Joe folded her velvet softness to him, her nudity steaming like a blow-torch against the length of his body. His strong embrace raised her from the floor. As they kissed wetly and hotly, she squirmed against him and he could feel her moist femininity seeking him out.
She grabbed his head, twisting her fingers painfully in his hair and pulled his face up to receive a swollen nipple.
She quickened the cadence of her plunging attack, battering at him again and again until his face turned a deep crimson and she felt him bursting within her. Her ecstasy exploded then, rocking every inch of her pulsating body ... and the victim and conqueror collapsed together in a ravaged, sweating heap.
Archive note: The misspelled words in the following are as found in the original pocketbook.
PROLOGUE
Gaslight Square isn't a square at all. Ifs a two-block strip, with some side-street spill-over, of jazzy saloons, restaurants and night clubs, on Olive Boulevard in a St. Louis, Missouri, slum.
In the summer, at night, Gaslight Square swings. There's a carnival atmosphere under the gas-fueled street lamps as huge crowds of all types of people, from teeny hoppers to insurance men, jostle each other up and down the Square.
There's something for everyone on Gaslight Square. From the old time melodramas at Crystal Palace, to the frenetic rock at The In Crowd and Whiskey A-Go-Go. From a 20c slab of pizza at Rosa Villa, to a $9.00 steak at Three Fountains. There are belly dancers, blaring dixieland bands, tinkling cocktail pianos, discotheques, singers, go-go girls, comics.
Sometimes the cops have to come to Gaslight Square, to break up a brawl or finger a dope pusher. Once in a while somebody gets murdered there.
But mostly, everybody has a good time. Night after night the thumping drums and wailing trumpets propel their siren voices through the open doors of the clubs, to blend in a way-out symphony that electrifies the humid air.
In the summer, Gaslight Square swings.
CHAPTER ONE
The lettering painted on the opaque glass of the door read: GUZZLER'S GAZETTE. Underneath, in smaller letters: Joe Barnes, Publisher.
Inside the cluttered office, the young publisher sat at his battered desk, engrossed in a sheaf of typed papers. He chuckled tentatively under his breath. And then again, more audibly. Hey, this was pretty good stuff. The unsolicited manuscript had come in that morning's mail from some kid up at Mizzou.
"Annie, this is good, damn good," Joe grinned, finishing and addressing the attractive girl who sat at a typewriter a few feet away. "I want you to read it. I think we ought to buy it."
Ann Lee hit a few more keys before looking up. "What's it about, darlin'?", she asked. Her sweet voice faintly dripped with the accents of her native Texas.
As always, Joe experienced the little flip-flop of something inside his chest at the sight and sound of her. It seemed that whenever he saw her again after an hour or a day, or even, like now, when his mind had been on something else, he felt this liquid surge at the renewed awareness of her presence.
"This is the one from the student at Missouri. He's got a parody on the Three Pigs story, with the President, the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense playing the leading roles. It's funny as hell." His mind was only half on the manuscript now as he surveyed her for the thousandth time: the shining, dark brown hair done in a stylish but feminine and natural sweep, the large, lively blue eyes, the full lips, the perky, turned up nose animating her bright, pretty face. To Joe, she was a vision of loveliness. He was beginning to think the impression was caused by something more than just the rose-colored glasses of a new love affair. After all, their time together was lengthening. She'd been his secretary and office Girl Friday for three months now, and his steady girl for two and he still got that little thump in his chest at the sight of her!
"It sounds like a funny idea. Some of these college fellers are awful good writers ... Hoo boy, I'm stiff", said Annie, stretching her arms wide and curling her wrists. As she did so, Joe was treated to a view of her full, ripe breasts moving under her loose jersey. Their points thrust forward, wriggling a little as she stretched and arched her back. The stripes of the jersey, which had draped before, straightened into stretched horizontal lines between the two rounded peaks.
He was rapidly losing interest in editorial tasks, but said: "Yeah, we need this kind of fresh stuff to keep the old Guzzler's Gazette the funniest weekly saloon paper in the west ... Or in St. Louis, anyway."
"Don't you mean the only one in St. Louis?", Annie retorted with a twinkle. They shared a quiet laugh.
"Well, actually, we're not doing so bad, Annie", Joe said, his dark eyes going reflective as he leaned back in his chair. "Circulation is hitting a consistent 15,000 a week now, where it was next to nothing when I started this nutty tabloid a couple of years ago. We've got a little advertising revenue coming in. At least we're paying the bills and having a little left over for beer and smokes and good times, and....", he grinned suddenly, "it's summer time and I've got me a pretty girl ... What more could a fellow want out of life?"
The tender look in Annie's blue eyes matched his own. "You like this life, don't you, Joe?"
"Yes, I do Annie. I guess I just wasn't cut out to play corporation man. Sure, I know the Guzzler is a small potatoes business and probably always will be but, I don't know, it gives me a creative feeling, and I try to make it good and, well, I'm kind of proud of it."
His self-pride was almost immediately tempered as he ran his fingers through his curly brown hair. Was the dollar sized bald spot at the crown getting a little bigger?
"I'm proud too, dariin'. Proud of you. Not many fellers could start out on a shoestring with just an idea, and make it work like you have." Annie leaned forward over her typewriter to place her hand atop his.
Joe eyed the full curves of her figure, moving in sensuous coordination. God, she's got a sexy body, he thought, his visual awareness awakening a physical response. Crazy little nut, always saying she needs to go on a diet ... If she only knew, he mused hungrily, appreciating the firm, full lines of her hips and thighs and lushly turned calves, the heavy loll of her large breasts, as she leaned forward.
"Come here, Tex", he commanded.
"Yes, Boss ... and don't call me Tex", she pouted prettily, rising and coming forward to comply with his order.
"Now why shouldn't I call you Tex? You come from Texas, don't you?" He patted his knee and she slid into his lap, fitting her roundness snugly into the angularities of his hard frame.
"Yes, I do come from Texas, but 'Tex' sounds like a cowboy. I don't make you think of a cowboy, do I, dariin'?" She appeared to examine his face close up, with wide-eyed interest. He often thought of her as some kind of a cute cartoon character, with her large, open blue eyes and her curious, high-pitched, little-girlish voice that sounded as if her nose was forever stopped up.
He planted a peck of a kiss on the turned-up nose. "No, baby doll, you don't remind me of a cowboy", he said. That's putting it mildly, he observed, as his palms cupped the softness of her tummy and hip.
"And I'm proud of you too, Annie," he continued. "Some of these saloon keepers who sell the paper have been a lot more cooperative since you came around. You suppose they've got a yen to know what's inside these little britches?" He patted her firm buttocks.
Annie smiled tenderly. "What's in those little britches is for you, Honey, not for anybody else." She brushed his lips with hers and he could feel that they were warm.
"Want to swing around the Square tonight?", he inquired, his hands starting to roam in widening circles on her roundness, front and back.
"Uh-huh", she answered softly. She had laid her head in the hollow of his shoulder and her lips were at his ear. He felt her warm breath as she spoke.
"Want to close up shop for the day now?" He could feel his masculinity reacting to its snuggling contact, and knew she must be aware of it too.
"Uh-ihuh", Annie breathed dreamily, taking his ear lobe between her teeth and hold it lightly.
"Want to go down and see how Dean's coming along with the Purple Pussycat?" His hands were moving more urgently now, as with an autonomous motivation.
"Uh-huh. When?", Annie said in a small, intimate voice. She darted the hot tip of her tongue liquidly into and out of his ear.
"Now?", he managed, his voice tightening as the mischief of his reply was erased by the delicious message her tongue was sending through his body.
"... You gotta be kidding", she breathed throatily into his ear. Her hand moved to his stomach, the fingers unhurriedly opening a button of his shirt.
Yes, she knows we're not going anywhere just yet, Joe thought happily. What a wonderful girl, he reflected, deriving supreme enjoyment from the close fragrance of her, the intensely feminine heft of her there on his lap, in his arms. Yes, little ol' Texas Annie could just turn out to be the one. Like a bolt from the blue. There he'd been, a couple of years past thirty, beginning to figure he was pretty well set in his bachelor ways when, all of a sudden, she had happened to him. A cute, chuckled-headed-but sweetly stable-blue-eyed girl had tripped into his life and now he was like a schoolboy in love again.
He slipped a hand under the back of her jersey, thrilling to the touch of her smooth flesh. With a deft push, squeeze, and flick of his thumb, the bra snap came undone, and all of her seemed to loosen and melt closer to him.
He moved his other palm on her tummy now, in tantalizing circles. At least it was tantalizing to him, as each arc described by his hand inched even higher on her vibrant contours. Judging from her reaction, the teasing play was tantalizing to Annie also. She was beginning to breath in long, consciously controlled draughts, with a little shudder at the end of each one. Her hand worked rapidly at his shirt buttons now.
He slid his hand under the loosened bra and mounted the bulbous swell of her large, ripe breast. She gasped her pleasure as he did so. The shimmering smoothness of the wondrous object under his palm-its softness padding the hard resiliency beneath the rounded surface-sent a wave of need plunging through him.
"Oh darlin' I love it when you touch me there", she sighed as if in wonderment at her own reactions to his tender attentions.
Joe swiveled his cupped palm gently upon the luscious globe, trying to contain as much of its heavy bulk as possible. The breast tightened and firmed under his kneading grasp. A hard, rubbery point materialized and nudged between his rasping fingers.
"Squeeze it harder, honey", she whispered urgently," so I can feel it deep down."
He did so, and her pleasure was apparent in the glow of her half-lidded eyes and the rising flush on her cheeks. Suddenly, she crushed her body against him and bent his head back in a searing, open-mouthed kiss. Their tongues sparred furiously in a battle of sweet arousement. Joe felt his need for her rising to almost painful dimensions, and her carnal bent seemed to match his own.
As suddenly as she had joined, Annie broke the kiss and drew back. She sat straight up in his lap, her lips dewy moist and trembling as she gazed purposefully into his eyes. She was breathing hard. A shaken little smile appeared on her lips as she said: "I'm tellin' you, boss, the things you do to me ... Go lock the door, Joe ... Hurry."
She slid off his lap and Joe crossed to the office door where he secured the bolt. Turning back, his breath caught in reverent awe.
Annie had removed jersey and bra and stood by the old leather sofa, naked to the waist. He accepted the invitation in her loving blue eyes to admire the glorious nudity she displayed for him. The sleek curves of her feminine torso flowed into breathtaking focus in two magnificent breasts, high and proud, crying out for his touch it seemed. The creamy melons were punctuated at center by wide, clearly-defined cinnamon-colored circles from which twin points now jutted. The nipples vibrated visibly under his gaze.
"Come to me, Joe", she implored simply and sweetly.
Joe went to her and their arms snaked about each other as lips and tongues tasted the liquid flames of each other's passion. His hands moved with growing urgency on her back, shoulders, buttocks, thighs, trying to know all of her womanly warmth at once. Popping one of the pendulous breasts loose from the crush of their embrace, he belabored the hard, throbbing nipple with thumb and forefinger. Annie whimpered in pleasureable pain.
Their hips were moving against each other now, inexorably assuming the rhythmic motions of love. Now. He wanted her now. He didn't think he could wait another minute, as his shaking fingers pushed downward at her waistband.
The trembling lovers broke contact for a feverish moment. Joe shucked heedlessly out of his clothing, scattering it about, while Annie unzipped her skirt and, sliding her panties down with it, stepped forth into complete and radiant nudity before him.
Annie's eyes flicked downward upon his nakedness and then seductively back to his face. "See? I knew all along you were kiddin' about leaving right away", she said knowingly. A dash of delicious wickedness flavored the tremulous yearning of her voice. She opened her arms to him and he entered the alabaster gates with singing heart.
Joe folded her velvet softness to him, her nudity like a blow torch against the length of his body. His strong embrace raised her from the floor. As they kissed wetly and hotly, she squirmed against him he could feel her moist femininity seeking him out. Enough. It was time.
He lead her to the yielding leather of the sofa. Lying side by side, their limbs entwined, Annie's clutching fingers drew him dizzingly onward. He shifted to his knees and heard her hissing delight as he attended to her juicy breasts with his mouth. His tongue explored each puckering nipple in turn, thrilling to the appearance of the many small goosebumps which formed around the rubbery points.
He looked into her face, at the moist, swollen, trembling lips, the eyes gone dreamy and glazed, the jugular in her white neck throbbing. Even as he put his open mouth upon hers and stabbed his tongue between her teeth, she grasped him with both hands, guiding him, and rose to meet him.
With curled legs she enveloped his thrust and they were rapturously together. Her strangled moan at the moment of contact forced back his own deep-throated groan.
"Oh, Joe. Oh my darlin' baby Joe. What is it happens between us?", she murmured feverishly.
"I don't know, baby, but let's not lose it, ever", he whispered hoarsely.
Their bodies shuddered and settled into hot, rhythmic harmony. Oh, Anjiie, my wonderful Annie. He believed no woman on earth had ever, could ever, give him the exquisite joy he knew at this moment. He wanted desperately to give as much in return. To that end, he disciplined his racing blood as best he could, pacing himself, controlling the spasms that wanted to take his body from him.
With each loving thrust, Annie gasped her agonized ecstasy louder, her hands slapping at his back, finally losing restraint and digging sharp nails into him as she neared a choking pinnacle.
At the moment his passion burst and spewed forth in a rampaging flood, Annie went taut as steel. Her scream was that of an animal, drowned by the roar of the explosion that ravaged them simultaneously.
The echoes of her hoarse, jagged scream died out as the thunder of their culmination rumbled off into the distance and they lay together, panting and spent.
For many minutes, neither moved. They lay, maintaining their liquid union, as if afraid that what their bodies had gone through had left them fragilely breakable. Gradually, the sounds of their ragged breathing subsided and they looked into each other's eyes. She seemed especially beautiful to him at these times, her face placid, still glossed with the perspiration of love.
"I love you, Annie", he said simply.
"And I love you too, Joe", she replied tenderly, as though sealing a solemn pact.By God, we'll have to do something about that some day soon, Joe thought, a little frightened at the ideas that were coming to him with increasing frequency these days, about this girl.
He parted himself from her and stood on rubbery legs. "How about a drink, Annie. It's late enough", he suggested, smiling tenderly down at her. His passion-fires banked, he saw her ripe nudity in a different mood now, with a curiously clearer eye. Yes, she was lovely in this light too. She would wear well.
"Oh, I reckon I could stand one", she replied, her peaceful smile returning his admiration.
Annie rose and padded to the small bathroom adjoining the office, while Joe fished a bottle of bourbon out of the scared desk. In a moment she returned with two tumblers half full of water, and he measured a healthy dose of the whiskey into each.
While Annie fussed with her makeup at the wall mirror, Joe sprawled back relaxedly in his swivel chair, still nude, and took a long pull at the amber fluid in his glass. He enjoyed the good burning sensation on his palate and in his nostrils. Life looked pretty good to him right now. He had a little business, nothing big but a going thing, and he had Annie.
He watched her softly sinuous figure as she worked at the mirror. She'd put on her panties and bra and when she raised her arms to her hair, the lush breasts jiggled against the confinement.
"Oh, I forgot to tell you", said Annie. "We're invited to a party tomorrow."
"That's nice. Where?"
"Burt Goslin's apartment. He called this morning."
"Great", said Joe, his mind on the ramifications. Poor old Burt. A damn nice, gentle guy underneath some of his minor vices, like not knowing when to stop with the booze. Joe speculated as to how and why the party invitation had really come about. He thought he knew. He'd known Burt Goslin for four or five years. They were friendly enough, occasionally hoisting a glass together if they happened to meet during their travels around town. But they weren't what could be called close buddies. They had a tenuous common interest in that both were concerned with the publishing business, although in totally divergent capacities. He didn't think he'd been socially invited to Burt's quarters more than once or twice before. Even then, as he recalled, there'd been some underlying business purposes. No, this party invitation was from somebody else even though it had been Burt who put in the phone call. Joe was pretty sure he knew who that somebody else was, and wondered what was on her mind. Poor Burt, he thought again as he had a couple of months ago when he saw the announcement in the papers. An essentially decent guy just might be getting himself into more of a pickle than he realized.
"Did you see Burt's column in the Herald yesterday?", Annie was asking.
"No, what was it about?"
"Sort of a mood thing about Gaslight. Trying to paint the feel of the atmosphere about the whole Square. Did it very well, I thought."
"Yeah, you've got to give Burt that. He's a good, versatile writer." Joe wondered how the guy could do it any more. It seemed, with every passing year, almost every time he saw him out at night, he was loaded, really stoned to the point of immobility. And yet, there was his "Round Town" column in the Herald every morning and, given the subject matter to work with, it was usually perceptive, highly readable copy. It surely took a kind of strength Joe doubted he himself would have, to keep churning out the good ideas despite paralytic forces of the daily alcohol baths. Burt looked a good fifty, and more dissipated all the time, but Joe suspected he was actually a good deal younger, maybe as much as a decade. And now this fiasco with Carla. That would put years on a man in good health. What would it do to poor Burt?
"I've never met his new wife", said Annie, coming to sit on the edge of the desk. She poured his empty glass halfway up with newly fetched water. Re-stocking both glasses with bourbon, she added: "You know her, don't you, Joe? What's she like?"
Carla. An image of the tall, glamorous blonde focused in his mind. Maybe he was being unfair to assume their union would turn out to be a fiasco for Burt. It was the snap judgement he'd made when he'd heard of their sudden marriage two months ago. He hadn't even known they were acquainted. It figured they would be, though, because both had traveled in sometimes converging circles around town for years. Maybe it wasn't really a sudden marriage, but a sudden judgement on his part, twisted by subjective colorations that didn't necessarily bear. He could be quite mistaken. After all, people change. Maybe even Carla. He hadn't actually had a personal conversation with her for a good two years now, so what did he know for sure? He'd seen her around and they'd greeted each other in crowds, but that was all for a long time now. Since their marriage, he hadn't seen either her or Burt. For all he knew, they were a pair of cooing lovebirds. For Burt's sake, he hoped so.
"What's she like? Well, she's ... uh ... pretty. Tall, blonde". He found he was deliberately searching for bland adjectives, not at all moved to give Annie a comprehensive character analysis. He wondered why not. Surely the thing he'd felt ... the thing they'd had ... was long since buried in the past. If not the memory, certainly the relevant feelings were gone. The torch was out. Wasn't it?
"I really don't know what Carla's like these days, Annie. We went to high school together, and for a while I saw a lot of her but I haven't talked to her for a long time."
"She's some kind of a model isn't she?", Annie asked, and Joe sensed she was a little more curious than logically figured.
He hoped she wasn't reading anything in his face. He was a little disturbed at his own unsettled nostalgia over the mention of Carla Smith. "Yeah, you might say so", he answered. "At one time I thought she was sure to go on to the big time in New York. She went there a couple of times, but always came back to St. Louis."
She'd wanted success in that career so desperately, he remembered. Far more for the recognition than for the money, he'd always believed. If she'd ever had a chance to get that beautiful kisser on the cover of a national magazine, she'd have paid them for the privilege. What could have side-tracked her? Certainly not a lack of energy and drive. She was compulsively manic, to the point where he used to think she'd surely crack up some day. Weren't her looks good enough for the big time? Well, he was no expert, but he'd always believed she was as beautiful as any, In that glamorous model's way, and more beautiful than most. She still was today, or the last time he'd seen her. Although the time of being able to hold any realistic hope for the big break had to be behind her. Let's see, she was two years behind him at Roosevelt High, so she had to be 30 now, or pushing it. If a model hasn't made it by that time, she's not going to ... So now she's Mrs. Burt Goslin. Or is he Mr. Carla Smith? He'd have a chance to size it all up at the party tomorrow.
"Well, Tex", said Joe, rising and stretching and patting Annie's soft thigh, "what say we toddle down to the Purple Pussycat and get a check from Dean for his ad?"
They dressed, locked up for the day, and walked down one rickety wooden flight to the street. Although it was almost six o-clock, the burning sun still blazed high in the sky. After the air-conditioned office, the heat radiating up from the asphalt and concrete produced a sensation of wavering vision and light headedness.
They started up the sidewalk arm in arm, the clicking of Annie's heels the only sound in the stillness of the heat-slumbrous street.
"Whooooee, it's hot", Annie remarked, touching her brow.
Hot as hell. Uncomfortable and sticky but this was his town and he loved it, especially in the hot summers. He loved the yeasty smells here in the inner city, and the sight of the sycamores and the squat old Dutch houses, their bricks baking lazily in the sun. He felt good to be here, his Annie with him, the disturbing memories of Carla Smith evaporating now.
They turned the corner into Olive Boulevard, at the north end of Gaslight Square. The strip was almost deserted now, not a ghost of the milling mob that would populate it with the fall of night. Only an occasional car bumped past along the cobbled, trolley-rutted street as they headed south toward the Purple Pussycat. The only businesses open at this hour on the Square were the several antique shops, but they appeared deserted as the couple filed past. They moved on, past Tortilla Flat, the Opera House, Crystal Palace, Bustles and Bows, and came at last to their destination.
At Joe's knock, the curtain at the window of the new Purple Pussycat parted a crack. An eye peeped out. A moment later, the door was being unlocked.
"Come in, Joe ... Annie! Welcome to the Pussycat", the blonde young man beamed.
Entering, Joe's gaze swept the freshly redecorated room. "Nice, Dean. Very nice", he said heartily, nodding his head in approval. "So you've finally got your own place, eh? Congratulations."
"She's all mine. How do you like it, Annie?" Dean Twiddy smiled his Richard Widmark smile, a built-in leer, at her.
"It's beautiful, Dean. You're gonna make a barrel of money here, isn't he, Joe? ... What are those little balconies up over the bandstand?" She indicated two tiny platforms, one on each wall, perched near the high ceiling.
"Oh, those are dance platforms for the go-go girls. Cute, huh? See the firehouse poles? That's the only way to get to them. The broads gotta shimmy up and slide down ... And, my god, you oughta see the things big-dumb-Julie does with that pole while she's dancing. She's gonna get us arrested before we start!" He cackled as if amused at the thought of being arrested. His laugh, too, very much resembled Richard Widmark's crazy giggle. Joe had often wondered if it was a conscious mannerism.
"Hey! Have a beer on the house!" Dean slapped the bar with friendly finality before hurrying around behind it.
"Nothin's too good for my pals, Annie and Joe", he remarked jovially as he expertly filled two large mugs. " ... You rather have something else, Annie? My bourbon's not here yet, but the scotch came in today."
"No, Dean. A beer'll be fine in this heat", she replied. "You here alone?"
"Yeah. The carpenters just left. Crazy oughta be by any minute to clean up their mess." He placed the frosty mugs before them and went to fetch one for himself.
"So your big night's a week from tomorrow, Dino?" Joe took a big swallow of the cool brew.
"Yeah, the big grand opening of the Purple Pussycat. It's gonna be a blast, man", Dean enthused proudly, returning from the tap. "You'll be here of course?"
"We wouldn't miss it for anything", Annie smiled.
"Oh, Joe, you got my ad all set for next week's issue of the Guzzler's right?"
"Yep."
"Here, let me give you a check", said Dean, pulling a large, bound checkbook from a shelf under the bar. "Forty dollars, right?" He wrote out the check and handed it to Joe.
There was a knock at the door.
"Must be Crazy. Just a sec", said Dean, coming around to answer the knock. He opened the door.
"Hi, Dean. Thought we'd drop around and see the progress." She was a striking, well-stocked woman with long, blue-black tresses.
Dean simultaneously planted a kiss on the girl's cheek and pumped the hand of the slender, handsome young man behind her, pulling them inside.
"Hey, Joe. Annie", Dean called. "Look who's here! Rita and Sid ... Sid, I haven't seen this swinging chick of yours in a coon's age. Where you been keeping her?" He had his arm draped familiarly around Rita's pneumatic behind as he escorted the new arrivals to the bar.
Friendly greetings flowed back and forth while Dean made another trip to the beer tap. Rita and Sid Leopold. Speaking of odd couples, Joe thought ... But, as with the new pairing of Carla Smith and Burt Goslin, could an outsider really know what makes a couple tick? Rita and Sid had stayed married ever since he'd known them, five or six years, so they must have something going for them. You'd sure never pick them as birds of a feather, though. Sid, the shy, handsome-almost too handsome-retiring type. And Rita! She was something else again. Easily the wildest swinger-type chick he'd ever come across. At least to hear her talk. But he'd heard from reliable sources that she wasn't just a talker. Nice young people, both of them, Rita and Sid, in their offbeat ways. You just wouldn't peg them as marriage partners at first glance.
"I hear you're dancing over at the Grecian Grotto these days, Rita", Joe smiled at her. She looked flashily sensational as usual, in a red satin beaded outfit that set off her gleaming black hair, carnivorous white teeth and dark features. Sharp-pointed, conical breasts pushed against her tight bodice.
"Yes I am, you ugly bastard." Rita's thick, sensuous lips parted in a grin, her black senorita's eyes flashing with lewd amusement. Joe noticed that everything about her seemed to glint and flash her black eyes, the muscular dancer's calves on her legs, even her white-white teeth. She added: "Why haven't you been over to see me, son of a bitch?"
Joe shook his head, chuckling. Same old Rita. "Well, I've been awful busy, doll", he pleaded.
Dean motioned to Sid and the two men moved away from the group, down opposite sides of the bar, to engage in some whispered privacies.
"You're looking good, Stud", Rita said to Joe, eyeing him boldly. To Annie she said: "Mind if I give this man of yours a peck on the cheek, Honey? I haven't seen him for a while." Her cat smile at Annie seemed to indicate no reply was necessary, that she was going to buss the publisher no matter.
Stepping up to him, she snaked an arm around his neck and plunged her hot tongue into his ear. Joe winced at the pleasant sensation and made as if to pull away, but her strong arm tightened on his neck. She whispered conspiratorially: "I've got such hot pants today, I'm climbing the walls! What say you and I slip back to the ladies room and you throw me a fast f...."
"Rita!" Joe laughingly cut her off and pushed her away. He leaned back against the bar, chuckling, while Rita, also grinning, wagged her tongue lewdly between her white teeth. Same old Rita, all right. He had half a mind to take her up on one of her propositions one of these days. It wouldn't surprise him any that if he did she'd probably run like a scared rabbit.
He looked at Annie and chucked her pretty chin. Annie was smiling too without, perhaps the enthusiasm of the other two, but as if to say she understood and it was all right.
There was another knock at the door.
"I'll get it Dean," Rita announced. She switched over to the door, her firm buttocks like rounded pistons under the clinging satin. Opening the door, some of the vivaciousness left her voice as she said: "Oh, it's you. Crazy. Come on in. Here to work?"
The slight, slack-jawed young man shuffled through the door and stood blinking blankly around. His lustreless, red-rimmed, grey eyes seemed to be having difficulty adjusting to the half light.
"Uh ... Where Dean?" he grunted absently, to no one in particular. He slipped his beat-up Cardinals baseball cap from atop his small, pointed head. Scratching at the unkempt crew cut of his patchy hair, he grunted again: "Where Dean? ... Uh, hey, Dean ... You here?" As he raised his mushy voice, flecks of spittle rose unlicked to the corners of his slack mouth.
"Yeah, Crazy. I'm here. Come on back," Dean called from the far end of the bar.
Crazy shuffled slowly forward in the direction of his employer's voice. He walked with his thin arms hanging loosely, straight down. His tight, turtle-neck tee shirt emphasized the bird-like thinness of his chest and shoulders, while his two-sizes-too-big blue jeans gave him an overall pear-shaped appearance as he moved.
"Yech! That character gives me the creeps, said Rita when Crazy had staggered beyond easy ear shot. "Did you see the way he slobbers?" In a lower voice, to Joe, she added: "I'm horny, honey, but not that horny."
"Poor little feller," Annie sympathized. "He doesn't have much of a life, does he?"
"Hell, he doesn't know any better," returned Rita. "He's got nothing in that pinhead to think a-bout troubles with. Give him the few dollars he makes sweeping up for these Gaslight joints, enough for room rent and food, and he's probably happy as a lark."
The trio's conversation drifted to pleasanter subjects; the party tomorrow at the newlywed Goslin's, and the forthcoming Purple Pussycat opening. Dean and Sid remained in private conversation at the other end of the bar.
Presently Crazy reappeared from the shadows at the rear, bearing a broom. He came up to the front end of the bar and busied himself foggily, sweeping the litter on the floor. When the phone rang, Crazy was right next to it. He picked it up.
After a moment, in which his expression changed from total blankness to something like dull comprehension, he called: "Uh ... hey, Dean ... It's for you ... Uh, it's a girl."
As Dean started along the bar, Crazy put his thick, wet lips back to the receiver and blurted in his gutteral croak: "Hey, baby ... Uh, you wanna...."
There followed an explicitly obscene one-word proposal to the female caller. Everyone in the room snapped to shocked attention, even Rita. Although, where Annie looked dismayed, Rita's expression showed that she found Crazy's faux pas highly amusing.
Dean grabbed the phone from Crazy, muttering under his breath as his eyes shot angry daggers at the retarded youth. "Yeah, who is it?" he said into the receiver. " ... Yeah, I know, Honey ... I heard him ... It was Crazy ... Yeah ... Okay, I promise, I won't let him answer the phone any more...."
Sid rejoined the others as Dean continued his telephone conversation. Crazy continued with his sweeping as if unaware that anything unusual had happened.
"Well, that was a hell of a howdy do, wasn't it?" Sid grinned.
"Gosh, I've never heard him say anything like that before," Annie put in. She looked troubled.
"Sounds to me like somebody's been teaching the little creep the facts of life," suggested Rita.
They all looked at Crazy, puttering uncoordinatedly with his broom, head down. Joe felt a wave of pity for Crazy. He was a gentle ... whatever he was. You could hardly call him a man. And yet, he was human. Horribly blighted, but a human being nonetheless. He felt guilty for never having realized this before. Nobody ever thought about Crazy one way or the other. He was just there. He served his menial purpose, and nobody ever thought about him beyond that. But he'd sure gotten himself a moment's notice just now. "Poor devil," Joe said.
He looked at his watch. It was time for them to go. "Well, if you good people will excuse us...."
The group exchanged cordial goodbyes, affirming that they would meet again on the morrow at the Goslin's. Dean, still trying to pacify his lady caller, sent them off with a cheery wave, and Joe and Annie left the Purple Pussycat.
CHAPTER TWO
Carla snapped the door of the post office box shut and spun the combination lock. Straightening to her tall, voluptuous height as she leafed through her mail, she saw the man out of the corner of her eye. Another box holder, he too was pretending to go through his mail, but he was eyeing her, she knew.
She wondered with satisfaction which of her undergarments he was in the process of mentally removing. The bra, if he was a breast man, or the panties would be coming off first if he's a fanny man. Maybe he's a leg man, she speculated, cooking her shapely calf back at a saucy angle atop her spiked heel. For the man's better edification, she also squared her shoulders, causing her breasts to jut farther forward. At the same time, the cleavage at the top of her low cut white dress assumed a more bursting roundness. She really wasn't too proud of her breasts, had always felt them to be too small. But these modern bras were engineering marvels. It didn't take more than average natural equipment to give a man a show from the outside. She hoped her secret admirer was enjoying his fantasy exploration of her flesh. What delicious acts he must be performing on her body right this minute in his mind's eye. Well, they're still looking, she thought, pleased. That's something.
Deciding she'd given the man enough of a show for the day, she straightened her pretty head, with its elegant platinum upsweep and clicked off across the marble floor of the post office. Her gliding model's walk, chin held high, attracted more male stares to her slender but well padded figure as she passed out of the building.
Emerging into the dazzling heat of Delmar Boulevard, she observed with annoyance that a motorcycle cop was writing out a summons next to her illegally parked convertible. Well, it was nothing she couldn't handle. Fixing a winning smile on her beautifully made-up, high cheekboned face, she approached the policeman.
"Why, officer, what ever is the matter?" she asked innocently.
The young cop did a double take at the sight of her. Yes, this would be easy. She let her mink wrap fall back, exposing her soft, flawless shoulders, and stood close so he could appreciate her perfume.
The policeman struggled to reassume his official manner. "This your car, lady? It's parked in a no parking zone. You can't park right in front of the post office entrance," he said gruffly.
His eyes, though, were anything but gruff, she saw, as they flitted admiringly up and down her curves. "But, officer," she said in a hurt, sweet voice. "I was only gone two seconds."
"It doesn't matter, lady. I'm afraid I'm going to have to give you a ticket."
"Well, gee," she pouted prettily. "I didn't even see the old sign. It just doesn't seem fair ... I'll never do it again, officer."
She caught his eye and knew she had him trapped. He stopped writing on his pad as she batted her long, mascara-lashes over innocent blue eyes and smiled meekly.
"Well, I guess...." he began, flustered. "Well, Okay, look lady ... I'll overlook it this time, but don't ever let me catch you parking here again."
It could have been Christmas morning and the cop a generous Santa for the beaming look of joy and gratitude and admiration she turned on him. "Oh, thank you, officer, sir," she intoned lavishly. "And I'll never do it again, I promise. Cross my heart."
The cop watched with rapt interest as she crossed her heart, but she sensed it was the soft, mammarian casing, rather than the internal organ, which aroused his interest.
The cop retreated and Carla bent to slide into the driver's seat. As she did so, she turned to flash one more smile at him and caught him gaping reverently at her ripe buttocks, bursting at the seams of her dress.
She slid behind the wheel, a triumphant little smile on her lips. Yes, she still had what it took.
Wheeling the big Caddie carelessly into the heavy traffic, Carla's mind was full of busy thoughts. The party was tomorrow afternoon. So much to do. She'd have to check with the caterer again and with the hairdresser, because she'd forgotten what time her appointment was for. She'd better call Karen Tryon too. Carla actually hoped there'd be a check from the young girl's mother in today's mail. They'd practically promised to enroll Karen in the modeling course. Yes she must call and invite her to the party. It'd be a good chance to butter her up and close the deal. Joe could be very helpful on that score. Her eyes softened for a moment as she thought of the Guzzler's Gazette publisher. Good old Joe. It'd be good to see him again. A pleasant relief from Burt's increasingly sour puss. He'd been so nasty this morning. Imagine a man objecting to her having her own post office box, instead of having her mail sent to their apartment. After all, married or not, a girl's got a right to some privacy. He was being almost as snotty about this as he was when she'd told him she was going to keep using her maiden name, for business purposes. What a drag.
Carla tooled the open-topped Caddie aggressively through the traffic, south on Skinker, left into Forest Park, and then out onto Lindell heading east. She knew she made a glamorous appearance with the flashy car, sunglasses, the wind toying with her silver-blonde tresses. At least her marriage had gotten her these trappings, if nothing else. The spiffy automobile, the mink wrap, the fancy apartment. Not that Burt was rich, by any means. As a matter-of-fact, although he was close-mouthed about his finances, she was picking up bits of information that indicated he had no money at all. Darn good thing he had this newspaper job. Apparently a plug in the column was as good as cash for acquiring these little luxuries for his new wife. She shouldn't be too hard on him. He wasn't all bad.
She swerved the oar into the circular drive of the Ritz-Lindell and braked to a lurching stop. Tossing the ignition key to the doorman, she smiled seductively and said: "Here, Chico. Will you be a darling and park it for me? I'm in such a hurry." She clicked rapidly into the building without awaiting his reply.
Entering her spacious apartment on the seventeenth floor, her face registered annoyed surprise. "Burt, what are you doing home so early?"
"Hiya, Angel," Burt greeted her with a wary smile. He was standing at the living room bar, pouring a drink. She bustled across the room to brush a preoccupied kiss onto his cheek. As she did so, his free arm outstretched to circle her waist but she had already careened lightly away.
Going to the mirror to adjust her make-up and coif, Carla said peevishly: "Burt, you're drinking. It's only four o'clock and you're drinking. You'll be staggering by dinnertime, won't you?"
Defiantly, Burt added an extra finger of Scotch to his glass before setting the decanter down. "I am not drinking, Carla. I'm having a drink ... You like one?"
"No." Turning to face him, she added: "Did you file your copy today? Why are you home so early?"
"Yes, Carla, I filed my copy," Burt said wearily, with the air of a patiently suffering long-married man. "I filed my copy the same as I do every day, and I'm home early because I finished early."
"Did you get in the plug for my modeling school like you promised?" she badgered.
"Yes, I got in the plug like I promised." Burt sank tiredly into a soft chair and sipped at his Scotch.
What a grouch he is, thought Carla, looking down at him. I can't even ask a simple question and get a civil answer. She contemplated his frailness, his thin, grey-dusted hair, his pale, lined face. It wouldn't be a bad face, she decided, if he ever got rid of the barroom pallor and took a little sun. Or smiled....With a little jolt, as she met his eyes, she realized he was smiling. Just the faintest of smiles, as he gazed at her in silence. She carefully matched his pleasant look, masking her true throughts behind her patrician face.
"Burt, honey, I didn't mean to nag," she said in a more agreeable tone, "but you know that too much drinking isn't good for your health."
Burt's smile faded. "Who's drinking too much? This is the first one I've had today. Can't a man have a civilized scotch in his own home?"
Such a nasty, quarrelsome man. To think this nondescript little guzzler was the big celebrity she'd thought she was marrying. Celebrity indeed. If his readers only knew. Here, after only two months of marriage, she sometimes felt like screaming at the very sight of his face, with his annoying, contrary ways, and his drinking. True, her physical standard of living had improved, but being Mrs. Burt Goslin was hardly the gay, glamorous whirl she'd expected it to be. Outside of a few measly plugs in his column, how had it helped her career?
"Burt, I simply refuse to talk to you about it, you're so unreasonable," she scolded, rising. "You're nothing but a nasty, drunken old bum." So saying, she stalked haughtily away into the bedroom, her luscious buttocks jiggling angrily.
In her large, luxuriously appointed boudoir, Carla yanked a cord that opened the drapes and allowed bright sunlight to flood the room.
Seating herself at her dressing table, she surveyed her flawless face in the mirror and felt better. Her huff was evaporating, but she still couldn't help being peeved at Burt. Mickey, for all his faults, hadn't been a drunkard. A little jealous maybe, but even though he'd become a bartender, practically living with the stuff, he seldom drank hard liquor. She paused, a dab of cold cream on her poised fingertips, thinking of Mickey. How young and foolish they'd been. Getting married like that the day after high school graduation. She tried to remember who'd been more nervous at the wedding, Mickey or their classmate and best man, Joe Barnes. Just because she'd gotten pregnant had been no reason to run off and get married. That could have been fixed. It had all come to the same thing anyway, when she'd had the miscarriage.
Oh well. She shrugged and began massaging the slippery cream onto her pink cheek. It was all 'water over the dam now. She remembered how painful the divorce had been. As bad for Grams and Gramps as it had been for she and Mickey. They were so hurt. They'd been the only parents she'd ever known, taking her in and somehow bringing her up on their meager income after her father had died and Mom had gone off to live in Chicago. She'd sure let them down. Well, it couldn't have been helped. Mickey, fine boy though he was, just didn't have any ambition. She'd wanted him to go places, and he could have, but the big dope was content to be a bartender. His only ambition was to someday have a little place of his own. Who wanted to be a bartender's wife all their life.
She smiled at herself in the mirror, measuring how much she'd changed for the better. The radiant beauty smiling back at her was a far cry from the gawky, long-legged kid who'd started adult life twelve years ago as a bartender's wife. She'd learned a lot and been around. Maybe not to all the places she'd aspired to, both geographically and professionally. But, even now, maybe there was still time to get there. The mirror image told her reassuringly that none of her charms were ebbing, and this marriage to Burt Goslin could turn out to be a springboard yet.
"Carla? ... What are you doing? His voice was gently placating.
She looked up to see Burt's face sticking in through the door, smiling hopefully. "I'm just taking off my make-up," she replied noncommittally.
"Can I come in?" he asked, coming in. "Want to make up?"
He came up behind her and leaned to plant a kiss in the soft hollow of her slender neck. Well, at least he doesn't have a glass of booze in his hand, she grudgingly acknowledged.
Burt's hands slid around and cupped the firmness of her breasts, kneading them softly. Oh-oh. What's he up to? What does the old bird have on his mind? As his kneading hands pressed her more firmly, she thought she knew. But she wasn't sure she felt like it just now.
"Does this feel good, honey?" asked Burt, examining her face in the mirror, as if trying to read her mood. "I love your breasts, you know." He kissed her lightly on the cheek and she was aware that his lips were warming.
"Do you really like my breasts, Burt?" she asked in a more cordial voice, fishing for reassurance a-bout this one imagined flaw in her physical perfection.
"Like them? I love them. I like kissing them.
Like this." To demonstrate what he liked to do to her breasts, he took her earlobe between his teeth. He twiddled it for a moment, and then grasped it with tongue and lips and manipulated it with a pulling, sucking motion.
"You don't think they're too small?" she pursued, her voice growing ever gender. She swallowed at a sudden salivary emission and she knew she was beginning to respond to Burt's attentions to her earlobe and breasts. His hands kept kneading them.
"Too small? Are you kidding?" His hands bunched the spring blobs together and upward so that they swelled above her bodice. They both examined the glassy cleavage in the mirror. As Burt compressed the spheres roundly together, a faint, delicate network of blue veins could be seen beneath the pink-white skin.
"I mean, maybe they're not exactly models for sheer bulk," he added with a smile, "but they'll do, baby, they'll do just fine."
Thus reassured, Carla leaned affectionately back into his kissings and enjoyed the tingly feeling that was radiating from her centers as a result of his breast play.
Burt caught her eye in the mirror and arched his eyebrows inquisitively. "I sure wish I was playing with these without a dress in between ... I wish I had them in my mouth." His statement had the air of a timid question.
Oh well, what the hell, she thought. He was getting her a little worked up, actually. The old boy was stricken by the mood so seldom, it really wouldn't be right to turn him off. She felt a juicy tweak inside her as a man's face, handsome and virile, flashed into her mind. Now if it were Joe Barnes standing there playing with her breasts and kissing her like that, she could really get to feeling wild. She'd probably be crawling all over him right this minute. Joe. It had been a long time, she thought hungrily and it had been so very, very good with him when they'd had each other's bodies. She wondered, could they...? Would they ever...? Oh well. Burt was here in the room with her, and Joe wasn't so she might as well make the most of it. It was her wifely duty after all, wasn't it?
She slithered to her feet in his arms and looked tenderly into the aging newspaperman's gentle face. Taking him by the ears, she rocked his head playfully. "Does my baby want to play naughty, humm?"
Burt just nodded, slightly but eagerly, as though he had feared rebuff until this very moment and still wasn't quite sure she was preparing to give herself to him. His eyes flickered with desire. Carla felt a swell of unaccustomed, genuine affection for him. He really did care for her, didn't he? Maybe even loved her. She ought to treat him better, she decided.
She snaked her arms about his shoulders and distributed her warmth up and down the length of his body. In her high heels she was as tall as he. She nibbled his lower lip for a second and then kissed him hard, her mouth wide open, her tongue flicking deep. Burt's masculinity responded almost at once, she noticed with confident pleasure. Yes, she could still get almost any man's blood flowing.
"Get ready, Burt honey," she whispered. "I'll be right back." She stabbed a tongued kiss into his ear in parting, and went into her wardrobe.
She lifted two of her sexiest negligees off the hanger bar. Since this was such an infrequent occasion in her marriage routine, she might as well do it up right for him. She selected the aqua negligee, an excitingly feminine bit of transparent fluff, and laid it aside while she undressed.
Reaching behind to unzip her dress, she let it fall, giving it the required help around the resplendent curvatures of her hips. She stepped out of her heels before the full length mirror and, undoing the clasp of her bra, shrugged out of it. Two pink, red-tipped breasts popped juicily into view. She completed her glowing nudity by sliding panties, garter belt and stockings to the floor, and then posed before the mirror.
Not bad. Not bad at all, she appraised, posing her naked voluptuousness in a series of modeling stances before the glass. She had the height and bone structure of a high fashion model, but a hell of a lot more meat in the right places than most of those skinny broads she'd seen. Including in the bosom she was sometimes inclined to fret about. Her blue eyes ran up the luscious form in the mirror, over the strong, straight legs, the thighs and hips that were so perfectly turned and firmly fleshed. Her tummy was as flat and trim as ever, she saw, its skin still creamy smooth and shimmering with a youthful bloom. And, yes, the breasts too contributed to the picture of womanly perfection. They weren't large, perhaps, but nonetheless they were well proportioned to the rest of her faultless shape. Broad and firm, they stood high, their ripe swell set off by rich red points the color of ripe cherries, which apparently made much better eating than cherries, she thought with a little smile, remembering men in her past. Burt surely seemed to enjoy the taste of them. As had Joe and Mickey and, really, all of them.
With a satisfied last look, she slipped the flimy negligee on over her blonde curls, and returned to the bedroom.
Burt lay nude on his back on the bed. As she entered, he propped himself up on an elbow and gazed appreciately at her.
"Hey, that's some swinging little outfit," he praised.
She went to the bed and gently pushed him back down. Sitting beside him, she toyed with the sandy hair on his chest. His hands glided up her stomach to cup the soft underswell of her breasts. She closed her eyes to relish the pleasurable sensation as he took each red point between thumb and forefinger and gently rolled them back and forth.
"Ooh, I love that Burt. Does it show?"
"Sure does," he replied, in reference to the jutting transfiguration that was taking place in the contours of her nipples. In repose, she knew, the tiny points lay buried in the centers of their fleshy red circles inward. The constricted thrust of her aroused nipples extended outward and upward nearly an inch. One lover-had it been Joe?-had once called them sexy football cleats.
"Don't stop, Burt," she breathed. "That's starting to get me very hot." She groped a hand lower on him to ascertain if her husband was sharing similar urges. Grasping him, she learned that he was.
With an eager grunt, Burt raised up, threw the negligee up around her neck, and pulled her back down to him, taking one of the new throbbing nipples wetly into his mouth. Her passion flamed higher as she wiggled around, straightening out against him, and pushed the nipple hard against his tongue and teeth.
She moaned her pleasure at the delectable sensations Burt's busy mouth was delivering to all points of her shapely body.
"Now the other one, honey," she murmured feverishly, pulling his head back and tonguing him with a hurried kiss on the mouth. "Do the other one now." She popped the other red flesh antenna into his willing mouth. He might not be the world's greatest lover over all, she reflected in passing, noticing that her hips were now writhing wetly against his frail torso, but he was sure good at what he was doing to her now.
She grabbed him hard with her free hand, wanting to pull him along with her on her frenzied accent, to be sure he would be ready when she was. Ah yes, she recognized, kneading him, he was almost ready. And she was too.
She pulled away and lay back, spreading her throbbing nudity fully before him. Burt was quick to respond. His breathing was now coming in grants and groans because of her intimate and nimble handling. The coarse sounds coming from his throat complemented her own irregular panting.
He took her quickly, his first thrust causing a rapturous gurgle to escape her.
"Oh, that's right, Burt, that's right, that's just the way", she encouraged him in a breath-baited tremor of a voice. She grabbed his ears, digging her fingernails in. Even in the grip of her passion, she realized her sharp nails must be painful to him, but she couldn't help it. She yanked his face to her bosom, forcing him to renew his worrying of the now spectacularly spiked and swollen nipples.
Burt labored harder and faster, his body a miniature pile driver, gasping for breath. She felt the exquisite pain rising mercurially, her floodgates of fulfillment just on the verge of bursting, when....
He stopped. Burt sagged his sweating cheek to her chest and lay there panting.
"Wha...?" But she didn't have to ask what had happened. A tell-tale stickiness in their now still embrace told her the love-making session was at an end. She wanted to scream. Every nerve end in her taut body cried out for completion. No use saying anything to Burt. There was nothing he could do about it.
"Oh, Carla," Burt finally managed, finding his voice. "It was ... you were so wonderful." She patted him gently on the back. No use telling him and spoiling it for him but she knew what she had to do, if she didn't want to start chewing on the rug.
"Let me up, honey," she said tenderly. "I have to run to the bathroom for a minute."
Burt shifted and lay on his back looking at her with eyes of love. As she crossed the room, her golden-pink nudity still swollen and glistening with their mingled perspiration, her need was a terrible coiled spring inside her. She felt a little guilty a-bout the private attention she was about to give herself, but there was no choice. It figured to turn out this way, .she thought disgruntledly as she closed the bathroom door behind her. With an old man and a drunkard for a husband, what could a girl expect?
CHAPTER THREE
"So momma's little man is going to be a pimp, eh?" said Rita sarcastically. "Don't you think that's stepping in faster company than you can handle?"
"I told you, Hon," Sid replied, turning from the window of their Regal Arms Hotel apartment. "I'm not getting in with any Mafia or anything like that. I have one partner...."
"Who's the partner?"
"I can't tell anyone, not even you, hon," he smiled amiably. "But it's a very simple, loose arrangement, and high class. All we'll be doing is supplying chicks for functions and all I have to do is make the arrangements."
She was unconvinced. "How much are you getting from Dean?" she asked.
"He's forking over 750 clams for his grand opening. I get a third of it. Not bad, huh?"
Rita shook her head disgustedly. The poor boob. Wasn't he good for anything? Okay, so he was good sex himself and he didn't bug her when she wanted a little outside stuff either, like a lot of square husbands would. And sex was the most important thing in life, after all. But, son of a bitch, was it asking too much to expect him to contribute his share to the family bankroll in some legitimate way? God knew she worked hard and paid her way. If you added up their years together, aside from his small, infrequent windfalls from this or that job or scheme, she'd practically supported the guy.
"You honest-to-god believe you make a living at this, and stay out of jail?" she sneered.
"Sure," Sid replied enthusiastically, an eager look on his pretty features. "It's like selling a high class service, and you know what a good salesman I am. There'll be none of this drunken-sailor-on-the-waterfront business. All I do is develop a list of clients, I mean like maybe big corporations who want to entertain buyers, stuff like that. My partner delivers the chicks at the right time and place, and we split a fat fee."
"Just like that, eh? Oh that's great, great, Sid baby. You'll be a big tycoon yet. Prince of the Pimps." She rolled her black eyes mockingly. "And not only prosties either, right? What's this crap a-bout dope too?"
"No, not dope, Rita. I'd never fool around with that," he shook his head piously. "I just happen to have a connection where I can supply the customers with a little pot, marijuana, as part of the package if they want it. But I'd never screw around with heroine or morphine."
"What's the difference, you schnook?" said Rita, annoyed at his naivete. "They're all illegal."
"Yeah, honey, but pot is harmless stuff. It's not as bad for you as booze, even. The only reason it's illegal is the booze industry lobbied to get laws passed and kill the competition from pot. Plenty of perfectly respectable people smoke it ... You see, the thing is, laws or no laws, people want stuff like broads and pot and they're gonna get them. So what's wrong with picking up a buck giving the public what it wants?"
"Just like they wanted storm windows, huh?" She remembered what a fiasco he'd made of that business. He'd wound up frittering away his customer's down payments, then couldn't deliver what they'd bought-crappy stuff anyway-and, as usual, she'd had to bail him out. He probably could have gone to jail for that little mess too. It wasn't that he was basically dishonest, she thought exasperatedly, just weak and foolish.
"Aw, Rita, why do you want to keep bringing that up?" said Sid, boyishly abashed. "I've apologized a hundred times already."
"Because you're a fool, Sid," she shot back, her black eyes flashing anger. "Honest to Christ, sometimes I feel like slapping you silly."
Their eyes met quickly at the significance of her remark, before he lowered his chastely. Sid slid into a chair and Rita rose to confront him, towering over him in her spiked heels, her stong, sinuous legs spraddled.
"You don't see me getting into one scrape after another, do you?" she said aggressively. "Where in hell do you think we'd be right now if I wasn't out there dancing every night? You think belly dancing is play? You think it's fun? Well, it's goddam hard, sweaty work, buster. But I keep myself in shape and I do it night after night, and it's mostly to take care of you . ... Sometimes I wonder if you're worth it."
Sid sat passively, his eyes lowered, unable to face her righteous anger. Yes, she kept herself in shape all right, she reflected proudly, suddenly a-ware of her body. Her hands touched her firm hips and slid up over her flat, hard stomach to cup the muscular, cone-shaped breasts that were beginning to flutter with her growing annoyance at Sid. As she did so, a pang of sexual craving stabbed at her loins and seemed to fan her exasperation.
"Goddam you, you little worm," she spat. "Look at me when I'm talking to you!" So saying, she swung at him as hard as she could and caught him on the jaw with a sweeping roundhouse blow that snapped his head violently backward.
Sid uttered a yelp of pain as he covered his face with his hands. Through his fingers, she could see tears come into his glassy eyes, and a drop of blood appeared at one corner of his fragile mouth. She smiled broadly, loving the sight of his pain and fear. Her prominent white teeth were those of a carnivorous jungle creature. The mocking black eyes flashed with lust, both sexual and sadistic. Hot waves radiating from the pit of her belly told her she must have her way with him, right now.
"What's the matter, baby?" she asked with deceptive soothing. "Did I hurt you? I'm sorry. Ifs for your own good. You know that. Sometimes you're bad and have to be punished, isn't that right?"
She reveled with a sense of supreme power as Sid's fear-glazed eyes watched her from behind his fingers.
"You won't hit me again?" he whined.
"I didn't say that." Her voice was syrupy gentle, but she raised her hand again in a threating gesture and grinned to see him flinch. "It's just that I want you to know I have to do it for your own good, when you're bad."
"Rita, you're bad too!" he blurted suddenly, almost shrieking, as he doubled his body and tried to cover his head against the blow he knew would come. As if trying to get it all out before being struck into silence, he babbled quickly: "You cheat on me. You go to bed with anything, boys, girls, cats, dogs. You think I don't know?"
He hunched in the chair, sniveling, and a first sob escaped his throat. Rita let the moment lengthen out purposely, her band raised, relishing his misery.
"You little snot!" she shouted, and brought her hand down swiftly, connecting in a karate chop in the hollow of his neck.
"Oooooooo...." Sid screamed in pain, clutching at his neck and falling from the chair. He dropped to his knees at her feet. Doubled over on the floor between her sturdily spread and firmly planted high heels, he sobbed over and over: "Please don't hit me again, please don't hit me again...."
"So you don't think I've got a right to a little fun, eh?" she hissed furiously. "You don't think supporting a lousy little bum like you gives me that right, eh?" She sure as hell did have the right, she fancied self-righteously. This little pop-off would have to be knocked back into line. Oh, he was good sex all right, and he was going to be especially good today. But, after all, he should realize his kind of sex wasn't the only kind. The snot-nosed nerve of him, trying to put her down. Boys and girls and cats and dogs indeed.!
"Stop your sniveling," she ordered, prodding him as painfully as possible with her pointed toe. "And pull your pants down. You're going to get a whipping."
"Oh, please, Rita. I'll never talk back again," Sid begged in a panicked little voice from his supplicant position.
"I said, pull your pants down!" She kicked his fetally knotted form over onto its back and glared at him, her nostils flaring. His eyes rolling in fear, Sid began to unbuckle his belt. When he had unzipped the front of his pants, she caught the bottoms of them and yanked them off him.
"Now, undress. Take off everything."
He stood shakily, still hunched over, as if fearing another blow at any second, and began unbuttoning his shirt. Rita's eyes reflected her pleasure as she examined his white legs, visibly trembling at the knees. He had a slender but nicely fleshed and soft figure which she adored.
Sid paused, now stripped to just his shorts, his tear-filled eyes looking at her beseechingly.
"I said everything," she commanded gruffly. "Get those shorts off."
As he moved to comply. Rita sucked in her breath at the sight of his complete nudity. She observed that he too was sexually aroused. The thought of the delights that were to come, the pleasures she was about to take upon his yielding white body, caused her own body to twitch juicily. Grinning evilly at her cowering husband, she could feel her breasts pucker and harden. Slowly, she slipped his belt from his trousers.
"Assume the position!"
She read the defeat in his eyes. He was no longer crying. In the watery eyes she saw a mingling of submissive despair and rapt fascination, the way a cornered deer might gaze at its stalker. Silently and obediently, Sid shuffled to the sofa while she followed behind, brandishing the belt.
He assumed the position she had taught him long ago, placing a pillow under himself so that his buttocks were elevated to better receive her punishment. Rita gently laid the belt along his bared back and between his tightly constricted cheeks while she undressed herself. , "Don't be afraid, baby. It won't hurt ... too much," she smilingly soothed him as she slithered out of her dress. She slid her panties over her hips and down her strong legs, her hands caressing the hard flexing thigh and calf muscles. Sid's large, sad eyes, she saw, glinted in reaction to the sight of her moist nudity.
She unsnapped her bra and let it fall, releasing the ample cones of her breasts. Looking down at them, she cupped them lovingly, fondling the bullet-shaped brown spikes which capped them. The nipples puckered and throbbed at her clutching self-attention. She felt the firm appendages hardening and swelling under her palms as her anticipation grew more excited. As she picked up the belt from Sid's behind, she touched herself boldly, lower down. A wave of excruiciating desire coursed through her body.
"Are you ready?" she demanded cruelly.
Sid's only reply was a muffled whimper as he hid his face in the soft cushions. Raising the belt to deal for the first blow, she saw the skin on his fleshy buttocks crawling in fear of the racking pain that was about to strike.
Crack! She laid the leather lash smartly and squarely across the two trembling cheeks. Sid gave an agonized little squeal as she stood back to watch the pink welt appear. It did so in a matter of seconds, standing out lividly against the whiteness. Rita swallowed wetly at the sight of it, her fury and excitement rising.
Crack! Crack! In quick succession, she crisscrossed the first throbbing scar with two more. Sid howled his pain in louder and more pitiable tones with each blow. She felt no pity, only a raging blast furnace of lust and fury as she abused him. The smart-ass little twerp. She'd show him. Crack! Crack!
"Turn over!" she bellowed, her jutting mamillaries quivering with rage and the strain of her labors. As Sid groaningly turned, the sight of his rigid nudity caused her thighs to jerk together. She wiggled pelvically in the talons of her passion.
Crack! Crack! Crack! She struck mercilessly. On the third slashing blow, Sid screamed and doubled up in pain and she realized she shouldn't have hit him just there; it could cause real injury.
"Straighten out," she sneered, and he did so, although with some apparent difficulty. Wadding up the belt, she flung it into his face, the sharp buckle grazing him just above the right eye.
Dropping to her knees, she commenced to perform a symphony of cruel violence upon the tortured keyboard of Sid's body. Her slapping, pounding hands and sharp fingernails beat and slashed at his chest, stomach, hips, thighs. Sid lay with eyes squinted tightly shut now, offering no defense a-gainst the stinging blows and jabs. His only sound was the series of small, high-pitched whimpers coming from deep in his throat.
Rita paused, looking from his throbbing masculinity to his tortured face and back again. "Now, you naughty, bad boy! Now you're really going to get it, do you hear?" she screamed.
She grasped him cruelly, digging her fingernails in, and put her mouth upon him, cramming as much of him as possible between her rasping white teeth. His cry of anguish sent a blast of ecstasy through her. Belaboring him harshly with teeth and tongue, she had to suppress an almost overpowering urge to bite, to bite down as hard as she could and hear him scream as he writhed between her clamped jaws
... But no, she had other ways, better ways, even more gratifying to herself, to finish him off.
Releasing her cringing victim, she stood above him for a moment. Her heaving chest gasped rapturously for air, her breasts rising and falling heavily, the throbbing brown nipples angrily distended.
With a cry of attack, she descended upon him again, clutching him with one hand and roughly guiding him to her. Her thrust to encompass him was one of brutal savagery that brought another squeal of pain from him. Her own coarse grunt at the instant of plunging contact was an exultation of sadistic triumph.
She grabbed his head, twisting her fingers painfully in his hair, and pulled his face up to receive a rubbery nipple. Having thus stiffled his slobbery moaning, she quickened the cadence of her plunging attack, battering him heavily again and again.
Until, at the very moment his face went a deep crimson and she felt him bursting within her, her ecstasy exploded and rocked her being like a bomb blast. Every inch of her muscular body shuddered violently, and one long, wailing scream started low in her throat and came tearing out to reverberate off the walls.
Then victim and conqueror collapsed together in a ravaged, sweating heap of sated flesh.
At last, Sid reached up and patted her firm buttocks. "That was good, momma," he praised.
"Thanks, honey," she replied, looking tenderly down into his eyes. "You see? Like I told you, it's for your own good."
CHAPTER FOUR
Carla made a final adjustment in the arrangement of her buffet table, then stepped back to look at it. Lovely. The white table cloth was piled high with fancy delicacies-ham, sliced turkey, shrimp, cheeses, breads, sauces and salads. It made a very pretty and tempting picture, she thought. She was excited about playing hostess to a real party in her new apartment for the first time.
Going to the mirror, she checked her make-up again. It was flawless, as was the style of her blonde tresses and the clinging fit of her new cocktail dress.
"Are you dressed yet, Burt?" she called in the direction of the bedroom. His reply was indistinct and she couldn't tell if it was negative or affirmative. She certainly hoped he'd behave himself today and not get all boozed up and embarrass her. There were good reasons, business and personal, for her wanting it to be a perfect afternoon. It was important to make the best possible impression on Karen Tryon, for one thing, so she'd sign up for the modeling course. And then, Joe would be here. Golly, it had been a long time. She'd been having curiously disturbing thoughts about Joe since knowing he would be here today.
The doorbell rang. Glancing at her watch as she crossed to answer it she mused that whoever it was was right on time, which was to say, early.
She opened the door. "Mom!" she squealed delightedly, throwing her arms around the tall, platinum-haired woman. "Momsie! What on earth? What a happy surprise, darling!"
Mother and daughter entered the apartment, arm in arm, beaming at each other. "Well, honey," said Mom," I woke up this morning and told Dr. Pol-kin I just had such a terrible itch to see my baby girl, and you know what he did? He calmly handed me three hundred dollars and said, 'Catch the next plane' ... So I did!"
"How is the doctor?" asked Carla. Dr. Polkin was Mom's fourth husband. Carla had met him only once.
"His liver bothers him, dear. He's such a nice old gent. I'm very happy with him," said the elegantly attired mother. Carla appraised the older lady's appearance. Still the same swinging, sassy mom, it looked like. She hoped she would look that good herself at fifty. Mom's expensively died hair showed not the slightest trace of grey, and her attractive, pampered facial features looked years younger than she really was. Carla noticed also that she continued to keep her figure. The tummy was flat and firm. Maybe she had to wear a girdle these days, but the hips still hadn't gone too hippy. And her bulging breasts could, the daughter was sure, still grab a man's eye. She'd often wondered how, with such a big busted mother, she herself had gotten so shortchanged by nature on that score.
"Say, looks like you're having a party," said Mom, observing the table full of viands and the bar laden for action. "I hope I'm not barging in."
"Barging in?" Carla planted another affectionate, daughterly peck on her mother's cheek. "As of right now, you're the guest of honor, Momsie."
Mom lowered her voice, looking furtively a-round. "Where's your new husband, dear? I've been so concerned since you wrote and told me you're having problems with him. It's one of the reasons I wanted to come."
At that moment, Burt entered from the bedroom, spiffily decked out in his best black suit and smiling cordially, if quizzically, at the unexpected guest.
"Oh, Burt, sweet," Carla hailed him in her vivacious party voice. "I want you to meet my dear momsie who's come all the way from Chicago to be at our party."
* * *
The party was in full swing. Joe idly estimated there were about 40 people in the room as he leaned comfortably against the wall, between conversations. The crowd of fashionably attired men and women buzzed at each other, their faces taking on the usual cocktail party glow. He caught Annie's eye across the room. She returned his wink with a sweet smile. Beside her, chatting earnestly, was a pretty young girl he'd never seen before. The young girl looked to be no more than 18 or so, four or five years younger than Annie. Very pretty, whoever she is, he mused.
He took a sip from his glass. Whew, Burt was pouring them strong today. He decided to lean into the kitchen, since he was standing right next to it, to dilute his drink with a dash of tap water.
As he stood at the sink, measuring an inch of water into his glass, a seductive voice behind him intoned: "Hi ya, sexy."
Recognizing the voice, a wry smile was already splitting his features before he turned to face her. "Hi, Rita baby. What's up?" he replied amusedly. With her, he could guess what was up. Not that she wasn't a ripely enticing woman, with those canti-levered breasts of hers and that healthy, vigorous body. But the way she came on, he couldn't help it, she amused more than aroused him.
"What's up, you ask?" She batted her long, black lashes at him and parted her sensuous lips. "I'm up, big boy. That's what's up."
"Funny thing, Rita. I kind of thought that's what you'd say," he grinned at her.
"Joe, I'm so horny my pants are sopping wet. You want to see?" She sucked in her breath and showed her ivory teeth.
"Come off it, Rita. If I ever did reach out my hairy paws to grab you, you'd jump and run, wouldn't you?" He wouldn't ever do it of course, he told himself. Still he couldn't help speculating whether a romp with her would be as ferocious as her typical conversation made out.
"There's one way to find out, Stud. Come over here and touch me," she challenged him. "Or are you afraid I'm too much woman for you?"
"Well now, I wouldn't say that," he replied, half interested in accepting her dare and correcting her mocking aspersion against his virility. " ... You come here."
She did so, instantly. Whoops. Maybe he was getting himself into a predicament here. Close to him, she breathed slyly: "Put your hand up my dress. Joe. Go on, grab me there."
Torn by a mingling of embarrassment and arousal, he stammered: "Rita, be careful. Somebody might come in."
"So what?" she answered carelessly. "You think I'd give a flying...? Come on, Joe baby, I'm so hot I'm about to cream. Rub my breast at least. Rub it and bite it ... unless you're chicken?"
With that she reached behind and unsnapped her bra under her dress. He watched her ripe mounds surge forward against the low bodice, as she freed them from the bra's restictions. He gulped and then gulped again as Rita pulled down the elastic fabric of the dress and a tawny, brown-tipped cone plopped into view. Over her shoulder, just a few feet away through the open door, he was able to glimpse part of the room full of people. Annie among them, he realized with a sinking, sneaking feeling. And yet he was excitedly moved by the swelling nakedness of the female part before him. Rita gave a little shake and the breast wobbled spicily, it's nipple tightening and throbbing before his eyes, begging to be fondled and kissed.
"What's the matter, Joe? ... Come on, touch it," she seductively dared him again. He made no resistence as she took his hand and drew it to cup her nude ripeness. At the first contact, he felt his masculinity come hotly alive.
"Pinch it, Joe. Play with the nipple," she urged in a throaty voice, breathing deeply. He complied.
Even in the grip of his frankly mounting lust, he was surprised at himself. What in holy hell was he doing? Standing here in full view of 15 or 20 people, some of whom were probably glancing into the kitchen this second. From their vantage point it might look like he and Rita were merely standing and talking, but what if somebody came in? What if Annie walked through that door right now? Still, the sense of imminent danger possibly heightening his hot pleasure, he continued to manipulate Rita's throbbing brown point.
"Rita, what the hell are we doing?" he choked. "Come on, let's stop this and cool off."
"I don't want to stop, big boy," she wispered hoarsely. She grabbed him boldly. "Let's see how you're ... Oh, my god, Joe, you are a man, aren't you?"
Her bold, clutching hand snapped his nerve ends fiercely taut. She began to fumble at his belt and zipper while he wrestled feebly, with one hand, against her even more ardent intentions.
"Rita, for Christ's sake, cut it out," he muttered, torn by a dizzying conflict of desires.
"Are you kidding, horse? This I've gotta see, I've gotta have." She looked at him wantonly as their hand wrestling continued, and slid her tongue wetly over both lips. "I want to kiss you there, Joe. You'd like that, wouldn't you?"
"Maybe ... sure ... but...." He broke off, feverishly flustered.
"Joe, I've got an idea," she hissed eagerly, her black eyes flashing animal lust. "Let's strip stark naked and go in there and roll around and make love right on the floor in front of them."
"Are you completely nuts, Rita?" he growled, although the outrageous perversity turned him on.
"No. I'm just so sexed up I'm almost nuts. I want sex, Joe. Hot, wet, juicy sex. I could ear sex right now."
At that moment, Joe's heart plunged to his belly like a lump of lead. He glanced at the door. Carla stood there, quietly watching. Her face was a lovely mask over whatever emotions she felt. Did he see just a trace of a knowing, superior smile at the corners of her lips? Their eyes met for a long moment before she turned and left the kitchen.
Rita had acknowledged Carta's presence only with a brief, heedless glance and a casual grin. She turned now to freely resume their titilation where it had left off. Shaken, Joe pushed her clutching hands away and walked from the room.
* * *
Carla left a group to answer the door. The party was going very well. Mom seemed to be having a ball, but of course that wasn't unsual. She'd have a ball anywhere, with any kind of people. And even Burt was behaving so far. She hadn't seen him stagger a single time yet.
Opening the door, she gushed: "Why, Karen, darling, come in. I was afraid you weren't coming."
Karen Tryon entered, smiling shyly. "I'm sorry to be so late, Mrs. Goslin. Mom made me baby sit with my little brother."
Carla appraised the young girl, reconfirming her earlier impressions. Her image of fresh, youthful innocence could be made into a highly saleable commodity. If only her mom would come through with the $400 check for the modeling course, so they could begin. She looked at Karen's blue party dress. Pretty enough, but a little unsophisticated. Well, proper dressing would be part of the training. The youngster certainly had the raw material. Soft brown hair framed a sweet face, glowing with the pink freshness of youth. Blue eyes, a tenderly shaped mouth. The figure had it too. Maybe they'd need to whack just a smidgin off the fannie, but otherwise the kid was all there. Graceful legs, curvy hips, and a pair of ripe, saucy young breasts.
"Well, come in, darling. I'll introduce you a-round. Care for a drink?"
"Just a coke, thank you," Karen replied. Her pretty face was happy but flushed, as though she were a little unsure of herself in this predominantly older, more sophisticated company.
"Oh, Burt ... Burt," Carla called, catching her husband's attention. "We'd like a coke over here." Turning back to the girl, she said: "That's my husband. I want you to meet him. You never know, he might be able to help us with your career."
Karen merely smiled and let her eyes dance around the room, as if in awe of all the stylish people. She'll need a little polishing up, Carla judged.
"Umm ... speaking of your career, Karen darling," Carla went on smoothly, "did you talk some more to your mother about the fee for the course?"
"Yes. She's not completely sold on the idea, but she finally left it up to me and said, if I want it, she'd have the money."
They were interrupted by Burt's arrival with the Coca Cola. Carla made the introductions as Burt gallantly offered his hand, and Karen demurely accepted.
"Mrs. Goslin...." Karen started.
Carla interrupted her. "It's Miss Smith, Karen. You see, although I'm Mrs. Goslin now in private life, I still use my maiden name professionally."
She glanced at Burt and saw the pique in his eyes. Men, she thought huffily. They were so silly with their possessive ideas. Burt bowed his brusque excuses, mumbling something indistinct, and moved off.
"What I was going to say about the modeling course, Mrs....Miss Smith, is that I think I'd like to go ahead and sign up for it."
"How delightful, darling," Carla beamed, locking her hands charming at her chin. She could sure use the four bills, what with the skimpy size of the allowance cheapskate Burt gave her. "Now, I've got a surprise for you. Don't hold me to it, but I think we can arrange your fist paying job right here, this afternoon."
"That would be wonderful." Karen's pretty, open face gave away her girlish excitement at the prospect of such a quick launching of her career. "But do you think I'm ready for it, Miss Smith?"
"Yes," Carla assured her. "For what I have in mind, all you need is good looks, and that you certainly have. It's not like high fashion where you do need training." She searched the crowded room. "I'm trying to spot my publisher friend right now ... Have you ever seen the Guzzler's Gazette?"
"No, but I think I've heard of it," said Karen. "Miss Smith, aren't the pictures in that paper...? I mean, don't the girls have to pose...?"
"Oh, there he is," Carla broke in. "Joe, Joe, come on over."
Joe approached with a decidedly sheepish demeanor, she thought mischeviously. As well he might. Imagine carrying on like that right in the kitchen. A little pang in her loins made her admit to herself that she wished it had been her in the kitchen with him instead of Rita Leopold. He was quite a man, this Joe.
She introduced Joe and the young modeling hopeful.
"Joe, I was thinking. You know, Karen is going to be one of my modeling students now, and I was wondering if you could use her as a Guzzler's Gal sometime soon?"
"Sure, she's pretty, has a nice figure," Joe said. "I'd be glad to have her, but does she know all the details?"
"That's what I was going to ask, Miss Smith." Karen's eyes dropped and her prink cheeks reddened. "Aren't the Guzzler's Gals always shown ... shown...?"
"Nude?" Carla finished for her as she and Joe shared a smile at the girl's shy discomfort. "Yes, but they're presented in a very dignified way. Mr. Barnes has an excellent photographer. Besides, darling, aren't you maybe thinking a little behind the times if it seems immoral to you? Almost all the models do it these days."
"Yes, but...." Karen was pitiably embarrassed.
"Well, honey, I'm certainly not trying to force you to do it," said Carla, somewhat annoyed at the girl's lack of cooperation. "But Mr. Barnes pays a $100 fee, and it's no more than two hours' work."
Karen brightened, seemingly impressed. "Golly, a hundred dollars? I'd get that much for just two hours of posing?"
"You'll have $85 all for yourself, after my fee," Carla tempted her.
"Well, I guess, maybe...." She was coming a-round now, Carla knew.
"Karen," Joe broke in, "I want to assure you it's strictly a business proposition. You obviously have the looks and figure and I'd like to have you as a Guzzler's Gal, but if you have any doubts or fears...."
Karen's clouded face opened all at once and she smiled, obviously having reached her decision. "All right, I'll do it," she said with resolve. "After all, if you and Miss Smith say it's all right, and if I'm going to be one of her models, I guess I've got to take her guidance."
* * *
Joe was feeling slightly ill-at-ease as Karen looked at him. He and Carla had ushered her around the party, introducing her to various people who might conceivably be of help to a budding model. Now Carla had drifted off somewhere and the pretty young girl seemed to be sticking to him. As they had led her through the series of introductions and brief chats, her poise had seemed to grow amazingly in a few short minutes time. It was as if the decision she'd made about posing for his paper had symbolized a larger decision to her. Almost as if she felt herself entering a new way of life, and was determined to be accepted by it. Possibly his quick confirmation of her as a Guzzler's Gal had given her the shot of confidence she needed to believe she could be accepted.
But, was it his imagination, or was she singling him out in some way? Good Lord, he thought, if I get propositioned by two women in one day, I'd better change my brand of shaving lotion. Of course, a kid like Karen wasn't about to be making any Rita-type rape skirmishes, but she might be getting ideas, kidding herself in the romantic way a young girl can with an older man. He'd better let her see he was here with Annie. She probably didn't even realize it yet.
"Mr. Barnes ... Joe," she said now, placing her fingers lightly but familiarly on his arm. Oh-oh. He'd guessed right. This was too obvious. "I know I can trust you, Joe. Are you sure there's nothing ... that I won't be embarrassed in any way, posing nude for your paper?" Her words expressed some remaining doubts, but her eyes betrayed a fascination with the idea of exposing her virginal nudity. It was on her mind all right.
He smiled reassuringly. "Absolutely no embarrassment, Karen. We give the Guzzler's Gals pseudonyms to protect their identities, and, facing facts, our circulation isn't large enough that any of your friends are likely to see it. If they do, and if any of them think it's dirty, that's their hang-up, not yours."
"Where do we do it?" she asked.
"Take the pictures, you mean? Well, let's make a date right now. We'll meet on Wednesday at 6:00 at Carl Jenson's studio, Okay? Here's his card." He handed her a business card. "Carl and I will be the only ones there, unless you want to bring a chaperone. Feel free to do so, if it'll put you more at ease."
"Okay. Wednesday night at six will be fine, Joe."
He'd better pull out, he knew, before the conversation had a chance to become more personal. "Well, if you'll excuse me, Karen, I've been neglecting my sweetheart. That's her over there." He indicated Annie across the room, and noted that Karen's face clouded just a bit. "So ... Have a nice time, now." He -edged away.
"All right, Joe ... Mr. Barnes. See you Wednesday."
* * *
Carla smiled sweetly at Annie, at the same time watching Burt in her peripheral vision over the shapely brunette's shoulder. The two women were seated on a sofa, while Burt stood several feet away, engaged in a tottering, gesticulating conversation with a man she didn't know. Probably one of his newspaper friends. Damn him, he was getting drunk again. She could tell by the way he kept rocking back on his heels as he talked. Angrily dismissing thoughts of her husband, she concentrated her attention on Annie.
"So you're Joe's new girl, eh? You're very pretty. Joe's a lucky man." Behind her charming smile she was thinking that Annie was really the lucky one. After all, she, Carla, was in a position to know just what kind of good loving the cute Texan was getting unless Joe had gone downhill. He sure didn't look it, though, she thought with envy. She hadn't realized the jolt it would give her to see him again. Here she was, saddled with a drunken old man, while this girl next to her was being so thrillingly taken care of, love-wise. It didn't seem fair. She was suddenly very jealous of Annie.
"Yes, Miss Smith ... Carla. Joe and I have been going together for, oh, a couple of months now I guess."
Carla veiled her eyes, sizing Annie up. Cute enough, nice figure, especially those big, juicy knockers, damn her; sweet face, but ... did she have the style and flare it takes to really tie a man up in knots? How would she measure up in a vamping contest, Carla wondered, and was intrigued with the idea. Could she, if she took a notion, pry Joe away from Annie and run with him? Could she do it and still stay married? Did she care whether or not she stayed married to Burt Goslin? Now there was a question to mull over seriously, she realized, her eyes flitting briefly and disgustedly in her husband's direction. God, it would be exciting if she could be in Joe's arms again!
"I'll bet you're a big help to him in his business", she said to Annie. "How is the paper doing these days, by the way?"
"Oh, just fine", Annie said proudly. "Joe's a smart feller. Circulation keeps going up a little bit every week now."
Damn. Not that she wasn't glad for Joe, but she couldn't help thinking how she'd married a man for the prestige of his name and the idea he could help her professionally, and absolutely nothing had happened so far. Where as old pants-seat Joe Barnes was turning out to be the guy with the cash jobs to give, and might be on his way to being a lot bigger name than Burt Goslin, despite Burt's byline in a big daily newspaper. He was certainly a hell of a lot better lover in the bargain. Damn.
"Of course, I guess you know better than I do, what a smart feller Joe is", Annie was saying. "He tells me you were high school classmates."
* * *
"Well, how're you doing, Mom?" Burt asked heartily. They were seated together on a chaise lounge. "Enjoying the party?" He slapped her playfully on the thigh and gave her a little squeeze.
"Oh, you feisty thing", she giggled. "Stop that."
She pushed his hand away, but was inwardly pleased by his flirtatious attention, even if he was only trying to butter up his new mother-in-law. She was getting a little tight, she knew. Oh well, what the hell, so was Burt from the look of him. Now that she'd met him, she couldn't see why Carla had written that she wasn't happy with him. He seemed perfectly charming to her. As a matter-of-fact, she thought he was kind of cute.
Burt's gaze wandered and his expression grew thoughtful as she watched him.
"What's on your mind, Burt darling?", she asked. "You look like you're deep in thought."
"Oh", said Burt, contemplating the crowd of happy revelers in his living room, "I was just wondering what the poor people are doing this afternoon."
CHAPTER FIVE
Joe lazed in the hot Sunday afternoon sun. He lay in swimming trunks on a blanket in his backyard patio. The only sounds reaching his ears were occasional bird chrips that sounded as drugged as he felt, by the heat and brilliance of the sun. He lifted his beer can to his lips once again and drank deeply. The cool brew felt good swirling over his innards, and soothing to his troubled mind.
Renting this house had been a good idea. It put a strain on his budget, but provided a healthy change of scene from his downtown day-and-night life. A good, peaceful place to sort things out. He especially liked the privacy of his redwood-fenced backyard on a hot Sunday afternoon.
Maybe Annie should be here. Maybe they could talk it all out. He thought not, though. What could he say that would make any sense, when he couldn't figure out his emotions himself? He thought lovingly, albeit sadly, of his sweet Texas girl. He hoped she was enjoying her zoo outing with her cousin this afternoon.
She was a bright little thing. You couldn't fool her. Last night after the Goslins' party, when they'd stopped at a couple of joints on the Square, she'd sensed intuitively that something was wrong. Maybe she didn't know exactly what-did he, for that matter?-but her perception of it was there in the big, blue eyes when he'd kissed her goodnight. No word, no acknowledgement of the new wall between them had been spoken, but Annie had known.
He tilted the can again. Empty. Rising with a sigh, he padded into the kitchen to fetch another. There were spots before his eyes, and a dizzy sensation, after the sun. Probably have holes in my head too, he mused disgustedly as he cracked the fresh can of beer. He returned to his blanket in the sun and to his troubled thoughts.
The haunting, golden apparition took center stage of his mind again. She really hadn't been completely out of his thoughts, waking or sleeping, since yesterday. He'd dreamt about her last night, and it was the first one of those dreams he'd had in a long long time. Carla. The hauntingly beauteous, maddeningly desirable, enchantingly wicked ... Carla. His hips writhed on the blanket from the sheer wanting of her. Face it, Joe, you want her. You want her so bad you can taste it. She's no good, certainly no good for you, but you're going out of your head with yearning for her. There isn't the least shred of logic involved, but there it is.
Was she really such a witch though? Had their split-up been all her fault? That time in Wichita, that was the turning point. For both of them. If he had behaved better, been more of a man, maybe ... Who knows, they might still be together today.
He knew he'd yearned secretly for her ever since he could remember, before, during, and after her marriage to Mickey. But with no real hope of possessing her, no idea she regarded him as anything other than a platonic friend, the role he'd always played.
Then came Wichita, when he'd been on the road for the show promotion company, and his bold invitation to her to join him there for a short vacation. Even then, even when a mix-up in the reservations at his motel had forced them to share the same room, he hadn't realized he was about to possess her. He had to smile into the sun now, at his naivete of the time. He'd been younger then, in more ways than years.
That first night, she'd practically had to lead him by the hand to the altar of her lush treasures of love. He'd lain there in the dark room on his twin bed, in sleepless misery, wanting her, but had made no move. Finally, wondrously, she had come to him.
The gift she'd given him there in the darkness, the gift of her soft body, the loving words, the tender caresses-was one of such consummate glory that, he'd realized long ago, the memory of it would haunt him the rest of his years.
She'd revoked his license to the gates of heaven soon enough, he recollected sadly. There'd been the boozy, bottle-club-hopping party with a group of his friends in Wichita. Carla had disappeared with one of them, a swinger named Richard, and hadn't shown up at the motel until dawn. During his lonely night of hell, he'd come to his cruel decision. Trashing out from his hurt, he'd decided to kiss her off, send her home, kill it dead. Though she and Richard had solemnly sworn that nothing improper had happened, he'd refused to hear or believe. He'd practically kicked her out bodily.
Back in St. Louis, they'd made up briefly, abortively. Their passion was now an angry thing. There was a wall that no words or makings of love seemed able to dissolve. It was as if he had hurt her terribly, beyond repair, although they never spoke of Wichita.
She'd seemed fundamentally changed, somehow. Wilder, with a strain of desperation in her search for fun and success in her modelling career. He remembered it was about that time she'd seen the movie "Breakfast At Tiffany's". Immediately, she'd taken on the airs of a midwestern Holly Golightly, complete with long cigarette holder. Her apartment had started to be always crowded with people, mostly well-healed looking men, and there'd been lots of continuous drinking and partying. The men were business associates, she'd said.
Then, as their affair had gradually petered into near nothingness, she'd begun making "business" trips with these sleek men, to New York, California, even the Caribbean a time or two. Ugly rumors reached his ears, to the effect that Carla had become merely a high-priced traveling companion for her business associates. Some definitions of her activities had been even less kind.
Finally, the night on Gaslight had ended even the pretense they'd been keeping up. He'd brought along another couple for an evening out. Arriving at Carla's apartment, they'd found her tipsy, and clad only in the tiniest of leopard-skin bikinis. Before slipping a dress over the bikini, she'd given a suggestive and curiously pathetic dancing show which had offended his friend's wife.
Nonetheless, they had ventured out onto the Square, the four of them. At the Brantly-A-Go-Go, Carla had excused herself to go to the ladies room and emerged wearing only the leopard bikini. Without returning to their table, she'd bounced onto the dance floor, nearly nude in the bikini and gripping the long cigarette holder in her teeth, there to be pawed by one turtle-necked young punk after another, to the driving beat of the rock music. Wordlessly, fighting back the nausea in his throat, he had left, and it had been officially over between them.
Or so he'd made himself believe all these years. He was gripped now with the familiar yearning, redoubled if anything, and he realized the old, fatal thing had never really died at all. It had just been forced underground by a defense mechanism of his rftind. Yesterday, the close-up sight of her had blasted down his defense mechanisms as if they'd been made of tissue paper.
"You ought to lock your doors", she said teasingly.
At first he thought he hadn't really heard the lightly spoken words. It was her voice. The sun must be making him punchy. It couldn't be her. Then why was his heart pounding like a triphammer? He rolled over.
"Carla!"
"Hi, Joe. Can I come in? Or should I say 'out'?"
She was a dazzling sensation to him, standing there in the sun in a cool, pink, clinging cotton outfit trimmed in white with white heels. Her tall, sensuous femininity seemed to fill the whole yard. Presently, Joe regained his powers of speech.
"Why, Carla, what the hell. Talk about surprises. Sit down." He rose, feeling awkward, all hands and feet. For want of something better to say, he blurted, "Let me get you a beer," knowing full well she didn't drink beer. Didn't used to at least.
He strode nervously to the kitchen while she seated herself in one of the deck chairs. Excitedly, he wondered what could have occasioned this completely unexpected visit, un-dreamed-of visit would be a better word. Get a hold on yourself now, he cautioned silently as he turned to rejoin her.
By the time he had placed pilseners of beer on the small table between them, and seated himself opposite her, he had regained at least his outward composure.
"Well, Carla, what brings you out to the wilds of Clayton?", he asked with bland friendliness, although he was well-nigh faint at her sudden, dazzling appearance in his ward.
"Oh, I was just out driving and happened to be passing by", she said, seeming to try to match his casualness. Suddenly her lovely face changed, the impersonal smile disappeared, and she lowered her eyes for a moment. In a subdued tone, she continued: "I guess you know better than that, don't you, Joe?"
"Uh-huh." He didn't know better, but what else could he say?
She met his eyes again and her face was troubled. "Joe, I've got a problem. I've been up all night without a wink of sleep. I....", she shook her head defeatedly, her blonde tresses glinting in the sun, " ... I simply don't know where to turn. I ... I thought of you." Her voice rose in pitch as though she were near tears.
"Well, what's the matter?", Joe asked, concerned. "I'm glad you came and if I can do anything ... Do you need money or anything like that?"
Her first sob broke forth, shaking her luscious torso, and she buried her face in her hands. Peal after peal of bitter weeping tore from her shuddering bosom, as Joe sat, feeling useless, nonplussed by the turn of events. He rose and put his palm gently upon her back, patting her soothingly. Even in this situation, he was aware, the mere touch of her excited him wildly. She was so lovely. The years seemed to disappear as though they had never been. It was as if she had always been here, as if they had always been together.
"Oh, Joe I've been such a fool", she wailed bitterly into her cupped hands. "Such a bloody, stupid, damned fool!"
"Take it easy, honey", he soothed, patting her. "Cry it out and then tell me about it." He sat down again, pulling his chair closer to her. Presently, her grief-stricken spasms seemed to dimish.
She dabbed at her moist eyes with a hanky and sniffled: "Oh, Joe, I've gotten myself into an impossible marriage!" This revelation brought on fresh tears which took several more moments to subside. "I'm soooo unhappy", she blubbered pitiably.
"Come on, Carla, it can't be as bad as all that", Joe placated. "All marriages have their rough spots at first. Burt's a good, decent guy basically, now isn't he?" And what does that make you, buddy, sitting around wishing you could get into the pants of the good, decent guy's wife?, he thought miserably.
"He's not decent. He's a beast!", Carla shrilled. "Oh, Joe you don't know how awful he can be. He's forever drunk and he ... he gets violent sometimes." Her precious head dropped and she blank-stared her misery into her lap. Then she fixed him again with frightened blue eyes and her soft hand crept to cover his on the table. She might have been applying an electric terminal to his hand, for the shock that coursed through his body at her touch. She said: "And, Joe, he's not ... a man."
He knew now why she had come and his heart sang. It was wrong, it would surely be the worst thing he had ever done, but that seemed of the most minute insignificance at this moment. He wasn't really thinking, he knew, only giddily sensing as he stood up. Her blondeness and pinkness and enchanting fragrance filled his being. They were his being, suddenly. Nothing else exsited. She was the flowering focus of the need which filled his consciousness. His strong hands, immeasurably strengthened by the simple fact of her presence, went under her arms. She couldn't possibly have resisted his strength, nor did she try, as he lifted her against him. Their bodies welded in a throbbing, magnetic seeking. Their wide open mouths met in violent union.
Her hunger, he discovered, was as ravenously insatiable as his. The salt taste of her tears lubricated the searing kiss as their mouths sought to devour each other. The hot sweetness of her frantic tongue and nipping teeth lashed his surging passions.
Achingly, his arms encompassed her clinging lushness, his hands tremblingly rediscovering her-the ripe roundness of her buttocks, the flowing smoothness of her thighs and back. He hefted her against him, knowing the ache in his arms was caused by a yearning of too-long standing. She seemed at once exquisitely and thrillingly new, and yet infinitely more precious than any mere aspect of newness could lend, better for having been cherished before, finer for having been desired for so long.
Their scalding kiss broke at last and he looked into her lovely face. Her wet lips, the lipstick smeared wantonly, were open and trembling as she returned his gaze with tear-filled eyes.
"Oh, Joe", she murmured, snuggling her golden head into the hollow of his neck. "I'd forgotten how it could be with us. I thought I remembered, but no ... I'd forgotten it could be like this."
"Are you sure you know what you're getting into, Carla?", he croaked. Holding her close, knowing her like this again, he realized his question was pointless. If she were to try and stop him now, he knew, he'd tear her clothes off and take her by force, so great was his need.
"I can't help myself, Joe." She strained her hips against him with tantalizing friction. "I need you. That's all that matters now. Nothing else is important", she breathed shudderingly.
His fingers funmbled ineffectively at the zipper of her dress. "I can't get it open, Carla", he muttered, darting his tongue into her ear. "Hurry, or I'm liable to rip it off."
Though her hands were trembling too, he saw, she had better success with the zipper. In a second she stood before him, encumbered only by the maddening white silk of her gauzy bra and laced bikini panties. He held her at arms lenghth and allowed himself a long, hungry look.
Her tall, lithe, perfectly turned figure had, if anything improved, become firmer, riper, an even more desirable receptacle for love. The smooth, rolling reaches of her curving flesh were tanned a golden-brown hue which contrasted deliriously with the silk whiteness of panties and bra.
"You look like a man who likes what he sees", she cooed softly, gently freeing her shoulders from his grip. "Let's give you an even better look, shall we?"
An almost inaudible groan of appreciation grumbled in his throat as she quickly and gracefully moved to complete her radiant nudity. Joe dizzied with delight and need as she posed for him there in the brilliant sunlight. Every pore of her creamy flesh seemed to shimmer and open to him as he devoured her nakedness with his eyes. She turned, then turned again, giving him a choice of several tantalizing angles during this delicious moment before love.
The whiteness of her lower tummy, where it had been covered against the sun, began to twitch and tremble. A perceptible beat throbbed just under its incredible smoothness. Her swelling breasts too, reacted to his ardent gaze, tightening in flesh-crawling waves and bluging forward. Their broad, red caps bunched and puckered, squeezing forth the sensational tips he remembered so fondly. As he watched the spiking antennae, they seemed to circle and beckon to him. So be it. Wordlessly, he slid his trunks down and placed his hard-muscled, spread-stanced masculinity in virile juxtaposition to her soft, yielding femininity.
Then, at the same instant, neither could prolong restraint. They rushed into each other's arms.
Her lush nakedness spread the length of his body, wiggling and undulating. Joe felt his passion rise to the bursting point at the rubbing, straining contact.
"Carla ... darling. It's just like it was before ... Nothing has changed for me", he murmured brokenly into her ear as he held her close.
She ground herself wetly against his thigh and gurgled: "It's not like before, Joe. It's better. Let's make it even better shall we?"
She framed his big head with her hands and captured his mouth in a tonguing, deep-sucking kiss. The kiss held as he sank slowly to the blanket. He lay on his back and she looked tenderly down at him from her hands and knees. With the sun behind her head forming a glowing halo around her golden curls, he believed he had never seen a face so lovely. Her springly breasts dangled just above his chest. When she dipped to brush their throbbing red nipples back and forth across him, he knew he must have her. Now.
Suddenly, imbued with a fierce strength, he grasped her firmly about the hips and rolled with her, covering her tummy, hips, and thighs with many hot, biting kisses. He heard her moan of shocked delight as he joined her lubriously with a last, long, writhing kiss.
Her body squirmed in his clutches now, and he had difficulty holding her still enough to prolong his intimate kissing. She wiggled and shuddered, as if suffering intense pain, while he listened to her grasping moans. They became higher and higher pitched and turned at last into a succession of loud, agonized whimpers.
"Please, Joe, please", she gasped. "I can't stand it any more!"
He went to her then, thrusting his hardness liquidly into her hot, yearning softness. "Oh, Joe, Joe, Joe", she breathed rapturously as they settled into their long-practiced and easy rhythms of love. Could it have been so long? He wondered in disbelief. How could it be so perfect, so right as it was now. They hadn't danced this wondrous dance together for so long a time! Perhaps in both their dreams they had always been together like this.
Compulsively, as he neared his brusting pinnacle, his thrusts became deeper, faster, more ferocious. Carla dug sharp nails into his back and cried her strangling torment into the face of the sun. Together they crashed skyward, catapulted to the very surface of the blazing white-hot ball. Here they remained for a long, terrible, wonderful moment. Finally, mercifully, they floated slowly earthward. Together.
Later, lying peacefully together in the sun, hands joined, Carla sighed contentedly and said: "It's good to be back, my darling."
"I want it to work this time, Carla. Somehow there's got to be a way." Was there a way? He honestly didn't know. All he knew was that he was no longer a man on a brink. He'd taken his leap and, right now, was deliriously glad of it.
CHAPTER SIX
Burt lifted the chintz curtain of his bedroom window and gazed at his fine, sweeping view of Forest Park. From his seventeenth floor vantage point, the golfers looked like little toy men trudging across the green landscape. That's where he ought to be on such a bright, sunny Sunday afternoon, he reflected-on the golf course. Oh, he'd be getting just as vigorous exercise here in the bedroom all right, but what could be found on the golf course was surely a bit safer, less complicated.
He turned to look again upon the naked woman in the bed. Their eyes met and she smiled coarsely at him, her nudity sprawled every which way atop the blue sheets.
He asked himself, did he really want this woman? Was he trying to prove something? Something suspect perhaps, and more than a little neurotic? Not that she wasn't attractive within certain limits. Certainly those ripe breasts which stood tall of their own strength even though she was lying on her back ... certainly they were sex objects you didn't have to be neurotic to appreciate.
Oh yes, even at his advancing age, which he seemed to be increasingly conscious of lately, he was still a believer in sex including purely physical sex. Sex for sex's sake. Nothing unhealthy about that if both partners understood the ground rules and nobody else got hurt by it. He'd go to his grave, he hoped, retaining a respect and appreciation for a good lusty romp in the hay. Even if it was just that, a playful romp and nothing more. The naked woman in his bed this afternoon certainly qualified as a suitable partner for a fun project like that.
But it was risky, bringing her here to his and Carla's apartment. He could have met her somewhere else. Carla had said she'd be gone all afternoon, probably until about six o'clock. But she was hardly famous for invariably sticking to pre-set timetables. There was always the possibility she might walk in that door at any moment. Yes, it was risky bringing the woman here.
A further thought struck him and started him slowly pacing across the room, his hands knotted professorially behind his nude buttocks. Maybe he wanted Carla to catch them. Not on a conscious level, of course. Consciously, he dreaded such a prospect-Then why take the calculated risk when there was no practical need to do so?
He certainly didn't want to break up his marriage. Against all logic, he loved that kooky, exciting, exasperating, nagging, gorgeous blonde with all his heart. That he was sure of but there'd been some elusive something missing from their marriage right from the start. Some intangible ingredient he was hard pressed to grasp, but which, he knew, frequently left him feeling less than a whole man. Either it was something Carla wasn't giving or he wasn't taking. How could he take it when he didn't know exactly what it was?
If it somehow had something to do with their sex life, which is, after all, at the core of the marital relationship, then just maybe his risking being discovered in a sexual indiscretion with this woman did make a kind of inverted sense. Maybe, in a perverse way he was trying to prove to Carla-and to himself along the way-that he was able to, firstly, get a woman and, secondly, satisfy a woman. Which, on one level, is proving that you're a man ... But why the need for such proof? He'd certainly gotten Carla herself, and recently. Wasn't he, then, satisfying her? Ay, there could be the rub. He didn't know. She never complained about their love-making, but...? He didn't know. Had he really gotten her in the first place? He, Burt Goslin, the man? Or had the fact of his semi-celebrity status in town been what clinched her acceptance of the marriage contract? That was a disquieting thought that had crossed his mind more than once. He needed a drink.
Padding to the bureau-his auxiliary bar, he often called it-he took the scotch bottle and two glasses in hand.
"Join me?" he cordially asked the naked woman.
"I don't mind if I do, Burt baby," she accepted, rising up on her elbow so that one heavy breast plopped on top of the other. Burt poured and came to the bed.
"Here you are, doll face", he said, handing her her glass.
"Thanks, precious", she answered.
He didn't really think of her as doll face, and doubted that she regarded him as precious. But hell, as long as they were playing the game, they might as well play it by the book. He nestled beside her, touching his hairy thigh to the smoothness of her hip. Placing a hand on her stomach, low down, he noted that her skin was smooth, and the flesh under it firm. He took a slug of his scotch.
Booze. It'd kill him some day he feared. He'd long since lost his capacity to hold it well. It was funny thing how when you were young and just starting out to drink, you couldn't hold it at all-Then, with the passage of time, your capacity built and built, and it would take more and more to make you high. Finally you started to go downhill and got where you couldn't handle any more than you could as a teenager. Sort of a cycle of life, in a decanter. He really should cut down. He'd been trying to train himself not to take his first one of the day until five o'clock and it was only three now. For once, Carla might be right about him staggering by dinner time.
The naked woman slid her hand up his thigh and fondled him intimately and waggingly.
"You know, you're kind of cute, Burt baby", she remarked.
"Oh? You think so? Now, how many men have you said that to?", he smiled at her.
"Oooh ... a few, I guess", she giggled.
Yes, John Barleycorn would be the death of him yet, he mused sadly, taking another staunch blast. It seemed like these days, these years, he couldn't do without it. Couldn't do the column without it. Not that he was loaded while he wrote, but so many of his ideas came to him while he was under the influence. That was the old devil: ideas. You had to come up with a new one every day-every cotton-picking day-week in and year out. It got harder as the years passed, to keep from repeating yourself like a senile old man. Sometimes the column seemed like a great yawning mouth, sucking the life out of him. How could that be? The column was his life. The booze made it harder, drugging his mind, slowing him down, and yet it was the only thing, it seemed, that gave him the strength to live under his own personal gun.
"Does this feel good, Burt?", the woman asked seductively as she cupped and squeezed and jiggled him.
"You bet, honey", he replied, his thoughts still far away. For some unapparent reason, he suddenly thought of Jeanne. Had she ever, perhaps, in their foreplay, said the same thing to him? Asked him if it feels good, in just that way? Cascading memories of her raced through his mind. Jeanne, the vivacious young wife, she of the sparkling, happy eyes and the ready, tender smile ... and the loving heart. He remembered the young newspaperman at her side. Barely past his cub reporter stage, he was. He'd just been raised to the munificent salary of $40 a week. How proud Jeanne had been of her husband and his pay raise. Now they could start a family ... Suddenly, Burt had to press his fingers tightly to his eyes and wag his head to cut off the quick, hot tears that tried to surface. He shouldn't think like that. He should never, never let himself remember the young almost-mother, dead, and the baby that never quite saw the light of day.
"Is anything wrong, Burt honey?", asked the naked woman.
"Naw", he responded gruffly. "I just got something in my eyes for a second." He breathed deeply once and opened his eyes to leer at her up and down. "Say, you're kind of a cute, sexy little trick yourself, now that I notice." He pinched her playfully near the navel.
"Ooh, that feels good too", she said, screwing herself up closer to him and grasping him more tightly with one hand.
Well, here we go, Burt said to himself as he slid his hand upward over her smooth skin to mount and cup one of her burgeoning bosoms. He found he almost had a let's-get-it-over-with attitude toward the love scene he was about to play. On the other hand, he noticed that his physical instincts were responding, as the woman kneaded him with a quickening beat.
"Oh, I like that Burt", the woman sighed in appreciation of his breast play. "Keep it up-You're starting to get hot too, aren't you? I can see."
He did not answer, concentrating on her breasts which were beginning to swell even larger under his tickling, tweaking, squeezing hands. She had a pretty nice pair ... a pretty luscious body all over, he appraised, glancing the nude length of her. A nice curve to the thighs, flat tummy, full, sexy hips that looked like they could give a man a rousing tussle. Her skin was very nice, very smooth. He took a persimmon-colored nipple between thumb and forefinger of each hand and manipulated them gently. They hardened rapidly as he rolled them back and forth, and he heard her breath becoming more labored.
He thought of Carla's breasts and smiled. Poor darling, she had such a complex about them, more than she'd ever admit straight out. She thought they were too small. It simply wasn't the case, by his tastes. He'd have to remember to always do his best to reassure her. Sure, they were nowhere near the size of these big melons he was hefting in his hands right now, but they were plenty ample. Juicy, firm, and springy and those spectacular nipples of hers! Yes, they were just fine by him. The kind he was playing with right now, might actually be considered a little too floppy.
"Oh, I'm starting to get very hot, Burt sweetheart. Are you?"
He twisted around, careful not to break his handling of her nipples, and snuggled his nudity against hers, full length. Yes, he noted pleasurably, he was starting to get hot. He moved one hand from her breast and snaked it lightly, slowly, teasingly down her body, playing in and out around the many hills and valleys of her quickening flesh. Prying her open, he forced a gasp of delight from her mouth as he suddenly touched her with wet boldness.
His hips began to work steadily against her side, as their roaming fingers on each others skins stroked and pulled their passions toward the surface.
The woman's breath rasped and gurgled in her throat as she laid herself moistly open to him, her hips writhing under his urgent touch.
"Oh, Burt, I'm ready, so ready. Are you ready? Can you...?"
He was ready. Shifting, he took her vigorously, and had an image of slicing into a huge piece of fruit, ripe and juicy.
"Oh my God, Burt, you're a regular tiger aren't you?", she squealed happily.
Yes, there was nothing like a good, lusty romp in the hay, he decided once more. Sex for sex's sake. Thrusting vigorously again and again, hearing the woman's delighted responses expressed in her incoherent gurgles of pleasure with each new plunge, he guessed he wasn't ready for the boneyard yet. Heck, this was pure fun! Who could get hurt?
Carla stepped into the bedroom doorway. Her blue eyes went wide at the sight of the two naked figures grunting and wallowing against each other in her bed.
The rapt love-makers snapped to embarrassed attention at her shock-sounding words: "Burt! ... Mother!"
CHAPTER SEVEN
Karen stepped from the tiny dressing room into the large, skylighted studio. The barn-like room was a littered disarray of lights, cameras, backdrops, props and other assorted tools of Carl Jenson's trade. She looked across the room to where Carl and Joe sat in earnest conversation, waiting for her. They seemed not to have noticed her re-emergence from the dressing room yet.
Well, she certainly noticed herself! She was flamingly conscious of her complete nudity beneath the kimono she had donned just now. A heart-fluttering mixture of fear and excitement seemed to fill her and turn her knees to rubber. This would be the first time in her whole life any man had ever seen her naked. Well, daddy had of course, but not since she was a much littler girl, certainly not since she'd begun to get breasts. Yes, she was both scared and thrilled by the knowledge that in a minute or two, the eyes of these two men would be examining her naked flesh. Not only that, they'd be making photographs of it for others to see later! Shocking. But wickedly exciting too.
The two men looked up and saw her. "Yes, come on over, Karen", Carl called cheerily, rising casually.
How could they be so nonchalant about what was happening?, she wondered. She liked Carl though. He was a big, gawky young man-around 25, she'd put him-rather lardy in the pants seat, with an open, innocent air about him that she felt she could trust. Of course, she had confidence in Joe ... Mr. Barnes ... too. She approached Joe and Carl.
"Well, let's get right down to business, shall we?", Carl suggested. He led her to a brightly spotlighted area in front of a white limbo backdrop. "Now, I'll want you positioned right about here", he directed her. "See the little X on the floor?"
Karen nodded, gulping. Oh lord, it was almost time. He'd be telling her to take off the kimono any second now. The lights were so bright. They'd be able to see everything. She had an impulse to turn and run as fast as she could. However, the panicked impulse faded as her frightened eyes flitted searchingly about and found Joe's. He stood off to one side, behind the lights. Somehow her courage returned as she looked into his eyes. Yes, she could have confidence in him. There was a comforting smile on his face which seemed to tell her he understood and sympathized with her perplexed emotions.
He said: "Don't worry, Karen. Everything will be all right. Carl and I know this is a little tough for a new model. Just try to relax, and remember we're all professional people, here to do a job. That's all."
His deep voice soothed her. Golly, he was a handsome man. A good, gentle man too, you could tell just by looking at him.
She saw Carl looking at her with questioning expectancy.
"Now?", she asked. Her pulse was racing and she hardly recognized the squeak of a voice that came out of her.
Carl nodded and said: "If you're ready." He held out his hand for the kimono.
She stood ramrod straight, closed her eyes, and gritted her teeth. There was a pause. Then, with trembling fingers, she parted the kimono and slipped it off. Every pore of her flesh was alive to the light friction of the fabric as it slithered off and away. Behind her closed eyes, she felt the blood rush burningly to her cheeks. Now she was stark naked, fully exposed to them, she knew. She didn't want to ever open her eyes. How could she possibly face them, how could she bear to see them looking at her? Her thighs were clamped tightly together as she stood rigid under the lights. It required a supreme effort of self control to keep her twitching hands from leaping to cover her naked femininity. Finally, she forced herself to open her eyes and extend the limp, empty kimono to Carl.
"Thanks, Karen", Carl mumbled distractedly as he took the kimono and turned away. He tossed the garment onto a chair and bent over his camera, fiddling with it. He hadn't even glanced down at her, she realized with a little shock of puzzlement. What the heck. You'd think he was getting ready to photograph a bowl of fruit, he was taking it so casually. She didn't know whether to be relieved or insulted at the photographer's apparent lack of male interest in her nude charms.
In any event, she could feel the nervous tension easing now that the deliciously dreaded first moment of exposing herself was passed. She was even becoming aware of the warmth radiating from the kleig lamps above and around her. It gave her a sensation something like taking a warm bath.
She dared at last to look in Joe's direction. He wasn't even noticing her! Was there something wrong with her, or what? Joe sat there leafing through a magazine.
He got up and stepped to where Carl was readying the camera. "I like this pose, Carl. What do you think?" He indicated a fetching nude in the men's magazine he'd been poring through. Carl nodded in agreement.
"OK, the camera's set", Carl announced, business-like. "Now Karen, honey, I want you to kneel. Right there on the X mark ... That's right, now sit back on your haunches ... Back straight ... Fine, good, now turn your shoulders just a little more toward me...."
As she arranged herself according to Carl's directions, Karen allowed herself a downward glance at her young nudity. She sought and found reassurance there. Of course there was nothing wrong with her. It wasn't at all that her figure wasn't lusciously feminine and sexy. The seeming disinterest of the photographer and the publisher was simply because, as Joe had said, they were professional people at work. She subtly thrust her saucy, round breasts a little farther forward, though Carl had not directed her to. There were very good breasts, she decided, stealing another quick glance at them.
"... Now if you could smile just a little bigger, Karen ... That's right ... Now tilt your head more to the side....", Carl was saying.
Maybe she was an inexperienced girl, but at leasts breasts were a subject she did know something about. She'd had countless opportunities to compare her own with other girls' in the locker room before and after gym class. Hers, if not huge, were certainly bigger than the average. She'd become aware of that long ago. Who wanted really immense ones anyway? That Mary Ryan, for instance, hers were like a cow's udders, hanging down so far and looking like they were always in her way ... The hue of her own nipples too, Karen thought, was prettier than most. Some of the girls had dark, leather-looking tips-Milly Tibbs even had hair growing around the edges of hers-where her own nipples were a glossy, soft pink shade, very delicate, very feminine. They sat high and proud on her perky round globes-A couple of the girls had even enviously told her she had the nicest pair of breasts at school. Veronica Schmidt had even asked her to let her touch them. She'd been on the verge of saying OK, but something about the way Veronica had looked at them, kind of a hungry look, had told her she'd better not.
"OK, Karen, hold it ... Look straight at the camera." She heard a faint click. "Got it", Carl said. "You can relax for a couple of minutes now."
Karen purposely made a little stumble as she rose, so that her creamy young spheres would jiggle and bounce. She veiled her eyes with her lashes and peeked at them as they wobbled independently for a second. Their smooth round contours seemed to shimmer under the bright photography lights. Yes, no one could say she didn't have fine breasts.
She looked toward Joe and was again disappointed to discover that he was not watching her. He was going through more magazines. Well, professionals at work or not, she hoped he wasn't all that unimpressed with her, from a male point of view. It suddenly dawned on her that her shy timidity about posing nude had evaporated completely. She was actually enjoying it now.
The two men agreed on a second pose and Carl gave step-by-step directions as before.
As she nestled into the alluring prone position, she realized with a tingly shock, that while the camera angle would hide some of her from the eyes of Guzzler's readers, the pose openly focused all her femininity in the direction where Joe was now standing. This time he was watching! She wondered wickedly if he could tell she was a virgin by looking at her from that angle.
"Karen, honey, move your knee a little more to the right", Carl directed.
As she complied, she knew the shifted position would show the camera less, but Joe was seeing even more. The knowledge sent a warm liquid surge through her. How tired she was of being a virgin. How wonderful it would be to stop being a virgin in the arms of a man like Joe Barnes. Heck, most of the other girls at school had long since taken the big step. She sometimes felt like a silly little child because she hadn't. Maybe she'd put too much stock in mother's stories about sex. Among other things, mother had insisted it could physically damage your body if you were too young. Well and good, but Sally Smythe didn't seem to be damaged from her affair with Walter. As a matter-of-fact, Sally looked healthier than ever. Karen would swear her breasts were larger now, and certainly Sally's complexion had cleared up. Of course, on mom's side was the fact that Carole Bascombe hadn't shown up for the graduation ceremony last week. The word was out that she was pregnant ... "OK, now smile ... real big ... that's right...." Carl's voice broke into her thoughts. Certainly, if she could somehow be lucky enough to have a man like Joe introduce her to the mysteries of sex, she knew she'd be all right. Joe would never let her get pregnant or hurt her soft body. He'd be strong and gentle. Her friend Wanda said all girls should have an older man for their first time. Oh, she bet, Joe would make it pure heaven for her. A fantasy scene entered her mind, wherein Joe hovered dynamically above her, his strong face close to hers, his masculinity overpowering her. So warmly moving was the image that she could feel herself throbbing with desire. She wondered if Joe could see her throbbing from where he sat.
Click...."OK, Karen, rest." Almost reluctantly, she tucked herself together, cutting off Joe's view of her charms. She hoped it had been exciting to him. His face, she saw, was a noncommittal mask. Surely he couldn't have been completely immune to interest in the moist loveliness she had spread before him.
The session continued. There were many more poses and clickings of the camera. She soon lost count of how many. Her thoughts became increasingly fixed on Joe Barnes and how wonderful it would be to have him make love to her. Her time had come, she decided resolutely, and she wanted him to be the one, her first. Maybe she'd have opportunities to see him often now that she was going to be working on Gaslight Square. She knew he must spend a lot of time there because of his business. Of course, she wasn't sure yet she could make an acceptable go-go girl, or even why Miss Smith wanted her to take the job at the Purple Pussycat. She'd said something about the dancing developing poise that would help later in her modeling work. Anyway, it'd let her be closer to Joe ... Surely, it wouldn't be an unpleasant experience for him, would it? Making love to her? She wouldn't expect him to get involved. He already had a very pretty sweetheart, she knew. But wasn't she worth a man's taking a little time off to give love lessons to? She would just bet she could make him glad he did.
At last, the photography session was at an end. As she dressed, she noted that her clothing, the garments she'd been so scared to remove a couple of hours ago, now felt unpleasantly binding.
Back in the studio, Joe praised: "You were a fine model, Karen. I'll send Miss Smith a check for a hundred dollars first thing in the morning ... Well, how'd you like your first modeling job? It wasn't so tough, was it?"
"Not at all, Joe", she replied, examining his face tenderly. "I want to thank you for the opportunity."
She departed filled with a yearning hope that soon-very soon-she'd have something even more wonderful to thank him for.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Joe sat on the sofa in Annie's living room and reached down to scratch Jocko's chin. Yammering little mutt, he thought, but was unable to restrain a smile at the puppy's frantic antics. Jocko danced about at his feet, whimpering to be picked up. Well, there'll be no peace, Joe decided, so he gathered the tiny black poodle onto his lap. It was impossible not to like the cute puppy, but what really got on his nerves was when the little bastard insisted on making a threesome when he and Annie were in bed together.
He leaned back, letting Jocko lick his hands, listening to the peaceful, domestic sounds of Annie's puttering in the kitchen. What was he going to do? he wondered, wearily rubbing his eyes. No answer came. None seemed imminent despite these four days of brain wracking and soul searching. The dazzling blonde vision danced through his head again, her loveliness taunting him, pricking him with desire Oh Carla, why do I want you so? ... Again no answer.
He ought to have his head examined. Here he had a wonderful, beautiful, faithful woman, and he was just one step short of breaking her heart, destroying both of them maybe. Why, for god's sake? With Carla, he knew he was skating off on a thin-iced adventure that could wreak havoc on several lives. With Annie, he had everything a sane man could want. Fabulous sex, sweet, loving warmth, a tender thread of stability that could reel out into a happy lifetime's length. The great dinner Annie had cooked him this evening was a perfect illustration of his folly-Carla couldn't even boil water. All she had to offer was excitement.
Carla was like the driving rock 'n' roll music down on the Square. She spellbound you with her siren voice, even against your will. That's the way it was with Carla. Even against his will, against every instinct of better judgment, she was a magic, heady champagne that he must drink.
Annie came in from the kitchen bearing a tray laden with coffee and home-made cookies.
"It was a tremendous dinner, sweetheart", he said, patting at his full stomach. "You are one hell of a chicken fryer." How pretty and cute she looked in her baggy sweater and skin-tight black slacks. How could he be such a fool? Here, among other things, was peace. He ought to be supremely contented right now, a fine home-cooked dinner in his gullet, relaxing in old clothes, away from the din.
"I baked you some cookies, dariin'," Annie pointed out, setting the tray on the coffee table. "Hope you like 'em." She sat on the sofa some distance removed from him to pour the coffee.
Joe tasted a cookie. "Delicious, Annie." And they were. Oatmeal-raisin. Sweet thing, she knew that was his favorite kind. She also knew something was wrong, that was plain. Throughout the evening he'd been conscious that both of them were trying to keep things light and easy, like always. It wasn't working. The smiles between them had a forced quality, a sadness behind upturned lips. The golden girl was there between them. He almost felt Annie could look through his eyes and see Carla there, inside his head. He should say something, bring it out into the open, honest and above board. God knew things were no good like this. But what on earth could he say?
"Joe, darlin'", said Annie, settling into the sofa with her coffee, curling her luscious legs under her, a sober expression on her face. "Let's bring it out into the open now, want to?"
He shot her a surprised look. Obviously the suggestion had cost her some effort. Her sweet features were carefully composed, too carefully for naturalness. The blue eyes appeared to be trying to clear themselves of all expression as they gazed steadily at him. He saw sadness and fright behind them.
"Wha ... What do you mean, Annie? Bring what out into the open?" Oh, you're a cowardly heel all right, Joe Barnes. First class, double grade A. He felt like a sneaky kid. As though the cookie that was now turning to dry ashes in his mouth had been stolen from a forbidden jar.
"You know what I mean, darlin'. Something's happened, something's changed. There's a ... a silence between us. We sure can't be going on like this. I think whatever it is, we should talk about it, don't you?" Her face told him she dreaded what he might have to tell her.
He couldn't bring himself to. He said: "Annie, love, you're making something out of nothing. Why, I . .
"Is it another woman, Joe?", she broke in, fearful but persistent. "Have you found someone else, or are you just getting tired of me, or what?"
He hated himself for having brought the dark cloud to those happy blue eyes, for causing the crease that appeared now in the soft brow. Still he faked a smile and said: "Annie, Annie, come on. There's nothing wrong. It must just be a bad time of the month for you ... Hey, I know what's good for what ails you."
He laid his hand on her thigh, just above the knee, and moved it about strokingly. Her first reaction to his suggested cure for her troubles, was negative. She considered him sadly for another long moment, and he thought he saw tears glistening in the corners of her blue eyes. Her hand clasped his, arresting its stroking movements, and her head dropped.
The pained silence dragged on. No sound was audible other than Annie's deep, weary breathing and little Jocko's quizzical scurrying on the sofa between them. Finally, she raised her eyes. A weak smile hovered bravely about her lips.
She said: "Well then, why don't you kiss me?"
Joe moved rapidly to embrace her, yearning but unable to open his aching heart to this beloved woman. As he cradled her in his arms, he thought he heard a sob-like groan pass through her. When he pulled his head back to see, her eyes were dry. Dry, sad, dully bleak.
"Cheer up, Angel", he soothed into her ear, catching her lobe gently in his teeth, trying to capture a mood between them but not even convincing himself. "Everything's gonna work out fine."
Annie mumbled something inaudible. He couldn't make it out, but imagined he caught the phrase, " ... the last time."
He worked his hands on her back, sensing the ripe femininity beneath the baggy sweater. He sniffed the fragrance of her hair. Despite the intimate closeness, the rare desirability of her, his arousal was slow to kindle. Finally, the first flicker made itself felt as he slipped his moving hands beneath the sweater and stroked the smoothness of her bare skin.
"Kiss me, Joe", she bade again. As their lips met, his heart sank at the coolness of hers. Obviously she too was having some difficulty turning on, whereas her usual response to his caressing was quick and passionate. Could their love making have deteriorated so quickly into a hallow ritual?
He insinuated his tongue hesitantly between her cool lips as the kiss continued. Suddenly, as their tongues met, tentatively at first, he felt her passion explode in his arms She came to him hungrily, her mouth opening wide and wetly, growing torridly hot in an instant, her arms trapping him tightly about the neck. Her sudden ignition overpowered him as she forced him back on the cushions, jamming her firm curves hard into him, breaking the marathon kiss only to cover his face with hot tongue-stings and then rejoin.
Joe's own ardor struck at last and quickly matched hers. For the first time in days, he knew release from the guilty binds of his confused emotions. Now he was simply a male engulfed in the erotic closeness of an intensely desirable female. His senses came vividly alive, focusing on Annie as the coveted object of their gratification.
"See, I told you this would be good for what ails you", he reminded her teasingly. His eager hands unsnapped her bra beneath the sweater.
Annie did not reply, apparently preferring to continue her hot-breathed, tonguing attentions to his ear. Each wet jab at the orifice sent a new and stronger wave of need plunging through his body. His hand, he noticed, was beginning to shake as he forced it beneath her weight upon his chest and found the softness of a lolling breast. Annie raised up enough to allow him to cup the luscious vessel and ease it free of their compressed contact. As she stabbed him again wtih a deep-drinking kiss, he avidly explored the ripe heaviness of the breast. Cupping, stroking, kneading its swelling roundness, Joe heard and felt a gurgle of pleasure leap from her throat into his own, through the sweet, dark corridor of their kiss.
Struggling to a sitting position, he shakenly suggested: "Let's go into the other room, want to?"
Annie merely nodded, her blue eyes now glazed with passion, her moist upper lip fluttering with frank carnality. Joe stood and swept her into his arms. He carried her to the dimly lit bedroom and lowered her carefully, gently onto the bed. Standing, he quickly divested himself of his clothing and stood over her. Her eyes, as they had so often shown before at such times, flicked frankly down from his face and examined him for a long moment. When they returned to his face, they were filled with the same craving admiration as always. It moved him deeply for her to look at him in that way. Maybe he could get hold of himself yet, before it was too late, before he lunged headlong and irretrievably into the folly that was engulfing him these days.
"That's a cute outfit you're wearing, hon, but isn't it about due to go to the cleaners?", he ventured with sly tepderness.
For answer, Annie unzipped the side of her clinging slacks. Quickly, Joe seized the garment at the waist and slithered it downward over the lush curves of her hips, thighs, and calfs. Her panties were as rapidly disposed of by the same caressing route, as he thrilled to the touch of her smooth, undulating firmness in torso and limb. In the half light, he observed her watching him expectantly from the midst of her glistening semi-nudity. He swallowed hard against his hunger for her.
He went to his knees beside her and together they removed sweater and bra, his hands rasping warmly over her hardening nipples in the process. Now Annie lay in complete and shimmering nudity before him.
Devouring her consummate sexuality, he breathed, "Oh yes, Annie, you are a lot of woman"
She held out her arms to him and he went to her, enfolding her, tingling to the satin nakedness pressed against the length of his body. Their open mouths joined again as their bodies strained wantonly against each other, the writhing friction fanning the flames of desire to giddy heights.
Seeking hands eagerly found and clutched at each other's nudity with growing urgency. As his anointed fingers dexterously belabored her, Joe heard the breath catching raggedly in Annie's throat.
"Are you ready, Annie?", he muttered.
"Yes, I'm ready, Joe dariin' ... I'm ready", she strangled, her hips jerking violently in tune with his intimate finger exercises.
Pausing briefly and tantalizingly in the threshold of her open welcome, he met her in a roller coaster plunge of shocking delight that tore shuddering gasps from both of them. Then they were deeply together, sharing the joyous knowledge they had shared so many times before, but which never ceased to thrill anew.
Their rhythmic dance started at the slow tempo he knew she preferred at the outset. Slowly, teasingly, each fibre of their beings savored the wondrous closeness. Gradually, bit by bit, as he felt her arms tighten across his back and her heels dig more firmly into his calfs, he stepped up the cadence.
His own urgency mounted to the bursting point. The soft presence he contained in his arms and impaled on his now ferocious thrusts, became a writhing, moaning, scratching thing, clapped in the jaws of a need that he knew matched his own. At the instant his body ran from him and battered through the gates of fulfillment, Annie went taut, clamping him in a steel trap of creamy flesh, and screamed acknowledgement of her own agonizing completion.
For some time they remained entwined in the collapsed aftermath of their draining encounter, until panting breath and enfeebled, twitching limbs could again be controlled.
Joe made to pull away at last, but she held him ensnared.
"Oh, Joe, I'm afraid", she moaned.
He tried again to disentangle himself, about to frame some words of reassurance when a gale of weeping broke within her and came raining out of her shaking body. Annie clutched him tightly with legs and arms, and sobbed: "I'm losing you, darlin', I'm losing you. You're already gone."
Joe relaxed in the soft, shuddering cradle of her, listening wretchedly to her bitter weeping, hating himself. How fervently he wished he could dry her tears in the right way. By making her know there was nothing, no golden venus-vixen, standing between them, but his lips were sealed. He cared deeply for this Annie, for her goodness. Yes, he loved her, he believed, but he couldn't, in honesty, tell her what she so desperately wanted to hear. Carla was a fact. A crazy, disastrous, exciting, fatally fascinating fact of his life that had brought he and Annie to this.
Annie released him, her flood of tears ebbing, and he sat up.
"Joe", she sniffled, staring bleakly at the ceiling, "is it Carla Smith?"
"... Yes, Annie", he managed after a pause, his eyes dropping.
"Do you love her?"
"I don't know ... No, I don't think so. I don't think it could be called love ... I guess I've lost the right to say this but, crzay as it sounds, I still think I love you."
"She's a very beautiful woman", said Annie hopelessly.
"Yes," he quietly agreed.
Another spasm shook Annie's lovely body and she pressed her hands to her eyes. "Oh, Joe", she wailed. "What can I do? I'd like to scratch her eyes out, kill her, for taking you away from me ... but I can't fight her. She's so lovely and I'm such a mess."
Joe considered her, a sad smile coming despite himself at her miscalculation of her charms. "Annie, you're not a mess", he said gently, patting her lush thigh. "You're a beautiful girl, more beautiful than Carla."
"Oh, Joe, I am not", she fired back miserably. "I've got eyes. I can see! She's so pretty and poised and sophisticated, and wears such elegant clothes. I'm just a clumsy hick from the country. I don't blame you for wanting her instead of me"
"Hush now, Annie, you're talking silly", he tried to soothe her.
"No, I don't blame you at all, Joe" There was a trace of hysteria in her voice. "Look at her figure. So slender and graceful, and I'm so fat and sloppy."
He wondered how such an obviously beautiful girl could put herself down so, could so misjudge her physical charms. "Annie, what you're saying simply isn't so."
"And her flashy blonde hair", Annie went on between sobs. "Mine must look like steel wool next to hers. No, I don't blame you, Joe, I don't blame you...." She repeated the pathetic absolution over and over again until her voice trailed off at last.
Later, when they had dressed and Joe was preparing to leave, Annie, now dry-eyed and practical, said: "Well, Joe, I guess I'd best not come to the office any more."
He knew she was right. Her position would be intolerable if they tried to continue a working relationship, at least for now.
"What will you do?", he inquired wretchedly.
"Oh, I'll look around. There's always a place for a good secretary", she said without enthusiasm.
"Look, Annie, take your time. I mean, you won't need to worry about money. I'll keep sending your paychecks until you find something really suitable." That's the very least you can do, you bastard, he said to himself.
"And, Annie", he added, "don't underestimate yourself. That stuff you were saying, comparing yourself with Carla ... I'm the villain of this piece, nobody else, and I know it. I don't know what's got into me, but I just can't seem to help myself."
There was nothing more to say. They shook hands sensibly and civilly. As the door of Annie's duplex closed behind him, Joe's eyes swept the starlit horizon of the muggy July night. Strangely, a cold wind materialized out of the hot darkness and swept-chillingly through him.
CHAPTER NINE
Inside the dressing room, Rita busied herself changing into her belly dance costume for her first number. She paused briefly in front of the mirror to admire her sleek nudity. Yes, she was still stacked up as well as when she'd been a kid. That was one good thing about belly dancing. It kept you in shape.
Suddenly, for no apparent reason, she had a feeling of not being alone, of being watched. Had she heard something, or someone? Not a moan, surely?
She remembered the time in Pittsburgh when she used to entertain the drummer in her dressing room. At the end of the engagement he'd confessed that his buddies had drilled a hole in the wall and were in the habit of watching the two of them during their intimacies between sets on the bandstand. She'd clobbered the son-of-a-bitch so hard, she wondered if his eye was healed yet.
So, it could be she was being watched right now. Pity the poor sneaking rat if someone was peeping, and she caught him. She picked up a hand mirror and casually appeared to examine her face in it. In reality, as she slowly angled the mirror about, her sharp eyes were scanning the walls for any tell-tale appertures. Yes! There! Son of a bitch, there was a glistening behind the hole that could only be an eyeball!
Very slowly, nonchalantly, she put the mirror down and sidled toward the door. Grasping the handle, she sprang into furious action. Yanking the door open, she leaped outside, bounded two steps to the corner of the cubicle, turned, and....
"Crazy!", she spat venomously. "Why you scrawny, sneaking, half-witted little creep!" She grabbed him violently by the shoulders and dragged him toward the dressing room.
Crazy's eyes held the dumb panic of a cornered rabbit as she threw him inside and slammed the door behind them. He stumbled and went sprawling.
"Get up, you idiot", she shouted. "Get up and give me your belt. I'm going to beat the living hell out of you!"
Crazy eyed her uncomprehendingly. "Uh ... Hi, Rita", he mushed, wiping at a drool of saliva that emerged with his words.
"You disgusting cretin", she hissed. "I said give me your belt."
"Uh ... sure, Rita" His frail, uncoordinated hands fumbled with the buckle and finally solved it. She lashed out and snatched the belt off him. As she did so, his too-big jeans dropped around his ankles. His frightened eyes seemed to beg permission to retrieve them
"So you wanted to see me naked, eh? Well, how do you like it, creep? ... Go on, look at me!"
Thus authorized, Crazy's eyes dropped to her swelling ripeness for the first time since she'd discovered him at the peephole. A glassy-eyed, wet-lipped leer began to take over his features, when , . .
Crack! Rita laid the heavy leather whip square-ly across his cheek. His head spun disjointedly backward and he sagged against the wall.
"Ow-w-w-w", he screamed. Tears came to his eyes as he started to slide downward against the wall. To keep him upright, she crunched the sole of her foot painfully against his knee, snapping his leg straight.
"Stand up and take it like a man, you scum", she rasped. "Though you're the sorriest excuse for a man I've ever seen."
Crack! Crack! With each slash of the belt across his neck, chest and thighs, Crazy howled his pain piteously. Between blows, Rita watched his suffering with growing satisfaction and excitement. Her naked breasts heaved and lolled with strain and pleasure.
Crack! Crack! Crack!
"Please Rita ... I won't do it no more", Crazy blubbered, sobbing, licking at the mucous running onto his upper lip.
Suddenly something in her snapped. She could feel it coming but then lost all capacity for thought as she was caught in the clutches of a blinding, lusting frenzy of rage. She flung the belt into the corner. Going to her knees in front of him, she attacked him with her hands and teeth.
"You dirty, filthy, stinking, slobbering bastard!", she screamed, tearing at him with savage violence. Slashing nails and snapping teeth ripped his shorts from him in shreds. She eyed his nudity closely for a moment and then hit with a short right chop. As her fist plunged into his baggy flesh, Crazy emitted a muffled, breathless grunt and began to double over. At this, she reached up and hit him sharply in the solar plezus, once more forcing him approximately upright against the wall.
Her fury raged ever more out of control in the presence of his disgusting nakedness, the sight of his arrested manhood-She parted her lips in a brutal sneer around the carnivorous white teeth. Overwhelmed with hatred and disgust for Crazy, she lunged forward to attack him.
"Ee-e-e-e!", he screamed as she seized him in her gnashing mouth. But he remained rooted as she abused him, her jaw working cruelly.
As her fury goaded her to the verge of clamping her jaws incisively shut, no matter what the consequences, Crazy squirmed and moaned, throbbing rigidly.
She left off the attack then, gagging at a wave of sudden nausea. She stood.
"Get out of here, you slimy filth!", she screeched.
Seizing him by the shoulders, she hurled him against the door. Together they managed to get it open and she kicked him out into the dark hallway, watching him stumble and fall over the jeans which were still wadded around his ankles.
Slamming the door, she leaned weakly against it. Her fury was draining away as quickly as it had possessed her. Oh my god, oh, my god, what have I done?, she trembled. Then, as her gorge rose precipitously in her throat, she bent over and stumbled urgently toward the sink-
CHAPTER TEN
Joe slammed the manuscript to the desk-top and swiveled his chair around. It was no use. He couldn't concentrate. It had been that way all day. If he thought there'd be a strained situation if Annie had stayed on the job, he knew now it was worse without her. Today he'd been able to see the office, his little empire, for what it was without her-a shabby, empty, barren room.
He looked at his watch. Six o'clock. Quitting time. Not that he'd accomplished much. He fished the bourbon and a glass from the desk drawer, and poured three ringers. He thought of his scheduled date with Carla for tomorrow. It'd be the third time this week they would be together. When he was with her, it was pure heaven, a state of exhilarating ecstasy, but these long, lonely hours between were rough The guilties always came back. He took a deep blast from his glass.
There was a timid knock at the door. "Come on in. It's open." ... Carla? Annie?...."Karen", he intoned with some surprise. "Come in. What can I do for you?"
"Hi, Mr. Barnes ... Joe" The pretty teenager entered. She wore a raincoat buttoned to the neck, although it was a clear, warm day.
"What brings you here, Karen?", he asked uneasily, remembering the hints in some of her looks and words during their two previous encounters. She approached his desk shyly, her cheeks flushed, and took a chair uninvited.
In a wavering, girlish imitation of sophistication, she said: "What are you drinking, Joe? Aren't you going to offer me one too?"
Oh christ, he thought, haven't I got enough problems? He sighed wearily, making no particular effort to conceal his annoyance at her visit. However, she was, after all, one of his girls, a Guzzler's Gal. So he took out another glass and poured half an ounce of bourbon into it.
"You sure you're old enough for this, kid?", he needled. "If you want water with it, it's in the bathroom"
"Thanks, Joe", she said. Then, lowering her eyes: "Joe, do you think I'm ... attractive?"
He shot a quizzical glance at her apparent discomfort. "Sure, you're attractive, Karen. Look, is that all you came to ask? Honey, I'm kind of busy, you see, and...."
"Joe" She raised her eyes to his, and her fearful agitation was obvious. Although, as she paused, an aspect of determination seemed to come into her features. She sat up straight, squaring her shoulders. "Joe ... I want you to make love to me."
The statement caught him in mid-swallow and he choked on the burning liquid. Wheeling around, he faced her with stunned disbelief. Could she have said it? Actually come right out with it, just like that? Yep, she sure had. Suddenly a wave of mirth swept over him and he laughed. He threw his head back and laughed, and laughed, uncontrollably. It wasn't this funny, he knew, but something like hysteria had grabbed him. He couldn't seem to shut it off. When his raucous peals had subsided into more moderate giggles, Karen rejoined: "I don't think that's very nice, Joe. You said I was attractive."
Getting hold of himself at last, he leaned forward. "Kid, what are you, some kind of a teenage nut? You walk into a man's office and make a crack like that, you're going to get in trouble", he grinned. Then, more seriously: "Karen, I admit, I've seen this coming, but I never thought it'd come to an out-and-out proposition. It's your life, honey, do what you want, but get another boy. Not me. OK?"
Taken aback, her courage obviously wavering, Karen pleaded: "Is it so ridiculous, Joe? I may be young, but I know I've got a woman's body, and a woman's needs. Joe, I'm ... I'm a virgin. A girl's first time is important. It can be an awful mess if the boy doesn't know about women. I think you do ... know about women."
He contemplated her. Her lips, her young face, were surprisingly sensuous now that he noticed. She was ripe for love all right, and some impetuous fellow would take her, probably very soon. But not Joe Barnes.
"Look, Karen", he began, trying to think how to let her down gently.
"Joe, I'd be no problem to you", she begged winsomely. "I mean there'd be no strings attached. I know you've got another girl. It's just that I know my time has come. I've known it ever since the beginning of summer. I won't be a virgin any more.
Ever since I met you at the Goslin's party, well, I knew you were the one ... I hope I'm not being too awfully awful."
"Karen, honey, I can't help you. I...."
"It's hot in here, Joe. May I take off my coat?", she asked.
"Be my guest", he replied offhandedly, wearily examining the bottom of his glass. Karen rose to remove the coat. When he raised his eyes to her again, she stood before him stark naked!
"Karen, my god, you're naked!" Instantly, he realized the foolishness of his statement. She knew perfectly well she was naked. This was preposterous! Still, as he gazed at her fresh, young nudity he felt his masculinity responding, despite himself. Karen stood posing, hands on her deliciously curving hips, resilient pink breasts thrust forward at him at a saucy angle.
"Do you like me, Joe?", she asked challengingly, her confidence clearly rising. She must be reading his face, he knew. "Do I still seem like a silly child to you now?"
Damn me. Damn me to hell, he cursed himself. I guess when you get a little practice at being a louse it comes easier and easier. How on earth could he even be thinking what he was thinking right now. How could he relish her glistening pink nudity, the perky round breasts with their tender nipples already beginning to leap up, puppy-like, under his gaze? How indeed. He wasn't thinking at all, he decided. That was just the matter. Suddenly, vehemently, he didn't want to think. Ever again. What he wanted, what he knew he would grab and take in another moment, was this ripe teenage virgin standing before him-He gulped down the rest of his liquor and stood up.
"Karen, you walked in that door at just the wrong time for the sake of your virtue. Get ready, kid. You're about to catch hell", he threatened arrogantly, coming around the desk.
Karen offered her soft lips up to him as he towered above her. He saw and felt her shiver of delight as he placed his fingers low on her tummy. Her flesh crawled in shimmering waves outward from his touch.
He swept her roughly into his arms and strode to dump her on the sofa where he joined her heavily after shucking off his clothes. His demanding fingers roamed her softness as his lips found a rubbery pink nipple and trapped it in a sucking hold. Biting too hard on the throbbing tip, he heard her squeal of pleasure and pain. He cupped the other swelling blob in his hand, squeezing it and rolling the hard little point between his fingers, rasping his palm mercilessly back and forth across it trembling.
"How does it feel to grow up, kid?", he demanded hoarsely of the besieged breast. "How do you like it so far, huh?"
"Oh, Joe it's so wonderful", she gasped as he bit in again. "I didn't know how thrilling it would be. I feel all creamy and warm inside. You just don't know how it makes me feel. Take me, Joe, take me all the way. Teach me."
He did so then. Poising for an instant to view the mingling of fright and ecstasy in her passion-glazed eyes, he took her with one rough thrust, heedless of her cry of pain. Her succeeding cries were moans of stunned surrender as he redoubled his ruthless attack.
"Oh, Joe. I'm so glad ifs you", she breathed raggedly. "It hurts, Joe, it hurts but it's so good. I knew you were the one ... Is it good for you, Joe? Do you like me? ... Joe, oh, Joe, something's happening inside me! Joe, Joe, Joe...!" Her tremulous words broke off in a strangled scream as he delivered one last bursting plunge.
Later, when it was over and they had dressed, he broke off her gushing praise to say: "Remember the terms, Karen. No strings, OK? And ... , you're a nice kid, Karen. I wouldn't want it on my conscience that I did anything to send you off the deep end, if you know what I mean?"
"Don't worry, Joe. I'll watch myself and, like I said, no strings ... But, just one thing ... Did you like me?"
He smiled tenderly at her. "Yes, Karen, I liked you." And he had. Somehow, crazily, a cloud seemed to be lifting.
He walked her around the corner to the Purple Pussycat where she was due for rehearsal.
Dean greeted them with his customary enthusiasm. "Joe baby! Nice to see you. Better run on back and get costumed, Karen honey. The other girls are already here."
Joe observed that Jules Brinker's combo was on the stand playing with some tentative chords and riffs. Four or five shapely young leotard-clad go-go dancers stood around waiting.
"Well, Joey, have a beer?", Dean offered, already pouring. "The big night's almost here, Joe. Our grand opening is Saturday night, day after tomorrow."
"You've got the best rock band in town there, Dean", Joe complimented. "Jules and the boys are sure to pull a crowd."
"Not only that, Joe", said Dean conspiratorially, coming close-"I got some special door prizes lined up for my special friends, like you."
"Such as what?", Joe asked congenially.
"Like, I'm gonna have pot downstairs and pros-ties upstairs! Is that gonna be a gas, huh?" He giggled, sounding like Richard Widmark again.
Joe had to grin too, although not with approval of the door prizes. Dean would forever put him in mind of a mischievous dead-end kid. Good hearted but unreformingly naughty.
"Dean, you're incorrigible", he said, laughingly.
"Incorrigible? Hey, that's a big word. What does it mean? Don't be coming around the Pussycat with them big words, Mr. Publisher."
The two friends shared another laugh and the rest of their beers, and Joe left feeling much better indeed.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Crazy peeked through an opening in the heavy curtain which hung the width of the Purple Pussycat's back wall. He recognized Dean in the distance, way up front at the bar. The man he was talking with seemed familiar too. Crazy almost thought he could frame the man's name if he tried. He did so, and the man's name seemed about to come to him. But after a few seconds the effort made his head hurt, so he gave it up. Jules and the others were up on the stage to his left. He sensed dimly that they were occupied and wouldn't be coming to the rear of the clutr for a while.
A leering grin split his peaked face as he let the curtain fall shut and scuttled across the darkened area to a rough wooden door. A beam of yellow light fanned out from under the door. He was being extra careful not to stumble. That was a problem he had, stumbling sometimes when he moved about He was glad his sneakers enabled him to move so silently as he crept close to the door and put his ear stealthily against it. Yes, he heard something. There must be a girl in there. Girl. Good. He couldn't remember when he had started to equate the two words, but sensed somehow it was a recent phenomenon.
He almost articulated the words-Girl-Good, Good-Girl-as he slipped away from the door, but he was mindful of the need for silence. A crude wooden ladder stood before him, tacked to the wall. As he measured it, he rubbed his hands awkwardly together, elbows flapping, and licked his wet lips in anticipation.
He grasped the rungs of the ladder with spectacular lack of muscular coordination. Nonetheless, by dint of intense concentration, he negotiated the distance to a catwalk which ran across the building high up. Very slowly in the darkness, he crept on all fours along the catwalk. His goal was a position above the ceilingless wooden stall which served as the Purple Pussycat's go-go girl dressing area. The only light was the faded yellow glow pouring up through the non-existent roof of the cubicle.
Then he saw her. Girl! Good! Karen's shimmering nude figure stepped into full view as he watched, rapt. Pretty. The naked girl stood before the full-length mirror, apparently sharing Crazy's silent appreciation of her charms. Her fingers lightly brushed her thighs and slipped up over the smooth flesh of hips and tummy to weigh the ripe fullness of pink-tipped young breasts. Oo-o-o-o, pretty, Crazy said to himself.
What was she doing now? Turning from the mirror, her curvaceous nudity beneath and facing him, Karen bounced into a series of limbering-up jumping jack exercises. Why she do that? Crazy wondered fuzzily through the rudimentary awareness that whatever her reason, it was pleasing to his eye. As she jumped gracefully up and down, arms pumping, legs spreading and joining, Crazy felt a great lump of want forming in the pit of his stomach.
With each bouncy jump, her rubbery breasts flapped enticingly, their pink points jiggling. Crazy forgot to lick away the salivary evidence of his lust, which was wetting his protruding lower lip.
Suddenly, the lovely nude beneath him stopped the jumping jack exercise and arched nimbly into a deep back bend. Crazy had to clap his hand to his mouth to stop the groan of elemental delight that welled up in him. Her glowing skin was glossed with a fine sheen of perspiration as she eased into the strenuous position. As she did so, her jutting femininity opened before his eyes and caused a convulsive tremor to pass through him.
Now the girl was slipping into her dance leotard, and Crazy beat a hasty retreat back along the catwalk. His sweaty palms nearly caused him a fall as he crawled down the ladder, consumed with his aching, uncomprehending need.
He had just positioned himself next to the split in the curtain through which he knew she would have to pass, when the dressing room door opened and the girl approached him in the gloom.
He stood humbly, hunched over, his eyes moist with tears, his hands extended beseechingly as the lovely girl drew abreast.
"Girl. Good", he grunted in his husky garbled voice The girl did not reply. Fixing him for a moment with a pitying stare, she passed on through the curtain.
A tear trickled down Crazy's sallow cheek as he stood rooted. Across his pleading, still-extended hands lay his belt.
Outside in the big room, Jules and the band swung into their new rock arrangement of "I'll Never Be The Same."
CHAPTER TWELVE
"Isn't this a fabulous day, Angel?" Joe remarked happily, raising his voice into the wind. His irresponsible good spirits moved him to reach over and give her leg a playful squeeze.
Carla nodded and smiled in response to his question. She snuggled closer and draped her arm affectionately around his shoulders.
They were barreling south on Highway 137 in his well traveled Chevy convertible. Past Lemay now, they were entering the rolling foothills country of the Ozarks. Joe'd been stealing as many sideway glances at her as reasonable road safety would permit. How lovely she was today, all shiny and golden in a powder blue, brocaded sweater with matching slacks, and a frilly white blouse that pertly emphasized the points of her breasts. The bright sun sparkled in her hair, and the wind puffed stray locks into fetching billows.
"Hey, there's a good spot," he exclaimed. He indicated a high, grassy knoll off to the right up ahead. A winding dirt road led up and over the top where a gnarled, spreading oak tree perched picturesquely-Some kindly farmer had left his rickety gate open, permitting access.
"It looks fine to me, darling," Carla agreed.
Joe slowed, pulled off the pavement and began the ascent up the rutted lane. He felt as free and clean today as the cloudless blue sky above them.
The surprising encounter with Karen yesterday had triggered something within him. By some magic chemistry it had induced a new self-acceptance. The pall of gloom and foreboding he'd been living under had just gone poof. Of course, there could never be any kind of love relationship between he and Karen. He didn't want it, and had been delighted to realize that, true to her word, neither did she. Still, he felt he'd found a friend in her. He certainly owed her a debt of gratitude. However unwittingly, she'd not only brought him peace of mind, but enabled him to recapture a measure of his sadly sagging self respect. She'd freed him to let loose and really enjoy what he and Carla had together. A good kid, that Karen. Yes, she could come to him for love lessons any time. Without the slightest trace of guilt, he rather hoped she would ... He braked to a stop just beyond the rim of the hill, out of sight of the highway.
Grabbing the picnic basket from the back seat, he said: "Get the blanket, will you, hon?"
Carla did so and they spread the blanket in the grass under the old shade tree and began unpacking and sorting the contents of the basket. So what did it matter if it was all delicatessen food, as opposed to the home-fashioned delicacies an Annie, for instance, might have packed? He'd resolved as of yesterday that he was out of the judgment business for good, either as applied to himself or others. Most especially, he would henceforth be tolerant of the minor foibles of this darling, golden-haired girl at his side.
"Oh, Joe, look at the view," Carla enthused.
His gaze swept an undulating vista of green, spreading out for miles from the lee side of their hill. Yes, it was beautiful. So was she, he admired lovingly, his eye returning to her fragrant, exciting presence. They might last for a week or a year or a lifetime. He didn't know. For however long it might be, he was going to enjoy it to the hilt. Personally, despite the obvious practical problems to be countered, he thought they had a fighting chance to make it all the way on this, their second time around.
Carla laid down a miniature salami and nestled close to him as he sat. She wriggled her precious head snugly into the hollow of his neck and shoulder. Together they contemplated the bright horizon.
"Want to know something, Joe?" she asked pensively.
"What, Angel?" he replied contentedly as his hand hefted the sweet firmness of her hip.
"I think I'm falling in love with you again."
Just the tenderness with which she said the words produced a warm, jellied sensation deep inside him.
"Every time we're together, darling," she continued tenderely, "it feels more and more like it did the first time. I loved you then too, Joe. I really did. Did you know that?"
"I was a beast, wasn't I?"
"Yes you were, you rat," she said without rancor. She squirmed about and pushed him slowly to his back, gazing closely down at him, her blue eyes open and shining. "But I'm awful glad to have my big rat back again. I missed him, so terribly, for so long. Are you glad to be with your little mouse again?"
He answered by engulfing her powerfully in his arms, one hand cupping a ripe cheek of her tight buttocks, the other moving on the graceful, sensuous curves of her back. There was a brief pause in which their faces traded happy, peaceful, nose-to-nose smiles. Then their lips met in a sweet, unhurried kiss. Yes, oh yes, I'm happy to have found my little mouse again. My little golden mouse, his heart sang, as he drank in her softness, luxuriated in her heady fragrance.
When their tongues met at last, just tippingly at first, the languorous kiss commenced to assume more emphatic dimensions. As her tongue darted flickingly between his teeth, in and out, deeper and deeper with each thrust, Joe found himself riding a rising tide of arousal. He clasped her more tightly, his strong hand kneading now at the roundness of her cheek, trying to cup all of it at once.
"The ants will get our lunch," she warned teasingly.
"I hope they enjoy it," he growled. His mind couldn't have been farther from thoughts of Swiss cheese and pickles as he wrestled her forcefully over and gazed lustily into the willing blue depths of her eyes. God, how she turned him on, he marveled-She could send him soaring with a mere word, a touch, even a coy batting of those long lashes-He placed his open mouth fiercely upon hers, as she received his tongue with wet, sucking abandon.
As his hand pulled the tail of her blouse from her waistband and found the smoothness of her flat tummy, she broke the kiss to coo breathily:
"Oh, Joe, this is turning into an even better picnic than I hoped. You're feeling mighty good today, aren't you?"
Yes, yes, he was feeling good, he rejoiced, fumbling urgently with her blouse and sweater. She helped him, and soon her creamy pink ripeness was naked to the waist. Carla laid back and sighed her pleasure as he lovingly attended her. The soft swell of her breasts as she lay, were twin pools of enticement to him. Shimmering in the centers of the creamy pools, cherry-colored nipples floated, already throbbing under his gaze. Like cherries atop a rich ice-cream sundae, he might have thought. But these pools, while creamy, were anything but icy. No, they were warm, excrutiatingly warm and yielding to his touch as he bunched them together for close examination. He tongued one of the rubbery red points tickingly and saw it pucker and spike in an instant. Oh, those spectacular nipples of hers! He took the trembling antenna suckingly in his mouth, loving the fleshly bulk of it as he manipulated it with tongue and teeth.
"Oh, God, Joe, that makes me so hot," Carla gasped, her fingers compulsively clawing about in search of his masculinity.
He continued to belabor the hard nipples in turns, while their hands clutched urgently at each other, goading their passions onward. Carla now made many small female sounds with each shuddering breath she drew.
Breaking suddenly, Joe rose powerfully to his feet, muttering, "Let's really get some sun, Angel"
As the means to that end, he scattered his own clothing on the grass and helped Carla out of the rest of hers. They encountered each other nakedly then, he standing with feet planted apart, his staunch masculinity lancing the sky, she lying in the trembling-soft, yearning vigil of her femininity. Their eyes wandered hungrily over each other's nudity. Had she ever been more lovely? The precious golden girl opened herself to him there on the grass and he could restrain himself no longer.
He went to her with loving tongue and taut hips. Guiding him, she rose to meet him and they were deeply together, moving with ecstatic sweetness.
As their rhythms assumed ever more breathtaking nuances, Carla gurgled brokenly. "I love it, Joe. Don't stop, ever."
The ants on the blueberry muffins, being a discreet, civilized breed, took only passing notice of her remark, and went on about their business.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The blasting musical uproar that hit them when the door of the Purple Pussycat swung open was almost a tangible thing. Rather unraveling to the nerve ends, Carla had to admit, but she loved it. The innate excitement of rock 'n' roll seemed to complement some instinctual thing within her.
She let mom precede her into the wild maelstrom, with Burt bringing up the trio's rear. As they insinuated themselves into the surging crowd, Carla glanced about and appraised that Dean's redecorators had done a groovy job. The tapestries were a riot of color, but not garish, and the swirling reflected lighting was in perfect, if frantic, harmony with the explosive sounds of the Jules Brinker combo.
The first familiar faces she saw were those of Dean Twiddy and Sid Leopold. The two young men were conversing at a spot around the far end of the bar. Dean apparently recognized her and her party. He smiled and raised his chin as if to say he'd be over to greet them in a minute.
Behind her, as they slowly threaded their way to the bar, Burt said something, but she couldn't make it out. The pounding rock music was so amplified, even a shout in the ear could barely be heard, she was sure. It seemed to disintegrate you, turn you to jelly, but delightfully so.
Catching the celebrative mod in the air, she made up her mind she was going to have a good time, Burt or no Burt. She really hadn't wanted him tagging along at all but he was so drunk already, she was sure he'd be leaving soon. Whether under his own power or not, she couldn't be sure. As if to prove her point, Burt stumbled against her backside at that moment. She helped him right himself as they reached the bar. The music stopped and, for a moment, the silence seemed to roar even louder by unaccustomed contrast.
Burt swayed against the bar. "Drinks are on me ladies," he announced in a loud, alcoholic slur. "What will you have Momsie, ol' girl, ol' girl?"
He had a nerve, being so familiar with Mom that way, after what she'd caught them doing. Actually it had been all Burt's fault. Momsie had explained later that Burt had gotten her drunk, and there was a strong suspicion he'd put something in her drink to lower her defenses. The old drunkard. Well, one good thing had come out of his terrible behavior with Mom. It had given her, Carla, a handy club to hold over his head. She hadn't let him forget it for a minute since she'd walked in on them last Sunday.
The trio ordered drinks. Carla swept the room with her lovely blue eyes, paying little or no attention to the idle chit-chat between Burt and Mom. No, she couldn't pick Joe out of the crowd. It was still early. He'd be here directly for sure. She hoped he'd like her new red satin cocktail outfit. She smoothed demurely at the dress, glancing down to admire the way its cut accentuated the swell of her breasts.
Dean finally made it through the gauntlet of the crowd.
"Dean, this is my dear Momsie from Chicago," Carla introduced. "I want you to take good care of her." She winked at Dean.
"Hiya, Momsie," Dean beamed. "Welcome to the Purple Pussycat."
* * *
"Golly, what was in that cigarette you gave me, Dean honey," she asked, grinning familiarly. "I feel all giddy and light in the head"
Dean grinned boyishly back at her. He was glad Carla and Burt had brought "Momsie." It gave him a kick to turn on with the old broads once in a while. As a lusty epicure of the female gender, he occasionally tired of the young swinger types. An old swinger type sometimes made a refreshing diversion.
"Too bad your son-in-law was so gassed, Moms," he said. "It hurt me to see him fall down that way-But don't worry, I got him into a cab-He'll be okay."
"Oh, that Burt," Mom rejoined, frowning wooz-ily and elaborately. "Listen, honey, the things I could tell you about him, you wouldn't believe ... Looks like my baby girl has left us too. Do you mind awfully, being left alone with an old woman?"
"Old woman?" He gave her his most convincing Widmark leer. "You gotta be kiddin', lover girl. Listen, by me you're some sack of sweet potatoes." He grabbed hold of one of her ample buttocks cheeks and gave it an impish twist.
Mom giggled girlishly. "Naughty, naughty," she scolded coyly, wagging a finger at him. " ... Whew! Ever since I smoked that cigarette, I feel like I could take off and fly."
"Why don't we, Momsie baby? Just you and me, flyin' together way up in the sky." He drew closer to her, the back of his hand boldly rubbing her melon-like breast where it lay on the bar. In an invitingly evil voice he said: "Look, baby, I got an idea. I got my big old Caddie parked out back. We don't want Carla to see us leaving together, but let me slip you the keys, and...."
* * *
Mom floated on a greyish-pink cloud, her brain happily drugged. She lay sprawled on the back seat of the car, although she was only fuzzily aware of her whereabouts at this moment. The leather cushions felt indescribably luxurious as she snuggled deeper into them. Though she was experiencing a giddiness something akin to drunkeness, there was none of the bloated, half-awareness. She felt vibrantly alive, every sense organ attuned, every nerve end an antenna alerted to receive pleasure, every pore of her skin an open, greedy little mouth.
Wow, those cigarettes! This was better than booze any day. She'd have to find out where to buy them back in Chicago. What was it Dean had called them? Grass?
She luxuriated on the cushions, crooking a knee so that her disarrayed skirt hiked even higher on her thigh. Dean. She wished hazily that he would hurry. She was so tantalized ready for the wicked things she hoped he would do to her. Ooh he was a good looking young stud. Those hips of his looked like they could really swivel. She clapped her white thighs together in a spasm of tingly want, wishing she had Dean trapped between them at that very instant.
With a sigh, her gauzily filtered thoughts drifted off to elysian fields of erotica where pink wood nymphs and satyrs played, and she joined them in delicious debauches.
The car door opened in the darkness.
"Oh, Dean baby," she murmured, languidly relaxed. "I thought you'd never come, lover."
With the door open, a cool breeze wafted lightly in to caress her thighs. She shifted to receive it more openly. Gentle fingers at her ankles sent tiny electric shocks racing up her legs, making her flesh crawl pleasurably.
Mom laid her head back and closed her eyes, savoring the light stroking of the finger tips as they moved higher on her willing limbs in little circular motions.
"Oh, I like that, Dean," she praised intimately into the darkness. "You do know how to be gentle, don't you?"
Now the gentle hands touched her more boldly, the palms spreading out and sliding ever higher on her thighs, until she winced with delight at their most intimate exploration thus far.
"Take my panties off, Dean honey," she suggested urgently. "They're in the way."
His hands molded themselves to the ripe contours of her hips and tummy as they drew the panties down, peeling them off like a layer of skin. Thus freed, the cool breeze reaching her wantonly, Mom wiggled in anticipation as she pulled her skirt up to her waist.
She loved the more demanding grasp of his hands now, as they purposefully moved her knees, arranging her even more cordially for the reception of loving attentions. His lips pressed hotly on her thighs in a series of roaming kissings.
A shock wave of passion blasted through her as a moist contact was made that caused her hips to jerk violently upward in joyous cooperation. Her hips pumping convulsively, Mom put her hands down to ensure and cement the continuation of the agonizingly delightful union. Oh, what a lover this boy was! She listened rapturously to the wet, strangled gurgling in his throat as he broke and joined again. She could barely draw breath herself and knew dizzily that she was near heaven as she gasped:
"Don't stop now, Dean baby. Go, boy, go!"
As her screams of completion died out, Mom collapsed blissfully into the cushions and released her hold on the hunched figure. Just before he scuttled away into the night she hard him grunt: "Girl! Good!"
"Hey, Joey boy! You finally got here." Dean extracted himself from the human sardine pack and pumped the publisher's hand. His face was lit with the excitement of his first night's success as well as, Joe knew, the effects of more than one of his funny cigarettes.
"Looks like the Purple Pusycat is off and running, Dean-o. Congratulations," Joe said warmly.
"Isn't this a gas, Joe? Ain't this a ball?" Dean swept his arm expansively over the crowd. "They're a pretty tame group, though. We've only had two fights tonight ... Hey, Sid!" he yelled above the din. "Come on over. The Guzzling man's here"
Sid threaded his way to where they stood.
"How're you doing, Sid? Been here all evening?"
"Hi, Joe. Yeah, our boy seems to have a little gold mine for himself here, doesn't he?" Dean beamed with open pleasure at Sid's acknowledgement of his success. "You sticking around, Joe? Rita's going to drop by during her break. We can have a drink."
"Uh-uh. No drinks for Joey right now," Dean broke in. "He's got business upstairs." He winked at Sid. "I didn't tell you, Joe. Sid and his ... uh ... associate are my caterers for a little private party I got going upstairs. I want you to be among the first to partake of the feast. The chicks just got here."
Joe grinned disapprovingly. "You mean the broads? No thanks, Dean. I'm well taken care of" They didn't know with and by whom, though. He was so proud of her he wished he could tell them. He let his eye wander over the milling heads, realizing it'd be hard to pick her out even if she was here. Of course, if she was still with Burt and her mom, there'd be no chance for anything other than a social hello. Still, he wished he'd see her.
"Baby, I know you're well taken care of, Dean was saying. "But a little strange stuff once in a while is good for a man. Sharpens your techniques."
"Yeah, go on up, Joe," Sid joined in the mischievous entreaty. "It'll blow your pipes out for you. We delivered some prime merchandise up there. I'd like your expert opinion."
"Fellas, I'm just not interested. I never was much of a commercial man anyway," he tried to beg off.
"Aw, come on ... chicken?" they chorused.
"Atta boy, Joey." Dean clapped him on the back. "Go over there by Hubert, and I'll give him the high sign."
Joe made his way through the milling mob to a flight of stairs where Hubert, the burly bouncer, stood guard. At a signal from Dean, Hubert swept a ham-like arm in a gesture of admittance and Joe proceeded up the narrow stairs.
As he climbed, a brutal-looking man in his fifties was on his way down. The man brushed roughly by, his beefy red face aiming an angry glance at Joe.
At the top of the long flight, Joe emerged into a gloomy hallway. No one was in sight. Like most Gaslight Square clubs, the Purple Pussycat was on the ground floor of a reconverted tenement. The upper floors, like this one, had several doors leading off a central hall. Which one was he supposed to enter? he wondered. Well, maybe Dean had them all stocked with buxom professionals. From behind the door on his left he heard a sound. Edging closer, his first impresison was confirmed. There was a woman inside, weeping bitterly .
Well, he wasn't here for the prescirbed reason anyway, so....
"... Come in," said a frightened voice at his knock.
He opened the door and stepped inside. "Karen!"
The miserable girl sat slumped on the edge of a disheveled bed. When she saw and recognized him through her tears, she came padding across the floor to throw her arms about him, holding him in a trembling snare. "Oh, Joe, it was so awful," she moaned.
Taking her by the shoulders, he held her back and stared hard into her reddened, puffed eyes. "Karen, what in the hell are you doing here?" he demanded, dreading the answer. He could see she was naked under her baby doll nightgown.
She tried to speak, but another burst of sobs came rushing up and she clung to him, seemingly afraid to let him go. Enfolding her, patting gently, he waited. At last, when she seemed to be calming a bit, he led her back to the bed and sat her down. Pulling up a chair to sit facing her, he said sternly: "Now, I want to know what this is all about, kid, and I want to know right now."
Karen spread her her hands in hopeless grief. "Joe, I tried. God knows I tried even though I could have vomited at the sight of him," she blubbered
"Tried what, Karen?" he asked, his voice deadly, the rage welling up in him.
She buried her face in her hands and another spasm shook her. "He was so big, Joe, and so ugly and old and slimy!" ... The man he'd passed on the stairs?
"And, Joe, he tried to make me do a filthy thing. When I told him I didn't want to, he only laughed," she whimpered. It was coming out of her now, he knew. "He laughed and he said, What do you think you're getting paid for, girlie?' Then he took his pants off and when I saw him I tried to run away, but he grabbed me. He made me look at him. Joe, he was almost ... almost deformed. All full of nasty blue veins, all gnarled together and mottled .red ... Ugh! It was disgusting. Then he grabbed my head and tried to push me down ... I screamed as loud as I could, and he hit me, Joe. Look at my arm ... But he got dressed and left ... Ugh!" She broke into new sobs as Joe sat, almost paralyzed with rage.
"I tried, Joe, I tried my best," she babbled hysterically through her tears. She was dangerously near losing control, Joe feared.
He patted her soothingly. "Just one question, Karen. Who got you into this? Who told you to do this?"
She shook her head, choking, unable to speak.
"Did Dean have anything to do with this? Did he make you come up here tonight?" His fist clenched convulsively and his jaw worked in anger.
At the knock, Joe's head snapped toward the door. It opened immediaately and she entered, saying: "Karen honey, I just wanted to...."
Carla! ... Oh please dear lord don't let it be Carla!
She broke off when she saw him. Minutes seemed to tick by as he stared at her, dumbfounded, feeling nothing yet, stricken incapable of feeling.
At last, Carla let out a long breath. A careful smile came across her lovely features as she drew herself to her full, dignified height and approached them.
"Well, hello, Joe," she offered with studied casualness. "I didn't know you played the ponies."
His eyes riveted to her face. Did you get her into this?" he croaked in a barely audible voice.
"What's the matter, Joe honey? You seem upset," Carla countered.
"Did you get her into this?" he hissed again.
"Well, I don't see why you'd call it getting somebody into something but, well, yes, you might say...."
His frozen emotions exploded at last in a boiling moment of anguish. Oh, why, Carla, why? Out of control, he sprang to his feet, a vengeful hand snapping back to strike. Only the screams of both women stayed his outraged impulse to smash the lovely face into a bloody pulp.
"Carla, how could you be so ... so ... vile!?, he rasped, his voice shaking, the taste of bitter gall in his mouth. He was overwhelmed with a sense of deep loss.
"I tried my best, Miss Smith. I tried to do like you told me," Karen moaned pathetically. "I ... I just couldn't. I'm sorry."
Carla was the picture of wide-eyed surprise and puzzlement. "Just what is everybody so excited a-bout?" she inquired incredulously.
"Carla this girl is a virgin. A teenage kid," Joe grated, his anger just as incredulously confounded as Carla's calculated calm demeanor. In his turmoil, he honestly forgot the slight inaccuracy of the first of his statements about Karen. "You've taken a teenage virgin and made a whore out of her!" He measured each word bitterly, still trembling, although groping now for some kind of control.
"I didn't make her into anything, Joe darling," Carla wheeled, seemingly cool and collected. "She's over the age of consent. I just created the opportunity for her to make a little money, that's all."
"She's a young, naive kid, Carla, and you know it. She accepted your guidance, put herself in your hands ... God forgive me that I helped put her there." His anger was steadying now, congealing into hatred, although he remained numbly staggered by the enormity of her betrayal.
"Don't be such a prude, Joe," Carla shot back, appearing righteously annoyed. "Are you so perfect? You've never committed a sin, I guess? ... Like adultery, for instance?" She fluttered her lashes and eyed him significantly.
Her meaning was not lost on him. His shoulders sagged. "Get dressed, Karen," he ordered. "We're getting out of here." The frightened girl hastened to comply.
"Joe, Joe, honey," Carla placated. "Why such a huff?" Come on, let's go downstairs and have a cool drink, shall we?"
She stepped close and placed a hand on his arm. He knocked it away with a slicing chop, hoping cruelly he had hurt her.
"Take your hands off me you bitch, you whoring pimp!" he spat venomously.
"I'm not a pimp," she shrilled, showing what appeared to be genuine emotion for the first time. "How dare you call me a pimp, you cheap newsboy hustler? I'm a model! And I teach modeling. And I'm damn good ... Can I help it if St. Louis isn't exactly the best modeling market in the country? You have to do things, things the squares would say are a little out of the ordinary ... to make contacts, to make ends meet. That's facing facts, buster."
Suddenly, he pitied her. He understood, and knew deep sorrow for her pathetic plight. "Oh, Carla, you're still chasing it aren't you? You still want that career-glory, recognition, whatever you'd call it-so desperately, you'd do anything for it. You'd even sink to this. God, how desperate you must be, that you could con yourself so."
"It's not true, Joe. It's not true." He seemed to have reached her, held up a dreadful mirror. Her eyes brimmed wetly. "What you're saying is a lie. This is just a business, that's all. Smart, normal business. I'm a model, Joe. I'm top notch. I just haven't had the breaks yet. But I'll get there, you'll see."
"Carla, I can't begin to conceive you'll pay any attention to this," he said calmly, his anger gone now, leaving only an empty void, "but the best advice I can give you is to go home and be a wife to your husband. Take a crack at being a woman, instead of a model, whatver that is. I ... I'm sorry for you, Carla"
"Get out of here, you small time punk," she shouted, her tears coming. "Shut up and get out of here. You'll sure never amount to anything. Who needs you? Get out, I said."
"Let's go, Karen," he said quietly, and they left her.
As Joe and Karen reached the top of the stairs, the music from below suddenly stopped in mid note, and a general ruckus was audible. A few female screams and male shouts separated themselves from the noisy buzz.
"Trouble. I think I know what it is. Stick next to me and keep your mouth shut," he ordered her. They descended the stairs, Karen clinging doggedly to his arm.
Sure enough, the Purple Pussycat was being raided by the police. As they hit the bottom step, at least five uniformed cops were blocking the front exit and more were pouring in.
Separating himself from the confusion, a husky cop stepped up to them, barring their path, and called over his shoulder: "Here's two from upstairs, Lieutenant."
Thank God! Joe recognized his friend, Lieutenant Sam Canelli approaching them. Caneli said: "Why, Joe, nice to see you ... It's a raid, Joe. We got a vice tip. You're not mixed up with these bad people, are you?"
"Uh ... no, of course not, Sam. The young lady and I just got lost looking for the rest rooms."
"That's what I thought, Joe." Canelli averted his face from the watching cop and gave Joe and Karen a broad wink. "They're clean, Corporal. Friends of mine. Let 'em pass," he ordered.
Before they could move for the door, other policemen pressed the crowd back to form an aisle, down which two of them began to escort the unresisting Sid Leopold. Poor Sid, Joe thought, seeing the crest-fallen expression on his face.
There was a clamor. A hopping mad Rita fought her way out of the general melee. Yanking one of Sid's uniformed escorts violently by the arm, she scream-ed: "Take your filthy, hairy hands off him, you stupid flatfoot! How dare you handle my husband that way?"
The embrassed cop tried to shake her off, but she harrassed him. "It's police brutality, that's what it is! You see this, folks?" she yelled. "Police brutality! I want your badge numbers, you lousy sons of bitches!"
Reinforcements managed to unfasten her from Sid's escorts, pushing her back into the crowd as gently as possible while trying to duck her flailing fists. As they led Sid on out, she screeched after them: "Don't worry, baby. Momma will be right down with the bail. You'll be out in an hour. Stinking bastards! Police brutality!"
Dean came next, similarly flanked, grinning from ear to ear. He caught Joe's eye and called: "Hey, Joey, is this a gas, man?" Talk about advertising!" He braked his heels and elbowed the cops, snarling at them: "What's your hurry, coppers?" His leering grin returned as he struggled around to address the crowd. "Don't worry, folks," he announced with wild elation. "The ol' Pussycat will be open for business Monday night. I got me the best, crookedest, shyster in town. Did everybody have a ball?"
Boozy cheers, mingled with catcalls at the cops, filled the air as Dean was dragged through the door, doubled over with mirth.
"Okay, boys, let the people go home now," Canelli called to the policemen at the door. "Let's clean out upstairs, and we can go home too"
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Burt snorted and sucked his teeth, then was silent again except for his deep, regular breathing. He'd sure saved her bacon last night, that was for sure. When she'd called him from the police station, she knew he couldn't have been sober yet. But there he was in under an hour, dressed, shaven, and steady, if a little bleary eyed. He'd conferred privately with the police captain, and when they'd come out, she'd been free to go. Best of all, as he'd informed her in the cab coming home, her name would be kept out of the papers. That was a godsend. Not that she thought she'd done anything all that terrible but, people being people, it would be called a scandal-She yawned and stretched, letting her eyes play idly about the ceiling. Gosh, it must have been close to four A.M. by the time they'd gotten home. Poor Burt, he'd still been at his desk, typing something or other when she'd fallen asleep.
She glanced over at him again and saw that his eyes were open. He hadn't moved. He was just lying on his back, staring at the ceiling. "Good morning, Burt."
"Oh, 'morning, sweetheart." He turned to face her. "I thought you'd still be asleep." He gave her a sleepy smile, stifling a yawn. Well, he seemed to be in a chipper mood. Maybe she wouldn't have to slap him down for saying anything silly about her little mix-up of last night. Maybe he wouldn't mention it.
Burt scratched his stomach with both hands. "Mmmm. I'm starved. I could eat a horse. How about you?"
"Burt, you know I never eat breakfast," she corrected him. "If you're hungry, I think you'll find some juice and left over pie in the icebox."
"Uh-uh. I was thinking more of eggs, bacon, pancakes and coffee, to tell the truth," he said heartily.
"Yech! The very thought makes me nauseous ... Well, if you want to go to all the trouble of cooking that stuff, go ahead"
"Well-I-I, that's not exactly how I saw it." He beamed a sly, congenial smile upon her. "You cook it for me, Carla darling."
There was something deadly about his emphasis on the 'you', despite the cheery smile. She sensed he hadn't asked a favor or made a suggestion, but had delivered an ultimatum. Well, how do you like that? He had a nerve. She opened her mouth to tell him so when he put up his hand, still smiling, and said quietly, but firmly:
"Carla, I said, you cook it ... Now."
Pursing her pretty lips in exasperation, she arose and poutily slithered into her fluffy robe. Surely this was the nastiest, snottiest old man in the world. But if it meant avoiding a fight....
As she stomped toward the door, she flung back over her shoulder: "All right, Burt, for god's sake, come on in the kitchen and I'll...."
"Carla." His quiet but pregnant voice arrested her. "No, not in the kitchen, darling. When you have my breakfast ready, I'd like you to bring it in here on a tray, please." He smiled sweetly.
Furious, she was about to head for the kitchen again when she remembered something. "Burt, I don't know how to cook pancakes!"
He gazed at her placidly, picking up a magazine from his bedside table. "You've got a cookbook, angel. That's what they're for ... Look it up" Then he turned unconcernedly to the magazine.
Well!
Twenty minutes later, Carla re-entered the bedroom balancing a tray laden with the dishes her husband had ordered. The pancakes looked a trifle heavy maybe, but eminently edible. The eggs and bacon had turned out fine. She was actually rather proud of herself. Surprisingly, for the first time since she could remember, she had a bit of a morning appetite herself.
"Thanks, darling," said Burt, accepting the tray on his lap. She sat on the edge of the bed awaiting his verdict on her culinary artisanship. With a surprised little flutter, she suddenly realized that she actually cared what the verdict would be. She looked into his face as he buttered his pancakes, preoccupied. Somehow, he looked different. There was a new air about him. She guessed she'd sensed the first glimmerings of it last night, when he had come and handled things at the police station. She didn't know what it was, this change in him, but she found herself strangely attracted to it.
Burt forked a big bite of pancakes into his mouth and chewed. Carla waited hopefully.
"Say," he said at last, smiling approvingly. "These are good, angel, damn good" As he sectioned off another piece of the stack, Carla beamed proudly. She realized she couldn't have been more pleased if someone had complimented her on her gown or coiffeur or figure. Wow, something was brewing here. Still, mischievously, she couldn't help wanting to test the depth of this newly masterful Burt. Or was she testing them?
"Mother called while I was in the kitchen, Burt," she remarked innocently.
"Oh?", Burt replied offhandedly, happily and hungrily engrossed in his breakfast.
"Yes, she said she was taking a morning flight back to Chicago. I guess she's already taken off by now. She said to tell you goodbye and give you her love."
"Oh? That's nice."
"Burt, that was a simply awful thing you did with her last Sunday, now wasn't it?" she chided.
Burt barely glanced up. Chewing, he said calmly: "I don't want to hear about it anymore, angel."
"But, Burt," she persisted, as if shaming an errant child. "Really, you ought to be ashamed. Honestly, I...."
He cut her off with a raised palm-"Carla, darling," he said pleasantly, masterfully. "Shut ... up" There was a long pause in which his eyes held hers forcefully, piercingly, but not unaffectionately. Then he resumed his repast.
Little shivers of pleasure courted through her as she watched her husband enjoy the meal she had prepared for him with her own hands.
She went to the window and opened the blinds. Bright sunlight flooded the room. It seemed to match her happy mood. She walked about the room, tidying up here and there. From now on, she decided, she would keep their home neater. The idea thrilled her.
"Burt, it's such a lovely day. Let's do some fun thing together, want to?"
"Yes," he smiled. "I'd like that very much"
"What would you like to do, honey?" she asked eagerly, going to sit next to him again.
"Oh-h-h, I don't know. Lots of possibilities for a day like this ... I'll let you know when I decide."
She responded to his mastery with an inner tingle that made little goose bumps all over her fragrant skin. Inside, she was all creamy.
"If I can make a suggestion, poppa," she purred, laying her graceful hand significantly on his thigh," I know one fun thing we could do together for a start, and we wouldn't even have to leave the house"
Burt grinned the contented grin of a happy man.
The Goslin's never did leave their home that Sunday, one thing leading to another. And another and another.
As dusk began to shade their window, Carla I rolled over, her ripe nudity glossed delicately with the evaporating fuels of love. She sighed happily. What a day it had been! At one point, her silly, wonderful Burt had shown her the column he'd written last night when he was up so late, typing. The column was a big expose of her little brush with the law. Burt had been very gruff and bearish about it, he thought. Actually, his bluff had been delivered quite cutely in her opinion. Anyway, he'd told her she'd better keep in line from now on, or else he was going to publish the scandalous article in the Herald. Silly. A man like this, a real man, didn't need such a club to kep his woman straight. But if he thought he did, if his imagined threat was what had wrought this thrilling change in him, who was she to rock the boat? Men ... They could be so silly sometimes. So wonderful too, she knew, contemplating her husband next to her in the bed.
"Can't I get you anything, love?" she asked solicitously. "Would you like me to mix you a drink"?
"No thanks, angel. Somehow I just don't feel like a drink today," he replied pleasurably.
His hand slid over the moist contours of her tummy to cup and caress the creaminess of first one, and then the other, of her breasts. Gently, he circled the base of a rubbery, cherry-red nipple, round and round with his forefinger. When he grasped the perky tip and rolled it, she saw it come tightly erect and experienced a warm liquid sensation deep in her stomach. Such a man I've got, she thought blissfully, running her fingers through his hair.
As Burt shifted to put both hands more urgently upon her, she saw the proof of his vigor. He began pulling her to him as-her darling blue eyes lighting with joyous rapture-she purred: "Oh, Burt ... Again?"
"Yes, again," he leered lovingly. "Come here, Mrs. Goslin."
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
In the back of Joe's mind was a consciousness of her, and the fresh memory of last night's bizarre series of events. There were wounds, of course, but he was surprised and pleased to see that he could lie here and honestly and easily play his mind in other directions. He really could get involved in a ball game today, he knew, and the knowledge was satisfying. Why wasn't he feeling absolutely shattered by Carla's betrayal? He sure would have expected to be.
Well, maybe it was a matter of understanding after all these years. Maybe that's why he hadn't cracked up. He felt he'd learned some important lessons these last few days-One of them being to accept people, including himself, for what they are. He now saw Carla for what she was. This was not making a value judgment, but perceiving her as a certain type of person. And to calmly perceive that she wasn't a type he wanted as his woman.
Just as she wasn't perfect, neither was she some kind of evil monster. She was neither saint nor sinner. Whatever deceits she performed came out of a rather pathetic compulsion, not an evil heart. She couldn't help herself. So be it. Everybody's got faults. As far as her abortive venture into prostitution, he had nothing morally against that profession. If there were free and willing adult buyers and sellers in that marketplace, fine. More power to them. It's their private business. He just couldn't see himself having a chick who could conceive of making her living as a madam. Nothing against madams per se, they had their function. Even one with golden hair and melting blue eyes and a luscious figure, couldn't be his woman.
Of course, she shouldn't have gotten Karen involved as she had. That was a bit of dirty pool. He hoped he'd gotten Karen straightened out finally. What a lecture he'd given her. Sweet kid. Maybe she didn't have all the smarts in the world inside her pretty head, but she was basically sweet and decent. She'd turn out okay.
Aw hell, he thought, rolling contentedly over onto his stomach, everything would turn out okay. Everything and everybody will be fine. Even thickheaded old Joe Barnes. It was just the kind of a day where you had to believe it.
Of course, while his hiatus into romantic folly had taught him some lessons, it had cost him something too. Someone very precious indeed. The sun suddenly seemed less bright as he thought of her, of the loss of her ... Annie. In his mind's eye, the large animated blue eyes shone love at him, the way they used to, and the little pug nose crinkled cutely as she smiled at him ... What a chump he'd been. That good old hindsight. If he could develop his foresight to as high a level of efficiency, he'd be worth a million dollars by next Friday. Well, it was water under the bridge now. You've made your mistake. The only thing to do is pay for it like a man. She'd never....
Wait a minute-just one little minute! He surged excitingly to a sitting position and pounded his fist into his palm. Why wouldn't she take him back? His excitement faltered a bit as he immediately thought of several reasons why not. Okay, maybe she would give him the air if he tried to get her back. Nobody could say he didn't deserve it, but he'd be a gold-plated jackass if he didn't at least give it a try. What did he have to lose? His brain whirred, buisly sorting tactical plans. Maybe if he'd get slicked up real nice, douse on some of that new after-shave, buy her a little present maybe, and come on real sweet and gentle ... Then, if she'd agreed to come out with him, he could take her to a romantic little joint he knew, where he'd never taken her before, and ... Yes, that'd be perfect. He'd do it today, right now! Hell, nothing ventured, nothing gained. On a gorgeous day like this, anything was possible. Flushed with excitement, he screwed himself to his feet, already lunging in the direction of the house before reaching his full height.
They collided and he almost bowled her over, catching her in his arms as they tottered.
"Annie!"
"Wheel Where you rushin' to?" she asked breathlessly, her blue eyes sparkling. "I didn't see fire as I came through the house"
It was a moment before he was able to speak around the lump of joy in his throat. There were hot, happy tears behind his eyeballs. He just held her arms length, devouring her liveliness, grinning idiotically. Annie seemed almost as happily fustered.
Finally, they blurted at the same time: "Annie!"
"Joe!" and toppled jubilantly into each other's arms.
The supple heft of her spread warmly against him and then through him. How could he ever have been a monumental fool as to have given this up? To have even considered risking it? Never again.
He held her away again, his heart soaring at the fresh, sparkling sight of her. "How have you been, Annie girl? God, it's good to see you. I've missed you so" He spoke rapidly, almost babbling. Then he remembered his sweaty, unkempt condition. "Gee, I'm kind of raunchy right now, kid. I was just going to go in and get all spiffed up and come and see you."
Her eyes roamed his broad chest and muscular thighs. She smiled cunningly. "Oh-h-h-, I reckon you look okay to me just like you are, dariin'." She crinkled her nose. "To tell the truth, I kind of like the way you smell too."
Such a love she was. Such a woman. He bugged her again. "Hey, Annie, want to go out? I know this little joint with candles and...."
"Oh, darlin', it's such a beautiful day. Why don't we go to the baseball game?"
Such an angel. "You know, precious, that's just what I was thinking before you came. It's such a beautiful day for the ball game. I'll go in and ... He started to step away toward the house.
She caught him by the wrist, her fingers gently caressing on his arm. "Joe, darlin'," she said sweetly, innocently. "The game doesn't start for over an hour. And, heck, the first couple of innings usually aren't so important anyway."
He turned and folded her ripeness in his arms. "Oh, Annie, did I ever tell you how wonderful you are? Did I ever tell you how much I love you?" He pressed his lips to her cheek, thrilling to the sweet warmth and fragrance of her.
"I kind of go for you too, big feller," she whispered into his ear, her arms curled lovingly about his shoulders.
"Annie, if I ever go blind again, don't give me a white cane. Just haul off and kick me right where it hurts, will you?"
"Oh I don't believe that'll be necessary, darlin'," she cooed confidently. "I've got a feelin' you're gonna behave from here on out ... I'm gonna make it my business to make you want to." She stabbed her tongue teasingly into his ear, bringing forth a warm awakening of his instincts, and causing his hands to begin searching explorations of her lush curves.
She pulled her head back to look him in the eye. "Know what I mean, huh?" she .murmured in girlish seduction. He grinned. He knew.
In a few moments, following a flurry of cooperative activity, Annie stood revealed to him in all her transcendent womanly nakedness. She stood proudly, as if knowing she had truly won her man at last, that her charms were the equal or superior of any rival's. To Joe, they were and he contemplated her with loving reverence, still swallowing at the lump of joy over regaining this lost treasure.
He took her in his arms. As they kissed, yearningly open-mouthed, she entwined her limbs silkily among his and he carried them together to the cushion of the soft grass. Her lolling breasts brushed his chest as they descended, making the hairs bristle, stroking the power of his passion into fuller flower.
She lay in the grass, her creamy whiteness contrasting deliciously with its fresh greenness, looking up at him. In her eyes he read loving surrender. To think that this was his!
He stroked the soft skin of her tummy, feeling it warm to his touch. His hand slid easily over her tummy, down around her curving hip, up along the lush smoothness of her thigh, which quivered and constricted as he roamed, finally to climb the shimmering mound of her breast. All through the tingling tour, his eyes never left hers. He saw their blue depths swirl, become cloudy, dreamy.
Her breath came quicker as he fondled the rubbery, reddish-brown nipple. When he fastened his lips moistly to it, a tremor went through her, causing her to squirm at the action of his teeth and flicking tongue." His hand went low on her and joined her a slippery, intimate caress. Instantly, her squirming became urgent writhing, as her fingers too busied themselves upon his body. High-pitched little gaspings sputtered from her throat as he performed his dexterous labors. His own hips too, he noted, were jerking and twitching in the talons of his want.
Annie grabbed him by the ears and pulled his face close to hers. They shifted together. "Now, Joe", she moaned, her eyes half lidded and glazed over.
His tongue and his hips plunged at the same time into her open, curling, enfolding expectancy. She gasped her delight at the deep contact. As his thrusting rhythms drove them harmoniously toward their loving goal, Annie whispered in a small, broken voice: "Darlin', I'll bet the Cardinals will win today too."
He grinned as he redoubled his rapturous labors Yes, the Cards would win too, on a day like this. He'd bet money on it.
