Archive Note: The curious structure of the chapter headings shown below ('CHAPTER X / ') is exactly as found in the original hardcopy pocketbook.
HER FLESH ENGULFED ME....
She was a magnificent figure of a woman, an Amazon in the moonlight that filtered into the little room. She was breathing hard, those big breasts heaving rapidly. I held still while she undressed me. She seemed to get a strange kick out of it. I let her call the shots. After all, she was boss of the women's farm. Her breathing got shaky as she removed my drawers. She was beginning to lose some of her iron control. She seemed to want to play as long as possible, not considering my feelings, thinking only of her own needs. When this massive mountain of passion broke, I knew it would spout a river, it would engulf me, drown me. And it did ... Suddenly she rolled me over on the bed and she was crying and clawing and screaming like the giant tigress she was meant to be. I was crushed against those enormous breasts. The giant thighs pumped, the massive hips working with precision, faster and faster and faster. It was over in a minute or two, but she wouldn't let me up. I had barely whetted her appetite....
CHAPTER ONE / "Give it to me, baby! Give me all you've got!" I panted.
She poured it on, her swivel hips doing a double hula.
What a broad!
I lay there panting for a while. I looked at my old alarm clock on the dresser. Forty-five minutes! What a broad!
"Damn near an hour!" I said in amazement. "I never stayed that long with anyone before!"
"That's because you never had a real woman before. You never had a woman like me."
"Are you a pro, or what?"
She looked away. "That wasn't nice."
"I know. I'm sorry."
"It's just that-when I see a guy I like-I well, sometimes I can't help it."
"Sure. I know."
She looked me square in the eye. "And I'm not a nympho either!"
"Yeah. I know."
"Better believe it!"
"I do, I do! Honest I do."
She picked up the little gift bracelet off the night stand, delighted as a child with it.
"You make these things?"
"Yeah. That's right."
"So pretty. You must be awful smart."
"I work in a shop, with a guy named Monk Engels. He's the one who's smart, not me. Been teaching me four, five months now."
"But you made this one?"
"Uhhuh."
"I still say you're awfully smart," she said, her eyes lighting up admiringly.
She looked around my small apartment; noted the Bunsen burner, the small fine tools on the kitchen table.
"What's all that stuff?"
"Oh, I borrowed all that from Monk. Sometimes I do a little extra work at home for him." I leaned back and lit a cigarette. "What's your name?"
She giggled. "You know I never thought of that?" That we don't even know each other's names?"
"Yeah! Funny! I'm Jimmy Doyle."
"Hi, Jimmy. You won't laugh if I tell you my name?"
"No, I won't laugh."
"My name is Lena."
"What's to laugh?"
She shrugged her nude shoulders. "Old-fashioned, sort of."
"So is a roll in the hay. Been going on a long, long time!"
She reached for my cigarette, took one deep puff and gave it back. "Here," I said, picking up the pack. "Have one?" She shook her head. "Not supposed to."
"What do you mean?"
"Doctor said."
"Oh."
We fell silent. I wanted to ask just what the doctor had said, and why. But it was none of my business. She was just a pickup. Probably never see her again. She'd tell me if she wanted to.
She seemed to struggle with this thought a moment. Then she shrugged those pale round shoulders. "It's just that I'm not supposed to smoke, like."
"Yeah?"
She smiled, and a little color suffused her pale features for a moment. "But I'm allowed to make love." I grinned my appreciation.
The broad was pale all over. Even the blonde hair that hung down over those lovely peaked breasts was pale. Nothing wrong by the looks of her. Sweet build. Not much over five one, and all there.
"Doctor said love was okay, huh?"
She nodded, her small white teeth gleaming.
I grinned. "Like it?"
"Love it, love it, love it!"
"Then what are we waiting for?"
She came to me with that sweet young body; she was only twenty-two. We started in again. Bump and grind with those hula hips. Bump and grind those swivel hips, with our lips and our bodies welded as one. Welded together. Welded as one. Bump and There came a loud knocking at the door.
We froze.
Another knock. A man's voice. "Jimmy?" We parted, me cursing. "Jimmy? It's Mac!"
She scurried out of the bed and into the bathroom. I got up, cursing and grumbling. I went to the door, opened it a crack on its chain.
"What is it?"
"What do you mean, what is it? Take the chain off."
I took it off. He pushed his way in. His wise eyes took the situation in at a glance. The rumpled bed, the things scattered around. Lena's bra. Her tiny white panties. Her open-toe shoes. Me naked, a towel around my middle.
Lena's dress was hanging in the bathroom.
Mac got the picture. His grin was dirty. "Wrong time. Right place."
"What do you want, Mac?"
He saw I was on edge. For a few seconds he didn't say anything. He was not a big guy. But he was tough, wiry. Italian-looking. But his name was Mac. Macray. He said.
He said, "Maybe I better come back, huh?"
I shrugged. He'd spoiled the thing. It didn't matter now. "Let's have it," I said. "You're here."
"Yeah, but-" He nodded his sleek dark head in the direction of the closed bathroom door.
"It's all right," I lied. "She's my steady."
That made the difference. But still he moved as far away from the bathroom door as he could, so we could talk. He took out a little chamois bag.
The kitchenette was part of the room. He took a striped kitchen towel off the rack, cleared a place on the table, and spread the towel. Then he dumped the contents of the chamois bag on the clean kitchen towel.
I stared, the breath going out of me.
When I could get my breath back I said, "What the hell, Mac!"
He held up a warning finger, nodding toward the bathroom door. He grinned at the way I was staring.
The thing on the towel was a great big platinum brooch. Old-fashioned as hell, but loaded with diamonds! Reeking with them!
"What the hell do you want me to do with it?" I said.
"Well, from what Monk tells me, you've got some real good original ideas."
"Yeah? So?"
"So I think you can do it!"
"Do what, for crissake?" Mac just grinned. "All I ever do in Monk's shop is small stuff. Five and dime. Nothing like this!"
"That ring I gave you to do over last week-well, that was just to see what you could do."
"I never worked on anything this expensive!"
"I've got some confidence in you."
I picked up the brooch. My eyes bugged. "If these diamonds are good, this thing is worth fifty grand!"
"They're good."
"Why don't Monk do it?"
"Too busy."
"I might botch up a job like this."
"No, you won't."
I examined the thing. I shook my head in wonder. All I ever worked on in Monk's shop was cheap costume jewelry. Like the bracelet I gave Lena.
Nothing stuff.
"I want an original design," Mac was saying. "Something-different. This is too old-fashioned."
"Yeah. But what?"
"Anything. Anything artistic."
"Anything at all?"
"Use your own judgment."
I sighed. I thought a moment. My own judgment! Hell. I couldn't take the responsibility! I put the diamond-studded bauble back in the chamois bag. I pressed it in his hands.
"Nope."
He looked sore as hell. "What do you mean, no. Why not?"
"I wouldn't want a thing like that around here, for one thing."
"Don't worry about that. I can tell an honest kid when I see one. And Monk says you are okay. That's good enough for me!"
I shook my head. "Sorry, Mac."
He put the chamois bag back on the table. He stuck a hand in his pocket, took out a big wad of the long green held together in a big gold clasp. He pulled out a century note and put it on the table. I didn't budge.
He pulled another hundred from the clasp and put it with its mate. Two hundred bucks! I couldn't hide my greedy interest. He grinned. He waited.
Finally I sighed and shook my head. And I picked up the money.
"God damn it," I said. "God damn it!"
"Okay," Mac said, still grinning. "So money talks.
Just finding that out? Listen. That's only half, see? Two hundred more when I pick it up. Not bad for a week-end job?"
Not bad? Hell. It was great! But it gave me a creepy feeling all the same. I don't know why.
I worked for Monk. Monk seemed like a decent guy. He recommended this guy Mac. Why should I feel funny about this? I shook the feeling off.
"Leave me your card, this time, Mac. I'll get in touch with you when I'm finished."
"No. I'll be out of town. Check with you when I get back."
He straightened his lapels; he was one of those careful dressers. Quiet, but expensive. There was a small scar at the edge of his mouth that gave him a sort of crooked smile all the time.
He nodded his head in the direction of the closed bathroom door. "Better get rid of the broad," he whispered. "Don't let her see what you're doing."
When he went out, I went quickly to the window. I saw him get into a big open Lincoln convertible A beautiful blonde was waiting for him in the car. She looked up just then, and our eyes met and held. She smiled at me. The look on her face made me want her.
I was a greedy bastard. Take all you can get, was my motto. But I could tell at a glance this broad was too expensive for me.
The car started up and she looked quickly away. I guess she could tell I couldn't afford her. Suddenly I realized what she had been smiling about. Except for the towel around my middle, I was standing there naked!
CHAPTER TWO / I went back to the table and took out the brooch. I was standing there studying it, when I looked up and saw Lena watching me from the bathroom doorway.
"Is he gone?" she whispered.
I nodded. Then I tried to hide the thing in my hand. But she came over. She was naked, like me, except for a towel around her.
She had a shocked look on her face. "That's not five and dime stuff!"
"No."
"You said you only worked on junk jewelry, like that little bracelet you gave me!"
"That's right."
"But those are diamonds!"
"Yeah. I know."
Her face became worked; then suddenly she was frightened, real scared. "You deal in stolen goods?"
"Me? What's the matter with you!"
"That stuff is stolen!" She began to back away.
"It's stolen goods!"
She was almost screaming, she was so scared. "What the hell's the matter with you! The guy is a friend of my boss. I did a ring over for him last week and he liked my work."
"He's a crook!"
"No, I tell you, no! Monk says he's got a small, exclusive trade!"
"Then Monk is a crook too! This stuff is hot!"
I had to admit there was something smelly about it. But there was nothing smelly about the dough. Two hundred fish lying on the table! Two hundred fish, man!
It was like she read my mind. She stared at the money, then back at the big diamond-studded bauble. She shook her head. She said more calmly:
"You're a fool, Jimmy. You'll be the fall guy if anything happens. You know that, don't you?"
I began to get a little sore, she seemed so positive.
"Look. How do I know this is hot merchandise? You can't convict a man by guesswork. Monk says Mac is legitimate-"
"Because he's in on it, you fool!"
"Holy mackerel, he can't be! There's nothing but junk in our shop!"
"Sure! Monk does the easy stuff. The dangerous stuff they give you! You think Monk tells you everything?"
I thought a moment. I looked her over. I mean, not just the fact that she stood there naked in all her lush young loveliness, with those gorgeous pinkpeaked breasts staring out at me. I mean I really took a good look at her.
Here I had thought she was just a pickup. Hot. Red hot. Something to love because I was hot, too.
All of a sudden, with a small shock, I realized I was looking at a person!
She was studying me in the same way. Like, here was I, just a good stud, and all of a sudden she was mixed up in my business, in my life!
I wasn't sore. I ought to be, but I wasn't. I mean a frail has no right to butt into a guy's life! I mean, love 'em and leave 'em, that was my motto.
Now all of a sudden comes this thing, a woman, a real live woman, into my life!
It made me sweat. I didn't know a damn thing about her. All I knew was I had picked her up. It wasn't even hard. Easy. She was coming out of this office building, I couldn't remember exactly the one, me and my big feet almost tripped her up.
But I caught her and held her tight. And then I forgot to let go.
"You work around here?" I said.
"Uhhuh. You?"
"No. I had to deliver something in the Jewelers Building for my boss."
"Oh. You're in the delivery department?"
"I'm in all the departments. It's a one-man outfit."
"Jewelry?"
"Junk. Say, I got a little bracelet would suit you. But first, how about something to eat?"
"All right. If you let me go."
I was still holding onto her! I let her go. We laughed like fools.
I took her to a cafeteria. I'm no big shot. We had something to eat, then she came to my pad with me and I gave her the bracelet. And a little love.
Simple. Easy. No commotion.
What surprised me was the loving was more important to her than the bracelet. With other broads I had always found it to be the other way around.
Now all of a sudden-what is this, I thought!
To hide my confusion, I got a little sore.
"How the hell would you know so much about hot merchandise!" I said. "What the hell makes you so smart!"
She studied me a moment longer. Then she went over and began to sort out her things. She put on her little white panties. I watched those round young graceful buttocks, and was sorry she was going.
"All right," I said, "You didn't answer me. How the hell do you know so much!"
"I work in a law office," she said. "Huh? Oh."
She sat on the bed and started to put on her nylons.
"All day long we have these cases. And there's always a patsy, always a fall guy." She looked at me. "Always a guy like you."
"Hell! I don't have any proof this stuff is stolen!"
She paused. "Aren't you a little suspicious?"
"Well," I hedged.
"Because if you have any suspicion, even the least little bit, you're a sucker for fooling with this stuff."
I knew she was right, so it made me angry.
"What the hell, am I my brother's keeper?" I demanded. "What have I got to do with it? Am I a policeman? Suppose this stuff is hot. I mean for the sake of argument. After all, I didn't steal it!"
"Accessory after the fact," she said. She finished putting on her stockings. "You'd be just as guilty as if you stole it yourself."
I began to sweat. I didn't want to admit the truth, but I knew she was right. I watched in silence as she went to the bathroom and came out with her dress. She slipped gracefully into it, and went over and stepped into her open-toe shoes.
She turned to face me, purse in hand, ready to go. The paleness of her wrenched my heart. We stood in silence a few moments. Then her voice came; small, almost inaudible.
"So long," she said.
"Wait," I whispered.
She shook her head. "I'm not getting mixed up in this."
"What's you name? Your other name?"
"Does it matter?"
I wanted to shout, yes! It mattered! It mattered a hell of a lot!
I couldn't bring myself to admit it, let alone do it. I was not used to this, not used to emotion, all this stirring up inside me where a broad was concerned. A pickup yet! I was bound by the code of the selfish, the stupid, the dirty bastards of the world: Love 'em and leave 'em!
Christ, now it mattered!
And I couldn't even open my mouth, couldn't say a word.
She went to the door, she turned to face me. The sadness of her tore at my guts. I felt all twisted up and crying inside. The heat of this unaccustomed emotion was pouring sweat down my naked body.
She opened the door.
At the last minute I yelled out, "When'll I see you again!" She shrugged.
I wanted to yell, for Christ's sake, don't go! Never go! Never go away again! I wanted to yell, I'll die if you go! I'll be no good without you!
Instead I said, almost feebly: "How'm I gonna get in touch with you? I don't even know where you work!"
She shook her head. She went out.
Nothing.
Nothing.
CHAPTER THREE / Jewelry making was something I had never even thought about. I had a degree in engineering. But at twenty-five, a guy gets restless. I wanted to try something else.
The pay was good, the field was not crowded, the work was interesting. Because an engineer studies drafting, it made me pretty good at design. Monk relied on me a lot for that.
I liked the shop. I felt at home with Bunsen burners, and the smell of acid in the air. It made me feel like I was back in the lab at school I got pretty chummy with Monk, too, There were only the two of us in the shop.
Monk seemed like a nice enough guy. He was round, bald, no offense in him. He let me borrow expensive tools I could not afford to buy, so I could do a little extra work at home. When I told him I wanted to make some extra money, he said he thought I was ready, and introduced me to Mac.
All we did in Monk's shop was turn out cheap junk jewelry, costume stuff. But I had learned fast. I had been with Monk less than six months, and already I was pretty good at it.
It took more than the week end to do a job on the big diamond brooch Mac had left with me. It took the week end, plus a whole week of evenings after work.
But when I was through with it, that old, hokey brooch had turned into a glistening, stream-lined, diamond-studded spider. And all the time I was working on it, my mind was filled with pictures of Lena. Lena standing. Lena lying on the bed.
Working, sleeping; in the house, in the street; or like now, in the shop, I was haunted by the girl.
I shook my head to keep my mind on my business, as if that could shake her image away.
"Man," I said to Monk, "What the hell happened to Mac?"
A minute ago, Monk had been kidding around with me. Now, all of a sudden, he was grouchy at the mention of Mac.
"Mac's business got nothing to do with me," he growled.
"He gave me a thing to do. I'm finished with it. And he never came for it."
"Look," Monk said, carefully choosing his words, "You wanted to pick up a buck, right? So I just tried to do you a little favor. That's all."
"Okay. I appreciate it. But the damn thing is worth a fortune, man! I want to get it off my hands!"
"What the hell do I care!"
"Well, don't you know where I can find him?"
"Look," said Monk, taking a deep breath. "If Mac wants you, he knows where to find you. Right? So for crissakes don't bother me with Mac's business! I got enough headaches of my own!"
"Okay, okay, you don't have to get so sore."
But Monk was grouchy all the rest of the day. I figured he and Mac must have had some sort of falling out. Could it be about the brooch? Was Lena right about Mac? Was she right about Monk being mixed up in it too?
I came home from work that day, and who was waiting for me-right in my own room!
Mac and the beautiful, expensive blonde.
Her perfume hung thick as fog in the room. It got to me fast. I could read this broad. But good. And she had my number, too. I could tell by the look in her eyes.
"How'd you get in?" I asked.
"You kidding?" said Mac. He nodded toward the beautiful blonde. "Tell him, honey."
The beautiful blonde giggled. "I have a talent with hairpins," she said.
Mac grinned. "That's not all the talent she's got."
The beautiful blonde giggled again. "He means in bed," she said.
Mac laughed. "She gives sex a new meaning." Then, "Oh," he said. "Let me make like Emily Post. I ain't introduced you guys yet. This here is the leading lady of my little black book. Flo. Flo, this here kid is Jimmy Doyle. A helluva good man with the artistic stuff."
"This the kid works for Monk?"
"Yeah. Real good."
"Oh, yeah?" The beautiful blonde giggled again. "How are you in bed, honey?"
It made me blush. Mostly because I didn't have the guts to ask her the same thing.
Instead of being offended, the way I thought he'd be at the blonde's question, Mac only laughed. He winked, he thought it was funny. I began to realize they'd both had a few snorts.
"You be a good boy, sonny," Mac said to me, "and I'll let you have a little. Flo won't mind."
"Yes, I would," said Flo. Again she giggled. "A little is not enough."
"Don't be a pig," Mac grinned. He turned suddenly serious. "Okay, kid. Is it ready?"
"Yep."
"I couldn't find it. Where'd you stash it?"
I went to the bathroom. I took a plastic container from the water box and came back in the room. I took the chamois bag out of the plastic container.
Mac was holding his breath, excitement dancing in his black eyes.
I took out the glistening, glittering, diamond-studded spider I had made out of the hokey old brooch Mac had left with me. I held it up for his inspection.
"Like it?"
"Like it? Like wow! Man, like wow!
Flo was squealing with delight. "Oh, it's beautiful! My God, it's beautiful. It's like alive!"
I put it back in the chamois bag, gave the bag to Mac. He stashed it away in his coat pocket, took out his gold money clip. He peeled off two bills.
"Here's the other half of what I owe you," he said.
He peeled off two more. "Here's a bonus."
"Listen," Flo said. "Give him the other stuff too."
Mac seemed to reflect a moment. "Too soon, ain't it?"
"I don't think so," Flo said. "Want to make money, don't you? I'm an expensive broad, you know."
"How well I know!" He gave his crooked little smile. Suddenly the smile froze.
He nodded toward the clay molds on the kitchen table-my improvised work bench.
"You use these molds on my job?"
"Yeah. Why?"
For answer he went over, picked up the fragile clay things, and smashed them to bits on the floor. Deliberately, without anger.
"One of a kind," he said, smiling again. "Remember that, kid. One of a kind. Then smash the molds! Okay? I got a very exclusive trade, see?"
I looked at the money in my hand. I shrugged. "For this kind of dough you can smash up the whole joint if you want to."
Both of them roared with laughter.
"Now," I said, "What's this other caper Flo has in mind?"
Flo giggled. "Shall I tell you what caper I have in mind?"
Mac laughed. "What mind?" Flo, all you got in your mind is a great big pussy cat."
Flo got suddenly serious. "Mac, should I show him?"
"Yeah." Mac considered this a moment. "I don't know if you should."
"He sure does beautiful work," Flo urged.
"Yeah, but-" He gave a small shrug, a short nod. "Okay. Go ahead. Show him."
She had a great big hand bag, you could hide a locomotive in it. She dug deep into it and came up with a small cellophane package held together with a couple of big rubber bands.
Mac took the package from her, undid the rubber bands, removed the cellophane. Then he dumped the contents on the table.
I whistled. My eyes bugged. "Whew!"
All small stuff. Mostly rings. But worth a fortune!
Diamonds, emeralds, rubies. Platinum settings, mostly. At a quick estimate, worth twice as much as the old hokey diamond-studded brooch.
"My God, you want all those changed?"
"Right. All of them."
"Any particular way?"
"Yes. Your way."
"All right to switch the gems around?"
"Not only all right-necessary. I don't do a volume business so it's kind of spotty. But you make these rings look like something different and they'll sell.
"Yes, but-all this small stuff-this is going to take a little time."
"No complaint."
"Maybe I'd better ask Monk for time off. Couple of weeks or so."
"No, Jimmy. You're a good designer. Great mechanic. But you're no good to me unless you stick with Monk. See?"
"No," I said frankly, "I don't dig this."
He looked at Flo. She shrugged. He gave me his crooked smile. "Trade secret, kid. Some day I'll tell you. Not now."
I shrugged. Hell with it. "Okay." I said, "But this stuff won't be quick."
"All right, man. No rush. I'll check with you. Week, two weeks maybe."
He took out his gold money clip. He extracted five bills this time. But when he handed them to me a funny thing happened. I didn't take them.
I had that creepy feeling inside me again. It was like Lena was in the room again, warning me again. I could almost hear her voice of doom. It was as if I knew the score but just wouldn't admit it, even to myself.
Mac grinned and put the five bills on the table.
They got up to go, said their farewells. Mac went out the door, then, on her way out, Flo came over and squeezed me to her. Her long blue eyes were greedy, giving me the promise of more.
Mac called from the stairs in the hall, from the floor below. "Flo, what the hell! Ain't you coming?"
She pressed her full, red, sensuous lips to mine in an amorous kiss, probing my mouth with her wet tongue. She gave me a couple of bumps and grinds.
From below, in the hall, came Mac's voice, now wondering. "Flo, you lost, or what?"
She parted from me forcibly, not willingly at all. She called out, "Can't a lady go to the powder room? What's the matter with you?"
She adjusted her hair, adjusted her composure. At the door she gave me a quick and promising flirt of her lovely and somewhat ample rear. Then she was gone.
I stood there gasping, wanting more . Wanting a lot more. Man, a whole lot more! What a broad!
My throat was dry, my pulse was fast, I was shaking, sweating. For the moment Flo had even crowded out the memory of Lena.
And then Lena came in my mind again, and I got all choked up. More than ever I wanted her, wanted Lena. I felt a terrible sense of loss, all empty inside like a straw man. And the empty place inside was filled with one enormous pain. I wanted Lena!
CHAPTER FOUR / You don't go to work on a big batch of stuff like that right away. You start with sketches. You make designs. You might have to draw a hundred pictures before you start the actual work.
That's what I was doing that night, when I thought I heard a tap at the door. When I listened and heard nothing, I went back to my drawing.
Again I thought I heard a tap. Sort of timid, not loud enough for me to be sure.
I jumped up in a flash, one thought in mind: Flo!
I ran to the door and almost jerked it off its hinges.
I stood there with my mouth open. I tried to speak and only gasped, my mouth working like a fish out of water. It was my first experience with a feeling of faintness.
"Well? Aren't you going to let me come in?" said Lena timidly.
I finally found my voice. "Lena!"
I didn't realize it, but the shock of seeing her again had made it come out in a scream.
She didn't say anything. Just stood there staring with those great, gray, sad eyes, as if she were carrying the weight of the world.
Inside me were silent tears; great, silent, sobbing tears.
Suddenly we were in each other's arms, and we were crying real tears. Yes, me too. And I'm not ashamed to admit it.
I don't know how long we stood there in the doorway hanging onto each other as if it was the end of the world. I couldn't let go of her and she couldn't let go of me and we went inside that way, together. I pushed the door to, with a bump from my shoulder.
It took a little while before we could pry one another out of our hair. And then what did we do but stand there laughing like fools. From tears to laughter. But it was the foolish laughter of happy hysteria.
Whew we started to talk we both started talking at once. And so that didn't work out either. Finally we sat down on the bed and caught our breaths.
I tried to calm myself. "Boy," I gasped. "Now I know something I never knew before! I know that a guy can go nuts over a dame and not even know her. Not know a damn thing about her!"
She nudged me gently. "Not anything?"
"Well," I felt my face get red. "It started out a different thing. I mean-well, you know what mean!"
"Yes, I do know. Yes, I know, I know. That's why I'm here."
"If you hadn't showed up, I'd have found you, Lena. I was just hanging onto myself, quietly going crazy. Half out of my mind all the time. I was glad about Mac. I mean I was trying to get some money together, so I could quit my job, go look for you. I mean just spend my life looking for you."
"I know, I know!"
"It was awful. Just awful."
"Unbelievable," she said, nodding her pale blonde head. "And then I couldn't stand it any more. I was suffering. I was getting-sick."
I looked at her closely for the first time. She was even paler than I remembered her. My heart gave a wrench. The kid was not strong. I felt the silent tears rise up inside me. I took her in my arms. I held her close, felt the double pounding of our hearts. Our lips met.
Even sweeter than before were her kisses now. Because now, she knew. Now, I knew. Now we both knew what had happened to us. And I wasn't scared any more, wasn't scared about being tied to one dame. I didn't care about the rest. Lena was no longer just a broad. This was love.
I had no idea that it could feel so different when we got together in bed. Her sweet, soft breasts were on my lips, the little pink nipple in my mouth. I breathed in the private perfume of that pale white skin. It was a fragrance all its own, a lovely subtle fragrance like some night Jolooming flower.
A guy could write poetry about a dame like that, if he loved her. And I loved her.
Suddenly she was bashful. She still had her panties on, as I discovered in a moment. She giggled a little with a strange embarrassment as I gently took them off. Then that lush, curvaceous torso was made one with my own flesh.
The way I felt about her now, it was the wedding of my soul with hers. No longer strangers. We were lovers now.
Those lush and lovely hula hips were part of me, our welded lips drawing life from the very core of our beings. The sweet embraces of her legs around me, shapely and slender, were now pinions of strength, holding me to her. The hula hips flirted, the sensuous lips strove to tear my tongue out. And the grinding and thumping and the sweat of ages continued.
Then it washed over us, the love we had found for one another. Washed and shattered on the rock of ages, in the sea of time, of time without time. And washed and washed and washed.
It was a little while before either of us could talk.
Then presently Lena said, as if all at once alert: "Jimmy, did that man come back again?"
"What man?" You mean Mac?"
"Yes. The one who gave you that job to do on the diamond brooch."
"Well, yes." I was reluctant to admit it to her. "He came back for the thing. Why?"
"He paid you?"
Yeah, damn good, too." There was a silence.
I wet my lips, which had suddenly gone dry with an odd apprehension. "You still think he was a crook?"
She ignored the question, but I could feel that her body had gone tense in the bed.
I turned my head to look at her. Her sad gray eyes were wide and frightened. She took a quick breath. "He gave you money?"
"What then, marbles?" I chuckled without humor. "Of course he gave me money!"
"Oh, my God," she whispered. "Oh, my God!"
I put my hand on her arm. "What's the matter?"
"Oh, God, she said again. "Oh, God."
She eluded my grasp and got out of bed. She went to her purse and took out some papers. She brought them over to me. I took them.
"What's this?" I said. I took another look. "Police circulars!"
I sat up quickly, swallowed hard. There was a picture of the big old-fashioned platinum brooch with its overload of diamonds! And-more:
The rings I was working on now.
Involuntarily my eyes went to the kitchen table. I had covered the stuff with a cloth. Lena followed my gaze.
She went quickly over to the table and took off the cloth. Her eyes grew wider and wider as she stared at the stuff on the table, her little fist flying to her mouth as she stifled a scream.
Something of her panic seemed to come over and claw at me. I could feel it inside. Sweat began to ooze out of me slowly. Slowly I got up and came over to her. She held on to me, tightly, both of us naked, and she buried her head in my shoulder.
After a while I whispered, "Lena, what do you want me to do?"
"Will you do it? Will you do what I want?
My throat was tight, I swallowed hard. "I'll try."
"I don't know yet what you have to do. I'll have to ask my boss. Mr. Whitmore. He's one of the big attorneys in the office."
"No. Attorneys cost money."
"What else can we do? Go to the police?"
"I can't do that!"
"Why not? You're afraid they'll call you a squealer? Don't you realize you have a right to squeal? Look how they roped you into this! Were they thinking of you? Why didn't they tell you the stuff was stolen? Then you could have said yes or no with your eyes open!"
"I know, but-I still can't do a thing like that!"
"Look at it this way, Jimmy. If you go to the police and explain how you innocently got mixed up in this-"
"How do we know they'll believe me!"
"They'll have to believe you! Would you be telling them about it if you were guilty? Would you be squealing on yourself? People don't do that, do they?"
"Well-" I licked my lips and tasted the acid of sweat. "Maybe you got something, Lena. But I still have to think about it. I don't like this idea of squealing."
"It's not squealing!" she screamed. "For God's sake, can't you see? Its not squealing! If the police catch you on their own, you'll go to prison for twenty years!"
"Give me a chance to think about it," I begged. "Give me a little time. It's not easy for a guy to run to the cops, with a story. Like a kid running to his mother. You've got to understand that, Lena. Try to think my way a minute."
"All right. You shouldn't do anything anyway. Not yet. We're only guessing what to do. We don't know yet. We won't know till I talk to Mr. Whitmore."
"Okay. I'll do what he says."
"You promise?"
"I promise."
"Even if he tells you to go to the police?"
I had to wet my lips again before I could say it. But finally I got it out.
"Whatever I have to do, I'll do. If I have to go to the cops, I'll go."
"Good. But remember. Don't do one single thing till I tell you. Not one little thing. Sit tight!"
CHAPTER FIVE / I should have gone to the district attorney first. I should have waited until Lena had a talk with Mr. Whitmore first. It was just that I was so damn shaky from thinking about it all night that my reasoning suffered.
The way you do a thing like this, you have your lawyer contact the D.A.'s office. The lawyer makes a deal for you. By a deal I mean, he gets you in the clear, before you give yourself up. That's if you are in the clear of course. Then, when it's all arranged, that's when you turn yourself in.
Not before.
If you go to a police station to turn yourself in, you're plain out of your mind.
I was out of my mind. Because that's just what I did. I went to a police station and blurted out the whole story.
Another thing. There's the insurance money to think about. I had a hundred thousand dollars worth of stolen jewelry. If I turn it in I have a reward coming. Generally this amounts to five per cent of the total value.
That's a pretty good bargaining point. Five per cent of a hundred grand can buy a lot of ice cream cones. You can do a lot of bargaining with that kind of dough. But not if you take the loot to the cops and hand it to them on a silver platter!
Me, like a dummy, I just handed over the whole thing!
Gave up me and the swag. Just like that. They showed me mug shots, down at headquarters, and I picked out Mac. Monk wasn't there.
Then they booked me. I had expected that, of course. Routine. But then they locked me up!
I had not expected that. I thought they would question me, of course, take my statement, maybe book me, then let me go home, let me go about my business. I was not a criminal, I was a victim of criminals myself!
But they threw me in a cell.
I was permitted one call. I phoned Lena at her office and told her what I'd done. She almost went out of her mind. She went into a mild hysteria that I'm sure would have been full blown except for the restraining influence of the other girls in the office. I could hear them trying to calm her.
Finally, when she could talk coherently, she said tearfully, "Why didn't you want until Mr. Whitmore told us what to do? I told you not to do anything yet! Another day wouldn't have hurt anything! And why the police station, of all places? If you had to go somewhere, why didn't you go to the D.A.? Oh, why didn't you come to the office first!"
Why, why, why? What difference did it make now!
I listened to her verbal barrage and began to see what a sucker I'd been. Too late now. I was stuck with my own stupidity.
I asked helplessly, "What do I do now?"
Her voice came shaky with tears, "You've put yourself in the position of a guilty man!"
"Yeah, yeah, okay! So what do I do?
Her deep-felt sigh tore the heart out of me.
"Oh, God! Do nothing. You've done enough already! Mr. Whitmore will speak to the district attorney and we'll take it up from there."
"What about bail?" I said desperately. "Can't I get out of this dive?"
Her voice was a wail from deep in her heart. "I don't know, I don't know!"
We left it that way.
I had turned myself in in the morning. About two in the afternoon, a bright young guy came to see me. He said his name was Beaton, from the D.A.'s office.
I told him my story. How I had innocently gotten involved with a jewel heist, had nothing to do with it, know nothing about it. I didn't know who the stuff belonged to. Didn't care. Asked nothing. Wanted no part of it now that I knew the stuff was hot. Turned it in. And landed in the hoosegow.
All I wanted was out!
Beaton was a nice young guy with glasses. Sharp, intelligent, Ivy League. He shook hands with me warmly after he heard my story.
"I believe you," he said. "I think you've done a very commendable thing, Doyle. I'm for you. You have done a public service. I don't think you should be here. I'll arrange for your release, and a vote of thanks."
I breathed a loud sigh of relief. "That's more like it! That's the way I thought it would be in the first place!"
His grin went away. "It would have been. You should have come to us first! Then it would have been in the hands of the D.A. Now it's in the hands of the police! That's not quite the same, you know."
"I'm not sure I dig you."
"Point of law. Not easy to explain because of protocol involved. You handled it backwards, you might say. Cart before the horse sort of thing. By turning yourself over to the police you have made it a police matter. Now the police will have to be satisfied."
"And if I'd gone to the D.A. first?"
He looked at me almost with pity. "Had you come to us first, your part in the case would have never reached the police!"
"You mean, a deal?"
"In plain language," he said, nodding slowly, "yes. A deal."
"But you said you'll arrange for my release!"
"Yes. I'll arrange for you to leave on your own recognizance. But for how long? That becomes the burning question!"
"You mean if the police decide to book me again they-they-"
"Yes. They can."
I swallowed hard. So-you can release me and they can arrest me again."
"Let us hope not."
"But they can do it!"
He lit a cigarette slowly. "You have put yourself in that position, yes."
I gulped. I let out a big, scared sigh. "Sure got myself into something, didn't I!"
"Afraid so, Doyle. You sure did."
Well, they did let me out late that day.
When I got home, Lena was waiting in the room for me. I had given her an extra key the night before.
She came flying into my arms, crying as if her heart would break. She didn't want to talk, didn't want to discuss anything. Not yet. She wanted only to make love to me right away.
In bed she acted as if this was the last chance on earth. And the way my heart pounded against my ribs, I was beginning to think it was.
We held onto each other for dear life, afraid to let go, gasping for breath as our love washed over us. Rising and falling and gasping again. Afraid, afraid to let go. Then finally even our desperation dissolved in the heat of our love, of our passion.
We lay in each other's arms a long time. Just lay there, not thinking, barely breathing.
Ordinarily we would have been long asleep. But this was no time for sleeping.
I said after a while, "What did your lawyer say? Can he do anything? Was he nice? Was he sore about me going to the cops like that?"
"Mr. Whitmore is a nice man," she told me. "He wasn't sore. But he's awfully busy. His calendar is crammed. When I told him you'd given yourself up to the police, he said there was no hurry now."
What was left of my spirits drained out of me with her words. "Then he's not going to do anything to help me."
"I didn't say that! He is! He talked to the D.A. on the phone!"
I spat out the words. "On the phone!"
"Well, it worked, didn't it?"
"Yeah. For how long? I told you what the D.A.'s man said. Fellow named Beaton. He said he didn't know what the cops would do!"
"Mr. Whitmore's clerk is checking into all that now."
"What would a clerk know about it!"
"A law clerk can be a pretty smart cookie! It's not like a clerk in a ten cent store. These are college boys, remember. They're studying to be lawyers."
"Well-" I took a deep breath, "I wanted easy money. I got myself into this. I got no cause to complain."
"What did the cops tell you to do?"
"Nothing. They said go on as before. Go to work as usual. Not say anything to Monk. Or anybody!"
"Then do like they tell you. Once they catch Mac, the pressure will be off you. And anyway they'll get it out of him that you had nothing to do with it."
"You think so?"
"Of course. Mac is the one they want, not you. You identified him from a mug shot. That means he has a criminal record. You cooperated with the police. That's all they want from you. You don't have a record."
"I hope you're right about all this."
"Of course I'm right. It's only logic. Mr. Whitmore himself said that's the way it usually goes."
"Usually? Is that what he said? Usually doesn't mean always?"
"All right, then. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred."
"I just hope I'm not that one goofball in a hundred."
She gave a little cry and caught me to her. "It will be all right, it will all blow over. Oh, I know it, I know it!"
Then her lips sought mine and we lost ourselves in one another. Lost, lost, lost, until finally we passed out into a deep, blessed sleep.
CHAPTER SIX / As an excuse for not going to work the day before, when the cops had me, I told Monk I'd been celebrating my girl friend's birthday a little too well, and had been sick with a bad hangover. I was still so shaky, the excuse got by. But Monk did look suspicious for a moment or two.
When you've got a thing on your mind, as I was sure Monk had, it doesn't take much to bring the hackles up, and make the ears alert.
"Didn't know you had a girl friend," he muttered.
"Just lately," I said. "I fell pretty hard," which was certainly the truth. "You ever been in love, Monk?"
"Love?" he growled, "Naah, what's that? Some broad takes you over? Hell with it!"
That was Monk's definition of love.
And I thought how it was the same definition a lot of guys had. Me too. Before Lena.
That night was the first I knew I was being trailed.
When I left the shop at the end of the day I saw a guy across the street. He didn't look at me. He was just walking, facing in the opposite direction I took to go home.
The same guy was sitting in the hash house a block up the street when I went in for lunch. I saw him again when I went there on my coffee break. Now he was across the street going the opposite way.
But when I got home, the same guy was walking across the street from my house.
The shop was an easy walk home. The guy must be driving to get there ahead of me. Probably an unmarked police car.
I got tense and scared, but I let on like I didn't know. I sat down on the front steps and lit a cigarette. I was stalling for time, a chance to think, see what the shadow would do. There were six or seven cars parked on the block. To my inexperienced eye they all looked all right. But one of those cars, maybe more, were police cars.
They must know something I didn't know. They must know that Mac was in town.
The shadow was dressed like the guys of the neighborhood; rough work clothes. But of course it was too much of a coincidence, seeing him where I worked, where I had my lunch, and now here at the house, where I lived.
I watched him turn a corner out of sight. Then I threw my butt in the street and turned and sprinted up the stairs as fast as I could.
I reached the apartment panting, out of breath. And just as I feared, Lena was there ahead of me.
She came flying to me with a little cry of alarm, seeing the state I was in. I held her off.
"Listen," I said tensely, "The cops are trailing me! You'll have to beat it, Lena. Quick!"
"No, no!" she cried. "I won't leave you!"
"You've got to! I don't want you mixed up in this! They're liable to raid the joint any minute!"
"No! No! I won't go!"
I shook her hard. "For Christ's sake, beat it!" I shook her again. "Listen to me. If they find you here they'll take you too!"
The shaking must have sobered her thinking on the subject. Her big, sad eyes got sadder still.
"Maybe it's nothing. Maybe they just want to keep an eye on you."
"You know what they want," I hissed. "They want Mac! And anyone else they find here with me!"
She sighed, "All right. If you say so, if you really want me to go and leave you-"
"It'll all be cleared up when they get Mac! For Christ's sake, you said so yourself! When they get him we'll live again, we'll breathe again!"
Emotion had worn her to a frazzle. She was ready to slump. She was hanging onto herself with strength that was failing. "Whatever you say," she whispered.
"Plain as the nose on your face," I told her.
"And don't leave any of your things around. I don't want to have to answer any questions."
"I hope they get Mac soon," she said in a weary whisper. She turned and began picking up her things. "I hope we don't have to wait too long before we can be together."
There was a knock at the door.
"Holy Christ!" I whispered. "Too late already?"
I watched Lena shrink against the wall, and my heart reached out and went to her. Goddammit, I thought. I did this to her, I got her into this. Me and my easy money!
The knock came again.
I motioned for her to get behind the door. When I opened it, maybe she could scoot out without being seen. A big maybe.
Again the knock. This time louder. Then a voice:
"Jimmy. You there? Open up!"
Mac!
I breathed a little easier. Just a little easier. Mac could mean instant fireworks!
I said, "Just a minute, Mac!" I tried to put a little cheer in my voice. "You caught me with my pants down!"
To Lena, I whispered, "This is it. When I open the door, scoot out quick! Got everything?"
She nodded dumbly, her big eyes scared.
"And don't come back," I cautioned in a whisper. "Don't come back till I tell you!"
"Okay, okay, open up!" Mac said, sounding sore. Then suddenly a chuckle. "What the hell, you got a broad in there?"
I gave a silent signal to Lena. She gave me a last frantic hug and kiss. I had to push her off. Then she got ready behind the door.
I opened it.
Mac came in fast.
Lena scooted out faster.
Mac could just catch a bare glimpse of her.
"Son of a bitch," he said cheerfully. "You did have a broad in here!"
I tried to match the cheer in his voice, "So what?" I shrugged.
"So nothing. So you're a Casanova, that's all!" He looked around. "Where's the stuff? How're you getting along?"
"Fine. Doing all right."
He went to the table, my improvised work bench. He looked at me curiously. The table was bare.
Naturally. The cops had the stuff.
"Where is it? Where's the stuff?"
A strange note had crept into his voice. As if his instinct told him something had gone wrong.
I tried to make myself sound casual. "Oh, I always hide it when I go to work in the morning. You know that."
"Let's have a look," he said, that strange note still in his voice. Not suspicion exactly. More as if he was being careful, cautious; more as if he was putting his guard up, getting ready in case of trouble.
I went to the window and looked out. His fancy Lincoln convertible was there. Flo wasn't in it this time.
The same plainclothes cop was across the street casing the house. Then I saw him raise his hand to scratch his head. It was a signal. Because another plainclothes shadow came out of a doorway across the street.
I stalled for time. "Hey, where's Flo?"
Mac was fast going into a sweaty panic. A guy like that, living purely on his animal instinct in the underworld jungle, could feel impending danger quicker than the ordinary guy.
He didn't answer my question about Flo. Instead he shouted with mounting apprehension: "Where the hell is the stuff?"
And this time he reached for his gun.
"What's the matter with you, Mac?" I was scared stiff, had been half expecting a move like this, but trying to act as if I was surprised. "You know I don't like to show my stuff half finished!"
"What the hell are you trying to pull!" he raged.
His face had turned deathly white, the little scar on his mouth the only spot of color. Inwardly I was quaking. I knew his gun was not a bluff. He would shoot. I licked my lips and started to make some sort of reply. But nothing came to mind. Anything I could think of would be lame compared to the threat of that gun. I was paralyzed in mind and body, the bird waiting for the snake to strike.
Then the shadow who had been trailing me all day quietly came in, a .38 Special in his hand. He was backed up by a pair of brother shadows in the hallway.
Mac had his back to them, but he froze. The animal in him could feel them.
"Okay," said the shadow with the gun, "We're police officers. Drop the gun."
The silence lasted no longer than it takes to tell, but it seemed like ages. Then Mac swiveled toward the door and I jumped him!
We fought for the gun, sweating, enraged, growling curses at one another. My rage came from fear, the nearness of disaster. Mac's anger came from animal self-preservation. The result was the same in any case; animal rage; a life and death struggle for survival.
The cops couldn't shoot without hitting me too, as we fought and sweated and wrestled for possession of the gun in that small space.
Then the gun went off!
Mac screamed and clutched his shoulder. And the cop slugged him with his .38. Mac crumpled with a little sigh. The cop had the cuffs on him almost as soon as he hit the floor.
I stood there panting, disheveled, on wobbly legs, the sweat running down me in torrents. I won't deny I was more than a little shaken by the close call. And not only from this struggle, the one with Mac, but from the struggle with the massive tension that had been building up the past few days.
Now I could relax. I could breathe again. We could make plans, Lena and I. We could be like other young couples, thinking of the future. Now the way was open, wide open, with the arrest of Mac.
That's what I thought. I had a lot to learn.
The two cops came in from the hallway and picked Mac up from the floor. Mac was limp as a rag, still out.
I heard a siren begin wailing in the distance, then another, and another. That would be the ambulance and a couple of prowl cars. So they must have other cops outside who had sent out the alarm.
Okay with me. I had nothing to do with it. This was my station. This was where I got off. I wanted to holler. I wanted to tell them. I couldn't say anything. I was glad to be alive, glad just to be breathing.
"Okay," I said finally. "You got him. Now maybe you'll leave me alone."
"Sure," said the shadow, who looked now, close up, like a middle-aged grandfather. He had a grandfather's kindly tone, too. "Just come along anyway, huh? You know. Routine."
He snapped a pair of handcuffs on me before I could open my mouth.
Routine? Do they put the handcuffs on you when it's just a routine arrest? It took my breath away. I couldn't speak. I was afraid that if I tried to talk I'd burst into hysterical laughter. Like a woman.
Then I got my breath back. "Just one damn minute, mister. Wait a minute. You don't want me. I'm the guy who tipped you off! I'm the guy who turned him in! I'm not a criminal. I only helped you catch one!"
"Yeah. Sure. Just routine."
Routine!....
I was to hear that word for a long, long time.
CHAPTER SEVEN / They put us on trial.
Yes, me along with the others; they pulled in Monk Engels, too.
Flo was out of it. Just lucky, I guess. She knew the stuff was stolen that she was carrying around in that oversize handbag. She was the "carrier" for Mac.
I really believed it was only routine when they took me in. But as it turned out, I was in it as deep as anyone. I couldn't even raise bail. I sat in a cell for weeks, waiting, waiting, waiting for the trial to begin.
Well, I wanted easy money, didn't I? A guy like Mac comes around in a fancy car, with a fancy broad, with a lot of fancy jewelry worth a mint of money, and I don't know the stuff is loot? Who was I trying to kid?
Only myself.
When Mac first pulled all that long green out of that big gold money clasp, I knew right away what it was all about. I mean I really knew. Just trying to hide it from myself, is all. And maybe not even that. Maybe accepting the loot on face value.
So I didn't go out and actually take part in the heist. Maybe; because even that was debatable at the trial. But why would Mac come to a guy like me in a dump like mine? He could go to a legitimate jeweler with the stuff-if the stuff was legitimate.
Why spoil me with big money when it would cost him no more to get the work done on the level? Because I was such a good workman, such a wonderful designer? Hell, the jewelry trade had some big names that could enhance the value of the product.
I'm just stating the arguments as they came out at the trial.
Mr. Whitmore didn't have enough time to prepare the case, or to acquaint himself with all the facts. And I didn't have any money, so they gave me a public defender.
And it happened to be an election year. That's the worst luck a guy on trial can have. The cops were in a hurry. The D.A. too.
It's not always the guilty who suffer; your guilt or innocence don't always count. Sometimes you're convicted because a conviction happens to be good politics in an election year.
Then the politician can "point with pride" when he makes a speech. He can point to his "record." In an election year, they will slap you in the can for chasing butterflies in the park. So I suppose what finally happened shouldn't come as any great surprise.
Monk and Mac denied even knowing each other!
They each had their own paid attorneys. Well paid; they had money. Mac had a previous record, but Monk was clean.
Monk claimed I had stolen his Bunsen burner and all the expensive tools the cops had found in my room. He denied loaning them to me! He also brought out that I had found a sweetheart and needed the extra money to spend on her. I had claimed that Monk had promised me a raise at the end of a year.
Monk swore there was no chance of making better wages in the kind of work I did in his small shop.
It was a frame. Monk was pulling out at any cost to anyone. It was the old gag-when thieves fall out. It was every man for himself. Lie like hell, the hell with everyone, leave six for pallbearers.
Each attorney had built a strong case for his client-at the expense of the others. But I had full confidence when the jury filed in. They had been out for days; it was no snap decision; they were giving the case full consideration.
The cops were in a hurry. The D.A. was in a hurry, but the jury had taken its time. I felt that gave me a fair chance. I suppose I reckoned without politics.
Lena was there. Flo was there. Lena had a fixed smile on the pale face and lovely features I had learned to love. Flo, looking expensive as usual, adding a needed flamboyance to the dreary courtroom, seemed a little on the worried side.
I had pinned my faith and my life on Lena. I couldn't think of life without her any more. Espe daily after the weeks in jail awaiting trial. She had been the only crutch I had to lean on all that time.
Now her big sad eyes looked very frightened despite her fixed smile. She seemed to be scarcely breathing.
Flo was another story. She was breathing. Her big beautiful eyes were fixed on the jury, her big beautiful bust was breathing right at them.
The foreman of the jury looked like a nice guy. But when he talked he had a grating voice and sounded mean. I was disappointed. I gritted my teeth, gripped the arms of my chair, and waited. I listened intently as that mean and grating voice began to speak, and it flashed through my mind that a guy like this would beat his wife.
"Monk Engels ... Not guilty...."
The bastard. Monk had got away with it!
If they were going to let him go, if they believed Monk, then what about me? If they believed Monk, did that mean they thought I was lying?
This was not an important trial. There were only a few people in the courtroom. But my eyes became so blurred, it made the place look crowded.
"Mac Macray ... Guilty!...."
Ah, that was better!
After all, it was on my testimony that Mac had been convicted. So if they believed me about Mac, they had to believe me about everything!
I saw Flo turn away from the jury with an angry gesture. All her posturing, all her flirting, hadn't swayed the main decision.
I felt good about Mac getting the business, knowing that it all but set me free. Who said there was no justice? I smiled across at Lena and felt fine.
The first thing I'd do when I got out of this crummy courtroom was take Lena to the fanciest bar in town. We'd sit and we'd guzzle. We'd celebrate, dammit! Maybe even go get married!
Hell, yes! That was it! I'd marry Lena. Where would I ever find another one like her?
I was so lost in my lovely daydream, I almost didn't hear the foreman's next words.
"James Doyle ... Guilty!...."
I leaped to my feet. Did I hear right?
A bailiff put his hand on my shoulder and I sat down slowly. I wanted to yell they were wrong! I wanted to yell they had made a big mistake! I couldn't. My throat was all at once so dry, my lips suddenly so parched, I couldn't say a word.
I tried to find Lena in the swimming courtroom. I couldn't focus my eyes. Everything was going round and round.
I steadied myself in the armchair, I looked at that bastard foreman. Maybe I hadn't heard right. Did he say guilty? All of a sudden I wasn't sure.
How could they find me guilty? I was the one who had confided in the police! I was the one who had helped them. It was me who had returned the stolen jewels, without even the compensation of reward!
The cops had gotten the insurance reward for their pension fund.
I remembered something Beaton, the D.A.'s man, had told me. That I had done a public service.
What was I guilty of? Turning in a pair of crooks?
Now one of the crooks was free, and the other one found guilty, with me. With me!
How the hell did they figure it, for crissake?
I heard the judge's voice. For me it was the voice of doom. The jury had spoken. Old Judge Rainey was meting out the sentence. He had no alternative. He had to let the innocent go, and send the guilty away.
That was the law. Routine. I was a condemned criminal. Routine.
"Mac Macray ... second offense ... four to six ... hard labor...."
In the nightmare of unreality I heard Judge Rainey sentence a guy named James Doyle...." First offense ... two to four ... hard labor...."
James Doyle. James Doyle?
That was me!
In my crashing world of disbelief the courtroom became a nightmare canvas that only a crazy painter could make. There was Lena, her arms out to me, crying bitter tears. There was beautiful, expensive Flo, shooting angry sparks at the jury box, a quavering smile for Mac.
There were the bailiffs, the handful of spectators.
There was stern old gray-haired Judge Rainey on the bench. There was the long oak table where sat my gloomy charity counsel.
One of the lawyers was on his feet. " ... Make a motion ... motion ... motion...."
Monk Engels was of course beaming. He was pumping everyone's hand. The son of a bitch was out of it, the lucky bastard.
Mac looked deadly. He smiled his thin, peculiar smile, the scar at the edge of his lips blood-red. He leaned close to me, ground out through tight-clenched teeth:
"I'll get you for this, rat!"
Then all of it, the whole crazy canvas, was pulled together by a strong platinum web, with a great diamond spider and a lot of little diamond spiders. And they were spinning, spinning, spinning ... tangling me in my web of fate.
I had wanted easy money. Now I got it.
In the neck.
CHAPTER EIGHT / I didn't jar loose from my trance until I found myself in a prison camp; the way a lot of guys serve time in my home state.
Before they put us in chains and took us away, we got a kind word from the supervisor of prisons, an old guy named Marcus Bannock.
It was the last kind word I'd hear for a while.
Then they took a gang of us in our striped prison suits to the blacksmith shop and snapped shackles to each ankle, with a heavy chain between.
I was a prisoner on the chain gang.
I don't know what camp they sent Mac to. He was not in my gang.
I was in a road gang in charge of a guy named Jeb Kroner. In one word, Kroner was a bastard.
Every guard is known as "Boss," and in the case of Boss Kroner, it was double in spades. He was an illiterate jerk who could barely read a newspaper. And even then, he was only interested in news of gang breaks, whores, booze battles, and crimes of violence.
Kroner was so ignorant that one of the other guards had to interpret what little correspondence he received from official sources.
He couldn't even write. How he got his job is one of the mysteries of the chain gang system of politics. He kept almost no records.
He was a brutal, vicious son of a bitch. Short, stocky, strong as a bull, he had the deathly pale face of a madman. His was the most feared camp in the state. It was filthy, backward, and worked the hardest.
Other camps laid off in rainy weather. Not Jeb Kroner's; not if the roads were the least bit passable. Other camps slept in till eight on Sundays. Jeb got us up at four in the morning. Every morning. Even Christmas Day was no exception.
And every day it was lousy pork, mouldy beans, and stinking molasses. With stinking soup and foul coffee. Or weak tea and dirty bread.
And across the road was a farm for women prisoners. No wonder the men could think of nothing but escape.
We lived in a steel cage on wheels. Iron bars took the place of side walls, with solid steel at each end. Each cage was less than twenty feet long, not much higher than a man's head, and about as wide as it was long.
And in this brutal box was stuffed eighteen or twenty men.
We slept in three tiers that -lined one barred wall. Some rotten tarpaulin, let down over the bars from the outside, was supposed to protect us from the weather. But it didn't keep out the rain and cold, and it didn't let in any air.
At night they chained us to out cots like wild animals. They didn't release us until just before dawn. We ate our stinking breakfast to the clank of chains, our eyes closed, puffed for lack of sleep, the putrid stink of our lumpy straw mattresses in our nostrils.
We tried not to think of our nice clean beds at home ... or the broads, just across the road from us, at the women's prison farm.
Aside from Boss Kroner, there were two silent, sullen characters for guards. One was called Bim, the other known as Henny. The three of them lived in a broken-down, patched-up farmhouse in the camp yard.
A guy complained only once in that camp. Boss Kroner's reaction was fast and effective. There were the "stocks," the "screws," and the "spikes." And a few original tortures that sometimes killed a guy In the death certificate it was described as "Heart disease," or "accident;" sometimes "exposure after escape." How the hell they figured a guy could take his chains off himself and be found dead in the woods was a big mystery.
Anyway, everyone agreed, the guy was free at last.
This was the hell I was supposed to live with for the next two to four years? Christ! I knew damn well I'd never make it!
To add to my torture, when I lay in my bunk and it was light enough, I could see the broads bouncing around, through a hole in the tarpaulin, on the women's prison farm across the road. I would watch until it got too dark to see.
Even the matrons, big as they were, looked like chickens to me now. I would have settled then and there for any one of them, taken my pick with my eyes closed of any broad on the farm!
Sometimes we would see the dames on our way to the quarry, or coming back from work at the end of the day. We never waved or let on how much we needed them. I thought of the guy who'd give his kingdom for a horse. That's what any one of us would have given for one of those broads.
But it was against the rules even to look at them. The best we could do was steal a sidelong glance.
The boss matron across the road had a deal going with Boss Kroner.
The broads got to take their pick. The guards got theirs.
If you had money it was easy. Boss Kroner split, fifty-fifty with the boss matron. The matron split fifty-fifty with the broads and the other matrons.
Unless a matron happened to be in business for herself. Then she didn't have to divvy up. But mostly the matrons were the madams, and the guards were the pimps.
I didn't have any money, so I was out of luck. And then I got to thinking about Lena, and I was glad I didn't have any money. I was only human. It would be a long, long time before I'd see Lena again. If I could afford it, I would be untrue to her. If you can call it being untrue, under the trying circumstances. It was not as if I was putting another broad in a class with Lena, or making love to someone else. It would just be a case of getting relief from a lousy situation.
I didn't know anything about all this my first few days in camp. Then, on Saturday night, Boss Kroner came around to the cage.
His flashlight glowed in the dark. He was steady on his feet, but his little pig eyes were red. He smelled of booze. When he grinned, his broad pale face and flat snout made him really look like a pig.
He was grinning now as he stood spraddle-legged in the cage. In one pudgy hand he held a shotgun; a couple of six-guns were strapped to his belt.
I wondered what it was all about. "Any you bastards got any money?" he demanded harshly.
A couple of guys hollered, "Yeah, Boss!" He threw his flashlight on the men. "How much?"
"Got five in the mail this week!" a thin guy hollered.
"Got ten!" the other one shouted. Kroner's flashlight shone on the guy's bald head and crooked nose. "That all you got?"
"Yeah, Boss!"
Boss threw his flash around the cage. "Anyone else for broads?"
I couldn't believe it! I thought I hadn't heard right!
Boss Kroner said, "You, Jenks. Your five is good for one broad. Got me?"
"Yeah. Got it!" Jenks said eagerly.
"You, Greb," Kroner said to the bald fat guy. "Your ten will get you a shot and a broad. Okay?"
"Yeah!" Greb hollered, already panting.
"The rest of you bastards better get some dough," Kroner advised us. "This is the worst Saturday night we've had in a long time!" He grinned evilly. "Ain't you guys writ home to mother lately?"
"How about on the cuff?" somebody yelled.
"Yeah. Pay you double when I get it!" another guy hollered.
"No dice," Kroner growled. "Cash on the barrelhead, broads on the table. You bastards want broads? Pay for it, Goddammit! What the hell you think this is, a charity ward?
There were growls and curses from the others as Bim, one of the guards, came in and took the two lucky bastards out of their chains. Boss Kroner and his sawed-off shotgun held the other guys in line.
His flashlight went out. It was dark again. Some of the guys were in pain, all of us were in need, in want. We set up a howl and a clatter, yelling, shaking our chains.
Boss Kroner said through the closed steel door, "All right, you bastards! Want the screws, the stocks, or the spikes?"
It grew deathly still inside the cage. The shadows moved away from the steel-barred door.
I lay there holding onto myself. I wondered how many Saturday nights I could take ... without money.
Lena, Lena, I thought.
But thinking of Lena couldn't help me now. Like the rest of the gang in the cage, I was a guy in pain, in need, and in want. I was desperate.
CHAPTER NINE / I lay in my bunk sweating, sick. Knowing what was going on in the farmhouse, it was impossible to fall asleep. The whole cage was tense. We were all of us human. Sorry unfortunates, maybe, but human just the same. It sounds ironic, but a human being has an animal nature, too.
I tried not to think of Lena, the way it used to be with her. I tried not to think of the whoring going on in the farmhouse. Two to four years of this? I'd never make it. I'd become a raving maniac!
I fell into a kind of fitful nightmare. I dreamed I was at the women's prison farm and the broads were all fighting over me. It was not such an impossible dream. The broads were just as hard up as any of the guys. Broads are human too.
You always want what you can't get, and women were the main thing we couldn't get. So I tossed and sweated in my bunk. When the light shone in my face I thought it was part of the nightmare!
I fought the glare for a few moments, then finally I opened my eyes.
It was the guard they called Bim. The one who was here earlier, with Boss Kroner, to take the guys over to the whores.
I started to sit up, started to say something. He motioned me to be quiet.
I looked around. Henny, the other guard, was standing by with a shotgun. By this time the sleep was all out of me. Fear took over. What were they going to do to me?
Everyone was snoring. Jenks and Greb were back in their bunks. It must have been late. Bim put out the light, quietly took off my chains. I was too dazed to think, too scared to talk. What was this all about?
The two guards took me out into the yard. The moonlight made frightening shadows not calculated to help my thinking any. I was shivering, and it wasn't cold. We were a hundred yards from the cage before either of the guards spoke to me.
Then Bim said: "Boss wants to see you, Doyle."
"Why? What for? What'd I do?"
"You'll find out."
I had visions of torture. The screws, the stocks, the spikes. I'd heard stories of the punishment Boss Kroner gave the guys; how Boss enjoyed to see them suffer. I began to shake, began to sweat all over as I walked between the two guards.
"I didn't do anything!" I blurted.
The guards only grinned. They were enjoying my pain.
I thought about making a break. If I could reach the women's prison farm, find some broad who would hide me!....
I took another look at Henny's shotgun, at Bim's six-shooter. That was the end of the dream. To make a break was as much as my life was worth. I had to sweat it out.
We got to the farmhouse. Bim went in first, me in the middle, and Henny behind me with the shotgun.
Boss Kroner was sprawled in a chair at the kitchen table. There were some water glasses, a couple of bottles of booze on the table. He was pretty drunk; but he had all his marbles. A stocky guy like that can hold a lot of hooch.
He waved me over to a chair at the table.
"Doyle," he growled, "have a drink, Goddammit!"
I was too surprised to make a move.
His broad pale face twisted in distaste. " 'Smatta? Too good to drink with me, you crooked bastard? Heisted any jewelry lately?"
I guess I must have showed he hit me right on target. He grinned, relaxed. "Siddown!"
I sat.
He poured half a water glass of hooch. "Drink it!" he ordered.
I picked up the glass, took a few sips. I was never great on liquor and this stuff was fresh from the still. I guess I must have made a face, because Boss sprang to his feet.
"Goddammit!" he howled. "Drink that down!"
Bim grabbed my arms. Henny forced the vile stuff down my throat. He didn't stop till I drained the glass.
Then the three of them laughed while I sputtered and coughed till the tears came to my eyes.
The stuff went to my head very quickly. For a minute everything went round and round. Then my eyes steadied, my head stopped swimming. All of a sudden I was pleasantly drunk!
"Awright," I said. "Okay. What's the deal?"
There was a sharp rap at the door.
Boss Kroner inclined his head to indicate the door. He gave his pale grin, looking mysterious. "That's the deal," he said.
The door opened. One of the biggest women I ever saw in my life came in. This was an Amazon! Kroner said, "Hi, Elsa!"
"Hi, boys," said the Amazon, in a pleasant tone. She went over to me. "This the new kid?"
"Yeah," said Boss. "Like him? Or am I wasting my booze on him!"
"Get up," she said to me. I got up.
She looked me over like I was a prize bull. She studied me from different angles, seemed pleased with what she saw. And while she studied me, I studied her.
A big woman, this Elsa, yes, but all woman! No chicken, I'd guess she was forty-five, a good twenty years older than me. She was husky, sure, with an enormous butt and bosom, but, surprisingly, with a tiny waist.
Her legs were big, but very shapely. She was big all over, but much to my amazement she was beautifully proportioned. I couldn't get over that. I had never seen a woman so big, and yet so beautifully proportioned. Man, what a woman this was!
But what the hell did all this have to do with me? I was just about to find out that little thing.
"Well, said Kroner, with his pale grin. "I guess right?"
"Mmm," she said, nodding her big blonde head in approval, "Pretty!"
She had eyes like a cat; green and slanting. And hungry.
"Think he'll do?" Boss asked her.
Do for what? I wondered. What the hell is going on here in the middle of the night, for crissake!
Elsa licked her large red lips, flicking her tongue like a hungry tigress. She felt my arms, my chest, my legs, my thighs. She had on some wild-woman scent that didn't help my drunken head any. Or my hungry sex glands, either. Then she stepped back and looked at me.
"Got what I want?" she said. "I need a stud!"
I almost fell off my feet!
Stewed as I was, the shock sent me back on my heels. I flopped down in a chair.
The guards were laughing as if the whole thing was a great big joke. Elsa wasn't laughing. Her green cat eyes were glinting, hungry. Hungrier now than before. She was showing signs of extreme sexual excitement. There was even a hint of drool on those full red lips. She hunched over a little, a tigress ready to spring.
She said, "What's your name?" in a voice now thin with tension ... yet sounding sensuous, filled with things left unsaid. I admit I was excited too.
I said, "Jimmy. Jimmy Doyle."
"Get up," she said. "I want to try you out in bed."
Again the men burst out laughing.
She was a cat with one thing on her mind: Me! She paid the men no mind, concentrating all her attention on me. I sat stupefied.
"You got your choice," Elsa said slowly. "The stocks, the spikes-or bed with me!"
This time the men laughed louder than ever.
"I got to get relief," Elsa went on, her voice slightly rising, like with the beginning of hysteria. "You got to give me three at least!"
Kroner's grin was dirty. "Less than that, she can't get started!"
"Less than that," said Elsa slowly, "You're no good to me."
"We throw you back in the cage," Kroner added. "You don't get another chance."
"That's it," said Elsa. "You better be good. Come on. Up. Let's go to bed!"
Henny lifted me up from the chair. Bim pointed me toward the bedroom. I faltered a step. Elsa took me by the arm.
"Hey," Kroner hollered. "Want us to watch you? Take pictures?"
She didn't answer. The men guffawed. But Elsa had only one thing on her mind. She led me firmly into the room.
There was no light, except the moonlight in the window. I could make out a battered dresser, a big, sagging iron bed, a chair. There was a wash basin and water pitcher on a nightstand. Like a cheap whorehouse.
"Don't take your things off," she whispered tensely. "I want to do that!"
She took off her dress and put it on the chair. She had nothing underneath; just panties and a bra.
She stepped out of her shoes and unhooked her bra, and the largest, loveliest, most luscious breasts in the world leaped out! Topped by the largest pink nipples I ever saw in my life!
She had hardly any stomach, for such a big woman.
Her legs were full and fleshy, but very shapely, coming down in a long sensuous sweep from the ample hips to the dimpled knees. Her great big beautiful buttocks were firm, not flabby; big, but beautifully formed. In fact, this broad, this Amazon of a broad, big as she was, was beautiful all over.
CHAPTER TEN / She stood there in the moonlight, a magnificent figure of a woman. I was still woozy from the big slug of booze. But not so woozy that I didn't feel the heat of passion begin to crawl and clamor in the pit of my stomach.
She came over to me and made me sit on the bed. Those great big breasts were flopping in my face, but I restrained myself. She wanted it her way, she was calling the shots. She was boss of the women's prison farm, the way Kroner was boss of the chain gang camp for men.
I could guess that, if I crossed her, I would pay for it. I let her tease me, made no move as she began to take my things off. Let her have her way. She was teasing herself. I was just an instrument of joy to her.
She took off my shirt, slowly, as if this was all part of her private and personal ritual. I had nothing on underneath. She caressed my chest, feeling me, her red tongue darting around her full lips hungrily. But she restrained herself, too. I made no move.
She took off my pants, and she did this slowly, too. She left my drawers for last. She took off my big heavy prison shoes, pulled my socks off in slow motion. She massaged my toes.
By this time she was breathing hard, those big breasts moving rapidly She was getting a strange kick out of undressing me. She began to make little catching, breathing sounds, little sobs of restrained passion.
Her breathing was shaky as she removed my drawers. She sat down beside me on the bed and stared. She caught her breath, moaning. She was beginning to lose some of her control. She seemed to want to play as long as possible, not taking my feelings into consideration. Thinking only of her own need, thinking only of herself.
When this massive mountain of passion broke, I knew it would spout a river, it would engulf me, drown me. I waited.
Suddenly she rolled me on the bed and was crying and clawing and screaming like the giant tigress she was meant to be! I rolled on top of her quickly. I was crushed against those enormous breasts. The giant thighs pumped, the massive hips working with precision. Faster and faster and faster.
It was over in a minute or two, but she wouldn't let me up. I didn't know it then, but I had barely whetted her appetite.
"First one," she panted. "Always easy!" Then she gave me her approval. "Kid, you're good. I think I can train you. Gimme more in a minute. Want all you got! This time kiss my nipples while you're doing it. Kiss them hard!"
I wondered what she was talking about. I was spent. That's what I thought. But that Amazon nymph had some magic of her own. She knew how to play with me, knew how to revive me. In a few minutes I was back in business, much to my surprise!
"This one will be slower," she said. "I might get three out of it. Next time maybe more. I'll show you how to do it."
Here was a broad who knew her own capacity, and knew how to get the most out of a guy. I kissed her nipples as she directed, taking lessons from an expert. She cried out in the wonder of her ecstasy.
Her big, strong legs caught and held me as in a vise. Those giant hips started working again, pumping like a primed machine. The massive thighs swallowed me up; soft, sweet, tender and passionate.
Elsa was more passionate than anything I had ever dreamed of. She could make any other woman look like a boy.
She screamed, "One ... Two ... Three! God! More, more, give me more! I want all you've got!"
She was like a suction cup, draining the life out of me. But I kept on going, urged on by the tremendous passion of those swiftly pumping hips; urged on by some caveman instinct she seemed to implant in me. Elsa had an enormous, an abnormal capacity for sex.
She slowed up little by little, murmuring over and over in her ecstasy, "I couldn't count them, I couldn't count them!"
But still this giant woman wouldn't let me up!
Our sweating bodies were like one, the gleam of sweat on her great white back like diamonds in the dark.
"You're a great little stud," she murmured. "I can teach you. I can train you. I like you! This time I want to get on you. Show you something!"
This time! Holy cats! We'd been going for over an hour! And here she sounded as if she was just starting!
She rolled on top of me, and I couldn't believe how light and soft she was. She was buoyant, fluid, elastic. It was like riding on air. She began to do her magic tricks with me.
Her great white breasts were pressed against me, the soft inside of her massive thighs swallowed me up. I took her, quickly and easily. Her full lips found mine. Her tongue sought my mouth, my throat. And all the time she was moaning, bumping, grinding, gurgling in ecstatic oblivion of anything else in the world. She was in another world, another time. A throwback to ancient days of the Amazon broads in history.
Her strong smooth limbs entwined with mine, her breath as one with mine, our sweating bodies one. The bed creaked massively, as much a part of the passionate music as her constant screams of ecstatic fulfillment, at regular, frequent intervals.
I was in bed with her two hours before that giant woman fell asleep, gentle as a lamb.
"Stud" was right. This broad needed a horse!
I'd never experienced anything like it. never knew it could be like this. I thought when a guy is through, he's through for a while. Not with this blonde Amazon's magic formula!
She must have made a study of sex, must have made it her life's work. She could bring me back in a matter of minutes. Bring me back again and again!
It was lust, not love; of course. But lust of a quality only an artist could know. An artist in bed like this great lusty, luscious blonde bombshell.
She was a vacuum cup, a suction pump, not a broad at all. Just a womb, breasts, thighs and buttocks. Hot lips and hot hips.
How many man she had killed in bed, I wondered, as I staggered up. I was beat, shaky, out on my feet. It was all I could do to get dressed.
I got out of the room quietly. I was afraid of waking that passionate inferno. If she started again I might not live through it!
Only Bim was in the kitchen when I finally staggered out of the room.
He grinned at me.
"Man, I bet she put you through the wringer! Always does with a new guy." He thought a moment. "Or any guy!" He shook his head as he poured me half a glass of booze. "Must have liked you, though. Stayed the limit. Man, that Elsa! Worn us all to a frazzle." He gave me the glass. "Here, kid; you look like you need it!"
This time, nobody had to twist my arm. I really did need a shot. I needed more. Something only God could give me. She'd worn me down to the nub!
I shook my head. "Big woman. Man!"
"Yeah, but good. If you can take it! Need a horse. Hey, I heard of broads like that. Can they really take on a horse?"
I took a sip. "Bet this one could." I looked around. "Other guards sleeping?"
"On a Saturday night? Hell! With all those broads across the road? Sleeping? He let out a guffaw. "My turn next week. Come on, I got to lock you up now. Make it quiet, though. Don't want to wake those bastards in the cage!"
CHAPTER ELEVEN / If everything worked out, and I didn't make Elsa sore, or get on the wrong side of Boss Kroner, I'd get a hundred and twenty days off for good behavior. That's figuring the minimum two-year stretch, at five days off each month.
But there was no guarantee I would serve the lesser term. Mostly it was up to Boss Kroner. If he gave a bum report on me, I'd get the limit of my sentence. If I got in any sort of trouble at the camp, I'd serve extra time. Time added to time!
But with Elsa on my side, I figured to serve the lighter sentence. If I lasted that long! Then a horrible thought crept into my mind. Suppose she decided to keep me as a stud? She could arrange with Boss Kroner to keep me here till hell froze over!
Any way I looked at it, I was in a hell of a spot!
She was a whale of a woman, that Amazon called Elsa. It took a whale of a man to satisfy her. But I was only human. In spite of her tricks to make a man come back fast, I wasn't sure how long I could take it.
I wondered what her reaction would be if I should peter out, finally. Would she get sore? Would she take it out of my hide? She could make it awful tough for me with Boss Kroner. Awful tough. The best I could expect would be the worst of it.
Kroner was in a position where he was forced to cater to Elsa's whims. She controlled the broads on the women's prison farm across the road. If Elsa quit on him, Kroner was cooked, so far as women were concerned.
But in a way, he held a trump card, too. Kroner supplied Elsa's insatiable appetite for men. A broad like Elsa could eat a man up, burn him out, make him useless for her needs in bed. She needed a stud. And Kroner was her supply man.
Each new young guy who came along was enlisted in the service of Elsa's greedy womb. I guess, from the way the guards joked about it, she must have burned them out for her massive needs a long time ago.
We worked all week in a shallow quarry pit; worked like dogs, the sun beating down on us without mercy. There were ten men in my squad, all chained together. Sweat was pouring off of us like water.
The guy working next to me was known as Holy Joe. A long, lean middle-aged mountain man who had killed a guy in a drunken brawl. He had accepted religion afterward, with the usual outsize zeal of the penitent. Now he was cracked, loony as could be, but only on the subject of religion.
"Repent, repent!" he kept whispering, between strokes of his heavy sledge-hammer. "God is all, God is everywhere. God made everything!"
"Did He make this red-hot sun?" I kidded. "Did He make your heavy hammer, Joe? Did He make these chains? These shackles, this filthy prison camp?"
But you couldn't kid with Joe about religion.
"The flesh is vile, the flesh is evil," he told me between strokes of his hammer. "The flesh is your chains, the flesh is your prison camp!" He paused to wipe the sweat off his brow, whispering fiercely, "Everyone knows about you and that woman!"
That's the way it is in prison. It's a tiny world all its own; word gets around in a hurry.
"What do you want me to do, Joe? I just work here!"
"Roll not in the stink of the flesh!" Joe replied.
"The stink of the flesh is where we all come from, Joe. That's how little boys are made."
For a minute I thought he would aim his heavy hammer at me, he got so sore. "Mock not the word of the Lord!" he choked out angrily.
Bim was on guard. He looked over. We shut up. I concentrated on my heavy hammer. The way it looked to me, Joe had himself mixed up about God. Holier-than-thou folks are inclined that way. They interpret the word of the Lord their own way, appoint themselves His personal mouthpiece.
The days were bad, but the nights were worse. I lay on my cot thinking of Lena, wanting her desperately, but knowing it was Elsa I would get on Saturday night.
That should be the other way around! It was Elsa who would get me!
But, watching those broads bouncing around the prison farm through the hole in the tarpaulin, feeling the pain of need, of want, I became grateful for Elsa. Elsa was a killer in bed, true; but she was all woman!
Once again Boss Kroner came around to pimp for the broads across the road on Saturday night. This time he got four takers. Jenks and Greb, who looked like regulars; and two others. One for twenty bucks.
The twenty-buck guy would get two broads, and two big shots of Kroner's mountain booze. He was in heaven.
Holy Joe never said anything out loud against these little sex sorties. I found out the reason: Boss Kroner once gave him the spikes.
Once was enough for Joe. In spite of his strong religious convictions, he lay in his bunk and prayed in silence. God was in heaven, but Kroner's spikes were here in camp.
They came and got me when the guys were asleep, the same as the week before.
This time big Elsa had a few tricks to try on me. New positions, new sensations. As before, she couldn't get enough. As before, the session lasted two hours before she finally fell asleep.
This time Henny was on guard when I came stumbling out of the dark room. It was Bim's turn with the broads across the road.
He gave me a big shot of whisky. My legs were weak. I slumped in a chair.
"Got you, eh, kid?" Henny's grin was greasy. "That broad needs a mule, not a man! Wouldn't be surprised if she'd wear out the mule!" He showed big yellow teeth in a laugh.
I took a big gulp of whisky, choking on the booze. "I don't know how much longer I can take it," I said hoarsely.
Henny nodded. "Wears a man out. Killed one guy."
I looked up. "You mean it?"
"Hell, yes! Worked him plumb to death! Oh, it took a while. Used him maybe six months. One day he up and died. Exhaustion, sawbones called it." He laughed. "Yeah, I bet!"
I wasn't laughing; it wasn't funny to me. Six months of Elsa could kill a guy.
"I wonder what her story is," I said.
"Search me."
"People don't just get that way. Things happen to them. If you can't take it, you get all fouled up."
"Yeah? How about that. All you guys, always got an answer. Nine times out of ten you foul yourself up."
I shrugged. "Same difference." I got to my feet. I was wobbly.
Henny laughed. "Sure ain't afraid you'll run away!"
"Run? Hell. I can't even walk!" He let out a bray like a mule. "Come on, kid. Gotta lock you up now!" The night air felt good. My back hurt, my hips were sore, my legs shaky; I had to walk slowly. My limp and hobble made Henny chuckle.
"Wait till you get to one of those parties, kid."
I stopped. "What parties?"
"Over at Elsa's prison farm. There's forty hard-up broads there, kid! Half those broads will want to jump you!"
"Holy mackerel!"
"Yeah, they heard about you. We can't take care of all of them. Half of them are prosties. They miss it. Sometimes they get so hard up they even try to love each other."
I shook my head. "I never knew the time would come when I would be afraid of broads."
I lay in my bunk that night thinking about what Henny had told me, until I finally fell into a sweaty sleep. My body was sore, my nerves tearing at me. Instead of relaxing me, the overtime sessions with Elsa were wearing me out.
I wondered about Lena. How could I ever face her again? And I thought Lena was hot. Hot, yes; but Lena was no nympho!
Yet, what could I do about it? Turn Elsa down? I'd get the torture treatment. Maybe extra time. What Elsa was doing to me was torture of a different kind. I wondered if I'd still get the treatment when she finally wore me out. The way she wore out those other men, to the point of exhaustion.
I wondered how that guy had died that Henny had told me about. Was it in Elsa's bed? Was it from the torture treatment when he failed her? Exhaustion, the sawbones had called it. But that could cover a lot of things you won't find in the books.
I had known some week-end boozers. Wouldn't touch the stuff all week, then got plastered on Saturday night. It held them over to the following week. That was Elsa. A week-end nympho. Didn't go near a man all week, then on Saturday night she had to have them by the carload. Two hours straight before she could fall asleep.
And if I couldn't give her a long session on Saturday night, and she couldn't fall asleep-what would happen to me then?
And what about those forty broads at the prison farm? If they were so hard up they would try to love each other, what the hell would they do to me? It was something to think about. Who would ever think that sleeping with a dame could become a chore!
All my life I'd been dreaming about how I'd like to have all the broads I wanted. Now I hoped that dream would not come true!
Partly of course this was because I was thinking of Lena, and what she meant to me; but partly it was purely in self-defense. Hell, a guy could get too much of a good thing!
CHAPTER TWELVE / I was glad the next day was Sunday. I slept like dead most of the time, except to get up for the stinking food. Bad as it was I wolfed it down. I had to replenish what Elsa took out of me. Lucky for me she was only a week-end nymph. After my two-hour sessions with that super-passionate Amazon broad, it took me all week to recuperate!
Holy Joe didn't help any either, with his steady mumbling in my ear of "Repent, repent!"
Poor, simple, cracked Joe. What the hell did he think I was doing except repenting? And what the hell good did it do?
On Monday a new prisoner checked in, replacing a guy who had worked his time.
A new guy in camp was a big event for us. Mostly we went around like sleepwalkers all week, waiting for Saturday night. We worked the quarry, ate the slop, and were chained to our cots at night. So a new prisoner in camp stirred us up a little. It's the old story about misery loves company. Another stupid bastard in trouble.
Then I saw who the new guy was.
It jarred me.
Mac!
Those thin lips with the little scar at the edge that gave him a kind of smile. A smile that went through me like a knife.
In the dark, when we were chained up for the night, Mac hissed, "Got myself transferred here, rat!"
Without being told, the guys knew who he meant.
Living the way we did, almost like animals, our instincts were sharp. And they had seen the way Mac looked at me, the way I had reacted to the new prisoner.
"Worth all the dough it cost me," Mac went on. "I'll get you for this, rat. I'll get you," he promised.
The guys didn't know what the feud was about, and they didn't want to get mixed up in it. But they could make an educated guess. No one asked, and Mac and I volunteered no information.
I wanted only to keep out of Mac's way. I wanted that sweet time off for good behavior. Mac was a threat to my freedom. If we got mixed up in a fight we'd lose our time off. And get punished by Boss Kroner besides.
But Mac surprised me. He threatened with words, not actions.
That's what I thought. Mac was no fool. He was not going to take a chance on losing his own time off. Mac was working out a very clever plan. The only thing is, he didn't figure into his plan a great big nymph named Elsa!
That Saturday night, when Buss Kroner came to the cage to do his pimping, he had four or five takers. A broad five bucks. Shot of booze five bucks.
Later, Bim came and took my chains off. Then he took the chains off Mac, too.
Bim marched the two of us ahead of him toward the farmhouse.
"Some broad you got there," Bim said to Mac.
Mac grinned. "Yeah. Flo has got what it takes.
Worth the payoff to get her here."
My ears went up. It must have cost him plenty to get Flo to the farmhouse. He would have to make it pay for Boss Kroner. Boss had to take care of Bim and Henny, and have enough left over for himself.
I wondered what had happened to the big Lincoln convertible. Then I saw it in the dark, back of the farmhouse. Mac still had plenty of loot. It wouldn't surprise me if he could buy his way out. It flashed through my mind he might have bought his way out by now, if it wasn't that he wanted revenge on me first and foremost. Because whatever his plan was, his main objective was to get me.
We went inside, and there was Flo. Her expensive perfume was everywhere. She was dressed expensively, too. This was quite a broad. I remembered that she had once kissed me, and I remembered the sensuous quality of that kiss. It had contained the quality of future favors.
Flo was sitting at the kitchen table, having a shot with Boss Kroner. I thought she'd be sore, because Mac was in prison on my testimony. But she gave me a great big smile of recognition. Maybe the booze had mellowed her, but there was no revenge in Flo. Not from what she showed me; all I could see was all woman.
She flirted her nice pointed breasts at me. "Hi!" she said, as Mac glared angrily, "Come on, Jimmy, have a shot."
"Stay away, rat," Mac warned.
"Aw, come on, Flo coaxed.
"You crazy?" Mac said. "Or drunk! Drinking with this rat!"
He went over and helped himself to a big shot in a water glass. He turned to Kroner. "What's this rat doing here? He's got no money!"
"He don't need money," Kroner told him with his pale grin. "He's stud for a mare." And he laughed fit to kill.
Flo looked at me with a new, excited interest. "Stud?"
"Yeah," said Kroner. "Stick around. Meet Elsa. Lots of woman. Kid here must be quite a guy in bed." And he laughed again.
Flo looked at me with still more curiosity, eyes wide and wondering, a little hungry. I guessed that she was now remembering that kiss, too.
Mac said to Kroner. "Hell with Elsa. Where the hell do we shack up? I got to get some stud work in myself!"
"Stick around," Kroner growled; he didn't like it that Mac had crossed him. "I said I want you to meet her."
"Yeah? Well I don't want to meet her" Mac said, feeling the courage of the whiskey.
"Maybe she wants to meet you" said Kroner.
"Hell," said Mac, nasty from the drink, sore about me being there, about the way Flo was acting toward me. "That ain't what I'm paying you for!"
"Shuddup!" said Kroner sharply, suddenly the boss again, "Or I'll make you pay double, Goddammit!"
Mac breathed hard, sore as hell. But he sat down and shut up. He poured himself another shot.
Kroner was running this show.
There was quiet for a moment. Kroner poured me a shot. I took it and gulped it down standing.
Then Elsa came in. Her eyes lighted up when she saw me. "Hi, honey!"
Her tongue began to circle her lips, her big breasts quivered. I felt like backing off, but I knew better. She said, low, as if to herself, "I'm really gonna work you over. I been reading up on it!"
Kroner was watching Mac's reaction at the sight of this perfect Amazon. Big, even enormous, but as perfect in proportion as some ancient Greek statue.
Mac's eyes were bugging in amazement. Elsa was not a woman you saw more than once in your life. She was something out of a book. If only she was not a nymph, who had to punish a guy! Because here was really a marvelous specimen, a champion in the field of sex. And once again I wondered what her story could be, what had brought on this insatiable appetite for men.
She was more damn woman than any guy had a right to-any one guy, that is. She was a throwback. What she needed was a platoon system, a male harem that could accommodate her in relays! The way the ancient Amazon queens used to do, according to some history books.
I looked at Flo. Her mouth was open, eyes wide with astonishment. She had never seen anything like Elsa either. Flo was a lot of woman herself. Plenty of bust, a slender waist, plenty of nice round rear. But Flo was normal in size and action and appetite. Hell, Elsa made Flo look like a kid in kindergarten.
And good as Flo must be in bed, she would have to be a kid compared to Elsa. No one woman could compare with Elsa in bed. Elsa was made up of all the best parts of a dozen dames. In spades!
Elsa wasn't bad-looking, either. Her face was round, with long green cat eyes and a dainty chin. Where Flo's blonde hair was expensively dyed, Elsa was a natural blonde. She had a good smooth skin, too; pink and white, the clear, fragile, peach-bloom coloring of a real blonde.
It was the punishment Elsa inflicted on a man that made her different from a broad like Flo. Flo was built purely for pleasure. But not for the pleasure of a platoon! Flo was strictly a one-guy-at-a-ime broad, the way a broad was meant to be, not a freak of sex like Elsa.
Watching Mac's amazed stare, Kroner's pale grin turned into an amused chuckle.
"Hey, Elsa," he hollered. "Here's a guy brought his own broad! Like taking feathers to a hen!"
While Kroner roared with laughter, Elsa's tongue stopped flicking at me. She had been too intent on me to glance at the others. Now she looked at them. She dismissed Flo with a glance. Elsa was not interested in women. Her gaze stopped at Mac and rested there. Elsa was interested in men only.
"A new young guy," she said. "Why didn't you tell me?"
"Because he's got his own broad!" Kroner explained.
Elsa didn't waste another look at Flo. She said softly, "Not any more, he hasn't."
"Now, look," said Kroner, knowing Elsa, "This guy is shelling out, see?"
Elsa was eating Mac up with her greedy green eyes. "I don't give a damn what he's shelling out," she said.
Mac began to look uncomfortable under Elsa's steady stare.
Flo had been uncomfortable from the first, perhaps recognizing the nymph in Elsa.
Mac began edging away, as Elsa began edging closer.
"What's your name?"
"Huh? Mac." I
"How good are you, Mac?"
"What!"
"Can you give a girl a good time? I got it bad, Mac. Every week I get it real bad. I like to try a new one once in a while. Get up."
"Huh?"
"Get up!"
Mac got up, eyes bulging, mouth open. His face had turned pale, the little scar at the edge of his lips showing red, the way it did when he got mad or excited.
Elsa looked him over the way she had done me. Like a new prize bull in the corral. Going through the same routine with Mac as she had with me. Even the words were the same. Because the next thing she said was: "You got what I want? I need a stud!"
Mac reacted the same way I did, the way any normal guy would. The shock made him step back so quickly, he knocked over his chair.
Kroner and Bim got a laugh out of it. No one else was laughing. With Elsa, sex was the most serious business in her life. Flo was a broad, and she knew what Mac was in for. Only Mac was in the dark. All he knew was that it wasn't funny. And I'd been through it. I knew damn well it wasn't funny.
Mac finally got his nerve back, mad as hell.
"The hell with you, lady," he bellowed. "I got my own broad!"
"No you ain't," said Elsa. "Show the little girl a good time," she said to me.
"Huh? What?" I couldn't believe my ears.
"Take that broad in the other bedroom," she said.
Mac exploded. "What the hell!"
He started for Flo, I guess to help her. Bim and Kroner grabbed him, held him back.
Flo looked dumbfounded. Her big blue eyes were round and staring. On top of the booze she'd had, the shock of Elsa's order to me seemed like too much for Flo to grasp. Flo didn't seem sure she'd heard right. Not knowing Elsa, she couldn't believe there could exist such a strange situation.
Even though I knew Elsa, knew that she meant it, knew I'd heard right, it still was too much for me. I didn't make a move. All I could think of at the moment was that I'd have a rest from Elsa tonight.
Let Mac have her. Let him learn what it was like to get swallowed up in those smooth, soft, giant thighs. Let him know what it was like to get crushed and bruised by those powerful legs. Hour on hour, without let-up. Let him know what it was like to feel the crushing weight of those gorgeous watermelons she called her breasts. Let him kiss and fondle those thimble-size nipples!
Mac was my enemy. He had got me into this even though he figured it the other way around. But I couldn't laugh at him now, the way Bim and Kroner were doing. I couldn't feel vengeful at this moment. All I could feel for Mac was pity.
I finished the drink I held in my hand. It put some life into me.
Mac struggled with the two laughing guards who held him.
"Flo!" he yelled. "Get the hell out of here! Get in the car and beat it, for crissake!"
"You wouldn't cheat the dame, would you?" said Elsa sweetly. And she was serious. Sex was a serious business with Elsa. She turned to me. "Take her in the next room and teach her some of the tricks I showed you."
I looked at Flo. Flo looked at me. A relaxed smile came over her features. Flo was willing. Hell, she looked eager!
Then Bim spoke up. "How about me, Elsa? I kind of got a yen for this broad."
Elsa looked Bim up and down, shook her head. "She ain't for you."
Mac looked like he would bust a gut. His face turned almost purple. His struggles were useless in the grip of the two guards. He tried to yell, but all that come out was an insane gurgle. He was crazy with hate and anger and jealousy. Flo was his broad. He had paid heavy sugar to get her here. And now she was up for grabs.
And his worst enemy was about to go to bed with her!
Then Elsa pronounced the fatal sentence: "You got your choice, Mac. The stocks, the spikes-or bed with me!"
The two guards howled with glee at Elsa's familiar joke. But it was no joke. Elsa meant it. Elsa didn't joke about sex any more than Holy Joe would laugh about religion. Sex was Elsa's reason for living. She had an appetite for it that could never be satisfied.
Mac had been in prison before. He knew about the stocks and spikes. Outwardly he began to subside. Inwardly he was raging, the little scar at the edge of his mouth a fiery red.
"I got to get relief," Elsa went on, as calmly as if she was talking about the weather. It was the same speech she had made with me; then her voice went slightly higher as it had with me. "You got to give me three at least. Less than that, I can't get started!"
"Less than that," Kroner added, "You go back in the cage. And no more Flo."
"You son of a bitch!" Mac raged at Kroner, "What the hell am I paying you for?"
"For fun," said Kroner. "And Elsa's gonna give it to you!" Then he slapped Mac hard across the face, hard enough to draw blood. "You keep a tongue in your head, Mac."
Elsa took Mac by the arm. The Amazon's grip was enough. The guards let Mac go. He took one last frantic look at Flo, threw a murderous glance at me, then Elsa took him in the bedroom, softly closed the door.
Flo looked at me. The color had mounted in her face. Her eyes danced with an eager light. She smiled brightly. "Well, hon? What are we waiting for?"
I looked at Kroner. He shrugged, grinned his pale grin, nodded his head toward the other bedroom.
"Like Elsa says," said Kroner. "We don't want to cheat the broad. She came here for something. Mac paid for it. Take her in and give it to her."
Flo gave a quick gulping finish to her drink. She bounced up, so eager, she was ahead of me on the way to the other bedroom.
Bim followed us with hot, longing eyes.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN / What a relief to look at a normal dame undressing.
Flo was in a hurry, practically tearing her things off. Then the bed began to creak in the next room. That massive broad was initiating Mac into the passionate mysteries of the ancient Amazon sexpots.
Flo paused, listening to the telltale creaking, her head to one side in rapt attention. Then she giggled.
"They're doing it!" she squealed. She began to tear off the rest of her things. "Hurry! Please. Hurry. I can't wait!"
It was nice to have a normal broad in bed with me. It made up for a lot of things. I didn't think of it as being ironic, that I was making Mac's broad, or that Mac had greased a lot of palms to get her here to the farmhouse. Flo had made eyes at me before, glommed on to my lips before now, that time she gave me a kiss that was a passionate promise.
Now the promise was being fulfilled. Her lips were on mine, her little tongue darting round in my mouth. She was frantic to begin but I held her off. I wanted it to be good, not wanting to waste any of it!
She was warm and lush against the bareness of my skin, her lovely, lemon-shaped breasts pressed hard against me, so hard and frantic, I could feel the pressure of the little pink nipples. I kissed them, now, and they popped up big and strong. It drove Flo wild.
But Elsa had taught me a thing or two. I played with Flo, held her off. I felt in all the sweet and gentle places, the soft secret places Elsa had taught me drove a broad out of her mind with desire. Then when she got it, she'd really appreciate it!
I had to remember that Flo was a normal broad. She couldn't take it for hours like Elsa. She would have her fun in the normal way once or twice and that would be it for Flo. So I wanted to make it good while it lasted.
Flo was moaning, begging, pleading. "Show me the things Elsa taught you. Show me her tricks. Please, oh, please! I can't wait any longer, honey!"
I turned her over and began to show her some of the tricks Elsa had taught me.
Flo worked in a swift, smooth rhythm, like the good sexpot she was. Her soft legs wrapped around me, buttocks grinding, belly bumping. It was the first time and she was anxious to please, anxious to show me how good she was. With the training I got from Elsa, I showed her how good I could be, too.
We worked round and round on the big, old bed, thrashing, panting, thighs working in unison, bodies quickly sweated. We were two of a kind, two good journeymen at work. Flo was an expert. So was I, since Elsa.
When she finished I kept right on going. Flo shrieked with delighted surprise, started right up again. Flo had three before she knew it, which Elsa claimed was the minimum for any good sexpot. Then I went to work on Flo in earnest.
I showed her how to start again, the way Elsa had taught me to do-showed her how to start me again, too. Flo shrieked with delight. Her pleasure mounted.
"It's better now than before!" she screamed in a voice choked with emotion. "God! It gets better and better!"
We went to work again in another position Elsa had practiced with me. It was a tremendous thrill, for both of us; but more especially for Flo. This was all new to her.
Oh, that Elsa, I thought, as I watched Flo's rounded, thrashing limbs. I worked all the tricks Elsa had showed me, and it did something to Flo. Then I realized that almost any broad is half nympho at heart, given half a chance. Flo begged for more.
Half a nymph just about describes it, I guess. Because where Elsa lasted two hours, Flo and I stayed together not much over an hour. She couldn't even wiggle after that. Just lay on her back panting and happy.
"Want more?" I laughed, "Can you take it, Flo?"
"I want," she whispered hoarsely, "Oh, how I want! Sure I can take. But I can't make it!"
"Sure was good, Flo."
"Good? It was an orgy! Oh, what a time I had. Never had anything like it!"
"You're awful good, Flo."
"But I never was that good before! That's what puzzles me. Did that dame teach you all those tricks?"
"Most of them."
"What a broad!" She listened to the creaking of the bed in the next room. She giggled. "I hope she teaches Mac a trick or two. You've spoiled me, hon!"
"Don't worry, she'll teach him. He'll pull his weight in any bed when Elsa gets through with her sex lessons." I got up. "Ready to go?" She chuckled. "Not willing. Just ready." She got up and began to dress slowly. The rush was over. She took it easy. "I hurt all over," she said. "You complaining?"
"I should say not! It was nice, awful nice. I want to get some more soon."
"You're nice, too, Flo. I never enjoyed it more." She turned to me eagerly. "Can we do it again next week?"
"I don't know, honey. I hope so. Never can tell, in this menagerie."
The bed in the room next door never stopped creaking. Flo grinned. "Listen to them. Don't they ever stop?"
I chuckled. "Just about started, for Elsa."
"A real nymph, huh?"
"Yeah. Big woman, big passion."
"Not always," said Flo. "Sometimes someone like me is better."
"Someone like you is always better, Flo. With you it's fun. With her it's work. A guy would rather have a little pleasure in bed, than make himself an instrument for a nymph!"
"Gee, honey. I didn't know that. Thanks."
"You're quite a dame, Flo."
She gave me a hopeful, earnest look. "Maybe when you get out, huh?"
"Honey, you're an expensive broad. I couldn't afford to take you around the block."
"Don t worry about that. We could make money. We could go in business together. With what Elsa taught you, you could break in the broads!"
"What about Mac? He's your boy friend, isn't he?"
"What about your girl? Mac says you're going with someone."
Lena! I felt a pang of conscience. Well, nothing I could do about it now.
"Yeah," I said slowly, "I'm going with someone.
But what can you do about it here?"
"I know." She shrugged her nice round shoulders as she wriggled into her dress. "A guy's got to get his loving when he can. A girl can get it any time."
"Yeah. And a guy in prison is lucky if he ever gets it!"
"You said it." She shook her head. "Any other place but a camp like this, with guards like you got here-it would be impossible."
"Glad you understand."
"Sure I understand. I'm human. I like loving, too!"
I grinned. "You sure do, Flo!"
She laughed. "Don't sound so superior. So do you!" I laughed with her. "Damn right. I'm no hypocrite!"
By this time we were both dressed and ready to leave. I looked out the back window. There was the big Lincoln convertible.
I went to the door and peeked through the keyhole. There was only Bim on guard.
"Maybe I'd better go out the window," Flo whispered. "That way I won't have to go past that guard. He's got ideas."
"Listen," I said softly. "Take me with you!"
She stared. Then she took my face in her hands and kissed me deeply. "All right," she whispered, "All right."
"You go first, Flo. Get in the car. Don't start the motor. You're on an incline. When I get in the car, we'll let it roll. No noise that way."
I went to the window and opened it carefully, quietly, an inch at a time. I sweated with tension. By the time I had it far enough for Flo to step through, I was soaking wet.
Again she took my face in her hands and kissed me deeply. Then she went to the window and crawled out, into the yard. She glided like a wraith to the side of the big car. It seemed to take forever till she quietly opened the door. She slipped into the driver's seat, waiting ... for me.
I had my foot half out the window when suddenly Bim was there, by the side of the car!
"Hi, honey," he said to Flo. He slammed the car door shut. "Have a good time?"
She started the motor in panic.
"Wait," he said, "What's your hurry? Listen, I got a yen for you!-"
But Flo had gunned the car into life and was roaring away before Bim could stop her.
I stood there cursing under my breath.
In the next room the bed continued to creak. And creak and creak and creak.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN / Ever since my session with Flo, Mac was dying to murder me. Not murder me and get caught, and have to pay for it. Just murder me and get away with it.
It was a few days after the big night and we were working in the quarry. The sun baked down on the pit, sweat was pouring off us like water. Holy Joe was giving me his usual "repent, repent" between strokes of his heavy hammer.
"The wages of sin," he intoned, "The sins of the flesh. Be prepared to meet your Maker. Be reborn!"
I couldn't take it on a hot day like this. I turned away to wipe the sweat off my face. I was just in time.
Because of the intense heat, Henny, on guard today, had propped his shotgun against the stone wall of the quarry. Then, turning away for a moment, he took off his hat to wipe off the sweat.
As it happened, at that moment all heads were bent to their work, except mine and Mac's. Quick as lightning Mac seized the opportunity. He threw a rock with all his force at Henny's averted head!
It whizzed by within a hair of the guard with such force, it smashed to bits against the side of the quarry. And in the same lightning chain of events, Mac grabbed me! Knocked me sprawling in the dust and rubble of the pit!
"Man gone! Man gone!" he screamed.
In chain gang parlance, "Man gone" means a guy is trying to escape!
The way it looked to Henny, no doubt to everyone else, I had tried to brain the guard and grab his shotgun. No one else had seen the incident; no one else could refute it.
Mac's story held. A most beautiful revenge.
I argued my head off trying to explain what had really happened; that Mac had framed me. But Henny didn't believe me. No one did. Everyone believed Mac. Even the gang in my squad. But of course, the gang's sympathy was with me. That helped me not at all.
When Boss Kroner, Bim and Henny got through with me that night, I was dumped in my bunk like a sack of kindling. I had been taken to the farmhouse without any supper. They had knocked me around the room with their fists. When I fell, I got kicked. When I got up, I was knocked down again.
Try to brain a guard, would I? They'd show me. And they did.
And gone was my time off for good behavior.
And for preventing my "escape," Mac would receive extra time off!
In front of each bunk there was a special ring-bolt in the floor. To this ring was attached a heavy chain. The other end of the chain was attached to my neck.
This was Boss Kroner's iron "necklace." How long I would receive this treatment was purely up to the boss. He could give me the necklace for the rest of my term, and I could go fight City Hall.
I was lucky at that. For attacking a guard, a prisoner can get life, or even be hanged by the neck until dead. I owed it to Elsa that no formal charges had been presented to the prison board. And in a case like this, extra time is always automatic. So I could now expect to serve the maximum of Judge Rainey's sentence. If not more.
And even in my bruised and beaten condition, I had to keep up with the rest of the men in the quarry. I began to feel I was someone else, a spectator watching myself suffer with only outside interest. And now I was singled out for suffering.
On the least provocation, or on no provocation at all, Kroner, Bim, or Henny would lash me with a metal-tipped cat-o'-nine-tails. Or take a sock at me with their fists. I had to learn to fake it; roll with the punch and fall to the ground. Then I had to watch out for a kick.
Mac's grin was very wide these days, he was having a wonderful revenge. And I couldn't get close enough to him to repay him. The guards kept watch on me as if there was no one else in the gang.
I didn't need Holy Joe's urging to "repent;" I had plenty of reasons without him.
I got Kroner's iron necklace all that week. I got kicked, punched, pushed around. When Saturday came, and the guys went to meet the broads at the farmhouse, I was left in shackles and chains, and the iron necklace.
Elsa didn't need me; she had Mac.
In the middle of the following week, I got a letter from Lena. Mr. Whitmore, the big attorney in her office, had finally found time to examine my case and was very much interested. It would take time, but he would begin to prepare briefs in the hope of interesting Judge Rainey in a new trial.
I couldn't help relaying the good news to Mac. I knew he'd be sore as hell to hear I might get a new trial and "talk out." But revenge is a two-edged emotion; it cuts both ways, as I found out.
"So you think you're gonna talk out and leave me here to take the rap alone, huh, rat?" Mac whispered softly in the dark. "Think again, rat."
"Nothing you can do about it," I gloated.
"Hell there ain't. Watch me!"
"To hell with you, Mac!"
"Yeah," he said bitterly, "Like you gave it to Flo. I got that to pay you back for."
I gave a mocking laugh. "You're going to rot here, Mac. You'll never have a chance to pay me back. I just got one wish: I want to get you alone before the mouthpiece springs me."
It was a large pleasure to me, parading my small triumph. Lena's information was the first good thing to come my way since my imprisonment. I had confidence in Whitmore. If he could reopen the case I had a chance for a reversal. Old Judge Rainey had a reputation for leaning on the side of a first offender, giving him every break. With a guy like Whitmore interested, I had a chance to beat the rap.
By the next day, everyone in camp was talking about my new hope to "talk out." Holy Joe looked at me with the compassion of a priest; like a guy who knows that miracles can happen. As far as he was concerned, he had a direct wire to God and had already prayed me out.
I had to look away from him as our heavy hammers smashed and crashed and echoed loudly in the quarry. Maybe Joe was right. Maybe, after all is said and done, the Man Upstairs keeps books on us.
You pay for what you get. You get what you pay for. And you get paid back; in blood and guts and sweat and tears. You can't beat the odds.
I had wanted easy money? Nothing for nothing.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN / Every night and every morning, our shackles were inspected by Boss Kroner. This night he jerked me out of line. It was a Tuesday. Had it been Saturday I would figure it was Elsa. She might be tired of Mac, or worn him out; she was due for a change.
But Elsa was strictly a Saturday night nympho, wouldn't give a dime for a guy during the week. Like the week-end boozer who can't stand the stuffexcept to get swacked on Saturday night.
I couldn't tell by Kroner's pale, expressionless face what he had in mind for me. I could not imagine what I had done, what the trouble might be. I could only shiver and sweat in panic. I wondered if someone had tampered with my chains. Maybe Mac had paid someone to do something to them while I slept!
I did a little praying. Where was Holy Joe's friendly God now? Was I going to be accused of another "attempt to escape"?
"Boss," I said hoarsely, "I haven't done anything!"
"Sure, I know," said Boss.
That told me nothing. What did he mean?
We started toward the farmhouse.
I still couldn't figure Elsa in this. Whatever else it was, it wouldn't concern Elsa. Maybe the guards were going to beat me again. I shivered; there was no way I could defend myself. If I tried to fight back, they'd kill me. And be justified in doing so, according to the law.
You can not attack a guard. Period. If, afterward, you are found very dead, it was just an "accident." Accidents very often happened to guys who try to brain a guard. The kind of accidents that leave you very dead.
So it was with considerable apprehension that I stumbled along to the farmhouse under the watchful eye of Boss Kroner. Of course it crossed my mind to grab one of his six-guns. Shoot it out with him. Die, maybe, but at least die trying.
But Kroner was experienced. He knew what everyone in the camp was thinking at any given time. He knew what I was thinking now. He kept me at a safe distance. I would have to make a leap to tackle him. It was out of the question. He'd plug me in midair, fill me full of lead before I hit the ground.
When we got to the farmhouse, there was booze on the table as usual.
"Siddown," said Kroner.
I stole a sidelong glance at him. He was grinning, seemed pleasant enough. He gave me a cigarette, then, while I lit up, he poured me a big shot of hooch.
I was scared. This could be a refined torture. The cigarette choked me. I coughed.
"Take it easy," he said.
Out of my fear, I began talking.
"I didn't try to brain Henny, Boss. It's like I told you a hundred times before. I didn't throw that rock at him."
"Yeah, I been wondering."
"Mac threw it. Like I told you. I had nothing to do with that deal."
"Yeah. That's what Elsa thinks."
"You think I'm a rat for squealing? On a son of a bitch like that? Why should I worry about squealing on him? Look what he's trying to do to me, for crissakes!"
"I know what you mean. They tell me your new mouthpiece is gonna bend the judge's ear for you."
"That's right."
"Good man, that Whitmore. Don't never lose a case."
"That's what they say."
"You're as good as talked out. Go on, drink up."
I choked a big slug of whiskey down, Then I got up some nerve. "What am I here for, Boss?"
"You'll find out." His pale grin told me nothing. He glanced out the window. "Here she comes now."
I looked out. Elsa!
I said, "This Saturday? I must be turned around. I thought it was Tuesday!" Kroner's grin widened. "It's Tuesday, all right."
"But I thought-I mean-"
Kroner laughed at my confusion. Then Elsa came in.
She looked the same as she did on Saturday night.
Just her feelings were different. There was no anxious rising of the great full bosom, no quickening of breath, no excited, greedy gleam in the long green cat eyes.
I thought again what a gorgeous Amazon this broad was, what a shame she was so whacky in her sex life. Everyone has their own poison. Elsa's poison happened to be her most desired pleasure.
She gave me a pleasant smile, showing small white teeth. "How you feeling, Jimmy?"
"Okay, I guess."
"What I hear, you're lucky to be alive. Gave you quite a going over."
"Yeah."
"Could have been worse."
"Yeah. And say, thanks. I hear you were on my side."
"I believed you," she said simply, "then after a while they listened to me. Gonna ask you to do something for me, now."
"Okay."
"My broads need a man."
"Huh?"
"I got a mutiny on my hands. Got a few broads there got to have a man!"
"Elsa, for crissake!" I exclaimed. "I can't do that!"
Elsa leaned forward. "Want the iron necklace?" she said sweetly.
"I can't take you on and all those others too!"
"Me? I wouldn't touch it with a ten-foot pole. Not till Saturday. Anyway I'm still working on Mac."
Boss Kroner said, "We don't want those hot broads busting out and giving it to the town boys. Give the prison a bad name."
"That's what always happens," said Elsa. "They bust out and rape the kids. Anything in pants. Hell to pay!"
"Why pick on me?"
"They heard about you. Been asking for you. I keep promising them. Now I got to keep my promise."
"I'm not that good, Elsa."
"I think you are. That other broad does, too."
"What broad?"
"Flo. Mac's broad. She's been around in that big convertible with her hot pants showing."
Kroner said dryly, "Don't let her put it in your head to drive away with you, Doyle."
He'd read my mind again.
Elsa took me across the road under cover of darkness. The women's prison was an honor farm. There was the main farmhouse, where Elsa lived with a couple of matrons and the cook, also a prisoner. In a way, all the women on the farm were trusties. They lived in dormitories, and were locked up only at night.
Elsa first took me to the main house where she had the cook fix me up with a big steak and French fries, a big shot of booze. Then she gave me a cigarette. When I was ready, I got up and followed her out.
"I got these hot broads separated," she explained. "All in one dorm."
"How we going to work this?"
"They all got numbers. Take their turn."
"How many are there?"
"Only eight."
"Only!"
Elsa laughed. "You can handle them. I ain't worried."
"I am!"
"Nothing to worry about. They'll behave."
"Nothing to worry about? Eight hard-up broads?" She laughed again. "What do you care? You'll wear 'em all out!" That's what she said.
I was not so sure. "What happens if I can't? I mean, just can't, that's all. I'm only human."
She seemed to consider this possibility for the first time. "Well, do what you can. If you can't take 'em all on now, you'll have the rest to do the next time, that's all."
That's all? I shuddered. What a prospect. Something to look forward to. Boy, was I in for it!
CHAPTER SIXTEEN / All the dormitories had a small back porch. This one had been fixed up for my "work room."
They had put in a large iron bed, with lots of frilly pillows and fussy dolls. The only light came in from the moon. It looked like a little whorehouse, even smelled like one. They had doused the bed with sweet cologne.
Inwardly I sighed. One dame when you want a dame is one thing. That's normal. But eight! I wasn't sure I could handle even one!
As I walked through the dorm toward the back porch, with only the moonlight to see by, I counted eight naked broads sitting up in their beds. I couldn't see their faces; all I could see were breasts and buttocks of assorted shapes and sizes.
Fat, thin; big, small. A couple of them looked like models. Perfect. Not being able to see their faces, I could only guess that some were pretty, others not so pretty. Even homely.
Later, when my eyes got used to the darkness, I counted redheads, blondes, brunettes, and a shade or two in between. Some were sweet, some merely greedy and selfish. But all had one thing in common: They were nymphos, desperate for a man. So desperate, they were sick with the need for one.
The fact that they were in prison where such a need was denied them, made it all the worse. You can't keep people cooped up for long without bringing their animal needs to the front. These eight segregated dames were the animals of the women's prison farm. They were the sick ones, the nymphs, sick with the need for a man. They could die, or go mad, or do something desperate, if they couldn't get relief.
And I was elected to that job.
When I saw all those naked breasts and buttocks sitting up in the shadow of the moonlight, I felt a sudden need, a quick desire, a tension in the mid die of my stomach. I had thought desire was dead since the beating I'd taken. Now the sight of so many naked female torsos made me change my mind. The heat mounted inside me. I was quickly excited, willing, even anxious.
"Here he is, girls," Elsa told them. "He's good. I know. I trained him myself!"
Immediately there were howls and wolf whistles, cries of "Let me have it! Give me a good one! Oh, you lover boy!"
"Hush!" Elsa warned. "Quiet! Want us all to get in trouble? No noise, or we won't be able to do this again." With that last remark Elsa made her point. It got so quiet, you could hear them breathe.
"Jimmy. Go to the back porch and get ready."
I could feel all eyes on me all the way to the back. I started to take off my things.
I could hear Elsa saying, "You will go by the numbers you've drawn. Don't try to rush the one ahead of you. Wait your turn. Remember, there's a one-hour limit. Now who is Number One?
"I am!"
She sounded like one of the pretty ones; I guessed about somewhere in her twenties. I lay in the dark, ready. Elsa had taught me how to be a good stud, taught me how to play a woman like an organ. Pull out all the stops when I wanted, push the pedals, make the music.
The girl was pretty. Her name was Mavis and she was twenty-three. She told me she had been a sexpot almost since she could remember. She had reached her puberty while still in grade school. She had matured at such an early age she had been a sexual hazard not only to the boys in school, but to the men teachers as well. She had started with the boys and ended up with the teachers. One of the teachers had been caught in the cloakroom with her. They had both been expelled.
She was here now because she had been arrested in a brothel during the recent election cleanup. This was not her first arrest. Usually she paid a fine and went out to sin some more. But this time they stuck her away for a while. She told me she would kill herself if she were deprived of a man for any length of time. Sex was her drug. That's why she became a prostitute.
She had a long, sensuous, well-formed body with long, sensuous legs. She had small, firm, peaked breasts that stood out enticingly from her body. The girl was built for love. Sex was all she knew, she said, sex was all she was good for. It was an obsession with her, she could think of nothing else. It was her passion and her life and her livelihood as well.
Mavis thrust her firm, strong ripples in my mouth as we worked. She knew all the tricks Elsa had taught me, knew how to start me up again, knew what I had to do to start her up again.
Greedily I kissed her quickly hardening nipples. I realized I was being rough and tried to be more gentle with her, though in her state she wouldn't know the difference. The sweet cologne in the room was like a drug in my nostrils, a heady, sensuous drug made for the night, made for love.
I buried my face in her brown hair spread out on the pillow, and it too was filled with a heady perfume. I kissed her body. It was on fire with a moist, humid heat. As my tongue roamed hungrily over her she made little urgent cries in her throat. But I played her. I had to remember this was a nymph. I had to remember she would wear me out, unless I wore her out first.
I slipped my hand under her back and moved it along on her body. She cried out, and it was amazing to me that a girl so experienced, so accustomed to sex, could yet respond with a fresh newness all the time. That was the nymph in her, of course. Those long, lovely, warm and ardent legs, so made for the pleasure of men. Her body was quivering, wet and ready. She clutched my naked back and cried out, "Now! Now!"
Still I waited, did not take her. I let my head rest on her taut and tortured breasts. She moaned in the dark, clutching at me desperately. Then she started to gasp, little moaning animal gasps of need, of urgent desire. She grabbed me out of her urgent need, and then I couldn't wait any longer. I was on fire myself.
Deeply I found the fire in her, deeply, ever deeply. Her body moved under me, convulsive but experienced, without wasted movements. I kissed her eyes, her throat, her cheeks, then her parted lips, muting her animal cries of ecstatic fulfillment.
Wave after wave, hot with desire, drowned us in our mutual passion. The taut and jerky spasms of passion knew release. We reached the apex with tight wet lips and tight wet bodies and grinding, wrenching loins, the two of us crying out now. For the need had been more great for me than I had thought, than I had realized.
It was over, but only for the moment. We did not move away from each other. She would not let me free. The nymph in her was far from finished, far from being satisfied. The nymph in her was only starting. I was beginning to see why Elsa had put a one-hour limit on the girls. Unlike Elsa, who had a built-in two hour limit, some of them knew no limit. Some of them could go all night. Elsa had told me that these were the worst of the lot-or the best, depending on the point of view. I was beginning to understand what Elsa meant.
With one hand Mavis began to play with my back, the other hand went under my body. She was quickly eager again, ready again, beginning to grind again, moan again. Her soft lips sought mine, her little tongue darting in my mouth. Then she pulled away to thrust a hard and ardent nipple in my mouth, moaning. I didn't take her. She took me. Eagerly we got together, eagerly we went to work. Wildly, swiftly, with groaning words of desire; two experienced, exciting and excited workmen at their trade.
She was lying there, eyes closed, mouth open in unbelieving ecstasy, panting. "Darling, darling, darling!" she choked. "What are you doing to me? Oh, darling!" I held her tightly, her sweet, soft arms clutching me as tightly. Her rounded hips bounced and bumped out music, wonderful, skilful, passionate music, a tune no man-made organ would ever play when Elsa came to get her at the end of the hour, Mavis didn't want to leave. "How many did you have?" Elsa asked, laughing. "I never learned to count over twenty," Mavis said with a satisfied smile. To me, she said, "You sure are good, lover boy. You and I should be in business!"
"You're pretty good yourself," I told her.
"They'll spring me when the elections are over," Mavis said. "Don't forget. Let's get together!"
"Sure," said Elsa, as she led her away. "But right now he's got other business."
When Elsa returned, she had a big slug of whisky for me. I took it gratefully.
"You ready?" Elsa grinned.
"Pretty soon." I said.
"The whisky help?"
"Yeah. Sure does."
"More where that came from," she said. "I'll bring the next broad in pretty soon. You can do it. If not, you can always fake it."
"With these nymphs?"
"Try, anyway. They're in a spot, and so am I. I don't want them playing with one another. I don't want them busting out and raping the town boys."
"Yeah, I know," I said with thin sarcasm that went over her head. "Gives the prison a bad name."
"That's right," she said.
My Number Two broad leaped on me like a hungry she-wolf. In appearance she was anything else but, which just goes to show you can never tell. She had a pretty, plump, nice round face, a plump, pretty, nice round rump, nice round breasts, very full. She looked like a nice little housewife-which she was! She had gotten into trouble because of her constant need, her constantly famished desire. Her husband, being normal, could not satisfy her needs. The doctor had told her she had a vaginal irritation that could be corrected, but she didn't want it corrected, thank you! She liked herself the way she was, always wanting a man, never satisfied, never getting enough. Sex was the one thing in life she could look forward to with pleasure-unadulterated, never-ending pleasure.
"I was caught in the back of my car in this public garage downtown with a garage boy," she told me, during a brief lull. "I couldn't make them understand that it was a thing I couldn't help. It didn't have to be this boy. Anybody. Any man. I look at a man-and something comes over me right then and there. Anywhere. In the street or anywhere. I must have it. I have to have it right away. I'll do anything to get it!"
"Who caught you?"
"My husband."
"Oh-oh."
"You said it. The boy was only fired."
"And you were arrested. Why?"
"The garage people were afraid I'd turn around and sue them. So they had me arrested for disorderly conduct. That way I couldn't sue them. My husband couldn't either. That way, I was to blame."
"Are you going back to your husband when you get out?"
"He's divorcing me."
"What will you do?"
"I'm going into-into business for myself." She smiled, her little white teeth gleaming in her plump, pretty, housewifely face. "That way I can have a man all the time. All the men I want."
"And make some money, too," I grinned.
"It's not the money. I don't care if they pay me or not. All I want is to get satisfied. Passion is a full time job with me."
"In other words you're happy the way you are."
"Oh, yes!" She looked at me as if I'd been joking. "Of course! What do you think? I'm only happy with a man to satisfy me!"
Elsa had watched us for a while, like a professor checking a student. I was having a little difficulty reaching the broad, because of her plumpness. Elsa showed me the easy way to reach her, calling the broad Brenda. Brenda turned out to be a slow, sure worker, after that initial big leap on me in the bed. Mavis had been fast and furious, giving way to her passion every minute. Not Brenda. With her it was like eating a good steak, enjoying every mouthful.
It had just been her anxiety that had made her leap on me like a she-wolf in the beginning. Once we started, she was slow and sure. For an amateur she was exceptionally good. I had no doubt she would do even better as a pro.
When Brenda finally made it, after a good ten minutes of pumping and priming, she shuddered for a full five minutes in ecstasy, of climax. She took another two minutes to rest, then she started up again almost at once. A true nymph.
I lost myself in those nice, plump, smooth white thighs. Her soft, full breasts pressing into me, her soft wet lips on mine, she moaned in an agony of pleasure and pain. She tossed her plump round hips in ecstatic abandon as she gave way fully to the wanton in her. For an amateur she had a bewildering array of tricks. They call came natural to her, she told me during a momentary rest. It was her one and only talent, she said. Even cooking, which she did very well, did not come as natural to her. In Brenda's own words, she was born to be a whore, a natural whore-which many whores are not.
When beginning with Brenda I had been a little tired, but she was so receptive, so good in her movement and positions, I found myself enjoying it, forgetting my tiredness. I was greedy with my hands and mouth and loins. Her flesh was giving, soft and giving, her passion a live and glowing thing, a breathing, tossing, sensuous thing of wetness and movement and heat.
Her hair of soft dark brown was fairly long, shining and subtly perfumed. It was amazing to me how these broads kept themselves feminine even in prison and under these trying circumstances. Brenda told me it was a matter of morale, a thing that was encouraged here. And though many things were denied them, as punishment or for security reasons, still all they needed was a stick of lip rouge and a dab of perfume and they were women again, desirable again, sexy again.
Brenda had long dark lashes and healthy pink cheeks, full, soft, forever smiling lips, smiling as if at some lovely secret that she refused to share with anyone. She was in her element here and now, in bed with a man. This was her secret.
She kissed me wildly, her soft hands caressing me, her burning hunger communicating itself to me. I kissed her closed eyes, that full, rounded body, the plump breasts, the little hollow of the abdomen. Her lush, rounded torso was smoother than silk, hotter than burning coal. Her hips wriggled, impatient, anxious, wanting more and more, always more. A sexual fury in her pressed her onward, deeper, deeper. The lovely rhythm of the buttocks increased in fervor, in demand. In bed she was a queen who could make her demands on a man. I did not deny her. I held her down while we both drank deep of everything she had to offer.
I knew all the places to play her, all the soft and tender and secret places Elsa had taught me to caress. I knew all the movements, the kisses that would rouse her to new heights of energetic sexual ecstasy. My own needs and pleasures were secondary. I was here for the pleasure of the nymphs.
My hands stroked and teased, never stopping, using her breasts, teasing as we worked together. I stirred with her, moved with her, back and forth, up and down, pleasing her, pleasuring her as she had never been pleasured before. And that, as it happened, proved her undoing. Because suddenly she became so overcome with emotion, became so overwrought, she was seized with a screaming hysteria.
I tried to hush her up but I couldn't. Then Elsa came rushing in. "What's the matter?" she cried, seizing the screaming and struggling Brenda.
"I can't stand it, I can't stand it!" screamed Brenda. "I never had anything like this before!"
"You're doing all right," I soothed. "Calm down. You still have half an hour left."
"I better take her away," said Elsa. "She's had enough for now."
"No! No!" Brenda screamed. "I want more! It's not fair! I want more!" .
Elsa slapped her and she subsided. "Come on," said Elsa. "That's enough. You've had it."
"But I've got half an hour," Brenda whimpered. "You can't do this. I've got another half hour. You promised!"
Elsa took her roughly from the bed. "You're hysterical. Come on. That's enough now. Some other time."
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN / When Elsa came back she had another slug of whisky for me in a water glass.
"I had to put her to bed," she explained, "had to make her take a sedative." She laughed. "What are you doing to these broads?"
"Only what you taught me, teacher."
"Yeah. Well, don't get too good. I'm trying to keep them from going nuts, not drive them to it!" She reached for my glass. "Want more whisky?"
"No. This is more than I want."
"You can handle another broad, I'm sure."
"Well, I don't know."
"Try. You've got to. I don't know when I can get you down here again."
"Who is it?"
"Claire. She's very tiny. But don't let that fool you. Looks like a kid, but she's almost thirty, so don't let that fool you either."
"In other words she'll give me a tussle."
"She will, all right."
"Do me a favor, then. Give her a shot of hooch. Maybe that'll slow her down." Elsa laughed. "Will do!"
Claire was tiny, all right. And she did look like a kid. Little face, little figure, great big doll-blue eyes and bright bleached hair. Had not Elsa told me her age, I would have taken her for jail-bait.
Claire proved pretty quickly that she was no kid. She proved it one-two-three in bed. Like any nymph, she had a lot of experience. Very often they start pretty young. When the other kids are still playing tag and post-office, little nymphs are playing in the hay. Claire was thin and tiny and hot and wild. Brenda had burned herself out in half an hour, being overcome emotionally. With Claire it was different and yet the result was the same. She burned herself out in half an hour, but physically, not emotionally.
She started fast, quivering in every fiber, anxious to the point of agony. Though in the upper torso she was built on a small scale, from the waist down she was certainly all there, in all the places that counted. There was no need for any nonsense with these nymphs. They were there for one reason and I was it. All they wanted me to do was start as soon as possible. Start and forget to stop. No playing around was really necessary with them, because they were always primed, always ready.
Little Claire was alive, her pink little body all ready. I was the one who had to hold off, fool around a little getting ready. I played with her small round breasts and it was amazing how big the tiny nipples became. I couldn't help thinking how this same act had happened so many times, so many uncounted times, with her. But that was no business of mine. She was as eager, soft and pliant as if this were her first time. She tried to take me but I played with her a while longer, teasing, resting, holding off. She responded with writhing, with soft little groaning sounds, her eyes closed with the pain of need and wanting. When we had gone as far as we could go, I took her deeply, strongly.
A wild, fast start, a quiver, and it was all she needed, but instead of slowing down or stopping to catch her breath, it only increased her tempo. She shrieked and groaned and made little animal noises in her throat, eyes closed , out of mind, out of time. She drowned me with desire and passion and her great need, her great abnormal need, and yet with it all she remained gentle and feminine in her lovemaking. Her legs held me close in a prison of vibrant flesh. She was frantic, in a fever, and she continued to give with spontaneous explosions that rocked her body with an ecstasy almost beyond understanding. For being a nymph, her enjoyment was more, magnified in keeping with her greater need. So she continually arrived at new explosions that came together with strangled gasps and words I could not recognize, gurgling words of animal fulfillment.
Hot and wild as she was, Claire burned herself out in less than half an hour. Panting, weeping, small body quivering, she wanted more and needed it, but physically she was spent. She squirmed in the bed and wept bitter tears of frustration. Then Elsa came in and saw how it was, saw that Claire was willing and would keep on trying, but would be trying to no purpose for a while. Elsa took her away. Claire protested wildly but was forced to go.
When Elsa came back, she found me out of bed, wearily trying to put my clothes on.
"Wait a minute," she said. "Don't go yet."
"Elsa," I said. "I can't see straight. I can't help your nymphs when I'm in this shape."
"Fake it. Try."
"Elsa, I'm through. I just can't."
Suddenly she smiled, her face lighting with a new thought. "When you see what I've got for you, you won't want to fake it."
I sat down wearily on the bed. "Please," I said.
Elsa grinned. "No please about it. Wait till you see Fifi!"
Elsa was right. I had to admit it. Fifi was Number Four. She was a Venus, a goddess. When I saw her, I didn't want to fake it and I hoped I wouldn't have to. She was no chick either. She was a mature woman, fifty-two, as she told me later. A former madam, she was constantly harassed by the cops, who thought she might still be in the business. She was French, with a pleasing accent. A cultured woman, her hair was beautiful, well-kept gray, her mind as mature as her body. Her full loins, her full, rounded thighs, her lovely, lemon-shaped breasts, belonged to a piece of statuary in the Louvre.
I found it difficult to keep in mind that Fifi was like the more common females in this dorm in that she too was a nymph. Fifi could not live without a man any more than a dope fiend could live without a shot. I had never been with a woman her age before. The poor thing was quaking, seeing she was twice my age, and having no choice but me. She was sensitive, I could see, and I tried to put her at her ease by making small talk about the weather, about how nice it was of Elsa to do this for us. But inwardly I kept wondering what a woman her age could do in bed with a young guy like me.
I found out. Fifi showed me. Man, you can't beat experience! Fifi put me through all the paces, missing nothing I could think of, adding a few touches of her own. She knew as much as Elsa and more. She was very gentle, tender, with a sure, deft touch, a smoothly flowing rhythm. Elsa had at times been rough and demanding. Not Fifi. She had the most wonderful muscle control I ever saw or heard of. She had finesse. Fifi was an artist.
Fifi knew a man, knew everything about him. She knew the movements and caresses that would stir him, revive him. She knew the exact thrust and stroke to rouse him to the fiery heights of passion never before experienced. I had thought I was tired, but Fifi changed my mind.
Never had I reached so deep or known that it could be this way. I was drunk with her, the passion and the pleasure and the joy of her, my head in a whirl of fantasy. Fifi was the dream woman who comes to haunt every man at one time or another.
Again and again that beautiful body surrendered in gentle spasms and intensely sweet throbbings, reaching each new peak as if love were a newly discovered thing, a new joy. She did not grind and bump in large movements like the others. She trembled, with hips and buttocks, endlessly, never ceasing, the controlled muscles of her abdomen contracting, exploding, then renewing their convulsions in a fresh access of molten passion and desire.
Only pity was missing, of all the emotions. For we took no pity on one another, permitting no rest. We had only an hour in which to live together, be together, breathe together as one. With silent promise, each of us would make the most of every moment-each agonizing, joyful breath, bodies together in ecstatic time without time. For with Fifi, time stood still. Her quivering hips increased their rhythm with the gentle wildness of her emotion. Gently I chewed on the nipples as I stroked, Fifi pacing each stroke like the master craftsman she was. This was not raw sex or lust. With Fifi it was an art. Her lips alone were a thing of beauty as they attacked and mastered my own. She could do as much with her lips as she could with her body.
I began to feel as if I had never known any other woman in bed, as if we would forever and always be like this together, those warm, exciting breasts crushed forever against my body, our heartbeats pounding.
Occasionally she varied the rhythm, her hips moving with vigorous movement, a pleasurable tightness in her thighs. "Sweet, sweet, sweet, cherie!" she kept murmuring. "Sweet, sweet, sweet, ah bien, bien, good! Move, move, together, together this way, cherie!" Her beautiful, statuesque body was as urgent as her lovely voice, both of us moving together, in rhythm, in passion, in want and in need. "We keep in touch," she breathed in my ear during a momentary lull. "We get out, we be together. Make money. Much money, cherie!"
"How?"
"Rich widows. They fight over you, cherie. Make fortune."
"Think so?"
"Cherie. Such technique. You are an artist!"
Which was exactly the way I felt about Fifi. The hour ended with a passionate kiss. When Elsa came in this time, she could see I was through. I could barely move.
"Well, what did I tell you?" she grinned.
I grinned too, nodding, "You were right, Elsa. That's almost as much woman as you."
"And not as rough," she laughed.
"Looks like nymphs come in all shapes and sizes."
"Right," Elsa agreed. "You can't tell by looking. Take Claire. To look at her you'd think she'd run from a man." She shook her head. "No, you can't go by looks."
"Yeah," I said, wearily getting out of bed and beginning to hunt my clothes. "Look at Brenda. A plump little housewife you'd expect to find pushing a cart of groceries in a supermarket. And Mavis? She looks like an innocent kid."
"You sure can't go by looks," Elsa repeated, shaking her head at the wonder of it.
I chuckled, slipping on my trousers. "Sure glad you're only a Saturday night nymph, Elsa."
"Can't go any more, huh?" she giggled.
"Can't even wiggle."
"You did good," she said. "You'll have to slip out the back way, though. The broads who missed out will go wild."
"Tell 'em I'm not a horse."
"They'll wait. There'll be other times."
"If those broads had all paid me by the hour, I'd be rich!"
"Yeah. You're a natural. You ought to go in the business. Lots of dames need a stud like you. Like Mac's friend, Flo."
"You say she was around looking for me?"
She laughed. "Yeah. Looking for you. Next time I'll see you get together."
I was dressed, ready to go. "Right now I'd just like to sleep for a week."
"Can't say I blame you," she grinned. "Come on. Out the back way. No noise now," she warned.
"There'll be noise enough when they find out you're gone."
She damn near had to carry me. I was all in.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN / A week later I got another letter from Lena. Mr. Whitmore had been in conference with the D.A. From there he went to see Judge Rainey. The news traveled fast through the prison camp.
Next morning, instead of sending me to the quarry with the rest of the gang, Boss Kroner removed my shackles and took me out of line.
Mac's face got white as snow; he and the other guys shuffled off to work under guard. Mac gave me a parting look like a snake whose fangs are loaded with venom. The little scar on his mouth glowed red.
I didn't know what to think; you never could tell with a guy like Kroner. The gang filed into a truck and they went away. Then Kroner turned to me.
"I guess you won't be a boarder at Kroner's hotel much longer, Doyle," he began. "I'm gonna show you I ain't such a bad guy. Give you a break. Make you a trusty."
I couldn't believe it. "Me, Boss?"
"Yeah. Gonna make you yard man."
I still couldn't believe it. Yard man was the softest spot in camp! A warden couldn't do better for his son, if his son happened to be a prisoner. It took money to get a job like this. You had to pay off.
In fact, yard man was not a job; it was just an excuse for one. Nothing to do except fetch in stuff for the cook; like firewood or supplies. Nothing to do except fix a fence, or tune up a car. Maybe write a letter for some of the illiterates. Out of the forty men in camp, including guards, about half of them couldn't read or write.
I stared at Boss Kroner. It was incredible. He must be kidding me. Something was funny here! But he gave me his pale, fiat-faced grin.
"Ain't afraid you'll take it on the lam now," he said. "Not with a mouthpiece like Whitmore on your side. You're good as talked out right now. Can't trust none of them other bastards for the job, see?" It sounded reasonable enough. I contained myself. I wanted to jump for joy! It would take a while before I could really believe all this. I remained under control.
Next thing I knew I was sleeping in the farmhouse with the guards.
I shared a room with the cook, another trusty. For the first time in all my weeks on the chain gang, I could brush my teeth in the morning, take a bath in clean hot water. With soap!
And I could sleep in a real bed; and get a clean slip for my pillow, and a clean sheet for my mattress. A real mattress, not a lot of lumpy straw. After what I had been through in that filthy cage, even heaven couldn't be much better.
I could even eat the same grub as the guards, a damn sight better than the slop the prisoners ate.
The cook even baked pies for them!
That Saturday night I got still another surprise. For my money the biggest surprise of all.
I was reading a paper in my room when Elsa came in. I thought for a minute I was "it" for tonight. I had finally recuperated from my bout with her broads the week before; I figured Elsa was ready. I put down my paper, started to get up.
"Hello, Elsa."
She motioned me back. "Got news for you, Jimmy. A broad out there waiting for you. Friend of yours."
Flo, I thought immediately. I grinned. "Okay. Bring her in."
She looked about the room, tidied up a place or two; Elsa was neat.
"Was gonna use you myself tonight," she told me. "Giving you a break. Gonna use Mac."
"Use" was a good word for it, I thought. With Elsa a guy was an instrument for her personal pleasure; to be "Used," the way you would use any other possession.
I kept quiet, not knowing what to say.
She went over and snapped off the light. There was only the moonlight in the window now, casting its mysterious shadows in the room. She went out and whispered to someone waiting in the hall.
I waited tensely, remembering how nice Flo had been in bed, how nice she had been to me, how nice it would be again.
The girl came in and softly closed the door behind her. All I could see was her blurred form in the dark, and I guess she could see even less of me, coming in out of the light. But I had had visions of voluptuous Flo, and this blurred image did not fit that picture. I waited, tensing, a shaft of moonlight through the window the only thing between us. "Jimmy?"
That wasn't Flo! Not that timid tone!
Flo would have rushed in and torn all her clothes off, not stood there in shadow her back to the door as if ready for instant flight.
I took a step forward, afraid to say anything; afraid to think, afraid to feel.
"Jimmy?"
It was Lena!
I couldn't speak. I came slowly to her, one unbelieving step behind the other. Suddenly we rushed into each other's arms.
She cried on my shoulder for a while; quiet tears. I kissed her lips, her cheeks, her eyes. I tried to comfort her. I ran my fingers through her pale blonde hair. After a while she calmed down.
"How did you get here?" I whispered.
"By bus."
"What did Boss Kroner say? You know visitors are not allowed."
"I know. He called the matron. She was very nice to me when I told her who I was. She brought me here."
I held her close. "Honey, this is not a good place for you. You mustn't stay."
She looked up with hurt surprise. "Don't you want me, Jimmy?"
"Of course I want you. More than anything. It's not that!"
"What is it then, Jimmy. You can tell me."
I didn't answer. How could I tell her they had sex orgies here on a Saturday night? How could I tell her about Elsa, the amazing nympho Amazon. How could I tell her about Elsa's eight hot broads? Or that I never knew when I'd be called on for stud service at the women's prison farm across the road?
"What did Elsa tell you?" I asked.
"She said I could stay for an hour with you. She said it would be all right. She'd call me when the time was up."
Suddenly her lips met mine with a passion I could no longer deny her. Her hands crept to my shirt; she began to unbutton me, began to moan, to squirm. For her it had been a long long time. And she was no frigid babe.
"I've got to have you," she pleaded softly, "You know I've got to have you!"
"I know. I need you too."
I had a quick pang of conscience, remembering all those others. Nothing I could do about it. That's the way it was. All of a sudden her soft round breasts were out and crushing against me. I stopped thinking; about Elsa, about Flo, about anything. I pressed my face to her soft bosom. I kissed her. Then I led her gently to the bed.
With all the others it had been only lust. With Lena it was different. With Lena it was love.
We undressed quickly and got in bed. Our nude bodies merged. We clung to each other, wordless, in a quiet panic of ecstasy. We were quiet, barely breathing, two hearts pounding.
Suddenly she moaned, began to squirm. Those lovely hips began to work, the soft inside of her thighs on mine. It was the pure passion of love, and it flashed through my mind how it did make a difference. All the difference in the world!
Wordless, without useless talk, I did with her some of the tricks I had picked up from Elsa. Elsa, the nymph, the student of sex, who made pleasure in bed her life's work. Lena squealed with delighted abandon, making little animal moans of pleasure.
Elsa had been good for something at least. Indirectly she was giving Lena pleasure, giving Lena happiness she had never known before. I started her up without any rest. I had to be good. It had to last her a long time. We had so little time and I wanted each moment to count.
And Lena responded beautifully; like the others; like the red-hot nymphs at the prison farm. The passion of our love washed over us time after time, until I lost count, lost track of time.
An hour passed. We were well into the second half. Lena couldn't move any more. She lay there gasping in pleased surprise, satiated to the last drop of her being.
"The best I ever had!" she whispered. "Didn't know it could be so good. You'll be out of here soon. Then it will never stop, will it?"
"Never," I promised. "Never. Did Mr. Whitmore tell you I'd be out soon?"
Funny how the whole thing about Whitmore and my freedom had slipped my mind, so intent was I on making love to Lena!
"He talked to the D.A. I told you. He talked to Judge Rainey. Now he has to talk to the prison board. If he can get you a new trial you have a wonderful chance. Something about double jeopardy if everything else fails."
"Like what?"
"Like if the new trial should go against you."
"He could claim foul? Double jeopardy?"
"That's right. But it won't go against you. Mr. Whitmore's private investigators have found new evidence."
"What kind?" I demanded eagerly.
"Your boss, Monk Engles, is mixed up with Mac."
"I knew it!"
"They found out Monk did loan you those tools from the shop. You didn't steal them as he claimed."
"That was one of the main things that convicted me!"
"Now it's one of the main things that will set you free!"
We were both dressed when Elsa stuck her head in the room. She saw we were up and came in.
"Have a good time, girlie?" she said to Lena. Without waiting for an answer she continued, "Good, ain't he!"
Lena looked at me in a funny way. If it had been light enough she would have seen my face turn pale.
"I'm taking Mac tonight," Elsa informed me. "See you later."
"Me?" I stammered.
"Did you a favor, didn't I?"
"Yeah, sure, but-"
"You can do one for me, can't you?"
"Yeah, but-"
"No buts. Those broads are howling."
Lena looked at me. "What does she mean?"
Elsa caught on. "Nothing, honey. Jimmy is a trusty. He's got to do different things around the place."
"Saturday night?" said Lena.
"Emergency," Elsa smiled. "Come on, girlie. You've had yours. I'll have one of the guards take you back to the bus."
Lena looked at me, the tears starting. I took her in my arms and kissed her gently. We clung together for a minute. Then Elsa tapped me on the shoulder.
"Time's up."
"Goodbye, Lena. Come back soon."
"Goodbye, darling. You'll be out before that."
Elsa led her out of the room. I heard the big broad tell Bim to drive Lena to the bus. Then Elsa was back.
"How you feeling, Jimmy?"
"Kind of tired, Elsa."
"Listen. Those four dames you missed last week are howling. Crazy mad. I don't want trouble. There's Charlene, she's half out of her mind. There's Miss Carrie, damn near wild. She's a worse nymph than I am!" she added in some surprise. "Wait till you meet her-a lady. Then there are Gita and Babs. They can't eat, can't sleep. They feel cheated. You've got to help them. They're all nymphs."
Sure. They're nymphs. But I'm not!"
"I trained you. You can do it. Got to. Unless you want those broads to end up in the nuthouse!"
"You're putting me on the spot."
"You're putting me on the spot! I'm supposed to take care of my prisoners. If they go nuts, I lose my job!"
I sighed. "No way out?"
She shook her head. "Guess not. Say, what the hell are you kicking about? Any guy would give his right eye to be in your shoes!"
"I got a girl. That was her."
"I figured."
"I don't mind one. But a whole goddam harem!"
"Come on, kid. You can take it. If not, you know how to fake it. Let's go!"
A good thing next day was Sunday. As yard man I could stay in and rest.
And rest!
CHAPTER NINETEEN / It was a few days later that I noticed Mac was no longer on the chain gang.
His chain and shackles had been removed. He was a trusty now, like me. Boss Kroner had put him to work cleaning out the cages.
In all the weeks I'd been at the camp, this was the first time I'd seen anyone cleaning cages. Mac gave me his crooked grin as I went by on my way to the woodshed. I guess I should have been suspicious that something was odd. But I figured Mac had paid for it and got a break as trusty.
I was raking up leaves in the yard; it was just after lunch. Boss Kroner came over. He told me to take the light pickup truck to town and bring back feed for the mules. Kroner had his two guns on as usual; I thought nothing of it. I got in the truck and started to drive away.
Then all hell broke loose behind me. The minute I was out of the stockade, Mac leaped out of the cage he was cleaning and gave chase, screaming, "Man gone! Man gone!"
The signal that a prisoner was escaping!
It still didn't strike me as serious. I thought Mac had jumped to this conclusion when he saw me drive away. I figured Boss Kroner would set Mac straight about it. Instead, there was a great big bellow from behind and a hail of bullets slammed into the truck!
Again a bellow. Again the rapid fire of blazing guns. This time the bullets imbedded themselves in the back of the truck cab, smashing the rear glass.
I ducked my head and came to a grinding halt, sending up a cloud of dust. There had to be a mistake. There had to be!
When Mac came running up, I was still in the truck, half in a daze. "What the hell are you trying to do?" I yelled, "get me killed?"
The little scar on the side of his mouth was blazing, the way it always did when he was excited.
He gave me a mocking smile.
"Your little promotion cost me a hundred bucks. But it was worth it, you son of a bitch. I told you I'd get you, rat!"
I leaped out of the pickup, straight at that mocking smile. I caught Mac by the throat. We slammed together to the dust of the road. I hammered his head in the dirt. I was wild; I felt justified in killing him if I could. I had a murderous grip on his throat, choking him, slamming his head in the dirt. He was paralyzed, gawking, tongue out, eyes bulging. Out of desperation he began to thrash wildly. He kicked me in the groin and I lost my grip.
He scrambled up, out of breath. I closed with him quickly, hammered his ribs with vicious fists. He kicked out and caught me in the stomach with his heavy prison boot. The sweat and pain were blinding me. I kept on punching. I did not let up.
Mac dug his elbow in my ribs with all his might. I doubled over, gasping for air. He kicked me savagely; I heard the crunch of broken bone as a rib gave way. Then Kroner came puffing up.
"You son of a bitch!" he howled, and cracked me on the head with the butt of a gun. I half straightened up with the shock and the pain, then fell in the dirt, face forward.
For my latest attempt at "escape," I was thrown into solitary.
In some prisons, solitary might mean just a dark cell and bread and water.
At Boss Kroner's camp, it was a large packing crate, reinforced with iron bands. Just big enough to get into. Not big enough to sit or stand.
A couple of days of this on bread and water and I was ready for the madhouse!
But this was only the beginning of my torture. I got the works. Mac was paying for it, and it must have cost him plenty. Because all the time, Elsa was pulling for me, and Mac would have to pay Boss Kroner pretty heavy to overcome the weight of the Amazon boss nymph. It would have been bad enough with medical attention; but as soon as I was able to stand, I was thrown back in the chain gang, more dead than alive. At night I had the added torture of Boss Kroner's iron necklace.
Holy Joe prayed for me, his eyes closed, lips moving swift and silent.
Mac was now that privileged character of the chain gang: the yard man. That must, have cost him a pretty penny, too. But Boss Kroner had the guts to say Mac got the job as a reward for preventing my "escape." Mac's one-sided smile became broader each day. He had loot, lots of loot; he was buying everyone and everything with it. Special foods from town, vintage wines, good whisky. Everyone in camp who could do him any good got paid. Mac even paid the cook to make the things he liked! It was a joke the way he was serving his time.
About the only thing he couldn't get was Flo. Elsa took it out of him. Mac couldn't handle both. Elsa knew it; she kept Flo away from Mac.
She steered Flo my way. She did it in a simple way. It was a Friday night. Saturday was an easy day in camp She told Boss Kroner she wanted me to do some work for her on the farm.
I did some work, all right. On Elsa's overheated nymphs. And she slipped Flo in as one of the numbers!
So instead of three or four hot nymphs of assorted shapes and sizes, I had three nymphs and a girl Flo. She was the only normal broad in the bunch! But I kept her there her full hour. She lasted the limit, even wanted more. Flo was turning into a nymph herself! That's when I realized it could happen to almost anyone.
Get them started, teach them how, show them how to prolong it forever, then let nature take its course. Flo's round white rear was going like sixty. I kissed her tiny pink nipples. Her naked body was glistening with sweat. She was on me and I was lost in her round white thighs. She was shrieking her pleasure, crying for more; she couldn't stop. Then Elsa stuck her head in the room.
"Time is up! I'll give you five minutes."
In the next five minutes Flo washed over me in a flood of her newly aroused passion. She screamed, she bit, she clawed and cried bitter-sweet tears. We were ringing wet with perspiration, she had given me a tremendous workout. I had done the same for her. "I never knew it could be like this," she whispered, when finally she had to get up. "Did you learn all that from Elsa? What a woman she must be!"
"You're just as good, Florence."
"I'll hold you to that, mister!"
Elsa had managed somehow to sneak Flo in as Number One. I still had a few to go. I felt weary, after the frenzied fire in Flo's furnace, but I had to go on, even if I had to fake it.
Next came Miss Carrie, the "lady" who was a nymph. And with her I didn't have to fake. I didn't want to. Elsa gave me a little rest, a shot of whisky, and before I knew it I was ready. Miss Carrie was too good to pass up. The thought of her made me warm and sensuous, that lush, lovely, mature figure, so beautiful, the gorgeous lemon-shaped breasts, the glistening white thighs, the soft, swiftly pumping rump; everything about Miss Carrie was built for the pleasure of a man. She was a nymph personified.
Miss Carrie was another one who couldn't stop. Miss Carrie, the lady who was a nymph.
When Elsa came to take her away, Miss Carrie wept bitter tears, but all her pleading was in vain. Elsa had the greatest respect for Miss Carrie's prowess in a bed, but there were others waiting their turn, and time-and my powers-must eventually run out.
Miss Charlene came in next, and now she was a female miss for sure, no question about it any more. She was not even remotely related to the half-girl she was before. A changed Charlene, she was all woman now. A woman? A broad! A hot, screaming, passionate broad, clawing like enough of a nymph to be one, though she was not.
It was just that her release was still so new to her, she still could hardly believe it. I helped her to convince herself. But when I tried to fake it after a while, it wasn't easy. She wouldn't let me rest. I had taught her some of Elsa's tricks, and she knew how to start me up when I tired.
At the end of an hour, when she had to go, Charlene was still going strong, still trying different tricks on me. She was happy and healthy, dying to get outside, dying to find some man and show him how to satisfy a woman; a woman, that is, like herself, a real woman.
Little Gita came in next, and she flew all over me as she always did. She was the hardest of the nymphs to handle, being so small. But once started, she was as good as the best of them. She clawed and fought and cried as usual, leading to the climax. It was the same for her with each one. Little round buttocks bouncing, little round breasts in agitation, the nipples big and hard and red as any of them, her firm little thighs quivering and pumping by turns, she never stopped her writhing movements, never stopped working , never stopped pumping in joy and happiness, in ecstatic fulfillment, until finally she lay exhausted in a moaning heap. "I can't live without it," she panted, in tears. "I can't live without a man, I can't! I've got to have one all the time, or else I'll kill myself"
"Better get out of here then," I said, in sympathy with the broad. "And don't come back any more."
"Don't worry. I won't."
A booze hound with his liquor, I thought, a dope fiend with his needle, and a nympho with a man. Tom and Jerry. Rock and rye. All of them went together; a pair, a team, a natural. Sex was the dope of the nympho, it was her life, her booze. What surprised me was that there were so many of them. I had always thought a nympho to be rare. I'd found out different.
After a while, when Elsa came in, after putting Gita in her bed and quieting her so she could sleep, she brought me a shot of whisky. I was dressing.
"Wait," she said. "Don't go yet."
"Elsa, I'm pretty well shot for tonight," I told her.
"I know," she said, handing me the drink. "But a shot of whisky will set you up. Just one more. Just one? For me? For Elsa?"
"I don't think I can make it," I said.
She laughed. "Can't make it, you can always fake it."
"Not so easy," I said, shaking my head, "Not so easy fooling a nymph, Elsa."
"Oh," she laughed, "they don't really care. Not half the time. All they want really is to feel a man on them." She watched me take a long slug of the whisky. "The next one would be real easy for you, Jimmy."
"Yeah? Who?"
"Brenda. She's soft; easy. Let her work. You don't have to do anything, just be there."
"Okay," I said finally. "Brenda I can always handle. I think. I hope."
Brenda was relaxing, slow and restful. She took her time, had a rhythm of her own-after the initial leap on me as usual. But after that she quieted, as before; this was the way Brenda worked, that's all. A big leap, a quick shudder, then I quieted her down. When she made it she shuddered in untold ecstasy for a full five minutes, as always. Then, like the true nymph she was, she soon started up again, hotter than before.
As always I lost myself in her sweet, smooth, plump white thighs, the plump and pleasing Brenda, I thought. If she hadn't been a nymph, if only she had been a normal hot broad, she wouldn't get into trouble, wouldn't be here now. Well, she didn't feel that way. Brenda liked herself just the way she was. Her plump white breasts softly pressed against me, the nipples big arid hard and angry red with passion, angry red with sexual agitation.
Her soft lips gently met mine, then harder, harder, harder she pressed. Then her mouth opened and her tongue roamed in my mouth. Wet and teasing, wet and hot and tantalizing. She moaned, coming quickly to peak after peak; she tossed her round white hips in rhythmic sway. A housewife, but barbaric in her agony of triumph; a pretty, plump housewife, but a moaning, thrashing, sexual savage in the bed.
The plump pretty housewife was a nympho, no different, in that way, from the prosties in prison here. So different, yet the same in this one funda mental passion.
She stayed with me her full hour this time; no hysteria as there had been once before. No giving way, no breaking down; she knew what to expect this time. She got it. I worked with her willingly, shifting positions when she pleased, trying out tricks, showing her others. And Brenda shuddered with each big climax. She had the longest climax of any of them, shuddering for five full minutes before she could stop. Maybe that's why she was restful.
CHAPTER TWENTY / Old Marcus Bannock, the superintendent of prisons, came for inspection once a year. But Boss Kroner always had word well in advance of the visit. He set a detail to work, cleaning up the accumulated filth of months.
When Bannock arrived, everything was in order. It was too easy to fool the kind-hearted old jerk. He couldn't see further than his nose. He asked the guys if there were any complaints. He inquired about harsh treatment and the food.
There were no complaints.
Mr. Bannock came on inspection once a year, but Boss Kroner was in charge every day. In between Bannock's visits was a mass of red tape. Complaints could be entangled in red tape forever.
Anyway, Bannock had almost no authority. He was under the thumb of the politically run prison commission. Even the most ignorant prisoner knew this. It was not long after Superintendent Bannock's visit that the bombshell burst on the prison.
Bim subscribed to the local weekly gazette. And this time it carried a story from the AP wire.
The story was about me!
I hadn't heard from Lena about it, but sometimes the reporters get there first with the most. It was good news for me at last!
Mr. Whitmore had finally gotten the D.A. to take Monk Engles in for questioning. Between Mr. Whitmore and the D.A., they had succeeded in breaking Monk down!
Monk had confessed, clearing me of blame in the process. He admitted he had loaned me the tools of my trade, admitted I did not steal them, that I got roped into the deal and had no part in the thievery.
It had to be only a matter of time now before I was freed. There was no doubt that I would get a new trial. No doubt, too, that Mac would go back to prison at the end of his present sentence.
I felt numb. Between Kroner's brand of torture and Elsa's brand in bed, all the feeling had been pounded out of me. It was only the next day, when I received a letter from Lena, that I fully realized I would be really free at last.
It was well known in camp that Mac had practically "bought out," as they say in prison. He had paid the proper price to the right people on the outside, just as he had done here with Kroner. It was rumored around camp that Mac expected an early release. But the change of events in my case also made a change in Mac's. He couldn't possibly "buy out" in the new circumstances. Therefore, he could no longer be trusted not to attempt an escape. Escape would be a cinch for a yard man. Flo could come around some dark night in the big Lincoln convertible and Mac could step from his bedroom window at the farmhouse and be out of the state in an hour. Boss Kroner realized all this. He knew there was only one thing to do. Mac would have to be put back in chains.
We had been having bad weather. The quarry was full of water, the roads were very bad. We were all in camp the day Bim's newspaper carried the story about me. From our cage we could see Kroner go into action. Kroner went over to Mac, who was stacking firewood in the cook's shed. He held out the newspaper to Mac. Mac glanced through the story and handed the paper back to Kroner with a laugh.
"You don't believe this crap do you, Boss, for crissake?" Mac sounded smooth, the grin in his voice showing. But I had the feeling he was hiding the beginning of panic.
Kroner shrugged. "Why'd they put it in if it ain't true?"
"The papers?" Mac's voice was rising, "They'll print anything!"
"Hell they do!"
"It's just a pack of lies, Boss!"
There was a small silence. Tension mounted in the cage as we watched and listened.
Then Kroner shouted, "You're going back on the gang!"
"Wait! Look! I'll give you twenty bucks extra a week!"
"No dice!"
Mac's voice sounded high and desperate. "I'm. paying you more than your job, for Crissake!"
"Come on!" Kroner said. I'll give you the screws if you don't shut up! Get back to the cage, you bastard!"
"Boss, listen-" Mac was pleading now. "I'll do anything! I'll cut you in!"
Boss let him have it then, a hard right to the jaw. Mac fell on his back in the mud and lay there panting and gasping.
"Get up," Kroner was calm, businesslike. "Get back in the cage. Or I'll let you have the necklace!"
Mac scrambled up out of the mud, holding his jaw. His chance to "talk out" had gone with the newspaper story, and now his chance to escape was being taken away. What good would Flo and the big Lincoln do if he was chained up in the cage?
He made a sudden, desperate move as if to run, but the mud was slick and he staggered. In an instant Kroner had both guns on him. "Get back, you bastard!"
It was Mac's last chance and he knew it. With head down and heavy steps he started for the cage. He was moving so slowly that Kroner kept moving up on him. Then I saw what Mac was after.
If Kroner got close enough, Mac could make a grab for one of those six-guns, maybe even grab Kroner's big ring of keys. With a gun and the keys, he could lock Kroner in the cage with us! He could make a dash for the light pickup, or even one of the big armored trucks used to transport the men to the quarry.
Mac walked slowly. Kroner got closer and closer. We saw the way Mac was using the corner of his eye, his head bent, alert as an animal. We held our breaths and waited. Most of the guys would make a break if they could.
Mac was sweating. So was I. So was every guy in the cage. Mac had a chance. When Kroner put his key in the locked steel door his attention would be distracted from Mac for a second.
But Kroner was not as dumb as he looked. He made Mac halt six feet from the cage. Kroner opened the door and stepped six feet back. Mac looked the situation over and knew he was whipped. The guys in the cage let out their breath in a huge sigh. Mac went into the cage quietly.
Kroner slammed the steel door of the cage shut and moved away. He returned a few minutes later with Bim. While Kroner stood guard outside, Bim went into the cage and shackled Mac to the bunk. Mac was back in chains and shackles. From now on he would be watched more closely than the rest of us.
Things tightened up around the camp in the next few days. The tenseness came and went in cycles. Everyone felt something brewing. Mac was too silent, acting too secretive. At night he lay alert in his bunk. By day he worked in the quarry with one eye out on the scene.
I figured the action, if and when it came, would include Flo and the big convertible. Boss Kroner was out of Mac's escape picture. He had made it plain he wasn't going to lose his job for Mac or get into trouble over him.
Elsa was out too. No more Saturday nights with Elsa for Mac. It would be too easy to escape from the farmhouse. Step out of the window when Elsa was asleep and step into the big Lincoln with Flo. Kroner wasn't taking that chance!
I wondered if Mac would try to escape to the prison farm. The broads there, hard up as they were, would be sure to hide him. How long they could keep him hidden from Elsa and her two matrons was another story. In Mac's desperate situation, I figured he must be giving this some thought.
But the way it happened was a complete surprise to me!
Either Bim was in on it or else he was just a plain fool. He came into the cage alone to check the shackles when we were being locked up for the night. It was an open invitation to a guy in Mac's spot. Bim made the mistake, or was paid to make it-of turning his back on Mac. Mac had Bim's gun out of the holster so fast it took us a minute to realize what was happening!
The first we knew about it, Mac was saying, "Don't move, Bim. I'm walking out. If you think you can stop me, you're crazy!"
Mac had the gun pressed against Bim's back. He reached around and grabbed the ring of keys from Bim's hand. He stepped back as far as his chain would allow. He stooped and quickly removed his shackles. He was free! But he didn't run.
"Turn around," he ordered Bim.
Bim turned to face him.
Mac threw the ring of keys to Bim.
"Open 'em up, Bim. All of them!"
All of them! Mac was smart. In such a mad scramble, no one man could be singled out! The result would have to be complete confusion!
We were in our bunks, all of us lying down, all of us in chains. With that gun pointed at him, there was nothing Bim could do but comply. But before Bim had a chance to free more than the first couple of sets of shackles, the men went mad; crazy, screaming mad!
The men leaped on Bim, trying to take the big ring of keys away from him. It was each man for himself. The result was a scramble and in that little space it was a madhouse!
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE / This was something Mac hadn't counted on. He turned and started to run out of the cage, but he ran straight into Kroner, who was coming in on the run.
The men leaped on Kroner before he knew what hit him. Someone got his guns. They fell on him and began to beat him, just as he had beaten them on more than one occasion. They knocked Bim and Kroner about, screaming, crazy mad. They stamped them with their shackled feet, hit them with their chains.
Some of the men fought their way to the narrow opening, clawing, kicking, punching, trying to get out of the cage.
In the scramble someone knocked over the little iron stove. Burning wood spewed out all over the floor. Then some other goon knocked the kerosene lamp off its hook in the ceiling. The cage seemed to spout up in flames.
Everyone got out of that cage, fast, dragging their chains with them. Only Kroner was left in the flaming inferno when the last prisoner leaped wildly out.
The cage was a roaring bonfire. It was too late to attempt any rescue of Kroner.
Bim was in no condition to do anything. He was out cold, lying in the mud where someone had dragged him. His clothes were torn, his face bloody.
Henny, the other guard, came running up. He must have been sleeping because his reaction was slow. He stood there gaping stupidly at us, a shotgun in his hand.
The yard was a milling mass of insane prisoners. They were free, except for their chains and shackles. Crazy with the nearness of freedom, they fought among themselves in little groups, grabbing for the big ring of keys.
Each time a man got hold of the keys and tried to free himself, someone knocked him to the muddy ground. Then the gang would pile on top of him, frantically trying to get at the keys.
Suddenly the light pickup shot out of the shed. Mac was making his getaway. A few men, chained together, had tumbled into the back of the truck. Some of the others, shackles dangling, grabbed on to the rear of the truck. They dragged in the mud, hanging on as long as they could in a pitiful effort to escape.
I saw Henny dashing among the struggling men in the yard, hammering them with his rifle butt.
Harmless Holy Joe was standing, head bowed in prayer. A blow from Henny's rifle spread-eagled him in the mud, his head crushed.
After that it took only a few minutes to cow the men into submission. They were exhausted by this time, depleted emotionally and physically.
Henny herded them into a compact group. The cook, a trusty, came running up.
They herded us into a shed and snapped the lock on us. It was too late to help Boss Kroner or Holy Joe.
They way things worked out, Mac was his own worst enemy. He and the men with him were picked up a few miles away.
Mac gave the pursuers a run for it. He was driving the pickup at top speed and the dirt road was soaked by days of heavy rain. He lost control of the truck and it turned over. The men scattered. Even the ones who were hurt managed to crawl away in their shackles and chains.
But no one escaped. This was not escape weather.
A new boss took over the prison the next day. Bim was taken to the hospital and Henny was put on leave during the investigation that followed the break.
The new boss was a young fellow, Hal Manda. A straight shooter, a college kid. There would be no more orgies at the prison farm if he knew anything about it!
The first thing the new boss did was put us to work on the farmhouse headquarters. We painted the place, inside and out. Manda requisitioned new furniture and we threw out the old stuff. Cages were cleaned every day. We didn't go near the quarry for two weeks. At the end of that time the prison farm was in apple-pie order.
Mac of course had been transferred to another prison. He would be tried for the prison break and the resulting deaths of Kroner and Holy Joe. At the camp we figured he would get life. No more Elsa, no more Flo for Mac. No more hooch or prison favors. The prison he'd been transferred to was a hard-walled one, with major security.
I'd be a hypocrite if I said I didn't miss Elsa and her girls. I missed the relaxation Elsa used to give me, and after weeks of abstinence, I began to remember only the pleasant parts of my visits across the street. I forgot how Elsa had worn me out on occasion.
Of course I missed Lena most of all, but in a different way. Lena was far away from here. Elsa and her girls were just across the street as before. But with the new Boss and the new guards, they might as well have been in Siberia. The fun time was a thing of the past. But I reckoned without Elsa.
She met the new boss, of course. The Prison Commission saw to that when they first installed the new guards. She dropped by a time or two to get a little better acquainted, exchange ideas. She could tell at a glance that the new boss and his guards were not for her. But she figured it out finally!
I had told Elsa that I had worked on the outside in a shop making costume jewelry. So she came to Boss Manda and asked to borrow me for a day to fix some junk jewelry for her charges. It would help their morale, she told Manda.
"A very good idea," Manda agreed. "When do you want him?"
"I think Saturday would be best," Elsa told him. "There's not much doing in your camp on that day."
It was true that with Manda in charge we did no work on Saturdays, except for cleaning up the camp.
So the following Saturday Elsa came and got me right after breakfast. As we were crossing the field to the women's prison farm, Elsa said, "It's been four weeks since I've seen you. We'll go to my room first!"
"I thought you liked it only at night?" I teased. "Sure," Elsa told me. "But if I wait any longer it will make me sick."
"What do you mean?"
"I break out in a rash. I get sick at the stomach. I can't eat or sleep."
"What will you do when my mouthpiece gets me out of here?"
"Be stuck, I guess. I hate to do it but I'll have to get a few guys in town."
"A few?"
"Yeah," she laughed. "Shows how good you are, kid!"
She had a nice little room, fixed up pretty. This was supposed to be her rest period, so no one would disturb us for a few hours.
I have to confess it was as much a relief to me as to Elsa when we finally got together. Anything can grow on a man, even a girl like Elsa!
When those great big white thighs swallowed me up, I was home again. I had gotten used to her smooth, white back, her enormous busts with the firm pink nipples. She moaned and squirmed, her powerful legs welded to me.
And for a while, it was great. But instead of tiring, Elsa kept getting better, warmer and more excited. And then I realized why she wasn't tiring. It was broad daylight. It would be some time before she could fall asleep! I was stuck with her!
After what seemed like years, we were finally getting dressed. Elsa turned to me. "I'll see what I can do about getting you to the girls in the dorm soon. Right now though, I better get you back."
It was okay with me. She had worked me bowlegged.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO / A few days later Boss Manda came to the quarry and took me back to the camp in the pickup truck.
Lena and Mr. Whitmore were waiting for me in the farmhouse.
"Lena!"
We rushed into each other's arms. We held on for dear life a few minutes. Then Manda tapped me on the shoulder.
Lena had brought my suitcase with some things in it. Manda let me use the bedroom to change into civilian clothes.
Whitmore had brought some legal papers. I was not free yet, but I would not be coming back here again. I was free in the custody of Mr. Whitmore until further action could be taken.
I shook hands with Manda, then Lena and I got into Mr. Whitmore's car and the three of us drove away.
When we got to town, Mr. Whitmore drove to Lena's apartment.
"The hearing is set for nine in the morning, in Judge Rainey's chambers," he told us. "Lena, be sure you have him there on time."
"Don't worry," smiled Lena. "We'll be there. And thanks again, Mr. Whitmore."
I shook hands with Mr. Whitmore. "I don't know how I'll ever pay you, Mr. Whitmore."
"Just take care of Lena," he smiled. "All right?"
"Yes, sir. You bet!"
"She's the best secretary I ever had," he laughed. "I don't want her worrying. It impairs her efficiency."
"I understand, sir. She won't have to worry about me any more. I promise you."
"See you in the morning." He waved goodbye.
Lena had a nice little place. A bedroom, too. It felt like a palace to me after the cage I'd been living in at the road camp. There was even a pint-sized kitchen. Lena took some beer out of the refrigerator and poured me a tall one.
But it wasn't beer I wanted. I wanted Lena.
I remembered Elsa, sure. And Flo. And all those nymphs I had to take care of at the women's prison farm. So what? That wasn't love, it was lust. The difference was like night and day. The way I wanted Lena had nothing to do with those other broads. The way I wanted Lena was with my whole heart and soul.
I took Lena into my arms. She began to cry.
"It's been so long," I whispered, "Come to bed with me, honey. I can't wait any longer!"
"I can't," she stammered. She began to tremble. "I can't!"
I thought she meant she couldn't wait!
I started to take her into the bedroom. She held back. I looked at her in alarm. Had she found out about Elsa? Flo? All those others?
I began to feel a funny little panic. "Is something wrong, honey?"
"Yes." She caught her breath. "There is something wrong!"
"I don't understand." I felt the panic rising in me. I felt caught, trapped by my misdeeds at the camp.
"The doctor says-I can't!"
"What do you mean, can't? Can't what? Don't you want to?"
"Of course. I love you, Jinny. But honey-I'm not strong. The doctor says-I mustn't!"
"Never?"
"No, not never! Just-for a while, not for a long while. Maybe a long, long time."
"And then?"
"And then only once in a while. Once a month, maybe once every two months."
"My God! Is that enough for you?"
"No! Of course not!" She turned away from me. "You'd better leave me."
"Leave you! Are you crazy?"
"Go find yourself a healthy girl. What good am I to you? I'm only half a woman. You need a strong, healthy, sexy woman!"
"Don't talk that way!"
"But it's true! You don't need me!"
"I do. I need you, Lena. I don't mean some other broad. I need you!"
"But why? I'm no good to you in this condition."
"I'll tell you why. Because I'm in love with you, that's why!"
"But sex only once in a while-you'd never stay! I couldn't hold you!"
"There's more to love than sex. So much more, Lena. Sure I'm disappointed. No use lying about it. But no use lying that I love you, either!"
"Enough that you would-be able to adjust yourself?"
"Yes. You have to adjust and I can too. I have to!"
"Oh darling!" She dabbed at her eyes. "If I wasn't afraid of making you passionate, I'd kiss you!"
"Don't be afraid to kiss me. We might as well get used to it without sex."
She kissed me. I will admit I felt the passion rise in me for a moment. But I knew it couldn't be so I forced the thought away.
Lena slept in the bedroom that night. I slept on the couch in the living room. I lay awake for a long time, thinking and smoking. Kind of funny when I got to thinking of it! I went away to a prison camp for a few months and got more loving than a guy can get in town in ten years. I wondered if I was being paid back now.
I thought of Holy Joe and the way he used to tell me that all things evened up in the end. That a guy got kicked around by fate because he had it coming, one way or another.
I loved Lena. I meant to marry her as soon as I could get court approval. Even if we got things straightened out tomorrow, I would still be under the court's jurisdiction until all the legal red tape was completed.
I wouldn't cheat on Lena once we were married. No more loving. What a laugh! All of Elsa's training going out the window. I recalled those nymphs, one by one. I remembered. Babs, Brenda, Fifi, Claire-so long, Miss Carrie, Mavis-Charlene.
Sure. Funny. But I wasn't laughing. Holy Joe had called the shot. You got it if you had it coming, one way or another.
As it turned out, there were quite a few people at the hearing in Judge Rainey's chambers the next morning. Old man Bannock, supervisor of prisons, Monk. Even Mac was there, much to my surprise. The last I heard he was still in prison hospital.
It turned out he had been crippled by his spill from the truck. For a dantly like Mac being crippled, must have been as much punishment as marrying a broad without sex would be for a stud like me!
Mac tried his best to blame me for that last fatal break. His lawyer cited my record of two previous "attempts to escape." But it didn't work, except in my favor. Because all the truth came out under Mr. Whitmore's expert questioning. All of Mac's sentences added up meant life.
Monk Engles was remanded for trial, his bail rescinded. He was stuck in a cell. Judge Rainey promised to throw the book at him because he had perjured himself when he helped send me up.
My guilt was erased from the record by the judge's order. He not only gave us permission to marry, he married us himself. Right there in his chambers, with Mr. Whitmore and the judge's clerk as witnesses.
I have a good wife. So what if there's not much sex included, I tell myself! I've had more than my share already.
No one else would do for me but Lena, the one woman I love.
Oh, once in a while I wake up in my own little lonesome bed and I think of the times we had Elsa-Flo-all the rest. But I put it quickly out of my mind!
And sometimes I see Mac's one-sided smile, the livid scar at the side of his mouth when he got angry. I see him vengeful and menacing, and it makes me shudder, I admit. When the kids build a fire on a vacant lot, it sends my mind reeling back to that other fire when the cage burned to cinders with Boss Kroner inside it.
And sometimes I think of poor old Holy Joe, when I hear the church bells ringing.
I wanted easy money. I got it-in the neck. There's no such thing as easy money, no such thing as free love. You end up paying, one way or another, I guess. You pay for what you get.
