She leaned away from me just far enough to pull her own bra around so that she could unhook it in front and peel it away from her as one might a coat. It dropped to the floor to reveal her total nudity. I stood as if hypnotized by her strangely magnetic beauty. Her breasts, free of the confining brassiere, were round and beautifully proportioned-like halves of twin white scoops of some wonderful confection topped with tasty pink dots from the centers of which her nipples rose like tiny fingers to point directly at me.
In a pleasant daze, I raised one hand and let it slide gently over the soft, firm contours so that I could savor like a blind child the magic sensation that shot up my arm from her hot flesh. But she only allowed me a fleeting feel of her body before she said, "Come on, Ginger, slip out of that skirt. Let's get into the tub. It's real fun in there."
CHAPTER ONE
I was twelve years old the day my life began. I was a little girl and it was Christmas, yet the birth of a Savior seemed anything but real. I was a child who would never be allowed her adolescence, for instead of Christ's birth I was thinking about my mother's death.
I sat on a bench in the hospital hall. My Aunt Irene sat next to me. In my hand I held a small bunch of flowers we had purchased downstairs, but I had gripped them so tightly that they were now sticky in my fist. I can still feel their soft, wet stems on my bare knee. I can still remember the old man in the white gown who walked down the corridor like Death himself and stopped in front of my aunt.
She rose to greet him and I noticed the square line where the bottom of her corset pressed through her dress. I remember wondering why a woman as pretty as Aunt Irene and as slim would wear a corset.
"How is she, Doctor?" my aunt said to the man.
I looked up to the man. His hair was grey; indeed, it seemed that his face had taken on a grey hue. It seemed even more colorless because of the piercing blue of his very sad but very kind eyes. He seemed so serious; if he moved his mouth, I thought, his whole face might break up like a vanilla cookie and splatter all over the floor.
"Physically," he said, "we've been successful." He paused as if he were looking with his eyes for the right words - as if they were hanging somewhere near his head waiting to be seen before spoken. "However, since she's a widow, this has been a double shock. Without a biological future, it's taken away a great deal of her spirit."
"But, there's Ginger," my aunt said. She looked very worried. She shifted nervous hands on her purse.
"Yes," the doctor said. He looked down at me and allowed a half smile of greeting to warm his face.
"The girl must grow up," my aunt said.
"Of course," the doctor said. "I'm sure she'll grow up to be a fine young lady." Then he turned back to Aunt Irene. "You must understand that, with sexual operations of this sort, particularly a double hysterectomy, we take a great psychological gamble. Sometimes an attractive young woman like your sister may feel that she is so sexually crippled that life is no longer worth living."
"But she's ... I mean ... she can still ... "
"Oh, of course. You must understand that the ovary is an amazing organ. We still don't know all its secrets. All I can really say is that removal, particularly double removal, often produces serious psychological complications which medicine simply can't cure. I'm not saying that hope is gone. I would never say that; but the prognosis is not good. She's come out of the operation with her physical health and her bodily strength, but I'm afraid she's committed herself to almost total apathy."
Aunt Irene sat down on the bench without saying another word and the doctor who had been so serious a moment before knelt in front of me. "Hi, sweetheart," he said. His voice wasn't serious anymore. It was cheerful. I remember he sounded like he was about to tell a great big fib.
"Hello," I said.
"What's your name, sweetheart?"
"Ginger."
"Well! That's a pretty name for a pretty little girl. Say, Ginger, how would you like to see your mom?"
I nodded my head.
"You know she's pretty sick?" he asked. "And she's in bed, so you must be very quiet when we see her."
"Is she going to die?" I asked. I looked at the man very hard hoping perhaps to see the truth in his sad eyes even if he did tell me a lie with his mouth.
He looked up to Aunt Irene for a second then turned back to face me. "Why," he said, "what a silly thing to say."
And I knew he was lying. I knew that Mother was going to die and that she wouldn't be home from the hospital for Christmas.
"Come on," the man said as he stood up and reached out his hand.
I straightened my back and rose from the bench. I did not take his offered hand, but followed him down the long corridor. I remember the doors, some open, some closed. I remember the big white beds and some of the people in them. In one room there was another little girl who had a cast on one leg, a huge white leg sticking out away from her and tied up in the air with a rope. I remember stopping at the door and looking at the little girl.
"I broke my leg," she told me.
I stayed there in the doorway until the doctor turned back, this time taking me by the hand and leading me across the hall to another door. This one was closed. He opened it and I walked in.
Inside, everything was white. The walls were white; the ceiling was white; even the blankets on the bed were white. Everything was without color - or any thought or any care. The first thing I thought was how much Mother had loved pretty colors and that here she was going to die and they wouldn't even let her have colors around.
It smelled white, too - impersonal under a bouquet of antiseptic and it seemed horribly cold because of no color or softness. The angles hurt my eyes and the terrible, terrible cleanliness of it all somehow offended my nostrils.
My mother was lying in the bed. She was the only thing in the room that wasn't white. She was grey - all but her hair. Her hair was raven and even more beautiful than it had been at home. Ebony as wet velvet, it seemed to glow like a halo around her grey satin face.
Her eyes were partially open, but they seemed to be very far back in her head, as if someone had pushed them in and all around them was going to turn black very soon.
I took one frail hand, like a gossamer leaf in one of my own and said, "Hello, Mother." I can still remember the sticky wet stems of the flowers still clutched tightly in my other fist. I remember feeling some sort of desperation about those flowers. I didn't want to lose them.
My mother rolled her head to one side. "Hello, darling," she said. Her voice sounded very far away. It sounded as if it was coming through a wall and it was very hollow in the room. I remember thinking that if the room hadn't been so white perhaps her voice wouldn't have sounded so hollow.
"I brought you some flowers," I said. "We got them downstairs." I handed her the frail little bunch of colors that I had clutched so tightly.
She reached out to take the offering and her hand was very slow. She seemed so terribly, terribly tired, but finally she did wrap her fingers around the sticky stems and lifted them to her nose.
"They're beautiful," she said. But it was as if she didn't really care if they were beautiful or not. "Thank you, darling."
The doctor came over then and took the flowers from her and left the room. I'm sure he wanted to find a nurse with a vase. Mother stared at me in a very strange way for the longest time when we were alone and she gripped my hand very tightly.
"Ginger," she finally said.
"Yes, Momma?"
Her lips tried to smile, but only quivered. Her hollow eyes raised to mine. "You're such a little girl, Ginger. There's so much I want to tell you. Oh, my darling, be a good girl and Ginger - no matter what happens - never be afraid."
Her eyes closed and her hand felt suddenly limp in mine. I stood beside the huge white bed, holding her hand, not really knowing it was dead. She was gone, but she was not gone either, because in an instant it seemed that she was raven and pastel again with laughter in her eyes. She was telling me funny stories as she sewed a button on a doll's dress and she was humming a little tune in the kitchen while she was cooking our supper. I remembered how strong she once was, how full of energy and laughter. And then, in that same instant, I remembered how the color had begun to fade from her cheeks and how her body, always slim, began to droop like a Goya woman's. She was still beautiful, a tiny spot of grey face and ebony hair in a huge white bed in a huge white room, but I knew she was dead and that I was alone.
I shall never know why I didn't cry. I suppose I was in shock. I placed her hand on the bedcovers and walked around to look out the window. The buildings of New York were speckled with lights where people worked late over their desks. The sky was black. A heavy snow was falling and had already buffeted the window in huge flakes that had sequined the lower panes and fallen into a small drift on the outer sill. From somewhere below, miles and centuries away, I could hear the electronic joy of a loud speaker dominating the animal grunts of traffic ...
"Deck the hall with boughs of holly,
Falalalalalalaa
'Tis the season to be jolly ... "
I turned away from the window and looked at my mother for the last time. She seemed so young and so beautiful and so very tired and asleep. But I knew that from this slumber she would never wake. I started to walk out of the room, but was met at the door by a nurse carrying a vase containing the flowers I had tried to give my mother. "Well, well!" she said, "Merry Christmas, sweetheart. What's your name?"
Then she looked up into the room to the bed and the smile left her face.
I walked into the corridor and turned down to where Aunt Irene still sat talking to the doctor. The heels of my black patent leather shoes seemed to punch ragged little holes into the emptiness of the corridor. Before I could reach Aunt Irene I saw the doctor look up, past me. He rose and came toward me, but he passed and I knew that the nurse I had seen in the room was probably calling him. I came up to Aunt Irene and told her, "Momma's dead."
She started to say something, but I saw her look up to where the doctor and nurse were standing. The doctor shook his head slowly from side to side. Aunt Irene clutched my hand and rose and marched me down the corridor to the elevators.
On the street, gusts of wind eddied the powdered snow above the mudded layer of sidewalk slush. I put my hands into my coat pockets as Aunt Irene and I started home. We waited for a traffic light and I noticed a sign on the plate glass window of a department store: "Only Five More Shopping Days 'Til Xmas." I heard a loud speaker on the lamp post next to me ...
"Sleep in Heavenly peace,
Sle - ep in Heavenly peace ... "
We crossed the street with a cold and chattering group of late shoppers. On another corner a very thin and stooped Santa Claus jangled an apathetic bell beside his tripod and pot and I remember Aunt Irene gave him a coin or two.
"Merry Christmas, Sister," he said.
Later we passed two little boys about my own age. They alternately stood and hopped on the sidewalk, obviously cold despite the fact that they were bundled in woolen gloves, leather jackets, ear muffs and garish, striped scarf's. They had russet faces and a joyous animation to their blue lips. They smelled of cold dirt that had remained for many days under their clothing.
They finished singing a song as we approached and one of them busied himself scooping a few pennies from the sidewalk. The other one stood in front of me, but looked up to Aunt Irene.
"What'll it be, Ma'am?"
Aunt Irene shook her head and started to move on, but the boy stopped her.
"Come on, lady. Ain't ya got no favrit?"
I remember being numb with the cold and somehow shocked by the boy's aggressiveness. Perhaps Aunt Irene felt the same way, for she didn't speak either.
The boy turned away from us and faced the small group of people standing around him and his companion. "Special request fa da pretty girl an' her mudder," he announced. Then he whispered something into the ear of the other boy and they started to sing ...
"Joy to da werld
Da Lord is come ... "
Aunt Irene gave my arm a sharp tug and again we trudged through the slush and falling snow, the crowds of shoppers, the noise and bustle, until we reached her small apartment.
She had not spoken one word to me on all the long walk there and she did not begin when we arrived. She seemed very intense, almost surly in the way she removed her coat and hung it up. Only after she had made a big pot of tea and poured me a cup of it did I dare speak to her. Somehow, in the warmth of the small apartment, some of the initial shock of my mother's death began to peel away from me; but strangely I seemed to be in complete control of myself. I think perhaps that the fact of mother's dying while alone with me had somehow given me a sudden and great maturity which I might not have possessed otherwise.
My mind seemed full of practical considerations and nothing else. All the time mother had been in hospital I had been living with Aunt Irene in her small apartment but suddenly I wondered seriously if I was to stay there. I knew she was thinking of getting married and I wondered if her new husband would let me stay there. I was afraid because I sensed he didn't like me.
I drank almost half my tea 'before I was able to ask her if I was going to stay in the apartment.
Aunt Irene put her own cup firmly in its saucer and the saucer on the coffee table with a deliberateness that seemed absolutely and irrevocably final. "We'll have to think about that, Ginger," she said. "We'll have to think about that for some time."
And I knew then as I stared into the depths of my tea cup that I was to be hopelessly and utterly alone. My father had been dead for three years. He was never a wealthy man, but somehow mother never seemed to have to work all the time to support the two of us. Now that she was gone, I couldn't imagine whom I might stay with if Aunt Irene didn't want me with her. I knew that Mother had some relatives in New York who of course would all be known to Aunt Irene; and I had heard that Father had had some family out of state, but I knew none of these people. I felt empty and a tiny bubble of fear began to grow in my heart.
It took me a long time to remember my mother's last words, but even with them echoing in my mind I could not totally believe them. Yet, somehow, my strange new maturity began to act for me and I determined to use every bit of cleverness I had to convince Aunt Irene's boyfriend to let me stay in the apartment with them. I knew he was expected to come over that night for dinner and that, as he had done many times before, he might stay overnight, with my aunt.
Strangely, perhaps, my twelve year old mind took one great giant step from childhood to maturity and I decided to use every coy feminine wile I could muster to convince Henry to let me remain with him and my aunt.
CHAPTER TWO
Henry Childress was a thin, handsome, angular man who always seemed to be looking at me out of the corner of his eye. It always seemed that when he was around I could look up from whatever I might be doing to find that he was staring at me in the strangest way. I never really liked Uncle Henry, because there always seemed to be something dark and hidden about him. Behind his good looks and the wire-rimmed glasses that didn't hide them I always felt that he was thinking mean and dirty things. Sometimes, I could almost - almost but not quite - feel his thoughts as if they were running slippery fingers over my body and often I would get goose-bumps and feel embarrassed and leave the room.
But that night I determined that I would conquer any such feelings. I was determined, whether I liked him or not, to make him know that I really wanted to stay with him and Aunt Irene after they got married.
But I knew I would have to be clever about it. I couldn't just ask him. I would have to wait for the right time before I could play the part of the cuddly loving little girl.
I knew that he would be arriving shortly and somehow I wanted to take my nightly bath before he got there. Again, the only reason I can offer now for this desire then was that strange new feeling of maturity that seemed to have filled me instantly after Mother's death. Now, of course, I can say that my actions that evening were those of a mature and sexually aware woman setting about to seduce a man to her will. Then such thoughts would have brought amazement to me or perhaps even laughter. I had absolutely no idea whatsoever about sex. Mother had never taken the time to instruct me unless I asked a question and while she was alive I had been a remarkably incurious child. Life with her seemed so much the way it should be that there was no real curiosity.
Then she went to the hospital and I never thought to ask Aunt Irene such questions. Besides, I doubt if she would have answered them anyway. She was always so stiff and rigid. I suppose it was because she was Mother's older sister but had not been blessed with Mother's charm or personality. Aunt Irene was an attractive woman but I don't think she ever really believed it. Some part of her never seemed to believe in herself and because that tiny part of her feminine confidence was gone I think she tried to mask it by being stiff and formal. Maybe that's why she wore a corset; I don't know.
She wasn't always so formal; I learned that later on. But she was formal enough to be forbidding if I were to ask her any special questions.
Strangely, that night I didn't seem to need any answers to any questions. It seems now in looking back that I became aware, in a flash of total knowledge, of all things. It was a complete revelation and yet one I could never explain and wasn't consciously aware of.
The main thing, however, was that I asked permission to take my bath early, before dinner and Aunt Irene agreed.
I had just finished bathing and had stepped out of the tub to dry myself when I heard the front door chimes ring and knew that Uncle Henry had arrived. Standing naked in the tiny bathroom, a huge towel wrapped loosely around my chest and tucked over the tiny first buddings of my breasts, something made me stop all movement, cross to the bathroom door, which I had left slightly ajar and listen to their conversation. After their first greetings they kissed and then I heard Aunt Irene say that she had something important to talk over that night but that she had forgotten some things for dinner and had to go around the corner to the deli. She told Uncle Henry to make himself comfortable for a few minutes until she got back and told him I'd be out in a moment.
He agreed. I heard a rustle of clothing. The front door opened and closed again and then there was silence. A moment later I heard Uncle Henry open the refrigerator and pull out an ice tray. I knew he was fixing himself a drink in the kitchen and was probably sitting down to finish it before Aunt Irene came back.
And then again a strange tingling half-fear, half-elation seemed to ripple through me. Looking back over the years, it still seems as if some power other than my own will, yet not entirely foreign to it, had taken command of my being by very definite stages.
First I became conscious of my body for the first time in my life. I seemed compelled to look at it to inspect every minor detail of line and form. I backed away from the inch-open bathroom door and turned so that I was facing the floor-length mirror beside the tub. I stood there for a long time inspecting the damp bronze of my hair and my serious blue eyes. I turned my head slightly this way and that so that I could see my ears and the little dots in their lobes where they had been pierced for earrings the year before. I smiled and watched the two tiny clusters of freckles on my cheeks lift as if in welcome to my revealed teeth. Then I let my lips drop again, assumed a serious (one might even say seductive) expression and puckered my lips as if to kiss an imaginary prince.
Lost in some sort of Narcissistic revelry, I was eminently pleased with my face. I was happy that, even though still the face of a child, it had already begun to show the first positive hint of containing my mother's beauty and my father's illusion of perpetual inner laughter despite outer problems. In line and form it was the same, thin but beautifully delicate face of my mother, with the same feminine jaw and high Spanish cheekbones. But in coloring I had somehow copied my father's red-blond Celtic hues. My hair was bronze then but only because of the water still in it. It would dry to fit my name to ginger and cinnamon and nutmeg with tiny flecks of gold dust sprinkled here and there by (as my father had told me) "the little people."
Then with a strange feeling half of shame and half of raw and brazen courage, I slowly reached up to where I had tucked one corner of the towel over the other and in movements which were meticulous began to peel the cloth away from my body. It was as if I hardly dared look again into the mirror until I had taken both corners of the towel and held them both at arm's length to reveal myself totally naked, my arms spread as if holding a magic cape instead of a few yards of terry cloth.
I was thin, yes and my body still had the angular, boyish look of athletic young girls; but what was there of the tomboy was little more than a memory countered by a prophesy of my coming womanhood. My breasts were tiny half-formed mounds that had begun not as nipples shooting out like crops in spring but rather like whole risings that showed immediately the size and shape of the finished bustline. They were wide around, but rose but an inch or so from my ribcage.
My torso was still that of a child with ribs showing and an almost masculine muscle pattern running tracks across my belly. But lower, at my waist, I could already see the forming of my woman's body to be. From navel out and then curving in a delicate, smooth line, my hips told me that one day I would be able to bear fine, big, healthy children - and that I would become a woman who would deliver them easily to the world.
Between those hips the first few strands of gossamer silk sparkled gold and red under the single bulb of the bathroom light, but did not as yet cover the fold of the organ they covered.
My legs were long and promised to be longer still. From my hips they tapered into firmly-rounded thighs - the thighs of a grown woman, but contradicted somehow by the calves of a little girl.
My whole body was a contradiction, I thought. One part was already woman, another only hinted and whispered that one day, very soon, it would become woman and a third was not yet ready to be anything other than little girl; still another seemed to be that of a pre-adolescent boy without appearing feminine at all.
It was all very confusing and complicated and I confess I must have stood in front of that mirror for a long time looking at this part, examining that part and shaking my head slowly from side to side in wonder and doubt.
I was still doing that, my arms still spread wide holding the corners of the terrycloth towel behind me, when I glanced over the shoulder of my mirror-image to see that somehow the bathroom door behind me was now almost all the way open. Uncle Henry was standing in the hall looking at me, the same strangely frightening expression of deep thought on his face I had noted there a hundred times.
Yet somehow, I was neither shocked nor startled to see him there. Instead I was gripped by a brazenness which I had no idea I even possessed. Much to my own amazement I let my arms drop slightly as I turned around to face him and only half-pulled the towel close to me again to cover my pubic region.
"Oh," I lied. "You startled me, Uncle Henry. I didn't know you were here."
He stared at my bust and navel a long time before he spoke. It was as if his eyes had somehow grown invisible fingers which, like the curious paws of a shy but desperately hungry cat, were touching me, then pulling away only to touch again.
"I'm sorry," he said at length. "I didn't realize you were so ... I mean, taking a bath."
Slowly and without moving my eyes from his, I again raised the towel and tucked it over my bosom. "I was just finished," I said. "Come ahead."
I walked out of the bathroom and brushed against him as I went to the closet where my night clothes were hanging with some other things I had brought from my mother's apartment.
He stood in the hall, following me with his eyes, the ice in his glass making a strangely nervous ticking sound against the sides. At the closet door I stopped, my hand on the knob and turned back to where he still stood. I smiled for just an instant before opening the closet door.
In that fleet moment his eyes dropped and with an audible swallow he turned into the bathroom and closed the door behind him. As I reached into the closet for my flannel nightdress, I heard the click of the lock within the bathroom and again something I hardly understood made me smile.
Then, for a moment, my entire new-found maturity and seductiveness - my whole patina of brashness and feminine confidence - fell away like a cloud scattered to nothing by a gust of wind. Suddenly I was a shy and lost little girl again whose mother had just died and who had no idea how she would spend the rest of her life. I was embarrassed and guilty about the way I had displayed myself to Uncle Henry and I felt terribly uneasy about the way he had looked at me as if his eyes could actually taste the few drops of water that had still remained on my body.
With a frantic haste I dropped the towel and slipped into my nightdress and housecoat and then, to insure perfect modesty, buttoned both garments tightly to my chin. Only when I was safely clad again did any sense of my mission return to me. And as I folded the towel I knew that I would have to talk to Uncle Henry before Aunt Irene came back.
I knew it would be difficult because they were not at that time married; even though they did see a great deal of one another I think they were still somewhat unsure of their plans. But I felt that if Uncle Henry did agree to let me stay Aunt Irene would agree with him.
Also, I knew - or, rather, felt - that there was something in the way his eyes had run over my bare body that held the secret to the man himself. But even possessed of a strange and new found sense of maturity, I was still naive enough to be unable to understand the situation completely. I was, however, sure of one thing - Uncle Henry really liked to look at me without my clothing on. And I myself felt a certain pride in being stared at in the way he had stared at me. If he would let me stay on with Aunt Irene I was prepared to let him look at me any time he wanted to.
Of course what I didn't know was that men who look at little girls are never really content to let their thoughts end there. A look will demand a touch, a touch will demand another and there is no end to demands after that.
But these things I did not know and frankly had I known them I doubt if I would have paid them any great heed. I had lost my mother and my home and now I was playing a desperate game to be able to remain in the only secure place I knew of in the whole of New York - perhaps even the world.
If I could only stay, I thought, I would do anything he wanted ... anything
CHAPTER THREE
I was already comfortably seated in the apartment's only chair when I heard the toilet flush and saw Uncle Henry come out of the bathroom. He looked at me once with a strangely nervous expression in his eyes and then without a word turned his back, crossed the room to the pullman kitchen and poured himself another drink. He seemed to remain standing over the little sink for some time longer than necessary before he turned and without looking at me, crossed to the day-bed and sat down.
His attention, for the first time since I had known him, seemed completely and utterly riveted on the glass in his hand, but I knew that his thoughts were somehow still centered on me and what I must have looked like when I turned to face him in the bathroom. And again, as if it were coming in flows and waves, the naive childishness of a moment before dissipated like morning fog under a bright sun and I was filled with the strange newness of understanding and knowledge. The two of us sat together in the small room. I was a twelve year old child. He was a man in his early thirties. Yet I knew that I was absolute master of the situation. I also knew that there was something about my body that gave me that mastery; but what that something was I did not understand.
As if by instinct, I began to fiddle with the topmost button of my housecoat as I quietly announced to him, "Momma died today, Uncle Henry."
He looked over to me suddenly. It was a very slight jerk of his head, really, but so short and rapid that I honestly wondered why he didn't cry out in pain. "Died?" he said. "But that's impossible. I mean people don't die of hysterectomies. It's a simple operation. There's no risk to a ... I mean ... Died? Are you sure, Ginger?"
"Yes," I told him. "I was there. I'm sure."
"Died," he said again. "I can't believe it." He looked down at his drink as if surprised to find it in his hand and then, after the moment or two it seemed to take him to recognize what it was, lifted the glass and took a long pull of the yellow liquid.
I had unbuttoned the top button of my housecoat and was now fiddling with the second one. "Where shall I go, Uncle Henry?" I asked. "I mean, can I stay here with you and Aunt Irene?"
"Here?" he said. "I can't tell you that. How can I tell you that? I don't live here. This is Irene's place. It's not as if we're married or I'm a relative. Hell, I never even met your mom but once. No, you'll have to ask Irene about that. That's her problem, not mine."
My housecoat was completely unbuttoned now and my fingers were already toying with the top button of my nightdress. "But, you're going to be married after Christmas, aren't you? And then you'll be a relative."
"Yes, but -"
I jumped out of the chair and fairly ran to where he was sitting. I jumped on the day-bed and threw my arms around him. "Please, Uncle Henry," I begged. "I've got to stay somewhere and you and Aunt Irene are the only two grownups I know. Please, Uncle Henry ... "
I paused and pulled slightly away from him so that I was looking directly in his eyes as the fingers of my right hand gently touched the second button of my nightdress and I whispered, "I'll do anything you say, Uncle Henry. If only you'll let me stay ... anything ... "
It seemed as if his eyes suddenly changed to those of a trapped animal. They filled with a terrible fear mixed with a feral wildness I had never seen in him before. They moved down to look at where my hand still rested lightly on the second button and they stayed there for a moment as he raised his own hand to cover mine, extending one finger to probe gently past the gown and touch the flesh directly between my breasts.
His breath became heavier. I could see his face moving slowly toward mine. His eyes lifted to mine and an expression of lost pleading, of hopeless begging, was in them as they held mine for a moment and then disappeared behind closed lashes. His lips were but an inch from mine and his hand was pressing lightly on one breast when the apartment door opened.
In a flash his hand moved, but he continued with the kiss. He pecked me lightly on the cheek as if I were a child again. He made a huge, almost disgusting smacking sound with his lips and said, "Well, I hope you have a merry Christmas yourself. So there."
Of course I knew instantly what had happened. Aunt Irene had returned. She stood in the door holding a moderately large bag of groceries in one arm and staring at Uncle Henry and me in a manner that for a fleet second indicated a mixture of doubt and amazement, but that then seemed suddenly to relax into one of beaming happiness.
Before she could speak I rushed over to take the grocery bag from her arm and to announce, "Uncle Henry says I can stay here with you ... I mean if you say it's O.K."
Again the doubt and amazement returned as she glanced to where her fianc�e still sat on the day-bed and it seemed this time there was just the slightest hint of jealous anger in her eyes.
"Really?" she said. "Well, we have a lot of talking to do first. Here ... " She handed me the groceries and I began to put them away as she poured herself a drink and sat next to Uncle Henry on the couch.
She seemed in a more or less pleasant mood considering the circumstances of the day. I don't know yet whether in some corner of her mind she was really happy about Mother's death or whether she was only trying to be pleasant in order to give the apartment an atmosphere of holiday gaiety.
I do know that the rest of our conversation that evening had nothing to do with Mother or me. Uncle Henry told some stories about people he worked with and I hardly remember what Aunt Irene had to say. I do know two things, however. Both of them had a bit more to drink than they usually did and whenever I looked up I saw that Uncle Henry's strange tasting and touching eyes were on me looking at my nightdress just at the exact spot where his hand had been resting when Aunt Irene had come in the door.
They were still up and talking at ten o'clock when it was time for me to go to bed. I wanted to stay and listen, but something told me that if I remained with them I might never hear the news I wanted. I thought that from my cot in the apartment's small alcove I could probably hear and learn more than I could if I actually stayed with them. Just at ten o'clock, then, I said goodnight to both of them, kissed Aunt Irene and then, with a barely whispered "Please," kissed Uncle Henry and then went to bed.
Unfortunately, too late I discovered that I had made a mistake. I could not understand any but their loudest words from the alcove, although the sounds from the main room were clear. I lay in bed staring at the ceiling, doubts and fears struggling through my mind, wishing all of this were a terrible, terrible dream. I didn't want to stay here in this small apartment and I didn't really like either Uncle Henry or Aunt Irene.
I just felt hopelessly lost and alone. All the false maturity that had been a part of me that evening seemed to vanish again, leaving me more a child than I had ever been. For the first time since my sure knowledge of her death the hard, brutal fact of my mother's permanent absence swept over me like a coat of ice and I could not stop the flow of scalding tears that poured from my very soul in a useless attempt to melt it.
I was alone, lonely, unwanted and terribly, terribly afraid. I was afraid of the way Uncle Henry had looked at me in the bathroom, afraid of the way he had started to kiss me and afraid of the wet clamminess of his palm that had so casually rested for an instant against my breast.
Lying there surrounded by a sorrow so intense I shall never be able to describe it accurately, consumed by a formless, all-encompassing fear, I cried and I sobbed until no more tears were left in me. Then, exhausted yet still unable to sleep, I lay back against my pillow and closed my eyes.
And then and I swear this by all I believe in, my mother herself came to me again; I could feel her living hand on my brow as gentle and warm as a summer zephyr. I opened my eyes and I saw her face before me as it had been when she was strong and full of laughter. Her hair was alive and raven again, her skin a delicate pastel. A soft, gentle smile was on her lips.
"Ginger," she whispered so that I could hardly hear. "No matter what happens, darling, never be afraid. Never be afraid ... "
And then she was gone, her hand gone from my brow and there was only the darkness of the alcove and the sounds of conversation from the main room. I know it was not a dream. My mother had been there. She had come to me when I needed her most and she had spoken to me. And then I knew what had been happening to me all that evening. I can't prove it, of course, but I knew for the first time as surely as I knew my own name that my mother's spirit, the spirit of her love for me, had come back - had given me her maturity, her understanding, her knowledge.
That was the strange power I had felt come and go! That was what had shattered my girlish shyness and had made me so bold with Uncle Henry! That was what would always be with me when I needed it to carry me from the dependent lost tangle of my childhood to a grown woman's maturity.
I lay on my cot and I think I spoke aloud, thanking my mother. I was calm. My tears were gone and I was not afraid. My curiosity about my future still remained, but it was uncluttered with doubts and anxieties.
But I still could not sleep. I heard and saw the lights go out in the main part of the apartment and I knew that Uncle Henry and Aunt Irene were going to go to sleep on the day-bed, as they often did.
Now, it seemed, an unbounded curiosity swept over me. Not only was my fear gone, but any sense of pure caution seemed to have vanished with it. Surely, I thought, they would talk before going to sleep; and if I could hear their conversation I would know my fate.
Gently, silently, I pulled the covers aside and stood up. Like a cat stalking a bird I inched out of the alcove so that I was standing just beside the door to the main room of the apartment. From there I could hear every word and every breath. I could see the day-bed which had been pulled apart to form a double bed and the silhouettes of the two figures in it outlined against the lights that came from the city beyond the window.
Their voices seemed to be coming in grunts and whispers more than in words, but every now and then I could hear snatches of conversation. Almost immediately, I knew they were not talking about me or my mother, but the way they were talking wove some strange net of fascination around me and seemed to lure me closer while at the same time trying to pull me away.
"Oh," my aunt sighed. "Oh, don't do that, Hank ... not there. That's my special place ... "
"Like it?" I heard him mumble. "Like that? Right there?"
"Oh, darling, yes ... yes ... just a little higher ... yes, right there ... just like that ... oh, Hank never stop. You make me go crazy, Hank ... I never felt like ... oh, Hank, I love you so much ... so much my darling ... "
"Irene, you're so wet ... so big and wide and wet. I like it when you're wet for me like this. I want to touch you and kiss you and ... "
"Kiss me!"
"Would you like that? You want me to taste you there?"
"Oh, Hank, I don't know. I mean, it's not right ... I mean, I never ... I'm so shy, darling. Teach me. Love me ... oh, Hank, do anything, anything. I'm yours, all yours ... no other man has ever ... "
Something in the strange sound of their voices rather than in the words themselves made me inch forward so that I could get a better view. I had absolutely no idea what could make two grown-up people talk in such a silly, gushy way. I was particularly amazed by my aunt, who always seemed to be such a perfect example of proper - even priggish - behavior. I could see the covers of the big bed pulled aside and then Uncle Henry's shadow as it hovered over my aunt.
For a moment I was stunned because I realized that neither one of them had any clothing on at all. Of course, even though the temperature outside was below freezing the heat in the building was on and we didn't really need to sleep in our nightdresses; but still, to think of Aunt Irene ever going to bed without a nightdress was downright shocking.
And then I saw Uncle Henry's shadow bend down so that his head was touching her on the bust and he was kissing her on the breasts.
"Oh, my love ... my God, my love ... " she began to whisper. "Oh, that's so good, Hank ... so good!"
And then his shadow moved again and his body slid lower so that he seemed to be kissing Aunt Irene right on the tops of her legs. At that time I thought any such thing was completely impossible. But from the sounds she was making I could not doubt that whatever he was doing she was enjoying, because she gasped and sighed and kept saying things like, "Oh, my darling" and "oh, my God" and "Oh, Hank, I never in my life, it's so good."
Then, like some huge giant, I saw Uncle Henry rise so that even kneeling on the bed he seemed to tower over my aunt. It seemed that he lifted her somehow and then lay right on top of her and she gasped aloud, this time with a sound that I was sure meant she was in great pain.
When his body began to move up and down on her and when he in turn began to grunt at her, I knew suddenly that, for some reason, he was trying to kill her. And I couldn't have that. Even though I didn't really like my Aunt Irene, I didn't want her dead. Then I would have no place to go.
All fear was gone. I was instantly filled with a courage made heroic by my desperation.
I flicked on the living room lights and dashed to the bed where, before its occupants could move, I began to beat Uncle Henry with all my strength around the head and shoulders. I must have screamed at him too and accused him of trying to murder my aunt.
The poor man fell away from my onslaught amazed and terrified. I hardly noticed his nudity or the erectness of his male organ. He slipped from the bed to the floor, where I was able to kick him brutally several times before I was roughly grabbed by my aunt, who pulled me away.
"Ginger! Ginger!" she screamed. "Stop this!"
She repeated herself several times, before I became calm enough to have any control of myself whatsoever and then, still holding me so that I could not see her. Aunt Irene led me to the alcove door telling me that she would come to see me in a moment.
I lay down, listened to their muffled voices without hearing what they were saying and then looked up as Aunt Irene, now in a house robe, sat down beside me on the cot.
"Poor dear," she said. "You shouldn't have done a thing like that."
"But Aunt Irene," I blurted, "I saw ... he was trying to kill you."
Her face was absolutely serious but fortunately some part of her mind was able to overcome her usually priggish manner sufficiently to explain the truth of what I had seen. Of course it wasn't a good explanation; there were no details. I was just told that she and Uncle Henry were in love and that what I had seen and had tried to stop was a love act.
She seemed to rush through her story and explanation and to be unwilling to answer any questions; I never asked her why, if it was an act of love, had Uncle Henry tried to kill her But she did succeed in making me more calm and then, giving me an almost totally impersonal kiss on the forehead, turned out the alcove light and returned to the apartments main room.
There I could see the light go out and again hear muffled voices, but this time I knew they were not doing the same thing again. Knowing they were now talking - probably about me - I again crept to the door and listened.
"Little bitch," Uncle Henry was saying. "How's she get off trying a thing like that."
"Don't be hard on the poor child," my aunt said. "She didn't know. She thought you were trying to kill me."
"Kill you! Don't make me laugh. She knows what's what. You ought to have seen the little mink prancing around here while you were gone."
"What do you mean"
"What do I mean? What do I mean? I mean she's as wild about sex as her mother was supposed to be. She was trying to make me ... well, she was making overtures."
"That's ridiculous. She's only a child."
"In a pig's eye. She may be young, but I'll bet you dollars to doughnuts she knows what she's doing. I know what she's doing too, mind you. She knows you can't keep her here and she knows I'm not taking in any damned orphans and she's just damned well trying to get back at me."
There was a long silence before Aunt Irene spoke again. When she did her voice seemed far away but completely resolved. "I didn't think you wanted her," she said, "and I hate myself for it, but I can't love her either. It's terrible, Hank, terrible. I feel so guilty. I really hated her mother, you know. And then I hated myself for not loving my own sister. She was always so beautiful, so alive, so happy and I ... I was always miserable - until I met you. Oh, Hank, darling, please don't leave me. I'll find a place for Ginger. I really will."
"What about Christmas?" he asked. It seemed that an iced edge of cruelty had been suddenly honed onto his voice.
"Please, darling, just give me tomorrow. I'll make some calls, I promise you. It will just be you and me. No Ginger between us."
Slowly I turned from the door and walked the heavy steps to my cot. Like a robot, I lay down and pulled the covers over my body. I was shocked, stunned, barely able to breathe. So it was true. Nobody loved me; not even my own aunt. My only friend, my only hope, my mother was dead and not even buried and already I was to be cast out into the cold of winter. I remembered the two boys who had tried to sing for us on the street as we walked home from the hospital.
"Joy to the world ... "
But there was no joy for me, only a hopeless pit into which I would be thrown the following morning.
And yet self pity did not take a hold of me and strangely I was not sad. If anything I was touched by a peculiar pride, for I had hit upon a truth which I might not have known otherwise. Again - call it what you will - the strange feeling of maturity or the comforting spirit of my mother seemed to flow into me, bringing with it confidence and hope.
I knew that I was to be tossed out like scrap, but I also had the strangely wonderful feeling that I would be tossed into a world that was warmer and happier than that of my aunt and her fianc�e.
CHAPTER FOUR
Apparently it took Aunt Irene more than just one day to make her calls, but despite her nervousness and the constant arguments she had with Uncle Henry I retained my confident hope. Another feeling seemed to creep over me from time to time: I realized that I didn't like Uncle Henry at all and that I really didn't like Aunt Irene, either. My mother had just died and they weren't even sad; all they could think of was when they were going to get married and how soon they could get rid of me.
I determined that, somehow, some way, I was going to pay them back. The chance came on the morning of the day before Christmas. Apparently Henry had taken the entire day off in hopes of seeing Irene, but she was still too busy with her errands to spend the day with him. He had a key to the apartment and came in at about 10:30 that morning.
Almost the instant I heard the door open. I seemed filled with knowledge and assurance and I might say, with a bit of impish perversity to go along with them. I was aware that I would not be allowed to stay where I was. I was also aware that Henry was infatuated by my body. I knew that Aunt Irene would be back within a few minutes and I determined to have her catch me and her boyfriend doing something.
At first I had thought that the door's opening had meant my Aunt Irene's return, but when I heard Henry's voice calling her name I was aware of the situation. At the time of his arrival I was in my little alcove, straightening up. I was completely clothed in a skirt and sweater when the door opened, but when I heard his voice I seemed instantly taken by a strange and half-formed plan.
In no more than a second or two at the most I ripped off my sweater and skirt and slipped out of my shoes so that I was standing in no more than a pair of knee soxs, my panties and a tiny bra. Scantily clad like that I walked to the door which divided the alcove from the main apartment and making sure that Henry had a perfect view of me I said, "Oh," as I assumed a pose as shy and innocent as I possibly could.
Henry seemed to turn to stone. He stood halfway into the room, one hand still on the door knob, as he stared at the budding young form I presented him. After several moments he seemed finally to muster the strength necessary to close the door behind him. His eyes never stopped caressing me.
"Where's Irene?" he asked.
"She's out," I said.
"I know that," he snapped. "Out where? For how long?"
"She had some shopping to do. I don't think she'll be back for a couple of hours." The first statement was true. Aunt Irene did have some shopping to do - but I knew she intended to hurry back as soon as she could, to meet Henry. "I didn't know you were coming over," I continued. "If I had I wouldn't be so ... so ... well, you know, naked."
He swallowed hard. I could hear the heavy thudding gulp from three yards away.
"It's alright," he said finally. "You just go ahead with what you're doing. I'll fix myself a drink."
"I'm not doing anything special, Uncle Henry," I said. "Why not let me make it?"
Without giving him time to reply I walked out of the alcove to the kitchen and knowing that his eyes never left the soft curves of my tender buttocks, made him a drink. When I had mixed the bourbon and ice with water the way he liked it I turned to him, arched my back ever so slightly so that the tiny mounds of my breasts thrust forward and walked over to hand it to him.
His hand was trembling slightly as he took the glass from my hand, but he did manage to thank me. His eyes fairly rolled and slid over my body as he lifted the glass to his lips for a long pull at the drink.
"There," I said after he had lowered the glass again. "That's better, isn't it?"
"Ginger," he said. "Go get some clothes on."
"Please, Uncle Henry," I begged. "It's so hot in here with the heat on and besides," I lowered my voice, "I thought you liked to look at me."
He took another long swallow that almost emptied the glass and then, a strangely kind expression flitting over his face, he reached out, clasped my hand in his and rose to his feet.
"Come on, Ginger," he said. "Let's both get you dressed so you'll be nice and pretty."
With that he led me toward the alcove door, but at the moment before passing through he stopped. "Tell you what," he said, "we'll do this right. You slip out of everything and we'll dress you right from scratch, alright? Get ready now while I fix another drink. Just slip out of those panties and bra and I'll be right in to help you choose what you'll wear today."
Somehow vaguely disappointed and with a feeling akin to rejection, I slipped into the alcove again. For a moment I was afraid, although of what I couldn't know. Then, in a flash, my main purpose came back to me. I realized that I didn't have much time and that I had to hurt Uncle Henry by the time Aunt Irene came back.
I wasn't bashful at all as I unsnapped and slipped my arms out of my bra. Then I slipped out of my panties and as I peeled them down my long legs hooked my thumbs under the elastic of my stockings and removed them, too.
I was completely naked when Henry, now with a fresh drink in hand, walked into the alcove and sat down on my narrow bed. He took a pull of his drink and gently reached out to take my hand.
"Bet you never seen a man naked before, have you," he asked.
"Sure," I said. " 'Course I have. Lots of them. Gosh, Uncle Henry, you're a man, aren't you?"
"I mean," he said, "down here."
He lifted my hand and placed it gently on his lap so that I could feel a funny long bump there.
"Ever felt anything like that before?" he asked. His eyes were twinkling in some sort of strange way and his fingers were gently clutching mine.
"No."
"Want to see it?"
"Gosh, sure."
With that he unzipped his fly, reached inside the opening and after a slight struggle pulled his penis out of his trousers.
It was hard and long and a pale white in color except for the very tip which was pale purple. Without his asking me I was suddenly overcome by a compelling desire to touch this strangely fascinating shaft. As I did so he placed his hand over mine and with slow, gentle movements, showed me how to move his foreskin up and down the length of his organ to give him maximum pleasure. Then he showed me how to increase the tempo of my rhythm so that his pleasure became increasingly more intense.
As I had hoped we were sitting there on my bed, he fully clothed; I stark naked but with my hand beating a fantastic tattoo on his rigid penis, when Aunt Irene walked into the apartment and slammed the door behind her.
Poor Uncle Henry had just had time to leap to his feet and turn around to tuck his penis back into his pants when Aunt Irene walked into the alcove.
"Ginger!" she gasped. "Whatever are you doing without your ... and Henry ... Henry, what is this?"
The poor man turned around, still fumbling with the top of his trousers. "What is what?"
"Oh, don't play the innocent with me! Just look at you - and Ginger sitting there without a stitch on!"
"For Christ's sweet sake, Irene. What the hell - are you blaming me for the kid's problem? I just came through here to go to the can. How the hell should I know she was even in here, let alone getting dressed?"
"Now, Uncle Henry ... " I purred.
"You shut your depraved little mouth," he said, then turning to Aunt Irene. "That's the story, believe it or not. I couldn't care less; either you trust me or you don't." He started to move out of the alcove, but Aunt Irene stopped him with one now-gentle hand on his shoulder. Their eyes met for a fleeting second before she turned to me and with the most hateful expression I had ever seen said, "As for you, young lady, get some clothes on and be quick about it."
She led Henry out of the alcove and into the main room of the apartment. Instead of redressing I went from where I had been sitting to a point where I could hear their conversation without being seen.
"Oh, Henry," she was saying when I arrived. "Oh, Henry how could you ... a little child like Ginger. Just a baby ... "
"How could I? How could I? What the hell are you talking about? I told you, Irene, I just mixed a drink and then got up to go to the can. I didn't even know the kid was there. Hell, I just went in there the very moment you came in. I don't know what kind of dirty thoughts are running through your mind, but don't lay them on me. You know what I think of the kid. The sooner you get rid of her, the happier I'll be."
"You mean that, Henry? You really mean that?"
"Of course I mean it. You don't think I go around playing with little girls, do you?"
"You must admit it looked kind of, well, suspicious." Her voice seemed to have softened a bit.
His hadn't. "I don't give a flying fuck what it looked like. Either you believe me or you don't."
"Oh, Henry, Henry ... I could tell by the sound of her voice that she had thrown her arms around him. "I believe you, darling - and sweetheart, I have some wonderful news for you."
"Yes? What?"
"About Ginger. I've found a home for her."
"Oh?" his voice still seemed half cold, half frightened. "Where?"
"Right here in town, darling. I don't know why I never thought of it before. It's with my brother Richard - you know, the one we never see. Anyway she can live there."
"Fine," he said. "When does she move?"
"Right away," she told him. This time it sounded as if the edge of ice was on her own voice. "We can have her over there within the hour."
I turned away from the door and walked back to the bed, where I began slowly to pick up my discarded clothing. Uncle Richard! I think I had met him once before that, but I had no memory of him at the time. He was the oldest member of my mother's family. All I really knew about him was that he was supposed to be quite wealthy and quite eccentric. He had been married once to a woman who, because of some disorder of her mind, had been committed to an institution; but he still had something of a reputation with the women at least according to the scandal reporters.
So this, I thought, is the person who is going to rear me - the person with whom I'm going to spend Christmas not quite a week after the death of my mother.
CHAPTER FIVE
Uncle Richard's way of life could not be called modest by any stretch of the imagination. His New York residence was on Park Avenue in a penthouse accessible only by a private elevator.
Because Aunt Irene thought it might be better if she delivered me alone to Uncle Richard's she left Henry at the small apartment. As I left, carrying the few belongings I had, I turned and gave the poor dishonest man a brazen - I might even say lecherous - wink. That was my last contact with Uncle Henry, but hardly the last experience I was to have with the things for which he stood.
Uncle Richard's apartment was lavish beyond belief, yet his personal touch seemed to be on every item in it. There could be no doubt that this was his home even though he himself was not there when we arrived. Indeed he hadn't been there for several months and was not expected to return for several more.
We were informed by a Mr. Berish, his personal secretary, that Uncle Richard was in California on business and would not return until sometime in late March or early April. We were also told that he had sent instructions from the Coast that I might stay there through the Christmas and New Year holidays or until such time as my mother's legal affairs were cleared up by the New York courts.
The people who lived in the huge apartment, I was soon to learn, were the butler and his wife, who lived in a two room annex off the kitchen; a Mrs. Pritchert, the governess; and my cousin Lilah, who was to prove a most unusual playmate for me all the time I was there. Mr. Berish, I found out, did not actually live in the great apartment, but he spent most of his time there. Apparently he preferred the privacy of a small basement apartment in the east Fifties.
When first Aunt Irene and I arrived we were greeted by Charles, the butler and then introduced to Mr. Berish, who was a tall, painfully thin man in his late forties. He dismissed the butler and led us to a small room away from the main living quarters which apparently served as his office. Aunt Irene and I sat on a couch between two filing cabinets as Mr. Berish took his own somewhat prim seat behind a metal desk.
My aunt explained that because of her forthcoming marriage and the fact that her living quarters were quite small it would be unfair to me to remain staying with her. She also told Mr. Berish that my mother had died without a will and that some sort of family responsibility should be taken until an official guardian could be established by the courts. "Otherwise," she concluded, "poor Ginger would be at the mercy of the courts and could even go to an institution."
Mr. Berish seemed to be only half listening to her long story. He leaned back in his chair, the spread fingers of both hands touching one another. His eyes closed for long periods of time, then opened again and his lips occasionally pursed. Finally he said, "You have absolutely no cause for concern, I can assure you. I have talked to my employer several times since we first spoke and have instructions to make the little lady completely at home here. Ginger is welcome and will be treated as a member of the family. As for the legalities of the matter, our lawyers already have instructions as to the course they will follow after the first of the year."
"Oh, thank you," my aunt said. "You have no idea what a relief it is to know that Ginger is in a good home."
"I'm sure," Mr. Berish said.
I couldn't help but think that Mr. Berish was completely aware of my aunt's true motives and true character. As he rose from his chair, his manner was impeccably polite, but it was touched with contempt. He spoke a few final words of assurance and then, saying that my aunt probably had many things to do, extended his hand in farewell.
As we came out of the small office Charles was there waiting to lead Aunt Irene to the private elevator and escort her down to the building's lobby, but just before he stepped aside to let her enter the elevator she turned to me, stooped to give me a kiss on the forehead and with false tears in her eyes wished me a final goodbye.
Frankly, I was happy to see her go. Although I had lived with her for almost two months and had really tried to like her, I never really could. She was so unlike my mother that it was always hard for me to believe that they were sisters.
"Well, my dear child," Berish said after the elevator doors closed. "I suppose you have already written to Santa Claus regarding what you would like for Christmas."
I looked up to him just as he ran one large, delicate hand over the top of my head and let it slide to a tingling rest on the back of my neck. "Santa Claus," I said. "You must think I'm still a child."
A strange, knowledgeable smile flitted over his mouth and he made a delicate gesture on my neck before removing his hand. "Merely a figure of speech," he suggested, "However, I have been instructed to inform you that your uncle and all the members of this household earnestly desire to make this coming Christmas a particularly happy one for you considering the, er, unfortunate circumstances involved."
After several more remarks like that I finally began to understand that Berish was asking me for some sort of a Christmas list and I told him some things I had wanted. Most of them were items of clothing, but I learned the following day that my uncle had given his secretary instructions of his own.
After Charles returned Berish gave him a hastily scribbled note and then I was ushered through the vast apartment and introduced to its occupants.
Mrs. Pritchert, the governess, was a jolly, stout woman of about forty-five years of age. She was dressed in a severe black suit and seemed, on the surface, to be a woman of perfect decorum, although I noticed that she had the same expression in her eyes when she looked at me that I had always seen in those of Uncle Henry. She welcomed me and touching me on the shoulder, mentioned that she would do everything she could to make me happy. There was something, not in her words or voice, but in the particular way her hand felt on my shoulder, that sent a shiver of goose-bumps over me. It was not an unpleasant sensation - quite the contrary - but it was nonetheless strangely frightening.
Next I was introduced to Charles' wife, Martha, who was cook for the establishment. Finally, after seeing every other room of the huge apartment, I was shown to the nursery, where for the first time, I met my cousin Lilah.
Lilah was a beautiful child just a year older than I. She was thin but beautifully proportioned in a long-sensual way. Her raven hair was straight and fell in a cascade over her shoulders and her blue eyes held a laughing promise I could not then understand. When we entered the room she was sitting cross-legged on the bed, busy pedicuring her toes. She didn't look up until Mr. Berish cleared his throat and even then made no effort to change her posture or to hide the white triangle of her panties from our view. Instead she merely let her eyes and chin roll upward, catching each inch of each of us from feet to eyes until, after a long, sensual pause, she stared at me. In a voice that seemed to possess every secret of the universe she said, "You're Ginger."
"Yes."
"Welcome to loveland, cousin." Then she turned to Mr. Berish and with a hint of contempt in her voice asked, "When's the other bed coming?"
"It should be here today, miss," he said. "I was thinking of putting it -"
"Put it in here," she said, "and go away."
I was surprised at her rudeness and even more surprised that Lilah's command was carried out instantly by Berish. Almost before I could turn to look at the man, he was gone and had closed the door behind him. I turned back to Lilah to find her blue eyes were fixed on me, the same complete knowledge filling them.
"Ginger." she said and no more. As she spoke the single word a strange feeling of terror rippled through me. It was the same sensation I had experienced when Mrs. Pritchert had touched my shoulder.
Lilah's eyes still held mine in their strange grasp as she patted the bed beside her and suggested I sit down. "It will be interesting to have someone here," she said almost as if she were talking to herself. "It's a real kookie place here and there's never anyone to talk to or anything."
"He seemed awfully nice to me," I said as I sat beside her.
"Oh, he's nice alright," she said, still not looking at me. "But he's the horniest bastard alive. Don't worry, he'll be trying to cop a feel before you know it."
"Really. Don't you tell your father?"
She shrugged. "What! And ruin a good thing? Don't be a ninny."
"But, if you don't like what he -"
"Listen," Lilah said as she dropped her nail-file on the bed and turned to face me. "Let me tell you something about life and about this apartment and everything. You seem sort of nice and all and I think I'm going to like you so I'll tell you how to make out with Berish. He's an old fart with a soft tool, got it? He can't make the scene but he still likes to cop a feel now and then. Well, if you let the old bastard diddle you now and then, you've got something on him, see. And if you've got something on him you can make him do what you want. Get it?"
"Well, sort of."
She stared at me for a moment, looking from my eyes, down my body and up again. "How old are you?" she finally asked.
"Twelve."
"And you've never been away to school?"
"No."
"Ever had a fellow diddle with you?"
"What?"
She reached out as casually as if she had been touching a favorite house pet and placed her hand on top of my left thigh. One extended finger pointed to the exact center of my lap. "There," she said. "Diddle with your clit down there?"
I shook my head, wondering if I should tell her about Uncle Henry and almost instantly deciding against it.
Still with her hand on my thigh, but now with a strangely wild expression in her eyes, Lilah asked, "Want to have some fun?"
At the same instant that the shiver of fear ran through me, I seemed to hear again my mother's last words ... "no matter what happens - never be afraid." I swallowed against the fear and tried to assume an air of brave unconcern. "Sure," I said. "What kind of fun?"
"You really don't know, do you?"
I shook my head.
She fairly jumped off the bed, grabbing me by one wrist. "Come on," she said. "We can't do anything here. If that asshole Berish finds us he'll be after even more grabbies."
She pulled me across the room to a door that opened onto a complete dressing room and beyond that, an elaborate bathing area with sunken tub and gold plated appointments. Following Lilah's orders I slowly began to slip out of my clothing as she began to fill the huge Japanese tub with water. After testing the temperature she too began to disrobe.
Something about the very way she went about slipping out of her clothing arrested me and drew me like a magnet to her slightest movement. I was like a sliver of metal held tight to a magnet, powerless to leave of my own volition. I watched in strange fascination as her long fingers played with each button of her blouse and over her narrow waist to grasp the zipper of her skirt and ease it down over her hip. Her sigh was almost sensual.
I stood in powerless amazement as she let her skirt drop down the length of her beautifully formed legs to puddle at her feet.
"Well," she said as she stepped out of the crumpled material, "what's the matter with you"
I gulped in embarrassment, suddenly pulled back to some semblance of reality. "I was just watching," I said.
"Well don't be such a ninny," she said. "Get out of yours. I like to get my jollies, too."
Slowly, with clumsy fingers, I pulled my sweater over my head and with my skirt still on reached around to unsnap my bra. As I slipped my arms out of it and dropped it on top of the discarded sweater, I felt Lilah's eyes on me again; I looked over to where she now stood clad only in her own bra.
"Gosh," she said, "you're really going to have a nice pair of boobies ... I mean, when you get them. Are they tender?"
"Not very."
"Here," she said taking a pace across the carpeted bathroom, "let me touch them."
Before I could move or utter a word she had walked up to me and placed one hand atop the tiny nipple of my left breast. Her long, gentle fingers slid over my tingling flesh and sent shivers of strange emotion through me. As they touched and then squeezed my erect nipple I was unable to control the single gasp of pleasure that escaped my lips.
"Like that, huh?" she said. "Here, touch mine if you like. Bet you'll like that, too."
She leaned away from me just far enough to pull her own bra around so that she could unhook it in front and peel it away from her as one might a coat. It dropped to the floor to reveal her total nudity. I stood as if hypnotized by her strangely magnetic beauty. Her breasts, free of the confining brassiere, were round and beautifully proportioned - like the halves of twin white scoops of some wonderful confection topped with tasty pink dots from the centers of which her nipples rose like tiny fingers to point directly at me.
In a pleasant daze, I raised one hand and let it gently slide over the soft, firm contours so that I could savor like a blind child the magic sensation that shot up my arm from her hot flesh. But she only allowed me a fleeting feel of her body before she said, "Come on, Ginger, slip out of that skirt, let's get into the tub. It's real fun in there."
Obediently I removed my skirt and shoes and sox but remained strangely embarrassed and somehow reluctant to part with my last claim to modesty, the panties. Lilah's groin area seemed so much like that of a woman - a real woman, with a soft tuft of triangular hair - whereas I was ashamed of my feeble little growth. I remained in that state of uncertainty long enough for her to test the temperature of the flow of water into the tub and to lift one long, delicate leg into the steaming liquid.
"Come on," she said again and this time it was as if she had spoken a command I could not disobey. I hooked my thumbs into the pantie elastic and pulled them down my legs and crossed the room and placed one of my own legs in the sunken tub.
The water was hot! I pulled my foot out as if I had been stung by a poisonous insect.
"Ease in slowly," Lilah told me. "You'll get used to it after a while."
I did as she told me and after several moments succeeded in easing my entire body down into the scalding water. We sat facing each other, legs crossed Indian-style, as the water rose until it circled our necks like a ring of liquid fire.
Only then did Lilah turn off the water and in the same gesture reach out under the water to probe, ever so gently, the lips of my sexual area. Her touch was demanding and eager and anything but cruel. She touched me, first with one finger and then with two, until I could feel my own personal liquids mingling with the scalding water. The hot bath water began to flow into me.
Without speaking I eased closer to her so that our knees were touching and so that I, too, could reach my own hand out, first to let it run over the silken flesh of her thighs and then to make my own probe at her vaginal opening.
Unlike myself she was already fully open and my fingers slipped gently into her body until they could go no further. We remained like that, toying with each other, for some time until she asked me if she felt good.
"Yes," I said.
"Real good?" she asked.
"Yes."
"Better than anything?"
"Sure," I said. "I guess so. I mean ... "
Her fingers made a slight move inside me that was almost but not quite, painful. "It's got to feel better than anything," she said, her strangely passionate eyes gripping me with an impossible strength of purpose. Her mouth hung slightly open and it seemed to be difficult for her to form her words. "Anything, you hear Tell me! Tell me my snatch feels better than anything!"
I told her what she wanted to hear. Just the moment I spoke the words she demanded of me a series of little shudders started inside her and she gasped aloud. She remained like that for a moment, my fingers still in her and then she finally opened her blue eyes. Now, they seemed totally calm. "God damn," she said. "That's good like that. You ever come?"
"Come?" I didn't know what she was talking about.
"Come off," she said. "You know, have an orgasm?"
I shook my head, but she seemed completely unconcerned with my reply. She fairly leaped out of the tub, having been there no more than three or four minutes at most and while I still sat in the hot liquid in complete confusion she began to dry herself.
I was in the water and she was drying herself when the door of the bathroom opened without warning and I looked up to see Mrs. Pritchert standing there inspecting us with a knowing grin on her heavy face.
"Couldn't wait, could you?" the older woman snapped to Lilah.
Lilah looked up at her, an expression of complete unconcern on her beautiful face. "Why wait?" she said.
Mrs. Pritchert glared at her a long moment as Lilah returned to her drying. Finally she crossed to the tub and extended her hand to help me out of the water. "Here now," she said to me. "It's almost time for lunch. Better get dressed."
I allowed her to pull me out of the tub and stood for a moment, shining. In that instant Mrs. Pritchert reached out and ever so gently put one hand on my waist just above the hip. She withdrew it instantly, however, when Lilah, turning around to face us, mimicked her voice in sarcasm and said, "Couldn't wait, could you?"
Mrs. Pritchert heaved an indignant sigh and stalked out of the room, slamming the door behind her. I reached for a towel, thinking only that I was to live in a very, very strange household.
I didn't quite understand why it was as strange as it was, but I was soon to find out. I was to learn many of the huge apartment's secrets before its owner returned. I was a willing student and whenever faced with a new situation there I thought of my mother's final words.
CHAPTER SIX
My Christmas was inwardly sad despite the fact that everyone at Uncle Richard's apartment did everything possible to make it pleasant. I received a complete new wardrobe and many other gifts which eased the pain of my mother's death somewhat. Gradually, as the weeks passed, I began to adjust to my strange, erotic life there.
As time passed I began to fall into the regular routine of the household, attending the same private school that Lilah went to and earning about the residents of the strange penthouse.
As Lilah had predicted Mr. Berish was a lecher. He would invite me to his small office when no one else was in the apartment. There, luring me with promises of special gifts such as a record player of my own, he would take liberties with my body which I didn't really mind. He seemed to delight in touching my breasts and thighs, but never did anything more than that. Unlike Uncle Henry he never exposed himself to me and unlike Lilah he never attempted to insert his fingers in me.
His caresses never excited me. Indeed I felt little or nothing while he touched me other than anticipation regarding whatever gifts he had promised.
Lilah and I shared the same bedroom and became lovers in the lesbian manner, though she always seemed more interested in my manipulation of her parts than in anything she was doing to me. She always insisted I tell her how wonderful the inside of her felt to me.
And it was because of that strange desire of hers and I suppose, my equally strong desire to remain honest, that my first stay in the penthouse was ended after only two months. Although I can never be sure of what actually happened, I can assume from knowing Lilah's ways that what I am about to tell is the approximate truth.
One evening when she asked me to come to her bed and masturbate her I refused and knew that by so doing I had not only hurt her feelings but had made her angry. I am sure that the following morning she went to Mr. Berish and told him that if he didn't get rid of me she would confess to her father that he had been making advances to her. I think too, she probably bribed him with her own body to get me out of the apartment.
At any rate, the following day Mr. Berish called me into his little office; when I arrived I was surprised to see my Aunt Irene sitting there on the couch.
I knew it was all a lie, but knew of no way to hit at the truth, as Berish explained that because of Uncle Richard's prolonged absence in California it might be wiser all around for me to visit another relative, specifically a brother of my dead father who owned a small dairy farm in eastern Pennsylvania.
Irene tried to protest but Berish was firm. Even arguments about the interruption of my schooling, the imposition on Irene's new marriage and the leaving of New York (which had been my home for years) were of no avail. Mr. Berish finally ended the conversation by handing Aunt Irene a check for travel costs and telling her that I was to remain in Pennsylvania until the return of my Uncle Richard.
I was uprooted again but faced the prospect with some sort of calm and even a little assurance. Frankly, I felt that even though in other ways I had been treated decently in the penthouse I was being exploited on a purely physical level. I had felt nothing when Berish laid his cold hands on me and I really hadn't liked the demands of Lilah either. At first, all that had been childishly amusing; but now I had experienced my first menstrual period and knew I was budding into true womanhood. Although I could not have placed my feelings into actual words at the time I now know why I didn't regret that first departure from the New York penthouse: it was a place of purely carnal pleasure and there was no sexual love there - no emotion except the animal urge for purely physical gratification. It was childish and jaded and my budding maturity seemed to be whispering to me that the practices Berish and Lilah enjoyed were somehow meaningless simply because they lacked any depth of feeling.
It was not with a heavy heart nor was it with any degree of excitement that I packed my belongings and bade farewell to the people on Park Avenue. I was not really in a daze, but I certainly felt in some kind of limbo as Aunt Irene and I got into a cab to make the short drive to Grand Central and there to board a train that was to take me to a small isolated farm run by one of the most wonderful people I shall ever know.
The trip was uneventful. The March day was bitterly cold when we arrived at the small station in Pennsylvania, where we waited almost half an hour for my uncle to show up. Finally, in something close to desperate anger, my aunt asked the station-master if he knew my uncle. She became even more tense when the station master informed her that everyone in town knew of the man, but very few ever talked to him. He rarely took the trip into town, apparently preferring to live his life in self-imposed isolation on his farm.
After several almost ludicrous attempts my aunt finally managed to hire a cab whose driver was willing to carry us and my belongings the ten or twelve miles to my uncle's farm.
Despite the fact that the car's heater remained on during the entire trip and I was wrapped in a heavy, woolen coat, I suffered a chill throughout the drive; the fact that my aunt spoke no more than two or three words during the course of the journey helped not a bit.
By the time we drove up to the small stone house I suppose we were both in a state of physically unpleasant tension.
My aunt told the cab driver to wait in his vehicle as she and I walked up the path toward the main door of the house. There she banged several times with the huge brass knocker but received no answer from within. Finally, her anger and annoyance visibly mounting, she turned back to the cab, pulling me along behind her.
But we had taken no more than three paces from the house when we were both stopped by a deep, arrogant voice from behind and to one side of us.
"What the hell do you want?"
We turned to face in the direction from which the voice came and there I saw my paternal uncle for the first time. He was a huge, raw-boned man, strangely handsome, yet with a great sadness about him which he was unsuccessfully trying to translate to anger. He was dressed in heavy woolen trousers which were tucked into the tops of Bean boots and his torso was covered by a multi-colored mackinaw jacket. His head was bare, allowing his long blond hair to be buffeted by the wind, but the most interesting - and the most frightening - aspect of the man was the double barreled shotgun he held in his hands.
I could feel the Herculean effort made by Aunt Irene as she struggled to muster her courage. Finally, after many tries, she managed to say, "We ... that is ... are you Roger Elliot?"
"I'm Elliot," he snapped. "Who are you and what the hell are you doing on my place?"
"This is Ginger," Aunt Irene said.
"I don't give a pound of pig shit if she's nutmeg," he said. "You and her get the hell off my land before I blast both your asses full of rock salt."
"You don't understand," Aunt Irene blurted. "She's your niece. She's your brother's child."
"So? What of it?"
"He's dead," Irene said.
"I know he's dead. Don't you think I know that? I buried the cocksucker myself."
"The child's an orphan," Irene insisted. "She has no place to go. Her mother just died. You're her only family. There's no one else to care for her. "Please," she begged, "for the sake of the child, you must take care of her. Without you she'll have to go to an institution."
"An institution?" For the first time he seemed to lose command of the situation. "You mean an orphanage?"
"Yes, that's exactly what I mean."
He collected his thoughts for a moment before fixing her with a steady glare. "What about you?" he finally demanded. "Why don't you take the kid in?"
Irene explained her situation as best she could and then, warming to the challenge of Uncle Roger or perhaps to the threat of having me live in the same home with her and her beloved Henry, launched into a long passionate speech during which she was on the verge of tears at least seven times. Finally, whether through common sense, boredom over the speech itself, or genuine human compassion, Uncle Roger finally screamed, "Shut up, God damn it! Shut up!"
Silence hung over the space between us for a long moment before he continued. "You," he said to Aunt Irene. "You and that asshole in the car - piss off out of here. The kid can stay. I wouldn't put a cow in an orphanage, but I'll tell you, when you get back to New York, you'd better start looking around for somebody else in that family to care for her. I've lived here for damned near ten years alone and I'm not too fucking happy about intruders. Now get the hell off my land before I get nervous and blast you off it."
The cab driver fairly threw my suitcases out of his car as Irene leapt into the front seat. In no more than a second the cab was bumping down the long snow-patched road that led to the highway beyond. I stood shivering on the path following it with my eyes until it was almost out of sight. Then whatever trance I had created for myself was shattered by my uncle's voice, somewhat more gentle now, saying, "Well, don't just stand there like a ewe in heat. Grab some of those cases and bring them in."
With the shotgun still under one arm he picked up two of my lighter cases with his free hand and together we brought my belongings into my new home.
As he swung the door open for me I was amazed at the contrast to the man's character shown by the furnishing within his small house. Outside he had seemed crude to the point of being barbarous; the house showed its occupant to be anything but crass. It was small, true, but the main room was spacious and furnished with tasteful and meticulous care. There was a large Persian rug on the polished wooden floor and I could see at a glance that the paintings decorating one wall were original works, not prints.
The furniture was comfortable and finely carved and the appointments showed they were the possessions of a man of taste and breeding.
But I was not allowed to inspect the room in any detail. My uncle pointed to a circular staircase at the far end of the main room, told me to take my belongings to the room I found above, and leaving me with the whole of my luggage, again went outside.
After making three trips up the narrow winding staircase I finally had time to inspect my new surroundings and to look through the house. As I have mentioned, although it was small, the rooms were relatively large. The downstairs consisted of the living room and dining room and a kitchen that had obviously been added on to the original structure. Upstairs there were only two rooms, both of which were identical in size. Between them was a small bath.
The room where I deposited my suitcases had obviously been used as some sort of a storage area but was neat and clean, bespeaking the meticulous habits of my Uncle. I began to unpack my belongings and had managed to put most of them away when I heard my name called from below and leaned down the stairwell to find out what my uncle wanted.
"We dine in one hour," I was informed. "I shall expect you clean and dressed properly."
He allowed me no time for reply. I stood at the top of the stairs wondering about just what kind of environment I had been placed in. Here was a rough, apparently uncouth man who had first appeared before me swearing like a drunken sailor and threatening two defenseless females with a shotgun. And here also, was a man who lived surrounded by priceless antiques and paintings in a small house that was not only beautifully decorated but spotlessly clean and in which the owner dined at a specific hour. Dined! That is the word he used.
As I stood there at the top of the stairs I had no real idea what he had meant by such a word. I only knew that I was trapped by a man who seemed to be the strangest person, the most complete contradiction, I had ever met; because I had nowhere else to go and no one else to be with. I determined to do everything I could to please him.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Our dinner that first night was a formal affair. My Uncle Roger, dressed in a long out of style tuxedo, sat at one end of the huge table and I, in my best dress, sat not at the foot (as might have been expected) but to his left. He prepared the meal, which incidentally was delicious and I served it. We both ate in silence and after the meal was finished remained as two mutes at the table.
Finally my uncle excused himself and pushed his chair back. That was the last I saw of him that day.
And that is exactly how my first week on the farm passed. During the days I was allowed to roam and wander the land, yet I rarely if ever saw my uncle and when I did he seemed the embodiment of coarseness. If I happened upon him during the daytime he would invariably begin to swear at me in the foulest terms and tell me to mind my own business. During the evenings, however, he seemed a changed man. Although we both ate in silence and I left his brooding company as soon as I could, I often listened from the kitchen as I washed the dishes and later, from my room above, to the classical music he played long into the night.
No attempt was made to enroll me in school; no attempt was made to introduce me to any of the neighbors; and except for the serving and clearing of the dishes for the evening meal and the washing of them afterward I was given no duties in the house whatsoever.
It was only after I had been living in that strangely contradictory house for a week or so that my situation began to change. The exact moment was late on a crystal clear afternoon when, wandering aimlessly around my uncle's farm, I was startled half out of my wits by a human voice behind me which jarred me with a single word: "Bang!"
I could not have been more stunned had the word been an actual shot; indeed, a shot might even have been less frightening. As it was, my heart leapt to my throat and with one hand covering the buds of my small breasts in an instinctive gesture I turned to face the source of the sound.
I saw a smiling, almost beautifully handsome boy of about, fourteen with rosy cheeks and sparkling blue eyes. He was dressed in a wind breaker and a knitted hat and around his neck wore a long multi-colored scarf. When he smiled it seemed that the warmth of his grin might turn the crisp air to summer heat.
"Better watch out," he said. "I gotcha that time."
"Oh my," I said. "You half scared me to death."
"That's nothin' to what Crazy Elliot'll do if he spots you up here."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean ... " Again he smiled a huge warming grin that for some strange reason seemed to make the insides of my thighs hot and tingly. " ... if he was to catch you up here, he really would shoot."
"Bet he wouldn't," I teased.
He placed his hands on his hips and laughed out loud, throwing his head back so that he looked the very picture of arrogant virility. Finally he said, "Guess you don't know the old man, Crazy Elliot."
"Bet I do," I said and then confessed that he was my uncle and that I not only knew him but was living in his house.
At first he seemed amazed and downright shocked, but finally his expression changed to one of pure admiration. He told me that I was very brave because everyone there knew that my uncle had murdered his wife and that he refused to come away from the farm unless he absolutely had to.
As he told me a series of grizzly rumors about my uncle, we reached a spot from which we could look down to the house below us. Already it was beginning to get slightly dark and he told me that he didn't want to be caught on the land. He had to get home, he said and then just before he left he asked me why he hadn't seen me in school.
I have forgotten exactly what I told him and I'm sure he did, too, for he seemed consumed by a single desire, to leave the farm as soon as he possibly could. Finally, as I stood totally unsure of my next move, he turned and wandered up the slight hill again and disappeared over the crest. I stood looking after his hurrying form, still feeling a strange warmth in my stomach and a peculiar tingling in my breasts. Then just before I began my own walk to the house I realized that I hadn't even asked for his name.
That evening at dinner my relationship with my Uncle Roger changed, possibly because of my meeting with the young man, but more directly because of the fact that for the first time in a week, I began a conversation with my uncle.
As usual we were sitting without speaking, the sounds of classical music coming to us from the main room of the house. What possessed me, I shall never know; perhaps that strange feeling of knowledge I had experienced in New York; perhaps what I often referred to as the soul of my mother - or perhaps no more than a blind, childish curiosity. Whatever the reason, however, I looked up from my plate, faced my uncle directly and announced "They say you killed your wife."
He didn't even lift his eyes to mine. "Do they?" he said.
The violins coming from the record in the next room seemed strangely macabre.
"Did you?" I asked at length.
This time he lifted his eyes and then his chin. He stared at me for a long time without replying. Then he rose from his chair, crossed the room to a buffet on which rested several decanters of wine and brought one to the table. "How old are you?" he asked.
"Thirteen," I replied.
"You drink?"
"No."
He grunted, returned to the buffet, he opened a door, reached inside and extracted a long-stemmed glass which he brought to the table and poured full before he again resumed his seat. He took a long, slow sip of the ruby liquid and again fixed me with a strange stare.
"You ever been in love?" he asked.
"You mean with a boy?"
"Now what the hell do you think I mean, with a cow?"
"No," I said.
He grunted and took a sip of the wine. As he lifted the glass the liquid caught the faint light in the room and sparkled like diamonds.
"Did you?" I asked again.
"Did I what?"
"Did you kill your wife?"
"Of course I killed her. Haven't you ever read Wilde?"
"You mean they're right? You really are a murderer?"
He placed the stemmed glass carefully on the table, looked at it for a moment and finally raised his eyes to mine. His expression showed that he was struggling with some intense emotion. The muscles in his jaw were twitching and his eyes seemed, alternately, furious and hopelessly lonely.
"You really are a stupid shit," he said at length.
"But -"
"You sit there all smug and virgin and chucked full of citified crap listening to one or two of the morons around here and then actually believe I killed her, don't you? Let's get really gory, shall we? How do you think I did it? With an axe? With a shotgun? Maybe some terrible poison that made her puke her guts out before she died? That's what you're thinking about, isn't it?"
"No, I -"
"Alright. Yes. I killed her. That's true. But I didn't murder her. She was a city girl just like your idiot father and she couldn't stand it out here. She died and I killed her but for your information, young lady, I'm not a murderer. Strange as it may seem I'm not even crazy, despite the local opinion. Now, does that answer your idiotic question?"
"Yes sir."
He finished the wine in his glass and poured it full again. It seemed as if my initial question plus the wine had succeeded finally in loosening his tongue. "You," he said without rancor. "You wouldn't know what I'm talking about, but you will one day if you ever fall in love. Once you know about life you'll know what Wilde meant."
"Who's Wilde?"
"What the hell's the matter with you?" he exploded. "Have you never been to school? Have you never read a book?"
Now it was my turn to be infuriated. "How could I go to school, locked up here all day? You'd never send me to school. This is like a prison. If I had anyplace else to go believe me I would go!"
He leaned forward over the table, his voice now completely calm. "Let me tell you something, young lady and let it register in your mind. First of all you are not trapped here. No one asked you to come and if anyone's trapped it's me, by your presence. Second, I've been to college and if it concerns you in the least I happen to hold a doctorate. Finally, if you want something around here don't ask me for it. Get it yourself. It's your school, not mine. You're the one who has to find out the when and the where, not me."
Without waiting for my reaction he pushed his chair from the table and taking both his glass and the decanter with him, walked into the living room without another word.
I remained at the table, my meal unfinished, not quite knowing what I had walked into with my initial question. Somehow I wasn't hungry anymore; but even though I believed my uncle I was still desperately curious about him. Even as a young girl, I somehow knew that it was strange for a man to speak like a drill sergeant and at the same time insist upon a formal dinner every evening.
That evening, I cleared the table, placed the plates and glasses in the kitchen sink and instead of going upstairs as I usually did went instead to the living room. There Uncle Roger was sitting in a huge overstuffed chair, the glass of wine in his hand and a pipe jutting from his mouth. The music seemed to fill the room to bursting; yet despite the richness of it and the quality of domination it possessed I could not escape the fact that my uncle and not the music was the real dominating spirit of the house.
"Please, Uncle Roger," I began, "I'd like to apologize for ... " He couldn't hear me. Indeed, he seemed totally unaware of my presence.
"Uncle Roger ... " I began again, but with the same results. Finally, in a state of exasperation, I walked to the record player and lifted the arm. It seemed we were thrown into a pool of iced silence.
He looked up. "And why, if you don't mind telling me, did you do that?"
"I ... I wanted to apologize," I said. "I shouldn't have asked what I did."
He grunted.
"I mean, it's very kind of you to take me in like this and I really shouldn't rake up the past."
He grunted again.
"I'll try to understand," I said. "I really will - and tomorrow, first thing I'll find out about school, just like you said I should."
His expression, for the first time since I had been there, seemed totally tender and totally understanding. "Perhaps it is I who should apologize," he said. "After all, I have been living alone here for ten years, ever since I was a very young man. You know I'm only thirty five, Ginger and yet I have only known great love and great sorrow. Sometimes the sorrow in a person makes him seem mean and hateful. Yes," he mused, "it is I who should make the apology."
"I really do want to be as nice as I can," I told him.
He sat staring at me for some time before he changed the subject entirely. "You've never been in love," he said.
"No."
"And you're a virgin, of course."
"Well, I ... " I'm sure I blushed scarlet for I could feel the rush of embarrassed blood to my neck and cheeks.
"Ah," he said, then again fixed me with his strangely piercing glance. "Come over here, Ginger."
Still embarrassed, but somehow completely unafraid, I walked to where he sat and stood beside the arm of his chair. With a gesture that was meticulously deliberate, he put his glass down on the end table and then with a delicateness that shot a strange, almost frightening tingle through me lifted that same hand and stroked me just behind my left knee.
"Ginger," he said, "I imagine you lead a rather lonely life."
"Sometimes."
"I do too, you know."
"Yes." I hardly knew what else to say.
"I imagine it gets somewhat cold upstairs at night."
"Sometimes," I admitted.
"How would you like to sleep in my bed?"
Of course I was hardly naive at that point after my experiences with Uncle Henry and with Lilah and Mr. Berish. I knew or thought I knew what Uncle Roger wanted of me. I'm even a bit surprised at my reaction, for although I didn't like the idea of being fondled and pawed by a virtual stranger I was still remarkably curious. Yet I was terribly lonely staying at that strangely contradictory house - and I was cold at night. I mumbled something by way of answer which probably sounded affirmative, because he said, "Good. Now go into the dining room and get another decanter and another glass. Let's toast the past away."
I did as he bade me and returned with the wine. He poured my glass full and refilled his own. Then, rising for the first time since I had entered the room, he touched his glass to mine.
"To a perfect friendship," he said just before he swallowed.
I repeated his words and took a sip of wine.
"After all," he said as he leaned over to kiss me on the forehead, "I have been neglecting my duty. I have an obligation to educate you."
"You do?"
"Yes, of course I do. Incidentally, my child, Wilde is Oscar Wilde; he wrote that each man kills the thing he loves. Let us understand at the start that I am still very much in love with my dead wife."
"Yes?"
"And you will one day be very much in love with some fine young man. However ... "
"Yes?"
"Feelings alone without expertise, are insufficient."
"Expertise?"
"Never mind. Finish your wine, my dear and put the music back on. I shall show you expertise anon."
CHAPTER EIGHT
As may be imagined, I was in a somewhat fearful state when, an hour later, Uncle Roger suggested it was time for bed. Somehow I realized that the man I was with was the kind of person who could never content himself with half way measures. I felt sure, as I climbed the stairs to the master bedroom, that I was about to be brutally raped and yet there was not one thing I could do about it. Were I to scream, no one would hear me. Were I to run, I would be little more than a hamster on a wheel. There was no place to go.
Then, just at the top of the stairs, I again remembered my mother's last words and was able to conquer my fear and face whatever was to come with a resignation and fortitude I hardly knew I possessed.
Up until that moment I had never been in the main bedroom of the house. I was overawed, although I can't honestly say that I was surprised. As I have mentioned the house itself was small but the rooms were comparatively large. Coming up the circular staircase and opening the door to his room instead of walking down the short passage to mine, I felt for the light switch, found it and stood stark still when I saw what lay before me.
The room was huge and had a roughly-beamed ceiling and a huge fireplace at one end. It contained a low sofa and two chairs in addition to a monstrously large bed which seemed to dominate the whole area. There was no trace of dressers or similar furniture until I noticed that all such items must have been built in beside the huge fireplace. But what really took my attention was the fact that the beautifully polished flooring was entirely covered by thick fur rugs. Even though the air was somewhat chilly, the room gave off warmth and sensuous passion.
I felt Uncle Roger behind me prodding me into the room and saw him adjust a heating vent. Almost immediately the spot where I stood seemed to warm. I remained there in the heat as he crossed the entire length of the room, struck a match and lit the already-kindled fire. It leapt into flame immediately. I felt the chill being replaced by a comforting warmth.
Uncle Roger seemed to waste no time in stripping out of his dinner clothes and in hanging them up with deliberate and meticulous care. I stood in shocked amazement as he slipped out of his shoes, black stockings and trousers and then, without so much as a glance or warning, his under drawers and his shirt.
Still not glancing at me, he hung the suit on a hanger, replaced the tie on its special hook, put his jewelry in a box on top of one of the built-in dressers and threw his socks, shirt and under drawers into a laundry hamper. Only then did he turn to face me.
I still stood where I had been throughout this display. My hand was lifted to my mouth. I could not take my eyes from his magnificently huge sexual organ; it hung like a soft axe between his muscular legs.
"Well?" he said. "I hope you don't intend to stand there all night."
He crossed the room toward me, his organ swaying gently right and left with each pace he took. Finally he stopped about two feet in front of me.
"Ginger," he said, "as long as I am charged with your education we'd better start here. First of all, never, ever be ashamed to undress in front of a man, no matter who he might be. Remember, be proud of your body. Show it off. Men like to look at bodies."
I stood there looking at his strangely gentle eyes in his stern face and remember the quite different expression I had so often seen on the face of Uncle Henry. A memory of my perversity with Henry returned to me and in an instant I changed from shy child to teasing, toying woman.
Uncle Roger returned to the bed and sat on one corner as I began slowly to disrobe myself. I tried to concentrate on making my own moves as sensuous, as teasing and deliberate as possible; but I still seemed unable to take my eyes or attention from his penis. Cushioned on a soft pillow of testicles and scrotum it hung over the side of the bed just below his well-muscled abdomen. Still, I did twist and turn, arch my body and thrust my breasts forward until I stood before him stark naked, my feet in the puddle of my own discarded clothing.
He sat staring at me for several seconds before nodding his head in approval. Then he said, "That's fine ... fine for a starter. Now pick up those things, hang them up and get ready for bed."
Suddenly I hated the man. There I had made every effort I knew of to excite and stimulate him and all he could think about was neatness. I gathered up my clothing and underwear, opened the door and stalked down the short passage to my own room. There I went about putting everything away as I listened to the sounds of Uncle Roger brushing his teeth in the bathroom.
Finally, when I had straightened my own living area, I slipped into a nightdress, knocked on the bathroom door and hearing no answer entered to perform my own ablutions.
While brushing my teeth I was torn by double emotions. On the one hand I was afraid of Uncle Roger. I still had the strange notion that he might hurt me if I returned to his room. On the other, I had been hurt by his apparent lack of concern after I had done my all to disrobe properly before him. Part of me therefore wanted to return to my own room and lock the door against him, but another part, the one which ultimately proved stronger, was determined to break him down and make him show his weakness.
I rinsed my mouth and with a boldness that only partially hid my true emotions, opened the door to his room and walked in. The lights in the room were out. It was lit only by the glow of the fire. Uncle Roger was on the bed. He rolled over to face me when he heard the door of the bathroom open.
"What are you doing wearing that?" he asked.
"What?"
"That nightgown," he said.
"Well ... it's ... I'm cold."
"Take it off," he said. "Don't you know anything? Those things are for breakfast and cocktails, not for sleeping. No woman in her right mind sleeps in one of those."
"But I ... "
"Take it off."
Obediently I did as I was told, letting the flimsy garment ease slowly over my shoulders and drop to the fur rug beneath my feet. I stood there for several moments letting the firelight play over and caress my body with its licking warmth, waiting, wanting and yet not knowing for what I was waiting or for what I yearned.
Finally Uncle Roger said, "You're a very beautiful young lady, Ginger, you're sure you're a virgin?"
"Yes." I said.
"It's amazing," he said. "Get into bed."
Another shock wave of fear rippled across my heart as I pulled the sheet and covers on my side down and slipped into the bed beside him. I lay there on my back, stiff and rigid, expecting I knew not what. Then, suddenly, he rolled on his side with his back to me and mumbled, "Goodnight."
Despite the fire on one side of the room, the bed was cold and I was cold and alone. More in innocent chill than with any sense of desire, I too rolled to my side so that my breasts flattened against his back and my stomach, hips and thighs cradled his firmly muscled buttocks.
His body against mine was warm and comforting. At almost the instant I felt it pressed along the length of mine a new and different sensation seemed to ripple through me.
Again I seemed knowing. From a shy child, the pawn of an older man, I changed to a woman consumed by curiosity and yes, desire. Gently, I lifted one arm and slid it over his muscular chest so that I could feel his stomach. I remained that way for some time until I thought I could stand the agony no longer. He did not move or respond in any way and again I felt hurt and strangely denied. Almost involuntarily I let my fingertips touch his stomach and creep lower.
Again no response. Again a sense of anger shot through me and this time I was so furious that I threw caution to the winds and literally grabbed for his groin.
I was shocked, frightened and deeply pleased to find that his organ, so lifeless a minute or two before, had now risen completely, to full erection. Yet my anger was still with me and grabbing it in cruel fingers, I began to pull back and forth on his prick - as I had learned to do with Uncle Henry's.
Only then did Uncle Roger roll on his back and say, "Gently, gently; it's not a dice cup, my dear. If you wish to feel a man, feel him so that he finds pleasure, not pain."
The calmness of his words and the apparent lack of passion in his voice completely unnerved me and I might have pulled my fingers away had he not gripped them in his own and kept their pressure on his rigid organ.
He explained that I must touch a man as I myself would like to be touched. As he told me that he reached over with his own hand and gently slid one of his fingers against the already moist insides of my vagina so that a tingling wet fire burned with a delicate fury against my throbbing clitoris.
We lay like that for several moments before he pulled back the covers. For the first time I saw the magnificent shaft of his erection.
"Now," he said, using a tone that might better have served a college professor than a farmer, "Keep your hand right there, just like that and put it in your mouth."
At first I was unsure of exactly what he wanted until with a slight pressure on the back of my neck he eased my head over his huge organ and I took the head of it in my mouth. Then, although I knew he was still talking, I seemed to become totally deaf to all the world. All I could think of was the wonderful huge thing in my mouth and how good it felt and tasted there. I could feel his gentle fingers playing within my opening and I could savor the delicious flesh on which I sucked and chewed with an abandon I had never before known.
And then, suddenly, he pulled away from me; I had no idea why. He lay there a moment breathing heavier than he had before. Sometime later he turned to me again and asked, "You've played like that, of course?"
"No," I said. "Never."
He grunted. "And no one's played with you like that?"
"Like what?"
"Licked you where you live," he said. "Stuck a tongue in you and made you climb the walls."
"No! Of course not!"
"No need to be so prim," he said. "I told you you'll fall in love one day. You'll thank me for this when you do. There, roll over and open your legs."
I did as I was told and gasped as his lips sank over my budding breasts, caressed my navel and played over my stomach and thighs. I was panting heavily, unaware of what kind of sensations were actually going through me and yet knowing what he was doing. I propped my upper body on my elbows and looked down to where his head was, half buried between my thighs; but I could not remain in that position for long. I felt a hot sliver of molten fire as his tongue shot into my vagina and slid the entire length of my clitoris and back.
I gasped and fell back against the pillow, reaching out with my hands to pull his head deeper into me. I was rolling and tossing and feeling things I knew I had no right to feel - things I could not stop. It seemed that my entire body was on fire and yet somehow freezing at the same time.
His hands reached up to palm both my breasts as his tongue maintained the same maddening rhythm below, in the very heart of my passion. Gentle fingers caressed my nipples as his lips and tongue seemed to suck the very life out of me.
And then ... and then something broke on some faraway shore and I was to sing on waves so high they threw me to the very planets, tossed me there and then buffeted me back and forth until, gradually, I descended again to earth only to be hit by the fire of release again and soared another time to infinity and beyond. Somehow I heard myself screaming, "Yes yes yes yes!" as if that were the only word I knew.
My hands pulled his head tight into me and now I had lifted my legs so that my thighs pressed tight against his ears and locked his magic tongue in place. Yet I could only stay there for a moment. The strength seemed to have been pulled from me; suddenly, I collapsed. I needed a rest, if only for a moment. Then I knew I would want the same thing again.
Uncle Roger rolled away from me, pulled the covers up and lay beside me.
"Go to sleep, Ginger," he whispered. "That's only lesson one. We'll have more tomorrow."
CHAPTER NINE
Uncle Roger was true to his word. Every night I remained with him he taught me some new lesson about love without ever so much as hinting that he felt the slightest passion for me. Not only did he teach me everything possible to learn about the centers of male sexuality and how to arouse and stimulate them, but he also taught me more than I ever thought possible about my own body and its desires.
Still, that was just one part of the responsibility he suddenly took upon himself after the evening I had asked about his wife's death. Apparently he had lived totally alone for ten long years and in his own rather peculiar way was trying to make up, through me, for the ways in which he had neglected the woman he really loved. Not only did he teach me about how to express my physical love, but he introduced me to books and music, cooking and the other arts. The day after our first night in the huge bed he saw me to school, saw that I was properly enrolled and thereafter never ceased calling my teachers idiots, cretins and the like. Always, when I brought a lesson home, he was willing to take the time necessary to explain it in detail and to prove why such and so was true. Every time, his elaborate explanations became utterly simple at his conclusion. All of history, for example, he said, was simply a matter of greed. If man was not greedy, he insisted, he would never move; and if he never moved there would be no history. Greed for better food, for better land, for gold, even for the true religion brought men out of stagnation and made history.
Mathematics were simply a method whereby men could show off to one another. In order for the man with three cows to prove that he was better than the man with two, all men had to count. Thus mathematics were merely a tool to prove the worth of greed.
Only where the arts were concerned did Uncle Roger seem less iconoclastic, but even here he insisted that greed for a paradise produced art, color, music and fine cuisine. And even though his philosophy somehow seemed at variance with the way he actually behaved, I accepted it as just another of the many contradictions on which his character was founded.
I must confess that of ail the lessons Undo Roger taught me his sexual lessons were the most exciting and the most welcome, probably because I could achieve instant satisfaction, whereas with my school work I had always had to wait until examination time in order to know how well I had learned. With the sexual lessons we had some sort of "examination" every night; and even though I was never really passionately in love with Uncle Roger, I have to admit that each time he instructed me in some new facet of sexual congress he did so in a way that made my body and mind soar to the highest planes of rapture.
Somehow I never really sensed the contradiction between my nightly experiences with Uncle Roger and my almost daily meetings with the young boy I had encountered while wandering about the farm. The boy, whose name I later learned was Steve, was a year ahead of me in school and we sought out each other's company as often as possible. We held hands, we wandered about the countryside on bicycles and - once - he even put his arm around my waist. Somehow, I never seemed to feel toward Steve in a lusty way. I really couldn't have imagined being with him at all - not after Uncle Roger.
Yet, there was something about Steve that made me think of him almost all the time. I seemed giddy and sad when he wasn't with me and often, while I was doing something completely unrelated, his face would appear before me like some sort of ghost. Because I had no one else to confide in I told these feelings to Uncle Roger and his face fairly lit up with joy.
"Aha!" he cried. "That's the beginning, girl. You'll see. Just wait! You'll be thanking me for your expertise."
But that time of thanks didn't come, at least not during my first visit to Uncle Roger's farm. Something which happened late in the summer was to change everything.
Steve and I had been doing my chores together in front of the house when we looked down the long path to the highway and saw a cloud of dust coming up from behind the wheels of a long yellow convertible. As the car roared and spun up the long driveway I had a strange, uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach - as if I knew beforehand the message its driver intended to deliver.
Spattering gravel and dust for yards around, the car finally halted. Only after several moments did the cloud of dust drop sufficiently for Steve and me to inspect the vehicle and its occupants. The former was a car neither Steve nor I had seen before; I'm sure it had been custom made to the order of the owner. It was long and low and had burgundy-colored genuine leather seats.
On one of those seats sat a voluptuously-adorned young woman whose huge breasts were only partially covered by the thin, low-cut dress she wore. I could see that under the almost transparent material she wore no bra and despite my own behavior with Uncle Roger I was somewhat shocked.
The driver was a robust man who obviously enjoyed the good things of life. His graying hair was receding, his once-athletic body was sagging a bit here and there and his face showed the unmistakable marks of alcohol; yet he was still lively and handsome, still quite dashing and youthful.
He fairly leapt out of the car and roaring over to me, extended his hand and said, "Obviously you're Ginger."
Before I had time to reply I heard Uncle Roger's voice behind me and I knew with his first challenge that as usual he was carrying his shotgun.
"What the hell do you want here?" he demanded of the stranger.
The man, who was still holding my hand, looked over my shoulder to Uncle Roger and without expression doubt or fear said, "Put that damned thing away. No wonder they call you Crazy Elliot."
"I'll put it!" Uncle Roger screamed. "I'll put both barrels right up your ass and blast them both off!"
"You're bonkers, man," the stranger said. "Have you the faintest idea of who I am?"
"I don't give a fingernail full of bat shit who you are! Get off my land and take that big-titted cunt with you if you know what's good for you."
"My good man," the stranger said. "My name is George, Richard George, but most of my friends call me Dickie -"
"I don't care if -"
"I'm sure you will when I explain that I'm this child's maternal uncle and that I've come to bring her back to civilization after her unpleasant ordeal at the hands of you Pennsylvania savages."
"Now, just a ... "
"My good man put that stupid firearm away, will you? If you shoot you'll only go to jail - and then where would Ginger be?"
Steve and I had remained absolutely silent throughout this entire exchange, neither of us quite knowing or understanding what to say or do.
"Well," the stranger finally said, "aren't you going to invite us in?"
Uncle Roger seemed to have lost what little command of the situation he might have had. His mouth hung open and the barrel of the shotgun dropped as he mumbled something about the house and then turned to Steve and me. "Run on now," he said. "I'll call you back when it's time."
We wandered off a short distance. Both uncles and the strange woman had entered the house. Then, on a wild notion, I asked Steve if he was curious. He nodded and without a moment's hesitation we both rounded the house, climbed the kitchen roof and slipped through the window of the room I had slept in my first week at the farm.
As quietly as possible I led Steve through the bathroom to the main bedroom. Lifting one of the fur rugs, we listened to the conversation downstairs through the floor.
"Oh, don't be a complete sod," Uncle Richard was saying. "The girl's been with you almost six months, rotting on this - what the hell do you call it? - A farm. Don't you understand anything I'm offering her the city, a good education, good friends, culture -"
"She has culture and friends here," Uncle Roger said.
"She's such a pretty little girl -" It was the woman.
"Shut up, you stupid cunt!" Uncle Richard snapped. "I know why you want to keep her here. They don't call you Crazy Elliot for nothing, now do they? You've been fucking that little twit, haven't you Rog old boy?"
"That's the most insane."
"Oh, come on now, old man. As I recall him, your brother was the same way. Couldn't keep his hands off anything in skirts. What was it someone once said? Put a skirt on a barrel and he'd be humping the bunghole."
"Your sister wasn't exactly The Virgin Mary," Roger said.
"Of course not. Nobody in her right mind would be, but that's all water under the bridge. I have a responsibility to Ginger, to her aunt and her mother, my dear sisters and I intend to fulfill that obligation by seeing that she's raised properly not by some dumb-dumb cow fucker out here in the boondocks of - where the hell are we, Madge?"
"Pennsylvania, sweety."
"Thanks."
This time it was Uncle Roger's voice. "Well, City Shit," he said, "you're not getting her. So there!"
Uncle Richard cleared his throat. "I had hoped to avoid this," he said. "I tried to be a decent sort. Tried to be open and above board, pukka and all that; but you've just made me force my hand. You see, it is I who don't give a - what? - a flying fingernail of bat shit, I believe - about your thoughts. I have a court order for Ginger right here. I am her legal guardian and as such I'm taking her back to New York."
"You wouldn't!"
"Of course I would. Why the hell do you think I drove all the way out here with a moron like Madge? She's a mother-image. Girl needs an older woman to show her the ropes, what say Madge?"
"Whatever you -"
"Thanks. Now, Rog, old fellow, how about it? There's not much you can do, you know. I mean I am the legal guardian and you're - what the hell are you, Rog? You're a 15 or 20,000 a year farmer or something. What kind of life is that? Living in poverty, rotting around Pennsylvania, sloughing through meadow muffins all day long. Be a sport, Rog. See it my way."
My Uncle Roger's voice seemed resigned when he spoke. "I haven't got much choice, have I?"
"Not really, old man."
"Well, if that's the case I can't say anything. But do try to be fair to the child, will you? What if she doesn't like the city? What if she wants to return here to the farm?"
"Oh, my good man, my good man," Uncle Richard said. "Rest assured that I'll never do anything contrary to Ginger's best interests. Believe me, if she doesn't like New York, I'll personally drive here back here. But give it a trial, won't you? Don't become a sputtering barbarian about it the first week we're gone. Say six months or a year?"
"Six months."
"A year. Give the girl more time. You have telephones out here?"
"Of course we have tel -"
"Good. I'll buzz you up in a year or so and let you know."
Somehow, I could listen to no more of the conversation below. I rolled over on my back and closed my eyes against the tears forming behind the lids. When I opened them, I saw Steve's face, handsome, young and tender above me.
"Oh, Steve," I gasped. "I don't want to go. Don't let them take me there."
"What can I do?" he seemed far more lost and bewildered than I.
"Oh, Steve," I gasped as I threw my arms around his shoulders and pulled his body down to mine on the soft fur rug. "I can't leave you. I can't, I can't."
I could feel his heavy breath next to my ear as his strong young arms pulled my aching breasts tight to his chest. He twisted his head slightly and then his lips were on mine, the scalding pressure of their kiss ending a mixture of passion and agony through my very soul. "Oh, gosh Steve," I whispered into his partially opened mouth. Then I heard his own words, spoken softly.
"Ginger, Ginger," he said. "I love you, Ginger."
"Ginger! God damn it, where in Hell are you?"
I pulled away from Steve. "We've got to get out of here. If he catches you in this room he might really kill you."
We both leapt from the fur rug, dashed through the bathroom and my room and then over the kitchen roof. It was an easy drop to the soft back yard and then we both scurried the few yards to the stone barn.
Once inside the safety of the barn, we again embraced.
"You mean it?" I asked him. "I mean about loving me?"
"Yes," he said. "I mean it. Please come back, Ginger. Please?"
"I will," I promised, as I raised my lips to his and pressed my eager body tight against his lean, hard form.
And that was the first time I ever thought about physical union with Steve. I could feel the hot throb of his prick tight against me trying desperately to break through the double barrier of clothing that separated it from its rightful home - my cunt - and in that instant I realized that Uncle Roger had been right. I would thank him for teaching me what I knew.
But I also knew something else. I knew that no matter what I wouldn't stay in the city. I would return to the farm and to Steve even if I had to crawl all the way.
What I didn't know was the strange new education I would gather in the city.
"Ginger!" Again it was Uncle Roger's voice I pulled away from Steve, but still allowed my cunt to press tight against his throbbing prick.
"Coming!" I called and as I did so, I heard Steve make a funny little gasp.
I saw in an instant that I had used exactly the right word.
CHAPTER TEN
The drive to New York was long and tortuous and to complicate matters we had started late and had to stop at a motel along the way. Undoubtedly because he thought I might try to return to the farm if left on my own, Uncle Richard made sure that Madge was with me at all times. He even ordered one large room and registering as a family, had a cot sent up for me to sleep in.
That evening at dinner he constantly touched and fondled Madge. Later, at night, I heard him say to her, "Come on, baby, eat it. What the hell do you think I pay you for?"
With half-closed eyes I looked over to the bed they shared to see Madge holding Uncle Richard's soft penis in her mouth and moving her head up and down upon it. I watched in fascination as she ministered to his needs. I was amazed by the fact that no matter how the big-breasted woman moved the tiny penis remained soft. Then, all of a sudden, it seemed to become partially erect for a moment before it drooped again.
Madge raised herself from the bed, walked into the bathroom and closed the door behind her. She remained there for several moments before coming out. When the door opened I noticed that Uncle Richard was already snoring.
I could not see Madge from where I lay, but somehow I knew that she had come from the bathroom, turned out the light and was now standing over me in the dark. I waited a long time before I felt her hot breath on my ear and her whispered voice saying, "Y'asleep, honey?"
I didn't answer, afraid, perhaps, of what she might say.
Her lips brushed my ear and her hot tongue slipped gently around the flesh of my ear lobe. "It's nicer with a woman," she purred. "Honest it is, kid. I'll show you."
I felt her hand slide under the covers of my bed and run hot fingers over my thigh and knee and part of my calf until she had reached the hem of my nightgown. "Y'ain't asleep, honey" she whispered. "I know that. Want me to eat you? I love to eat little girls like you. You can feel my titties if y'want. They're nice and big."
I didn't speak as she pulled the covers down the length of my bed, lifted my nightgown high above my navel and with a directness of purpose which was almost military began to caress my cunt with her lips and tongue.
I had to bite my lip for fear I might cry out in pleasure. How unlike Uncle Roger were the tongue and lips of this woman who with strangely animalistic sounds seemed to have no thought in the world other than devouring my very vagina, drinking it into her mouth until it was no longer there and the only thing left me was impossible pleasure - tingling, intense, wild and impossible.
Involuntarily I pulled her head tight to me and pressed my throbbing thighs against the huge cushions of her breasts, she cradling my buttocks on both her hands apparently intent upon nothing but the nectar she was lapping from within my already-throbbing vagina.
And then, I could not stop the rolling pleasure coming from within me. Nor could I stop the responses to it. I spasmed into a wild and flailing orgasm that hardly gave me warning. I threw my legs tight around her head, feeling her erect nipples as they pressed against my lifted buttocks and I screamed ...
God! How I screamed. The very top of my head and the soles of my feet had been blown off by the impact of my orgasm and after my single scream I lay panting and exhausted on the bed.
"Like that, honey?" she said, but I was unable to reply. I lay there panting until the silence was broken by Uncle Richard's voice.
"Madge?"
"Yeah," she said.
The bedside light went on and Uncle Richard swung his legs over the side of the huge bed. He looked from me to Madge and then back again.
"Madge," he said again, shaking his head from side to side.
"Yeah," she said again, her face as expressionless as a satisfied cow.
"You're fired, cunt. Get your dykey ass out of here."
"Why you no good son!"
"Madge." He raised the palm of one hand in a gesture of complete boredom, but stopped whatever outburst the woman might have made. "You're fired. No talk. No hysterics. Pack up and get out. One word out of you and you'll never forget it. Never."
Slowly, deliberately, with evident fear, Madge redressed, packed the few things she had brought with her in an overnight bag and started for the room's door. Her hand was on the knob when Uncle Richard called her back. I turned to look at him and saw that from somewhere he had produced his wallet and now held a crisp new one-hundred dollar bill in his hand.
"Here," he said to her. "I hear Chicago's a nice place."
She took the money without a word, opened the door and walked out.
I had watched the entire scene from the cot, the covers pulled high to my neck, feelings of amazement and terror mingled within me.
"The woman's mad," Uncle Richard mumbled as he lay back in his own bed and turned out the light. "Bloody mad."
We lay like that in silence for a long moment before he spoke almost aloud. "Ginger."
"Yes sir?"
"Don't get involved with that dykey stuff. It's no good. Take my word for it, it'll ruin you for the good life."
"Yes Uncle Richard."
"And Ginger ... "
"Yes Uncle Richard?"
"The name's Dickie. Just plain Dickie."
"Yes Dickie."
"There's a good girl. Goodnight, Ginger."
"Goodnight Dickie."
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The penthouse in New York was exactly as I remembered it right, down to Mr. Berish's wearing the identical tie in which he had first greeted me. Indeed, I think it was either the only tie he owned or else he bought identical cravats by the dozen.
When Uncle Dickie and I arrived I was immediately placed under Berish's supervision while my uncle attended to some affairs of his own. Berish, probably because of the tension which undoubtedly was responsible for my first departure, seemed delighted that I was back and sought out Lilah with a glee that bordered on the Satanic.
I had expected to be met by coldness and aloofness, but I was genuinely surprised. Lilah was absolutely charming and greeted me with open arms. I remember Berish's surprised expression when he left us alone in the large room.
Lilah stood looking at me for some time before she spoke. Her sensuous eyes seemed to be touching every part of my body, running their gaze over even my most private of parts.
"My," she said at length. "You really have changed in the last few months."
I looked at her and thought that she had changed, too. She was still a young and beautiful girl just a bit older than I but the youthful innocence of her face had been touched by a strange hardness I could not quite understand. Finally, however, I was aware of my silence and blurted, "You've changed too, Lilah."
"You bet your sweet little twat," she said. "I'm living - and it's a gas!"
I didn't know quite what she meant, but decided that she should be the one to explain in her own time. Instead of pursuing the conversation I lifted one of my bags onto a bed and opened it. I was in the process of unpacking, always conscious of Lilah's eyes on my back, when she spoke again.
"You have any money?" she asked.
"Some, I guess. Why?"
"How much?"
I didn't think it was any of her business. "Some," I said again.
"A hundred? Two hundred ... ?"
"Dollars?"
"Yes, stupid. Do you have that kind of money?"
"No," I admitted. I'd never even seen that much money.
"How'd you like to make that and more every day?"
"Gosh," I said. "I don't know, I ... "
Lilah eased me to a sitting position on the bed and took a place beside me. Gently, she placed her long fingers on my knee and as she talked, began to ease the hem of my dress higher and higher. She told me that she had enjoyed our little games in the bathtub and in bed when I had stayed at the apartment before and that she had even allowed Mrs. Pritchert, her supposed governess, to play with her.
"But, y'know," she told me, "it wasn't Pritchert who gave me the brainstorm. It was that asshole Berish. He caught us scarfing one day and I saw the son of a bitch start to take a picture. Well, I mean to tell you, I got that camera pretty damned fast, but I got an idea, too. If that jerk Berish wanted to take pictures, other guys might want other things. You know I never get enough money around this place, so what the hell? I started to peddle it."
By this time her hand had reached the crotch of my panties and two fingers had slipped under the edge. I was like a person hypnotized as she eased me on my back and with a gentleness impossible to describe accurately slipped the already wet panties down my legs and over my feet.
Again she sat on the bed, this time placing her hand along the top of one of my thighs and gradually slipping the hot tips of her fingers into my juicy cunt-crevice. All the while her voice droned on, telling me about her experiences over the past several months.
Her index finger slipped deep inside me and withdrew like a sabre of pleasure slicing against my erect clitoris. "I had no idea how to start out, so I just went down to Grand Central, asked a cab driver how to be a hooker and I'm a son of a bitch if he doesn't introduce me to a buddy of his right away," she said.
My hips had begun to tic in a familiar rhythm and my breathing was heavy. Because her hand was carelessly occupied with the lower part of my body, I used my own to reach under the top of my dress and massage my stiff nipples and tender breasts.
"That guy was worse than Berish, in a way. I mean we'd hardly even met when he tells me to strip to the buff and give him a fuck. Well, what the hell? I was asking him for the job, so I thought I'd better make a good impression."
I must have groaned in pleasure then for she stopped her narrative and looked down to where her fingers were still playing in the wide opening of my vagina. "You like that, eh?" she asked. "Bet you like to be eaten, too. Bet it wouldn't take long, either." And without further word she leaned over the bed, placed her mouth on my sexual orifice and with no more than three or perhaps four short movements of her tongue shot me to orgasm.
But, as always with Lilah, when she was finished that was all. Almost immediately after I shuddered in intense pleasure, she again sat up on the bed and continued her story as if she had never been interrupted.
"Anyway," she went on, "the funny part of the whole thing is that I was cherry. You know, even I think it's kind of weird because there I was asking about how to be a regular whore and I'd never even been fucked before. Oh, sure, that asshole Berish had been fingering me for years and so had Pritchert, but until that day I never had a cock in me."
I sat up on the bed and smoothed my skirt over my knees again. Somehow I felt my very looks might display some telltale trace of the experience I had just undergone.
"It's the weirdest thing," Lilah said. "It felt so good and yet it was nothing, really nothing. Anyway, that's not the point. The point is that I am doing pretty well for myself now. Sometimes I even pull in a grand a week letting all the fat old farts get their jollies with me. And I could make even more if you'd come along."
"Me!" I gasped.
"Oh, don't pull that goodie-two-shoes horseshit with me. I know Berish was pawing you and Pritchert probably got her tongue in you too. As a matter of fact, Uncle Dickie probably copped a feel or two himself."
"That's not true."
"Alright, so he didn't. That's beside the point. Do you want to make some money with me on this thing or not?"
"Well, I don't know ... " I hesitated.
"Look, Ginger, all you have to do is lie there and let the Johns fuck themselves cross-eyed. There's nothing to it. Christ, it's like picking up a hundred bucks just for lying on your back for a couple minutes."
"Honest?"
"Honest."
I thought of all that money and what it might mean in terms of getting me out of New York and back to Steve and Uncle Roger. I would only have to do what Lilah suggested three or maybe four times and then I'd be rich enough to buy a ticket and return to the only place that I could call home.
"Alright," I said finally. "I'll do it."
"Good." Lilah lay down on the bed beside me, lifted her dress hem to her navel and pulled her panties down her legs. "Now," she said, "you scarf me."
"What?"
"Come on, dumb-dumb, you know what I mean. Eat my box the way I just ate yours."
I was trapped. There was nothing else I could do under the circumstances except to follow the pattern she had set moments before. Without any real feeling I slid my right hand up the length of her pale thigh until the fingers reached the soft tuft of hair at the very top. There, my hand teased the silken hair for a moment before one finger found the fold of flesh that covered her soft, moist cunt. I easily parted the lips of her opening and slipped my fingers into the hot grotto within letting them slip easily forward and then pulled back tightly and pressed against her throbbing clitoris.
As I moved like that, easily, back and forth inside the sodden folds of her womb, she lifted her upper body so that it was propped on her elbows and she could watch every pulsating movement of both my hand and her organ.
"Does that feel good?" she asked. "Isn't that the best-feeling cunt you ever touched?"
I looked into her eyes and saw immediately that she required no reply; they were glazed. Sexual stimulation for Lilah was some form of narcotic which drove her far from the confines of reality.
I moved my fingers ever more rapidly back demanding of some unseen person to know if her vagina was the most pleasant in all the world to touch. But then, she seemed to snap back to reality in a flash.
She blinked her eyes twice and stared directly at me. She gasped in pleasure and gritted her teeth together. "I didn't say finger-fuck it," she hissed. "I said eat it!"
With that, she again dropped to her back and placing both her hands around the back of my own neck, pulled my head slowly down so that inch by slow inch it drove on a collision course toward her gaping vagina.
I don't know whether I was repelled by the act I was about to perform or not. Certainly I was hypnotized by the sight of her large flame-shaped opening with its outer lips opened so wide that the inner lips seemed to be puckered for a passionate kiss.
Then the image blurred before me and suddenly my face and mouth seemed covered by a soft hot warmth that was nectar and melted honey. As if there was nothing else I could do I let my tongue shoot out to savor the delicate ambrosia of Lilah's insides and once tasting it, slipped my palms under her firm buttocks and pulled her hips tight to my jaw, running my lips and tongue over the soft, slightly rigid length of her long clitoris.
She in turn began to rotate her hips around in a sideways motion as her fingers worked a passionate tattoo in the hair at the nape of my neck. Even though her bare thighs were pressed tightly against my ears and her feet drummed occasionally on my back, I could hear her moan in pleasure as my lips and tongue played a symphony of ecstasy on her most delicate parts.
Then I felt a strange tenseness flow through her. It was as though her entire body had suddenly been gripped by a strange seizure. Her hands, her wrists and her legs seemed to snap tight as though every muscle in her body, every joint had locked at once.
The only movement I could feel was the strange, spasmodic rhythm of her vaginal walls and the leaping pulsations of her clitoris as it fairly snapped against my lips time and again.
Her pleasure was so intense to me that I remained where I was until with her usual abruptness she pushed my head away and sat up. But although she may have tried to appear calm, I knew the instant I saw her face that she was quite shaken and upset.
"Christ," she said. "Jesus Sweet Christ."
"What's the matter?" I asked.
"Christ," she said again.
"Are you alright, Lilah?"
"Alright! Of course I'm alright. Jesus, you really know how to scarf a box, don't you? Where'd you learn to tongue like that?"
I didn't answer and she apparently didn't want one. But I could see that she was thinking. Had I known exactly what her thoughts involved, I might have run away to Pennsylvania that very moment.
CHAPTER TWELVE
There was a great deal more to my move to New York than Lilah's somewhat peculiar sexual habits. The first thing on my new schedule was a complete wardrobe - a task which Uncle Dickie had personally assigned to himself. The morning after the day of our arrival, Dickie - he hated to be called "uncle" - announced that he and I were going out that morning to buy not only a complete set of new summer clothing, but also some back to school garments as well.
Of course I was thrilled at the idea of two completely new wardrobes, but I didn't have any idea of Dickie's real plans. At the first shop we entered, however, I found out exactly how his mind worked.
It was a small, very exclusive lingerie shop on Fifth Avenue where, apparently, he was known. He was greeted by name and the middle-aged saleswoman seemed to know exactly what was expected of her as she led us both to a counter at the far side of the shop.
"Blue, I think," Dickie said. "It goes nicely with her hair, don't you think?" He didn't wait for a reply. "No pink or red but two different shades of blue and two different sets of black and three of white ... a lot of lace on that white and very skimpy. I'll wait for you in there."
He left me alone with the saleswoman as he walked through a door to the rear of the store where I knew there could only be dressing rooms. As I watched him go I thought that here again was someone who had to watch. I couldn't understand why men were so eager to watch women, yet I remembered two things - my mother's last warning never to be afraid and the lessons I had received from Uncle Roger in Pennsylvania. As I stood before the lingerie counter facing the middle aged saleswoman who, incidentally, was also watching my body, I decided that being stared at didn't hurt anybody, especially me.
I told the woman my sizes in bra and panties and she, obedient to her instructions from Dickie selected several pairs of panties for my inspection. When I indicated one of them I preferred most, she left the rest on the counter and carrying only the one pair led me back through the same door Dickie had passed through earlier. She opened a door and handed me the panties. I found myself in a small room in which was one comfortable chair. In the chair, one leg carelessly crossed over the other sat Dickie.
"Oh!" I said, "I didn't think ... "
"Buyer's privilege, my child. Don't be shy. I just want to see how they fit."
"You mean you want to see me naked."
"Now, now, Ginger, remember I'm doing you the favor. I'd just like you to try everything on to make sure it fits."
"Oh," I gasped in complete exasperation, "I wish I were back on the farm."
"Don't be silly, my child," he purred. "How could you possibly get back there without a cent to your name? Now be a good girl for Dickie, will you dear? Strip out of those nasty, provincial rags and show me how the new undies snuggle your hips."
"Oh, alright," I said. Again I was trapped, but I really didn't care. Besides, if Dickie wanted to peek, what difference did it make. But it was without enthusiasm that I slowly peeled out of my clothing and dropped it garment by garment on the floor between us.
I finished the disrobing without undue incident and finally stood stark naked in front of Dickie.
"Magnificent, my child," he exclaimed. "Magnificent. You have the body of a Venus, a veritable Venus. It's amazing, positively amazing, that you're still a virgin - if, that is, you still are. Ah well, no matter. Here, let me help you with your new scanties."
He rose from where he had been sitting, walked to the package of undies and unwrapping it, shook out the delicately laced pair of briefs the saleswoman had given me. Then, stooping before me so that his head almost touched the soft tuft of my mound, he held the undergarment so that I could slip first one, then the other leg into them. It was he, however, who pulled them up my legs and smoothed them in place over my hips and between my thighs.
"There," he said, taking a pace away. "You look smashing, my dear, simply smashing."
He asked me to turn around twice and then, opening the door, called for the saleswoman to bring a bra. When she had complied, he stood behind me, cupped the material over my breasts and snapped the catches in back. Finally he asked me to turn around and again inspected me.
I'll never get over how much that man liked to look at me, but something else happened in that dressing room which surprised me slightly and could have, had I been more aware of men and life, changed my life. As I stood in no more than bra and panties, I got slightly exasperated with Dickie and placing both hands on my hips I asked him point blank why he spent so much time looking at me.
"Why, my dear," he said in his smooth, artificial voice. "You're a beautiful girl and besides you need a new wardrobe."
"Bet what you'd really like is just to paw to your heart's content, isn't it?"
"Now, my child -"
"I watched you with Madge, you know."
"You should talk," he said. "I watched you with her too."
"But you can't make it, can you, Dickie?"
His face suddenly became a mask of hurt amazement. I felt a change surging within me. As if of a complete sudden, I suddenly ached for a man within me. Lilah had been fine for fun and games, but it had been some time since last Uncle Roger and I had joined - almost three days - and I had previously been used to having a sexual affair of some sort every single night. Also, Uncle Roger had taught me so much so well that I was sure I could stimulate Dickie's fagging penis to some sort of action.
He still stood staring at me as if unable to speak when I announced, "Bet you'd really like to make it with me, wouldn't you, Dickie?"
"That's not true," he insisted, "Why, you're my own -"
I reached out and gently let my hand grasp the crotch of his trousers so that my fingers were filled by his soft sexual parts. "Why don't you show me yours?" I said. "After all, I showed you mine."
"You're putting me on!" he said.
Finally I was furious. "Listen you phony little prick," I said. "I'm horny, that's all. Can't you understand when a woman comes right out and says she wants you?"
He grunted. He grunted again and then, without further noise, stripped out of his expensively-tailored clothing. Beneath, he was an ordinary enough man, although it was obvious that he could use more exercise.
Without waiting to allow him a move, I took his soft penis in my hand and began playing with it as I indicated that he should first sit then lie on the carpeted floor. Still moving his delicate skin back and forth, I slid my own sexual parts to a position where he could easily attack them with his tongue which, of course, he did.
Then, as he laved me and as I gradually sank my mouth over his organ, I could feel the first buttings of life in his otherwise flaccid organ. Slowly, gradually, as he continued to prong my clitoris with his tongue, his organ became harder and harder and harder.
Then, for fear it might droop again in an instant, I suddenly spun around and straddling Dickie, placed the length of his shaft in me and sank down on it with all my scalding might.
God! That first moment of total penetration felt divine. He was not rigidly hard, not particularly big or long, but he was at least male and I was aching for such a contact. Without even allowing him to make a move, I began to ride up and down on his shaft in such a way that the pleasure was mainly mine and anything he received from it was virtually incidental. I savored each delicate contact of flesh and kept my eyes closed throughout the act so that I would not be reminded that I was really being penetrated by Dickie instead of Uncle Roger.
And then another vision came to my mind and I squeezed my eyes tightly shut to trap it in my brain. Somehow I was back in Pennsylvania and I was with Steve, the only person I had ever met who wasn't completely infatuated by sex, sex all the time. Now it was Steve and me instead of Dickie and me and with that vision locked tight to my mind's eye I felt the gates within me open and the surging flow of spasmed orgasm exploded out of me like a broken feather pillow.
Then, like a fool, I opened my eyes. I looked down and saw the silent, happy, jaded face of Uncle Richard beneath me and more disgusted than anything else, I rose to my feet.
He too got up with a little chuckle. "My goodness, child," he said. "You certainly do have a way with you, don't you? We must do that more often, you know. Smashing, really smashing."
"Please," I turned to him, "Please let me go back to the farm. I really don't like it here Dickie. I don't like the city and I didn't like that with you. I just couldn't help it, that's all."
"Thinking of someone else, eh?"
I nodded my head.
"It's that cow-fucking milkman Elliot, isn't it?"
"No. I was thinking of someone else."
"Well, my child, I don't care who you were thinking of. I have a moral obligation, a legal commitment to you. Christ Almighty, child, we can't have you running around loose at your age; who knows what could happen? No, Ginger, you're staying here in New York for a year and that's the end of it."
In quick, birdlike motions, he began picking up his discarded clothing and putting it on and I did the same. Coming out of the dressing room, Dickie announced that the underwear samples had been the correct size and that he would take all the others he had ordered, too. He asked the shop to send his purchases to the penthouse and like a banana republic generalissimo marched out onto the sidewalk with me at his heels.
The rest of that day we spent selecting and buying the two wardrobes he had mentioned and I must confess he spared no money or time. The selections were both expensive and in beautiful taste. But at the end of the day, when we finally entered the private elevator to ride to the top of his apartment building, I again tried to plead with him for my return to the farm.
He listened quietly to my arguments for several stories and then turned to face me.
"Ginger," he said, a pompous man making a final flowery speech, "Don't think for a minute that I haven't given this matter a great deal of thought, both here and on the Coast. The fact is that Elliot and I and of course that moron aunt of yours, Irene, are the only relatives you have. Irene we can discard because she's - well, she's nuts, that's all. As for Elliot, everyone knows he's as mad as a hatter. Lived on that idiotic farm for ten years after his wife died and tried to shoot everyone off with a shotgun. I, on the other hand, am a wealthy, stable member of the community. I can offer you a decent education, good clothing, substantial food - all the luxuries and necessities that only money can buy. Besides, here you shall have sane companionship with Lilah, a young girl your own age - one you can share your interests -"
"Share my interests! Why Lilah'sa -"
"Lilah's a sensitive young girl, but she'll grow up. That's not the main point. The main point is that I am offering you the better things of life and nobody else is. Irene offers you nothing but a lot of hocus pocus ding-a-ling about mustn't this and shouldn't that. She's a complete ass. Rog Elliot may have some classical records, but I can buy the whole damned symphony orchestra. So you see I'm the only logical choice. I must assume the responsibility for you and your upbringing."
"But Uncle Richard -"
"Dickie."
"But Dickie, I don't like it here. I don't like New York. I don't like you!"
"My dear child," he said in his sweetest voice as the elevator stopped at the top of its climb. "It's not whether you like or not, it's simply that you must be protected." The outer doors of the elevator slid open.
"There's no telling what could happen to a girl if she's not properly protected."
He pulled the inner doors of the elevator open and indicated that I should walk out before he did. Just as I passed him his eyes caught mine. His face was serious, but there was a twinkle in his eyes as he said,
"Good heavens, child, you might even get fucked!"
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
I realized after that first shopping spree that for some reason all his own Dickie wanted me to remain in New York. I also sensed that his reason didn't have anything to do with our little affair in the lingerie shop dressing room.
Because there was no way by which I could make Dickie let me return to Pennsylvania, I determined to act upon my own, join Lilah in her scheme and save as much money as I could that way. What I didn't realize at the time was the strange power money can have over its possessor. Those who have nothing seem always content, but give them a penny and they will want two; give them two and they demand three; until, finally, they bury every other desire they might ever have had under a worthless pile of money that destroys their health, their happiness and even their human spirit.
But at the beginning I didn't realize this. I thought only of earning two or three hundred dollars in the easiest way I could then using it to return to Pennsylvania, Uncle Roger and Steve.
Lilah decided that she would introduce me to her "friend" at the first opportunity and two days after my experience in the lingerie shop we walked out of the apartment house and hailed a cab. If Lilah attempted to confuse me by giving as many false directions as she could, she failed. Apparently she had the idea that I was not familiar with New York and hoped to make me lose what little sense of direction I had by making the cab go uptown, then down and then back and forth and once through the park and once around. The end result of our hour-long trek was that we arrived in front of an apartment house on Lexington Avenue within a few minutes, walking distance of her own apartment house.
Naturally I didn't let Lilah know her ruse had failed. Instead I followed her into the building, up a flight of stairs through a door, into an elevator and finally through a long corridor to another door.
She knocked on the door three times, waited a moment and then knocked twice again. When it finally opened we were both facing a small, evil looking man who stared at us with eyes that might have been transplanted from some unblinking reptile.
"Lilah," he said, "Who's the broad?"
"Where's Milton?" she demanded without bothering to acknowledge, let alone answer his question.
The small man looked at her, turned to inspect me and then, blinking once so that we could almost hear the click of his eyelids as they slid down and the slither of them as they popped back, he motioned for us to follow him through the entry way into the main apartment.
After Uncle Richard's place on Park Avenue what met our eyes was not necessarily surprising, but it was certainly equally lavish. Someone who had not been accustomed to extreme wealth might have been overawed by the gaudy ostentation and the obvious display of wealth for wealth's sake.
Without waiting to be asked, Lilah sat down on a huge sofa and I sat on another directly opposite her. In the moment or two we remained waiting for the small man to return from a door he had passed through, I studied her. She was only fourteen, perhaps fifteen, but she looked like a hard and bitter woman of thirty. I wondered what made her seek out such excesses of pleasure and degeneration; looking at the hollow rings under her eyes, I had a sudden stab of misgivings. No, I said to myself, it couldn't be worth it. All the money in the world couldn't be worth it.
But before I had a chance to run or even to move a door at the far end of the room opened and the fattest man I had ever seen in my life walked through.
I was totally and completely tense sitting on the couch. Like a trapped animal determined to leap free yet not knowing in which direction to leap, I remained where I was, a coiled spring of indecision.
As the man took slow, heavy steps into the room and I noticed the huge wads of fat rolling about under his vest and trousers, I remembered my mother's last words again and determined that if I could do nothing else I could at least stop being afraid.
"Lilah," he said, nodding his head and walking over to where I still sat. He extended a flabby hand. "Miss ... ?"
"Just call her Ginger," Lilah said. "She wants to get into the racket."
The man turned back to me. "Is that so, Miss, eh, Ginger?"
"I don't know," I stammered. "Lilah says ... "
"Never mind what Lilah says, my dear. Lilah's a sick girl. She can't help it, you know."
"Stop it!" Lilah leapt from where she had been sitting and ran the pace or two to the fat man, her purse raised as if to strike him.
"Put that down!" he said. Then he called for the man who had met us at the door. "Bernie," he said in a quiet, almost benevolent voice. "I've just been telling Ginger here that her friend is sick. Would you be kind enough to help us prove that point?"
"Gosh," the little man fairly drooled. "Sure, boss. Sure."
"In there," the one called Milton said, pointing to the rear of the room toward the door through which he had come.
I noticed as we all walked toward the door that Bernie put one hand on Lilah's elbow and instead of pulling away, as I had expected, she only gasped and followed us through the door.
Beyond was a short hall and after that a bedroom fully as lavish as the room from which we had come. The room was obviously constructed especially for sexual purposes. The walls and the ceiling were huge mirrors and the bed must have measured at least four yards on every side.
I was surprised, as we gathered around the huge bed, to see that Bernie was already stooping over to stroke Lilah's thighs - and even more surprised to see that she was gasping in passion as she tore at the top buttons of her dress. As I stared in amazement, I saw her literally rip out of her clothing and undergarments until she was completely nude and throw herself on the bed. Her eyes were glazed in the same narcotic way I had noticed before and she looked up at the three of us without really seeing.
"You see," Milton said to me, "she really is sick. She just can't get enough."
"Come on ... " Lilah was demanding, half whispering. "Come on ... eat it ... eat it good ... "
"That's all she seems to care for, really," Milton explained. "Of course she will do other things. There, Bernie, you show Ginger some of the things our sick friend here will do."
In an instant Bernie had slipped out of his clothing, except for socks and with the agility of the painfully thin had literally tossed himself up above the bed and thrown himself across Lilah's prostrate form.
"No, no!" Milton gasped. "Have you no finesse, man, no verve, no panache? Let her suck it first. Then copulate. You shouldn't be such a gutz."
Somewhat reluctantly, Bernie withdrew his large organ from Lilah's opening and assumed a position whereby he could thrust his prick into her mouth. Yet despite the foreign object there she was still able to mumble as if in some sort of a daze: "Eat it ... isn't it the nicest ... have you ever seen a nicer ... "
I watched in amazement until Bernie withdrew and again assumed a position in which he could perform sexual intercourse. And as his rigid organ slipped into Lilah's vagina, I saw her legs snap up to grab around his; I saw her eyes open wide and heard her start talking aloud, but this time with more clarity than before. "Isn't that the greatest cooze in the world?" she asked to no one in particular. "Tell me! Tell me you've never felt anything better in your life. Tell me!"
Feeling disgust, I turned away from the two people on the bed and retraced my steps to the living room. I was not surprised to find that Milton, the fat man, had followed me.
"You see, my dear," he said as he assumed a seat beside me, "your friend in there has something wrong with her which I am sure was responsible for directing her here in the first place. It's my opinion that someone - how shall I say it? - performed an oral act on her when she was quite young, perhaps when she wasn't even totally aware of it. At any rate she's here because of her own problems. The question is, why are you here?"
"I? I don't know. I came with Lilah, that's all."
"Stop being silly!" There was a threat in his voice now. "Your sick friend in there is a whore. She makes a lot of bread. You're here because you want to be a hooker too. Why?"
"I need the money," I blurted. I was on the verge of tears.
"How much money?" He demanded.
"I don't know. Enough ... " I stopped. I couldn't tell him my reason. Suddenly, I mustered all the courage I had and with it that strange feeling of maturity that seems always to help me out in time of need and despair. "What the hell business is it of yours why I need the money?" I demanded. "You don't even have to have my name. How many times have you seen a girl my age ready to put out for every slob that comes along? All I want to know is how much I get out of it. The rest is none of your damned business."
He leaned back on the couch and grunted. The sound was ominous but his expression was pleased. "A hundred a trick," he said, but I heard a question in his voice.
"A hundred and a quarter," I said.
"Alright - why quibble? You're a very attractive young lady. I'm sure we can make that arrangement. But ... " He paused for a long time, his eyes wandering up and down my body. Finally he said, "How do we know you'll deliver something of that worth?"
"I suppose," I said with a sneer, "That you want to test me."
"It is the usual method."
"Alright," I said. "You or Bernie?"
With great difficulty he rose from the couch and taking my hand, pulled me toward another door. "Why my dear girl," he said, "Bernie is only an employee, a man of no charm, class or finesse. I certainly wouldn't subject a sweet young morsel like you to the vulgar caresses of an oaf like him."
My stomach was turning inside out within me as he pushed open the door and followed me down another short corridor into a bedroom as large as the one occupied by Lilah and far more tastefully decorated. The bed was a king-size and the appointments were European and antique.
"My," I exclaimed in hopes of postponing the coming action, "What a beautiful room!"
"Of course, my dear." He had already removed his coat and was unbuttoning his vest. "Come now, Ginger," he whispered. "If you intend to be a prostitute, you must never seem unwilling. After all, I only want the same thing any other man wants ... love. If you try to think of it as that instead of the merely carnal, I'm sure you'll have an easier time ... and ... a great deal more money."
His words only half reached me. I knew I had to go through with this in order to make the money necessary to carry me back to Pennsylvania, but I could not erase from my mind's eye the huge bloated man who now stood before me stark naked, his flab hanging in sodden rolls from every part of his body to the point that, at a glance one could not tell if he were male or female but for his short hair.
But again, a picture of Steve came to my mind and I remembered Uncle Roger telling me that I would have to be skillful if I were to please the man I ultimately loved.
I stripped out of my clothing and joined Milton on the bed. Even though I kept my eyes closed throughout, I'm sure I passed my initial examination with flying colors. Yet because I forced my mind to pull as far away from reality as I could during the act itself, I don't want to describe it. Those readers who have ever shared their sexual pleasures with a fat - I mean really fat - man know what I mean.
After it was over Milton and I dressed and returned to the room where Lilah was sitting alone on one of the couches.
"I think your friend will do nicely," Milton said as he entered the room. "Do you two do shows together."
"We can," Lilah said. The edge of hatred was barely back on her voice.
"Splendid," Milton exclaimed. "Then we'll drink on it."
"We don't drink," Lilah announced. Then, turning to me, she ordered, "Come on, Ginger. Let's get out of here." I followed her to the apartment's main door where she turned one final time to face the fat man. "When do you want us back? she asked.
"Oh, let me see. Tomorrow. Yes. How's tomorrow at five for both of you?"
Lilah didn't answer and she didn't give me time to reply, either. Dragging me by the wrist she pulled me out of the apartment and slammed the door behind her. She was silent as we walked to the elevator; I didn't want to intrude on her thoughts, whatever they might be.
Besides, I had thoughts of my own - and they weren't particularly pleasant. "I'm a whore" was all I could think. "I'm a whore."
But then I began to think of all the money I would have, and strangely, thoughts of Steve and Uncle Roger scarcely entered my mind.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Were I to attempt to offer the details of my life as a teenage prostitute in New York City I'm sure the effort would take at least three books and because of the variety of sexual tastes I would have to describe I'm sure only other prostitutes would ever believe me.
That part of my life is, however, very important; it changed me from a girl to a woman, if a not too happy woman at that. It also made me more conscious of money than I have ever been, before or since. Needless to say, I had the money necessary to leave New York within the first few days of my first visit to Milton's apartment, but then I began to rationalize - to think that if only I could save a few hundred more, I'd be better off. As time went by, that initial hundred more changed to a thousand more and I was caught in a whirlpool of my own making.
The life of a whore, no matter how romantic it might seem on the surface, is a ghastly treadmill, particularly if you play the games Lilah and I did. Although she professed to be completely unconcerned about people's discovering her activities, Lilah still, more or less maintained her appearance as her father's daughter. At the end of that first summer we were both enrolled in the same school; we both attended classes and did our homework.
As far as the business went, we only went out on calls once a day weekdays and twice on Fridays and Saturdays. Sometimes we went separately and sometimes together to perform for customers and always at night.
By the time Christmas came around Lilah seemed like an old woman and she didn't seem to care. She had taken to smoking pot, the smell of which sickened me. She had also become even more eccentric. After we returned from our dates she no longer seemed interested in having me massage, manipulate, or orally stimulate her vagina. Instead she would pose for long hours in front of the floor-length mirror in our room and naked and cold, inspect her body as minutely as a doctor might in looking for some tiny scar.
I often watched Lilah twisting this way and that in front of the mirror as she spread the lips of her vagina wide and squatted in front of the glass so as to have a better look at her own sexual parts.
I could see that she was getting more and more involved with whatever strange sexual fantasy she had, but I was not to discover for some time what that was.
My birthday passed with a present from Uncle Roger and a card from Steve and then my first year in New York was finished. I was torn in half. Part of me wanted to return to Steve and the farm. Another part kept saying, "Just another hundred ... just another thousand ... "
Uncle Richard didn't speak to me about a return to Pennsylvania and I - a liar by default - didn't press the matter with him.
It was Lilah who worried me more than anyone else. Not only was she withdrawing more and more into herself, but she was skipping whole days at school and I knew that those days she spent in fornicating everyone she could find whether he paid her or not. Once I came home early and found her in the room with Mrs. Pritchert. Although the older woman was fully clothed, Lilah was stark naked before her asking, "Don't you think it's pretty? Don't you think I've got the nicest pussy in the world?"
Mrs. Pritchert seemed in complete agreement. She was staring down at Lilah's cunt with rapt attention, nodding her head and saying, "Yes, yes," over and over again when I broke in on them. Then as she left, Lilah rushed over to me and began to ask the same questions. I ignored her, turning into the bathroom as she confronted the mirror with the same question.
Something had to be done about the poor girl, but I had no idea of what that something might be. She only seemed normal when we were together working as prostitutes, although she did show a marked general improvement during my second year at the penthouse when Uncle Richard again went on an extended business trip to the Coast.
During that time our activities as prostitutes slackened and I began to devote more time to my school work and to my correspondence with Steve and Uncle Roger, which I had almost dropped.
Lilah and I got as close as we ever were during her father's absence, but she was such a secretive girl that I never knew what had caused her strange behavior - not then, at any rate.
It was only after her father's return from the Coast that she seemed to suffer a relapse to her old ways and I discovered what her problem probably was. I discovered it by pure accident.
Over the months I had worked for him I had become quite friendly with Milton, the fat man who ran our call operation. Because Lilah's father was such a phony type and because Uncle Roger was still in Pennsylvania, I leaned on Milton as any girl leans on an older man.
But I must say that, although Milton had his genuine side, he was quite fond of watching other people perform sexually and often made it a point to lease his apartment to unsuspecting men who never knew they were being spied on.
One afternoon when I went over there Milton met me at the door and without a word of greeting raised one finger to his lips to beg for silence. As quietly as he could, considering the burden, he tiptoed his monstrous bulk across the front room and indicated for me to sit on one of the sofas.
In a hushed whisper, he said, "Ever watch it?" Then, not waiting for a reply, he answered himself, "Of course you have. That crazy Lilah. Like to watch it. That's what I mean. Do you like to watch it?"
"What? Sex?"
"Of course, my dear. More precisely, do you get any sort of inner pleasure in watching the sexual convolutions of others in the act of fornication?"
I shrugged my shoulders.
"The reason I asked," he continued, "is that I'm offering a very rare opportunity. I have here today a child of eight and a man of -"
"You don't!"
"But of course, my dear. Don't look so shocked. She's well aware of what's happening."
I shook my head, trying to rid it of the horrible image I had conjured, but Milton would not let me alone. Like Lilah with her grass he was convinced that because he liked something then everyone else did too. Gripping me by the wrist, he led me through the door to his own bedroom, opened a closet there, and pushing a button, caused a section of the wall to slip away.
I found myself in a narrow, dimly-lit theatre looking through a glass wall into the room that held the monstrous huge bed. I realized in an instant that all the walls, perhaps even the ceiling of the other bedroom were two-way glass.
Milton again lifted his finger to his lips. "I don't know when they'll be here - Bernie's handling this one - but it should be any moment now. Here, would you like a cigarette?"
I shook my head. "Don't smoke," I said. I settled back against the overstuffed chair waiting for whatever was to come. I was neither thrilled nor impressed, but I had nothing else to do. If anything, my thoughts centered around worry and concern for Lilah. I hadn't seen her for a whole day and wondered where she could be, but each time I turned to Milton to ask if he knew her whereabouts he lifted his finger to his lips and with a slight hissing sound, bade me be silent.
We waited like that for almost ten minutes before the door of the room beyond opened and a rather scrawny, attractive little girl was ushered in by Bernie. Through a connecting intercom we heard Bernie tell the girl what to do and through the glass we saw him give her a bit of candy with the promise of more to come.
Bernie left the room and the little girl wandered about making silly faces at the mirrored walls and chewing on the candy for several minutes. Then the door again opened.
I had been facing away from the room, letting my eyes wander about the small theatre in which Milton and I sat. When I heard the door on the other side of the glass open, I turned around slowly. At first, the room beyond remained the same except for the fact that the little girl had also turned away from the mirror and was facing the door. I could see that the door was open, but for some moments no one entered the room. At first I thought perhaps Bernie had opened it for some reason, but then, with a shock, I saw that it was not Bernie at all.
The man who entered the room was my Uncle Richard.
I couldn't suppress a gasp of disbelief and do believe I would have cried out had not Milton placed one fat hand on my wrist and the first finger of the other to his mouth. "Hush," he whispered. "You'll spoil everything."
"But that's -"
"Later, my dear. Later." He turned his attention back to the room and I unable to do anything else, did the same. From where we were sitting in the darkened theater we could see and hear everything on the other side of the glass as if we ourselves were in the other room. Every breath and word from the other side came to us clearly through microphones which must have been situated throughout the bedroom and of course we had an unobstructed view of everything and everyone, within.
Again feeling trapped, hurt and curious, I leaned back in my upholstered chair to watch. I kept thinking that the mere fact of Uncle Richard's being in a place like that was degenerate. It's funny, I suppose, that I had never thought of the man as anything but a phony, even when he went on the shopping trip to buy me the lingerie. Somehow I had become accustomed to such things through Uncle Roger's training. What I saw before middle-aged man and a mere child - was disgusting and repellent to me.
As I watched Dickie sat down on the foot of the bed and began to talk to his small companion.
"What's your name, little girl?" he asked in his most unctuous tone.
The girl mumbled something around the candy on which she was sucking, but it was unintelligible.
"You like to suck candy, don't you dear?" Dickie said.
She nodded her head.
"Ever suck anything else?" he purred.
Again the child nodded her head. Dickie seemed pleased. When he spoke his voice was still a soft purr, but it was more commanding and far more authoritative than it had been previously.
"Take off your clothes, my child," he said. "I have to look at your pretty pussy."
Without so much as a shrug or a complaint the girl began to obey his orders as if she had followed similar instructions many times before. Her casualness was horrid to watch because it was so lacking in any concern of modesty and lacking also in a child's innocence. The child knew what was about to happen and she simply didn't care. I was shocked that a child of her age could already have been introduced to prostitution and further shocked that she had accepted such a life so casually.
When she had stripped completely she revealed herself to be a thin child completely unformed in terms of her future womanhood and bearing no sign whatsoever of her coming maturity. There was not a hint of breast, not an indication of hips to be and not a hair on her body.
Dickie stood up and walked around and around the child, looking at her and touching her shoulders and approving of her form, before he told her to sit on the bed and spread her legs apart.
"My my my" he said. "What a pretty little cunt you have. I'll bet your cunt is the nicest in the whole wide world, isn't it?"
The child started at him.
"Isn't it?" he snapped.
"Yes," she said.
"Say it!" he raised his voice without actually yelling. "Tell me your pussy is the sweetest little twat in the whole world. Tell me how good it is. Do you hear? Tell me!"
The child began to do what he asked, but with a complete lack of enthusiasm - as if she were some small robot repeating programmed words. But her lack of zest was in no way infectious. As she mouthed the words Dickie told her he pushed her back on the huge bed, spread her legs even wider apart and lowered his face to her groin.
At first I thought that would be all he wanted, but when a moment later I heard the child scream out in pain I knew that my uncle was biting her most tender parts. I could control myself no longer.
"Dickie!" I screamed. "Stop it! Stop it!"
Shocked, amazed and obviously frightened, he looked up but could see nothing but mirrored walls. Besides me, Milton was frantically gesturing for me to be quiet, but I screamed again.
"You're a filthy, dirty old man, Dickie," I called through the two-way glass. "You stop biting that child right now."
Although I'm sure he had no real idea of where my voice was coming from, he obviously was aware of the fact that he had been caught in an immoral, illegal act. With the speed of a frightened animal he left the poor child lying on the bed and dashed out of the room.
Overcome by my own anger I turned to Milton and tried to vent my rage on him, but as usual he assumed an expression of injured dignity, holding his fat hands palms toward me as he shook his head back and forth. Finally, after I had called him every foul name I could think of, my breath was gone and I leaned back in the chair panting for more. Only then did he speak.
"My dear girl," Milton cooed. "I hardly think a person in your - how shall I say it? - profession should take up the task of do-gooding. The man you call Dickie in there is a very good customer. He pays well for exactly what you have partially witnessed. As for that girl, whom you call a poor child, I feel it only fair and honorable to tell you that she is well aware of what she is doing and enjoys herself immensely."
"That's just your side of it!" I screamed. "It's horrible, this whole disgusting business. That's all you ever think of - sex, sex and more sex. No wonder you're such a fat pig. All you want is quantity instead of anything really decent. It's all physical with you, isn't it? It's all a way to some new kind of kick. You disgust me, Milton, you really disgust me!"
I leapt from my seat and stalked out through the closet and ignoring Bernie, who tried to escort me, out of the apartment.
I didn't know what I was going to do. I knew I was finished as a prostitute, that I could no longer face the emotional strain the business involved. But I also felt I had some sort of obligation to Lilah. My few minutes of watching Uncle Richard toy with that poor young child behind the two-way glass had taught me a great deal.
Somehow I knew that Richard, with his depraved mind and partially impotent organ, had done the same thing to Lilah when she was but a small child and that he had cast her aside when the perverted thrill of molesting his own daughter had ended. But poor Lilah had not forgotten so easily, or if she had she had only done so with her conscious mind. The scars of that first horrible molestation stayed and the mere presence of Uncle Richard in the apartment aggravated them.
As I walked down the stairs to the street and turned uptown on Lexington I decided not to hail a cab. It was a warm, beautiful day, the kind of day one rarely sees in the city and I wanted to savor all of it I could. I also wanted to think and to plan.
I was finished with prostitution. That was certain. But now that I had made that decision I suddenly felt somehow unclean. I felt unworthy of anything in life and believe me such thoughts are not the happiest in a teenage girl.
I didn't know where to turn. I had some money saved, a few thousand dollars actually, but had no idea what I wanted to do with it. Part of me wanted to walk directly to Grand Central and take the first train to Pennsylvania. Another kept saying I was unfit to live in the clean, healthy environment of the farm with people I truly loved, Steve and Uncle Roger. And a third part of me could not get Lilah out of my mind.
Thus in turmoil, I walked back to the apartment, inserted my private key in the elevator lock and like Icarus, soared to the very sky. Like Icarus, too, I was to experience certain difficulties, but, fortunately, I was not to be dashed apart.
As I had expected Uncle Richard was waiting for me. The instant I stepped out of the elevator he called me into the living room.
"Smart-assed kid, aren't you?" he said, "I figured it out, you little bitch. That glass is two-way and you were getting your own little jollies watching. Well, get your kicks another way, Ginger."
"You're a lunatic, Dickie." I said. I was suddenly calm and the confusion of purpose I had experienced on the way home had dissipated completely the moment I stepped out of the elevator. "You're degenerate and insane and I'm going back to Pennsylvania no matter what you say."
He lifted his chin and began to chuckle. When he spoke his voice had the same unctuous, artificial quality I had heard so many times. "My little child," he cooed. "You're not going to Pennsylvania at all. Don't be silly. I have a moral responsibility for your welfare and naturally I couldn't"
"You're pretty sure of yourself, aren't you, Dickie. That's kind of interesting in a man who's just been at child-molesting!"
"Child molesting! Why that's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard of. Besides, what the hell were you doing behind the glass? Getting your own shady little kicks? How's that sound for a girl your age? Hell, you're probably one of the girls who operate out of there. You are, aren't you? No use lying to your old friend Dickie. You wouldn't have been there otherwise. Now, how do you think you'll get back to that farm? Don't you know, fair child, that money talks? Money and nothing else? Let us be frank, my dear. If you leave for Pennsylvania, or anywhere else, for that matter, I shall personally see to it that you are turned in as a prostitute. Oh, don't smile. I'm sure you have some money, but I'm just as sure that it can't match mine; and justice, as I'm sure you know, my dear, is available to the highest bidder."
I knew he was right. All my confidence of a moment before - all my assurance - vanished. Without speaking another word, I left the living room and walked back to the room I shared with Lilah.
Again as always, it seemed, I was trapped. What I couldn't understand is why Uncle Richard would ever want to hold me there against my will.
But the point was he did. Without bothering to slip out of my street clothes or even my shoes I threw myself down on my bed and fell into a deep sleep.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
When I awoke it was to a sight which might have shocked someone else but which, to me, had become every day.
There was Lilah in front of the floor length mirror, both hands parting her vaginal lips, peering intently into the glass. As I shook the last fuzz of slumber from my brain I realized that if I was ever to escape the rather strange clutches of Uncle Richard I would have to use Lilah as an ally. Yet the poor girl was so wrapped up in her own neurosis that I hardly knew how to get through to her.
I did try to speak to her several times, but to no avail. I had almost given up hope of reaching her when Fate stepped in to do my work for me. On the spur of the moment, as was his wont, Uncle Richard decided to spend a few months in the Bahamas. After throwing a rather lavish party he left, with three of the girls who had attended.
With him gone, the apartment returned to normalcy. Mr. Berish seemed to be everywhere and nowhere. Mrs. Pritchert was available almost like a doctor on call and the butler and his wife seemed to be completely absent except at meal times.
Now that I had given up my association with Milton and his call operation I changed entirely. I lost every sexual urge I had ever possessed and once, when Berish attempted to run his hand up the inside of my thigh - as he had countless times before - I slapped his face so hard he almost toppled out of his chair.
But the main change in the apartment was the change in Lilah. Almost the moment Uncle Richard left Lilah began to act more and more normal, as if her father's absence had in and of itself lifted the madness from her brow.
By the end of the first week she was her old self again, strange and silent, still very much involved with sexual matters but not so neurotically now. After two weeks of her father's absence Lilah actually began to devote more time to her studies than to her prostitution calls and I finally thought I had a chance to get through to her.
Not having any knowledge of psychology, I determined that my best course would be the direct one and one day when we were alone in our room I turned to her and said:
"I know about you and your father."
She turned to me. "You what?"
"I said I know about you and Dickie."
"Oh? What about us?"
"I mean about the way he ... you know ... fiddled with you. I mean ... down there ... "
She stared at me a long time before crinkling her brows and pouting her lips. Finally, when she did speak, her words were slow and deliberate and not without a trace of sarcasm. "You know about Daddy and me, eh? That's rich. I'll bet you even think he did fiddle with me."
"Well, didn't he?"
"No," she said. "Let's forget it."
"But Lilah, I can't -"
"I said forget it!" she snapped. "I don't want to talk about it."
I was amazed at her reaction and a little bit hurt, too, because I was genuinely trying to help. Now I hardly knew what to do about the situation. Because I was confused I decided to wait a while and as if by inspiration, an answer came to me that night just before I went to sleep.
The following morning in the elevator on our way to school I asked her straight out if she had ever been in love with a boy.
"Love." she snorted. "Don't be a clod."
"Have you ever been to the country, then?"
"Sure," she said. "We've been to Connecticut a couple of times. It's a drag."
"How would you like to go? I mean, with me."
"What, to Connecticut?"
"No." I said. "To Pennsylvania. Oh, Lilah I've got to trust somebody and it's got to be you. I can't stand it here in New York. I hate that apartment and the life here and the people. I've just got to get back where it's honest and beautiful and real."
"So? What do you want me to do?"
At that moment the elevator doors opened and we found ourselves in the rear of the building's main lobby.
"Never mind," I told her as we walked out of the small elevator. "I'll tell you all about it tonight when we get back."
"I've got a date tonight."
"Milton?"
"What's that to you?"
"Nothing, Lilah. Only - can't you break it this once? You know you're really much too fine a person to throw yourself away on a lot of cheap sexual whims without any affection at all."
"Save your sermons, Ginger. I don't need them."
We walked on a way in silence before she turned to me and said, "What the hell. Alright, I'll talk to you tonight."
That evening she was true to her word and immediately after we had been served dinner we began to concoct what was to become our plan of escape. At the table all I talked about was the beauty of Uncle Roger's farm and the music he played and how much I really wanted to get back there. She sat listening, in silence, her face expressionless, yet showing some slight interest.
After the meal Lilah left the dining room and walked the length of the apartment to check Mr. Berish's office. Finding him gone, she returned and told me that he had left for the day. After that she told the butler that he could also leave for the evening. Inasmuch as it was Mrs. Pritchert's day off anyway, we were secure and alone in the apartment's huge living room.
At first Lilah remained silent. Then, as she warmed to my words regarding escape, she began to ask questions about my uncle's farm in Pennsylvania and then, showing something close to terror, she shrugged her shoulders.
"It'll never work, Ginger. Not in a million years."
"Why not? All we have to do is leave."
"That's about funny," she said. "Daddy never let's anyone leave. He's weird that way. He just - well, he just likes to tease. Like a cat teases a mouse."
"He is kind of funny," I admitted.
"Funny! You don't know the half of it. He's a prick. A rotten no good prick."
"Lilah?"
"What?"
"If we're going to try, we're really going to have to work together. We're going to have to be friends and more than that, confidants."
"What do you mean, confidants?"
"I mean we've got to exchange, well, secrets if they can help us get out of here."
"Secrets? What secrets?"
"Well, like suppose we could find out something about your father, something he didn't want known we could tell him we'd tell if he didn't let us go."
"He doesn't care what anyone thinks. He's too rich."
"He may be rich," I insisted, "but that's not good enough to get him off an incest charge."
"What incest?"
"Well," I stammered. "He did fiddle with you, didn't he?"
"Oh for the love of Christ," she said. She rose from where she had been sitting, crossed the room to a coffee table and fumbled in a silver box there for a cigarette. She lit it with a table lighter, inhaled deeply, and still standing, stared down at me as if I were some sort of mentally retarded child and she was a teacher whose patience had been pushed too far.
"You must get your jollies listening to other people's problems," she said. "Well, what the hell. I don't give a shit anymore so I'll tell you, for all the good it will do one way or the other. You know, Ginger, some things are better left unsaid and even unthought, but you keep wanting to think one thing so I'll tell you the truth. It's not what you think at all."
She took another long puff on her cigarette and turned and began to pace the huge room.
"First of all," she said, "Daddy never laid a hand on me. He's smarter than that and a hell of a lot meaner, too."
"But he has a thing -"
"I know, I know," she said. "He likes to eat box on little girls. Don't you think I know? Don't you think I've always known? What do you think it's like to live with something like that? Your own father pulling every little kid from miles around in just to fiddle with them."
"He did that?"
"Oh, they weren't kids I knew. He'd pick up some here and there, mostly on the promise of a couple of bucks or a decent meal and then he'd bring them up here and tell me what beautiful twats they had. Then after he'd explained what nice-looking cunts they had, he'd start in to eat them. Hell, I didn't know any better. I asked him to do the same to me, but all he would say is that it would be nasty. I guess that's how he gets his real kicks, the bastard. She took another last drag of the cigarette and grinding the butt out in an ashtray, again collapsed in the chair. "I guess that's why I'm sort of fucked up."
I sat in open-mouthed silence after listening to her strange story, but was more determined than ever to leave New York and all association with Lilah's warped father.
Finally, thinking aloud, I said, "We've got to get out. We've just got to."
"He'll find us," she said. "It's no use."
"What if he does?" I insisted. "If we both get together and tell him we know he plays with little children he won't dare stand in our way. Maybe we can even get Milton to say so, too."
"Milton?"
"Well, he wouldn't like his business exposed, would he?"
"I suppose not, but -"
"No buts, Lilah. Are you with me or not?"
She sat staring at the extended fingers of her right hand held before her like the ribs of an ancient fan. Finally she looked up to me and inspected me with her strangely old, strangely tired eyes. "Alright," she said with a sigh. "Maybe it would be interesting to live for a change."
Overcome with joy at her decision, I dashed across the room and threw my arms around her. "You won't regret this," I said. "You're going to think of this as the happiest moment of your life, believe me."
Although her enthusiasm was not so strong as mine, I knew that only a long-nurtured fear of her father was holding her back. We spent all that night sitting up in the living room discussing how we would go about forming a foolproof plan whereby we could leave New York and Uncle Richard without ever having to worry about his trapping us again.
By the time we went to bed that night we were completely exhausted and the next day we had no energy for school. Yet that second evening we again went over our plot and our plans so that we were sure of every detail. And that is how we spent every night of the following two weeks!
Naturally we had to wait until Uncle Richard's return to begin our operation and he was not due back for two or three months. However, we were sure that we could get him back through a simple plan. After solidifying our intentions with Milton and Bernie, we sent the following wire to him in care of his hotel in the Bahamas:
GINGER AND LILAH GONE STOP URGENTLY REQUEST YOU
RETURN STOP LEGAL DIFFICULTIES WITH YOOUR SISTER
AND GROUP OF ARMED MEN IN PENN LED BY MAN CALLED
ELLIOT STOP FEAR THE PRESS WILL BE IMPOSSIBLE IF YOU
DO NOT PERSONALLY TAKE CHARGE STOP
BERISH
As we left the telegraph office I was in a wonderfully good mood, but Lilah seemed to have fallen into one of her gloomy, introspective spells again.
"Cheer up," I said patting her on the back. "At least we've started the ball rolling."
She grunted and suggested we drop into a restaurant for a drink. Although we were both under age, we had yet to be refused. I drank next to nothing, but Lilah was now a heavy drinker. She indulged especially when something was on her mind.
We found a table. I ordered a ginger ale and she some fancy concoction the name of which I forget. The color was a ghastly pink and it looked like I would imagine the froth from a punctured lung would look.
"Well," I said, lifting my glass in high salute, "We've just taken the first step. We're on our way."
"On our way?" Her eyes were vacant just as I had often seen them when she was in her sexual reveries.
"Oh, Lilah," I said, reaching across the table and placing one hand on her shoulder, "You've got to pull yourself together. Don't you understand? We're leaving! We'll be gone soon and all this will be behind us! No more hooking, no more living in that rotten apartment and being under the control of that strange, strange man. Don't you understand, Lilah? We're almost free!"
"Free," she said absently, shaking her head as if to clear it of some unpleasant thought. "Free." She took a sip of her drink and I noticed that her eyes seemed to come alive again. "I just hope it works," she said.
"It'll work," I insisted. "Believe me, we have started the ball rolling."
"Sure," she reached in her purse for a cigarette, put one to her lips and lit it. "I just hope your smart-ass little rolling ball of an idea doesn't turn out to be the pebble that starts the whole fucking landslide that's going to bury us both."
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Regardless the doubts we might have had about Uncle Richard's telephoning Berish and discovering the truth, the plan did work. Uncle Richard walked into the apartment the following afternoon and when Lilah and I came home from school he met us with a fury I hadn't thought he had in him.
"What the hell do you mean by pulling me back to this horseshit when I'm in the tropics enjoying myself?" he demanded. "Why, that's fraud - fraud, you hear? I'm going to punish you little twits! I'm going to make you pay for this! Believe me I am!"
"No you're not," I said taking a pace in front of Lilah, who was already trembling. "You're not going to do anything, Dickie, because Lilah and I are going. You hear? Going! And there's nothing you can do about it."
"That's ridiculous," he said. "I thought I already made that situation clear to you, Ginger. As far as Lilah is concerned-she'll never leave."
"Oh yes she will," I said. "She's going with me and you're not going to stop us."
"I'm not? I'm not? Who the hell do you think you're talking to? Why, you silly shithead! I'll have you back here before you get through the Holland Tunnel; and if I don't, all the better. I'll get you on a Federal rap for trying to peddle your little ass in New Jersey."
"You mean," I asked as innocently as I could, "that you're going to try to accuse me of being a whore?"
"Sure," he said. "Why not. That's what you are, aren't you? It's against the law, isn't it? Hell, I don't have to run around here trying to think of plans when that one is already in my lap."
"But Uncle Dickie," I purred, "who's going to believe you? After all, you are just one man regardless of your money. And you really should remember that Lilah and I are two people."
"My dumb child," he replied in the same saccharine tone. "You must think I'm a complete nincompoop. Of course I'll have witnesses. Why, hell's bells, little hooker! I can think of two right away."
"I suppose you mean Milton and Bernie over on Lexington Avenue?"
"Now that you mention it, my dear child - yes, for a start, I do."
"Do you know what Uncle Dickie?" I said.
"What?"
"Just because the condemned one always has a last request, I wonder if you'd be kind enough to give me mine."
"What! What! What the hell now?"
"I'd just like to go over to Lexington and hear it from their own lips."
"For the sweet love of Jesus, girl -"
"Seriously, Dickie. I think when you get there you'll be in for a big surprise."
He turned away from me mumbling incoherently as he rang the butler to bring him his coat. All the time we had argued, Lilah had stood behind me literally trembling in terror of what her father might say or do. Frankly I don't know to this day why she was so fearful of the man, for he was hardly a strong specimen. Perhaps his partial impotence had added some sadistic strength to his mental powers and because of this he had long been able to manipulate Lilah and make her feel insecure in his presence.
At any rate, as the butler was helping Dickie into his overcoat I turned to Lilah and placed one of my hands gently against her cheek. "Don't worry," I whispered with as much confidence as I could muster. "It won't be long now."
"I heard that! I heard that!" Dickie screamed as he frantically attempted to button his overcoat. "Don't pretend you're not trying to plot against me! I know better! I know bet -"
Then without any warning whatsoever, without even the huge intake of breath that usually precedes, Dickie sneezed with such power that I thought for a moment he had severed the entire room from the rest of the apartment.
"Damned New York weather! And this is why you called me back from the Bahamas. Oh, you little shitclit, you are going to be so sorry you ever defied me. I don't like people to defy me. It hurts me, Ginger and when I get hurt - deeply hurt like you've hurt me - why I, I ... I get pissed off, that's what I get."
"Fine." I said, taking Lilah by the hand. "You just come with us over to Milton's place and we'll all enjoy a little surprise."
He grunted as I pressed the elevator button and continued to grunt and mumble as the three of us rode down to the lobby. He was still grunting in the cab that took us across town to Lexington Avenue and he continued his inarticulate mumbles as we made our way upstairs and down the corridor to Milton's door.
In answer to my ring the door was opened by Milton himself. Immediately behind his huge bulk I could see the weasel-like form of Bernie, his black eyes constantly blinking as if his eyes were dry.
"Ah," Milton exclaimed. "My good friend and client! I'm so delighted to see-"
"Will you stop that silly drivel, you fat tub of turds?" Dickie exclaimed as he pushed his way into the apartment. "Just sit down and listen."
He waited as Milton and Bernie each took seats and then, like a horribly bad actor, proceeded to lecture them.
"Clear!" He began. "I want to be clear so that there are no mistakes. I pay you quite a decent sum each year, don't I Milton, old chap?"
"Oh, indeed you do, sir." Milton agreed.
"And, of course, I might be able to pay you an even greater sum if you performed any extra services."
"Of course," the fat man echoed.
"Now!" Dickie looked from the fat man to Bernie and then to Lilah and me. "Those two chickadee cunts over there," he exclaimed with a wave of his hand, "are trying to fly the coop. They are attempting to leave my decent, generous, Christian roof and head off to the bubbling boondocks of - God, I dread even to contemplate the thought - Pennsylvania. Now, Milton, does that make sense to you ?"
"Certainly the girls must have -"
"Does it make sense to you?"
"Yes," Milton said finally. "Yes, as a matter of fact it does."
"It does?" Dickie roared. "It does? What the hell do you mean, it does? You're as full of instant shit as they are. No, you asshole! It doesn't make sense. Do you understand me? It doesn't make any sense at all!"
"Perhaps," Milton offered, "if you took your coat off and sat down a moment ... "
Uncle Richard looked at him for a long moment before placing both his hands behind his back and beginning to pace up and down between the two long sofas. He had made the short, eight-foot trip three complete times before he spoke again. This time there wasn't the slightest hint of hysteria in his voice. All the unctuous syrup was back.
"Perhaps I haven't made myself clear, my good man. I suppose I have been a bit distraught over the situation. The facts, however, are simple and I shall try once again to clarify them for you and your somewhat retarded friend over there. Now,-Milton, we're all mature, intelligent people, aren't we? I mean except for the two birds over there. And as intelligent and mature men I'm sure we both realize that I'm a very wealthy man and you, Milton, my sweet stinking pig, are a very greedy man.
"No, no, wait. Hear me out, because I want to make this just as clear as - as, yes, as piss in a specimen bottle. Those girls over there intend to leave town. I don't want them to go and I've told them so. Further, I have told them that if they do try to leave I will have the law on them so fucking fast they'll both think they woke up strapped to a propeller. Now Milton, they are of the opinion that two against one is the kind of odds that may beat me down. However, I'm sure you know they are hookers and I'm also sure you know their customers. All I'm really saying, my good chap, is that I shall be happy to pay you any money you may lose through lack of their services if I find it necessary to call upon you. In short, if and when they attempt to leave town. Now, is that understood?"
Milton sat on the couch, his huge bulk threatening to break the entire frame. His face was expressionless, though his head did bob up and down from time to time in agreement.
"You see!" Dickie screamed whirling around to face Lilah and me. "He understands!"
"Of course he understands," I said. "He also understands that whatever you pay him for a copout isn't going to be worth anything near the loss of his total business and the time he's going to put in up the river if we talk. Right Milton?"
The fat man tried to rise but seemed overwhelmed both by his emotions and his ponderous weight. "Let us simply say," he began, "that it's not really worth the risk to keep the girls here in town. Frankly, they have proved unreliable and -"
"Unreliable!" Dickie yelled. "Why, they're a couple of ... a couple of ... of cunts! That's what they are! Why, they're trying to ruin us all!"
Milton shrugged and the whole room seemed to ripple with the movement. "Why not let them go and have done with it?" he said.
"Why?" Dickie echoed. "Because I don't want to let them go. They're mine and I want to keep them, that's why."
"But you're being silly. Look here. They want to be gone. I can get you more like them. Two, three, ten if you like -"
"You can?"
"Of course. And you can keep them in your apartment all the time if you like."
"Oh, marvelous," Dickie said actually clapping his hands together and jumping a few inches off the carpet.
"Then you will let them go?"
"I don't know," Dickie said.
"Come now," Milton eased back against the sofa. "Why don't you face the facts? First, neither one of them is any good to me anyway. As you can see they're totally unreliable as - how shall I say? - courtesans ... "
"Hookers!" Dickie said.
"Very well, hookers. The fact is that they're unreliable. Second, if they leave, you and I will both be well rid of them. They are pests, you know -"
"Pests? They're the fucking plague and I'm terminal with it. You know, Milton, I don't live in an apartment - I live in a fucking epidemic."
"Then let them go," Milton said. "If you try to stop them they'll only make trouble and if they do that I must confess, friend, that it's every man for himself; I would have to insist that I had never laid eyes on either one of them. Obviously I wouldn't call any of their customers either."
"You wouldn't?"
Milton shook his huge head back and forth slowly.
The room remained in total silence for almost a minute until Uncle Richard leapt high into the air and waved an enraged finger at the fat man. "Why you soggy piece of hippo-shit, how dare you turn on me like that? How dare you stab the hand that feeds your obese waddling carcass. You're a Brutus ... a Judas ... a ... " His voice dropped and he seemed to drop with it. He sank into the corner of the sofa opposite the one on which Milton sat and mumbled, " ... a fat, sneaky turd. That's what you are."
Suddenly I felt almost sorry for Uncle Richard. It was obvious that the man was not right in the head. After the little scene he had played with the fat man, I was sure that only his vast wealth had kept him from being institutionalized. My feelings of compassion won out over my disgust and hatred. I walked over to where he sat and extended my hand, offering to take him back to the apartment.
As he lifted his eyes to mine I noticed they were full of tears, although water was not rolling down his cheeks. Slowly he lifted his own hand so that it clasped mine and then he rose from the couch. Without another word he allowed Lilah and me to flank him and walk him to the apartment's door. There I turned around to bid a farewell to Milton and Bernie, but neither Lilah nor her father spoke. Both seemed overwhelmed, crushed by some strange emotion.
In the cab going home I realized the extent of Dickie's madness and the possible reason why he always wanted to hold on to everything he had, for driving across town between the two of us he casually unzipped his fly and displayed his sexual organ to us.
"See that?" he said. "See that? Goddamned thing doesn't work right anymore. Don't know what's the matter. Sometimes it's up and then it's down. Can't seem to make it run like it should."
I was so desperately sorry for the poor man at that point that I reached over and clasped his flaccid organ in my hand and as we completed the short drive to the apartment house I fondled his organ until it began to show some semblance of life.
Almost, but not quite. By the time we arrived and the doorman opened the cab's door for us, Dickie's penis was still almost soft and it was with reluctant fingers that I tucked it back into his trousers.
Only then did Lilah speak. Apparently she had been in some sort of a daze and had come out of it by noticing the doorman, who was staring at my hand and Uncle Richard's penis. As she got out of the cab she said, in a loud, clear and direct voice, "What's the matter with you, asshole? Haven't you ever seen a lady jerk a gentleman off before?"
With that she stalked past him, and with her father and me close on her heels, walked through the lobby to the elevator in the rear.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The rest of that day hung like some unseen cloud over the apartment. So acute was the feeling that even though I felt I had won at last I had the strange impression that I had actually lost. Not only had I lost, I felt, but I had done a terrible thing to an old man.
For a few moments late that afternoon I even began to think that I was personally responsible for snapping my uncle's last feeble tie with sanity. But then, as Lilah and I sat listless across from one another in the huge sunken tub, I got an idea. It was not an inspired flash but rather something that came to mind as a result of something Lilah did.
Because we knew we would have to be ready for dinner in an hour or so we both stripped out of our clothing and walked into the room where, listlessly and without any spirit whatsoever, we filled the huge tub with hot water and both sank into it facing one another as we had the very first day we had met.
We stayed like that for several minutes until Lilah, reached out under the water and gently began to play with my vaginal lips with the extended fingers of her right hand.
A little quiver ran through me, but it was a strange, new sensation I had never really experienced before. It seemed that it was the result of double or split emotions and as such was trying to tell me something not only about myself but about the world at large. Part of me felt as though I was being exploited just to please Lilah's strange passions, yet another part of me didn't care. I had no real love for Lilah, it's true and I had always preferred the attentions of men to those of women; nonetheless her fingers were strangely exciting, in a purely physical way.
Even though I might have had some misgivings at very first, I eased my body closer to her so that she could more easily penetrate my opening and then after a moment I decided that true affection or no I wanted to take all the pleasure I could from this act.
I was tense and emotionally exhausted from the afternoon and I knew that our dinner hour would not be any more pleasant than the time spent at Milton's. I knew that love and involvement or no I needed release - and I determined to get it.
I lifted myself out of the tub so that my legs dangled in the hot water while I was sitting on the edge. As I moved, Lilah glanced up in surprise.
"Eat me," I said to her. "Make me come good."
It seemed that she knew exactly what I wanted and in her own grateful way wanted to please me totally. Sliding through the water like some beautiful, sleek aquatic animal, she eased closer to me. Slipping both her hands around my buttocks, she instantly sank her mouth against my gaping Venus lips. Her tongue seared into me in white-hot passion and I thrust forward to savor as much of the pleasure as I possibly could.
But it was as if the two of us were actually fighting for some kind of mutual goal, for the harder I thrust toward her the more pressure she exerted against me and the further her flicking tongue was able to sear into the depths of my need.
A minute? An hour? An eternity? I shall never know. I only know that I could not control myself against the raging passion of her mouth and uttering a tight little cry I spasmed into a violent vortex of churning release. My body seemed to collapse all at once as if every bone and muscle had suddenly changed to pudding. I fell to the side onto the cold, wet lip of the tub, but, still with her lips pressed hard against me, Lilah pulled my legs deeper into the hot water ... deeper ... until, still experiencing the last delicate, pulsating throbs of my orgasm, I found myself surrounded by the hot liquid.
My tension had been so great and now my release was so great, that my emotional stability must have cracked, for I found myself alternately laughing and crying as, splashing in the hot water, I clung desperately to Lilah's slippery body.
She, too, seemed to share my strange behavior, for I'm sure she enjoyed what might have been the first time in her life when she genuinely gave another person pleasure without thinking of herself. Also I might add that the poor girl had, herself, been under quite a strain most of that day. She always made an effort to appear self-confident and sure of herself, but the fact was that before I had suggested leaving she had really been no more than a pawn of her father. I still cannot understand how Dickie could knowingly let her pursue the life of a prostitute, but I think the poor man felt so insecure about his own sexual lacks that he delighted in the sexual misfortunes of others.
Strangely, as we embraced like that in the tub - as I blubbered my thanks to Lilah for giving me the release I so desperately needed - I thought positively of Dickie for the first time since fondling him in the cab on the way home. Lilah and I would be leaving the following morning. That I knew. I also knew that I didn't want to waste any more time than that. But I didn't want to run any risk of having my uncle suddenly suffer a change of heart and have us stopped as we tried to leave town. He was eccentric enough and wealthy enough to try anything (no matter what the risk) he set his mind to.
Suddenly I turned to Lilah, whose face was now wet with water, sweat, tears and some of the glistening moisture that had flowed from my own love tunnel and holding her shoulders in both my hands I pushed her at arm's length from me.
"I've got it!" I exclaimed. "I've got it!"
"Got it?" she said. "Got what?"
"Insurance. I've just thought up the perfect insurance for us."
She stared at me, obviously not understanding what was crystal clear in my own mind.
"Don't you see?" I said. "You're father's almost like a little child. He doesn't care whether you and I go, I don't even think he cares whether we live or die. That's not the point. He just wants to keep everything simply because it's his. I don't know why, Lilah, but we are sort of like toys for him even though he never really plays with us."
"So what's your insurance?" she asked with more than a slight trace of sarcasm in her voice. "A toy box?"
"No, ninny. Let's just replace us."
"Sorry, Ginger. My duplicating machine is in the shop right now."
"Don't you have any imagination at all?" I snapped. "Don't you see? All we've got to do is find a couple of other girls - young ones - who can knuckle under to him for a while until he forgets us."
"Just like that?" she said. "What the hell are you, nuts or something? You think we can just walk out on the avenue and pick up a couple of girls like ourselves? Ginger! It's you who don't understand, don't you see? It's we who aren't normal. It's you and me who are the sick ones. Oh, I'm not trying to be holier than thou, believe me, but Christ Almighty how many girls our age live in a place like this? How many girls our age go around fucking everything in sight and not thinking twice about it? How many -"
"Stop it!" I cried. "Don't you think I know all that? Why do you think I want to get out of here? Why do you think I wanted you to come with me? I know it's not normal, I know we've been living in a trap. But we're not the only ones. There must be others."
"I'm sure there are," she said as she twisted out of my grip and climbed out of the sunken tub. "But I haven't got the time or energy to wander halfway round the world to find them."
"Lilah," I called, climbing out of the water after her and reaching for a huge terrycloth towel, "we don't have to go anywhere. It's easy. All we have to do is make a simple phone call."
"Yeah?" She turned around to face me, her naked body still dripping water as if it were perspiration.
"To whom," I corrected.
"Never mind your fucking grammar, Ginger. Let's get this settled before we start worrying about who's being anti-semantic."
"Oh, alright. Alright. It's simple," I said. "All we have to do is telephone Milton. I'm sure he must have some other ..."
"Milton! Are you out of your head? He wouldn't give us the sweat off his balls if he had any-balls, that is."
"I don't see why not."
"You don't? Jesus, you're dumber than I thought! You think that fat bastard would lift a finger for us after what you put him through this afternoon? You must have flipped, Ginger. Here you calmly walk in there with Daddy acting like a maniac and you calmly announce to Milton that if he doesn't play it your way you'll fink on the whole operation and now you expect him to go along with some new scheme. You're crazy."
"You don't under-"
"Yes I do tootie-fruity. You're crazy. That guy's sitting on a million dollar operation. He's not going to jeopardize it for some fancy whim of yours. I'll tell you the truth, Ginger; I'm scared - I don't think we'll ever get out of here. Sure, Daddy might have been sort of nutty this afternoon - but he can change his mind fast. He's going to stop us one way or the other and Milton's not about to help us."
"Look, Lilah," I said. "Listen to me, will you? I know what you say is true, but I also know that Milton wants to get rid of us. I also know he's afraid of your father. If we can explain that to him, maybe he will deliver a couple other girls. We can say they're friends of ours. What difference does it make what we say as long as we get your father interested in them instead of us? Then if they decide to leave, he may have forgotten all about the two of us. He'll be after them. Don't you see?"
She waited a long time before she spoke. She reached for her own towel, slowly wrapped it around her slender form and began massaging herself dry with careful, sensual gestures.
"Sort of," she said at length, "but I still have my doubts."
"It's worth a try, isn't it? All he can do is say no.
"Alright," she said finally. "But I hope you're right. You know if this doesn't work after all this trouble I'll really be pissed at you. And I hope you know when I get pissed I can be just as mean as Daddy."
"I know," I said remembering that her anger had been responsible for my first going to Pennsylvania.
We dried ourselves and slipped into our robes before leaving the bathroom and crossing our room. Like two convicts trying to escape a maximum security detention camp, we opened the room's door and peered this way and that up and down the outside corridor. No one was in sight, so we scurried to the end of the huge apartment, where Mr. Berish's office was located. I remember praying that he had gone for the day, but unfortunately my prayers were not answered. We pushed in the door to his tiny room and were both shocked to find that he was still there, sitting at his desk. The sight of him completely drained any self-confidence I had left, but somehow Lilah rose to the occasion and mastered the situation completely. Without a word she crossed the room and leaned against him so that her soft breasts were pressing against his shoulder.
"Hi," she purred.
He looked from her to me and cleared his throat.
"It's alright," she told him. "Ginger just wants to use your phone for a minute."
"But," he swallowed. "You know your father has forbidden-"
"Oh," she said reaching down so that her hand caressed the juncture of his trousers, at the same time nodding to me to dial. "Such a little law. You wouldn't want to be an old meanie, would you? I mean it's been so long since you tried to feel me up, I've sort of missed you. I thought maybe I could feel you a little."
"But I-"
"Wouldn't you like me to jerk you off a little. Then we'd both have our secrets and I'd never have to tell anyone about how you were always copping a grab with me."
Berish seemed to have been struck speechless and I knew Lilah's blackmail was working. As quickly as I could I dialed Milton's number and explained our plan to him. At first he was reluctant to comply, but when I explained how much money Dickie was liable to pay for the two girls he found, he weakened. It might take a little while he said, but he would try to get what we wanted.
"We can't wait too long," I explained. "We're going to have dinner in an hour and I want them here for the meal. We've got to tell him they're friends of ours."
He agreed to do his best and said he'd call us back when he had definite news.
I hung up and looked over to Lilah, who had Mr. Berish's penis in her hand. It was hard and erect and she was manipulating it with a skill born of great experience.
"He'll call us back," I said.
"Good." She released Berish's organ and took three paces toward the door. Then, with her hand already on the knob, she turned back to the male secretary and said, "You will let us know when the call comes, won't you? When you do, I'll finish that for you."
He sat still at his desk, without speaking, but his aroused passion wasn't great enough to keep him from nodding his head up and down twice.
Lilah and I returned to our room with added confidence, but still with some apprehension. As we carefully selected the clothing we would wear for dinner and started our initial packing, we were silent, each waiting for the slightest tap on the door to indicate that Milton had called. Finally, after I had dressed but before I had put on my make-up, the knock came on the door and Lilah opened it to reveal Berish standing there. We followed him back to his office, where I took the phone and was informed by Milton that he had succeeded in getting the two girls we wanted. He assured me that both of them were under the age of consent.
I thanked him and hung up and smiled at Lilah. We turned to go. We were about to pass through the door when Berish spoke: "Lilah," he said, "aren't you forgetting something?"
She shook her head. "Not at all," she said. "I'm just waiting until they get here. You meet them in the lobby and bring them up to my room and then-"
She let it hang, finishing her sentence with a huge and significant wink. Then, without waiting for his reply, she walked out the door. I noticed as I followed her back to our room that her back seemed straighter than it had been in months. Lilah, so hollow-eyed and beaten for so many months, now was a vibrant and healthy young girl again. I couldn't help watching her beautiful buttocks as she walked.
I was happy, too, for I knew that once the two girls arrived my return to Pennsylvania would be assured. At last I was within an inch of actually returning to the two men I loved most - Uncle Roger, who despite his sham of continual anger had taught me everything I knew and had really been a father to me and Steve, the only man in the world I ever really wanted to give my very soul to.
I started whistling as Lilah and I turned into her room and closed the door behind us.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
I had finished my make-up and my hair and was pacing nervously up and down the room as Lilah added the finishing touches to her own face when Berish knocked again at the door and this time ushered in the two girls. Their names were Rose and Estelle and I could see the moment I looked at them that neither was over fifteen. I motioned them in and told them to sit down until Lilah was finished at the dressing table.
Then I turned to Mr. Berish and thanked him.
"But there's something I believe you've forgotten," he said.
Lilah spun slowly on her stool so that she was facing the man. Her face bore a huge sarcastic smile. "I have forgotten nothing you simpering asshole. Now get the hell out of here before I start screaming bloody murder. You know, Berish, I think if you even try to touch me again, I'll pound so much shit out of you they could fertilize Texas for a decade."
Berish's jaw dropped in shock and amazement. Obviously he had never heard Lilah speak in such a manner to anyone, let alone himself. He was stunned. He did not move and in the second he stood in the doorway like some sort of tableau, Lilah picked one of the small bottles from her dressing table and heaved it at him with such force that the glass shattered when it hit the door jamb inches from his head.
He needed no further clue. Slamming the door behind him, Mr. Berish disappeared and that was the last time I ever saw him - a frightened, perverted old man whose bluff had finally been called by one of his victims.
"Creep!" Lilah said as she returned to her make-up.
"Don't worry." I told her. "We've got more important things to do."
With that, I turned to the two girls who sat on the edge of one bed, their faces registering bland surprise, but nothing more. As Lilah finished her final adjustments of face and hair, I began to explain the situation to the two girls. I told them that we were planning to leave on a trip, but that they would be welcome to stay here in the apartment just as we had if they would only please Uncle Dickie who had somewhat funny sexual tastes.
They both nodded their heads as if they knew exactly what I was talking about, although at the time I'm sure they had no idea of what Dickie's peculiarities might be. However, they hinted that Milton had promised them enough money to make anything worthwhile.
After I had spoken to the two girls, I took Lilah aside, into the adjoining dressing room and pleaded with her to please try to forget any reaction she might have had to her childhood experiences with her father. Tonight, I insisted, would be the most important night of her entire life, for it meant the difference between living with Dickie, who was obviously warped beyond repair and the possibility of a new and decent life in Pennsylvania.
She assured me that she was well aware of the stakes for which we were playing and agreed that she would play her part as well as she could.
We shook hands there in the dressing room, returned to Rose and Estelle, and leading them like two children, marched into the dining room. I was not surprised a bit to see that Uncle Dickie was already there pacing up and down behind his chair muttering about the cold weather in New York and the fact that he had been forced against his will to leave the Bahamas.
"Surprise, Daddy." Lilah called as we all entered the huge room. "You'd better ask Charles to set two extra places."
"Set two ... " He turned around to face us without seeming to see us.
"Yes," Lilah continued. "We have guests. I brought some friends for dinner."
"Friends? What friends? From the Bahamas?"
"No, Daddy. This is Rose. She's only fourteen, Daddy ... " She eased Rose slightly forward so that the young girl stood between her and her father. "... and she just loves to play all sorts of games."
Dickie's eyes seemed to clear. It took him no more than an instant to return to reality, or rather that peculiar form of sexual behavior which he considered the true reality. "Games' eh?" he mumbled as his eyes rolled over Rose's young shoulders, breasts, hips. He extended his right hand to take hers and with his left gently caressed one of the girl's smooth shoulders. "What kind of games, my child?"
"Gosh, I don't know," Rose blushed and blinked her eyes several times. "All sorts, I suppose."
"And this," Lilah announced, "is Estelle. She's loads of fun, too. You should see her in a bikini, Daddy."
Dickie started to put out his hand, but pulled it back. Instead of greeting Estelle, he whirled on Lilah. "What the hell is this?" he demanded. "You're trying some involuted doubleshit on me and I know it. Who the hell are those two quiff, anyway? I know. I know. It's a scheme to discredit me, isn't it? It's another plot-"
"Don't be silly," I said. "We just thought we'd make your last night with us fun, that's all. Can't you understand that?"
"No. No I can't. You hate me. You all hate me!"
Rose took a step forward and placing one of her hands on the side of Dickie's neck and the other directly on his fly, whispered "Gosh, honey. I don't hate you. I think you're kind of cute."
"I'm hungry," Estelle said. "Let's eat."
"Eat!" Dickie shouted. "Who said that? Eat who?"
"Food, Daddy. The dinner," Lilah said as she picked the little bell from the dining room table and rang for the butler. Almost instantly he appeared in the room, his face, as usual, showing not the slightest trace of emotion.
"Yes sir?" he said.
"I rang," Lilah said.
For just the fleetest of instants his expression showed confusion. "Yes Miss?"
"Set two more places, Charles."
He looked from her to Dickie and back again.
"It's alright," Dickie said finally. "Go ahead, man, set them. And do it right. I want them both up here at this end of the table, one on either side."
"Yes, sir." Charles left, returning in an instant with the necessary napkins and silverware. Within two minutes we had seated ourselves at the table. Lilah and I sat at one end of the long board, facing one another, well able to see everything that happened at the other end.
Uncle Richard occupied a huge chair at the head of the table and was flanked on the right by Rose and on the left by Estelle. Technically, Estelle was sitting next to me, but the distance between us must have been all of two yards. The table, needless to say, was immense.
Charles brought the soup as if serving for royalty and we all began to eat. Lilah and I were quiet, glancing from time to time up to where Uncle Dickie sat.
Nothing unusual happened until after the soup plates were cleared. Then, just as Charles swung through the door on his way to the pantry, Rose began to giggle. A moment later, Estelle gasped a little, suppressed "Oh" and said, "Stop that. I haven't finished my dinner yet."
"Why, my dear child," Dickie purred - I could tell by the sound of his voice that he was really enjoying himself - "What do you mean? Stop what?"
"You know what," Estelle snapped. "You're finger-fucking me and I haven't eaten yet. You want to play kiddie games in my cooze, wait 'til I've had my dinner."
Meanwhile, Rose was still giggling and occasionally saying things like, "Gosh" or "That tickles" or even "Naughty-naughty."
Even as Charles returned with the main course, this behavior went on; and I looked at Lilah with what I'm sure must have been smug victory on my face.
"We're not out yet," she whispered. "I want to finish packing right after dinner and split this bug house."
"Shush," I told her. "We've got to see this through. Just make sure Charles brings some liquor with the dessert."
All through the meal Dickie continued to play with the two girls and as her stomach became increasingly full Estelle became increasingly cooperative. Finally, by the time Charles served the dessert, all three of them at the head of the table were laughing aloud and having a thoroughly uninhibited time.
But, as usual, Dickie was the one who changed the meal from a rather ordinary orgy to something peculiarly his own. Perhaps it was the dessert itself that gave him the idea for it consisted of cupcake-like pastry covered with whipped cream and crowned with a cherry.
"Ah ha!" he cried when Charles set his plate before him. "Look at that! Will you look at that little thing there! Now isn't that pretty as a pussy? Well, isn't it?" He looked from Rose to Estelle and back again and each nodded her head.
Lilah and I exchanged glances as Dickie, in his most unctuous purr, suggested that Rose and Estelle take their clothing off.
"What?" Rose said. "Right here in the dining room?"
"Why of course, my child," Dickie said. "What better place?"
She shrugged her shoulders, pushed her chair back and without further word or expression began to disrobe. Estelle, apparently satisfied as far as her stomach was concerned, had already begun to do the same.
As the two young girls gradually revealed their young and perfectly-proportioned bodies, Dickie remained in his chair, turning his head from one to the other and occasionally licking his lips in sensual appreciation. It seemed from the degree of his interest in the two visitors that he had completely forgotten about Lilah and me. I couldn't have been happier, although I must confess that a certain morbid curiosity forced me to remain in my seat rather than take that first opportunity to leave.
Rose, obviously the bolder or at least the more enthusiastic of the two girls, stepped out of her final undergarment first and when she had done so took a pace closer to Uncle Dickie. He let his eyes wander from her face down her beautiful thrusting breasts and over her silken navel to her primary sexual parts. Finally, after what seemed an eternity, he pushed his chair back and told her to sit on the table directly in front of him, just to the right of his dessert plate. She complied without comment.
Then he beckoned Estelle closer. She moved to the side of his chair and with his eyes still on Rose he reached out with his left hand to caress Estelle's bare legs. Gradually his hand moved upward until his enquiring fingers found the soft, pliable flesh of Estelle's vaginal area and slipped into the hot cavern.
I watched in mingled disgust and enthusiasm as, his left hand already moving inside Estelle's womb, Dickie's entire attention riveted on Rose. He had been inspecting her before true and his eyes had never left her, but now his attention seemed to increase.
He reached out and touched her on one knee and let his right hand slide up the inside of her thigh. Then, just before his fingers had reached the juncture of her softly-rounded legs, he pulled it away and grabbing the dessert, still untouched on his plate, he smashed the entire cupcake, whipped cream and cherry all against the poor girl's vagina with brutal force.
I watched in amazement as, without taking his left hand from the hot confines of Estelle's sex, he pushed his chair slightly to the side and leaned forward to devour the pastry now smeared over Rose's lower abdomen and thighs and mashed into the silken hairs that surrounded her opening.
For perhaps a full minute I stared at this horrid behavior, unable to collect my wits sufficiently to move or even to speak. I could not move my eyes from Dickie's head as it pressed against Rose's delicate parts, nor diverse my ears from the animal-like sounds of his mouth as it slopped into the smeared mess.
Fortunately, Lilah was not as hypnotized as I was, perhaps because she had witnessed this perverse behavior many times before. "Pssst!" she hissed across the table. "Pssst!"
How many times she made the noise I shall never know, but finally, in response to her jab on my wrist I turned my head to see her looking at me. Her eyes were wild, almost frantic, as she whispered, "C'mon, Ginger. Now! Let's split this scene!"
I must have stared at her without any comprehension at all. The action at the head of the table had mesmerized me so that I was aware of nothing but Uncle Dickie's orgiastic excesses with the two girls.
"Let's go!" Lilah said in a hoarse whisper. "When he's like that he doesn't know what's happening."
"Go?" I said.
She eased her chair away from the table and silently slipping out of it, came about the foot of the board to where I sat. Gently, yet with a firmness of purpose I had rarely seen in her before, she placed one arm around my shoulders and leaned down to whisper in my ear. "Remember Pennsylvania, Ginger? Now's the chance. He'll be at it for an hour, first one and then the other. Let's get our stuff together and get the hell out of here."
Finally, a semblance of my original purpose came back to me. Like a patient coming out of an anesthetic I shook my head to clear it of the present scene. But I didn't speak. I merely threw my napkin on the table and silently left my place to sneak out of the dining room, with Lilah. As silently as we could we retraced our steps back to our bedroom and there we both began to throw our clothing hastily into our suitcases. I only took what I thought would be essential, possibly because of my eagerness to leave, but more probably because I only had one valise. Lilah, however, packed three matching cases with most of her elaborate wardrobe. Nonetheless, our total packing time couldn't have been more than half an hour.
Finally, snapping the catches on the last bag, we were ready to leave. The old terror seemed to hit us both at once. But now it was too late to turn back. Like thieves we opened the door and peered this way and that down the corridor. We could hear the giggles, grunts and laughter from the main part of the apartment and occasionally, Uncle Dickie's voice exclaiming what a beautiful sexual organ one girl or the other had.
On tiptoe we crossed to the elevator. Lilah pushed the button. The wait was an agony of suspense. At any moment I expected to see Dickie rear out of the apartment, accost us and become violent; but fortunately we were spared. The elevator finally arrived and we threw our baggage in it, leaping in front of the cases as if the elevator had been a moving truck.
Again it seemed an eternity before the doors closed behind us and the small box began to descend to street level. Only then did we heave a mutual sigh of relief.
We were free - or so we thought. We had no idea what was to happen downstairs. Indeed, when it did happen I was so shocked that I did nothing about it. Fortunately, Lilah again rose to the occasion with a spontaneous courage I shall always admire.
We removed our luggage from the elevator, crossed the length of the lobby to the front door and placed the four cases outside on the curb. Then Lilah approached the doorman of the building and asked him to call a cab.
"I'm sorry, miss," he said. "I have orders to take you up to the penthouse if-"
She didn't wait for him to say another word. Turning to me, she said, "Hail a cab!" Then, turning back to the huge doorman, she whispered, "Listen to me, you silly shithead; you try to stop us and you're going to be the sorriest son of a bitch on this whole fucking island."
"I have my orders -"
What happened next I don't really know. I heard Lilah's high-pitched scream and heard her cry the word "Rape!" three times. Just at that moment a cab stopped, in answer to my frantic waves and pulling open the rear door I tossed our bags inside. I turned to see Lilah standing in front of the building, her overcoat hanging from one shoulder, her dress ripped and one ivory breast exposed to the bitter cold. The doorman had taken a pace or two away from her and was staring with unbelieving eyes as she pointed to him with an accusing finger.
Two or three passers-by had stopped to watch and a man was holding onto the doorman's arm as Lilah, in a voice choked by tears, blubbered, "He tried to ... oh, I can hardly believe it ... that nasty man ... "
"Come on, Lilah!" I called. "Let's go!"
Instantly she heard my voice and spun into the cab. I followed her, slamming the door shut behind us.
"Penn Station!" she ordered, her voice edged with ice.
As the cab moved off into the traffic, I looked back to see a crowd gathering around the doorman. I noticed that two policemen had joined the throng and were questioning the people there.
"Whatever did you do?" I asked, after the driver had turned onto a cross-town street.
"Forget it," she said. "A little show biz never hurt anyone. Besides, it's an old dress anyway."
I leaned back into the seat, proud and pleased with Lilah's ability to meet and cope with the unexpected so successfully.
I relaxed. We were free. At last, we were free.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
It was only after we reached the station and dismissed the cab that the immediate hopelessness of our situation occurred to both of us, for when I reached into my purse for money to pay the driver I found I had only a ten dollar bill and a couple of ones.
"Oh no!" I said to Lilah. "My money. It's still in the bank."
She looked at me for a second before her mouth dropped open. "Christ!" she said. "Do you have enough to pay the cab?"
I told her I did, paid the man his due and then the two of us stood on the curb in front of the station like a couple of helpless waifs, not knowing where or to whom to turn. There was nothing we could do but stay in the city overnight and go to the bank in the morning, but we could hardly return to Uncle Richard's apartment. Strangely, the obvious solution to our problem didn't come to us for several agonized minutes - until I happened to look up to see that we were standing across the street from the Pennsylvania Hotel.
Maybe, I thought, the name itself is a good omen. Motioning for Lilah to follow me, I picked up my bag and one of hers and together we crossed the street to the hotel. Within minutes we were established in a neat double room and we both collapsed through sheer exhaustion.
That night, just before I fell asleep, I turned to see that Lilah had slipped out of her bed and was leaning over mine. She laid one hand gently on my breast and whispered, "Let's play, Ginger. Let's fiddle with our pussies." But there was no conviction in her voice and I myself could not muster any enthusiasm for the idea.
"Lilah," I said, opening my eyes, "I don't know how to say this ... I mean after what you know about me and all the things we have done together, but - well, I just don't want to any more. It's like - well, when I left that apartment, all that crazy sex for sex play became part of the past."
She removed her hand but still stood over my bed, looking down at me. She didn't speak for some time and when she did, a strange little-girl quality I had never heard before had crept in her voice. "You know," she said at length, "I'm kind of glad you said that. If you want to know the truth I only came over here because of ... well, habit, I guess. I don't think I really, honestly want to either."
Silently she walked back to her own bed and slipped under the covers. The moment she did so heralded a turning point in both our lives. The following day was a matter of technical organization, no more. First I went to my bank and withdrew all my savings, then returned to the hotel. Lilah had already packed for both of us and while she went to take out her own savings I had our baggage taken across the street to the station and checked in for the train to Pennsylvania that afternoon. By the time she returned I had not only paid the hotel bill but had two tickets and we were ready to leave town. All we had to do was wait for the train's departure.
As something of a symbolic farewell to New York City and all it stood for, we decided, as a joke, to have a final brunch at Shraffts. I'm sure the waiter wondered why the two girls he served giggled hysterically throughout the meal.
Really it was funny, though, because Shraffts was the last place in New York - the last place in the whole world, really, where Uncle Richard would think to look for us.
Finally, stuffed, happy and excited, we walked back to the station and boarded the train that was to take us to an entire new life.
CHAPTER TWENTY
The farm had not changed. Uncle Roger was just as contradictory and paradoxical as he had always been. As usual, he greeted us with his shotgun and relaxed only when he recognized me.
Obviously elated at my return, he stopped all his work and ushered Lilah and me into the house. Almost immediately I saw that he was completely infatuated with Lilah, but it was an entirely different kind of infatuation than Dickie, say, might have shown.
"I can't get over it," he said several times as we relaxed over cups of coffee. "It's amazing. You look almost exactly like my wife did."
Lilah seemed taken by my uncle despite the differences in their ages. I was later to learn that almost from the moment she laid eyes on him she considered him the most handsome and intelligent man she had ever met.
I myself could think of little else than Steve and finally, unable to hold my tongue, I asked Uncle Roger if he was still around and if so how was he doing.
"Around?" Uncle Roger asked. "Of course he's around. Comes over here three, four times a week to help out around the place. Only person I allow on the place. Always asks about you - casually, of course, nothing more, and, what the hell? I tell him you're fine, what else?"
That night three of us had a formal dinner. After an hour or so of talk and classical music Lilah and I went upstairs to go to sleep. I think Uncle Roger understood that I had grown and learned much in my absence and that I no longer wished to share his big bed with him. Certainly there was no antagonism in my feelings for he had never really been a lover, only a teacher; I'm sure we both realized instinctively that I had graduated from his class.
Upstairs, Lilah and I flipped a coin to see who would sleep in the bed and who would take the sleeping bag which Uncle Roger had placed on the floor. Happy, full of fine food and contented with the company and the environment, Lilah and I stripped out of our city clothes and snuggled down for the night. She, having lost the toss of the coin, had the sleeping bag. I had the bed.
Sometime in the dark of night I woke up with a pressing urge to relieve myself in the bathroom and fearing that I might stumble over Lilah on the floor I decided to turn on the light.
Lilah was not in the sleeping bag. Perhaps, I thought, she had had a similar urge. But when I rapped lightly on the bathroom door and received no reply I had a sickening thought. I knew where she was even though I did not really know why. I thought she had simply reverted to her old ways and was in bed with Uncle Roger for the same reason she had offered me for her behavior the night before, in the hotel - habit.
Poor girl, I thought, as I relieved myself and prepared to return to bed; she just can't help herself. She's been educated to sex for sex's sake and she's like someone hooked on a horrible dope. But I was too exhausted to worry about Lilah's problems any longer. Almost the minute I returned to bed I fell into a pleasant and deep sleep interrupted only by pleasantly erotic dreams of Steve. Next morning, I said nothing to her or to my uncle about Lilah's behavior. I tried to be casual at breakfast and when Uncle Roger left to do his chores around the farm I busied myself around the house. It wasn't until late in the afternoon that I heard a knock on the main door of the house and thinking it might be some tradesman, wiped my hands on my apron, smoothed a wisp of hair that had fallen back in place, and opened the door.
I gasped at what I saw.
There was Steve, no longer a young boy in his puberty but a beautifully muscled, grown man, his blue eyes sparkling, his smile radiating a shy warmth which seemed to melt the very snow behind him.
"Steve!"
"Ginger!"
We stood staring at one another for some time until, with a fury that seemed to grip both of us at the same instant, we both crashed forward into each other's arms. Our hungry lips crushed and our arms clasped with a power that almost tore the breath from our bodies. It was as if I had never known another embrace in my life. In that moment I was a virgin again and terrified of the emotion roaring through me like a raging forest fire bringing total consummation with it and a blind fear to all who come near.
"Oh Steve," I gasped. "Steve! Steve! Steve!"
We were together again after all those horrible years in New York and we were grown, although still half-children. It seemed as if the whole world was crashing in on me at once and I delighted in the agonizing pressure.
Finally, after an eternity that was all too short, we separated and I mustered enough presence of mind to ask him into the house. We sat talking of what had happened over the past few years. Naturally, I didn't mention any of the sordid affairs I had had in New York, but I did tell him about the lush apartment and the private school and that I expected to go on to college.
He in turn talked about some of the things that had been happening here and we passed an hour or so like that until Uncle Roger returned. That night the four of us dined together and afterwards not a day went by when I didn't see Steve. And not a night went by when Lilah didn't share Uncle Roger's bed. Lilah and I never discussed her activities with my uncle, and even stranger, Steve and I never engaged in any activity more than holding hands and embracing.
All that was to end during the latter months of the summer, however and the change was to occur on a single day when Uncle Roger and I were alone in the front room of the stone house.
He rose abruptly from his chair, turned the volume on the record player down and turned to me. "Well, Ginger, looks like you'll have to be going."
"Going?" I gasped. "What do you mean?"
"Just that. There won't be room for three anymore. Lilah and I have decided to get married."
"Married! But you're old enough to be -"
"Oh, stop being an ass! Age has nothing to do with marriage and you of all people should know it. It's a matter of compatibility and maturity, not years. Besides, we're going to do it and that's that."
"And what about me?" I demanded. "I suppose now I'm supposed to go out in the cold again."
"Well," he drawled, "If you were smart you'd do the same thing yourself."
"Smart?" I said. "It's not a matter of smart. Nobody's asked me!"
He sat down again and smiled. "You know, girl, things may be pretty fast in New York, but they're a little slower out here and I can't say as I mind the fact. Some people around here are just a bit old-fashioned. Take that fellow Steve, for instance. Now there's an old-fashioned boy for you. Fine fellow, too. A man like that wouldn't think of asking a girl to marry him until he'd talked to her guardian first."
"You mean," I stammered, "you mean he asked you if he could ... I mean ... if it was alright to ask me?"
He nodded his head. "I would imagine," he said, "that he may very well pop the question this afternoon."
I was stunned. I was so pleasantly shocked that the entire room seemed to whirl around for a moment before I finally regained control of myself sufficiently to mumble something and walk out of the house for air and to clear my confused mind.
Uncle Roger had been right, although I can't say I ever got used to the way he went about telling me. That evening Steve did propose and I accepted. A month later we were married and went to live first for a few days on his farm and then in an apartment in Philadelphia which he had taken in order to go to school in the city.
Just before the ceremony, I remember, I suffered grave doubts about my worth as a wife. Here I was, a girl who had been through every humiliating experience known to man; and yet I was still trying to offer myself as wife and companion to the finest, purest young man I had ever known. I loved him with all my heart and my very love for him made me ashamed of myself.
But then, on the marriage night, as I felt him slip into bed beside me, as I felt my entire body go tense for fear that he might discover some trace of my past, something happened to make me know that although sex may be an expression of love, without the emotion the act is worthless. All my past had been worthless. Now I was approaching the first worthwhile experience of my life.
His arm slid around me and his lips gently caressed my ear. I was rigid with terror and doubt and then it seemed that yet another presence filled the room for an instant and I could feel the nearness of something that had protected me ever since I was twelve. Call me mad, call me a fool, but somehow, some way, the spirit of my mother entered that room, for I could almost hear her gentle voice whispering in my ear, "Ginger ... no matter what happens ... never be afraid."
She repeated the words again and again until I relaxed and felt, the meaningless terror roll away from me as a cloud chased by a determined wind. I turned my head to Steve and our lips met, tenderly at first and then with greater passion.
It was the first real kiss of my life. The past was gone. We lived for now alone and no untouched virgin could have felt more than I did that first time with Steve.
I still feel the same tingling fire each time he touches me, even though we have been married almost ten years now, but I don't hear my mother's voice any more.
