IN THEIR BOOK, SEX AND SOCIETY, KENNETH WALKER AND PETER FLETCHER WRITE: "NO form of human behavior can be understood in terms of mind alone, of body alone, or even of individual alone. It can be explained -to the extent that it can be explained at all -only in terms of action and reaction occurring between the self and its physical and psychological environment. In no sphere of human life is this more obvious than in that of sexual behavior." And sexual behavior was Dan Plumer's avocation. He was a super stud by nature, and the shameless wantons lived on his lust-until he was accused of murder. He was a fugitive.
CHAPTER 1
THE BROAD'S LEGS WERE crossed and her skirt was yea-high.
She sipped her coffee, apparently not giving a thought to the show she was putting on for me. I let my coffee grow cold as I grew hotter and hotter. Shooting glances up a pretty chick's thighs is not the most tranquilizing activity for a man.
I had a great eyeball shot at her, because the booth where she was seated was kitty-corner from my place at the restaurant counter. She was facing me almost directly, and it was necessary for me to turn my head only a little in order to see up her legs.
A patch of smooth, cream-colored thigh was visible above the stocking-top of the luscious leg that was slanted over. I could see a little bit of the bare inner side of the other thigh, also.
The legs were exciting, but I naturally hoped to get a glimpse of what was between them. I wondered if the broad wore panties, and hoped that she didn't. I was getting a hard-on just thinking about it.
She uncrossed her legs and recrossed them the other way. She was showing a lot of leg, but so far that was all. Her sweet, smooth thighs were held snugly together at the top. There was no glimpse of panties, no fur, no anything. Still, I hoped for a beaver shot.
To paraphrase an old saying, hope springs eternal in the human gonads.
"Want something else?" the hatched-faced waitress asked as she moved up to me.
"No," I growled, and threw another look at the babe in the booth.
She had shifted her legs a little to restrict the view, and I glanced at her face. Our eyes met. She didn't frown, didn't smile. She sucked on a cigarette, then glanced back at her coffee and lifted the cup.
She was in her late twenties, four or five years older than I. Her hair was chestnut brown, her figure trim. She was well-dressed . . . and she was alone.
I picked up my coffee, found it too cool when it touched my lips, and set the cup down without drinking.
I threw another glance up Thigh Street, She moved them as I was looking, and more sweet skin came into view. Damn, it was beautiful! But thigh flesh was all I could see.
Part 'em just a little, baby, I silently implored. Show daddy your playground.
I was on the road, traveling by thumb from Albuquerque to Los Angeles. I had less than a hundred bucks in my pocket, and the suitcase which contained all my worldly goods was on the floor by my feet. The roadside restaurant was in a little Arizona town. It was about ten o'clock at night.
I would certainly have loved to topple the broad, but it didn't seem to be in the cards. I was the next thing to a ass, and she was class, obviously. I didn't feel-I could approach her. Even if I'd been wearing something besides Levi's and a T-shirt, I figured she'd probably turn me off if I were to stroll over. More than likely, she was just an exhibitionist, and usually exhibitionists work for vicarious thrills-they don't put out.
I glanced back at my coffee, decided the hell with it, and was thinking about leaving when a flash of motion reached the corner of my eyes. The girl had gotten up and was walking my way. I eyeballed her up and down. She didn't have a hell of a lot in the tit department, but that was okay. Broads don't have to be built like milk cows to please me.
Her glance lingered on me for a moment. Was she smiling? It was hard to say. There was a little twist of the lips, a crinkle at the comers of the eyes, but it was so slight as to be hardly distinguishable. Perhaps she hadn't intended it. She may have been looking at me without really seeing me, thinking of something else.
She passed.
I turned my head and followed her with my eyes. Her butt was good and feminine; not fat, but nicely rounded. Her calves were trim. I sighed.
Old buddy, I said to myself, now that the show's over and your coffee's cold, you might as well be on your way.
I decided to give the broad a chance to leave the parking lot at the front of the restaurant first. I didn't want her to think I was following her. Anyway, I hadn't yet calmed down completely and the bulge in my pants would have been obvious if I'd stood up then.
I waited a minute, then got up and lifted my suitcase. I headed out.
The night was warm. Stars filled the sky. My shoes made a racket crunching across the gravel in front of the cafe. I headed between a couple of parked cars on my way to the strip of pavement where the traffic was swooshing past.
"Want a ride?'
I could have jumped out of my skin; it was that much of a surprise.
I stopped and leaned forward to look through the open window of the T-bird.
"Well, do you?" the warm female voice inquired.
It was the broad I had been admiring in the restaurant.
"Damn right," I said with a happy grin. I hopped in and boosted my suitcase over the back of the seat.
She didn't say anything, just started the car and backed out. I looked her up and down, noting the shape of her thighs inside the close-fitting brown skirt she wore. The skirt ended six inches above her knees, and the lower portions of her stocking welts were visible in the glow from the instrument panel.
"How did you know I was going this way?" I asked, as she goosed the car and we surged onto the frontage road.
"You were on this side of the highway," she replied, looking straight ahead. "There's a restaurant on the other side, too. If you were eastbound, you would have been having your coffee over there."
I glanced back. She was right. She'd evidently been thinking in the restaurant about picking me up, and she had waited for me to come out.
Old buddy, I thought happily, there's gonna be a screwing tonightl
I decided to leave it more or less up to her as to how we were going to work it. It was her game.
I wondered about her, but questions weren't in order right then, I figured, so I didn't ask any. But I did glance at the registration slip which was attached to the sun visor above the chick's head. There was enough light inside the car to let me read it.
It was a California slip, made out to one Albert C. Green, 8134 Arbordale Terrace, Ocean Hills. That's right outside Los Angeles.
Was she Mrs. Green? Or Miss Green? Or Green's secretary? Or what?
Though I was unable to answer the question of who, there was no doubt as to what she was: She was a human bitch in heat, and I was nominated to be her stud.
"How far are you going?" she asked, in a slightly husky tone. She was nervous. I imagined she'd never picked up a strange man before.
Well, there's a first time for everything, as the man said when he parted the lady's pubic hair and swooped down for a sweet, moist kiss.
"L.A., " I said in answer to her question.
"So am I."
"Great Maybe I can ride all the way with you."
She didn't reply, still didn't look at me.
My gaze dropped to her legs. In moving the one nearest me to switch her foot from the accelerator to the brake pedal and back, her skirt had crawled a little higher. Part of a garter clip had come into view. I wanted to reach over and shove that skirt all the way to her lap and feast my eyes on the nakedness of her upper thighs-but, of course, I didn't.
My excitement started to rise as I thought about it, and naturally, so did my rod.
"Who are you?" she asked.
"Dan Plummer."
"I'm Gloria Jones."
"Miss?"
"Yes."
"You live in California."
"Mm-hmm."
"I do, too, most of the time. I've been in New Mexico for a while."
"What do you do?"
I chuckled and said, "That's a pretty big question. It covers a lot of territory."
"For a living, I mean."
"This and that Whatever I can pick up."
"You sound too well-educated to be a day laborer."
"Thanks, but I prefer to live that way. I had a little college before the draft grabbed me. Since then, I haven't wanted to settle down."
"Were you in Vietnam?"
"Yes."
"What was it tike."
"Lousy."
It was silent in the car for a minute or so. "Actually, I hope to be a writer," I said, not sure why.
"Oh? Have you ever written anything?"
"Yes, but I haven't submitted it."
"Why? Afraid of a turn-down?" I
"Maybe. I didn't figure it was good enough."
"You're not very sure of yourself, are you?"
She had sex in mind-at least, obliquely-when she made that remark, and it called for a response on my part. A guy doesn't permit his masculine aggressiveness to be challenged by a woman. When I said I was going to leave things up to her, I meant I would let her furnish a cue. She had cued me, I figured. Now it was time for me to take the ball and run with it.
I reached out and did what I'd been wanting to do with her skirt. Lap high, I pushed it.
She gasped and looked down at her exposed thighs, gleaming gorgeously white above the tops of her hose. White garter straps pressed into the pliable flesh.
"You have lovely legs," I told her.
I placed my hand between them and ran it all the way up.
She jumped involuntarily, and her hands jerked the wheel. She looked up and righted the car.
Then she moved her legs apart, just a little.
I caressed the satiny crotch of her Spandex briefs, enjoying the warm plushiness I could feel through the cloth. I pushed a little harder against her pussy, and dampness oozed.
She was burning up.
"Let's stop," she said with an urgent breathiness. "Pick a motel," I told her.
I kept rubbing her cunt through her pants, and she twisted, opening her legs more. I tried to hook the edge of the satin crotch-piece aside, but that didn't work.
The parity girdle was pretty substantial-a high-priced foundation garment, no doubt.
"There's no . . . motel around," she said with a gasp sandwiched between the words. "We're way out of town."
"I wonder how far it is to the next one," I said, still rubbing.
"Too far . . . if you . . . keep doing that! My God, do you . . . want me to go . . . off the road?" Her voice was ragged as hell now.
"Okay." I chuckled, and took my hand away from the moist heat of her loins, but I let her skirt remain hiked up.
She breathed, "You really come on strong, don't you? Why didn't you make a move in the restaurant?"
"I didn't figure you wanted me to. I mean, I look like a ass."
"You look good to me," she sjud bluntly, and I knew she meant it.
I took her right hand off the wheel and pulled it into my lap. I was charged up with excitement, and had a terrific hard-on.
"How do I feel?" I asked.
"God!" she exclaimed as her fingers wrapped greedily around the bulge.
I chuckled a little and made her give up her grip. If we were going to have to ride a while before we reached a motel, I didn't want her to jerk me off before we got there.
"Tell me about yourself," I suggested.
"May I push my skirt down?"
"If you want to."
She did.
"There's not much to tell," she said, after clearing her throat in an obvious effort to keep her voice steady. "I live in California."
"Where?"
"Ocean Hills."
That much checked. I was already thinking about continuing our as-yet-unconsummated relationship after we reached the end of the ride. Unless she turned out to be a hell of a disappointment in bed, it would be worthwhile. She had hot pants, and I had no steady girl awaiting me in L.A. Even though Gloria was undoubtedly married, or something, she could probably work in a stud on the side. It should prove to be a pretty good scene until I grew tired of her.
"Is this your car?" I probed.
"Yes. Why?"
"The registration says Albert Green."
"Why did you read that?" she asked, throwing me a sharp glance. "Curiosity," I grinned. "Forget what you read."
"Because you're Mrs. Green."
"Just forget it."
"I don't mind. And I can be discreet."
"Maybe I made a mistake picking you up."
"Want to feel my lap again."
"Don't get nasty." I laughed.
"Light me a cigarette, will you?" she directed.
There was a pack lying on the console between the bucket seats. I took one, put it between my lips, and lit it. I transferred it to her mouth.
"Don't you smoke?" she asked, after she had inhaled and let the breath out
"Nope."
"That's funny."
"Why? Because I don't want to get brown lungs?"
"What?" She looked at me peculiarly.
"Normal lungs are pink. Smokers' lungs are brown. If tobacco smoke can change the color like that, what do you suppose it does to the tissue structure?"
"You can worry about it if you want to. I'm not going to." She took another deep drag.
"I don't worry. I don't smoke."
"Do you drink?" she asked, her tone a little taunting.
"Yeah. And I screw like crazy." She laughed.
"See? It's kind of fun being nasty. I know some good stories."
"You're trying to cheapen me, aren't you."
"Why should I want to do that."
"Because you feel inferior."
"Oh . . . lady!"
"All right. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that."
"It's okay. I admire frankness. If you don't like dirty stories, you don't. And you're entitled to any opinion of me that you want."
We were silent for a few moments. The night was very dark on the desert. There was no town-not even a house-in sight. The approaching traffic was separated from us by a wide strip of rolling land. We passed an occasional car going in the same direction we were, but nobody passed us. Gloria goosed the T-bird right along.
"I wonder if there'll be a liquor store open in the next town," she said. "What do you know about the liquor laws here?"
"Nothing. Do you feel the need of liquid courage?"
"Maybe," she admitted. Then she added, "I've never done this before."
"So I figured."
"Thank you," she replied, giving me a warmer glance than the last one.
"There's no reason to be nervous. We're involved in a very basic situation, common to all humans."
"You're a philosopher, too."
"I'm a little of a lot of things."
"You must have had . . . a great deal of experience with women, I suppose."
"I've had my share." J
"Be gentle with me."
I chuckled.
She asked, "What's the matter? Was that funny?"
"A little."
"Why?"
"I don't think you want it gentle. If your conscience would let you admit it, I think you'd say you want to be raped."
"Is that what most women want?" she asked shakily.
"Some do, some don't. Depends on the time and the situation. I have the notion that as you were driving along, all by yourself in the wide-open country, away from home and your regular man, you were thinking about how great it would be if you were to have a breakdown, and some horny guy was to come along and fix you instead of the car."
"You are nasty."
"I was wrong, then?"
"Of course."
"Okay. Then I shall love you with the utmost tenderness. Poetically."
"You don't have to be silly about it." I laughed again.
Maybe I was trying to bring her down to what I regarded as my level. I don't know. I thought I was just trying to get her to be honest, but I should have known better. Women are never entirely honest about sex, at least not with a man. I learned that when I was fifteen years old.
The desert stretched on ahead of us.
I reached across and touched her warm stocking on the inner side of her right leg, just above the knee.
She jumped.
I caressed with two fingertips, slowly, in a circle, gradually edging higher.
"That drives me crazy," she whispered with a shudder.
"Good. I want you worked up."
"You're evil."
"And you're pure." More silence.
My fingertips slid off her stocking and onto baby-smooth thigh flesh.
Suddenly she braked the car and we slowed up quickly. There was a little road off to the right; her sharp eyes had spotted it.
We turned. The car bounced onto dirt and rocks. Dust rose. The headlights leaped back and forth over the cactus on either side of the narrow roadway. She proceeded for about a hundred yards, then stopped at a clear spot and extinguished the lights and engine.
"Damn you!" she breathed heatedly, and vaulted over the console that separated our seats. She actually vaulted, and landed astride my legs.
I was amazed.
Happily.
I pulled her to me and attacked her mouth, spreading her lips with mine and pumping my tongue in and out. She moaned in sweet agony and clutched my back with sharp-nailed fingers, as her hungry mouth suctioned. Her smooth thighs embraced mine hotly.
She twisted her mouth and stroked my tongue with hers, her head rocking from side to side. I pulled her closer on my lap, but it was a hell of an awkward position. With that panty-girdle she was wearing, even though it was a light one, there would be nothing doing. Anyway, I wanted to lay her on her back.
I grasped her shoulders and pushed her away.
"Do you have a blanket of any kind in the car?" I asked anxiously.
"No," she replied, in a rush of sweet breath.
"We can't boff in here," I told her, "and the bare ground will hurt your butt."
"I could lie on your clothes."
"Shoot! You don't care what happens to my things, do you."
"Well . . . ? "
She was desperate. Frankly, so was I. "Okay," I said. "Get out."
I swung the door open and she scrambled off me. With the car's interior lights blazing, she was momentarily exposed all the way up to her pink panty girdle. She got out, and I was right behind her, my tool pointing the way.
After I closed the car door, we were left with only starlight It was brilliant way up there, but hardly any of it reached the ground. There was no moon.
"I can't see a damned thing," I complained bitterly.
"Just take your pants off."
Now she was being a little more honest. Her body was forcing her to be.
I yanked my belt open, stripped down my zipper, and hauled the jeans along my legs. She was doing something with her clothes, I could tell by the sounds. I wished to hell I could see her.
Hopping from one foot to the other, I pulled off my boots, then removed the jeans. I bent and felt around on the ground. It was rocky.
"This is a hell of a place," I snarled.
"Well, you had to keep fingering me."
"Okay, okay."
I found a spot that was relatively smooth, and doubled the pants over so that her ass, at least, would be protected.
"You'd better take off everything," I said. "Your upper back's going to be against the ground, and you don't want to get your clothes dirty."
"What if somebody comes along?"
"On this little old side road? Don't be silly."
"Do you think there are wolves?" she asked, as her clothing rustled.
I yanked off my briefs.
"Just coyotes," I said, "but they won't bother us." Lizards were the real menace, but I didn't mention them.
"Oh, this is crazy," she said, still undressing. I still couldn't see her. In that country, it's dark as the inside of a Ubangi's box.
With only my shorts and socks on, I asked, "Aren't you ready yet?"
"This isn't exactly . . . uh . . . the best place to undress."
I smiled to myself. I had really brought her down to my size. I guess that was what I had wanted to do, all right, but it amounted to the same thing as forcing her to be honest.
"Okay," she said huskily. "Where are you?"
I reached for the voice and took a couple of hesitant steps. My hand encountered sleek bareness. I put both hands on her sides. She was like a peeled banana, only much smoother.
"Oh, Dan!" she panted, and threw herself against me.
Her bouncy bare boobs dug into me, and my hard cock returned the favor to her. I grasped her and rolled her belly against mine as I invaded her mouth with my demanding tongue. I wrapped one hand across her bare buttocks as we kissed plungingly, and our hot pubic areas scorched each other.
Finally she broke the kiss with a gasp and backed up. Her hand found my rod and clutched it possessively.
"You're big!" she exclaimed.
"The better to ball you with," I said. "Here." I pulled her toward the spot where the jeans lay.
I had to bend over and feel around to find them.
"Be careful now," I said. "There are rocks. I'll guide your fanny."
I turned her, placed my hand across her bare springy butt once more, and said, "Now, sit down."
I helped her, keeping my hand on her seat and half-holding her up until I had her rump directly over the jeans. Then I took my hand away and settled her there.
"Hurry!" she demanded.
I fell to the ground between her parted legs.
The best part of mating is supposed to be the climax, and of course it is. But There's a special excitement about sliding into a new conquest for the first time.
That initial stroke is magnificent, psychologically. It's doubly true if the woman is very ready, lubricated just right, and her portal is anticipating your presence.
Gloria's anticipated mine before I touched it. The touch became a deliriously sweet slide into hot moist-ness, and then I had her.
I said, "Ah!"
She said, "Ooo-ooo!"
"Good?" I growled.
"Heaven!" she exclaimed.
I went to work on her.
The pebbles in the ground hurt my knees and elbows. She circled and bounced her hips like crazy, so we couldn't keep up much of a rhythm. She was as hot for it as any woman I'd ever taken. I jarred her, and she loved that. Be gentle, she had said? Crap!
She gasped and moaned and cried and screeched, and we came like a pair of fire engines, gongs clanging.
I let out a blast of stored breath and fell forward against her cushiony breasts. The nipples dug through my T-shirt.
I lifted myself far enough to get my hands between us, and I played with her tits for a while. They were remarkably springy, like a pair that had just sprouted on a girl of thirteen. As I said before, they weren't too large. I kept the nipples stiff by plucking at them and rolling them between my thumbs and index fingers.
This served to keep my cock in a similar condition.
Pretty soon I started moving at her again. She picked up the rhythm. This time we moved more in unison. We were getting the feel of one another, and Gloria's great initial hunger had been slaked. But she still liked the feel of what I had in there.
I let her feel every inch-slowly, steadily, with firm pressure against the point which gave her the most pleasurable sensations. I was enjoying pressure from all sides-soft, slick, sliding woman-pressure that was just great Gloria's intimate construction was just about perfect for me.
She started to gasp and moan once more, and her hips broke the rhythm. I pounded her.
She wailed into the desert night and spasmed again and again. I growled, tightened up, and let go. Our hot juices blended for the second time.
"My God, that was wonderful!" she panted.
"Damn right. It will be even better when we find a bed."
"My rear end hurts. What the devil do you have in your pockets?"
"Just change and a wallet. You're probably feeling the pebbles underneath."
"I've got to get up."
"Okay."
I pulled out sooner than I wanted to-but there would be another time; I was sure of that. I sprang to my feet and gave her a hand.
Believe it or not, I still couldn't see her, except very dimly. There wasn't enough light to permit the human eye to function, even after the maximum adjustment of the pupil had been made.
I could hear her brushing at her ass. She whimpered a little.
My knees and elbows hurt.
But it had been worth it, man. I mean . . . really worth it!
"Can you find your clothes?" I asked. "God, I don't know."
"I'll help you."
Taking her by the hand, I stepped toward where she had been standing. My stockinged foot landed on fabric. I bent and picked up her skirt.
"Here," I said, and waved it until I made contact with her.
"I can't put this on first," she protested.
"Forget the pants and the rest."
"I can't, Dan. I'm oozing."
"All right," I said a little irritably. "Wait."
I got down on my hands and knees, painfully, and felt around. I found her stuff, piece by piece-stockings, panty girdle, bra, the top of her two-piece dress, a slip.
I rumpled them together and handed them to her as I got up.
"They're probably all dusty," she said. "I should have put them on the seat of the car, but I didn't want to open the door and have the light go on. Someone might have seen me from the highway."
"Okay. A little dust won't hurt. At least they're not ripped, and the dirt isn't ground in."
"How about your pants?"
"I'll see."
As she got dressed, I returned to where my jeans were. I stepped on a sharp rock and said, "Ow! Shit!"
"What's the matter?" she asked.
"Damn rock nearly went through my foot."
She laughed a little and said, "This was sure a crazy place to do it."
"Yeah. It's something for you to remember."
"In more ways than one," she replied significantly.
I felt the same way.
CHAPTER 2
TELL ME SOMETHING," I said, as we were riding along on the highway again. "Did you realize you were showing me a lot of leg back there in the restaurant?"
She hesitated for a moment, then said, "Yes."
"You meant to?"
"Of course."
"I figured you did. But I assumed you were teasing." I paused. "So you wanted me at first sight, hmm?"
"You shouldn't ask a lady that."
"Now don't revert to that lady jazz. You're a female and I'm a male. We established that a little while ago."
"I also hope I'm a lady."
"Do ladies deliberately show their bare upper thighs to strange men in restaurants?"
"All right," she said after a little pause. "I guess you win."
It felt good to hear her say that. Now I could afford to be charitable.
"We're just playing with words. A word can mean anything you want it to. Words mean different things to different people, and different things to the same people at different times."
"You're philosophizing again."
"A person has to. Otherwise, life's nothing but a foul-up."
"You're a whole lot more serious than I expected you to be."
"Don't you feel a little serious now?" I asked.
"Dan . . . we can't get serious with each other. We simply can't."
"Because you're a married woman?"
There was silence for a few moments; then she said, "Yes."
"You're not wearing a ring."
"I.. . slipped it off after I left the restaurant."
"Silly goose," I chuckled. "Did you think it would make any difference to me?"
"Maybe it made a difference to me."
"Balling me with the ring on would have been sinful; but without the ring, it wasn't, hmm?"
"When you say it like that, it does sound a little silly."
"No sillier than a lot of things people believe."
"Maybe you're right."
I turned my attention to the road and the vast darkness which extended outward on both sides.
"Where the hell is the next town?" I wondered aloud.
"Somewhere up the road, I presume."
She was much calmer now. I was, too, in a way. But in another way, I wasn't. My brief time with her on the desert floor had whetted my appetite for more, under more favorable conditions.
I wanted to screw her in bed.
The name of the town was Garrett, and the population was 140. I got those facts off a sign at the side of the road.
Garrett seemed to consist of nothing but motels, gas stations and cafes, so a person could assume that it existed to serve only the most basic needs of travelers -and, of course, their cars, which nowadays qualify as members of the family.
Gloria slowed the T-bird as we came to the first motel. She wheeled in past the glowing vacancy sign, continued past the office, and parked in the dark.
"I'll register for us," I said.
"You'll need money." She lifted her purse from the console.
I didn't argue. Let her pay for her fun, I thought. She could afford it-or, rather, her husband could. I smiled to myself over that.
She took out a twenty and handed it to me. I got out of the car.
My shoes crunched in the gravel as I walked to the office door. Crickets chirped nearby. I opened the screen, activating a bell, and stepped into a small waiting area in front of a knotty pine registration counter. A door at the rear of the room stood open.
An elderly man, plump and bald-headed, appeared. A white-haired woman, presumably his wife, glanced at me as she moved across the living room behind him.
"Yes, sir?" he said.
"I'd like a room with a double bed for one night."
"Are there two of you?"
"Only one," I said, and added with a grin, "I like a big bed. I thrash around a lot."
"Okay. We just happen to have one. I'll have to charge you the double rate, though."
"That's okay. How much?"
"Eight dollars."
I put the twenty-dollar bill on the counter and picked up a pen to complete the registration card he had pushed in front of me. As I did so, he made change.
I wrote my real name. Why shouldn't I? I could have admitted there were two of us and registered Gloria as my wife, but I figured it was nobody's business, and why should there be anything that could be checked, in case her husband was the sort who might do so?
I didn't know the license number of the T-bird, but even if I had I wouldn't have put it down. I wrote '66 Thunderbird in the space provided and made up a three-letter, three-digit California number-the first combination that came to mind.
Later I was to rue the impulse that had made me want to protect Gloria.
I took my change and the key and returned to the car. Our room was Number 2, right next to the office. I pointed, and Gloria pulled the T-bird into the appropriate stall and parked.
"My things are in the trunk," she told me, as she got out and handed me the car keys.
After unlocking the door of the room, I brought in all the luggage-hers and mine.
She insisted on bathing, which wasn't a bad idea after our romp on the ground. I could have used a bath too, but there was only the one tub-and-shower combination, and we hadn't yet reached the stage of relaxed intimacy where mutual bathing seemed appropriate-not when we really wanted to wash, at least.
I opened my bag and took out the one light robe I owned, stripped, and got into it while she was in the bathroom. My knees and elbows were skinned. I made a mental note to ask her later if she had any mercurochrome or ointment in her make-up case, but now wasn't the time.
She emerged from the bathroom with a blue terry robe bundled about her. She looked lovable in it, with her hair loose and shining and a warm, bath-fresh blush on her face.
She smelled delightful.
I knew I smelled sweaty. I hoped her cologne would help cover that up.
We embraced and kissed, and I felt her all around, opening her robe and sliding it off. I knew every hill and crevice of her body before we reached the bed.
My hardened rod had poked through the front of my robe, of course, and she was stroking it up and down slowly, with just the right amount of pressure.
We sank to the bed with our robes off, one dim lamp burning in the room.
She was lovely in every way. Her nipples were small and rosy, and they stood up very erect. Her belly had a nice little roundness. Her hips were warm and curvy, and her thighs were lusciously full without flab. The sweet, dark triangular patch at her loins drew my questing fingers. I caressed the fleshy configuration which lay beneath the fluff, and Gloria moaned and spread her legs wider. Quickly, I made her slick and ready for me.
I assumed the customary position and said, "Damn, but my knees are sore. I don't know whether I can do justice to you or not."
"Then get on your back," she murmured. "We'll do it that way. My fanny would feel better in the air, anyhow."
So that was the way we did it.
And it was wonderful.
I try not to let myself get carried away, remembering the story of the squirrel who lost his head over a piece of tail. You've probably heard it. But Gloria was darned near the greatest-if 'not the greatest-lay I'd ever had. That was saying a lot, considering that this statement included some fifty or sixty women, but right then I couldn't think of one I'd known who was more enjoyable. Certainly not any of the babes I'd screwed around with in Albuquerque. They were dogs compared to Gloria.
She moved her ass just right, circling and sliding her honey-pot up and down on my joy-stick. I could tell she really appreciated it, because she ooo'd and ahh'd a lot. She held to a pretty steady rhythm, but every once in a while she would drop all the way down around me and just stay like that for five seconds or so, while I throbbed deep within her. Then she would start up again.
I hardly had to move at all.
I played with her quivering tits and stroked her sides and legs and fanny. I told her what a sweet little business she had, and she liked that.
The wonderful thrills throbbed through my body, delighting every inch of me. I pulled at her nipples and slapped her playfully on the butt. I laughed happily and corkscrewed upward, going as deep as I could into the cave of passion.
I had even better staying power than usual, because I had blunted the sharp edge of my need earlier that evening. So she climaxed before me, shaking and quivering and pumping on me madly as she braced her arms straight against the bed, arched her back, and tossed her head from side to side. Her internal muscles convulsed again and again.
After she had tapered off, I rolled her onto her back, keeping my rod in, and went at her that way, sore knees and all. I banged her hard and fast for about two minutes more, and had her screaming before I blasted off. Simultaneously, she copped her fourth orgasm of the night.
Now we lapsed to comfortable positions on our sides and began to kiss and caress. I figured I could go once more, and wanted to do so. Tomorrow we would be in L.A., I assumed, and I was uncertain whether she would want to see me again after we got there.
Well . . . let me correct that. I felt damned sure she would want to, but whether she would have the guts to do so remained a matter of conjecture.
So I was determined to get all I could while the getting was good.
I spent a lot of time sucking at her nipples, which had become very red by now. I tugged at them with my lips and teeth, and nudged them with my tongue, bending the cute little towers this way and that. They held their firmness beautifully. In fact, they seemed to get stiffer and stiffer, the more I diddled with them.
"Oh, you don't know what that does to me," she breathed; but I had a pretty good idea. It was beginning to do something to me, too. Already I was erecting again. In another couple of minutes, I would be ready to go at her again.
Or would have been ready, I ought to say, for that's when the nightmare began.
Looking back on it, the whole bit is a great argument in favor of non-involvement, but I've always been the sort to jump in and offer help, if help seems to be called for. I'll continue to be that way, I suppose, but next time I'll give at least half a thought to my own welfare first.
Things happened fast-faster than you Would think possible-and they turned my world upside down.
First, there were gunshots-two of them-coming from the motel office next door. I'd heard enough small arms fire in Vietnam to know the difference between that and an auto backfire or anything else.
I leaped off the bed and grabbed for my pants.
"Wha-what's the matter?" Gloria asked, sitting up. "Where are you going?"
"Those were shots. I've got to go see what happened."
Gloria was alarmed too-not about the gunshots, but about the possibility that my involvement with them could also involve her. Smart girl, Gloria, in spite of the fact that she was sexually adventurous.
"Don't go," she said urgently. "It's none of your business."
But I pulled on my shirt and my boots and rushed out the door.
The whole process of getting off the bed and getting dressed, such as I was, took about twenty seconds-no more.
A car was just taking off from in front of the motel office. It was a '64 Ford sedan, light blue. As it turned onto the highway with a screech of rubber, I made out the letters and first number of its California plate: 0BE9-
I ran into the office. ' At first the place seemed deserted. The stench of gunpowder was in the air. I was about to yell when something told me to look over the counter.
The old man who had waited on me less than an hour ago was crumpled in a heap on the floor, his mouth and eyes open. Blood was draining from a hole in his neck, staining the beige floor tiles. His eyelids fluttered. He tried to move his lips, but no sound came I out.
As I watched, his eyes closed. The gush of blood immediately slowed to a trickle. I didn't have to touch him to know he was dead.
There was a sound from the apartment in back. A woman's quavering voice cried, "Sam . . . ? "
I kept still. I was shocked, as anyone would have been under the circumstances. I was trying to think, and getting nowhere with it.
The woman's anguished face appeared at the door-jamb. She was the one I had seen before, and who had seen me as I registered.
She took in the sight of her husband lying in a pool of his blood on the floor and gasped, her hand flying to her face. She looked once more at me, her eyes horror-stricken. But with the horror there was something else.
Someone who has never had an experience like this -and not many have, I suppose-might find this hard to believe, but in her eyes I saw the twelve pairs of eyes of a jury. She was twelve persons with one face. The eyes proclaimed, "Guilty!"
"No . . . I didn't," I stammered. "I.. . "
She shrieked. The sound was bloodcurdling.
I turned and ran.
Foolish? Sure. I realized this right after it was too late. But all I could think of at the moment was that I was a transient, close to being a ass, and a man had been killed where I was. People suspect transients automatically.
I wouldn't have gone very far. I was headed back to the room and, once there, I would have thought it over for a minute or so and returned. The police would have believed my story because: first, I had no gun and, second and most important, Gloria could testify that I was with her when the shots were fired. Also, I had a partial description of the getaway car.
That would have been the whole bit, except for what happened next.
I had no sooner stepped out of the motel office than a car engine roared into life, and the vehicle backed out of its stall, turning to leave the motel grounds. It was the T-bird.
I waved and yelled, but the car lunged out the driveway with Gloria behind the wheel. I caught a glimpse of her as she passed under the lighted neon hair mussed and face determined as she stared straight ahead.
The car screeched onto the highway and was gone. Put yourself in a spot like that. What would you have done?
CHAPTER 3
I TOOK OFF ON FOOT.
Up the road.
Sure, that was mistake number two. (Or number three, if you count going to the motel office in the first place.)
I still had no gun, and I had no loot on me. If the murder was for money, which I assumed it was, I would have had it on my person at that point. Even without Gloria's testimony, I could probably have cleared myself.
But hysteria gripped me.
Unless you've been through it, you don't know how it feels to be alone in a strange town, with no resources and no ties, and to suddenly find yourself under suspicion. You react like a fox before the hounds.
Later, I realized that the old woman in the motel office had not heard or seen me take off on foot. She undoubtedly was bending over her dead husband at the time. As far as anyone was to know, I had taken off in the T-bird.
The worst of it was that the woman had seen me register and presumably knew what room her husband had put me in. Also, my bag was still in the room. (I realized this when I was half a block down the street.) As anxious as Gloria had been to get the hell out of there and disassociate herself from the publicity which was sure to follow, she would not have taken my bag with her, though she most likely had taken her own. She had probably scooped up her belongings in a hurry, and had left with just a dress on. In my bag were letters I had received from friends in Los Angeles while I was in Albuquerque, and my Army discharge papers. That was enough identification, along with what I had written on the motel registration card, to screw me good. Neat?
Yeah, neat and nasty. But there's more . . .
Now that I had left the motel premises, I couldn't very well go back and plead innocence due to my lack of gun or loot. The cops would figure I had stashed them somewhere after I left-in a trash can or under a house, anywhere at all.
That was how the noose was formed, and it was strong enough to hang me.
The only persons who could testify that I hadn't shot the motel man were Gloria and the real killer. Both of them were gone.
Would the T-bird be picked up on the road? Not likely. I had given a phony license number, and hadn't even mentioned the color of the car.
As for the killer, no living person at the motel knew what he or his car looked like. I had been the only one out before he drove away. If someone had peeked through a window, they wouldn't have seen the car, because the windows of the rental units were located too far back. From the way the old lady had reacted to me, I knew she hadn't seen the real killer. She'd probably been in bed, asleep, and was awakened by the shots, but had been too terrified to come out right away.
The more I thought about it, the worse the situation seemed.
Now I was committed to a course of action, whether I liked it or not: I had to keep running.
There was less than a hundred bucks in my wallet-all the money I had in the world. I had no clothes except the dirty jeans, T-shirt and boots I wore. It was past midnight. I was stranded in a chicken-crud town in the middle of the desert.
There was, however, one factor in my favor: The cops would think I had taken off in the T-bird, so they wouldn't figure on finding me in town. And they wouldn't look for me in another car. So I had two choices-either stay in town or hitch a ride out.
I stopped on the street and looked around.
There was no furor-no activity at all, in fact. Except for the glowing front of an all-night cafe and the brightly lit driveways of a couple of gas stations, the portion of town which lay in front of me was dead.
But I knew that someone at the motel had placed a call to the nearest police or sheriff or highway patrol station. Cops were on the way.
Think fast, I told myself, and think straight. You've frigged it up good so far. You don't dare make another mistake. What happens in the next ten minutes could chart the whole future course of your life!
But the truth was that my course was already charted, save for my decision to get out of town and head for L.A. That seemed pretty obvious. Though I was safe in Garrett for the moment, I wouldn't be safe for long. The old woman at the motel could identify me, don't forget, and small-towners are always curious about any stranger who hangs around.
My head was clear enough by now, but I was still scared. It was the kind of bone-chilling fear that grips you deep and hard. I'd felt it in Vietnam, on patrol, when the snipers' volleys began to crackle. Unlike my reaction at the motel, I hadn't panicked in Vietnam, because I'd been trained well and I figured I had a fighting chance.
I felt I had a chance now.. . if I was careful.
I smoothed my hair, told myself to keep cool, and approached the well-lit gas station in front of me. I walked under the bright lights, felt my cool begin to melt, and made another strong effort to get a grip I on myself. It worked, to a degree.
There was one attendant on duty. Since he had no customers at the moment, he was sitting in the office with the door open and his feet propped up.
I sauntered in, and he put down the girlie magazine he'd been ogling. Bare-nippled babes adorned the pages.
"What can I do for you?" he asked, not getting up. "Mind if I hang in here and try to get a ride west."
"All right with me," he said, "but it's a muckin' slow night."
I nodded and walked to the soft drink dispenser. I needed something to help calm my nerves, and it looked as if Coke would have to do. I dropped in a dime and a nickel.
Just as I was lifting the frosty bottle to my lips, a car whispered into the station behind me and set off the bell. I turned and looked.
There was a family in it-husband driving, wife beside him, two sleepy kids in back.
No good.
I lifted the Coke again, listening all the time for a siren. Evidently, there' was no police department in the town, but somebody was bound to be on the way from somewhere. I could be damned sure of that.
The service station attendant finished with the car containing the family, and they drove off. He ignored me as he headed back to the office.
After I finished my Coke, I slipped the empty bottle into the rack beside the dispenser and faced the road. A few cars moved past, but the traffic wasn't heavy.
It was June, and even at 1:00 a.m. the weather remained warm. That was a blessing, considering the way I was dressed.
Pretty soon, a chugging sound heralded the arrival of an old truck loaded with produce. It stopped by the pumps, and I walked over.
"Gimme five of the regular," the husky guy behind the wheel said.
"I'm not the attendant. I wanted to ask you if I could ass a ride."
"Where you headed?"
"L.A."
"Shoot, I'm only goin' to the next town."
"How far is that."
"Twenny miles."
"I'd like to ride that far with you, if it's okay."
He sized me up, then said, "Get your bag."
"I don't have one," I told him, and walked around to the passenger's side of the cab.
In the meantime, the attendant took the trucker's order.
"No bag?" the big guy growled as I got in. "You must've taken off from some place in a goddamned hurry."
"Not so," I said. "My last lift was a shit-bird who drove away with my gear."
"Son of a bitch!" he said. "That was a helluva thing to do."
"You're not kidding."
"You got any dough?"
"Enough."
He shook his head and remarked, "Man, there's sure all kinds."
"Yeah."
He got his gas, paid for it, and we took off.
Just outside town, a highway patrol car passed on the opposite side of the divided road, siren on and red light flashing.
"Wonder what's up," the trucker said over the rattling roar of his machine.
"I wouldn't know," I lied.
"Prob'ly an accident back there. People nowadays drive as if they was nuts."
"A lot of them are," I said. "Ain't that the truth."
I slid a little lower in the seat. The rattles and clatters lulled me. The driver didn't talk any more, and I was glad of that. I had some planning to do, and now I was calm enough to do it
I figured I could get out of Arizona by hitching another ride. With luck, I would find one to take me all the way to L.A.-but I couldn't dare contact anyone I knew when I reached there. Looking for work would be a problem, too, because I wouldn't be able to use my right name. Not having a social security card would frig me good.
Any routine check by the police, even for' running a stop sign, would fry my oyster. Quite a problem, hmm?
The ultimate solution was to clear myself, and I could do that only by finding my erstwhile love mate, Gloria, and making her talk.
But.. . wait.
Since she had entered and left the motel without meeting anyone, what proof did I have that she was ever in the room with me?
That was something to ponder.
As for Gloria, all I could remember about her car's registration was the name Albert Green and the fact that he lived in Ocean Hills, an L.A. suburb. I tried to recall the name of the street, and couldn't. But I thought it would come back to me if I were to see it on a map or in a phone book.
The best thing would be to make it to L.A. as quickly as I could, find Gloria, then try to figure out how I could use her to clear myself.
I still had half a notion about using her again in another way, too. I wasn't really sore at her. What she had done, she'd felt she had to do. It was the smart thing, under the circumstances, if not exactly the most considerate for the man who had stirred her so deeply and pleasurably.
As I rode along, I recalled the way she had twisted and pumped her hips when she had my tool in her. Man, she'd loved it! She'd loved it just about as much as I had . . . perhaps even more, if that was possible.
She must have a real limp bastard for a husband, I thought.
I wondered how far she had traveled by now, and what she was thinking. She was still scared, no doubt. Fear was what had moved her, as it moves all of us much of the time. In her case, it was fear of what would happen if her husband were to find out she had shacked up in an Arizona motel with a hitch-hiking stud.
I would have that to hold over her when I got in touch with her, but unless I could tie her to the motel in some way other than by her unsupported word, she wouldn't be able to do me much good even if she did talk.
The vegetable truck finally brought me into a town which was a little larger than Garrett. The trucker told me he was going to lay over there until morning, then unload his produce at a couple of markets, and head back to the Phoenix area, where he'd come from. He let me out on the main street, the business route of the highway.
Again I figured a gas station for the best place to pick up a ride. This isn't always so. Some operators will kick your butt off the premises as soon as they spot you, but there are enough who'll take pity on you to make the tactic worth a try.
I passed up the first place, which was a company-owned layout. They were sure to give me the rush if I tried to camp there. The next was an independent station with one man on duty, and at the moment there was a Chevy II in there getting gas. A lone guy sat behind the wheel.
I walked over.
"Could you give me a lift?" I asked. He looked me over curiously. He was lean-faced, in his late twenties, casually but neatly dressed. "How far you going?" he asked. "Los Angeles."
"I don't know."
"This guy botherin' you?" the station attendant asked, as he walked up. "No," the driver said.
"I'm really stuck," I told him. "The last party who gave me a lift drove off with my suitcases. I have friends in L.A., and I'd like to get there as soon as possible."
"Well.. . okay. Get in back."
I got in gratefully and asked, "Are you going all the way?" He nodded.
This was just what I wanted.
But I didn't know how interesting the ride was going to be until a pretty blonde appeared at the corner of the station office. She had been in the John, I supposed. She approached the car, the shimmery front of her cream-colored blouse quivering with each step she took on the concrete. She obviously had a fine blouseful of boobies.
The driver was signing for his gas.
The girl stopped, looked at me, and asked the driver, "Who's this?"
"I told him he could ride with us." He twisted slightly to look at me. "I don't believe I know your name."
I thought quickly and said, "Johnson. Bill Johnson."
"We're Owen and Joyce Sloan."
"Very glad to know you," I said.
Joyce smiled as if she was glad too. I found out later just how glad she really was.
"Bill's had some trouble," Sloan explained to his wife as she got in. "Somebody stole his bag. Anyway, this is a hell of a place to be stranded."
Joyce's hair was wavy and a little mussed, as if she had been sleeping in the car earlier. She was a pretty piece. Though a woman doesn't have to be extra-chesty to attract me, I don't object to a set of honest-to-good-ness big tits. Joyce's were that kind, and they set off the rest of her looks just fine.
In spite of the two vigorous sessions I'd had with Gloria only a very few hours earlier, I got an enormous urge to take one of Joyce's juicy boobs in each hand (or as much as I could hold of them) and squeeze those babies like a pair of fine old bulbhorns.
Naturally, I didn't think I'd ever get the chance.
But, man, you never know.
It was quiet in the car for the first few miles. We were in open country again, and the traffic had thinned out considerably, due to the lateness of the hour. Sloan moved the Chevy right along, and the ride was comfortable if not luxurious.
I had the back seat to myself, except for a couple of suitcases on the floor at one side. I sat in the comer and draped my legs across the seat. I forgot the blonde in front.
Sleep had nearly claimed me when Sloan broke the silence: "Must be a rough way to travel, thumbing it."
"It's not the greatest," I admitted. "Especially when you lose all your belongings, the way I did."
The blonde turned to look at me. She smiled.
It was funny about that smile. It wasn't just an automatic one, but it didn't show personal liking, either. It seemed to be saying, unless I misread the message:
Look at me. I'm a woman, and a good-looking one. That ought to mean something to a man like you. She asked, "Where are you going."
"Los Angeles. I've got friends there."
"You're in luck. We're going all the way."
"So your husband told me."
"Honey," she said, facing him, "I think we better stop" pretty soon."
"I was hoping to make it to Blythe," he told her.
"How far's that?"
"Sixty or seventy miles."
"God, no! I've got to hit the sack before then."
"I don't know what kind of accommodations we can find between here and there."
"If we don't find something in the next few minutes," she threatened, "I'm going to climb in back and curl up."
I don't know what effect that had on Sloan, but it gave me a happy throb. I knew she knew exactly what she was saying.
She turned and gave me the same smile she had used before.
"Okay," her husband said. "Bill can come up front." Spoil sport, I whimsically wanted to tell him. She didn't say anything. There was silence for several minutes.
When we approached a little town with one motel-a crude place which was marked by a flood-lit wooden sign-the girl asked, "Owen . . . ? "
"Hell, you wouldn't want to stay there," he said.
"I'll stay anywhere right now. I'm beat."
He grumbled something, but cut the speed of the car. We dropped off the highway onto a frontage road, then onto the bare ground in front of the motel. It was a collection of green clapboard structures, a little weird-looking.
"What do you want, Bill?" Sloan asked before he got out.
"I'll take a single if they've got one," I said. "But don't worry about me. I could even sleep outside. It's not cold."
"You'll do nothing of the sort," Joyce said, and again turned her suggestive eyes on me.
She was a good bed-warmer, I figured, but probably only for her husband. I'd met married broads like her before, who liked to nettle their hubbies by eyeing other men and liked the charge that another man's reponse could give them, but that kind usually clutched their panties for dear life when a strange man tried to pull them off.
After Gloria, I wasn't hurting, so Joyce didn't bother me much. Anyway, I had something more important than nookey on my mind . . . if there is anything more important. At the moment, it seemed to me that there was.
As Sloan walked to the motel office, Joyce said with a wry chuckle, "Holy Harry, what a dump."
"I'll bet the cooties run wild in there."
She looked at me and her smile turned warm and cozy. Out of a totally clear sky, she said, "Being on the road the way you are, you must not have much of a love life, hmm?"
I overcame my slight shock and grinned. "I settle down every once in a while."
"Got a girl friend in Los Angeles?"
"I used to have several, but I haven't seen them in a while, and you know how girls are."
"Fickle as anything." She looked me over and added, "But I'll bet at least one of them is hoping you'll be back."
"I guess I'll find out when I get there."
She kept watching me, her eyes sparkling. That look was starting to kindle a fire.
Owen reappeared and approached Joyce's side of the car.
"They've only got one rental unit left," he said. "The big one over there. It's two rooms, with a joint bathroom. The guy quoted me twelve bucks. That's a hell of a lot to pay for this kind of cruddy dump."
"I'll split it with you," I offered.
"Well . . . "
"Come on, Owen," Joyce said. "What's the difference what it's like? It's got beds."
"Okay," he said reluctantly. "But we'll divide the price eight and four. After all, there are two of us."
I got out my billfold and counted out four bucks. "That's very reasonable of you," I said, handing them over.
He headed back to the office.
Joyce turned, gave me the smile again, and remarked, "Sounds like it's going to be fun, sharing the same bathroom and all."
She had baited me a little too much. I decided to snap at the bait and find out what she'd do.
I leaned forward, slipped one hand over her shoulder and dropped it down onto one of her lush boobs.
"Hey . . . " she breathed warmly, and arched her back to press herself more solidly against my hand. She twisted her shoulders, moving her breasts from side to side. "You don't fool around, do you?"
She had a lot of goodies in her brassiere and they moved well, even with the bra around them. I gave them a good feel all over and said, "If you've got any ideas about how we can swing it, let me know."
She gently moved my hand away. "You're dreaming," she whispered.
"Well," I replied, sitting back, "I like to take a swing at a good pitch. That's the only way to hit a home run."
She chuckled.
Owen returned to the car, got in, and drove up next to the unit we were going to occupy. As he parked, the light above the motel sign went off. When he cut the car lights, we were in total darkness.
"Hey, turn 'em back on until we get inside," Joyce told him.
He complied.
The interior construction of the motel was even less attractive than the outside, and the walls were the same shade of bilious green. The larger room, which we entered first, had a threadbare striped carpet that left a lot of the creaking wood floor exposed. It contained a double iron bed, an iron floor lamp with a cheap paper shade, two tired pictures on the walls, a Salvation
Army dresser with a stained mirror, and an overstuffed chair that had a spring sticking out.
"Hey, that's a real fanny grabber," Joyce said, indicating the chair.
I was looking at her fanny, which was quite enticing. I wouldn't have minded grabbing it at all.
Joyce sat down on the bed and bounced, looking at me as she did.
"Christ, this is a real dump," her husband said. "I warned you."
"Oh, I don't care," Joyce replied, swinging her legs around to stretch out on the bed-a move which hiked her skirt up to her stocking tops.
Damn, but that woman was really working on me!
Two wild ones in one night, I thought. Life was looking up.
I knew I wasn't going to have the time with Joyce that I'd had with Gloria, but that was all right-if she'd just behave herself.
"I'll help you with the bags," I said to Sloan, and turned toward the door.
"Never mind," he replied. "We've only got a couple."
He walked out.
"Wanta go for a quickie?" Joyce taunted, wiggling her hips.
Before I could say yes, no, or maybe, she giggled and jumped up.
I turned and went through the connecting doorway into my room. I was a little sore at her now. There was such a thing as overdoing that stuff.
My room was similar to the other one, except that it was smaller. The bathroom, at the rear of my room, featured a John, an old-fashioned heavy waslistand, and a tin shower stall which had been crowded into a corner as if on an afterthought. There was also a door here which connected with the larger bedroom. I used the John and returned to my room.
"Good night, folks," I said, through the other doorway.
Sloan was setting down the luggage. He said, "Good night, Bill. I hope the bugs don't eat you."
Joyce looked at me seductively and said nothing.
As I closed the door, the partition shook. I started taking off my clothes.
I heard Joyce's voice, almost as clearly as if she were in my room:
"He seems like a nice guy."
"Yeah? Well, quit looking at him the way you did."
"What way?" Joyce asked in a shocked tone.
"As if your pants were on fire. You have me to tend to that little problem."
"Yes, Mr. Fireman," she purred, then added, "and I love your hose."
There was silence for a moment, then a giggle from Joyce and a whimpering little sigh. They were loving it up.
Maybe they didn't realize everything they said and did could be heard plainly in my room. Since I was alone, I was doing no talking, and that gave them no opportunity to learn how porous the wall was.
On the other hand, Joyce might have known. She liked to tease.
"Come on," her husband growled. "Let's get into bed. I hate to make love standing up."
This produced a giggle from Joyce, who said, "You're no good to me when it's not standing up, daddy."
The verbal byplay was almost too much. I thought about rapping on the wall, but then I realized that as long as I listened to them, I wouldn't be worrying about the mess I was in, so it would serve that purpose, at least. And I would surely fall asleep soon after I hit the bed. It was very late, and I was tired.
"I think I'll grab a shower," I overheard Joyce say.
"I thought you were the gal who was so anxious to get right to bed," Sloan complained.
"But I want to freshen up for you, darling. Anyway, Bill will probably want to use the shower in the morning . . . and you will, won't you?"
"Okay. But don't blame me if I'm asleep when you crawl in."
"If you are, I'll know what to do about it, tomcat."
"You wake me up, and you'll get your fanny paddled."
"Oh, goody!" Joyce chirped.
I stepped out of my pants, hoping that the guy would be asleep when she crawled into bed with him. I'd be ready to drop off by then, and I didn't want to be disturbed by the sound of creaking bedsprings.
It was quiet next door for a little while. If Joyce was undressing in the same room with her husband, he must have been paying no attention. I could tell that the light hadn't been turned out, because a glow was visible under the connecting door.
Finally, it went off.
Sloan said, "Good night," and the bed protested as he lay down.
I was in bed by then, also. I began to wonder what the police were doing, whether they had set up roadblocks to catch the Thunderbird they thought I was driving, whether they had in fact caught Gloria. That wasn't likely, since they didn't have her correct license number. There were lots of new T-birds on the road.
"I'll be just a minute, darling," Joyce sang, interrupting my thoughts.
She entered the bathroom, then yelped, "God, it's like the Dark Ages in here!"
"Quiet down," Sloan said. "Bill's probably trying to sleep."
I wished I could, but between their conversation and my personal worries, sleep was far away. Perhaps now, I thought, and closed my eyes.
Just then Joyce turned the shower on, and the water struck the tin walls noisily. She let out a squeal.
Of course, I visualized the scene. What man wouldn't have? She was under the tepid spray, naked, the water sliding over her hillocks and undulations . . . running down the valley between her breasts . . . trickling into other crevices . . .
Mentally, I commanded myself to take it easy, but that didn't help. My body began to stir. I recalled how her big boobs had felt with a blouse and brassiere around them. Now they were bare and standing out, her nipples prickling under the spray, swelling and getting rosy pink. She was probably handling themsoaping, rolling them, rubbing them up and down.
Now I was in dire need, my tool standing up against the bedclothes, throbbing.
The water went off, and the shower curtain slid on its rod. She would be stepping out, tits shaking. I visualized her drying herself, her good-sized knockers lifting as she pushed her toweled hand up over them, then dropping back with a firm, delectable jiggle. The towel had no doubt made her nipples even redder and stiffer than before.
I wanted to grasp those babies between my thumbs and fingers and squeeze. And roll. And pluck.
Jesus!
I was wide awake now-as wide awake as I had ever been in my life. Gloria was just a distant memory. Thoughts of Joyce filled my entire world.
She re-entered her bedroom, nude no doubt, and whispered, "Tiger . . . ? " (I could even hear whispers through that blasted wall!)
"Yeah?" her husband growled sleepily.
Oh, no! The son of a bitch was still awake. Now I was in for it.
Or, rather, he was in for it, and I was facing an ordeal of exquisite torture.
"That didn't take long, did it?" Joyce purred.
The bedsprings creaked and groaned as she climbed in beside her mate.
He commented, "Christ, this bed is noisy."
"That's only going to add to the fun," his wife said.
Sure as hell, I was going to hear the whole bit I lay on my back with my arms at my sides on top of the covers. My rod throbbed.
Sloan said, "Mmmmmm," and his wife gave a little whimper. Obviously, he was feeling her up.
The bed groaned a little, every now and then, and Joyce gave out some murmurs and moans.
In my imagination, my fingers were Sloan's fingers. I could feel her damp, curly pubic hair. I was playing in it. Then I ventured further and encountered deeper dampness . . .
A long, breathless pause was broken by Joyce's whimper, and, "Oh, daddy . . . you're so hard. Shit! He wasn't the only one!
He let out a heavy sigh, and I figured his lips had just released a breast. He said, "And you're delicious!"
I assumed he went to work on the other one, because there was silence again, except for an agitated little murmur from the broad.
"That's good . . . " she finally murmured, and I could almost taste the tang of her titty in my mouth.
I grasped my pillow and pulled it up on both sides, around my ears, but I could still hear the murmur of their voices. Being unable to make out what they said was more maddening than listening to it, so I released the pillow.
Sloan was saying, ". . . got the sweetest tit-bits, baby."
"You think so?"
"Mm-hmmm. I never get tired of sucking them."
"I never get tired of having them sucked," she replied. "Come on, give the other one a break again."
This was a new experience for me, overhearing this kind of intimate conversation between another couple, and it had me as aroused as if I were in bed with the broad.
"Oh, man . . . I'm ready!" Joyce finally exclaimed. "Give me a good one tonight, darling."
The bed made a hell of a racket as he clambered on top of her.
If his fingers had become my fingers a little while ago, the same was doubly true of his rod now. I could almost feel him sliding into her . . . feel the close, slippery clasping of her warmth.. .feel her begin to move . . . feel him moving with her.
The bed creaked rhythmically.
The head of it clattered against the wall.
Joyce was chanting: "Oh . . . oh.. . oooh!"
He was going: "Uh . . . uh.. . uh . . . uh . . . "
I cursed to myself, but I couldn't keep from listening. Joyce started crying out. Sloan huffed louder. The bed went crazy, squeaking and bumping and rattling like it was about to come apart.
Then suddenly all the sound effects stopped, there was a short span of silence, and Joyce said, "Oh.. . "
I detected a note of disappointment in that one syllable. She'd probably climaxed, but hadn't gotten as much from her husband as she would have liked. I've heard enough final sighs from enough different broads so that I can distinguish between a really satisfied woman and one who is mentally calling her lovemate an old prick.
There were some slurpy kisses from next door, violent bed squawkings as he climbed off, a long sigh from him, and . . . silence.
It took me quite a little while after that to drop off to sleep. Gradually, my excitement subsided, and as it did my troubles moved in to reoccupy the forefront of my mind.
Being on the run-knowing you are being chased-is a miserable sensation. I don't recommend it to anyone. But I had hope, faint though it was, and I tried to concentrate on that.
Finally sleep did claim me, but it was troubled. I had wild, mixed-up dreams.
In the morning, I let Sloan take his shower and shave first. After he was through, I called to ask him if I could borrow his razor. He said I could.
What I most wanted to borrow that morning was his wife. I had awakened in a state of nagging need. But I figured borrowing her was out of the question, not only for today but forever. In a few hours Joyce and I would be bidding each other good-bye," never to meet again.
Or so I thought.
As soon as Sloan got out of the bathroom, I went in. While I was in the shower, the door to the Sloans' room opened and Joyce's blonde head appeared next to the stall.
"He's out looking at the desert," she announced. "Would you like to look at something?" I leaned closer to the shower curtain and peered over it.
She was wearing silky white briefs, and that was all. Her tremendous boobs were standing out, bare and beautiful, with wide, coral-colored blossoms covering their crests. In the center of each blossom was a rounded, nub-like nipple.
"Like?" she asked with a throaty laugh, cupping the big bare boobies in her hands.
'. 'What the hell's with you?" I husked. "Do you just like to make it hard on a guy?"
"Oh, is it?" she chirped. She tried to peer over the top of the shower stall, but it was too high for her.
She laughed and swung her breasts as she turned. She walked out of the bathroom, elaborately twisting her buttocks in her sheer nylon panties.
Sloan had himself a wild one there, I thought. I wondered if she would follow through with another guy if the circumstances permitted it
As my body calmed, I forgot her.
Gloria returned to my mind. From now on, finding Gloria had to come before everything else.
CHAPTER 4
A ROADBLOCK SLOWED US as we approached the California border. There were police cars parked at each side of the westbound lanes, and warnings posted ahead. But the cops were allowing nearly all of the cars to go through without stopping. A slow-up was all they wanted; they were looking only for T-birds.
After we had gone through, Sloan remarked, "I wonder what that was all about."
"Damned if I know," I lied blithely.
Joyce laughed. "Maybe Bill raped some girl in Wickenburg." She turned and added to me, "If you did, you're safe now. We're leaving the state."
"Very funny," I said.
The eastern part of California is as desolate as western Arizona. Once you pass through Blythe, there's practically nothing to relieve the monotony of dry, baking desert and distant purple hills. That scenery lasts for the next fifty miles.
There was a radio in the caij, but neither Sloan nor Joyce cared to listen to it, which was just as well.
Though I was curious to hear the news, I didn't want to have to discuss the motel murder with anyone. My tension had gone underground for the time being, but it wouldn't have taken much to bring it to the surface again.
I thought of Gloria, and imagined she was home by now. She had probably driven all night.
I wondered what thoughts she had concerning me. Was she sorry she had run out? Was she remembering the thrills we'd shared in the Garrett motel and earlier, on the desert?
It was afternoon by the time the Sloans and I reached the Los Angeles area. I had bought lunch for all of us on the way, as partial payment for the ride. Joyce had been watching me a lot, with that sexy gleam in her eyes, but she hadn't made anything like a pitch. Well, how could she, with her husband there all the time?
We ran low on gas in the L.A. outskirts, and Sloan wheeled off the freeway to find a station. He also had to go to the John.
I started to climb out at the same time, but Joyce reached over the seat and grasped my arm. I waited expectantly.
As the station attendant cleaned the windows, she said softly, "I want to give you my address, okay?" It was a surprise. "Sure," I said. "Write this dow."
"Sorry, but I don't have a pencil."
"You're not very well equipped."
"I've got all the equipment you need."
"I'll bet," she said with a chuckle. She reached into the glove compartment, found a pencil and a scrap of paper, and scribbled on it. She folded the paper once and handed it to me.
"Call between 8:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. any weekday," she said. "Owen's always away then."
I shoved the note in my shirt pocket without looking at it, "You will, now?" she inquired, watching me closely. "Don't worry. That glimpse of your boobs this morning got me hooked." She grinned.
I got out and headed for the men's room.
In the cheap downtown hotel room, which I had rented under the name of William Johnson, I read about the motel murder in a Phoenix paper.
Daniel Plummer was being sought for questioning, the item said. It reported that the suspect had made his escape in a 1967 Thunderbird, license number unknown. (The police had, of course, checked out the phony number I had registered.) Some two hundred dollars had been taken from the motel's cash drawer.
The final paragraph of the news story provided a surprise:
"Among the articles found in Plummer's room were a woman's hairbrush bearing the monogram G. G. and some discarded facial tissues smudged with lipstick. These items led police to believe Plummer was not alone at the motel."
I put the newspaper down with a grin.
That was just what I needed to link Gloria to the place. My luck in Garrett hadn't been entirely bad, after all. v
It was understandable that she had left something behind, considering how anxious she must have been to get out of the motel. The brush had probably been left in the bathroom, where she had used it to make herself beautiful for me before we went to bed. As for the tissues, what panicky broad would have thought to clean out a wastebasket?
I made creases around the newspaper item and carefully tore it out. I glanced at my watch.
The time was 3:25. A bus ride to Ocean Hills would take over an hour, and that would get me there about when Gloria's husband would be arriving home from work. No good. I decided to wait until tomorrow.
In the meantime, I could at least check out her address, I figured, so I left my room and took the creaking elevator to the hotel lobby. Dog-eared phone books, one for each section of the Greater Los Angeles area, hung beside an old-style wooden booth. Ocean Hills was in the western section. I looked up the Greens.
There were a slew of them.
I couldn't remember whether the name was spelled with a final e or not, and that complicated things. I checked both ways. There were several Alberts, and more whose names began merely with the initial A. I had forgotten the second initial, and none of the street names in the listings rang a bell. I concluded that Gloria's phone was probably unlisted, since I was sure I would have recognized the street name if I had seen it.
I crossed to the registration desk, where a gaunt man with a goose neck was on duty.
"Do you have a map of the beach areas?" I inquired.
"What the hell does this look like," he cracked, "a tourist bureau?"
I gave him a dirty look and headed back to my room. If you want courtesy, I thought dryly, I suppose you have to go to the Beverly Hilton . . . and pay for it. But there had to be a gas station in Ocean Hills that would be able to furnish the information I needed.
I slept pretty well that night, but spent most of the time chasing dream wenches with bobbing boobs and wiggling fannies-not unlike Joyce's. Try as I would, I couldn't get my hands on one of the broads, and consequently I awoke bristling with unfulfilled lust.
I had bought a cheap razor and blades the day before, but hadn't spent any money on clothes. I shaved and showered in the bathroom down the hall, after which I climbed back into the only pair of pants I owned. My once-white T-shirt smelled of underarm sweat. I had no socks to wear in my boots.
I was never a imagine dresser, but I always liked to stay clean, and walking around this way bugged me. But what was I to do? I had to save my limited funds for room and meals until I could straighten out this shitty mess I was in.
The bus ride to Ocean Hills took longer than I expected, and it set me back a buck and a half.
The community was spread out over several knolls which rose behind a string of sandy beaches, and I had no idea which section Gloria lived in. I got off the bus in the small business district and walked to the nearest gas station. I asked the attendant if I could look at his local map, and he was kind enough to oblige me.
The streets curled around the hills in crazy-quilt fashion, and a lot of them ran for only a block or two, then dead-ended. It was a hell of a job, checking all the names.
I had it in my mind that the name of the street I wanted started with an R. There were Ravenswood, Ranger View, Rolling Acres. None of these seemed right.
I tried every way I could think of to nudge the name out of my memory. I visualized the interior of the T-bird and the registration slip attached to the sun visor. That didn't work, because my vision kept dropping to Gloria's luscious, exposed legs, after I had pushed her skirt and slip lap-high and had begun to play with her pussy.
I said Albert Green over and over to myself, but that didn't help produce the street name. I kept studying the map.
"What are you looking for?" the middle-aged station attendant finally asked.
"A street. I can't remember the name, but I figure I'll recognize it if I see it."
"Is it business or residential?"
"Residential."
"Hell, there are a lot of those."
"So I notice."
I kept looking, but it was hard to be sure if I was checking every name, since the streets were short and they curled around one another like a girl's pubic hairs.
I saw Arden Glen and a little buzz went off inside me. Was that it? I stared at the map.
"Found that mother?" the attendant asked. He was leaning over my shoulder. "I'm not sure."
A customer drove in, and the attendant left.
Arden Glen, I thought over and over. Arden seemed right, but the rest didn't. Yet, the more I thought of it, Arden wasn't exactly right, either.
I resumed my scanning.
Hey! There it was-Arbordale Terrace! That was the name, sure as hell!
The street was about five blocks long, apparently running up a hillside and ending in a cul-de-sac. It was about twenty blocks away, but the blocks were short. I figured I could hoof it in not too long a time.
I memorized the route to get there and took off, waving a thank-you to the gas-pump jockey.
There was no hope of my remembering the correct number on Arbordale, so the only thing I could do was call at houses along the street until somebody could tell me where Albert Green lived.
Or so I hoped.
But the hope was based on a faulty premise.
The neighborhood was posh. The houses were ranch-style sprawlers with wide garages and rolling lawns edged with banks of brilliant blooms.
And the residents were uncooperative as hell.
At the first house, a pert blonde in a paisley pantsuit gave me a suspicious eye and said she'd never heard of anyone named Green in this neighborhood. Before I could thank her for nothing, she closed the door with a haughty shake of her boobs.
The next couple of door bells I rang went unanswered. Perhaps I had been inspected through windows and found unworthy of any response by the occupants.
At the fourth house, a guy with an ascot tucked into the neck of his sport shirt asked, "What do you want with the Greens?"
"It's personal," I said. "Do you know them?"
"If I did, I wouldn't tell you. Now get the hell out of here before I call the police."
The door closed in my face.
Friendly? Man!
Well, I could hardly blame them, considering the way I looked . . . and smelled.
I couldn't keep foraging from door to door this way. There were too many doors. Anyway, I didn't want to blunder onto the Green house totally unprepared. For instance, Gloria might not answer the door if she saw me first, or her husband might be at home, even though these were working hours. I wanted to approach the Green house carefully and size it up before I made a move.
I turned and headed back downhill. There was a small shopping center at the bottom, with a market, liquor store and dry cleaners.
I walked into the liquor store and waited, while a blonde with a gorgeous butt cuddled in hot-pink stretch pants paid for a couple of quarts of booze. I couldn't help but envy the guy who was going to drink with her. I wondered how many shots she would have to have before she'd let those stretchies get pulled down and allow a man to wrap his hands around the lush, bare cheeks of her backside. Standing behind her and gazing at the pink and perfectly delineated hemispheres, I thought of myself as the man-holding that wiggling resilient fanny as I stroked her insides with my inside-stroker.
After the blonde wiggled out, I asked the white-jacketed man behind the counter, "Do you happen to have a customer named Albert Green?"
He gazed critically at me through rimless glasses.
"I have a delivery for him," I explained, "but I must have gotten the address fouled up. If I call my company, they'll chew me out."
"Where you from?"
I hesitated. I couldn't mention a clothing or department store, dressed the way I was.
"Look," the man said, "I can't give out addresses to just anyone."
"Parker's Nursery," I blurted, taking the name from the cover of a magazine which was displayed on the counter. "It's in Santa Monica."
"Yeah?" He craned his neck to look through the window, and asked, "Where's your truck?"
"You can't see it from here. Look, do you know the guy or not?"
"Well . . . just a minute."
He pulled a book out from underneath the counter, flipped through some pages, and ran his finger down a list of names.
I tried to read them upside-down, but they were in longhand and the writing was terrible.
"Green, Albert C," the man said. "Is that it?"
"If it's on Arbordale."
"8134," the guy said, and slammed the book shut.
"Thanks," I grinned. "Thanks a lot."
I got out of there quickly and headed across the parking area. I worried for a little way, thinking the liquor man might be watching and, when he saw I had no truck, might telephone the Green house and warn them that somebody suspicious-looking was asking questions.
But that wasn't likely, I decided, because then he would have to admit he had given me the address, and that would make him out a dumb-ass.
I relaxed.
8134 was two blocks up from the houses where I had been inquiring. Approaching from the opposite side of the street (which was really a road, since there were no sidewalks), I saw that the Green home was a wide-shake-roof job with low-reaching gables, stonework at the base, and a stained glass window near the front door. Handsome as hell.
I backed into a clump of low trees growing outside the fence of the house near which I stood, and sat down on the grass. It was nearly noon, the sun was hot, and I was sweaty from the uphill hike.
I studied the Green place, watching for signs of life.
There weren't any.
After about ten minutes, a car approached from down the hill and I lay over on my side to avoid being noticed. The car, a cream-colored Chrysler, whispered past, its elegantly coiffed female driver not glancing my way.
Five minutes later, a dry cleaners' truck came along, uphill, and I ducked again. It angled across the street and stopped in front of the Green house.
I crawled behind some bushes for better cover.
I couldn't see who answered the door. The delivery man handed in some plastic-sheathed garments, returned to his truck, and continued on up the hill.
Well, at least someone was at home.
I studied the house some more.
A driveway ran alongside it to a closed garage, which was set back a little way. There was a pedestrian gate between the garage and the house, evidently with a walk leading from it to the back yard, but windows overlooked this area, and I figured I was sure to be heard if I tried walking up the concrete drive.
I weighed the chances of Gloria's leaving the house, assuming she was at home. The ideal opportunity to approach her would be when she was between the front door and the garage. Then she would have to talk to me.
But it was possible that she had done her shopping or whatever earlier in the day, and would remain at home until her husband arrived in the evening. Or she might enter the garage from the rear and open the door from the inside.
It was even possible that her husband was at home right now. I didn't want to run into him because I figured that my best pry was blackmail.
I hoped Gloria could frame an excuse to leave home for a day or two, so we could drive back to Arizona to straighten things out quietly. She would be able to convince the authorities that she'd been in the motel room with me, since her initials and the make of her car would check out. Then I could tell them about the Ford I had seen driving away. I figured there was a good chance the police would buy our story, with both of us showing up voluntarily. At least, that seemed to be my best hope. But it all depended on reaching Gloria without her husband knowing about it, and on my being able to talk with her long enough to sell her on the idea.
I gave up waiting for her to come out. The odds weren't good enough, and anyway, I might be spotted and questioned by somebody if I hung around much longer where I was. I would have to take the chance that her husband wasn't at home, which I figured was a pretty good bet. As for the approach, the pedestrian gate would be better than the front door. Once I was in the back yard, I would have a chance of muscling my way inside the house. The front door was heavy, and a ruckus there would attract the attention of neighbors.
I took a deep breath, wiped my forehead and cheeks with my hand, and stood up.
Birds twittered and took off from the tree above me.
I crossed the street and started up the driveway. My heart hammered-not over the prospect of seeing Gloria, but because getting her to cooperate meant so much to me.
Sex was not in my mind right then.
No sound came from inside the house. I walked quickly up the drive, stepping as lightly as possible. Still, my boots made some noise.
I reached the small redwood gate and pulled the latch. It was locked from the inside. I braced myself and leaped over.
Crouching there for a moment and breathing hard, I looked around. There was no one visible at the windows of the house, but it was dim inside so I couldn't really tell if I was being watched or not. I assumed I was.
I moved along the narrow concrete walk between the garage and the house.
The back yard was spacious. There was a gleaming blue-green pool, edged with white. Flagstone covered the area between the pool and the house, with lounge chairs scattered on it. Grass and flowers lay beyond the pool, inside a redwood fence with a fiberglass extension along the top. Everything was serene.
I moved to the rear entrance of the house, which was sheltered by an aluminum awning. There was a sliding glass door. The drapes inside the door were open, but the door was closed.
My heart beat harder.
I raised a hand and rapped on the glass, my eyes straining to see into the dimness of the living room. A white-clad figure moved.
I leaned close to the door and shielded my eyes with my hands.
A girl, not Gloria, in white shorts and top, was gaping at me as she held a telephone in her hand. She was a teen-ager, I judged, a hot-looker with high, thrusting breasts and rounded hips.
I yanked at the door handle, the door slid back, and I lunged into the gold-carpeted living room.
The young blonde screamed as I rushed her. My tackle sent her sprawling backward over an ottoman. She lost the telephone receiver and landed on her fanny with her legs in the air.
I stared for a moment at the tight crotch of her shorts. There was a crease in the white cloth, and I didn't have to do much imagining to mentally strip that cloth away and visualize the hot-pink female configuration which was pressed against it.
But I couldn't linger with the vision. I turned and picked up the telephone receiver. I held it to my ear.
"Hello . . . hello," a man was saying. "This is the precinct station. What do you want?"
I righted the base of the phone on the rug and placed the receiver on it, cutting off the connection.
The girl had .gotten her candy legs off the ottoman and had pulled them close to her as she sat up. She wasn't hurt, but she was frightened nearly out of her skin.
"Wha-what do you want?" she panted. "To talk. That's all. Sit in a chair," I directed, pointing.
She got up, eyeing me fearfully. She was about seventeen. Her breasts were large and bouncy in the thin, sleeveless blouse, and her sun-gold hair was long and straight.
She pushed the hair behind her shoulder and demanded, "Who are you?" She had gotten some of her natural spunk back by now.
"I'll tell if you will," I said. "Albert Green lives here, doesn't he?"
"Yes . . . ? "
"Are you related to him."
"I'm his daughter."
That meant Gloria was the second Mrs. Green, and a great deal younger than he. No wonder she'd been so hot for a lay when she picked me up!
"Who else lives in the house?" I asked.
"Listen," she bristled, "what right do you have to come busting in here and throw a lot of nosy questions around?"
"None. But here I am, and you'd better answer me if you want us to get along."
"What'll you do if I don't?"
The blonde chick stared at me for several seconds, then threw back her head and laughed. "Oh, this is rich! Really too much! So you're some creep Gloria's been playing around with on the side."
"Where is she?" I demanded.
"I don't know." She gazed at me with an insolent grin and added, "Wait 'til I tell Daddy about this!"
I lunged and grabbed her by the wrist. She gasped and bent backward, her gorgeous chest melons aimed at my face.
"You're not going to tell anybody anything," I said gruffly, as I gripped her wrist tighter. "Let go of me," she hissed.
"When you tell me what I want to know. Where is Gloria, and when will she be home?"
"She's out. How would I know where she is? She might be back any time."
I released her wrist and she rubbed it. "Man," she said ruefully, "you're strong as an ape."
"Do you live here?" I asked.
"Of course."
"How many others are there in the household."
"Daddy, Gloria and baby makes three."
"No servants?"
"We have a woman who comes in."
"Where is she."
"It's her day off."
"That's convenient." I backed up to a chair and added, "Now, let's sit down."
"Listen, Mr. Whoever-you-are-this is my house, not yours. I'll do the inviting, and I didn't invite you. That means you better rustle your duff out of here before I run into the street and start screaming."
"Hey," I grinned, "you're all right. You have spirit."
"I've got lungs, too, as you're about to find out."
"Wait," I said as gently as I could. "There's a story I can tell you that you'll find interesting. It's about me and your stepmother."
"Yeah?" Her brown eyes sharpened.
"So sit down."
She hesitated, and I said, "All I want to do is talk.
I won't touch you-unless you make a break for the telephone or the door."
She thought it over, then sat. Her shorts pulled up tight at her crotch, outlining her sweet little honey-pot to perfection. After a moment, she leaned back and crossed her lush legs.
"Well?" she said.
The girl presented a problem. She could ruin everything by telling her father about me. It had occurred to me that the best way to keep her from doing so was to cut her in on my reason for being here,. Young people like confidences, and they usually respect them. Also, they're suckers for a cause-almost any kind of cause.
In addition, I had reason to believe this girl would love to get some red-hot goods on her stepmother, and would probably cooperate with me to force Gloria to do the right thing. There would be more satisfaction for her in that than in blabbing to her father, who more than likely didn't understand her, anyway.
I said, "Gloria just got back from a trip, right?"
"She drove the car home from Chicago. Daddy's flying back."
"Oh. When?"
"Tomorrow morning. Say, I thought you were going to tell me something."
"Right. The story starts in Arizona. I was hitchhiking, and Gloria offered me a ride. She acted real friendly, so I felt her up in the car. She pulled off the road, and I laid her in the desert."
"No kidding?" the blonde squealed. "That's a gas!"
"Then we went to a motel," I continued, "and I humped her again. Just after we finished, there were a couple of gunshots. I pulled on my clothes and ran out. I found the motel manager dead; he'd been robbed and murdered. Thy guy who did it was just getting away. But the dead man's wife didn't see him-she saw me instead, standing over her husband's body, looking as if I'd done it. Of course, she assumed I had."
"For cripe's sake! What did you do?"
"I started back to the room where I'd left Gloria. Since I was with her when the shots were fired, I figured she'd act as my witness. But she was already in her car, hauling ass, because she didn't want to get mixed up in any publicity. I lost my cool and ran. Now everybody thinks I committed the murder, and Gloria's the only one who can clear me."
"That's the wildest thing I ever heard!" the blonde exclaimed.
"Yeah. Just wild enough to be true. So now you know why I'm here and why I've acted the way I have. I didn't dare walk up to the front door, for fear Gloria wouldn't let me into the house. And I couldn't have you calling the cops."
"You think you can talk Gloria into telling the fuzz she was with you at that motel?"
"She'll have to. It's my only hope."
"Man, you're dead. She'd let you go to the gas chamber before she'd spoil the sweet setup she's got here. Daddy's loaded, you know."
"I have a pry," I said. "In fact, two of them. I can tell your father, or I can go to the police myself and tell them about her. But I thought this would be the best way for both of us."
"I don't know what to say."
"Say you'll help me. I'm in a hell of a spot. I took off and left my suitcase and all my clothes at the motel. All I've got is what I have on. I can't apply anywhere for a job, because the cops have my name and fingerprints."
"Wow!"
"So help me, huh? Don't make a fuss, and don't fink to your old man."
"Okay, but I still say you're wasting your time, man. Gloria won't cooperate. I'd bet money on it. She's a mean bitch underneath, and nobody knows that better than I do."
"Maybe. But it'll go a hell of a lot easier for her if she does."
"What's your name."
"Dan Plummer."
"I'm Beth."
"Nice to know you, Beth," I grinned. "I'm kind of glad to know you, too-now. I thought at first you were a mad rapist or something."
"Were you disappointed when you found out I wasn't?"
"A little, maybe. But mostly I was relieved. Being raped might be pretty rugged."
She got up and crossed to a little table, her bottom wiggling delectably in those tight shorts.
"Want a smoke?" she offered, as she held out a white ceramic cigarette box.
"No, thanks. But you go ahead."
"Maybe you'd like a beer."
"That I could go for."
"I'll get a couple," she said, and started to leave the room.
I got up and went after her.
She smiled up at me as we climbed the three carpeted steps leading to the dining room. "I'm not going to give you a bad shake," she said. "I feel sorry for you now."
Just the same, I stayed with her. We passed through the dining room into the kitchen. I studied her fanny as she moved in front of me, especially when she leaned to open the refrigerator.
Strictly zoftik . . . and young. I liked her all the way around.
Beers in hand, we returned to the living room, where she lit her cigarette. We sipped, she smoked, and we talked.
"So you tumbled Gloria, hmm?" Beth said. "How was she."
"Hot."
"No kidding? I always suspected she wasn't much good in bed."
"With me, she was."
Beth's eyelashes lowered, and she said, "Maybe you're easily pleased."
"Do I look as if I would be?"
"Now that you mention it, you look as if a girl could have a pretty good time with you."
"Thanks. Tell me-how long have Gloria and your old man been married?"
"Two years. She was his secretary before that."
"What does Daddy do?"
"Import and export."
"Don't you go to school?"
"I did. Graduation was last week. I enter USC this fall."
"Yea, Trojans," I said, and sipped some more beer. "Did you go there?"
"Nope. University, of Utah. Then I went into the service. Since then, I've been sort of a ass."
"You see? That's what the Army does to people! I'm a confirmed pacifist!"
I could have given her an argument on this point, but I didn't want to risk ruffling her fur over something that didn't count at the moment.
"Imagine," she said, "Gloria hitting the sack with a guy like you!"
"It's not so unthinkable, is it?"
"I guess not. But it surprises me. She's Miss Prissy Pants around home, always threatening to tell Daddy I've been screwing around."
"Do you?" I grinned. "Screw around, I mean."
"Doesn't everybody? Look-even Gloria."
"You seem pleased to find that out."
"I like to prick balloons, you might say."
I set down my empty beer can, and she asked if I wanted another.
"Not now, thanks. I want to have a clear head when Gloria shows."
"How about a sandwich or something?"
"You don't need to go to that much trouble."
"I wouldn't mind. As a matter-of-fact, I could stand one myself."
"Well.. . how about if I help you."
"Okay."
We had just gotten up and started for the kitchen when we heard the sound of a car outside.
"Oh-oh," Beth said. "It's her."
"Are you sure? Could be someone else."
"No. Hear that? The garage door's opening."
"Where will she come into the house?" I asked.
"Through the service porch next to the kitchen. Come on."
Gloria's look, as she saw me standing in the kitchen beside her teen-aged stepdaughter, was indescribable. She blanched and her mouth dropped open, but there was more to it than that.
"Come in," I said. "I was just telling Beth about our good times on the desert."
"You didn't!"
She studied me anxiously, and when my eyes confirmed that it was true, she said, "You bastard!"
"Ha! Look who's calling who names. You're the one who ran out on me and left me to face a murder rap!"
"What the hell are you talking about?"
"You don't know?"
For the first time, I realized that perhaps she didn't. "Come into the living room," I said, "and we'll talk."
"Hey . . . swinger," Beth purred cattily as she eyed her stepmother with a suggestive grin.
"Whatever he told you was a lie," Gloria stated hotly. "He was hitchhiking, and I took pity on him and gave him a ride. That was all."
"Yeah . . .a ride in bed," Beth said, and giggled.
"No!" Gloria turned to me. "Oh, Dan, how could you?"
"Come into the living room," I repeated. "We've got a lot of ground to cover."
Gloria sat opposite me, fidgeting, while Beth pranced back and forth, enjoying the scene a great deal. Her saucy glance moved with the conversation, and every once in a while she threw in a remark.
I was getting a kick out of watching her, even though there was serious business to discuss. The out-thrust peaks under the front of her blouse quivered, indicating that her brassiered breasts had a lot of firm springiness to them. And the way the well-formed cheeks of her butt rolled and rubbed against each other was enough to coax any guy's ardor up, just from watching. Mine was thinking about rising right now.
Gloria was wearing a white shift dress with a cuff collar and a narrow tie at the waist, and tugging at a pair of white gloves in her lap. Unlike at the restaurant, she kept both shiny white pumps on the floor and her knees together.
I gave her a rundown on the whole story, then showed her the item I had torn out of the Phoenix paper. I concluded with, "So you've got to go back to Arizona with me and help me straighten things out."
"Are you out of your mind?"
"No, but you'd have to be, to turn me down. I could go to the police, you know."
"You wouldn't!"
"Like hell, I wouldn't. My doodads are in the wringer, baby. You don't seem to realize that."
Beth gave a short, explosive laugh, and Gloria said, "Don't be vulgar."
"I'm not in much of a mood to mince words. The Arizona cops want me for murder, and you're the only one who can get me off."
"Why don't you tell them about the car you saw driving away?"
"Oh, sure. Why should they bust their asses looking for an anonymous guy in a blue Ford, when they've got a perfectly good suspect right in their grasp? They'd never buy that blue Ford crap. If I talk to them at all, angel, it's going to be about you." I paused and added slowly, "Of course, I could talk to your husband first."
"Dan!"
"All right. Now that we understand each other, let's get down to the nitty-gritty. Call your husband in Chicago, before he leaves to come back here, and give him some excuse that'll explain your being away for a day or two. Then you and I will drive to Arizona together."
"That would be like sticking my head in a noose. They might think I was in on the motel robbery, too!"
"No, they won't. Not when we tell them everything -who you are, and how we happened to be there."
"I can't do that!" she wailed.
"Baby, you're going to have to."
Beth smirked.
Gloria looked at her and said, "I'll see that your allowance is doubled if you don't blab to your father about this."
"Thanks a lot," Beth said, with a mischievous grin. She sank into a chair, crossing her tanned legs languorously.
"I mean it, Beth. He can't know."
"We'll see. Right now, there's a bigger problem."
Gloria looked back at me. "I could kill you for what you've done-barging in here and shooting off your mouth."
"I had no choice. Beth demanded to know who I was and what I wanted. She threatened to raise hell if I didn't tell her." Gloria set her lips and looked daggers at me. "But I don't think she'll spoil things for you," I went on. "Especially if you give her that extra allowance. I'm the one you've got to worry about." She glanced nervously at the wall clock. "It's three-thirty in Chicago now," she said aloud to herself. "Albert's probably through with his last meeting."
"Put in a call to his hotel," I urged. "Dan . . . look. This is crazy. Once the police get their hands on us, they won't let go. They'll notify my husband and ask him a lot of questions. There'll be two of us in trouble instead of one, and my marriage will be ruined."
"I don't think so," I said, but I couldn't help realizing that she might be right. "There's another way."
"What's that?"
"Hire a detective agency to find the man you saw leaving the motel."
"Are you serious? I can't hire anybody. I'm down to my last few bucks, and I can't even apply anywhere for a job."
"I'll give you some money and hire the detectives." I studied her. "Well?" she urged. "I don't know," I said.
"The killer will probably still have the murder gun, since he thinks he's safe," she pointed out. "That'll tie him to the crime. With your testimony, the police will have an air-tight case, and I won't ever have to get involved."
Maybe she had something, I thought.
"This is exciting," Beth chimed in, "like a TV show come to life."
Gloria looked at her, then at me. Something happened in her dark eyes that I couldn't fathom. An idea was hatching.
"Dan . . . " she said. "Why don't you stay here tonight? Albert's plane doesn't get in until ten-thirty in the morning. I can drop you off at your place before that."
I grinned. "You can't be thinking what it sounds like you're thinking."
"Why not?" She smiled disarmingly. "Beth knows about us. Anyway, she's practically an adult. She'll be eighteen in August."
"God damn," I said in amazement.
Beth glanced from me to her stepmother. "So you want him to slip it to you again, huh, Gloria? Danny-boy must be quite a stud."
"Don't be nasty," Gloria snapped.
Beth laughed.
I said, "Beth was just being honest, Gloria. I like that."
"Oh, yes," Gloria replied bitterly. "You and your blessed honesty. I'd almost forgotten."
"Come on, Glory baby," Beth taunted. "You haven't forgotten anything about him, including the size of his dong."
"Beth.. .I warned you, I won't stand for insolence!"
"Shut up, bitch! You're not warning me any more about anything. I've got you by the titties now, instead of the other way around, so you'd better be careful how you act."
Gloria's face flamed.
Beth said to me, "I guess this'll stop her threats about telling Daddy how late I get in nights when he's not home. She's been so holier-than-thou, it's good to have her under my thumb."
"Oh, Beth . . . " Gloria scolded.
"Don't oh-Beth me, you hypocritical slut!"
Gloria leaped to her feet.
I think they would have had at one another if I hadn't gotten between them.
"This is silly," I said. "We all know the truth about one another, so what's the difference? Getting back to your invitation, I'll be glad to stay here. But we sleep three in a bed, if that's okay with Beth."
"Dan! She's under-age!"
But there was something in Gloria's eyes that contradicted her expression of shock.
"You're the one who said a little while ago that she's almost eighteen," I pointed out. "So 'almost' is close enough. Nobody's going to tell on anyone else." Turning to Beth, I said. "What do you say we fix that lunch now? I'm starved."
"Sure. You want something, Glory?"
"No. I'm too sick to eat."
"Never mind," Beth murmured in mock sympathy. "Dan's got a magical medicine stick that'll fix you up just fine. He'll slip it to you in a little while-right, Danny?"
"I'll slip it to you first, if you like," I offered.
"Ah-ha! See there, Glory? He likes me better."
I gave her a smart slap on the fanny, and the divided flesh jiggled.
Gloria silently watched Beth and me leave the room, her dark eyes thoughtful. I would have liked to know what she was plotting.
When we reached the kitchen, I asked Beth, "What the hell do you think she's up to?"
"How do you mean? She just wants another piece of you, that's all. Little Gloria has shown her true colors, at last."
"There's more to it than that," I said. "Your stepmother's a born schemer."
"I always thought she was a puritan. Now I know she's a tramp underneath-just like me."
"You consider yourself a tramp?"
"I don't," she said as she began taking stuff out of the refrigerator, "but I suppose the world would. The older people's world, I mean. They don't know what's happening, baby. One of these days, they're going to wake up and find everything's changed."
"There can't be more than ten or twelve years between Gloria's age and yours," I pointed out.
"Ten or twelve years can be a lifetime these days, baby," she said.
I took the cold cuts from her and carried them to the table. When I looked up, I found Gloria watching us from the doorway, sucking on a cigarette.
"Sure you won't have something to eat?" I asked.
"I had a sandwich in town." She continued to study me thoughtfully.
Beth brought rye bread and Swiss cheese, while I went to the refrigerator for a pair of beers.
"What do you say we roll into bed right after lunch?" Beth proposed.
"Okay," I said. "The three of us."
I glanced at Gloria, expecting her to raise an objection.
But she didn't. She smiled and said, "All right."
"Way to go, Glory!" Beth chirped. "Now you're learning how to live. Just don't try to lord it over me any more. We're all through with that kind of crap."
She began putting a sandwich together, and I joined her to do the same, after pausing to lift a cold can of beer to my lips. I have to admit I was tingling over the ' prospect of getting into that young stuff-especially with Gloria in bed with us. It promised to be a free-wheeling ball.
Man, was it! But not exactly in the way I expected.
When the three of us trouped into the large master bedroom, Gloria was nervous; Beth was rosy-cheeked and bright-eyed; I was about to get a hard-on just from looking at those two lovely bitches and realizing what was about to happen.
I felt like a sultan with a harem.
I had been at parties which had turned into orgies before the evening was over, but this was different. I was the only stud here, and these girls were available solely for my pleasure.
"Shall we undress?" I suggested.
"You and Beth go first," Gloria said, her voice as taut as a guitar string. "I want to watch."
"Do you mind?" I asked the teen-age blonde.
"Hell, no," she said. "Letting her watch should be fun for everybody."
I grabbed the bottom of my dirty T-shirt and pulled it over my head. Beth was working at the buttons of her blouse and watching me as I took off my boots. Gloria stood back near the door, out of my line of vision.
Beth's blouse came off as I opened my jeans. Her white bra was fully packed. She reached behind her to release the hooks, her cheeks rosy as she watched me lower my Levi's.
As I've said, I was wearing no underwear.
Beth's gaze took me in-all of me. From the corner of my eye, I could see Gloria moving around, trying to get a frontal glimpse.
As soon as Beth's big ripe boobies popped into view, standing way out from her chest, their pink nipples canted upward, my penis quickly rose to the occasion.
Let me say right here that Beth's breasts were about the finest I had ever seen-full and firm and magnificently out-thrusting. I itched to get hold of them, and the rigidity of my cock let her know just how anxious I was.
She now was nearly as excited as I, and she had trouble getting her shorts open and stripped down. Underneath, she wore white bikini briefs which clung to the undercurve of her sweetly rounded belly.
"Lie down," I ordered, as soon as she had cast the shorts aside.
She backed up to the bed, and I pursued her onto it.
Her cheeks were rosy and her eyes were glazed as she stared at my ready rod. Her breasts stuck straight up as she lay on her back, topped by mouth-watering nipples which were stiff as dowels.
I wriggled her bikini pants down and discovered that her fur patch was medium brown. It made for quite a contrast with her light-blonde top.
She would have opened her legs for me right away, but I straddled her instead. I leaned fully forward, sandwiching my rigid staff between our heated bellies, and started kissing her around the face. From the corner of my eye, I saw that Gloria was creeping closer.
Her panties were getting hot as hell, I figured. By the time I was ready for her, she would be set to go without any buildup.
I arched my back and kissed Beth's neck and shoulders as she squirmed, wobbling her titties back and forth. When I moved my mouth down to them, she moaned happily. I wrapped a hand around each melon-like shape and squeezed, forcing them closer together. There was hardly any give, except at the surface. They were exceptionally full and firm.
I smeared my open mouth around her left nipple, working my lips and teeth and tongue. I felt her cool, soft hand slip around my cock and take hold. I went to the other nipple and treated that one the same way, as she started stroking me up and down.
She was whimpering and breathing hard, her head thrashing from side to side. I shook her tight breasts back and forth, enjoying the jelly-like wobble, then rocked on one knee to let her opposite leg escape. Then I rocked the other way, and she eagerly slid her other leg wide.
"Come on!" she cried. "Put it to me!"
I hooked my arms under her knees and forced her legs, as far back as I could get them. They mashed against her boobs.
She had to give up her hold on my rod, but I didn't need any help in aiming it. Gloria was close to us now, at the side of the bed, as I nosed into Beth's sleek harbor. I went in all the way and remained still for a moment, throbbing pleasurably in the encompassing wet warmth.
Then I began to pull and thrust, pull and thrust, as Beth squealed with delight. For me the thrill was really something else. My head pounded, and I humped faster. I was determined to finish this one quickly-it was too good to draw out.
Suddenly, the room exploded in light.
"Wha . . . ? " I snarled, and turned in the direction of the flash.
Gloria was just lowering her camera. Face set, eyes sharp, she made a rush for the door.
I realized now that she had planted the camera in the bedroom-probably under the bed-while Beth and I were alone in the kitchen. Now everything was clear:
Gloria had cooked up a frame-against both her stepdaughter and myself. She hoped by this means to keep us both quiet. If Beth talked to Daddy, Gloria would have the picture to show him. If I talked, the picture would go to the police, and that would compound my complications with the law.
I leaped off the unfinished Beth, causing her to cry out, and dashed after Gloria, the evidence of my unsatisfied passion swaying as I ran.
I had to reach her and get the camera before she got out of the house.
My life depended on it.
CHAPTER 5
I LUNGED AT GLORIA in the hallway, and my fingernails raked along her back. She issued a wild, high-pitched whimper as she put on steam and charged for the front door. I caught up with her in the entryway, as she stopped to open the door. I grasped her arm and flipped her around, and her back slammed against the wall. Then I grabbed the camera and tried to wrench it from her.
"You bastard!" she cried. "Let me go!"
I slapped her back and forth across the face, and her hand released its grip. As I yanked the camera away, she brought up a knee and almost caught me in the groin, but I moved just fast enough to save my gonads.
I threw the camera into the living room, grabbed her wrists, and swung her off her feet. She fell backward, her free arm flailing, and landed on her back on the gold carpeting near the top of the three steps which led to the living room.
I rolled her down them. She wailed, and her dress fucked up. She landed on her belly, with her dress and slip wound about the tops of her thighs, above her stockings. The sight of that tender thigh flesh gleaming nakedly above her hose inflamed me further, and I held her in this position with a hand against her back while I jerked her dress and slip all the way up. She was wearing a white panty girdle, which I began to tug at to get it down.
"That's it, Danny!" Beth yelled. Nude, she stood in the doorway leading to the back of the house. She was bent slightly forward, watching intently, holding her blonde hair away from her eyes. "Give her hell!"
"What I'm going to give her, she'll like before I'm through," I growled. Then, turning to Gloria, I snarled, "Goddamn you, you bitch. I thought you were an almost-honest woman."
I stripped the panty girdle away from her quivering fanny and down her legs, peeling the stockings away with it. She wailed and struggled, but I was able to hold her in place as I disrobed butt and legs completely.
After I had flung her girdle and stockings away, I turned and sat down on the middle of her back, facing her feet. With my penis remaining in a high state of excitement, I flailed her butt with my open hands, alternately using my right and left, striking the jiggly cheeks with smarting impact, making them bounce as she twisted and wailed. Each collision of palm against fanny was like a pistol crack.
Beth gaped in fascinated pleasure at the sight.
Finally I leaped up and rolled Gloria onto her back. Her face was wet and anguished, her eye make-up badly smeared.
Inserting a finger at her neckline, I tore the top of her dress open, then popped her bra.
"Now you're going to take what you bargained for at the beginning," I panted, as I wrenched her legs apart and scrambled between them.
"Oh, damn you!" she yelled. "I'll kill you for this!"
"That's a bunch of bullshit," I growled, and forced myself at her port of entry.
She was snug, but I could tell her glands had been working while I spanked her, as I squeezed into the tight, moist center of her warmth. Once I'd pinned her to the floor, I began brushing a hand back and forth across her breasts, shaking the white mounds and exciting the tips which sat like cinnamon candies atop them. She swung at me with an arm, but I quickly caught that and trapped it against the floor.
Now I held both her arms in place with my arms, mashing her tits with the upper part of my body, and started to really move my cock inside her.
At first she didn't cooperate at all. Her eyes flung hot coals, her lips twisted in anger, but her love-vault became slicker as I moved.
I commenced giving her long, evenly paced strokes, riding high so she could get the maximum effect. She quit struggling. Soon she began to move with me.
I shot a quick glance at Beth as I moved rhythmically atop her stepmother. The girl was watching intently, her pink mouth open.
Gloria began to wiggle her ass and lift it off the floor.
"That's it . . . that's it," she hissed. Then: "Harder. Do it harder!"
I dug my hands underneath her, grabbed her springy buttocks, and forced them up.
"Oh!" she exclaimed. Then she began working her pussy around my plunging penis more intensly. Pretty soon her legs came up around my back, locked, and began pulling her body against me in rippling waves.
It was delightful.
I rocked back and forth, rotated, and returned to straight piston thrusts. She panted and cried and dug her nails into my back. Her red mouth gaped, her breasts quivered against me.
When I saw and felt that she was ready for the big finale, I poured it on. She went wild. Her belly bumped, she squealed, her legs pulled like nylon cables around me. Then, suddenly, she shook all over as she hung poised above the floor, and I pounded a final dozen or so jolts into her. When I came, it felt as if the top of my head was lifting off.
I got up from her, leaving her with legs widely spread, loins wet She stayed that way, her eyes closed, her torn clothes rumped at her middle and falling away in tatters at either side of her chest. Her cheek was against the rug, her make-up a sight, her hair mussed.
"Man, that was a screwing!" Beth exclaimed hoarsely. "What hostility! It was positively wild!"
I scanned her nakedness-blonde-topped, lush, toasty-tanned flesh with two white strips, the upper one dramatized by her pink nipples and the lower by her V-shaped dark patch. I grasped her hand and started to draw her toward the hall.
Then I remembered the camera.
Gloria had forgotten it completely.
I crossed the living room and picked it up. It was still intact and the film was still good, I presumed.
"Do you want a souvenir," I grinned at Beth, "or shall I destroy this?"
I was already opening the camera when she said, "Destroy it, for God's sake! All I need is for Daddy to get his hands on that."
"It wouldn't do me a hell of a lot of good, either, seeing as you're still two months short of your eighteenth birthday."
I unfurled the roll of film, shook it back and forth a few times, then dropped it and carried the camera with me as Beth and I went to the bedroom. I put the camera back together and rolled it under the bed.
"Okay," I said, "shall we finish what we started?"
"But you're already finished," she replied ruefully. "Look at you."
"Just let me play with your knockers for a while, and the fallen will arise," I promised.
"Do you like them?" she asked, and preened for me, sticking her boobies out. "They're gorgeous. I've never seen better. Come on
-let's get into bed."
I had her sit up for a while with me cuddled behind her, my arms extended forward under her arms. That's the best posture for playing with breasts. You can lift them, bounce them, squeeze them, roll them-do just about anything with them-and you get the full effect of their round, thrusting fullness. The fact that Beth's were so firm made it that much more exciting.
I looked down over her shoulder as I nicked my thumbs across their tips and enjoyed the delectable jiggle. I did this over and over again, drinking in the sight and the touch.
Finally Beth squirmed back against me and grasped both my hands to press them hard around the pulsating mounds. She wriggled, grinding her nipples into my palms.
I turned her and bent my head, squeezing a breast between my thumb and fingers to bring its succulent, rosy bud to my lips. Beth's hand found my cock and completed the job of turning me on.
After I had pulled at both her nipples for a while and she had pulled at me, I pressed her onto her back and got on top. I entered her smoothly and we started to romp.. .for the second time.
Gloria walked into the room while we were at it. She had pinned the top of her dress together to cover her tits while she watched us.
I have to admit that Beth was not the equal of her stepmother when it came to skillful hip motions. Young stuff usually can't compete with more mature women in this regard. But the firmness and freshness of the young ones make up for their lack of technique.
Beth began to go wild as we neared the finish. She climaxed with whimpers and a series of erratic belly bumps, then lapsed back. I shifted down to low gear, so to speak, but kept power-humping her.
Gloria watched it all. '
I had a lot of staying strength now because of my session with Gloria a few minutes before, so I paced myself. When Beth began to show signs of new life, I started giving her some hard, steady jolts. Gasping, she began to work with me again.
She climaxed for a second time, just before I popped.
That one was a real gut-wrencher, and afterward I fell forward against her, breathing hard.
"Oh, baby . . . lover . . . daddy," Beth cooed heatedly, as she patted my cheeks and neck and shoulders, then found my mouth with a burning, lip-sucking kiss.
I plunged my tongue at her a few times, then pulled out, top and bottom, and swung off her naked form.
Gloria was staring.
"You're a bull," she said. "An absolute bull." I couldn't decide from her tone whether or not she meant it as a compliment, but the way she had acted when I was in her was all the compliment I needed.
"let's get dressed and talk some business," I suggested, as I backed off the bed.
"How in hell could I have ever gotten mixed up with you?"
"Knock off that bullshit. You know how, and why-and you enjoyed it every time. What's more, you'd like to do it again. But as far as I'm concerned, the orgy's over. I've got more important things to think about."
I looked down at my clothes and asked, "What size is your husband?"
Gloria was looking slightly bewildered at my penis as she asked, "What do you mean?"
"His clothes size," I explained patiently. "Would any of his stuff fit me?"
"No. He's smaller, much smaller."
"Then you and I are going to go on a shopping tour. I need something to keep me from being too conspicuous."
Beth, who now was sitting up on the bed, laughed at that.
"You've got a hell of a lot of nerve," Gloria said. "In fact, you're all nerve. I wonder why it deserted you when you ran from the motel when that man was killed."
"You don't know me, and you never will-what's more, I like it that way. The point is, I'm nearly broke, and I lost my clothes because you tore out of the motel the way you did. I figure that means you owe me some replacements. Change your outfit or whatever you want to do and we'll take off. I'm going to grab a shower."
Both women stared after me as I strode naked into the bath which adjoined the master bedroom.
CHAPTER 6
Gloria drove me into town. She was tense, and we talked very little. When we reached a shopping center in West L.A., she tried to give me some money and said she'd wait for me in the car. I refused, not trusting her. I didn't want her to drive off. We had arrangements to make.
She walked around the department store with me while I picked out socks, underwear, shoes, two pairs of perma-pressed slacks, some shirts and a jacket. The stuff came to a total of just over eighty dollars, and she came up with the cash in each department. I presumed she had a credit card which she could have used, but for obvious reasons she didn't care to use it.
As we left, she said, "That took nearly all my money. We'll have to go home for dinner."
"Unh-uh. I'll take you out."
"Well, that's a switch. But we can't go anywhere with you dressed that way." I was still wearing the soiled t-shirt and jeans. "We'll stop at a gas station, and I'll change in the men's room," I said.
I took her car keys with me while I changed clothes. I still didn't trust her.
We went to a restaurant in the neighborhood-a very ordinary place, which was all I could afford, but the food wasn't bad. We sat in a. back booth and talked.
"I don't like the detective idea," I said. "Just finding the man may not mean much. We have to have a way to link him to the crime. If he's gotten rid of the gun, then where are we? There's only my word against his that he was at the motel that night, and the manager's wife saw me-not him."
"It's up to the police to prove a case."
"Yeah, but they'd rather try to prove one against me than against the guy in the Ford, because their chances of winning are better. They have a reliable witness who puts me at the scene. No, we have to clear that up."
"Be reasonable, Dan. I'm married. Al's a demanding husband. He'll expect me to be at home when he gets here."
"Why did you drive back from Chicago by yourself?"
She looked down and said, "We had a little fight, but that's all patched up now. I called him as soon as I got home."
"Sure. You were anxious to patch things up then, weren't you? You'd had your little nookey warmed under the desert stars and on a strange motel bed, and you'd almost got your fingers burned-but good. You could hardly wait to get back into hubby's fatherly embrace."
"That's a funny way to put it-the fatherly par."
"Well, he must be a lot older than you. And I have good reason to suspect he can't give you the kind of time in bed that a hot-tailed woman like you needs."
"That's enough! I refuse to discuss my husband with you."
"Suits me. I imagine he's a pretty dull subject"
"There's more to a man than what he brings to bed with him."
"Yeah. His checkbook."
"God, you're nasty. Haven't you ever heard of love?"
"Don't tell me you and Albert are a love match. That, I couldn't accept. Not after what happened on the desert."
"There's more to love than just the sexual side of it."
"Yeah, but if the sex part isn't right, the rest doesn't amount to a damn-not unless you're past sixty, anyway."
"I'm not going to discuss it with you any more! The thing is, I can't walk out on him right now. I simply can't. You've got to accept that."
"I'm not asking you to walk out. I want you to phone Albert in Chicago and tell him something's come up. You could have a sick aunt, couldn't you? Tell him you'll be away for a couple of days."
"No. I'm afraid the police in Arizona, won't let me leave, once I show up there with you."
"They've got nothing to hold you on."
"What if they think I was your accomplice? Can't they hold a person for questioning? Anyway, they'd surely get in touch with Albert, and I can't risk that. This thing has got to be kept quiet."
"That's easy for you to say, but I'm a wanted man. I've got to clear my name."
She studied me. "Dan . . . how much does that mean to you, really? Stop and think about it. Lots of people have changed identities. What if I could see that you get a good job, under a different name?"
"That's out. I've always been Dan Plummer, and I'm going to stay Dan Plummer."
"It doesn't seem to me that Dan Plummer is such an admirable individual."
"Yeah? Well, you thought so when you picked me up in the desert, and you were goddamned sure of it when you felt my rod where you needed it-badly. Tell me.. . does Albert have any potency at all?"
"Dan!" she breathed harshly, looking around in embarrassment.
No one had overheard us.
I said, "You're coming with me to Arizona, and that's it."
"No! We've got to think of something else."
I squinted at her. There was no point in arguing further. She would never agree voluntarily. The only thing left for me to do was force her, and now was as good a time as any.
After we had finished our dinner and were returning to her car, she asked, "Where do you want me to drop you?"
"I'll drive," I told her. "That'll be the simplest way."
She gave me a funny look but didn't object. I took the car keys from her hand, we got in, and I drove directly to the Santa Monica Freeway and headed east.
"You're staying downtown?" she asked. "Yeah."
"I realize you're upset, Dan. That murdered man must have been a terrible thing to see, and it's too bad you got involved in the whole mess. You remember, I warned you not to leave our room when we heard those shots."
"I remember."
It was past the rush hour now, and the traffic was moving right along. I held our speed at sixty-five miles an hour.
"There's something else I want to say," Gloria continued. "I'm sorry I took that picture of you and Beth this afternoon."
"You should be."
"I wouldn't have used it against you, Dan. That's probably what you thought, but it wasn't so. I wanted some way to force Beth to keep her mouth shut. That was all I had in mind." , "She won't talk now. Even though you don't have photographic evidence, you can match anything she might say against you."
"How was she?" Gloria asked, surprising me. "Better than me?"
"No, not really. She has a great shape, though."
"Doesn't she! Especially those titties. You ought to see all the pimply-faced schoolboys who chase after her."
I didn't say anything.
"Albert thinks she can do no wrong. Fathers are funny that way." She broke off the conversation and glanced around. "Say, shouldn't you be turning off?"
"Nope."
"But that was the Harbor Freeway interchange. If you're headed downtown, you should have taken it."
"I'm not headed downtown."
"Where, then."
"Arizona."
"Dan! Stop this car! I can't go there, I absolutely can't!"
"You can call Beth on the way, and she can call her father. I have enough bread to tide us over, and I presume you have a gasoline credit card or two."
"Dan, you're out of your mind," she said urgently. "We can't do this!"
"It's the only thing to do."
"I'll jump out," she threatened.
"At sixty-five miles an hour, baby? You'll break your sweet ass."
"The first time we pass a police car, I'll yell for help."
"Fine. That'll make things that much simpler. I'll tell the officer who I am, who you are, and what happened in Arizona. The cops will give us transportation the rest of the way."
"Oh, you bastard!" she screamed. "You mean, rotten, dirty bastard!"
"Easy, easy. Don't get your bowels in an uproar. The only thing to do is ride along quietly."
Her face was contorted as she stared at me, and she looked as if she were teetering between tears and hysteria. The former would be all right-they would lessen her tension-but the latter could present a problem. I kept throwing glances at her out of the corner of my eye.
Finally she lapsed back and glared at me. She remained dry-eyed and didn't show any signs of coming apart, but she was very angry. I knew she was thinking about how she could, get away. It seemed that I would have my hands full.
The first crucial moment came at a gas station stop.
Gloria and I hadn't spoken for over an hour, and she had hardly taken her eyes off me all that time. It was spooky.
"Look," I said. "I'm going to have to stop pretty soon. The car's low on gas, and I have to pee. You'd better go to the ladies' room while you have the chance, but don't think of locking yourself in. And don't say anything to the station attendant, or anyone else. You don't want to get involved with the police here. In Arizona you'll stand a chance of having them keep things quiet, but if the California cops get hold of us, there'll be complications-and lots of publicity."
She didn't say anything.
"I'll keep the car keys. I suggest you put in a call to Beth."
"You didn't commit any crime in Arizona," she said slowly, with emphasis, "unless you broke some law by running. But kidnaping me and taking me across the state line is a federal offense. They execute people for that kind of tiling."
"You're confused, honey," I said. "You're coming of your own free will."
"Like hell, I am."
"We'll worry about legal technicalities later. Right now, it wouldn't pay you to yell for the cops. What gas credit cards do you carry."
"I won't tell you."
"Then I'll pull over and empty your purse."
"Standard, Texaco and Shell," she snapped. "Thanks."
A large Standard sign loomed past the next off-ramp, and I flipped the turn indicator. We rolled of! the freeway and down to the frontage road. The station was fright and busy. A white-suited attendant came over and smiled.
"Fill it with the premium," I said.
He nodded and went about his work as I took the keys from the ignition and got out. Gloria continued to sit there.
I went to the men's head and did what I had to do. After I had washed my hands and splashed cold water on my face, I dried off and headed back toward the car. The station attendant was checking the oil, and Gloria was gone. I glanced at the phone booths. They were empty. I figured she was in the ladies' John.
I got behind the wheel, shoved the key into the lock, and waited.
The attendant approached me and said, "Five-twenty, sir."
"The lady has the credit card," I told him, hiding my nervousness. "She'll be back in a minute."
He nodded and left to take care of another customer.
Gloria returned from the ladies' room and got into the car without a word. I heaved a sigh of relief.
"Credit card?" I said, holding my hand out.
She removed it from a card case in her purse and handed it to me.
"You'd better call Beth, if you haven't already," I said. "Otherwise, she'll be panicky."
"I called her."
"Oh?"
"When you were in the men's room."
I had no way of knowing whether she was telling the truth. If so, it had been a mighty short call. But that was her worry-not mine. We took off.
"Thanks for cooperating back there," I said. She remained silent.
As soon as we were back on the freeway, I turned on the radio. I didn't try to talk with her for the next half-hour, and instead of glaring at me as she had done before, she looked at the light-studded darkness which was sweeping past.
Finally, without warning, she turned to me and suggested, "How about stopping at a motel?"
"I was going to drive straight through."
"You don't want to do that. You'll be punchy with fatigue by the time we arrive; Anyway, God knows what will happen in Arizona. We ought to have one more time in bed together, first.. . don't you think?"
This surprised me for a moment. But Gloria was man-needy; she had already proved that.
As much as I wanted to set my troubles right, her suggestion-and particularly the seductive tone in which she had uttered it-exerted a strong pull on me. I did want to lay her one more time, at a leisurely pace and in comfortable surroundings. So far, each time we had gotten together the circumstances had been less than perfect.
"All right," I said. "We'll stop at India"
She smiled, reached over, and placed her hand on the inside of my leg, well above the knee. I burned with response.
Even though I'd had both her and Beth just a few hours before, I was ready to go again. I always snap back fast, and with the prospect of tumbling Gloria in the offing, that went double. The woman was already gaining a hold on me-in the strictest sexual sense.
I should have started wondering then why she had done another about-face. But the prospect of bedding her was too sweet. Anyway, I had no way of knowing the depth of her resourcefulness.
"This time, for God's sake don't run out if you hear gunshots," she said as we entered the motel room. "Just keep your pants off, okay?"
"Deal," I said, pulling her into my arms.
She snuggled against me sweetly, and her soft lips parted to receive my probing tongue. I caressed her along the back and gradually slipped a hand down around her pert buttocks, expecting to encounter the armored feel of a panty girdle again. I was surprised. She had thin silken panties on, which slid between her slip and the springy, rounded fanny they encased. I kneaded her resilient ass through the light clothing, and my rod sprang to life. , "Well . . . " she purred as she leaned back from me and glanced downward. "Your friend gets ready fast."
"What do you say we give him something to do?"
"He'd like that, I'll bet."
She let me undress her, and it was nothing at all like that afternoon, when I had cuffed her around and torn her clothes off. This was stimulating in a romantic and cozy way-particularly after I got her two-piece dress and slip off, and she insisted on undressing me completely before I stripped her any further.
She was an appetizing picture in pink bra and matching nylon briefs. White garter straps traveled from underneath her sleek panties to tug the tops of her clinging, shiny-sheer hose.
It was my guess that she hadn't put on a girdle when she had bathed and dressed that afternoon at the house, because she subconsciously was thinking (or perhaps not so subconsciously) that circumstances would arise in which I would want to take her again, and she wanted to make things easy for me.
Right now, she was doing the very opposite.
She was making me very hard.
"We wouldn't want to rumple these new clothes," she murmured warmly, as she unbuttoned my shirt and helped me slip it off.
Her cool, slim fingers delved under the waistband of my slacks, and this made me throb all the harder against my clothes. She opened the fasteners, worked my zipper over the bulge and down, giggling a little, then dropped to her knees to remove my shoes, socks and slacks. I could hardly believe this was the same Gloria who had called me a dirty bastard just a short time before, and had tried to frame Beth and me. But the Gloria under the desert stars had been different, too. And the one who had peeled out of the Garrett motel at the first sign of trouble-she was unlike any of the others. I felt a little embarrassed with my jockey briefs tented in front of her face as she worked my pant-legs off, but I needn't have. The feeling was lost in a rush of erotic excitement as she streatched the waistband of my briefs forward and down, liberating my rock-hard perns. She could hardly take her eyes off it as she worked my shorts away.
Then she exclaimed, "Oh, he's such a big beauty-so thick and long and hard!"
Try having a girl breathe that to you when her lips are only two inches away from your rod, and see if it doesn't make the blood surge through it even stronger, swelling it almost to the point of bursting.
First Gloria coddled it with her hand, then rubbed her cheek against its throbbing length. She turned her face slightly, parted her lips, and stuck out her pink tongue-tip. Then she leaned forward, slowly, and touched my cock with that burning brand. I ran my fingers into her hair and savagely grasped her around the back of the head. But she was already opening her mouth wide to take it all in. I had been treated to this delight by Vietnamese prostitutes while I was in the service, and they'd done a cool, efficient job. Since I'd returned, one girl, a waitress in San Diego, had done it for fun, and that had been a much stronger kick.
Gloria was better than the waitress.
Gloria was an artist.
As her soft, slick lips worked lovingly, I reached down and unhooked her bra with trembling fingers. I lifted the shoulder straps and cups away, coddled her quivering breasts, and rolled her tumescent nipples.
The thrills began to pound up through me with sledgehammer force. I knew I couldn't last long at this rate. Her lips were too soft and wet and mobile, and her darting tongue was passion's asp.
When I was hanging on only by my teeth, so to speak, I pushed her away quickly. "Onto the bed," I growled.
She obeyed, her pantied butt twisting. She rolled over onto her back and parted her legs, with knees propped up, to reveal the flimsy narrowness of her panty crotch. The pink nylon was thin and almost transparent, showing the deeper pink cleft beneath. I pulled her panties off and mounted her, and my cock found its own way into her hot, slick depths.
This one was damned near the best screw of all time. I had thought that before about Gloria, but she seemed constantly able to outdo herself. I made it last, invoking all the tricks I knew. She climaxed ecstatically, and I held on, shuddering and spurting. When her orgasm had tapered off, I withdrew and kissed her up and down, front and back, then boosted her onto her knees in front of me and went at her that way.
Her butt was still a little rosy from the spanking I had given her that Afternoon, but she hadn't once complained about it. I hadn't hit her often enough, or hard enough, to make it really sore.
There's something especially exciting about taking a girl from behind when she's wearing stockings and a garter belt. They dramatize the beauty of her butt and its soft, rounded contours. I humped slowly but with vigor, slapping my belly against her quivering ass. I played with her dangling breasts, though there wasn't a great deal of dangle to them, and after a time I slid one hand down her front to the tense little love button which was not feeling the effect of my thrusts. I played with that as I continued to lob myself into her.
She became very excited, twisting and pressing backward as I stroked. She began crying passionately, "Oh, God, that's good . . . oh, Dannee . . . oh, lover
. . . ooh . . . more-more-more . . . yes!. . .oh, harder . . . screw me! SCREW ME!" I moved with all I had, slapping her buttocks furiously, rocking her, making her teeth rattle, damned near breaking the bed before we both came together and our lust exploded, showering its hot brilliance throughout our bodies
We slept on our sides, facing each other, our bellies touching.
Some time during the night, we awoke. I don't know which one of us awakened first, but I was ready to go and she was eager to receive me. I parted her portal of pleasure and slipped in, pulling one of her legs up over my side. I held her buttocks in my hands, and enjoyed the way they shook and wiggled as I stroked myself to her slowly and steadily for the better part of fifteen minutes.
When the action reached a hectic stage, I stopped long enough to swing her on top, then let her do most of the work as my caresses slid from her butt to her legs to her breast. This time she climaxed first, crying and shaking and sitting down hard as her internal muscles clasped me spasmodically. I rolled her onto her back and finished that way in a blaze of Glory.
Afterward, we moved to our separate sides of the bed to fall asleep. Both of us were bushed.
CHAPTER
I AWOKE WITH THE sun streaming in. Gloria was not in the rumpled bed. I sat up with a start and yelled for her, then realized that I could hear the shower running. I lapsed back again.
A night such as I had just spent gives a guy something to think about. It was damned near idyllic, in a sensual way. We had gone at each other from nearly every possible direction, and each time had been great. We had fitted together perfectly, moved together perfectly, and our timing had been such that each of us enjoyed the maximum satisfaction.
I'm trying deliberately not to futz up the story with pseudo-romantic drivel. It was lust we shared, but lust of the highest order.
When Gloria came out of the bathroom, stark naked, toweling herself, I began to get ideas again. As she briskly rubbed her hair, the delicious cupcakes on her chest quivered up and down, their cherry tips glowing.
"Well, sleepy-head," she said with a smile, "feel rested now?"
"I just might be rested enough, If you're thinking what I suspect you are."
"You must figure I have sex on my mind all the time," she purred, as she strolled toward the bed.
My hand found its way to the damp, silky junction of her thighs. She moved her legs a little way apart so I could have access, and I watched her face go lax as I caressed slowly and deftly, stimulating the most sensitive part of her sexual apparatus.
Her eyes narrowed, and she began breathing hard. I had changed too, my penis erecting a tent in the top sheet.
Suddenly she pulled away. "We have some talking to do, Dan," she said. "I think we ought to do that now."
"Okay."
I could wait. Sometimes, putting off pleasure serves to heighten it. I wondered exactly what she had in mind.
Still toweling her hair vigorously, which caused her pert breasts to shake, she paraded back and forth. Quivering boobs, rounded belly, dark V, twisting buttocks and tapering legs-she was a delectable sight from every angle. My excitement, once awakened, would not subside.
"I've given up wanting to fight," Gloria announced. "I'll face the music in Arizona if that's what you want me to do, even if it breaks up my marriage, lands me in jail, and leaves me without a cent."
"I don't think that'll happen, baby. I told you . . . "
"I know," she said, cutting me off with a wave of her hand. "But you can't be sure. Nobody can. It's hard for me to believe that the police will just let me walk away after I tell them my story. And it's hard to believe Albert won't be contacted. But I'll run the risk," she went on. "I'll do whatever you say. Then, afterward, when it all blows over, at least we'll have each other. That's what you want, isn't it?"
I blinked at her. She was thinking in permanent terms, something which I had never allowed myself to do with any girl! "Gloria . . . "
"Well, that is what you want, surely. You must feel the same way I do. Or, was last night an illusion?"
"Last night was wonderful, but . . . "
"All right, then. Maybe I haven't been entirely honest up to now. Maybe I haven't been honest with myself. I told you Albert and I were in love with each other, but you were right when you said love didn't count unless the sexual part of it was good. All Al and I really have is companionship-the sitting by the fireside and talking kind. I'm too young to settle for that alone. I've realized it for a long time, but I guess I just wouldn't admit it to myself. You've made me realize that I need more. I need you, Dan!"
She came over to the bed and looked down at me, her eyes warm with what seemed very much like love.
"I have to have what you can give me. Last night was heaven. I can't lose that. Oh, God, how I need you!"
She dropped her towel and, with a little moan, stripped the sheet from me before she spread-eagled herself on top. She bent her head and kissed me fervidly, all over my stubbled face and my neck and shoulders, as one of my hands went to her hanging and quivering breasts. I massaged them and brought my other hand up her sleek thigh to busy itself with her heated cunt.
But she wasn't satisfied with digital lovemaking for long. She needed more-as much as I could give her. I She wriggled anxiously into position as she tilted my rod toward her; then there was the glorious slide of her possessive warmth as her pussy claimed me wholly.
"Oh, God . . . oh, lover . . . " she moaned, as she began to pump up and down.
It was delightful beyond words-exquisitely good, as she twisted and rose and fell avidly.
Gloria was hot and hungry, and she made me believe
I was the only stud in the world who could satisfy her. She moved wildly, gasping and crying, swinging her hair around. When she neared the finish she pumped me very fast, and I exploded in the midst of her convulsions. The blast nearly blinded me with bliss as I clutched her and let my loins geyser forth their heated juices.
That one was, indeed, the greatest.
It was so good that, as we lay side by side a few moments later, I said, "We'll think of another way to clear me of the mess in Arizona. There's got to be a way that won't get you fouled up in it."
"Darling, there is!" she said, a bit too quickly. "I've figured everything out, and the beautiful part is that we'll have each other after it's over, plus all the money we can ever spend. Do you want to hear about it?"
I blinked at her. "Sure. I guess so."
Our relationship was about to enter a new and different phase.
CHAPTER 8
"DO YOU KNOW WHAT my husband does for a living?" Gloria asked.
"Beth said he's in the import-export business."
"That's right. He's a broker. He represents domestic firms who have products to sell in foreign countries, and he imports foreign commodities for U. S. distributors. He deals mostly with South America."
"What does that have to do with us?"
"Now, don't hold a closed mind. Listen. This may sound strange to you at first, but it's the only answer to your problem. To our problem."
I turned my head on the pillow and looked at her.
"Darling . . . " she murmured and put her lips lightly against mine. She wagged her tongue tip back and forth between them and delved sweetly into my mouth.
My hand found the furry mound at the base of her belly, and I probed her caressingly.
"Take it easy, darling," she murmured. "I can't think when you do that."
"Okay," I chuckled, and took my hand away. I was boffed out, anyway. My body needed time to recuperate.
"What do you know about Rio de Janeiro?" she asked.
"It's hot in the summer, has wiggly lines in its sidewalks, and the people do the Samba."
"There's something about it that's more important at least, to you."
"What's that?" , "You can't be extradited from there. And Rio's a marvelous city-so colorful and gay."
"If you're saying that your husband has contacts who can help me get to Rio, no thanks. I'd be flat on my ass down there, and no city's any good when you're like that."
"You won't be flat. Far from it. You forget what I said about money."
"You're going to swing some deal to pay me off? No, Gloria, that won't wash. I don't want to be bought, especially by you."
"I'm not talking about that. Will you please listen to what I have to say before you go off half-cocked?"
"Okay. What is it?"
"There's a certain party my husband does business with in Brazil. His name is Umberto Santos. He deals in medicinal drugs that come from the Amazon jungles -atropine, curare and others."
"So?"
"This Santos is a peculiar sort. He insists that all purchases have to be paid for in cash."
"Why won't he accept a bank draft or international credit of some sort?"
"Santos doesn't trust his government. He's afraid of a Communist coup. If that were to happen while a deal was under way, all foreign credits would be seized automatically. Perhaps it isn't so silly. Remember what Castro did when he marched into Havana individuals and companies lost millions of dollars."
"Okay. So the dealings are in cash. What does that mean to me?"
Gloria's eyes narrowed and became very intense. "The cash has to be carried to Rio, and it's all very sub rosa for security reasons. Because of the difficulties, orders are accumulated over a period of time and paid for in a lump. There's usually a very large sum of money involved."
What she was saying began to smell of a high-jack plot. That didn't interest me.
"Gloria," I said, "don't go any further. High-jacking is out."
"That's a crude way to put what I have in mind."
"I'm a crude guy, sometimes-or an honest one. Take your pick. But I prefer to call high-jacking what it is."
She closed her eyes. "Dan, when you talk about high-jacking, it brings to mind grimy men in masks carrying tommy guns. It wouldn't be like that at all. You wouldn't even need a weapon."
"No, Gloria. Absolutely not." I turned away from her. "I think you're great. You're sweet hell on a mattress, and I might even be falling in love with you, but you're not going to get me mixed up in any frigging high-jack scheme, or theft, or robbery, or whatever you want to call it. I'm no law-and-order fanatic, but I have an aversion to being on the run. That's what bugs me now-the idea that the cops have my name and fingerprints, and are trying to track me down. I want to get out of the wringer I'm already in, not get caught in another one."
"You don't understand," she murmured, and began to caress my rod. , "Not now," I said and lifted her hand away.
I got off the bed. She remained sitting there, her lovely tits exposed.
"Will you let me tell you how it can be done?" she said. "Then, if you don't like the sound of it, there's no obligation. But at least you'll know what I'm talking about. I wouldn't want this to stand between us later."
My first thought was to insist that I didn't want to hear any more, but then I figured, What harm will it do to listen? This thing has obviously been burning in her brain. Let her express it. Then I can talk her out of it rationally.
"Okay," I said, sitting on the bed again. "But I'm not going to get involved."
"Dan . . . think. What did society ever do for you? It sent you to fight in a war you didn't want.. . "
"I didn't say that."
"You said it was lousy. I believe that was the word you used."
"Sure. War is always lousy, no matter where or when or why. That doesn't mean it isn't sometimes necessary. I'm not going to argue politics, but I went to Vietnam willingly."
"Okay. Forget Vietnam. Since you've been back, you've been practically broke-no job, no car, hardly anything but the clothes on your back."
"That's because I wanted it that way."
"You're kidding."
"No, I'm not. I could have settled somewhere and taken a job in an office or as a salesman. I could be knocking down seven hundred a month or more. I could have clothes and a car and my own private pussycat in a nice suburban bedroom. The way I've been living is a matter of choice. I have no hard-on for society."
"All right!" She was losing patience with me. "Society is great. Law and order are marvelous. But look at you now. Regardless of how it happened or whywhether it was my fault or yours or something nobody could have helped-you're a fugitive from the law and, frankly, there's not much chance of straightening things out. You said yourself that you doubted whether the police in Arizona would believe your story. Well, what makes you think they'd believe mine, either? It would be easier for them to close the file and take you to court for murder."
I listened thoughtfully and didn't say anything.
"This is a way out," she went on. "It's the only way that makes sense. You'll have money and safety . . . and you'll have me, Dan. I want to be with you."
She leaned against me, and her nipples kissed my naked chest.
"Say it, Gloria. Just spell it out. Forget the imagine sales talk."
"All right. There'll be nearly a hundred thousand dollars in Albert's next delivery to Santos. He's getting ready to close the deal in the next week or so. That's what the trip to Chicago was about-to gather some final orders.
"Through someone I met when I worked in Albert's office, I could wangle a passport for you. And I can get the identification you'll need to convince the courier that you're Santos' man. All you'll have to do is meet him when he gets off the plane, show him the credentials, and take the money."
"Wait a minute . . . wait a minute. Then the authorities down there would have a charge against me."
"No, they won't. Santos won't file one."
"How can you be so sure?"
"Why should he? He doesn't have to ship the drugs until he has the cash in hand. It's Albert's problem if the money is lost or stolen in transit, not his. Anyway, as I said, Santos doesn't care to have any truck with the government. Dan, I assure you-you'll be a hundred per cent in the clear."
"But what about your husband? Won't he come after me?"
"Albert's only a go-between. The loss will be sustained by the firms he's representing. They can afford it. No one outfit will be hit too hard."
"But, hell, they aren't just going to let a person get away with theft."
"There's more to the deal than I've told you. Since everything's for cash and there are no drafts or credits going through, Albert and his people cut a few comers too. They wouldn't want to have the story come to light."
"You mean this is a smuggling operation?"
"Not exactly, but . . . well, I can't discuss that part of it. You'll just have to trust me. The point is, the scheme will work. You'll be safe, and you'll have close to a hundred thousand dollars in cash to play with. That much money, American, will go an awfully long way in Rio. I'll join you as soon as the storm blows over. I can get a Mexican divorce."
"You sure make it sound simple," I said, "but there must be a hundred hitches."
"Darling, there are none. I can find out exactly when the money is to be delivered in Brazil, and I can engineer a change of instructions. I still have a key to Albert's office, and I can find anything I want in his files. All I'll have to do is re-type some papers-the money will arrive earlier than expected, and you'll be there to pick it up while Santos' man is sipping coffee or having a siesta."
"It sounds mighty risky."
"It isn't risky at all. Trust me, will you? I can work the whole thing out. All you have to do is be at a certain place at a certain time. That's easy enough. No one will know who the phony pick-up man was after the deed has been done, and Albert trusts me completely. We'll both be in the clear."
She leaned close to me again and murmured, "I wouldn't consider this if it weren't for the fact that I've found something with you that I can't bear to lose. The thought of staying with Albert is repugnant to me now. I have to have you, Dan, and this is the only way for both of us."
She quickly rolled onto her back and drew me on top of her.
Boffed out, was I? If so, my cock didn't know it. As soon as I was in action position, my passion thermometer went up. Gloria's hand helped a little, rubbing and fondling it, as I swung my greedy lips from one stiffening nipple to the other, pulling at the little red lust buds and bringing them out.
I had lost track by then of the number of times I had taken Gloria since we arrived at the motel. It had become one long, sweet blur-a Roman orgy for twowith her scheme for Brazil and the hundred thousand dollars stuck firmly in the middle of it.
Though I had promised myself differently, I couldn't entirely ignore what she'd said. I had to at least give it some consideration. A hundred thousand dollars and herself and the good life-that's what she was offering. Maybe some clowns could have said Don't call me-I'll call you, and walked away, but not me.
The truth was that I was hooked on the woman. She seemed to know it. She had deliberately softened me up, then put the proposition to me when I was most vulnerable.
But if I was soft as an egg toward her in one respect, I was hard as a poker in another. And now the poker was poking. Vigorously.
She twisted in anxious delight as I drove myself at her in long, steady strokes. Her slick slit of passion remained just snug enough, in spite of all the use I had given it in the last few hours. It moved up and down around my thrusts and circled maddeningly. It seemed to crawl higher on me each time I drove in hard.
She panted and clutched me with her sharp-nailed hands. Her warm, up-flung legs embraced me, and her ankles clamped the backs of my calves.
I felt I could screw her this way forever and ever, and she seemed to want as much screwing as I could give her. If her husband could only see her now, I thought, as I continued to bang away.
In and out, in and out of her I moved, my cock sliding smoothly against the slippery softness of her inner channel. It was too much! A great, happy pressure arose within me, and I knew I was approaching the payoff. I wanted to hold off the short strokes as long as possible, but Gloria broke rhythm and began to hump up and down rapidly, sobbing and wailing and tearing at my back with her nails.
"Oh, give it to me!" she cried. "Go fast! Now! NOW!" I banged her like hell, and the bed damned near came apart beneath us. It made a terrible racket, but the noise seemed far away. My world was encased in Gloria's pussy as it worked wildly, then tightened and spasmed, milking at my throbbing penis. I convulsed with a groan, and my balls expelled their charge.
Finally we broke apart, and I rolled onto my back.
That one had really done it. I felt as if I'd had enough nookey to last me for life.
But I felt something else, also-a great, warm affection for the woman who had given me such pleasure.
We crawled off the bed, showered together, got dressed, and I drove her back to Los Angeles. I promised I'd think over the bit about Brazil, and she said she'd call me the following day at my hotel to get my answer.
But I think the decision was already made.
I was like a fish on a line. I could wiggle for a while, but I wasn't about to free myself. And slowly but surely, the reel was drawing me in.
CHAPTER 9
A GAFFED FISH ALWAYS FIGHTS.
I put up a battle for the same reason that a fish does. Freedom was dear to me. I had voluntarily chosen a free way of life rather than settling down to a humdrum job. I enjoyed the challenge of not knowing for sure how I was going to live from month to month, not knowing whose pretty legs I would find myself between when night fell.
It was zestful and stimulating.
There were times when I had yearned for loot, as everybody does. I had thought about the places I could go, the things I could do, the luxuries I could taste. But to get the loot, I would have to obligate myself, tie myself down, and that was what I didn't want.
Gloria had offered me bigger loot than I'd ever thought of possessing, all in one neat, loving bundle. But look at the strings attached. They were more like ropes of woven steel.
I could never return to the U.S., and, more important than that, Gloria and I would be bound together by a guilty secret which she could use as a club over my head every time I threatened to exert my independence. In short, I would be tied to her for the rest of my life, if she wanted it that way.
I wouldn't have given the slightest consideration to the scheme if it hadn't been for the fact that Gloria appealed to me in a big way. But even with the heat of her lovely cunt still clinging, I rebelled.
Rebellion of this sort can take only one form: A man has to find other cunts to try.
I deliberately stayed away from the hotel throughout the following day and evening. I didn't go broad-hunting yet, because the urge wasn't in me. I'd had too hot a time with Gloria during the past twenty-four hours, and I needed a pause for my body to recuperate. But I knew what I would have to do after that.
The following morning I awakened with my joystick like a flagpole. I took that as a signal. Without returning Gloria's calls of the day before, I showered, shaved and left the hotel.
Naturally, I thought first of Joyce Sloan.
Her big, juicy tits had been bobbing in the background of my consciousness ever since I had seen them several mornings ago in that dingy motel bathroom. She had given me a no-nonsense invitation to visit her some time when hubby was at work.
Today was the day.
I phoned her from a booth in a drug store on Fifth Street. When she answered, I said, "Mrs. Owens, how would you like a free home demonstration of our Handy-Dandy vacuum cleaner? We're going to have a representative in your neighborhood today, and . . . "
She knew it was a rib. She cut me off right away with, "Who is this?"
I recalled at the last moment that I had given her the name Bill Johnson.
"Bill," I said as if she should have known. "Don't tell me you've forgotten."
"Oh . . .no.. . " she purred, and continued in a soft, battery-charging tone, "So you're the Handy-Dandy man, hmm?"
"That's me. Incidentally, the Handy-Dandy comes in two forms-compact and upright. Which would you prefer?"
"The upright, by all means."
"How soon can I bring it over?"
"Right away. I've got some beer in the fridge."
"I was going to offer to bring some," I said.
"Just bring your Handy-Dandy, friend," she replied with a wicked chuckle. "I'll supply everything else."
She lived in a large apartment house in Hollywood. It took me half an hour to get there by bus.
She greeted me with a sexy smile. She was wearing a blazing orange and pink two-piece outfit. The top fit loosely, except at the peaks of her boobs, and there the fabric was nearly popping. As I said, Joyce had very big ones. Her skirt was pleated, and stopped just above her bare knees.
"Hi, Handy-Dandy man," she purred, as I pulled her into my arms. Those big tits mashed against me, and I felt her warm, gently rounded belly. She started to move it right away, and that woke up my enthusiasm.
As we kissed, I put a hand squarely across her soft butt to pull her more firmly against me. Her rear cheeks compressed under her thin skirt and thinner panties. I could tell she wore nothing else below the waist.
My mouth ground against hers, spreading her soft lips wider as our tongues stroked in the mingling juices of our mouths. My passion-tool became completely ready.
There was no reason to fool around with her. I was anxious to get started, as she could certainly tell, and I figured she was just about as ready, at least psychologically. As for getting her ready physically, it wouldn't take long to accomplish that.
I pinched her thin, pleated skirt at one side and hoisted it far enough to slip my hand underneath, then I grasped her pantied bottom. She was all softness under the skin-tight nylon-softer and more wobbly than Gloria. But, then, Joyce was a plumper girl in all respects.
I patted her butt cheeks, enjoying the way they bounced against my hand. A guy could have a real fun time spanking her, I thought, but I doubted that we would get around to that.
As we continued to kiss, more feverishly than ever, I reached up to her waist, underneath her skirt, and pulled down her panty elastic. I slipped my hand inside the nylon and felt her lush buttocks all over. I ran a finger between them and she jumped, breaking our kiss.
"Hot damn!" she said. "Let's get on the bed."
"I want to take you on the floor," I stated huskily.
"All right. But for God's sake, let's do it!"
I dropped to my haunches and used both hands to bring her pink, silken panties down. She leaned against my shoulder and I helped her step out of them. As I rose, I ran my hands up her bare legs and over her bare ass, then let her skirt drop back to place and busied myself with the top of the two-piece outfit. It came off easily, as did her white bra.
Her enormous jugs tumbled out and stood quivering, the nipples stiff and tilted at me. I grasped one shapely mass in each hand and bent my face to nuzzle them. I squeezed those knockers as if I were kneading baker's dough, working them all around. She moaned and whimpered and acted as if she were going up in flames.
"Kiss them," she implored.
Obligingly, I captured a tempting pink bud. As I licked and pulled at it and lashed it with my tongue, I continued to knead the other one.
Joyce's boobs weren't as firm as Gloria's or Beth's, but they were larger than those of either of the other broads. They held their shape pretty well, too, considering their size. Lord, they were heavy devils. Though
I have pretty large hands, the breast I was squeezing overflowed my grasp.
My pants and briefs had become an almost intolerable prison, so I had to move ahead. I let go of Joyce's knockers and stripped her skirt down. She was totally naked in front of me for the first time, and I discovered that her blondeness was natural, though her true hair color was a couple of shades darker than the hair on her head.
"Lie down," I ordered, and she sank to the floor as I began pulling off my clothes.
She watched me and I watched her. Her knees were up, well parted, and I was positioned so that I could see her honey-pot perfectly. It looked damned good to me.. . but then, what honey-pot doesn't?
I got down on the floor with her, and she eagerly wrapped a hand around my most forward-pointing organ. Using it as a handle, she pulled me to her box of pleasure, and I slid in.
"Oooh," she shivered. "That's wonderful! You're bigger than my husband."
After I had let her get a good long feel of it, I pulled it nearly all the way out, then gave her a jarring thrust.
"Oh, do that again!" she cried. "Do that a lot!"
On a hard surface like a floor or table-top, the, woman really feels the force. All she's got to cushion the shock are her buns. In Joyce's case, they were pretty substantial, but still she felt my banging more intensely than she would have with a bouncy mattress under her.
I had plenty of staying power today, and I stroked her long and hard, maintaining an even rhythm.
"That's wonderful!" she squealed. "Oh, lover, you do it so good!"
I growled and kept going, swinging my hips in a looping motion, powering to her each time. She didn't move with me very well-not as well as Gloria. But there were few women I'd taken who did.
Why the hell did I have to keep thinking of Gloria while I was boffing another broad?
Abruptly, I pulled out-and she wailed.
"Oh, damn it!" she shrieked. "I was just about to get there!"
"I know it. Roll over."
I helped her, and she came to rest on her belly. I got a firm hold at either side of her hips and lifted until her big ass was sticking way up. I slid forward into her groove, and caught myself in the plushy pocket.
"Now, wiggle!" I commanded, and gave her a slap on the butt to get her going.
She responded, and I began to go at her that way.
I knew she couldn't feel me as well now, and that this would slow her down. Maybe she wouldn't like the idea, but she'd get her jollies doubly strong when the time was right. I wanted us to come simultaneously, if possible.
She wiggled as I slid forward and back, my lean belly bouncing off her round, resilient bumpers. I put my hands up underneath and played with her titantic tits.
She raised herself more, to give them greater dangle, and I had to snarl, "Keep your back arched." I had almost slipped out.
"Oh, Bill," she whimpered. "I don't like it as well this way."
"Well, I do. We'll switch in a minute."
I handled her boobs as if I were milking a cow while I continued to slide steadily forward and back, enjoying the slap-slap-slap of her butt against me.
Finally, I rolled her onto her back again and reentered, finishing her in a flurry of rapid, hard strokes and propelling myself over the precipice at the same time. We convulsed together. She cried like a baby, and I growled like an angry bear.
Though it had been exciting, because she was new to me and voluptuously built, I had to admit it wasn't as good as any of my times with Gloria. This fact was crystal clear to me, even before I had pulled free from Joyce's embracing pussy.
Her judgment obviously was more enthusiastic. I had hardly pulled out and sat up before she grasped my limp cock in her hand and bent her head.
I pushed her away.
"Chrissake," I said, "give me a chance to rest."
"You've got a beauty there," she purred. "I could have killed you when you switched to dog fashion, but it was good even that way. I swear, the blast I got was the greatest! Wasn't it good for you?"
"You don't hear me complaining, do you?" I said with a grin.
"Don't be a stranger around here, Bill," she said, cuddling up. "The neighbors in this building don't pay any attention to what goes on. You could get a night job and come to see me any day you want to."
"That's a great offer, baby," I said, petting her face and hair, "but I'm not sure I'll be staying in town much longer."
"Oh, but you've got to! Damn, after I've found something this good, I sure as shit don't want to lose it right away."
She was too much.
I'd had the notion in Arizona that she was more of a tease than a put-out, but I'd just found out that certainly wasn't true. I had misjudged her as badly as I had misjudged Gloria when I first saw her.
There I was-thinking about Gloria again.
"Hey," I grinned, "how about that beer you advertised?"
"You mean it was the beer that brought you over?" she asked mischievously, pushing a lock of blonde hair away from her eye.
"Not exactly."
I reached out and wrapped my hand around a full, luscious breast. "It was these babies as much as anything. They're a beautiful pair."
I eased her onto her back and leaned over her, squeezing her tits and pushing them together. "Suck them," she murmured.
As I did so, she stroked the back of my head and whispered, "Now, isn't that better than beer?"
I sat up in a few moments and gazed at the wet, gleaming nipple I had just kissed. It had turned very pink and was full to bursting with excitement. I brushed it rapidly with the flat of my hand.
"Oh, Bill, I just love the way you handle me. You could do anything."
I got up and said with a grin, "Let's have that beer now."
I didn't remain in her apartment long, and I didn't tumble her again. I pleaded an appointment to see about a job.
The truth was that after once having had her, the broad bored me.
I thought of Gloria as I walked to the bus stop.
CHAPTER 10
The fact that Gloria was still very much in my mind made me more determined than ever to try to dislodge her.
In thinking about it now, it's hard to say whether I really wanted to succeed or fail, but it was an effort I had to make. I thought of the girls I had dated before I left town several months earlier. I had corresponded with a couple of them, and I was sure the Arizona cops knew their identities from the letters I'd left in my luggage, so these girls I would have to avoid. But there were other possibilities, which I now inventoried in my mind.
There was raven-haired Josie Rodriguez, who worked in a large dental office downtown. I had gone in one day to get a cavity filled, and she had done such an energetic job of rubbing her chubbies against my arm and shoulder as she put on my bib and prepared me for the doctor, that I asked her for a date before I left. She accepted, and that very night I succeeded in filling her cavity. I filled it a number of times after that.
Then there was a sylph-like, blonde Ann Jamison, who had lived next door to my bachelor pad. She worked as a typist in the daytime and went to art school at night. She had been a hard chick to make-and an even harder one to satisfy. She and Josie were as unlike as night and day.
A third prospect was red-haired Laurel McLaughlin. She used to patronize the filling station where I worked. Her father was a wheel in some space technology firm, and little Laurel liked nothing better than to get herself launched into orbit by a masculine rocket.
Recalling the free and easy manner which Laurel had always displayed, she seemed like the best prospect. Also, the splendor of her orgasms would surely blast loose the hold which Gloria had on me-if anything could.
That afternoon I placed a call to her home. The maid answered and informed that that Miss McLaughlin was out and was not expected home until late.
"Tell her Dan called, will you?" I asked.
The maid offered to take my number, but I declined. I wasn't accepting calls at the hotel just then, since I didn't want to talk with Gloria.
When I got back there, the goose-necked desk clerk told me Mrs. Green had called three times while I was out. I gave him a noncommittal nod, and he wised off: "If you're dropping the babe, why don't you tell her so? I got other things to do besides taking silly-ass messages all day."
"Yeah? I thought that was part of the service" in this place."
"Twelve bucks a week don't entitle you to a goddamned private secretary."
"Just keep telling her I'm out," I instructed sternly. "If you say anything else, I'll break both your arms."
For a moment he looked as if he might vault the counter and give me a chance to, carry out my threat, but then he thought better of it and his glare subsided. as
I went on to the elevator, which creaked me up to my room.
Evening was a dull time. I took in a movie on Broadway and stopped for a couple of drinks on my way back to the hotel. A different clerk was on duty at that hour, and he handed me another pair of urgent messages from Gloria. The last one was labeled, "Insists you call." I carried them up to my room, tore them into little pieces, and let them flutter into the wastebasket.
That night in my dreams I chased naked wood nymphs through a forest glade. The fact that I caught none was dramatized by the needy state in which I awakened. My rod was bone-hard.
From the hotel lobby, I tried again to reach Laurel by phone.
"I'm sorry, but she isn't in," the maid told me. "This is Dan. Did you give her my message."
"No, sir."
"Why not?" I demanded.
"Well, sir, she . . . that is . . . I haven't seen her."
"So she was out all night, huh?"
"I didn't say that, sir."
"Of course not."
I hung up the phone.
Less confident now of my chances with the flaming redhead, I dropped another dime and called the dental office where Josie worked.
"Miss Rodriguez, please," I told the girl who answered.
I was half afraid that Josie had quit and taken a new job by this time, but the girl said, "Just a minute," and held the line open
"Hello," came Josie's faintly accented voice, a few moments later.
"You'll never guess who this is," I began.
"Danny!" she squealed. "Where in the world have you been?"
"Out of town. My . . . uh, grandfather was sick, and I had to leave suddenly."
"I'm sorry to hear that," she sympathized. "How is he now?"
"He died. Then my folks wanted me to hang in for a while, and . . . well, you know how that is."
"Yes . . . " She left the word sort of hanging in mid-air.
"Busy tonight?" I asked.
"No, Danny," she replied eagerly.
A sure score, I decided. But then, Josie had never been a hold-out. "I'll pick you up after work and we'll have dinner. Okay?"
"Swell."
"See you then."
I hung up.
"Hey!" my nemesis, the desk clerk, called as I stepped out of the phone booth. "Your babe's on the line. I told her to wait."
"What in hell did you do that for?" I demanded.
"Don't get your balls in an uproar," he cautioned. "You wanta talk to her or not?"
"Yeah, I'll talk to her," I growled.. "She must know I'm here now."
The clerk motioned to the telephone on the counter and turned to place a plug in the switchboard. I answered as soon as I heard the click.
"Dan! For God's sake, what's the matter? Why wouldn't you talk with me?"
"I've been thinking, Gloria."
"Darling . . . look. My plan is the only way for us. You seemed to understand that when I first proposed it."
"I told you, I wanted to think it over."
"You also said you'd give me your answer yesterday. I've been calling and calling."
"I know."
She hesitated for a moment, then said, "Darling, I think you'd better come over. We need to talk again." Talk, hell! I thought. She wants to go back to work on me with that torrid body of hers.
The prospect wasn't an unpleasant one, but I wasn't ready to surrender yet, and giving in to her now would be the same as giving up. Once I felt her hot little pussy grab hold of me, I wouldn't be able to do anything but agree to her scheme, and I'd be trapped for life.
"I.. . uh, can't come over today, Gloria."
"Why not?" she demanded. "Dan, if you're up to something . . . "
"I'm up to nothing! It's just that this is a pretty big step, and I have to be certain. Once we start things rolling, there'll be no turning back."
"All right," she said with a sigh. "But there isn't much time. My husband will be ready to close the deal in a few days."
"Call me in the morning," I told her.
"You're sure you don't want to see me this afternoon? I could drive into town and pick you up."
"No, Gloria," I said firmly. Then I softened my voice and continued, "I'm sorry, honey. This is just the way I am. I have to be alone with myself for a little while. You understand, don't you?"
"So long as you're really alone."
"I am You're the only girl I'm interested in, believe me."
"That makes me feel better," she said. "For a while, I wasn't sure."
"Call me in the morning."
"All right, darling. Good-bye."
I made a kissing sound at the receiver and hung up.
The desk clerk was grinning at me.
"Got any more smart-ass remarks?" I challenged.
"Nope," he replied quickly, raising his eyebrows.
I left the place, wondering how I was going to kill the seven or so hours that remained before I could pick up Josie.
Mexican girls mature young. By the time they're twenty, which was Josie's age, most of them are married, have a couple or three kids, and look like matrons. Somehow, Josie had missed getting tabbed for that route.
It was hard to understand, too, because she was built like the proverbial brick shithouse-rich boobs, a nice round butt, and thighs that were meaty but sleek. Her hair was long, and dark as a Tijuana back street at midnight.
Another great thing about Josie was that she owned a car. It wasn't much-just a '58 Chevy-but it had wheels and a motor to pull them along. She lived on the far east side of Los Angeles, at the edge of Montebello, so she drove her car to work. She rented a parking lot stall by the month.
That was where we headed first.
She handed me the keys, and I opened the right-hand door for her. When she sat down and swung her legs around, she showed a lot of well-filled nylon below the hem of her straight blue skirt.
I walked around and slid in behind the steering wheel.
"Gee, it's good to have you back in town, Danny," she murmured in her soft Chihuahua accent, as she snuggled close.
I hadn't kissed her in the dental office. It hadn't seemed like the thing to do, with other people around. But I was hungry for a taste of her wild-cherry lips.
Now was the time.
I drew her upper body against me, enjoying the spreading pressure of her big knockers, and opened her mouth deftly with my tongue. I slipped the full length of it inside. She gave a little moan, grasped me harder, and began to caress my tongue with hers.
She kind of ground her breasts against me at the same time. I could feel her nipples hardening, even with our clothes in between.
I recalled what thick, tall nipples Josie had-like spigots-and I could hardly wait to bare them. As we kissed, my excitement grew and my red came up.
The parking lot was bustling with activity, and-since this was mid-June-it was bright daylight, even though the time was after five o'clock. So I couldn't fool around with her there, the way I would have liked to. I had to content myself with the feel of her warm, full boobies rolling and mashing against my chest, and the inferno of her kiss-her tongue liquidly stroking as her soft lips clung to mine.
I let her go after a little while, and we both sighed.
"It's great to be back, honey," I said, husky-voiced. Right then, that was how I felt. I even dared to hope Gloria was losing her grip on me.
You see, it was a strange sort of love-dread ambivalence which I felt toward her. When I was with her, she seemed to be all I wanted, forever. When we were apart, I had a great urge to run . . . to stay away . . . to never see her again.
But she was always in my thoughts, even when I was with other girls-like when I was with Joyce, and right now, with Josie. I kept comparing them to Gloria.
Josie and I had dinner in a little restaurant on Sunset Boulevard, at the eastern (or cheap) edge of Hollywood. Right afterward, I made a beeline for Mulholland Drive.
It happened to have been one of those rare summer days in Los Angeles when the temperature inversion wasn't working. That meant, no smog. The night air was balmy, and a million stars were out.
We parked at a secluded spot, down off the road. In front of us was the whole panorama of West Los Angeles, twinkling like a sequin-studded carpet. Above us was the vast, spangled canopy of the sky.
I tuned the car radio to some sweet instrumental music on KPOL.
The scene was set.
Josie came into my arms eagerly. Her full, soft lips parted before they reached mine, and her tongue was ready to surge into my mouth the moment our lips joined. We tongued each other passionately, and my stem quickly stiffened against the constriction of my clothes.
I could tell by the way Josie was panting and squirming that something similar was happening to her. I imagined that the juncture of her thighs was becoming dewy.
I slipped my left hand toward her front, passing it underneath her arm and up between our bodies to caress her full-blown tits. There was only a thin white blouse and flimsy bra between those glorious globes and my fingers. I could feel her erect nipples on the other side of the nylon. I rubbed them and plucked at them through the thin layers of cloth, rolling them as well as I could.
Josie kissed more passionately. She seemed to be trying to bite my lip.
Finally I slid my hand downward along her soft belly and into her lap. Through her clothes, I caressed the heated crease between her thighs.
She moaned and grasped me more tightly around the back. Her legs stirred, and she bumped her stockinged knee against me. I slid my hand to the hem of her skirt, got underneath it, and began the exciting journey upward.
Her stockings were warm and sleek and snugly filled. I took my time meandering along them. There's quite a kick in exploring a girl this way, especially if she's new to you or if you haven't seen her in a long while. It's more enjoyable if you don't rush.
My caressing hand slid along her right thigh, pushing her skirt and slip in front of it. I stopped when I reached the reinforced top of her stocking, and clasped her thigh through the tautly pulled nylon. She lifted her leg a little, and I dug my fingertips underneath. She moaned into my kiss as my tongue stroked hers liquidly.
I toyed with a garter clasp, then brought my thumb into play and snapped the little rubber button loose. The garter strap sprang back and the side of her stocking sagged. I found the other garter clasp and released it, also; then I pushed the slack stocking down her leg.
Josie smeared her hot mouth across my cheek, whimpering and nibbling. I took my hand off her thigh long enough to carry her right hand to my lap. She gave a little gasp when she discovered the extent of my readiness; then, she began to caress my rod through my clothes.
My hand returned to her bare thigh and slid upward, this time with my thumb traveling on the very soft, sleek, inner surface. She was hot as a volcano. I touched the silkiness of her panties, and she said, "Oh!"
She began to dig at my clothes.
My hand switched to her left leg, caressing gently up and down on the velvet flesh above her stocking. But I didn't go all the way to her fun zone.
She was more purposeful as she pulled my zipper down.
Now I released both garter clasps on her left leg and pushed that stocking away. Her lovely legs yawned.
I caught her mouth and French-kissed her some more as she snaked a hand through my fly, her electric-charged fingertips seeking their way into my briefs. She made it. As her soft, delicate hand curled around my hardened penis, I slipped one of my hands all the way up her legs and pressed it against the damp nylon at her plushy crotch.
"Oh, baby!" she exclaimed between gasps. She pulled my piston out of my pants, and her hand began pumping up and down on it.
It was the easiest thing in the world to hook one of her panty elastics aside, making her hot, furry box available to my caress. I stroked her first with just my fingertips, up and down on the surface of her softness. Then I found my way into slickness. She cried and twisted her pelvis against me.
She became wild with want, eagerly rotating her needy cunt about my invading finger. I sought out her activation fuse and stimulated that . . . though she didn't need such stimulation, lord knows.
She moaned loudly.
Her hand gripped my cock very hard-almost painfully-and she cried, "Oh, Dan, let's get in the back seat. I've got to have you!"
"In a minute," I crooned gently and took my hand away from her passion garden. I ran it along the inner side of her leg to remove the clinging moisture, and pulled her forward from the car seat. Then I went to work on the buttons at the back of her blouse.
She kept issuing little anxious cries-the sounds that are so sweet to a man's ears when he's in the process of working a girl up. They told me she was ready, but I wanted her to be more than that. I wanted her to be extra-hot when I finally put my rod in.
Her blouse slipped easily down her arms. She tossed it over her shoulder toward the back seat, and I proceeded to release the hooks of her brassiere.
The bra surged forward, and I picked the cups off her trembling cones of flesh. They were a lovely sight as they stood naked in the moonlight, their big tips full and red with excitement, the white rotundities crying to be squeezed and fondled.
"Man, what beauties!" I husked, and bent my head as I gathered them in a basket-hold underneath.
Josie cried ecstatically when I captured a fat, quivering breast-tip in my mouth. I sucked avidly on it, sliding my lips against the smooth fullness which backed it up and laving the tingling nipple with my tongue.
She began to stroke my tool again.
I went from tippy to tippy, sucking and licking and generally enjoying myself while she twisted her shoulders in passionate agitation, causing her soft, rounded flesh to roll and tremble against my face.
My hand groped up her thighs, which now were opened widely to grant me complete access to the paradise of her loins. I slid my entire hand inside her nylon pants and cupped her hot, fluffy pubic mound, letting my middle finger delve.
Time was growing short.
Both of us were becoming wildly excited.
It was a question of getting into her in a hurry, or suffering a mutual anti-climax. I certainly didn't want that.
I twisted out from under the steering wheel and dropped to my knees on the car floor in front of her.
"Oh, yes . . . yes!" she exclaimed, as I groped under her clothes for the top of her pink nylon briefs. I wrapped my fingers around the elastic and pulled her panties all the way down, hoisting her legs in front of me to allow me to take the briefs off.
Her legs parted as they dropped, and I paused only long enough to push my own pants to my knees. Then I moved up.
This wasn't the best way in the world to go at it, but it sufficed. The car seat was low and when she scootched forward, we were able to join.
I found her snatch, parted it, and pushed.
She cried out happily.
Then I said, "Wrap your legs around my neck." She did.
I began humping forward and back in her hot, slick cockpit.
It didn't take many strokes, because both our fuses had burned pretty short. I braced my elbows against the seat at either side of her and palmed her trembling titties as we went slightly wild.
She said, "Uh . . . uh . . . uh!" with rising inflection, and I tightened my arms around her thighs, holding on for dear life, as she shook violently against and around me. Her climax brought me along and triggered my shuddering, much-needed orgasm.
"Ooooo . . . " she said pleasurably, as I pulled back and allowed her legs to drop.
I twisted back onto the seat beside her and immediately restored my clothes.
She kept her legs widely parted. Her head was tilted backward on top of the upholstery, and her naked breasts rose and fell with her deep breathing.
Physically I was sated, of course, but there was a psychological dissatisfaction. It would have been difficult to pinpoint it if I hadn't known the cause:
The girl I had just taken was not Gloria, and Gloria was the girl I wanted.
"Let's get in the back seat next time," Josie said. "I want to lie down so I can feel you better."
"I've got to get up early to hunt for a job," I alibied. "You'd better get your clothes on."
She straightened up to look at me. "Wha-what's the matter, Danny? Wasn't it good for you?"
"Sure, honey, it was great. I just have to get up early, that's all."
She gave me a funny look, then began rummaging around, gathering her bra and panties and stockings.
We didn't say much as she got dressed, and the ride back downtown was pretty dull too. Josie thought I was disappointed with her, I suppose. That wasn't strictly true. She had given me as much satisfaction as any girl-other than Gloria-could have given.
Still, a part of me wouldn't accept the obvious truth. Even before I had said good night to Josie, I was thinking again about Laurel.
I dialed her number the first thing in the morning, and caught her at home.
"Well," she said coolly. "Imagine hearing from you after all these weeks."
"I've been out of town," I told her. "Had to leave suddenly. There wasn't time to call."
"Sure. I know how it is. A guy gets bored and has to seek more alluring pastures."
"It wasn't that way, honey."
"Save the 'honey' talk. To put matters bluntly, Dan, I've found a better stud. So I suggest you peddle your services elsewhere."
"Laurel!"
"No sale, buster."
The phone clicked dead.
Having a girl talk to you that way can raise hell with your ego. Now I had a second reason to continue my prospecting. Not only was Gloria's hold tightening on me, but Laurel's brusque brush-off rankled. I felt I had to prove myself with another girl-a girl who was more of a challenge than Josie-before I surrendered to a lifetime with Gloria, if that's what was in the cards for me.
I had been a little apprehensive about calling Ann, because of the fact that she lived in the apartment house where I used to be a tenant. The cops knew that address, if they had checked with my other contacts. But I didn't think they knew about Annie. There was no letter from her in the belongings I had left in the Arizona motel, and I didn't recall mentioning her to anyone.
I called her at the company where she worked.
Her response to my voice on the telephone was midway between Josie's pleasurable enthusiasm and Laurel's cold put-down. Ann was subdued, obviously hurt over my failure to at least call her before I left town several months ago, but still willing to talk.
After I had her on the line for a while, it became clear that she still cared for me. I should have been satisfied with that. Josie and Ann on one side against Laurel on the other gave me a winning average. No guy can bat a hundred per cent.
But I wanted to follow through with Ann-and, in so doing, I stuck my head into a very tidy noose. It was a good thing for me that the rope was slack.
At least, I thought so at the time. But events have a way of changing complexion in the light of later developments.
If that sounds a little vague, tag along with me and
I'll try to clear things up. First, there was Ann.
CHAPTER ll
SHE WAS SLENDER AND blue-eyed, with corn-colored hair that fell straight and silken to her shoulders. She had a wistful quality about her that inevitably aroused a sympathetic response in the beholder. However, she wasn't easy to know. Or to make.
I had worked at the project for two months the previous winter before I succeeded in slipping her panties off. Then I promptly flunked the crucial test. Try as I would, I couldn't give her an orgasm.
That was the first time.
The second time, I tried some tricks I didn't often use, and that time Ann came gloriously. After that, I had no problem with her, but I always had to concentrate on her pleasure.
I thought about those times as I prepared to pick her up at her office. Meanwhile. Gloria had tried to reach me, of course. Again I had refused to take the calls, causing the gawky clown at the hotel desk to mutter and growl and bitch.
I tried not to imagine the effect my evasion was having on Gloria. I didn't want to cause her anxiety. I honestly believed she'd been sincere in advancing the South American scheme, as the best way of solving our problem and making it possible for us to be together. But I couldn't take her up on it yet. I had to have these last few days of freedom before I could place my soul in bondage to her forever.
Ann was particularly wistful when we met. She put out her hand and I held it for a few moments, enjoying the soft warmth of the contact. She was the one to pull away, and she averted her clear blue eyes. Since we were in the reception area of her office, with a lot of other people around us, I couldn't try to kiss her.
I suggested dinner at a downtown spot, since neither of us had a car, but she surprised me by inviting me home to her apartment.
"You still live in the old place?" I asked.
"Yes . . . but there's an elderly couple next door now."
"I see."
As we walked to the bus stop, she asked me about New Mexico, and I told her about the weather and the work I'd done. She didn't inquire about my social life, and I didn't volunteer any information.
Ann had been getting serious about me before I left. I could tell. But neither of us had pledged undying love to the other, and there had been no talk of marriage. When we were in the throes of passionate desire, we had used love words, the way many young people do, without really thinking of what they meant.
At least, that had been my attitude. Perhaps Ann had meant them.
Our bus was crowded. Ann managed to get a seat, but I had to stand up. To make matters worse, there was a girl seated across from me who was wearing a miniskirt, and had her legs crossed. She wasn't wearing bloomers or pettipants to cover her upper legs, so I was treated to quite a show-bare thighs above sleek stocking tops, garter straps, and a pink V of panty-crotch where her thighs met her buttocks. Not only that-she kept wiggling around, which constantly changed the scene and caused me to hope that a panty elastic might pull askew and grant me a glimpse of her fur-shaded furrow.
You can imagine what effect this had on me, and there I was standing next to a stout matron whose girdled rump bumped me every time the bus gave a little lurch.
I didn't let my rod rise all the way. By counting from a hundred backwards and keeping my eyes off Miss Miniskirt as much as possible, I was able to restrict the degree of my erection. But partially erect I did become, and on about the third bump of the matron's butt against me, she felt it.
She gave me a shocked look.
I grinned.
And what do you know-she jumped to the conclusion that she'd inspired my tumescence. She blushed a little and simpered at me.
I looked away quickly-right at the golden thighs and taut garter straps and patch of pink nylon.
I closed my eyes and tried to remember the first line of the Gettysburg address.
When Ann and I arrived at her apartment, I offered to help her fix the meal. We chatted as she put on some steaks, and I washed and cut vegetables for a salad, but the atmosphere was strained.
She poured us each a glass of sherry and we sipped that.
Finally she said, "I was awfully hurt when you just picked up and left town. I thought it was because of something I'd done.. .or hadn't done."
"I told you My grandfather was sick, and . . . "
"I know."
There was an awkward silence.
"I think, after dinner, we ought to talk everything out," she said. "We ought to make sure where we stand with each other."
"All right, if that's what you want."
She looked at me. "Well, don't you want that too? If you thought enough of me to give me a call, the spark isn't completely dead."
I moved close to her. "How about you, Ann? Do you still have a spark for me?"
She said, "I have to watch the steaks," and turned quickly away.
The dinner was good.
Afterward, we relaxed in her small living room and talked. It was the kind of conversation girls bring you around to when they're interested in something beyond having fun.
It was difficult for me. I could never really have been serious about Ann, and now, in the background of my consciousness, Gloria was lurking. I kept getting images of her, the way she'd been with me at the motel in Indio-naked and unrestrained as we made love.
There seemed only one thing to do, and that was to move in on Ann quickly, to put our relationship on a physical basis once more.
I turned to her and pulled her into my arms, cutting off the long, thoughtful utterance she was making to try to elicit a similar response from me. She resisted, turning her head quickly when I tried to kiss her lips, and I buried my mouth in her scented neck. I began to caress one of her slim thighs through her clothes.
She squirmed to try to free herself from my grasp, but this only inflamed me more. I wanted to put her on her back on the couch and bring her legs up. I wanted to get in between them and run my lips along her sweet thigh. That would turn her on if anything would, and make her anxious for more exquisite pleasures.
But she fought.
She fought as if she really meant it, and I suppose she did. At least, I was convinced at the time, and I stopped my efforts.
Breathing hard, she sat back and straightened her clothes.
"I won't do that with you any more, Dan," she said. "Not unless I'm sure I mean something to you, and that you're serious about me."
"You do mean something to me."
"What? A few rolls in the hay now that you're back in town, and then another good-bye? No. That isn't what I want."
I had an impulse to tell her to get lost, and just walk out. There'd been times when I would have done just that. But, as I've said, I was unsure of myself right then-unsure about everything.
"Ann . . . I can't think in permanent terms. Both of us are young, and . . . "
"Not too young. That is, not if we're right for one another."
"And you think I'm right for you?"
"Frankly, I don't know. But I have a feeling for you. I always have had. I missed you a great deal."
I tried again to draw her close to me. It was no good. She pushed against my chest and squirmed. Finally she leaped to her feet.
"If that's all you can think of, Dan," she said with tears glinting in her lovely eyes, "you'd better go."
"What's wrong with getting re-acquainted?" I asked. "It's been a long time."
"Yes, that's just it. It has. Perhaps things have changed."
"Well, if that's the way you feel, Ann, there's nothing I can say." I stood up.
Anxiety came into her eyes, and then I knew that she was just playing me-trying to exact a commitment before she surrendered herself, which was what she had intended to do all the time. She wanted the physical part of it just as much as I did.
I wasn't about to let myself be trapped that way-not by this slip of a girl, at any rate.
"Ann," I said, "if we're ever going to mean anything to each other, it'll have to be on the basis of my being in charge. I'd have to wear the pants in the family. I wouldn't put up with a wife who tried to control me by saying when, why and how we'd go to bed together."
My references to "family" and "wife" bowled her over. She had marriage in the back of her mind, but hadn't dared talk about it. She'd been trying to lead me into saying something, and I'd said just enough to make the point with her, while not committing myself.
I followed up the advantage quickly by sweeping her up in my arms and placing her recumbent on the sofa. It made into a bed, but I didn't take time to open it up. I got down with her and began to kiss and feel, my lips covering her face and neck and shoulders as my hands roamed at will.
She struggled a little at first, but I could tell that she had no heart for fighting now. It wasn't long before she became very excited.
In short order, I had the top of her dress opened up, her bra off, and her small, stiff-nippled breasts quivering bare beneath my caresses.
I bent and surrounded a nipple with my warm, suctioning kiss. I moved to the other nipple and treated it the same. As I was working on it, and as she moaned and panted, my hand moved up between her thighs.
She opened to me like a book.
Her white nylon panties were a barrier easily removed. Then her fresh, young, feminine muff was there for me to enjoy . . . and to stimulate in a way that would bring great enjoyment to her.
I knew what she liked.
My parted lips on her warm, moist sweetness gave her exquisite pleasure. She twisted and sobbed as her lower belly tilted at me, her legs wrapped about my head. My tongue plunged at the slickness-in and out, in and out. My lips tenderly clasped her most sensitive little sac of nerve endings.
I gradually increased the tempo of my tongue and lip movements, applying greater pressure at the same time. Ann pulled herself to me and rotated her pussy. Her sobbing grew louder and more pleasurably anguished. She now was ready for the final phase.
I pried her stockinged legs away from my neck and spread them wide, then propelled myself forward until my body fully covered hers.
It took only a moment for me to shove my clothes down; then my excitement-gorged organ found its way into the slick, palpitating well of her pussy, and sank all the way.
She said, "Eeeeel" and clung to me with both arms and both legs, her belly undulating. I rode her hard.
Even now she took close to ten minutes of steady, vigorous stroking before she reached the zenith, her own motions increasing in intensity all the time until, at the finish, she was whipping violently beneath me.
Her release was one of clasping, shuddering, screeching fury that ended with great, quaking undulations. It was at this point that I came, pressing deeply and spurting blissfully.
Afterward, I lay on her, with most of my weight supported on my elbows and knees, as we panted and clung to one another. Then she began to kiss me all around the neck and ears. I kissed her hair, her eyelids, her nose and finally her mouth. My tongue pistoned slowly and tenderly.
I backed out of her and stood up, feeling a little weak from the effects of our violent banging.
She left me for a little while and went into the bathroom. When she returned she was fully dressed, as was( I, and we went into the kitchen to have some coffee. Her face wore a warm, sated glow. She was bubbling over with talk about "our future."
This was painful to me because, of course, there was no future for us. The interlude with her had been highly pleasurable, but nothing had changed within me. Even now, I thought of Gloria as I had before. She was my woman; there could be no denying the truth of this now.
Perhaps there was still room for argument about the
South American scheme. Theft didn't appeal to me, though the anticipated proceeds were a powerful lure. I might have resisted this and somehow changed Gloria's mind, except for what happened next. That seemed to take the matter out of my hands completely.
Ann and I were seated in the kitchen when a rapping sounded at the front door. It was loud and persistent, hardly the kind of knock that a social visitor would use.
I jumped up.
"Look . . . Ann . . . if that's for me, I'm not here. Don't let anyone in, hear?"
She was shocked. "Why would it be for you?"
"Maybe because I used to live next door. I don't know, but just don't tell anybody I'm here. And make it clear that you know they don't have the right to search the place without a warrant."
"Dan, what's the matter?"
The rapping sounded again, even more urgently than before.
"Just answer it," I told her. "I'll explain everything later."
With her face reflecting her confusion and concern, Ann turned to respond to the summons. As she crossed the living room, every nerve in my body tightened. I felt as I had in Garrett right after the murder, when I had read in the eyes of the motel man's widow a verdict of guilty and a sentence of death.
I remained out of sight from the living room, behind the kitchen door. There was a man outside-I could hear the rumble of a masculine voice, but not what was said. Then there was the voice of another man.
Shit-two cops, sure as hell, I thought. Would they force their way in, warrant or not?
Ann was speaking anxiously to them. I caught: .
". . . haven't seen him . . . no . . . call you if he . . . yes, of course."
The door closed.
I remained where I was for a moment, my shoulder blades pressed against the wall. When I heard only Ann's footsteps approaching, I relaxed.
"It was the police," she said excitedly. "A couple of plain-clothes detectives. They were looking for you. Dan . . . what's this all about?"
"It's all a terrible misunderstanding," I said. "What made them think I was here?"
"Someone in the building-I suppose the manager-told them you and I had dated in the past. They wondered if I had seen you since you returned from New Mexico."
"And you told them no?"
"You asked me to." She moved closer to me, her blue eyes wide and frightened. "Have you done something wrong, Dan? Why would they want you?"
"I haven't done anything wrong," I told her, "but they think I did. There was a crime committed at a motel where I stopped in Arizona. That's all I can tell you now, but I swear I'm innocent."
Her eyes changed a little. Suspicion entered them.
It wasn't the same kind of suspicion I had seen in the eyes of the murdered man's wife. That had been conclusive-an outright condemnation. What I read in Ann's eyes was doubt, but that was bad enough. God only knew how this would affect her attitude toward me, what it might impel her to do. She had protected me this time, before she'd had a chance to think, but how about when the police called on her again, as they were very apt to do?
I couldn't have anything more to do with her. That was clear.
I wondered then if the police had also found out about Josie. It was a risk to contact anyone I had known before, to visit any place I used to visit. Gloria was the only person I was safe with, the only one I could turn to.
Ann's entire attitude toward me changed. There were no more references to the future. She seemed ill at ease, watchful.
When I believed sufficient time had passed so that I could leave safely, I told her I'd call her tomorrow, gave her a perfunctory kiss, and left the apartment. There was no one in the hall. I walked to the rear of the building and took the service stairs.
I didn't really believe the cops were watching the place, because their visit had been in the course of a routine investigation. They had no hard evidence to lead them to believe I might have been in Ann's apartment. Just the same, I figured the back way was safer than the front, because I was less likely to be seen by the manager of the building or some tenant who might remember me.
The street was quiet. I drew no notice as I walked to the bus stop.
Gloria was waiting for me in the lobby of the hotel.
Strangely, I wasn't sorry to see her. My mind, on both the conscious and subconscious levels, had made its adjustment: We were right for each other. Her scheme was the only way out.
The scrawny-necked clerk watched surreptitiously as she rushed into my arms and we embraced. Her kiss was hot as a volcano.
"I'm sorry I didn't answer your calls," I murmured, as I continued to hold her close, enjoying the way her small, taut titties bored into me.
She backed up and gave me a happy-tearful look. "Dan, I don't know what I'm going to do with you."
"Everything's settled now," I told her. "The answer is yes."
"I could tell that by the way you looked when you saw me. Oh, Dan, you certainly kept me on needles and pins. I couldn't imagine what was going through your mind when you wouldn't answer my calls. I made up my mind to come over here and just sit until I saw you."
"How about your husband?" I asked softly, so that the clerk couldn't hear. "Won't he be suspicious about your not being home this evening?"
"He had a business meeting. Otherwise, I couldn't have come. Dan, we have to talk. There are so many plans to be made."
I said, "Wait a minute," and stepped over to the hotel desk.
"The lady and I would like to go up to my room for a while. Okay?"
"Believe me, I'm glad you two finally got together," he replied. "But we've got our rules."
I pulled out my wallet and gave him a ten. Though I didn't have much money left, I figured I wasn't going to need it. I was in Gloria's hands now.
"What does that do to your code of ethics?" I asked.
He blinked. He wasn't used to having extra dough shoved at him in that dump-certainly not ten bucks at a crack. "What code?" he asked, smiling lecherously now.
I returned to Gloria, and she avoided looking at him as I guided her to the elevator.
In my room, we talked first.. . believe it or not, Gloria would have gone right to bed if I'd pressed the issue, but Ann's warmth was still clinging to me, and anyway, my near brush with the cops had put me in a pretty serious mood. I wanted to talk about getting out of the country as quickly as possible, about how Gloria thought she could swing it.
"You cross into Mexico at Tijuana," she said. "There's such a crowd of tourists, sailors on leave, horse players and bullfight fans crossing over on the weekends that no one's identity is questioned. I know someone down there who can get you a Mexican passport-I met him while I worked in Albert's office."
"But if he's a friend of your husband's, he's apt to tip Albert off about us."
"He's more of a friend of mine," Gloria said archly. Then she added quickly, "That is, he used to be."
"Okay. What'll he do?"
"Get you a Mexican passport, like I said. That'll get you on a plane to Brazil. Of course, you'll have to fly from Tijuana to Mexico City and change planes there, but that won't be any problem."
"And when I reach Brazil.. . ? "
"You'll have all the identification you'll need to meet Albert's courier and pick up the money. We'll set a specific time before you go, and I'll alter the data in Albert's files to conform."
She gave me the name and address of my Mexican contact. Gloria said I was to call her at home during the daytime after I talked with him, and she would wire me the money to pay for the passport. She advanced me sufficient cash to cover my plane tickets and other traveling expenses.
"What about a car to get me to Tijuana?" I asked.
"Go by Greyhound. That's safer. If you rent a car, it can be traced."
"Okay. Now, about the contact in Rio . . . ? "
She explained at some length about the way Umber-to Santos did business. Evidently he and her husband had been dealing with each other for some time, dating back to before she was promoted from secretary to wife. She seemed to know all about their arrangements.
"Won't the courier think it's funny when a new man shows up to claim the money?" I asked. "And an American, to boot?"
"No problem. The courier works for a money transport firm. Albert gets a different man every time. As for the pickup man being American, Brazilian companies frequently have North Americans on their staff to handle contacts with U.S. firms. The proper credentials are all you'll need, and I'll see that you have those. We'll pick a fictitious name-it'll be used on your papers, and that's the name you'll sign on the receipt. Then you simply melt into the crowd."
"When will you be down to meet me?" I asked.
"As soon as I can possibly arrange it. In the meantime, we mustn't get in touch with one another after you leave Tijuana. We'll pick a certain hotel where you're to stay, and I'll contact you there."
The whole thing sounded slick as glass. It was like a sure-fire system to beat the horses. Everybody knows in the depths of his mind that there's no such thing, but that doesn't keep a lot of us from biting when some smoothie comes along to peddle a scheme.
Gloria was as smooth as the best of them.
And she had a very special female smoothness in bed.
I took her to bed, of course. This was to be our last time together for a long while, so both of us were eager to make it as perfect as possible.
It was-from the time I stripped the clothes off her, piece by piece, to the bed-bouncing finale as I plunged joyously up and down inside her.
This was my woman, my pussycat, now and forever. When I was like this with her, I was doubly sure. No Joyce nor Josie nor Ann, hot as they were, could compare. It was like a man recognizing his own image in a mirror. Good or bad, it was right and it was his.
Gloria was mine.
She remained with me until late that evening, and we ran the passion gamut until I was amazed at my own endurance. I outdid myself that night.
After she left me with a soul-searing kiss, I fell into bed and slept as soundly as a hibernating bear for nine hours. When I awoke, I had no doubts.
I looked forward to Brazil . . . and money . . . and a lifetime with the woman I loved.
No one could have talked me out of it now. .
It was set-like a post in concrete.
A couple of days later, she called me and asked me to phone her back from an outside pay station, where we couldn't be overheard. I did.
She gave me all the final data, including the name of the Rio hotel where I was to stay. I was due to leave town in two days. The credentials were on their way to me by special delivery mail.
She said she wanted very much to be with me again before I left, but that it wouldn't be safe; we mustn't risk letting anyone else see us together; we could wait; in a few months we would be reunited in Brazil and have each other for the rest of our lives.
I sent her a kiss over the phone, and she swore she loved me. Then I returned to the hotel to await the mail delivery.
Still, there were no doubts in my mind. I had worked all of them out before I had given her my okay, and now I was totally committed; I'd placed my life in her hands.
Escaping the Arizona murder charge was no longer the main consideration. Now it was having Gloria and the hundred thousand dollars and the lifetime of luxury that lay ahead of us.
Who was it who said, What fools we mortals be?
Well, some of us are and some of us aren't Gloria, wasn't, but I was.
Man, I led the fools' parade!
CHAPTER 12
THERE WAS NO HITCH in Tijuana. The slick-talking, toothy Mexican to whom Gloria sent me was ready and willing to deal. A passport? No problem, senor. No problem at all. Tan facil! All it would take was three hundred dollars, U. S. cash -a hundred for him, and two hundred for the man who would make the forgery.
I telephoned Gloria, and the three hundred arrived at the local Western Union office later the same day.
Facil, indeed!
Less than twenty-four hours later I was on an Aero-naves de Mexico plane, heading for the capital. In Mexico City, I caught the first available flight to Rio. In a foreign country, with a hot passport in my pocket, I didn't feel like hanging around to see the sights.
In Brazil, Gloria had assured me, I would be safe. There would be no problem with a visa or the passport or of ever being brought back to the U.S. She was right on all counts. There was only one thing she was wrong about.
But we'll get to that.
Rio is breathtaking, and like many another Yankee I had my breath taken away by my first sight of it, spreading over and around a series of hills which are scattered at the foot of a soaring mountain range. Guanabara Bay, Sugar Loaf and Corcovado Mountain, which bears a gigantic statue of Christ, combine to create a panorama of scenic splendor.
There are other great sights, too, which I didn't appreciate until I was on the ground-the happy, Samba-hipped, dark-skinned females of Rio, a breed you don't see in the U.S. Their flesh tones range from olive to African black, and there is total integration with no one giving a thought to it, but the truly remarkable thing about them is that they all seem to be living for fun. This applies equally to the upper classes and the peasants.
And what beauties! I don't know if it's the mixture of their blood, the warm semi-tropical climate, or what, but they seem to grow the ripest tits, the most voluptuous hips, the smoothest and lithest legs of any women I have seen anywhere. And their dark eyes flash mischievously as they glance at a guy.
They almost made me forget Gloria.
For a while.
As it was, I had five days to kill before the courier was to arrive. After I had installed myself in the hotel Gloria had picked, which was not one of the best in Rio but certainly adequate, I outfitted myself with some clothes at her expense and proceeded to become acquainted with the city . . . and its inhabitants.
On my second night I scored with a lush, brown-skinned Carioca. I met her at a Samba bar where the combo alternated between this old standby rhythm and the newer and more sophisticated bossa nova. She was there with another girl, but they quickly split when I came along. She spoke a little English, and a little was enough.
She managed to explain that she was a stenographer in a local bank. I told her I was on vacation. She didn't dig that word, but she understood "holiday." She promised to help me have a happy time, and she was as good as her word.
And she wasn't out for money. To a Yankee who had spent some time in Saigon and Tokyo, and had talked to others who had visited Paris and Berlin, this came as a surprise. Even the girls who hold legitimate jobs in those cities-a great many of them, at any rate-expect to be monetarily rewarded by any American who dates them and lays them (the latter usually being a foregone conclusion).
I laid Maria, my sweet Brazilian chick. I laid her and laid her, as a matter-of-fact, and never once was money mentioned. She enjoyed the screwing as much as I did, and she liked to be with me. We hit the hottest spots on the Praia do Flamengo and, of course, we went to Copacabana Beach. We always topped off the evening in my hotel room with me topping off Maria.
No, correction-sometimes she topped me. And several times I took her the African way, from the rear. That was especially enjoyable, because Maria had round, beautiful, coffee-colored buttocks which were bouncy as beach balls and smooth as satin-perfect for ramming a pelvis against.
And Maria enjoyed being rammed . . .
As her hanging nipples were pulled . . .
As her clit was tickled.
She enjoyed everything I did to her, and I did everything.
But I don't want you to get the idea there was no tenderness in it. There was. We were tender and torrid, as the mood the of the moment required, and that's the only way to be with a girl.
The days and the nights crawled past, and pretty soon it was time for me to meet the courier from the States. Naturally, I became tense. It isn't every day that a normal, clean-living, right-thinking, ail-American male does a total about-face and steals a hundred thousand dollars.
But I didn't really worry, because I trusted Gloria, relied on her information. I had the credentials she had sent me, and the name and description of the man I was to meet: Thirty-five years old, tall, slender, brown-haired, bespectacled, named Jerome Olstad.
His flight was due at Dumont Airport at 3:15 in the afternoon. I was to meet him in the main reception area; he was to examine my papers; I was to sign his receipt; and I would walk away with the well-stuffed valise he had brought with him.
He presumably would find himself a chick like Maria and would screw the night away, then take off for the U.S. in the morning.
And I would live happily ever after . . . as soon as Gloria jetted down to join me.
In the meantime, I would make do as best I could, with girls like Maria and all that wonderful money.
Neat.
Nice.
Well.. . if not nice, at least pleasurable.
But there was a slight flaw in my plans.
Three o'clock arrived, and I was mingling in the airport crowd, hardly noticing the Brazilian girls' bounteous boobs and roundly swaying butts-because, as I said, I was tense and a little nervous. I waited. Once I took out my handkerchief and mopped my brow. It was warm.
The minutes ticked off. Planes arrived and departed. Soon the announcement was made on the P.A. system -first in sibilant Portuguese, then in harsher English -that flight 551 was arriving from Los Angeles via Mexico City and Bogota. That was it.
I moved closer to the passageway which led from the field.
The passengers from 551 began to arrive. Girls ran into the arms of waiting boy friends, wives met husbands and husbands met wives; families were reunited. Some passengers had no one waiting for them.
I looked at each and every passenger carefully.
Not one fit the description of Jerome Olstad. Obviously, there had been a slip-up.
Gloria had assured me that everything would take place according to schedule-the delivery of the money to the courier in Los Angeles, his departure, his arrival at Rio, the transfer of the cash to me. Still, it was possible that he had missed his plane. There could have been a traffic jam in L.A. which had trapped him in his taxi while the plane took off. He might have had a heart attack en route-such things happen.
Or, there could have been a last-minute change of plans on someone's part.
The question was: What to do?
First I inquired at the airline's information counter.
"No, senor." the answer came. "There was no Jerome Olstad booked for the flight."
Did they have any other record of him? Was he expected later in the day?
No, senor. Nothing. Nada.
Did they perhaps have a message for Eduardo Fraser? (That was the name an my forged Mexican passport, and the name Gloria and I had agreed that I would use in Brazil.)
No, senor. No message.
A sickening sense of disaster began to seep into me and take possession of my bones. I had a little over a hundred dollars left in my wallet. Gloria and I hadn't allowed for an upset of our plans-everything had seemed so sure, so predictable.
Well, there was a perfectly simple explanation. The plan hadn't fallen apart; Olstad had merely been delayed. The only problem was in finding out when he was due to arrive, so that the scheme could be put back on the track again.
I would have to telephone Gloria.
She had warned me not to do so, but now it was necessary. I would call her at a time when her husband would be at the office.
Let's see-it was now a little after three-thirty in Rio. That meant it was . . . hell, what time WAS it in Los Angeles?
I turned back to the airline information counter.
A stacked North American blonde had taken the place of the suave, mustached Brazilian who had spoken to me before. Her knockers looked as if they were about to burst through her blue tunic.
"Miss?"
"Yes, sir?"
"I wonder if you could tell me the time in Los Angeles, California, right now."
"That's our time minus five hours, sir." She glanced at the clock on the wall behind her. "Ten-thirty-eight."
"Thank you."
She smiled in the mechanical way of such people, and I turned toward the bank of telephone booths along a near wall.
I would have to call collect, of course. Gloria could better afford to pay the charges than I could.
But, no-a collect call would appear on her phone bill, which her husband might very well see. Well, shit, what did that matter? By the time Albert Green got the bill, his wife would be long gone, anyway. Right now, I had to find out when Jerome Olstad would arrive, and I was sure Gloria would be willing to help me.
But one nagging question kept bothering me: If there had been a change of plans, why hadn't Gloria called me at the hotel where I was staying?
I stepped into a booth, and after some difficulty, I got hold of an English-speaking operator. I gave her Gloria's name and address. She asked me to wait.
It took about ten minutes to put the call through. Finally I heard Gloria's phone ringing, and then her voice came on the line. I opened my mouth and formed words in my brain, but the operator was already speaking:
"Ees thees Meesus Green?"
"Yes. That's right." Gloria sounded nervous.
"Thees ees Rio de Janeiro. I have a collect call for you from a Meester Fraser. Weel you accept charges?
"No, operator," the answer came loud and clear. "I don't know anyone by that name."
I yelled, "Gloria . . . for God's sake!" but she had already hung up.
"I'm sorry, senor," the operator said. "Eef you weesh to pay for the call yourself-"
I slammed the phone on her explanation.
Gloria had said she knew no one named Fraser, which obviously meant that she knew no one named Dan Plummer. The fluttering, nagging anxiety which I had felt earlier became a big clammy fist that wrapped itself around my guts and squeezed. I hardly saw the bustling crowd which passed through the airport waiting room. I began to sweat.
Santos, I thought suddenly. Was there an Umberto Santos?
I found a telephone directory and began thumbing through it.
Wait! What was the matter with me? Gloria had said that Santos had his headquarters at a city called Belem, on the Amazon.
I stepped back into the phone booth and, after another delay, reached another English-speaking operator. "I wish to speak with Senor Umberto Santos at Belem," I said. "He runs some sort of drug processing or shipping company. Wait . . . "
Digging out the credentials which I carried in my inside coat pocket, I found the company's name and read it to her.
"One moment, senor," she said, and again I had a lengthy wait.
When she returned to the line, her words were not unexpected. The dread which had taken possession of me was borne out.
"There ess no such leesting een Belem, seOor. I am sorry." Sorry? Good God!
I hung up the receiver with a cold, clammy hand and turned blindly from the booth.
Think, you son of a bitch! Think!
But there are situations in life where thinking doesn't help. If you have cancer, you can't think it away. If you're marooned on a deserted island, thinking will not bring a rescue ship.
I was marooned in one of the most bustling, colorful, gay and progressive cities in the world, and that was just as big a problem as if I had been stranded on a dot of land in the middle of the Pacific, populated only by monkeys and palm trees.
I was there on a phony passport. I couldn't reveal my true identity. I was just a couple or three days removed from poverty. I couldn't speak the language.
If I were to give myself up to the American consulate and consent to be returned to the U.S., the authorities would not only have the Arizona murder charge against me, but also a charge of illegally leaving the country and using a false passport to gain entry to another. Worst of all, the fact that I had attempted to gain asylum in Brazil would offset my professions of innocence in Arizona. Gloria could laugh at any suggestion that she was involved and probably make her denial stick. As for the story of how I happened to be in Brazil, I would be better off not to talk about that -and if I did, who would believe me?
Gloria had very neatly removed me as a threat to her cozy little world.
Love? Fortune? A life of bliss together?
Lies, all lies.
A little while ago, I said thinking wouldn't help. But there is such a thing as the instinct for survival. That always helps. There are even cases in which doctors have said it has cured a dread disease. Certainly it has saved many a Robinson Crusoe. It saved me. What did I do?
Well, there is always one opportunity available to reasonably good-looking and personable young men from the United States who find themselves exiled and abandoned on a foreign shore-that is, if the foreign shore is a resort catering to tourists from back home.
A certain percentage of the tourists are women traveling alone, or with other women. There are school teachers' tours, divorcees looking for adventure, young women who wish to broaden their outlook on life, dowagers, and bored wives whose husbands are back in the States busily making The Buck . . . and very possibly making their secretaries and a few other girls on the side.
What do these women want, in addition to a cable car ride to Sugar Loaf, a cog train trip to Corcovado, a dip at Copacabana, and a samba in some dark and exotic little club?
What do lonely women want everywhere, whether they will admit it or not?
Of course, they want an escort. He should speak English and be someone they can be comfortable with, which means that preferably he should be from their own country. It's funny, but foreigners in a strange land always seem to seek out their own kind. They will look at the natives, sometimes marveling and sometimes being repelled, but only the most adventurous will seek liaisons with them.
In addition to being escorted to Copacabana, Corcovado and all the other tourist spots, most of these lonely women-again, whether they will admit it or not-want to get themselves seduced.
In other words, screwed.
I fill the bill.
I don't work through an escort agency or a tourist bureau or anything as square as that. Anyway, most of these women wouldn't think of placing an order for what they want; they simply wait and hope that an interesting adventure will find them. I am their adventure, and I find them where they are most apt to beat Copacabana, Sugar Loaf, Corcovado, etc. I strike up a conversation. I ask them if they have seen such-and-such or been to so-and-so. Usually I catch them before they have been to all the places and, being interested in adventure, they let me talk them into acting as their escort. Somewhere along the line-in the midst of the escorting and the Samba dancing and the screwing-I tell them about my troubles, all of which are financial, of course. They usually are eager to help. Sometimes their help amounts to a mere pittance, but in Rio that will keep the wolf away. Sometimes, though, I strike it quite rich.
For instance, there was last night.. .
The broad was a divorcee, and her South American trip was a way of celebrating her newly-won freedom. She was in her early thirties, not at all bad-looking, and loaded with loot. Her ex-husband was in aluminum-an executive with one of the large corporations and her lawyer had succeeded in converting a good share of hubby's aluminum into gold for wifey's purse.
Her name was Margaret. I called her Margo, which she liked very much because her husband had always called her Maggie. I did other things for the benefit of her ego, and her body, which her husband had never done.
Yesterday we had our third date. We sunned at Copa, and in the evening danced our way from club to club. I accompanied her back to her hotel, and for the first time she invited me in.
So far, I had been picking up the tab for everything. (I was able to do this because I've worked up a certain amount of operating capital, a fund which I replenish each time I receive a payoff.) She had offered to pay her own way several times, but I had played the gentleman and refused.
Last night, after we'd both been inspired by hours of ogling bare-bellied Samba dancers while we ourselves danced, aglow from innumerable drinks, she let me storm her velvet fortress.
I kissed and caressed her heatedly, and when I knew she was ready to surrender, I swept her up in my arms and carried her to the bed.
Her dress and very skimpy slip slid off with ease, after which I placed her on her back and let her wait while I stripped completely.
The sight of her lying there-in black scanties and bra, her dark hose held up by black garter straps, her tanned flesh gleaming on her upper thighs-produced a vigorous response in my cock.
She gazed at it, her eyes going smoky and her lips becoming slack. She wriggled her ass against the bed in erotic anticipation.
I approached her in the way I have recently learned most women prefer to be approached-or is it just that I've had a steady diet of adventure seekers?
Anyway, I removed her bra, pausing only a few moments to admire and compliment and caress her smallish breasts. Then I unclipped her garter clasps, brushed the smoky-sheer hose slowly down her legs, and picked the stockings from her lacquered toes.
I urged her gently onto her back, hooked the waist elastic of her panties downward, and opened the hooks of her garter belt. I pulled the dangling garter straps up through her panties arid tossed the belt away.
She whimpered and remained on her belly. A little shiver passed through her, which caused her delectable, panty-embraced butt to quiver. I stripped her panties fully away and bent to kiss her lingeringly on each rear cheek, my tongue sliding, my lips and teeth nipping at the plump, resilient flesh.
This warmed her up a great deal. Women always seem to derive a great deal of pleasure from having their asses kissed.
Now I rolled her over, and she required no urging to spread her legs.
I positioned myself on my knees before the shrine, so to speak. I ruffled her silky black moss with my fingers and told her how pretty she was. She nearly swooned.
And then I bent quickly, catching her thighs from underneath and wrapping my arms around them, forcing them back and keeping them widely separated.
I kissed her with parted, suctioning lips, probing tongue, and occasionally with nibbling teeth. My tongue went everywhere-slithering and sliding, plunging and just tickling, lapping and licking her with utter abandon. Finally it concentrated on only the most sensitive place, and I kissed and sucked and nibbled her little clit until she soared screamingly into orbit, my head clamped between her hot, satiny thighs and her belly undulating wildly.
She reciprocated.
It was something, she told me later, that she had always wanted to do, but she had never had the nerve to ask her husband if she could do it to him.
Similarly, he had never had the nerve (or perhaps the desire) to do to her what I had just done.
Anyway, she took my penis to her humid, possessive kiss. I helped by telling her exactly what to do, and she did it eagerly. Her lips were like warm, moistened velvet; her tongue was a darting tip of flame. The suction was almost too much.
When she had me atingle with excitement, and no doubt had temporarily satisfied her own desire for naughty adventure, I eased her back against the bed, mounted her in the conventional way, and gave her the humping of her life.
Afterward, I told her my tale of woe, and . . . voila!
Today I am five hundred dollars richer, tax free, in a country where (if you're reasonably cautious) five hundred spends like eight or nine hundred in the States. And, of course, the five hundred was over and above all I had spent on her since we met. When she learned about my desperate financial state, she insisted on reimbursing me.
Well, she could afford it.
And she was getting value received.
Tonight, no doubt, she will expect more oral affection. It's getting so I actually dig that route. Afterward, perhaps I'll give her the supreme thrill of letting her go all the way like that with me. She strikes me as the sort who has always wanted to see what it would be like to ingest the male product.
And how does it all stack up?
This isn't the sort of life I would voluntarily have chosen. I've had to make a great many compromises. I am no longer the honest person I once prided myself in being.
Many times I've had the urge to chuck it and give myself up to the American authorities. But I haven't done so, and probably never will. Some day I'll become too old to carry on, and I hope by then I'll have enough loot set aside to retire gracefully. Already, I'm building up a nest egg.
Am I happy?
Well, let me parry the question and ask: Are you?
Some famous man once said that each person is just about as happy as he makes up his mind to be, and I think that's true. There isn't a one of us who couldn't have things better . . . or worse. Between the poles of absolute pleasure and absolute pain we languish, and eventually, when our time is up, we die. How much we get out of life, while warmth is in us, largely depends on us, regardless of what our circumstances may be.
This, at any rate, is what I keep telling myself.
And from one point of view, my life is one long, ever-loving ball.
But, then, you haven't seen some of the women I have to ball in order to make a buck.
Mostly, when I'm all alone and the hour is late and I'm unable to kid myself any longer, I think about Gloria and mentally take her apart, slowly and painfully.
Perhaps one day she'll come to Rio and visit the places all the other tourists do. Perhaps, with luck, I'll be at one of those places when she arrives. Then I may have the opportunity to screw her in the flesh as I have so far only done in my mind . . .
