounds fantastic. But that's the report I come up with."
"Only we don't know," Schmidt added, "who the women are or who's selling these tickets on them. All we know is that it seems to have the men so excited that they can't think about anything else. And it's caused production to fall off."
"So we've got to root it out," Tully said.
"But how? That's the problem. Because they won't sell to executives. We can't get any proof."
"I don't know," Tully answered Schmidt. "But something's got to be done to put an end to it. The way it's going now, the men aren't working. They're just living for the weekends when the winners go off with these women."
A young engineer with blue eyes in a boyish face took a step away from the wall. His expression was very grave. "Weekends?" he asked.
"Yes, of course, weekends. That's what they raffle off."
"Weekends," the young man said. "Of course."
"Look here, Walker," Schmidt said crisply. "Do you know anything about this?"
Walker shook his head. "No," he said. "No, I don't think so. I hope not."
"I should hope not either," Tully said sourly. "But what we have to do is to persuade somebody, whoever it is selling these tickets, that the lower management group is just as receptive as anybody else. What we have to do is persuade them to sell us some tickets for evidence. Once we have that evidence, we'll know how to leap."
"Yes," said Schmidt. "That's it." His eyes flickered to Walker. "You. Despite your denial, you seem to have some special interest in this."
"Maybe so," Walker whispered. "But, oh God, I hope not."
"We might as well try you as anybody," Schmidt said. "Listen, Walker, I'm giving you an assignment. You'll spend a little company money at it. It's going to take tact, tact and diplomacy. Tact, diplomacy, and money. They're a hard combination to beat, and maybe you can turn up something. Here's what you're to do ..."
* * *
"You're damn right," George said. "What do you think I've been saving up my cigarette money for all these weeks? I've given up smoking entirely. Hell, yes, gimme a ten dollar chance."
Jud grinned. "You liked the sample you had, huh?"
"Boy," George said, hoarsely. "Boy, oh boy."
Jud put the money in his wallet and handed George a stub. "Good luck, you greedy so-and-so," he said and started on down the hall. His wallet was bulging, and he was feeling very pleased with himself. They would divvy up a nice pile of cash, now that Stevens girl had seen the light.
Then a voice called his name:
"Jud."
He turned. The voice had come from the partly open door of the office whose nameplate said: Curtis Walker, Section Leader, Project 220.
Jud frowned. Oh, hell. Now I'm going to get chewed out for being away from work again.
"Yes sir, Mr. Walker?" he said.
"Come in here a minute."
Entering slowly, Jud was surprised to see Walker leaning back in his chair, his feet up on his desk. He had never seen Walker that relaxed before. The project leader motioned toward a chair. "Sit down, Jud, and take a load off your feet."
Jud sat. He sat and waited, coiled like a spring, with apprehension and guilt.
Then Walker took his feet down and smiled at Jud. It was the first time Jud had ever seen him smile. It was a smile whose charm washed over him and relieved his mind completely. He felt the tension in his body ebb away.
"Jud," said Walker, "I need your help."
"Yes, sir."
"You know everybody in this company and everything that happens in it, don't you?"
"I wouldn't say that, sir." He was instantly cautious again.
"Oh, relax. I'm not going to bite you. I told you, I need your help." Walker offered Jud a cigarette, lit it for him. "I'm a bachelor, Jud."
"Uh-huh."
"And a bachelor-well, he finds it pretty hard to get as much pussy as he wants. You know how it is."
"Yeah," said Jud. "I know how it is."
"I've been going with this girl that works here in the plant," Walker said, "a girl named Sue Stevens. You know her?"
"Yeah."
Walker laughed shortly, a rather nasty laugh. "The crazy bitch thinks I'm going to marry her. So she's been giving me a little ass now and then. But not enough. Not nearly enough." He shook his head. "You'd be surprised what a sales talk it takes to get it sometimes."
Jud stared. He blinked his eyes. "Way I heard the Stevens girl talk, you and she were quite a thing, Mr. Walker."
He laughed again. "Tactics, Jud. Simple tactics. Quickest way to fuck a girl. She's not a bad piece, either. But she's tied up a lot of the time, she must have somebody else on the string. So I want to find somebody else. You know all the girls in the plant, Jud. Can't you tell me which ones are fucking, so I can plan an attack?"
"Mr. Walker," Jud pretended to be shocked. "What a thing to say." But his brain was racing. Was Walker trying to pull a fast one, or was he sincere? The rough language he'd used about Sue had been jarring. He wondered what Sue would say if he repeated it to her.
"Come off it, Jud. You know these girls inside and out, so to speak. Which ones?"
"I couldn't tell you anything like that."
Walker dug in his pocket. "Not even for twenty bucks?"
His three ex-wives were really digging in the alimony spurs, eating up the raffle money as quickly as he could earn it. Jud eyed the twenty.
"Well," he said, "there's several."
They talked about women and sex for a long time. But Curt never mentioned the raffle.
That was on Tuesday. On Thursday, Jud made his final rounds, to see if there was anybody he'd missed with tickets. Again Walker called him into his office.
To his surprise, Jud saw that Walker was a little bit drunk. As Jud sat down, Walker got up and went unsteadily to the door and shut it. Then he took a bottle out of his desk drawer and dragged long and hard from it. Without offering it to Jud, he slipped it back in the desk.
"Get so goddam tired of being the old hard-nose on this project," he mumbled. "Every now and again, I take a little slug just to reinforce the brass in me." He grinned a trifle vapidly at Jud. "You know you're a damn fraud, don't you?"
"What?" Jud was realizing that what he'd just seen would get Walker fired. He was wondering what had come over the man.
"I said you're a damn fraud. I tried a pitch with two of those girls you swore would fuck and didn't get to first base with either of them. Haven't you got anything else to offer?"
"Hell, no," said Jud. "What do you think I am: a pimp?"
"No, of course not," Walker said placatorily. "You know I wouldn't imply anything like that, Jud, old buddy." He fished out the bottle again. "You want a drink?"
"Not on company time. It might get me fired."
"Hell with the company," Walker said. "You know what they did to me? I was due to get promoted last week. Instead, they passed me over." He told Jud explicitly what the company could do with itself, which would have involved both a physical and corporate miracle.
Jud relaxed. So that was it. The company had screwed Walker. Sure, he remembered hearing talk about it now. So, in turn, Walker was out to shaft the company. And, apparently, anything else he could get his hands on.
"I got to find something," he mumbled on. "I got to find something before vacation. I ain't gonna spend my vacation all by myself. Hell, no." He slapped the table. "And I asked that damn stuck-up bitch, Sue Stevens, and she said no, she already had a date. So the hell with her. She can go fuck her own goddamn pussy."
Jud grinned wryly. He was beginning to see the shaping up of something. Something that would be a magnificent joke on everybody, something that would put some money in his hands. His second wife especially was getting rough. He could use every cent he could find.
"Look, Curt," he said with easy familiarity. "I could fix you up for a week of vacation. But it would cost money."
"Money, hell. Money I got. Can't find any women to spend it on, why wouldn't I have it?"
"How bad you want a week's fun?"
"Want it bad. Real bad. Asked Sue. She turned me down. Company turned me down and Sue turned me down, all in the same week. Damn them both."
Jud relaxed. He had Walker all pegged now. This was no trick. The man was bitter, and he didn't give a damn who knew it or how much he showed it. He wouldn't be the first executive who'd gone rogue after he considered an insult on the company's part.
"For five hundred dollars and ten extra," Jud said, "I can make sure you spend a week with Sue Stevens."
"W-a-ait a minute ... I thought you said you weren't a pimp."
"I'm no pimp. It just so happens," Jud went on, "that I'm running a raffle. And it just so happens that I can control whose ticket wins ..."
Walker shook his head. "You're nuts. Raffle? I don't understand."
"Let me explain. There's these two girls-" Jud leaned across the desk and began to talk intently, while Walker took out the bottle and finished it in one long, draining gulp.
They were alone in Lucy's and Sue's apartment. Jud looked unperturbed, reclining comfortably in his chair, a drink in his hand.
"What's crazy about it?" he asked. "Six thousand dollars I take in for you for a single week and you still don't trust me?"
"Not when you do an insane thing like that. Spilling the beans to somebody like Curt Walker. Selling him a ticket, for heaven's sake. And promising him he'll win. Why the company will be down on us in no time."
"No, they won't," Jud said easily. "No, they won't at all." He sat up straight, then leaned forward. "Listen, Sue was going to drag out anyway, wasn't she?"
"Yes."
"On account of Walker, right?"
"Yes."
"And actually Walker don't give a damn about her, except as a good fuck now and then. And, once we prove that to Sue, what reason will she have to quit then?"
Lucy frowned. "You mean-7"
"You know exactly what I mean. There's still thousands to be made in this deal. And there's not another girl in the plant that's got the drawing power that Sue's got, because there's not another girl built like she is. So why let her loose now? Let her see how Curt Walker really feels about her. Rub her nose in it all week, and watch what happens. You remember what you told me one time about how you got disappointed in love and it made you kind of crazy? So now, you don't give a damn what you do anymore? Well, why not let that happen to Sue?"
"I'm beginning to see," Lucy breathed. "But one of the executives-It's too risky."
"Not with this executive. I've got the inside dope on him. He got passed over for promotion and he's ready to blow his stack. He'd see the company in hell before he'd squeal to it."
"You're sure of it?"
"I'm sure," Jud said. "I may not be pretty, but damned if I don't know people."
"Maybe," Lucy said.
"Maybe nothing. Besides, Lucy, he's our in. We've been messing around with the two-dollar-a-chance boys. Why not let the fellows that really have money to spend get in on the deal? We need a representative among the white collar boys."
"Maybe you're right," Lucy said thoughtfully. Her eyes narrowed. "How much did he pay you to make sure he'd win?"
Jud looked hurt. "Pay me? Not a damned thing except ten dollars for a raffle ticket."
"You're a lying bastard," Lucy said coldly, her eyes boring into his. Jud squirmed.
"Damn it, you got X-ray eyes? All right. So he paid me a hundred dollars. But even so, I think it's a damn good idea. It'll straighten Sue out and open up a whole new field for us. What do you think?"
"I think you owe me ninety dollars of that hundred," Lucy said flatly. Then she smiled. "And I think you deserve the best fucking and sucking I can give you for fixing Sue."
X
After Jud had left his office with the five hundred and ten dollars of company money, Curt Walker got up very slowly. He crossed the office, shut the door, and locked it. Then, like a man in a dream, he moved back to his chair and sank down into it. He put his elbows on his desk and buried his face in his hands.
This was what he had been afraid of. This was what he had been afraid of ah along. Ever since her weekend absence had begun to form a pattern. And now he had verification. All the verification he needed.
He rose from his desk and took down his toothbrush and paste. He kept this, with other supplies, in the office for nights when he had to work late. He brushed his teeth vigorously. Symbolically trying to scrub Sue away.
But it didn't work. It didn't work at all. Even after he was through, a vision of her still danced before his eyes.
He groaned aloud.
After he had put away the equipment, he sat back at his desk. Not doing anything but staring into space.
Curt had never been in love before. Ever since he could remember, he'd been a man in a hurry. There had been no time to be soft, no time to show any particular regard for others.
The race to the top was too competitive, he had always felt, for any detours or distractions, such as love.
That had been before he'd met Sue.
He had always despised people who let their emotions dominate them. Now he felt his emotions controlling him. He was jarred out of his sea of hopelessness by the sounding of a buzzer on his desk.
"Mr. Walker," said the secretary whom he shared with another manager, "Mr. Schmidt would like to see you in his office."
Walker clicked off the instrument and leaned back in his chair, trying to compose himself. Why should he be so shaken by a whore. True, a beautiful one, but a whore just the same.
Of course, he was a fool to be so affected. An idiot. Why sweat it? Tell Schmidt what he'd found out. The company would fire Sue. There might be criminal prosecution. So what? What skin was it off his ass. She wasn't the kind of woman with whom a man was supposed to fall in love. She was nothing but a strumpet, and who cared what happened to strumpets?
Schmidt's office was very impressive, but Curt was in no mood to be impressed today. All the way down here, from his office to Schmidt's, his brain had been whirling. It had always been the main tenet of his beliefs that the company came first. Yet, as he covered the distance, he found himself more and more reluctant to say the words that would bring the house of cards Sue had built crashing down around her-and around him.
Then an idea had occurred to him. A wild idea, a completely fantastic one. One which he was not yet ready to deal with fully. One that had to be weighed and appraised in a calmer moment.
Only, of course, it would mean betraying the company.
So instead of standing at the kind of attention which was the wonted posture before Schmidt, he sagged a little wearily.
"Yes, sir," he said flatly.
"Tomorrow's the last day before we shut for vacation," Schmidt said. "Have you found out anything yet?"
Curt Walker took a deep breath. "No, sir," he said. "I haven't found out anything yet."
Schmidt pursed his lips and then bared his teeth. "Hell, you're a fine detective."
"I didn't hire out as a detective," Walker said.
"What do you mean by that?"
"Nothing, sir," Curt said tiredly. "Nothing at all."
"All right. Keep trying. Nose around during vacation and see what you can find."
After he was in the hall, Curt paused. Then he strode rapidly to his office. He picked up the phone and pushed the intercom.
"Get me Miss Stevens," he asked the secretary.
"On the phone," he added, after deciding he did not want to see her just yet.
After he heard her voice, he asked:
"About tonight. I have to work. You don't mind too much, do you, darling?"
"Oh, Curt," Sue cried. "I wanted to see you so bad, especially since this is the last night before vacation."
"It can't be helped. I don't like it either, but after all, I have to have the job so we can be married." His stomach turned at the thought.
After hanging up, he hung his head in his hands and thought.
Even the thought of her selling her body to other men, knowing she had done the same things to them as she did so lovingly to him, he felt a twinge of remorse. He must decide if he still loved her or not.
If he did, there was perhaps a way to save her.
And if he didn't-well, he could give the whole affair, chapter and verse, to Schmidt after vacation. He looked down at his opened hands, palms up. In a sense, Sue's fate was in them.
XI
Vito was still in a seething fury when he left the plant that Friday at quitting time. They'd cheated on him. That's what. They thought that just because Vito was big and not real fast, he was too dumb to know when somebody was cheating him.
Striding along the pavement, headed downtown, he ran through the ponderous gears of his mind his conversation earlier in the day with Jud.
He'd accosted Jud as the fat man crossed the gear room in which Vito worked.
"Hey, Jud. I won, didn't I?"
Jud had looked startled. "What?"
"I put up fifty bucks for two chances. I won, didn't I?"
Jud frowned, pulled his arm away. "No, Vito. No, you didn't win."
"What you mean I didn't win? That goddamn George won again, didn't he?"
Jud grinned. "I'd rather have luck like his than a license to steal. If his wife ever finds out what he's bought with his cigarette money, she'll clobber him."
"Awright," Vito said. "So George won again. So how come I didn't win again? He and I won together the first time."
Jud frowned and some of his grin had faded. "Now, look, Vito, you must be joking. Hell, you can't expect ..."
"What you mean, I can't expect. Ain't I already spent eight dollars I got nothing to show for? George won again; so it must be my turn, too."
"No. Now, you know, Vito, it couldn't possibly work that way. The law of averages-"
"Don't know nothing about the law of averages. George won again. I oughta win again."
"I told you, Vito, that damn George is just plain lucky. He won't win again in a thousand years after this time."
"Well, you'll have to wait for another time. You didn't win this go-round."
"If I didn't, who did?"
Jud hesitated. "Another guy, that's all, he's asked his name not to be given out."
"Goddamn it, now I know you're trying to cheat me. You can't fool Vito. Vito's not stupid. I know what you're trying to do." He clawed at Jud's arm, his face twisted and dangerous.
Jud pulled his arm away hastily, and retreated across the room.
"I'm sorry, Vito," he said. "I'm sorry, but you just didn't win and there's nothing else to say. I'll try to explain some other time." And he'd almost run from the room.
But they weren't fooling Vito, he thought, as he walked downtown. By damn, they weren't fooling him at all. They were trying to cheat him out of what was rightfully his.
He turned into a cheap bar and sat down at the counter. "I'll take a beer."
The bartender served him a foaming glass, and he drank it at a gulp.
"Another beer." He pulled out a wad of bills that was a week's pay and two weeks' vacation pay. It made a sizable roll of money. He peeled off five.
"Keep on with the beer. Vito's thirsty."
He was deep in his fourth beer when he felt the silken brush of a leg against his.
He raised his head and looked at the woman who'd sat down beside him. For a moment he'd hoped, just barely hoped, that it might be her, the Stevens girl. Ah, she was such good ass. But no. No, this was a blowsy woman twice the age of the Stevens girl, with breasts that slumped beneath her too tight dress.
Still, she seemed to be sociable. She patted his thick, rock-hard leg and murmured:
"Why don't you buy me a drink, honey?"
The touch of her hand on Vito's leg was all it took. He felt his frustrated lust double and redouble. He rubbed his leg against hers in response.
"Vito don't mind if he does," he rumbled.
* * *
She had a room upstairs, and Vito sat on the bed, later, and watched her undress. He felt bloated and awash with beer, but he was not drunk.
She said:
"Unzip me, okay, doll?" She turned her back to him. His thick, clumsy fingers found the zipper and worked it down. The dress peeled away from around her. Her skin was the dead white color of a stranded fish's belly.
But she was woman flesh. Even despite the fact that her breasts were broken-veined and brown-nippled, and sagged down almost to her navel, even despite the fact she had a pot belly, thick thighs, and thick ankles. She was a woman, and he wanted a woman now. But she sure was different from Sue Stevens.
She caught the expression on his brutal face. "What's the matter, doll? Don't you like Louise?"
"Sure," he grunted. "Sure, Louise is all right." But what he was thinking was that somebody else would be in a car with Sue about now. Somebody else would be speeding toward the beach with her. Somebody else would be putting his hands on those big breasts that felt so good under your palms. Breasts that hold themselves up, and did not sag like those of the tired old whore named Louise. Envy was a hot iron thrust through his vitals, outrage was acid in his throat. He snarled, viciously.
"Hell," Louise said, a little frightened. "What's the matter with you, doll?"
"Nothing," Vito snapped. He took off his own clothes.
Louise watched in awe. When he was undressed she whistled.
"Honey, I ain't seen nothing like that since the 1939 World's Fair."
Vito didn't get it. He blinked and snarled again, because he was in no mood for people saying things he didn't understand.
"What's that mean?"
"I mean you're really built. My gosh, you're built like a fucking stud horse."
Vito looked down. He saw what she meant, now.
"Yah," he said a little proudly.
She moved closer to him, fondling his massive prick, hefting it in the palm of her hand.
"How you want it, honey?"
"In your ass. That's the only way Vito likes it Right in your shit-hole."
The smile vanished. "Oh, no, doll, I don't do that. The doctor told me not to. Besides, it hurts. Way you're built, it would split me from asshole to cunt."
"That's the only way I want it," Vito said doggedly.
"But I just told you-"
He wasted no more time on words: He clapped one hand over her mouth, threw her down on her belly on the bed. He made a ram of his huge penis, and holding it in one hand, spreading her ass apart with the other, he lunged into her, breaking through her resistance easily. Her anguished cry wasted itself against the bed.
Vito lunged again and again into her torn, bleeding ass. He paid no attention to her sobs and moans. All that concerned him was venting his passion deep into her bowels. At last, he shot spurt after hot spurt into her intestines, and rolled off beside her.
As she lay moaning beside him, Vito drifted into sleep, drugged by beer. In his sleep, he dreamed leetingly of Sue. Dreamed of fucking her in her beautiful, round ass, dreamed of the ecstasies he could achieve with her ...
He did not know what awakened him. But when he opened his eyes, she was standing at the foot of the bed. Her hand was deep in his trouser pockets.
Vito came off the bed with a roar. Louise had time for just one quick, whimpering protestation.
"No," she begged. Then he hit her.
The blow knocked her halfway across the room, and she slammed into the wall. It probably, also, broke her lower jaw, for it sagged crazily, and blood ran out of her mouth.
Vito stood over her without pity.
"Bitch," he snarled. "Stealing bitch."
He put on his clothes. After having used the woman and then having hit her, he should have felt much better. But he didn't, he didn't at all. He was still convinced that they'd conspired to cheat him out of his due. George would be having a ball right now. Why wasn't he, Vito, doing the same?
By God, he knew where the beach house was. He could stand it no longer. He knew where he could get a car, too. His buddy, Tom would lend him his-or else. Full of determination now, Vito stepped over the woman's body.
They thought they could cheat him, eh? They thought they could cheat Vito. Well, he'd show them.
* * *
Sue sat alone in the back seat of the car, speeding toward the beach. She was glad for at least temporary respite. It would give her time to think. Lord knows, she told herself, I need all the time I can get.
Ever since last night, when Curt had broken her date, she was so wracked and puzzled that she hardly thought of the forthcoming week. That, essentially, counted for nothing. What counted was that for some reason, Curt Walker was suddenly indifferent to her. She had found out he did not work late, as he said, but spent the evening alone in his apartment.
At first, she'd thought that he'd found out about the raffle. But she'd soon convinced herself that was not the case. If he'd known about the raffle, he wouldn't have called her.
No. So it must be something else if it weren't the raffle. It must be jealousy, hurt, because she wasn't spending the vacation with him. That could account for his sulking. And if that were the case, then everything would be ah right
She began to feel better.
Of course. It wasn't the end of the world. It was just a temporary lover's quarrel. There would be a two week lag, but two weeks wasn't forever, and soon everything would be all right again. It had to be.
That rationalization, and, perhaps, the growing clean tang of salt air, wiped her clean of most of her depression. With a guiltily prurient curiosity, she wondered who her partner for the week would be, and what he would be like. Just so long as he wasn't another Vito, she could stomach him. She'd learned an incredible lot about the wildly perverted workings of the minds of some men, in these past few weeks. She had the feeling that there was nothing she could be revolted by any more in the way of sex. Nothing at all.
So as long as the winner who was to take her wasn't brutal, she would make out all right.
It was just as well, though, she thought, that he hadn't been able to ride to the beach with them, whoever he was. He'd passed a vague message on to Jud that he would be detained a little while by business and would drive to the shore in his own car later. Jud said he'd given the man a map. She'd asked his name, but Jud had only mumbled something vague. It didn't matter. The last thing that mattered in a situation like this was a name.
Anyway, the poor guy was probably desperately trying to square things with his wife, to nail the holes shut in his story, so he could get away this week. Maybe he wouldn't show up at all. And then, while Lucy entertained George, Sue, could spend the whole week swimming in the cleansing waters of the ocean and thinking of Curt. Wouldn't that be wonderful?
The car sped on into the night. George turned in the front seat.
"Sue? Are you getting lonesome back there?"
"Not very."
His face fell. "I was just thinking-Lucy is concentrating on driving, and I thought maybe ... Well, I thought maybe I could kind of keep you company."
His face looked so pathetically eager that she relented slightly. "Oh, all right. You can come back here and talk to me, but you've got to keep your hands to yourself."
"Okay, sure." With the car still in motion, he scrambled from the front seat to the back like an awkward child. He was panting as he seated himself beside her.
He sat hunched with his hands clasped shyly for a few moments. Sue looked out the window at the flat expanse of tidal marshes racing past and vanishing in the night.
Then she realized that George had moved much closer to her. Hesitantly, his thigh touched hers.
Suddenly it seemed ridiculous, this slow, childish way after that first orgiastic weekend. Why did men have to be such children? Well, she'd let him have a little feel. It didn't matter. Nothing mattered during this two week interlude except living through it and getting it over with.
So she took his hand and placed it on one of her large breasts. His body stiffened. His other hand, encouraged, lost no time in finding her leg.
They were nearly there, now. Sue felt the car make a sharp turn which meant they had entered the beach area.
George was aggressive, now that he had been given reason. His soft hand slid up beneath her dress, sliding along her inner leg.
Sue let the mild enjoyment of it spread through her. George's probing fingers touched the moist panties covering her hairy pussy. Sue heard her breath coming a little faster. She spread her legs wide.
Then, by the leverage of her breasts, George was pulling her toward him, and again Sue thought: What difference does it make?
His mouth came down on hers, his tongue searching. He pulled Sue's skirt up to her waist. She raised her buttocks from the seat, aiding him. He bore her backward, and she slid full length along the seat, the weight of his body blocking out everything else.
He had generated more than a little fire in her by now. Her ass moved on the upholstery and her legs began gyrations. She clung to him with more enthusiasm, returning his kisses with a fervor that was unfeigned. The part of her was in ascendancy now that needed only another body to satisfy it, the wild and reckless part which applauded fucking of any kind.
She did not realize that the car had stopped. Neither did George. As they twisted together on the back seat, still short of actual fuck, they did not hear the front door slam as Lucy got out. They did not hear her voice, faintly ironic:
"Oh, so you got here? Well, if you're looking for your date, she's there in the back seat."
Sue did not, in fact, hear the rear door of the car open. The first inkling she had that disaster of the greatest magnitude had descended on her was when George's head moved aside briefly. Then her body quickly went rigid. Her breath was an in-sucked gasp of shame and horror, and she shoved George off her without warning. As she sat up swiftly, one breast bounced free of the unbuttoned dress. Her skirt was still around her waist and her moist pussy hairs were shining under the sheer panties. She was too shocked to cover herself.
They were parked outside the bungalow. And she was staring at the face of Curt Walker, a face like a mask whittled from some unbreakable, ghost-white wood. Only the eyes in it were alive. They were like cold, blue ice, full of contempt and disgust as they shuttled from George to her.
"You," Sue whispered. "What are you doing here?"
She scrambled out of the car. She became aware of the large breast still in sight. Without looking, she put it back, fumbled with the buttons, then made a frantic effort to arrange her hair.
Walker was a tall figure in the moonlight, hands on hips, legs spraddled. He waited a moment before he answered.
"I won you."
She stared at him. "What?"
"I won you. For an investment of ten dollars in a raffle chance. I'm the lucky winner." His voice was caustic as spilled acid. "Congratulate me."
Words that could not find an outlet trembled in Sue's throat. "Curt, my God ..."
Then enough of the shock ebbed for her brain to begin to function. She whirled to Lucy.
"You," she rasped. "You arranged this."
Lucy smiled enigmatically. "Let's say that I gave Lady Luck a hand."
Sue made an anguished sound in her throat. She whirled toward the car.
"Give me those keys. I'm through. I'm not going to stay here."
Curt's hand moved with the flashing speed of a snake striking. His hand locked mercilessly on her arm, and she cried out as he spun her around.
"No, you're not," he grated. "You're not going anywhere."
"Yes. Yes, I am. I can't-"
He shook her viciously. This was a side of him new to her. She stared, appalled, speechless.
"Yes you can. Listen, you bitch. I paid for you. I paid my money and I'm not going to be cheated out of it. Do you understand? I asked you once to spend this vacation with me and you wouldn't do it. So I've bought you. For ten lousy dollars, I've bought you, and you're mine. I want my ten bucks worth. I want every bit of it, I won't stand being cheated by you any more than I would by any other hooker."
She had never heard such grief, such bitterness, in any voice before. Each word was like a lash across her face. She sucked in a deep breath, fighting for control. All at once she was astonished at the icy calm that she attained.
Slowly, deliberately, wanting only to hurt back, she smiled at him. It was a smile of utter lewdness, completely wanton. The world had just been swept away from beneath her, and she did not care what she said or did now.
"All right," she murmured, voice dropping to a deliberate timbre of cheap seductiveness, like that of a street-walker, working a bar. "All right, big boy. If it's fun you want, I'll see that you get it." Quite purposefully, she rubbed her hips against his, feeling his maleness. "I think you'll find I can deliver. Because if there's one thing we need in this business, it's satisfied customers."
His face was still rock hard.
"Yes," he grated. "All right. Then let's get up to the house. Because I'm ready. And I don't want to waste any time." He spun her around and gave her a push that sent her staggering through the darkness toward the unlighted bungalow.
George and Lucy sat on the bed, a few minutes later, too interested in what was happening even to undress.
Curt was standing in the middle of the room, his face expressionless. He towered over Sue, a whisky bottle in one hand.
"Free whisky, too," he sneered. "All the comforts of home. Well, I paid my money and I intend to get my share of everything." He tilted up the bottle and drank.
Then he slammed it down on the table so hard the little house virtually shook.
"Everything," he roared. "Do you hear, you two-timing bitch?"
His hand shot out again and there was the crisp sound of ripping fabric. Walker threw the torn dress to one side, leered drunkenly at the girl, standing in sheer, revealing panties now.
She made no effort to cover her body.
His voice deepened, streaked with a sound of pain:
"Look at them, George," he whispered. "Look at those titties. Beautiful, aren't they? How many men have put their lips on them? How many men have sucked them, when I thought they belonged to me."
"And your mouth," he went on scathingly. "How many men have shoved their pricks in between those lips? How much come have you drank from dripping cocks with that lovely mouth? Well, you're going to do everything to me that you have done to those men."
She said nothing.
"And your body. I'm going to use it. I'm going to use it every way I can think of. No matter whether you like it or not. Because you're mine. I bought you for the week, and I'm going to use you up, and when I'm through with you, I'll throw you aside like I would a used condom. And you know why, don't you?" He drank quickly from the bottle again.
"To think," he said, blurredly, "to think that once I loved you. Aahhh." It was a wrenched and tearing sound of disgust.
Sue looked at him coolly, not betraying any of the hurt his words caused.
"You talk a lot," she said flatly. "But are you any good?" Deliberately, she rolled the sheer panties down her hips and legs, kicking them across the room. She sat on the bed, and then rolled over on her back. Her legs moved apart. Her body rose, so she rested her weight on her shoulders and feet, presenting her wet, angry looking pussy to him. Curt heard George gasp at the sight. He made a strangled sound in his throat. He was already whipping off his clothes.
His prick was standing straight up, rigid with desire. The head an angry, red, swollen knob, dripping clear fluid. Sue gasped at the familiar sight of it.
She did not have long to enjoy the sight because Curt fell on top of her and forced his lunging prick deep into her now throbbing pussy. It was a brutal rape, but she gloried in the pain of it. Soon she was moving her ass up to meet his thrusts, crying out for more. It was not love fucking, it was more of a combat between two savage animals. It did not take long, and when she felt Curt stiffen and then spasmodically, come into her with a flood of his hot juice Sue shoved him aside.
She got off the bed and picked up the whisky bottle he'd abandoned. She put it to her mouth and drank of it straight, just as he had done. She drank a good deal of it, and when she set the bottle down, she turned toward him mockingly, her legs spread, his juices running down her legs.
"I've had better," she sneered. "Why, I don't know but what even George there is better than you. I think I'll find out. George?" She put her hands under her breasts, lifted their massive weights challengingly. "George, why don't you show him how a real man fucks?"
George stood up nervously. "Sue-Sue, he's my section leader. I don't want to-"
Sue walked to him boldly. Walker watched from the bed, and all at once, now, he knew what she was going to do. She gloried in his eyes watching her as she did it. She began to undress George, while he stood there neither protesting nor helping. At last he was naked.
"Now," she said. "Now, we'll show the proud Mr. Walker something about fucking."
"Sue, honestly, I-"
She looked down at his soft, flaccid penis, shriveled up and hiding in the nest of hair.
"Why, George. Why, George, I believe you're so scared of him that you can't get good and stiff for me. Now you know my pussy just loves hard, stiff pricks. You don't have to be scared of him. He's not going to hurt you."
"Please, Sue."
"Let me help you, George," she murmured sensuously. "Let Sue help you, and you'll be ready in a moment."
George stood helplessly. "Honestly, Mr. Walker-" Then he stopped talking. "Sue," he said once, his voice thick.
Sue had dropped to her knees before him and was fingering his testicles. Her lips kissing around the short length of his soft penis. With her tongue, she lifted the reluctant head and sucked it into her mouth. Burying her face in the hairs of him, she used her tongue and fingers to bring his prick to a high state of hardness.
After a few minutes, she got to her feet. She dragged the back of her hand across her mouth. She turned to Walker, whose face had broken its mask now; it was full of horror and anguish.
"See?" she smirked. "See how easy it is to make this lovely penis stiff and hard when you know how?"
Then she turned back to George. "You're ready now, sugar. Sue made you all ready with her sucking mouth. Come play with Sue, darling. Curt, move over on the bed and watch, while George plays with Sue."
She pulled George to the bed by his penis. Then she lay on the bed beside Lucy.
"Lucy, lover, while I lick the juice from this beautiful prick, why don't you lick the stuff out of my pussy that Curt put there."
Lucy did not need a second invitation. She lay between Sue's legs and lowered her head, tongue licking. Sue pulled George over her face and with her hands on his buttocks she pressed his still stiff penis into her mouth. With a sigh of pleasure she sucked it deep down her throat. Walker sprang to his feet.
"No," he said in a voice that exploded from his throat. "No, for God's sake, Sue. I've seen enough. I don't want to Sue. I'll not watch it." But his eyes remained on the three naked bodies writhing in the throes of their climax.
Just as George released his pent up fluids into her mouth with spurt after spurt of hot juice, her mouth filling to overflowing, so that it ran out of the corners and down her cheeks, Curt stepped toward the three, his eyes glazed with the sight of the spurting prick in her mouth. "Sue, I was wrong. I can't help it. I do love-"
He never got a chance to finish the sentence, though. That was when the door of the bungalow burst open and Vito stepped inside. He paused on the threshold, his head dropped low, his little eyes glowering drunkenly, and his big, hairy hands clenching and unclenching.
"Nobody's cheating Vito," he rumbled. "If George wins, I win too. I've come for you, Sue."
Nobody in the room moved for several seconds.
Then Lucy sprang to her feet. "Goddamn you, Vito, what do you mean charging in here like this? You know you didn't-"
Vito did not even look at her. He just said, thickly:
"Shut up. It's not you Vito wants." And his hand moved out, seemingly not hard. But the sound it made when it hit her face was like the pop of a whip, and Lucy flew across the room and slumped on the bed, blood running from her nostrils.
Vito took another step forward. "You, Sue," he said.
Sue looked at the sprawled form of Lucy Harris on the bed.
"I'm glad you did that, Vito," she whispered. "Oh, that was a real favor you did me. She's had that coming for so long ..." She wiped her hand across her cheeks, wiping the cooling fluid from George's penis from her cheeks.
Walker stood up, moved between Vito and Sue. "Get out, Vito," he said harshly.
Vito's little flickering eyes looked up at him without fear.
"Get out? Who tells Vito to get out? We ain't at work now. This is something else. Nobody tells Vito what woman he can fuck and what woman he can't."
"No," Sue said from behind Walker. "No, you're right, Vito. Nobody tells you who to fuck." She drank from the whisky bottle long and hard again.
"And nobody tells me who I suck," she said looking at Curt. "I was just telling Mr. Walker about you." She drank again from the bottle. "I was just telling him about what a real man you are."
She stepped around Curt, forgetting George, and went to Vito and put her arms about his neck and plastered her naked body up against the squat, massive length of him.
"Make love to me, Vito," she crooned thickly, her voice formless with liquor. "Make love to me good and show him how it's done."
Vito made an animal sound of pleasure deep in his chest.
"You betcha, baby," he growled.
"All right," Curt whispered. "All right. You win." He bent slowly, wearily, as if he were a hundred years old, to pick up his clothes. "You can hurt me worse than I can hurt you."
"No," Sue said. "No, watch this. Watch how a real man does it. Don't go. Watch." She pulled Vito back to the bed.
In seconds, he had shucked his clothes. She saw the thick furry, muscle-bound shape of him swimming above her through a fog of alcohol. Yes, this was what she had really wanted, what she really needed. An instrument with which to wound Curt so deeply that he would never be able to bear thinking of her name again. He had rubbed her nose in what she was. All right, she would rub his nose in it too.
There was no gentleness, no instinctive need for preliminaries, in Vito. His body made one savage lunge and she gave an involuntary groan as it found her.
Curt groaned, groaned with pain deep in his heart as he saw the massive, horrible penis of Vito slam into that pussy he found he loved so much. It was a groan of pain for Sue and himself as well. He knew that huge prick would tear her.
She made it appear much better than it really was. The large object in her was painful, but she threshed and cried out with passion and rose and fell, meeting every lunge with her clenching cunt lips. She screamed obscene endearments to Vito.
"Give me that big thing. Show him what it's like to be a man." She gouged his hairy back with her nails and let him drool saliva down her throat. She put on a fine act, one of complete bestiality. Curt stood there frozen, watching it.
Vito came, with such force, she felt as if he had knocked a hole through her, filling her vagina with foamy cream, filling her so full that it spurted between his sliding prick and her cunt, coating the bed beneath her heaving ass. But she felt nothing but the pain.
"That's more like it, baby," Vito said as he pulled his dripping penis from her abused cunt.
And Sue sat up, exhausted, and out of her exhaustion grew the true realization of what she had done.
She came out of the sickness of vengeance into the unbearable reality of knowing that she had carefully killed every emotion, except disgust, that Curt could possibly feel. That was not what she had wanted to do, really, deep inside. That was not what she wanted to do at all.
She looked at him, fully dressed now, standing there like a man made out of ice. His face was frozen, and she could not stand the thought of what she had done to him and to herself.
With a cry of grief, she jumped to her feet and ran naked out of the cabin toward the ocean.
* * *
The cool sand yielded under her feet. The cleansing wind whipped at her, but could not cleanse her. She was crying as she sped across the upper strand of piled dunes. Then she crested the dunes and she saw the ocean below her, huge and pitiless in the silver moonlight. She had no idea of what she was going to do. All she knew was that she had to run away. She had to run away to the ocean and hope that somehow it would purify her.
She raced down the dune, across the wet sand of the beach. Now shells cut her feet, but she did not feel them. She ran into the first shallows of the incoming tide, the water crisp and antiseptic on her calves. She splashed on out.
Up to her thighs, she halted. The ocean splashed about the joining of her legs, cleaning her cunt from the filth of Vito, as if it too, lusted after her.
She waded out another foot and stood fascinated, looking at the restless, shifting, illimitable distance of it. An outrace of water pulled and sucked at her greedily.
As if hypnotized, she took another step forward. Now she was up to her navel.
The ocean knew no such thing as love, and where there was no love, there could be no pain. That was the place she sought.
She started to wade on out toward that rolling plain of wet moonlight. But before her foot found the sandy bottom, a set of fingers dug into her shoulders like iron clamps, and she was whirled around.
The face of Vito in the moonlight was an enraged mask.
"Dammit," he snarled. "You ran out. And I wasn't through with you. No bitch runs out on Vito."
There was no fear of him in her. She was beyond that now.
"Let me go," she said calmly.
"No." He threw an arm about her, its thickness crashing the soft tissues of her breasts beneath it.
"No, by God. Not till I'm finished with you." And he began to drag her inshore.
Suddenly she came to life. The ocean she could bear, Vito she could not.
She screamed.
"Curt," she heard herself screaming. "Curt, help me.
"Shaddup," Vito growled. He had her clear of the water now. He turned loose of her and hit her with his savage fist. "Remember the last time? You wanta beating?"
A giant bronze bell set up a clanging within her head. The stars reeled over her head. He hit her again. She felt wet sand under her back.
Then he was on top of her, trying to roll her over. His fingers were about to tear her breasts off.
"Damn you, you'll do what Vito wants-"
"Curt," she heard herself scream again, from a long way off.
He hit her in a place that sent agony tearing through her.
"Didn't I tell you to shut up?"
Then she was or her stomach, breasts flattened achingly against the hard sand, head buried in her arms, sobs wracking her body. Curt had not answered; she had driven him away, there was no one to help her. She felt Vito's hand on her buttocks, spreading those creamy white globes. She felt the first hard pain of his penis as it entered her brown hole. Then he was in, all of that huge penis was up inside her ass. She felt nothing but pain. The sliding in and out of her smarting hole gave no other sensation.
Then, incredibly, Vito's prick was jerked from her asshole painfully. She heard his voice: "Damn you, let go-"
"Get up," Curt was saying. "Get up, so I can beat your lousy head in."
Vito hoisted himself to hands and knees in shallow water. He looked, his body plastered with wet fur, like some sea beast emerging from the sea. He was monstrous, as he raised his head, and his mouth spewed curses.
But then, with incredible quickness, he was launching himself at Curt's thighs.
XII
He locked around Curt's thighs in a weird semblance of a football tackle. Sue's heart leaped with fear as Curt went teetering over backwards. She saw that bearish body rise naked over the foam as Curt fell into it and disappeared. Then she saw it drop downward, hands searching for Curt's throat, its weight trying to pin Curt underwater. She screamed.
But already Curt had recovered. Somehow he had eluded Vito's attempt to drown him. Gasping, he was getting to his feet, and the naked Vito came erect, too.
The two men faced each other for an instant in the tumult of breakers that, with increasing force, as if excited, began to race inshore.
Then it was Curt who leaped. He plunged through the water toward Vito and slammed into the squat man, and shoved him backward. A wave, larger than the rest, hit both men at that moment, and they both went under. Sue's hand clutched her throat in an agony of fear that threatened to choke her.
Sue struggled to her feet.
"Curt," she shrieked. She plunged into the water, toward the place where she had last seen them.
Then, up to her thighs, she saw them. Far out now, in a trough between breakers. Rearing up dripping, facing each other in a weird tableau that was suddenly broken as they began to slug it out.
Up to their rib cages in water, they fought, each enduring the other's blows with incredible stamina. Even above the thunder of the waves, she could catch the splattering impact of fist against flesh.
It seemed impossible that human bodies could survive that kind of punishment. Particularly Curt, he was so much thinner, so frail seeming beside Vito.
Then Sue saw it. Gathering itself far out in the freshening wind. A hump of water, surging upward first as a swell that covered five or ten acres of ocean. Like a primitive creature in the throes of creation, shaking itself a thickening white crest. Pulling itself tall, poising itself, halting infinitesimally and then suddenly deciding. Thundering inshore, a wave full grown now, a giant wall of water that rose between Sue and the sky. It made a black background against which the figures of the fighting men stood out for one vivid second.
Sue yelled at the top of her lungs:
"Curt. Look out."
Some trick of wind must have been kind to her. A tag of breeze picked up the sound, delivered it to his ear amidst all the noise of the sea, wind and water.
He turned, forgetting Vito. He turned and saw the mountainous crested wall overhanging him and about to drop and crush him. She saw his white shirt flash against the blackness of it as he dived full into its base.
Vito saw the wave, too. But he did not have time to brace himself for it. He was off balance, and Sue saw the gorilla head pivot upward, the thick, hairy arms extend themselves as if to fend away the water.
Then the wave hit and broke, and the ocean turned to churning white.
Part of the wave galloped on inshore and broke around Sue's ankles. The wind died, and out there in the distance the circlets of white foam where the wave had broken were washed away and the surface of the water was calm and unbroken, by wind or by swimmer.
Sue made a whimpering sound in her throat.
"Curt," she whispered. "Oh please, Curt."
But the ocean lay still in the moonlight, as if it had had its inning and was content.
Sue waited. She waited for what seemed to her an eternity. She waited until there was no hope. Then, eyes stinging with salt burn that was not spray, she turned blindly and lurched toward the shore.
The dunes made a black line against the starlit sky. Somewhere up there behind them was the bungalow, and she stumbled toward it.
She didn't even know why. Curt was gone, and the logical thing to do would have been to walk into the ocean after him instead.
Curt was dead; and she was the cause of it. Just as she'd been the cause of Uncle Millard's death. She looked down at her body through stinging tears. Uncle Millard had been right. The flesh was a curse.
She lurched into the lee of a dune and, unable to go any further for a moment, leaned against the shadowy side of it. Her head was down, her body wracked by a painful, gagging crying that felt as if it would bring up all her entrails.
She leaned there crying for a long time. But, finally, she raised her head.
Had it been a deception practiced by the ocean? Had it, in its restless whisper, murmur, bawl and thunder, formed a word. She lifted her head high and strained her ears, refusing to credit the hope that flared within her.
The wind made a raw sound, skittering over water and sound, and knocking the harsh stalks of sea oats together at the crest of the dune. She was sure she heard that cry again.
And now it came once more, and it was real. She turned, face lighting.
"Sue," it came faintly, whipped by the wind. "Sue, where are you?"
"Curt, over here. Oh, Curt, my darling, here I am. Here. Here. Here." And she began to run.
She saw him coming up the beach at a stumbling walk. His body was plastered with saturated clothing, his legs moving stiffly, and his shoulders slumping with fatigue. She ran and threw her arms around him, and gave him strength to lean against.
His voice was a racking gasp. "The wave-it knocked me under-a hell of a backdrag-I fought-came up on beach, half a mile down there-" he sucked in breath. "Vito-have you seen him?"
"No ..."
"Must have been pulled out-hell of a suck-Oh God-" He looked toward the ocean. "He'll never lay a finger on you again."
She burrowed her head against his chest.
"Nobody will, Curt," she whispered. "Nobody ever will but you."
* * *
In the cabin, they found George hunched helplessly over a Lucy Harris who whimpered with pain.
"I've wiped all the blood away," he said pitifully, his face chalky with fright, "But it still keeps coming."
Sue looked down into Lucy's face, and her stomach rolled in nausea. It was not a pretty sight. Vito's fist had landed with its full impact, and Lucy's nose was smashed weirdly flat across her face. From her eye down to her mouth, her cheek was laid open in a raw wound that could not possibly heal without a huge scar. Her gums were oozing blood where teeth had been knocked out
Lucy would still have her delectable body, Sue thought, but from now on, she would have to make do without a face. There would be no Paris, no Madrid, and no handsome, wealthy men for her now.
Sue felt no sympathy, but no hate either. It was just part of the impersonal punishment of fate that seemed to have come to all of them in equal measure this night. She forgot Lucy, eased the exhausted Curt Walker down on a bed and found a whisky bottle which she held to his lips.
"I think you'd better call a doctor," she said. "Go up the beach and find a phone and call a doctor, George. And-" she hesitated. "And when he comes, tell him to bring the police along too."
"The police," George said, his voice trembling. "My God, we don't want the police."
"A man's been killed," Sue said tiredly.
"But my wife-"
"I guess she'll cut off your cigarette money. Call the police, George."
* * *
Months later, awakening in the morning in the apartment in Paris and lying there against the good warmth of Curt's body, she still could not remember how they had got through the rest of that night and the next day. It had been a nightmare of floodlights on the beach, and the bloated body of Vito at last found washed ashore, like some strange white fish from the deepest entrails of the sea. And questions, endless questions. Curt had revived and handled it all. If it had not been for him, the nightmare would have been much worse than it already was. But he parried officers' questions, he had the lawyer come, and he made certain phone calls to certain officials of Missile Components, who made other calls to state officials. The company was one of the largest in the state, and it wanted no scandal. There was testimony that the drowning of Vito had been accidental. As for the presence of the men and women in the bungalow, well, if the officers would search every bungalow up and down the beach, they would probably do a thriving business in illicit lovers.
It was just another one of those things, a riotous weekend party which had turned into a tragedy from too much liquor and too much sex. Not the kind of thing you could pin on anybody or bring charges about ...
But in the sanctums of the company, certain actions had been taken. The raffle was broken up, that was the main thing. Nevertheless, any reoccurrence of it had to be prevented. Other girls might conceive the same idea. So spies were planted pretty well throughout the working force until the whole business had cooled off. And Curt Walker and his wife were sent to Paris, on a sort of lendlease arrangement worked out with French missile manufacturers who badly needed experienced technical help.
The irony of it was not lost on Sue.
It had been Lucy who wanted the apartment in Paris. Now, Lucy was doing what? Working for seventy dollars a week in some other manufacturing plant? Expending her accumulated funds in operation after operation under the plastic surgeon's knife? Or was she perhaps haunting cheap bars and dark alleys where only the broken and desperate men would pay for any sort of woman's body, despite the grotesquerie of the face that topped it were to be found?
She did not know. All she knew, and all she cared to know, was that she was in Paris, that the past was behind her, and that Curt was beside her.
She threw her long, slim leg across his slumbering body.
Her flimsy nightgown riding up, she rubbed her pussy against him.
"Hmm?" he said drowsily. But she felt him awakening in stages, one part of him awakening before the rest.
"It's morning, darling," she whispered in his ear. "It's time to get up."
"Oh." He opened his eyes. As always, he seemed a little incredulous at finding her there beside him, just as she was sometimes incredulous at his being able to forgive her for what she had done, and to love her as much as he did.
"Oh," he said. "Good morning."
She kissed him gently. "Good morning," she said.
He rolled over in the bed. He smiled. His hands sought the ripe lushness of her breasts.
He pulled her to him, and Sue shut her eyes. All the desire in her focused on him, as it had been ever since that disastrous night, as it always would be, now.
She kissed him again, as her body molded itself against his.
"Yes," she whispered. "Yes. It really is. At last."
"Really is what?"
She gave a little gasping sigh, as their bodies came together.