My wife was a sad, ugly dog, and I had absolutely no intentions of staying faithful to her. Or anyone else. Nine years older than me-thirty-Barbara was a stick-thin, sallow-faced woman-the kind of shy, gentle old maid that one expects to see forever sauntering around in a prim rose garden and coughing with consumption. She was a frail heroine right out of the pages of a Louisa May Alcott hearts-and-flowers tear-jerker. And I wanted to marry her; I had to marry her! And for a reason easily explainable and as old as the hills for a devil-may-care, unscrupulous and poor bachelor like me who believed in nothing but the easy life without lifting a single one of his own fingers to work for it. Marrying Barbara, I wouldn't have to move a muscle except one, I thought. Life would indeed be a bowl of ripe cherries because she had inherited three million bucks which would become community property after the meaningless, at least to me, marriage ceremony. It was pure and simple ... greed for the comfortable, life-long gravy train.
When Barbara accepted my altar-bound proposal, I had to laugh to myself for I thought I heard cosmic weeping, wailing, and cursing. Refus Dodge, her late bear-cat father, was a cold, ruthless, domineering prototype of the rock hard-headed businessman whose only reason for living was to make millions with his Ohio paper mills, at all costs to his personal image in the community. Refus never gave a hoot in hell that he was loathed-despicable shenanigans and heartless brow-beatings were his daily bread to administer to anyone who crossed him or worked for him. But his non-unionized, slave-labor employees had their revenge one afternoon when, after firing three secretaries for taking a forbidden coffee break, his terrible temper-tantrum anger struck him down with a fatal stroke, and he died almost immediately and easily which most people thought was a God-awful shame that he didn't linger long enough to suffer in paralyzed, silent agony.
After his burial, which was sparcely attended, I went after Barbara with the slow but sure calculation that she had always been compellingly interested in me as a lover-husband. Now that her father had finally dropped dead I wanted to rush to make up for the lost time and wasted years I had spent in Hick Town, Ohio, working as a life-guard at the Country Club swimming pool and outlasting Refus Dodge with sheer determination to get my hands on his money. But I knew, with the canny instincts of a certain kind of hustler, that I would have to give Barbara time to get over her grief because her father was all the family she had since her mother died of cancer when she was five. But I was happily mistaken-Barbara's shock lasted three days, through the reading of the will, and then she instantly broke the tyrannical ties that Refus had tightly bound her with all her life-and we were married in the judge's chambers at the court house one week, to the very day, after the funeral! I was certain that her father was spinning up a real dust-storm in his hell-fire grave. I couldn't have been more tickled pink-and Barbara, I knew, really couldn't have cared less about anyone in the past when we were on our non-stop, jet-way to the honeymoon in Florida.
Mr. and Mrs. Steve and Barbara Reynolds checked into the lavishly expensive bridal suite ' at the Breakers Hotel in Fort Lauderdale exactly five hours after we had been married in the midst of a January swirling snow blizzard back in Ohio, and the bell-hop had scarcely shut the door behind him on his way out when Barbara suggested a quick dip in the hotel pool. Naturally I was a bit taken aback that she wanted to get back out of the honeymoon nest so quickly. It was against bridal protocol to be so ... so sexually callous! Especially for a thirty-year-old, sex-starved virgin! But I supposed that she was just virgin-nervous, although she wouldn't admit or show it. Instead, she rationalized swimming as her favorite pastime and desire of the moment-a lark, as she put it, after coming from a bleak blizzard to sub-tropical heat in a little less than two hours. And this was explained to me from behind the closed door of the bathroom where she casually disappeared to shyly and modestly change into her swim suit!
As for myself, I easily shrugged all this off. If Barbara wanted to play virginal games for a while longer it was perfectly all right with me. Because then, when the time came to take her, and the way I would finally take her, with power and violence, I wouldn't have to completely affect a madness for her skinny body. Oh, no ... just looking at the usual other girls around the swimming pool in their brief bikinis would compel my sane-disgust of Barbara's body to explode. Not that otherwise I wouldn't be able to easily fake it-and it would, too, be more than the money that would keep my always starving strength up. I belonged to that rather rare breed ... born for no other purpose than to manufacture that good old hot stuff, and there was always plenty to go around-praise the glorious gods from whom all such blessings flow, and flow!
After nearly two hours in the pool and the sun, I thought it was high time for Barbara to come to worship and drink deeply from my marathon communion-cup of sweet good cheer. So immediately when we returned to the bridal suite in our sun-dried swim suits, I took a deep breath and kissed my wife boldly on her thin lips. And instantly her body tensed incredibly.
"I love you, Barbara," I said, affecting a husky whisper of sincerity. "So relax. There's nothing to be scared about. I'm not going to hurt you for the whole wide world."
"Oh ... well...." she stammered as her hands couldn't decide where to go without touching me at either side, "I-I know that...."
"It's true," I reaffirmed, reaching for her halter strap, pulling it off with one quick sweep of my arm, and she was naked to the waist. Her breasts were as small as shriveled oranges, but I began to suck on her nipples. I knew that felt good to her. But to me-the tiny tips were like two underdeveloped peach-pits. Nevertheless, I nibbled them to stiffness. It's a truism that something is better than nothing, in a hot moment's pinch. And all the while my hands were exploring, tuning her in to the preliminaries of exotica, and then I finally unzipped her swim suit bottom and slid it down to her feet.
All the time Barbara just stood there, her arms limply down at either side of her, in a dead-motionless position of ... of complete surrender? Or dry-mouth fear? I really wasn't sure. And it didn't make any particular difference to me, either. I only wanted relief now-the pool side beauties had boiled my juices-and I would have it, quickly!
Barbara was now kneeling before me on her knees, her eyes levelled unblinkingly at me. Then suddenly her nervous fingers hooked into the elastic waistband of my flimsy briefs, and pulled them off in one sweep of her arm. Barbara gasped and stared, frozen in delirious disbelief, I knew. Women always reacted this way at the first real sight of me.
Slowly I jutted out my hips, and then abruptly Barbara nearly lost her mind. As all the others had since the day I got out of diapers, practically-and many, many more would again, after this. Not that I'm registering any complaint. On the contrary, this was the absolute epitome of Seventh Heaven bliss!
"Oh, yes, God, yes! Just like that, Barbara! That really feels tremendous! And I want you to ... oh, yes, darling! That's so sweet down there, huh?"
Reaching down then, while Barbara still wetly concentrated on the intense intimacy that, for the moment, was the focus of all her desire, I gave in to my most compelling urge. Slowly, tenderly, I reached down between her legs, touching her with an exploratory forefinger in a fashion that quickly had her squirming and moaning. And then....
Barbara stumbled back and stood up quickly. I blinked and faced her, flabbergasted!
"Darling! What's wrong?"
"Y-you!" she stammered, her face suddenly as white as a sheet of bond paper. "You-you want to kill me! Please-please don't...!"
I caught my breath. "Barbara! What are you talking about? Tell me-"
"Y-you want to ... to bury that m-mon-strosity!" she blurted at last. "You want to put that ... out of sight! D-don't you?"
"Well ... I ... that's what it's for, you know."
"Yes, I know!" Barbara snapped furiously. "But ... I didn't know until now ... I mean, I-I thought ... it was mostly a lot of padding!"
"Oh, Jesus," I said. I had to laugh. "Jesus, Jesus. When will you women ever learn?"
Barbara snapped, "But this wasn't fair of you, Steve! Particularly you ... with that ... you should have warned me."
"Now, Barbara ... now darling! There's no escaping the initial pain, granted. But it'll only last a few seconds, and in those seconds-"
"I'll die!"
"Barbara, this isn't a matter of life and death at all," I said firmly. "Once we go to bed ... once you take me nice and slow and easy ... everything in life, and marriage in particular, requires a little period of adjustment! But it's inevitable for practice to make perfect ... I guarantee it!"
Barbara shook her head stubbornly. "No, it's not true! You'd tear me apart!"
"Darling! Believe me, the agony will become the sweetness of pure pleasure!"
"LIAR! SAVAGE! LYING SAVAGE MONSTER!" Barbara whirled around, ran into the bathroom, slammed the door behind her-and locked it securely.
I tried to get to her. "Barbara, please ... you're just scared. That's obvious ... and natural! A honeymoon is hell ... but only until you give away your virgin's problems and pain to conventional instinct!"
"Listen to me!" Barbara hissed, breathlessly, from behind the still locked door. "I'm going back home, Steve ... on the very next jet out of here ... this afternoon! And I'm going alone, too ... and I'm also going to get an annulment from you ... first thing tomorrow morning!"
I swayed. "T-that's crazy talk!"
"Well ... you'd better believe it!" Barbara insisted. "You deceived me, Steve! And no judge or jury would ever conceivably expect a marriage to be consumated with you ... even if it was a harem of Amazons!"
"Barbara! Please-please-" I pleaded, visions of three million bucks going down the drain dancing in my head and before my very eyes.
After a solid hour of cajoling and arguing-I gave up. Dejected to the utter depths of despair, I began to get dressed, to get ready to leave. Months and years of waiting had all been in vain! I slammed my fist against the bathroom door. Barbara made no answer. I returned to finish dressing. I didn't have to fish for clothes! I hadn't even unpacked!
At last I said, "Good-bye, Barbara. And thanks a whole damned lot ... for nothing!"
"Steve!"
"W-what?"
Barbara made a soft sound, then sniffed her nose. "I do love you, Steve ... but I know I can't possibly take you in a marriage. You're too ... too much! W-where are you going now? Steve, tell me where you will go now?"
"I'm going to ... to live it up! That's all I know. Maybe I'll stay right here, in Lauderdale. Maybe I'll become a beach bum, or maybe I'll life-guard again for a while. Who knows? But I want to tell you something that I do know for certain ... I'll have sexual success, no matter where I go! I learned a long time ago that I generate spontaneous passion in all women; I'm lusty-looking and lusted-after. So no apologies necessary, Barbara. Where there is lust there can be desire-but hardly ever love. So don't kid me or yourself any more. I'll get along, somehow, and you'll get over me-in a couple of days, I imagine. In other words ... wherever I go now, I'm going to live it up sexually shamelessly to the hilt, and I suggest that you don't fret a bit about me."
Barbara seemingly ignored all this. She said, "In my purse, in the top left dresser drawer ... there's five hundred dollars in cash. Take it, Steve ... leaving me fifty dollars to get home on from the Cleveland airport."
My temper flared up again. "You know, Barbara ... I really shouldn't agree to an annulment!"
"Oh, Steve ... you really have no other choice! My father's name still swings a great big stick with lawyers and judges ... over most of the country!"
I nodded to myself. "Yeah ... isn't that a bitch?"
I rummaged through Barbara's purse-and took the entire five hundred bucks. Let her worry about how to get home from the airport, let her borrow the money, I decided, if her God damned family name meant so much. I pocketed my round-trip, first-class, champagne-flight jet ticket, too; I'd turn it into the airlines for a refund. Every little bit would help and probably come in plenty handy. It was a time for greediness. I had to be greedy, I told myself firmly, after everything just went up in a quick puff of smoke. This wasn't a time for honesty, sympathy, or regrets.
Then I picked up my suitcase, strode to the door, and slammed it behind me. I continued striding down the hotel hallway, directly toward the elevator, and punched the button impatiently. I had to wait.
I heard the hotel room door open behind me, but I ignored it until the voice purred, "What's your hurry?" Then I turned around, and grinned sheepishly....
At a slender, big-boobed girl in a patch-Madras brief bikini.
CHAPTER TWO
The bikini girl in the doorway feigned surprise when I turned to stare admiringly at her.
"Oh ... I-I'm sorry...." she stammered, but stepped forward and swiveled sideways so I could get the full front-and-back picture. "I thought you were...."
"You thought I was me," I said flatly, lifting up my luggage and quickly stepping across the hall to her door.
"Well ... I ... say, aren't you supposed to be on your honeymoon and all?"
"I'm an Ohio hick," I said. "When I saw all the goodies, including you, around the hotel swimming pool an hour ago ... I flushed the bride down the toilet!"
"How nice ... for woman-kind!"
"Yeah-I want to spread me around," I winked.
"Well! Won't you come ... in for a drink?"
"My pleasure," I grinned, dropping the suitcases, shutting the door, stepping close, and stripping her nude. In one glance I saw that she was just what the doctor would have ordered for me. A nicely curved-hipped and largely firm-breasted nymphomaniac. This would help. This would help a lot better than saltpetre! Which was something that an insane, prudish doctor I once visited had suggested that I put in my own food "to quiet things down to normal usage," as he so unaptly, Sunday-Biblically put it to me in the state of his shock at my sexual admissions.
"Well I'll be damned," she said now, blinking at her own nudity. "Speaking of fast workers! Shall we ... in the bedroom?"
"You're the hostess," I said, then added, "With the mostest! Lead on...."
Instead, she undressed me then-rather like a wildly anxious child who was furiously tearing the wrappings off a Christmas gift that was an expected toy. I mean, after all, she had seen me down at the pool in my brief swim trunks. So I was hardly the surprise package. Still ... around the pool, with sheer grit, I had somehow managed to keep myself in place. But now, when she yanked my jockey-style shorts down....
Her quick, deep intake of breath nearly sucked the hotel furniture through her wide-opened mouth.
"Papa mia!" she drooled, her eyes crossing momentarily in sheer amazement.
"Oh, no," I objected impishly. "Not yet. What's your all-fire hurry? We've got lots of time. Haven't we?"
"Well ... no...." she said sheepishly. "You see ... old lazy-bones will be home from fishing pretty shortly."
I couldn't help smiling. "Your husband?"
"Unfortunately!"
I stared at her. "Doesn't exercise his manly prerogative enough for you?"
"You know it! Oh, big beauty, what I could tell you about Henry and his hot-shot love-making! All I know is, twice a week-on Wednesday and Saturday nights-is his absolute limit. And then only once-and fast, before I can hardly get interested."
"Poor wildcat," I sympathized. "Of course ... there are always the divorce courts."
"Forget that!" she laughed wryly, flashing diamond-laden fingers in front of my eyes. I was dazzled ... and interested-for afterwards.
"Yeah ... diamonds really are a girl's best friend, I guess. To a certain degree. But you can't use diamonds to-"
"Oh, c'mon!" she hissed impatiently. "I want you to ... oh, yes! Oh, yes, big beauty ... that first!"
Licking one nipple and then the other with my tongue ... I suddenly bit them fasterect. She squealed like a stuck pig ... adoring it! So I bit the left one that I had my teeth on again, and she went wild; her fingernails clawed deep into the muscular moons of my strong buttocks, and then I punished her other tit with my sharp teeth. She loved it! And I wasn't about to complain of her raking fingernails! This was what I had wanted and needed, all day.
Now it was her turn to bite with her gleaming white teeth. The she-stallion nicked my chest and belly with her razor-sharp fangs, and then worked swiftly, too swiftly for me to twist my body to one side and get her mouth off-she quickly plucked out some of my hairs with tweezer-teeth! And I howled like a burned banshee!
"YOU BITCH! Now you are going to get hurt!"
"Oh, goodie!" she giggled.
I hurled her down on the bed and arranged her willingly spread-eagled-her face was exhilarated! I knew that she wanted to savor this moment until she had taken everything from it, but her body was going mad for what she knew I would do next, and the way I would take her-with power and violence. To hurt her-with hard delight. I scooted down.
The things she felt came out in cries, moans swelling to shrieks.
Delightedly, I made sudden full use of my strength, and my loins slapped her in jarring contact. She was a picture of agony. For a long moment her face was etched in pain and twisted by terror, and she screamed and sobbed, "No! NO-O-O-O! MERCY!" And then after a few more moments of my movement ... her features relaxed and assumed a pure, delightful expression of heady joy!
I collapsed my throbbing, spasm-tortured body onto her. But I didn't disengage; panting heavily, I waited for patience to be its own reward again. I knew it would only take me a few moments....
But she kissed my ear and murmured, "Sorry ... you've got to get the hell out of here. Right now!"
"Nope. One more time," I demanded, cupping her breasts in my palms.
She nudged me with her body. "I said ... OFF AND OUT!" Suddenly she was angrily aggitated.
"Hey ... what is this?"
"My husband is probably coming up in the elevator at this very moment," she hissed.
"I thought you said we had time-"
"Well we don't for any more! It's the damn breaks ... too bad. I'm sorry."
I shrugged. "As you say, bad breaks. Or ... you got more than you bargained for from me! Didn't you?"
"N-no! You were marvelous!" she lied. Her eyes had suddenly gone wide with painful remembrance and gave her away.
"Whatever you say...."
I hopped off and reached for my clothes. "Hurry," she pleaded.
I asked nonchalantly, "How about tomorrow? Maybe we could make it-well, say for a couple of hours? Maybe even all afternoon ... again and again! You just got me started, just got a simmer going. You ain't seen nothin' yet!"
"All right, all right!" she flared at last. "I'll admit it. Y-you hurt me ... and it wasn't all joy-time! After all, you big bastard-my husband's a shrimp and ... and I'm not stretched to your size. It was some fun when you got going ... but forget it now! No more...."
"Then ... how about giving me something to remember you by?"
She stared at me, frowning. "W-what do you have in mind? A-a kiss on the cheek?"
Nervously I affected my impish grin again. "Well ... no. I mean I can't look at a kiss, afterwards."
"Y-you can't expect ... money!"
"Oh ... hell no!" I assured her. "But-on the other hand ... why not?"
Then she laughed. "Because ... you simply aren't a hustler, yet! You don't look like a hustler ... you don't act like a hustler ... and you certainly don't have the growling, gruff flair of one, demanding his payment! You just come on like a stud who's toying with the notion of hustling!"
I had to laugh. "Well ... you ... read me like a book!"
"Why not? Your cover is still wide open! And that's your most vulnerable weakness."
"Maybe ... maybe I'll correct it," I said. "Soon!"
"Don't let me know if you do."
"Well ... I'm already thinking-you seem scared to death of your husband finding out about you, and ... who's ever going to miss one of your diamond rings when you wear so many!"
She jumped up quickly off the bed now, and hissed, "On your way-on the double! Before I call the house detective!"
I was getting nerve. "Maybe ... you'd never make it to the phone-"
"WANTA TRY ME?" she yelled furiously, but she was suddenly more than a bit edgy.
"Oh ... what the hell!" I decided, getting cold feet. Simply because I didn't have the experience or knowledge to bluff it through with calculated confidence, I knew!
At the door she said, "If you want to hustle that awful lot of manhood you've got ... take a tip ... talk to the hotel pool-boy. His name is Teddy."
"Yeah ... I'll bet you know him well! I mean, should I mention your name? I don't even know it!"
"Frustrated," she said seriously. "Thanks a lot!"
She laughed. "They're either too big or too small!"
"And you are too God-damned particular," I said and went out.
I had to make up my mind riding down in the elevator. Either I walked straight across the lobby and went out the door of the hotel to cast my fate to the winds ... or I could go out to the pool area and strike up a conversation with Teddy for what it might be worth to me.
I decided quickly to follow Frustrated's tip. At least it was something definite in the offering. Furthermore, I had been all hemmed in in Hicksville, hoarding away my lusts and passions from the notorious small-town gossip that I had been afraid would reach Barbara's ears ... but now I was free and clear to sexually cut loose again ... and Frustrated had certainly whetted my appetite ... for the pay-off that I could demand, too. I mean that I had counted on sharing Barbara's fortune for such a God damned long time that it was just inconceivable to me now that I could settle down to steady, hard work on a routine nine-to-five job. And I suddenly became glad that Barbara had hooked me and now let me off the hook! It seemed to prove to me that I could always get a rich Sugar Mama if I wanted one ... but all of a sudden I didn't want that any more. My thoughts reeled in a daze....
I wanted to become a butterfly in heat! I wanted to sample and taste and revel in sex of every variety ... as long as it paid off for me ... because I became aware there wasn't any easier or more pleasant way for me to turn a buck-since I couldn't take the starch out of my stuff. And didn't want to!
Following such a path held connotations of moral degeneracy, of course. I had to admit that, even in my delighted daze now. I was not without morals, and there was an excellent chance that I might become twisted and perverted and a money-mad hustler and God only knew what else-rotten to the self-despising core. It was a possibility-a definite toss-up as soon as I trapped myself in the game of hustling. But as far as I was concerned-life itself was a gamble, a blind game of chance all the way to the grave, a perfectly natural chain of unknown circumstances-that had to be experimented with! If one wanted to really live life to the fullest-anything goes! Because it's all here, after all, right here on earth. And sooner or later someone has to take advantage....
So I checked my suitcases at the front desk and went outside to see the pool-boy, with my moral defenses going down, dangerously down....
What will be ... will be!
CHAPTER THREE
Teddy eyed me cautiously as he handed me a scotch-on-the-rocks from the pool-side bar. I seemed to have him on tenterhooks. And so I laughed and it relieved the tension. "Here's to everything for those guests who can pay for it," was my grinning toast.
Then Teddy laughed easily, too. "Say, are you dead serious about hustling here at the Breakers?"
"Swear to God-" I gulped some scotch. "What makes you doubt me?"
"The honeymoon bit."
"Come off it, Teddy, you had eyes in your head when Barbara and I were down here earlier, in swimming. I don't have to draw you pictures." I was a bit anxious. "Now let's talk turkey."
"Okay. Here's how it works around here." He sat down on the edge of my chaise lounge and leaned forward confidentially. "In most hotels the bell captain makes all the arrangements for the horny guests ... but this is Florida. Fun in the sun-sand, surf, and all that crap. So the pool-boy is kingpin."
"Well, you've got it too," I said inanely, clinically glancing with a nod at the bulky intersection where his hips joined to form his pelvis.
Teddy nodded with an unashamed, proud smile, revealing even white teeth. "So I'm told-over and over again. And ... I'll do anything for money, too. Make hay while the sun shines is my motto. And at twenty, with skin that keeps a rich chocolate-brown tan-I guess I don't have to rely on luck to make out for cold cash."
Talk about egotists! I said, "Go on...."
"Guests check in with their wives or lovers. Men-women, boys-boys, girls-girls. Lots come alone. But ... the sub-tropics sex everyone up! They all want to make out! And most of them drop the hint to me."
I laughed. "So you always get first, prime choice!"
Teddy shrugged. "Sometimes. It depends. Maybe a guest might prefer a girl or boy from the outside who's lounging around the pool."
"Huh? You mean, although that big sign over there says the pool is for hotel guests only, I can live elsewhere and still come in here and...."
"Yeah ... if you're on my list of hustlers and whores. You've got to be on my list and then split your take with me-fifty-fifty. And no cheating or you get scratched and that's that!"
I said flatly, "Add me to your list."
Teddy hesitated as he swept his eyes over my body. "Well ... you see ... we're probably the classiest hotel on the beach, and so we expect top-prime meat, if you get what I mean."
"Oh ... yeah...." I muttered, feeling a sudden and strange kind of self-consciousness and embarrassing nakedness.
Teddy said, "Frankly, first I'll have to take a look-see how you are really built under your dressing."
I felt taken aback. I wasn't really shocked-just flushingly amused, I quickly decided. "Okay. When and where? You name the examining time and place, and I'll strip for the probing ... whatever...."
"Come with me, then," said Teddy, nodding toward the cabana doors. "We pool-boys have our own locker and shower cabana. The others are all dressed and gone. So we'll be all alone in it. Just let me stop off at the bar for a gin-and-tonic...."
The pool-boys' cabana was quiet and isolated at the end of the row of cabanas. Lockers lined both walls. A low bench was adjacent to each wall of lockers. Teddy sat his drink down on one of the benches without taking even a first sip to wet his whistle. It seemed an odd thing to do.
And now Teddy seemed impatient. "C'mon, strip down!" he ordered me, and his breathing grew husky as I did. I felt myself flush, although I was secretly thrilled at the inspection and admiration.
"Hey!" His fingers had darted out abruptly and surprised me. "Oh-h-h-h, Jesus," I sighed heavily with resignation, then.
"Nothing to be ashamed of!" Teddy's voice was throatily defensive. "Like lots of the hotel guests, I'm A.C.-D.C.-a bisexual. And before I can put you on my list ... I want to find out just how good you are as trade!"
"Well ... first time for me," I admitted softly. "But there's a first time for everything, I always say!"
"You say the right thing, Steve. Now then ... lay down on the bench-it's plenty wide enough-on your back, and put your feet up on it." He picked up the tall glass of gin-and-tonic and showed it to me. "It's warm-no ice at all."
"So?" I blinked up at him from my back.
"Just telling you. So you'll relax," Teddy winked. "Here goes!"
And he did. And I was, I'm afraid, flatly flabbergasted! He didn't just pour the drink on me in one glass emptying motion. Instead, he slowly sluiced and trickled the liquid around ... as if he were powdering an undiapered baby!
It was, frankly, a weird, warm, wet sensation ... that naturally provoked a stimulating response!
Ten, fifteen minutes he took just savoring the gin-and-tonic; and all the while he was massaging my tummy with strong, supple fingertips. I was perhaps half-way to the pinnacle when-I should have expected it-he tongued for the last delicious drops. Heavenly! A great wave of blissful shock swept all over me and I cursed and gnashed my teeth but It happened uncontrollably.
"Oh, Chr-ist!" I moaned in deep, deep ecstasy.
But Teddy squashed my dizzy delight swiftly then. "You bastard! You rotten, quickie bastard! No restraint, have you? No consideration! Well, let me tell you something ... you'd better learn! You'd just better use a mental cork from now on-until your trick wants it to happen. DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME?"
I flushed in anger. "I get the God damned picture! You don't have to tell me-"
"I'M TELLING YOU!"
"OKAY! IF YOU DON'T WANT ME-"
"OH, MAN! YOU'RE ON MY LIST!"
I relaxed and had to laugh. "Big deal ... but thanks!"
And then Teddy had to chuckle, too. "Whew! That was ... so-o-o good, man! Damndamn-damn! De-e-e-licious!"
"Stop ... you're putting me on!"
"I'm putting you ... to work! First thing tomorrow."
"Suits me to a T," I smiled broadly in agreement.
Then Teddy suggested that we take a shower ... together ... to cleanse our sweaty bodies before getting redressed. He let me pad in first-it was a very small shower stall-and he had to reach around me at either side to work the knobs for hot and cold water. He fumbled with the faucets; a gush of cold water came out. I leaped backward, colliding against the nakedness of Teddy.
"Ouch!" he yelped. But he didn't seem mad; he chuckled throatily. "Turn the hot faucet, on the right, harder on ... and hand me the cake; I'll soap you up."
"Willy-nilly, I gave him the bar of soap. But I swallowed hard. There was no mistaking the position I was in! I was dizzily nervous and angry at the same time. Mostly with my stupid self ... for stepping into the stall shower first.
"Don't get all shook up," Teddy spoke all of a sudden, as if reading my mind. "Don't get the idea ... well, you'll see in a few moments ... what's really going to happen...."
And now he adroitly applied the lather to my body. His hands were strong, smooth, and slippery as they slid the soap up and down my back ... around and across my broad chest ... and then some other pleasant places. And all the while the full force of the needle-sharp spray of the shower beat down upon my face, adding to the heady delight that Teddy's soapy fingers were tormenting from me.
Then a dull thud. Teddy dropped the soap, and his hands.
I had a sane thought: It was inevitable! Of course-he wanted me to....
My emotions were triggered to respond to his silent wishes because of the exciting intimacy in the steaming shower stall. Because of the instinctive desire for discovery and experience in all things humanly sexually possible!
I went wild with the desperate hunger of a starved animal. Abruptly I had a savage appetite to glut myself. And so instantly I prepared to skew and gorge myself on a treasure of food.
The shock sent Teddy into tight, rigid spasms, and quickly I reacted with a taut rigidity of my own to freeze the lightning wave of pleasure that tore into my stomach. One moment Teddy could not control the series of painful sobs and shrieks that parched his mouth. But the next moment, his agony was transformed into sheer ecstasy and he began to wiggle with desire and....
And I was transfixed with ecstasy!
I stood idle and let him do everything ... and everything was nearing the floodgates! It was incredible torment.
Suddenly, I became aware that I wanted to help him. I reached around on either side of him and grabbed ... but his strong hand shot down from the tiled wall and tore away my fingers as he commanded throatily, "Don't touch me! It isn't necessary!"
And it wasn't. Five, ten minutes later I was as white-hot as an exposed bulk of steel being teased, tormented, and hammered ... and suddenly the searing-hot flames shot forth in a tremendous explosion of liquid fire that caused an amazing-at least to me, then-chain reaction ... burning and bursting through Teddy's senses to trigger his own high-soaring explosion, and he howled highly from the spasms and the exhausting, numbing relief.
The whole world spun dizzily around and around, for both of us. With the palms of his hands still tilting his body against the water-splashed, tiled wall, Teddy bent his elbows and slumped forward to rest his forehead on the cool wet tile. And I fell backward, spinning and spent, and our heavy pantings were in accord.
"Whew!" I somehow managed to speak first. "T-that was really something...."
Teddy slowly turned his head sideways ... smiling slyly. "Wasn't it!" he agreed breathlessly. "And, was it something ... dirty ... twisted ... sick ... queer?"
"N-no!" I admitted, shaking my head dumbly. "It's crazy ... it was completely wonderfully wild ... if anything it was ... glory be to Heaven down there below!"
"Yep. That's all that counts! No matter how you do it...."
"Sure!" I acknowledged, nodding numbly, finishing the thought for him. "There must be a hundred other ways to get your rocks off that people call odd-balling, but ... maybe they haven't tried them!"
"Exactly," Teddy agreed. "Now let's really take a shower...."
Five minutes later, as we were dressing, I expressed hope that Teddy could recommend a nice room for me in a rather cheap beach area boarding house. I had five hundred bucks in my pocket, of course. And it was going to stay right there for the time being ... as my nest-egg. If by any remote quirk of fate male-whoring really wasn't my cup of tea....
Like the Boy Scouts, I wanted to be prepared!
But I wasn't for Teddy's registered leer!
"Forget getting your own pad for the time being. You and me are just winding up together!" he explained surlily. "I go for the male and female whore-initiate staying at my place for the first whole week! Maybe that's my weak quirk. I just say it gives me the chance to really know what I can sell a body for ... and I expect lots of experimenting and full cooperation. You know what I mean?"
"Yeah. Sexual moon-lighting ... all night ... every night."
"That's the joy-ticket!"
I said hopelessly, "Who needs sleep!"
"Babies and dead men," was his retort.
One moment I despised Teddy's guts and wanted to take his handsome head with the sun-bleached hair plastered down tight and bash the brains out against a brick wall. The next moment, a feeling of admiration for his cock-suredness enveloped me. And I reacted with this totally diverse fluctuation until I saw the rewards of his rather cold, determined steadfastness ... his little red MG ... and particularly his Florida flashy, expensive apartment with built-in stereo, colored TV, and every other creature comfort conceivable. Frankly, I was impressed ... and filled with the expected realization of envy.
"Not bad for a college drop-out, huh?" he kept delightedly interjecting as he gave me a quick grand-tour of the spacious fancy pad.
"Not bad at all! In fact, this is really the berries...."
Teddy suddenly flung off his own clothes until he was completely nude. "Make yourself comfortable, Steve ... fix yourself a drink, if you like ... while I defrost a couple of thick, juicy porter-house steaks to toss under the oven broiler."
"Teddy ... aren't you...?" He was parading all around the living room. Stark nude, as I've said. And two walls were constructed almost totally of glass-looking out directly on the apartment-community-shared patio and pool!
"You mean...?" he asked. "Window-peepers? Don't get your bowels in an uproar! The window-walls are a one-way deal ... like looking at a solid brick wall from the outside."
"I'll be damned!"
"Had them put in special ... because I'm a home-nudist! How about you?"
"I dunno, really."
"Wanta see if you'd like to be?" The tone of his question seemed to have the firm implication of an authorative command.
"Why not?" I shrugged, stripping. It really wasn't a matter of letting him step on me and giving in. It was mostly a matter of wanting to get naked. Probably it was a strange kind of daring ... I did want to see if it was a pleasant feeling.
It was ... just lazily lounging around in the nude ... sitting at the dinner table that way ... there was something free-bodied about it but vaguely difficult to explain. Nevertheless I could recommend it after half an hour in the raw.
Later, finished with our delicious rare steaks but still sitting at the table, I asked Teddy a question and agreed with his answers.
"Teddy ... do you really like girls?"
"Fifty-fifty," he replied firmly. "It's bisexually split right in half with me ... and I'm totally without a sexual code! I mean anything goes that brings successful sexual satisfaction. Why not?"
"Why not indeed!" I shrugged. "I-I want to become like you ... I think...."
"Decidedly," Teddy nodded. "Or ... you wouldn't be here now! Ready to plunge ahead and taste something else succulently new?"
"Name it."
"Coming right up," he winked; then, darting out to the kitchen, he returned with two cups of after-dinner coffee. "Now then ... let's sweeten each other's cup...."
I didn't see a sugar bowl. I didn't understand. "H-how?"
Teddy guffawed. "Like this!" And he started to perform the little boy's ritual upon himself!
"You mean...?" I whispered incredulously.
"Yeah man!" he cut me off with a happy hiss. "Come on! Hurry!"
In a moment our cups runneth over!
It was a strange, unconventional urge-to want to indulge in such a communion ... but somehow Teddy aroused my curiosity, whetted my thirst for the sexual unique!
"May you have every excess and success," was his grinning but sincere toast before we sipped the "exotic" coffee.
And I must admit ... I drained my cup to the last delicious drop ... with savor!
CHAPTER FOUR
Skipping now to the next noon-I don't want to bore you with a description of Teddy's many-different-practices-make-perfect escapades because they'll all come out in precise detail as my story progresses, in the actual events as I performed them for monetary reward ... I was soaking up the sun by the Breakers Hotel swimming pool around high noon when Teddy padded over to my chaise lounge, at last.By that, I mean that he had left me strictly alone all morning, from the very time we arrived at the pool a few minutes before nine o'clock and I plunked in for a quick dip while he opened up the cabanas. Actually, this was all prearranged ... the better for him to be on his toes duty-wise ... mostly the better for me; establishing that I was all alone seemed to be a prerequisite before any interested party would dare to make contact with me.
Rather strangely-for several unescorted women seemed to give me the come-hither eye-not a single person struck up any conversation with me, although I grinned warmly at a couple of passers-by who smiled first and hesitated, adjusting their bejeweled sun-glasses, but then passed on. I didn't fret. Everything comes to he who patiently waits....
And so it did.
Teddy asked me, "See that man over there behind me ... stretched out in front of cabana number seven?"
"Yeah...?" I squinted at a tall and heavy man in his middle forties who looked like an incarnate Sidney Greenstreet. He wore baggy Bermudas and a brazen sport shirt painted with green palm trees and purple orchids on a yellow silk fabric. Grotesque!
"That's Fritz Bartelme," Teddy went on, cutting into my appraisal. "He and his wife, Clara, are occupying the choicest executive suite for ten days. Big-shot sausage manufacturer-"
"His own best advertisement, from his bulk," I put in. "Ugh! Look, I'd rather not-"
"Who're you trying to kid? If the price is right! And ... it is!" Slyly, Teddy showed me a crisp new one hundred dollar bill palmed in his left hand.
"You mean...?" I gasped.
"Yeah. I pimped the price for you, this time."
"W-what am I supposed to do?" I was a bit nervous, now that it was down to brass tacks. I tried to control my edginess-breathing ever so deeply but gently. Then I concentrated on the hundred dollar bill-half mine-and all my inhibitions fled fast. "I'm to what? Act as trade?"
"Nothing so tacky," Teddy replied, chuckling, softly. "Bartelme will explain ... things to do about his wife. Now get the hell over there!"
"Sure. I'm game," I winked; then, putting on my happiest smile, I -edged my way around the pool. I relaxed and gave myself completely up to great expectations of sexual bliss.
"Top of the day, young man!" Fritz Bartelme welcomed me jovially to his cabana. "Sit down ... sit down a minute."
"Thanks, sir," I said, smiling genuine. "It's nice to know you. I'm-"
"Steve. I know." He reached for a bottle and showed a measurement with his thumb and forefinger. "How many fingers of this fortyyear-old brandy can you take this early in the day?"
"None for me, thanks," I declined gently, "but you have as many fingers as you like. I enjoy watching people having a good time."
"You know, young man," he said, letting his voice drop, barely ride on his breath, "you're hung like a hell-fire stallion. You're exactly what I've been looking for ever since wifey and I arrived here at the hotel, three days ago. But they don't make many like you anymore! It's a real pleasure just finding you!"
"Well ... I want you to have a good time...." I said inanely.
"That's what I reckon to do, young man!" His jowls shook with laughter; then, the voice lowered again. "Now then ... here's the extra key to my suite. What I want you to do is go up there to the bedroom, completely undress, and slip under the bedsheets. Then you stay there and don't expose yourself beneath your chin ... no matter what happens: Do you follow me?"
"I think so," I nodded. "No matter if all hell breaks loose-"
"Yes," he cut me off. "You keep the sheets covering your nakedness ... until I tell you to jump. And then you jump! Get me?"
"Got you." I wasn't sure that I really did ... but I guessed that everything would be pretty self-explainable in due time....
Seemingly dismissed by Fritz Bartelme now, I flashed him another quick smile and went packing up in the self-service elevator for swimming-suited guests to Suite Eight. It was plush and empty, as I had expected it to be. I hesitated in the living room for a few brief seconds to admire the ocean-view from the fifteenth floor; then I quickly did what I had been instructed ... stripped nude and slipped under the soft silk bedsheets, pulling them up to my very chin like an anxious kid on Christmas Eve.
Silence and calm.
The bedside alarm clock went tick-tock-tick-tock-tick-tock....
Abruptly the corridor door opened and-I could see plainly from the bed even without craning my neck-Fritz entered the other room, preceded by a squat-plump, pudgy-faced woman with a high whiney voice.
"Oh, Daddy! Tell me now...." she whimpered, nuzzling his thigh with her plump rump. "You know I can't stand suspense!"
"Well ... get undressed. Out here," he said with controlled eagerness.
"You mean ... there's a stranger in our bed?" Her round eyes went saucer-size. "Oh-h-h-h...!"
"Don't peek!" thundered Fritz. "That's not fair, my dear!"
"Oh, you old delicious devil you!" she giggled giddily. "I'm just palpitating ... and I hope the stranger is horny as hell!"
Suddenly, I guessed it ... this was a charade! It was all a sexual ruse, with a theme that Fritz and Clara Bartelme had often played before ... God only knew how many times, or how long ... and I was the dashing, ravishing stranger ... up to what situation? This I couldn't know yet. But I did know ... whatever the crazy little improvisation might come to, I was in the mood and already filling up with a potent drive. This would positively be a new and probably very unique sexual experience for me.
Now they undressed in a flurry of movement. I blinked. Uncorseted, Clara was a wondrous sight to behold ... of flabby flesh and large squashy breasts that were disgusting and strangely voluptuous at the same time-like the women portrayed in the Rape of the Sabines painting. Probably Clara could squeeze a man to death, I mused, if she ever put those fantastically fat legs of hers to....
Inadvertantly, I gasped as Fritz dropped his boxer-style undershorts then. There had surely been some God damned mistake at his conception! Underneath his rolly-polly mounds of belly was ... a thing! A Godawful ludicrous thing that must have been wounded and stunted in the womb! I stared at it in momentary total disbelief ... but my mind had not faltered into illusion. Not even a method actor could have discounted it.
"Daddy! I want to tip-toe in to see the wicked stranger!" Clara cried in a loud stage-whisper. "Is it a time to dare ..'.?"
"Yes. But softly!" Fritz whispered back. "And on tippy, tippy-toe. Don't dare surprise him!"
"Oh, Daddy! You mean...?"
"Yes, my dear! He is carrying a killing weapon...."
"Oh, Mother of God! What ever shall I do?"
"Why ... tippy-toe!" Fritz answered, guffawing shortly.
Despite my rapt interest in the whole scene, I couldn't help but think in brief distraction what a "charming" couple they would make in home-movies, or to give a new and zestful flair to the always obvious-sameness of really tacky stag films! But I quickly relocked in the mood of the moment.
Quietly they tip-toed toward the bed and then stopped at the very bottom, peering and blinking directly into my eyes. I had a terrible urge to wink! Instead, I kept my control and just stared with a total lack of expression.
Suddenly Clara shrieked, "Oh...!" And instantly her hand flew to her wide-opened mouth. Then, "Oh, whatever have I done now? I screamed, Daddy! And if I scream again ... he's going to leap out of bed and devastate me to death! Isn't he?"
"Why ... perhaps!" Fritz grinned. "Wouldn't you like...?"
"No! I should expire from horror and shock. I know I should!"
"Now ... now, my dear-"
"I won't look" Clara cut him off. "I simply will not look at the evil stranger ... I'll pretend he just isn't there at all-just yet! And meanwhile ... please, Daddy ... please, protect me! Enfold me in your flesh ... or distract my mind! Oh, yes! That's it! That's what you must do, quickly! Divert me with your teeney-weenie star attraction!"
"Well, my dear ... only if you really coax me!"
"Oh, I will. I do! I beg, beseech and bewail you to perform your head-lining attraction...." And Clara began to clap her pudgy hands with the fury of an ardent fan. Clap-clap ... clap-clap ... clap-clap-clap. She was all of a sudden establishing a strange kind of rhythm. And I grew strangely anxious, and rather hypnotized too!
Fritz remained standing motionless at the foot of the bed. But already there were signs of eager expectant pleasure. As his wife's applause slowly increased its rhythm, his narrow slits of eyes became glazed over and began to roll around and round in their sockets. His moist lips parted and drooled. Then he moaned softly and bounced up and down like a gleeful, bouncing baby ... at first fondling himself gently, stroking with his thumb and forefinger....
I was rather fascinated ... but abruptly I felt the rise of sheer pity for him. Here was a jovial, self-made businessman who had the world's oyster in his hand-in two ways-and he was being forced to degrade himself in front of her ... and me, a total stranger. He was playing the role of a humble and humiliated husband without the slightest rebellion. Consequently, I felt a natural pity.
Suddenly, the air was punctured with a high, hoarse sound. Clara was laughing at him! I was totally astonished by this, but I quickly noticed that her sudden domineering, degrading laughter seemed strangely to decrease Fritz's humbleness ... in exchange for a giddy grin, as if he were really a fool-clown who enjoyed the lime-light of her laughter. In a weird way of looking at it, Fritz did derive some sexual thrill at this bizarre action ... for chuckles tore through him now! And his cowardness began to vanish!
Quickly, the roles reversed.
"On your back-right now!" he ordered Clara, slightly breathless in anticipation. There was just the slightest pause as her laughter twittered into giggles. Then Fritz poked her in her soft tummy with his thumbs ... and she obeyed, scrambling into the bed and laying down on top of the sheets right next to me. The bed absolutely shook under her weight.
I didn't stir or shift my position in the slightest-not that it would have probably mattered, I suppose, for both Clara and Fritz seemed completely oblivious of my presence at the moment. They were, in every sense of the word, lost in each other. Yet it seemed a feeble frenzy, and eventually it was only the bounce of their mutual high laughter that shook them to simultaneous weak peaks together. And then they squealed together for just one moment before....
"That was NOTHING!" Clara laughed in his sweating red face. "Nothing ventured, felt or gained!"
"But of course not!" Fritz chortled back. "It was only an obligation ... as man and wife...." He slipped off the bed and stood up on the floor.
I felt my heart quicken. Now ... I was going to degrade Clara even further-in front of Fritz. I screwed up my face as the anxious tension filled me ... with curiosity and startling emotional expectation!
Fritz faced me now. "Up and at 'er!" His nostrils distended. "Go ahead-in front of me-take her, she's yours, sex-starved stranger!"
Then Clara faced me. "Who are you?" she cried. "What do you want?"
"You'll like what I want," I grinned, playing the game now. "Just relax and enjoy what I've got for you."
"What if there's a baby?" she cried. "I'm too old to have a baby! So ... I won't ... look! No, no! I won't let you ... make me a baby!"
Momentarily, I froze in disbelief at the mere idea....
"All right, all right!" Fritz shrieked-laughed. "If that's what you don't want ... go ahead, sex-starved stranger ... there's more than one way to skin a cat!"
Clara's legs kicked up and down like a child's with a temper-tantrum. "Oh ... oh ... I'm so afraid...! Please, Daddy! Please ... you guide things!"
"But of course...!"
I was already straddled. Now I waited patiently ... Fritz's pudgy fingers shot out and quickly positioned me; then he leaped up onto the bed behind me and grabbed my hips. And he gently pressured me ... very, very slowly ... just a fraction ... but enough to warn me that it was not going to be that easy....
"Oh ... I feel...." Just as Clara made this latest giggle-I should have expected it-Fritz powerfully lunged the whole weight of his body against my back and buttocks.
Clara's screams were ear-shattering. The room reeled-the walls pounded. A great wave of pity swept over me and I wanted to curse and rant ... but I was imprisoned and had to fulfill my orders. Helpless, I did what Fritz commanded.
"Let me...! That one is for laughing at me, my dear! That one is for being a cackling shrew and a bitch ... that one for being middle-aged and ugly ... that one for not divorcing me ... this one for not dropping dead...!"
All the while his pudgy strong fingertips were grinding into my ribs and buttocks ... and Clara's shrill screams were tearing my ears to pieces. I was, though, I must admit, performing toward a peak of sheer ecstasy. Now that the rhythm of the game had been established and the intense, almost explosive passions had leveled to a high, hot pitch, the mere instinctive pleasure sensations began to surge through me and I started to soar.
Fritz intensified his manipulation ... fast ... faster as Clara's screams surged quicker too. And then....
"Get ready to...!" commanded Fritz. "This one is for the degradation, my dear! This one is for my slavery ... this one for the hell of our Me together ... and ... THIS ONE ... OH-H-H-H, I HOPE IT KILLS YOU!"
It nearly did me! Reduced to an instrument for torture-pleasure, I was used only as one ... forcefully plummeted to depths unimaginable to me ... for the most intense and complete pinnacle imaginable!
It was superb!
"Dress in the other room!" Fritz had helped me stand up. It took a bit of effort for me! "Just a minute ... you have reduced my wife to a sobbing that will last for hours ... maybe several days, I hope, to spoil the rest of her vacation ... and for a job well done, here is your tip." Standing naked with wallet in hand, he fished out and handed me a crisp one hundred dollar bill.
I really hadn't expected to get tipped! So I stammered, "T-thanks very much! I-I'm always available...."
Fritz was already beamingly guffawing. "Young man, I don't really want to kill my wife!"
This struck me as perfectly true while I dressed alone in the suite living room. Suddenly it was all rather clear. This was a serious-comedy ... written out of the sheer frustrations of a perfectly matched-mated couple who had actually come to adore each other's rather weird bodies. And there was the rub exactly ... their peculiarly developed bodies had surely contorted their instinctive desires out of the usual proportions until their sex play required fun and games; otherwise, there was obviously no satisfaction ... except a need to stick together as man and wife. For the very simple reason-nobody else would have them! And so it was illusion ... or sink in frustrated despair. And I supposed that being humbled, humiliated, hateful and hurt were the lesser evils. In one way it was an awful pity ... but in another way, Fritz and Clara Bartelme would always have a certain togetherness ... that already I realized was an added measure to any form of love play. At least this male-whore already acknoweledged a certain closeness of souls during any sex act. And perhaps this weakness, allowing the sensitive portion of the mind to feel an affection, would prove to be my unprofitable undoing....
I vowed that I must not get involved!
CHAPTER FIVE
Pool-side again, Teddy scurried up to me like the cat who just swallowed the canary.
"How'd it go?" he grinned like some sort of lewd Tom Sawyer.
"All right," I answered evasively and stretched out on a soft-padded chaise lounge.
"Swell," he crouched down beside me and then, still grinning foolishly, asked, "And how much may I ask was your tip?"
"You mean...?" I affected annoyed surprise. "I was supposed to get tipped?"
"Yeah. Right!"
"Well of all the ... I wasn't offered a red-cent! Not a single penny for ... Of all the nerve!"
"Come off it, Steve, you can't pull the wool over my eyes as easily as all that," he said flatly, softly. "This is a fifty-fifty deal. So fork over half of the tip that Bartelme slipped you. What say?"
I felt myself angering. "What's your gripe? You've already made a neat, easy fifty bucks off me."
"That's the way the old ball bounces around here," Teddy said with concealed annoyance. "And I don't want to have to draw you any more pictures. Just remember ... I've got a number of hunky guys who are anxious to make my hustling list, panting to make a hundred bucks, sometimes two. And they cooperate!"
"I get the picture. But say ... don't think...."
"No, I don't think," said Teddy disagreeably.
"I know for a fact you're holding out on me! Because you see I played charades with Fritz and Clara the day before yesterday-for a big fat tip."
I laughed shortly, squirming back on the chaise, putting both feet up on the lounge. Of all the rotten luck, I thought rapidly, I had to pick up a pool-boy pimp who was dry behind the ears.
"Okay, Teddy...." I dug into my pant's pocket. "You win ... another fifty."
He didn't smile. "Listen to me, Steve, don't you ever try to pull this stunt on me again-or you're out on your ear!"
I shrugged. "Can't blame a guy for trying to save his first tip. It's all a part of the game, as I see it!"
"Thanks for warning me ... I'll have to watch you like a hawk!" Then he scurried away.
I shook my head, looking after him. I felt cheated ... and I didn't like this whole set-up with Teddy. It was one thing to take a cut for arranging everything, but the idea of bleeding my tips was out of fairness. Suppose I did hold out on him again ... and lied about the size of my tips? Suppose I sliced the tips in half first? It might work. But at the same time I had a feeling that Teddy would be sure to know by a kind of extra-sensory perception. What then? He would be sure to pitch a real bitch and where would that get me? Scratched! Still, I was going to work on a fool-proof system....
"Hi!"
I was lost in thought. "Oh, yeah ... oh, hi there!"
Abruptly, I refocused on reality-on a young, very young and beautiful girl standing by my chaise lounge. Hardly more than eighteen or nineteen, I judged, and everywhere lovely, she had silky smooth black hair, so long that it reached down to her narrow waist. Her face was oval shaped, like a Madonna, burnished bronze by the sun, and she was wearing a silken sun-suit, pure white to emphasize her rich tan.
But there was something more captivating about the girl to me. She was pert and pretty with the wholesomeness of the proverbial girl next door type ... and instantly I wanted her-and vowed I would have her, too!
Now she was saying, "I'm Shirley Boyer, pool-side professional photographer. And as I'm supposed to say ... want your picture taken? Souvenir for the wife-or roommate?"
"Haven't got either." I swung my feet down on the cement and sat up. "Maybe you'd like a pin-up of me, though ... for your bedroom wall?"
Shirley smiled through a blush. "Say, don't you come on strong!"
"It's merely the natural bachelor-wolfishness in me," I grinned, whipping off my sunglasses. "You've worked around the hotel long?"
"I ... well, no...." she stammered in embarrassed admittance. "I'm not supposed to say that-give you guests the idea that I'm still green as a photographer. But ... well, I am!"
I liked her little girl fluster. "Just start working...?"
"Uh-huh," she nodded enthusiastically. "Last week. My father is a photographer in Warsaw, Indiana, and ... well, when we stayed here at the hotel over the Christmas and New Year's holidays and I discovered this job was going begging-somehow I talked my folks into letting me stay on and try it for one season in the sun!"
"Over the strong objections of your boyfriend back home in Indiana, I bet."
"Oh-no, I ... didn't go steady with anyone ... lately ... photography's been my hobby."
"I'm sorry, Shirley. I mean you can't snuggle up to a cold camera."
She blushed again. "N-no, you certainly can't very well...."
"Steve," I introduced myself. "You know, I like you, Shirley." The statement, deliberately abrupt and sincere, seemed immediately to touch her soft spot as I had counted on.
"W-well ... you're nice, too, sir."
"Nice, Steve," I corrected her.
"Steve...." she repeated, moistening her lips.
Plunging ahead, feeling the familiar tingle of tightness coming up, I said, "I think I've soaked up enough scorching sun for one day. And ... I'd like very much to get to know you better, Shirley. Isn't there somewhere we could go right now and be ... you know ... alone?"
Biting her lower lip edgily, she said, "Oh, I wouldn't dare...! I mean I could get fired for ... for visiting a hotel guest in his room."
"I'll let you in on a little secret," I winked. "I'm not staying here anymore, since yesterday-just have a special arrangement with the pool-boy captain to act like I really belong here."
"Oh my gosh, then ... there's...."
"What, Shirley? Some place you know where we can be ... undisturbed?"
"Y-yes but-Steve-I don't think-I...."
"Shush and lead me to it," I said gently. "You shouldn't be scared...."
"S-shouldn't I?" she smiled weakly, nervously. "And why shouldn't I be ... of myself? I want to go there-just you and me together."
This sort of took me aback. "You really do?"
"Yes," Shirley answered firmly. "I've watched you all day and ... I don't believe I've ever seen a young man quite as handsome as you. Your face is like a Greek God. Your body is like a finely-chiseled Roman gladiator. I-I'm unable to keep my eyes from roaming you...! I've never experienced anything like this. You're something ... special, Steve."
"And so are you," I said sincerely, then took her hand and very tenderly squeezed it.
"Oh...!" She shivered delightedly. "Steve-come, Steve, come with me now," she whispered fiercely. She spun around as if she had been shot and quickly darted toward the hotel in a rush of speed and need.
Off the lower lobby there was a closet-sized room-with a cot. We dashed inside and Shirley locked the door.
"This is a perfect set-up," I grinned.
"It-it's one of several cubicles in a row, f-for the staff's rest periods," Shirley explained shakily. "We-we really shouldn't be here."
"Shouldn't we?" My hands moved to her waist. "Shush...."
"Steve! I want to tell you something ... important."
"What's that?" My hands moved from her waist, upward, then slipped inside her sun-suit and tugged at the knot of her bra.
"Oh, Steve!" she cried. "I-I never-never did-"
"I know, I guessed. But don't worry about anything, Shirley, baby, just relax and let me-gently-"
"Oh ... yes! I want-you...." Abruptly, she buried her face into my chest and her hands very timidly touched my waist, then suddenly shot inside my swim trunks....
For a few seconds I merely held myself in rigid control, feeling the delicious, tight trembling of her fingers as they explored ... thinking how pure and marvelous her almost dainty exploration was, and how fulfilling her body would be when unleashed for the first tumultuous experience of her lifetime.
Shirley breathed deeply against my chest as she squeezed again and again, and then she began to play her mouth on the hard smoothness of my chest, and all the while her fingers pressed tighter, relaxed, pressed again, tickled deliciously, then held firmly once more.
Slowly, my own fingers unbuttoned the back of her sun-suit and pulled it from her body with expert and experienced tenderness, pulling the bra from her breasts at the same time. She shivered harder against me then, when she was all nude at last, and the things she was surely feeling that eighteen years had accumulated seemed to sweep over me with delightful pleasantness as the demands of her body rose provocatively to meet my own passion. I lifted her face and kissed her on the lips. At first, it was just a soft kiss, the warmth of my lips against the warmth of hers, sweet and gentle, but it changed in a moment and her tongue began to rim the perimeter of my mouth. Slowly her tongue went under my lips, feeling for that particular softness there, and I yielded my mouth to her, my tongue meeting hers, my hands quietly moving against the small of her back, stroking her, pressing her to me, then manipulating her....
I lowered her to her back on the small cot, opened her knees, then ripped off my swim briefs and straddled her in one quick movement ... and hesitated there as indecision swept over her face like a sudden cloud the instant her eyes hurried to me.
"Oh, Steve!" she cried. "I can't-I-"
"No-no-don't be frightened," I whispered, petting her. "Don't tense up-just relax-"
"I-can't ... I'm sorry," she said forlornly.
"You can," I said patiently. "Gently ... slowly does it." And I smiled into her eyes and saw unmistakable signs of fear-mixed-pleasure for the next few moments that would rob her of virginity forever.
The theft was accomplished with all the slow motion tenderness that I could possibly muster ... and in a few minutes more, Shirley began her own action to assist the descending robbery.
Then Shirley was robbed of her shy girlhood forever, and her painful delirium made her scream out hideously for a moment. But only for a moment. She twisted her head from side to side, but my mouth caught her lips and crushed down upon them, and in the next moment Shirley seemed freed at last ... and she cried out for joy. Then she thrust herself up at me in a heated fury of lust, as if to assure the new gained battle victory, and her hands cupped my buttocks and pressed me down tightly to her.
"Ohhh," I groaned happily ... and then slowness ceased. Her legs were beginning to make uncontrollable scissor motions, opening and closing, and I could no longer control my own actions. Everything was automatic now. Our hips gathered momentum as they met and parted, met again, and she reached her first peak suffering a writhing pleasure that rocked her from head to toe, then reached it once more when my moaning howl gave her split-second warning of the dynamic explosion that nearly ripped me apart.
Slowly, I became quiet and our bodies relaxed, but Shirley continued a slow, lazy action of her hips for a long time after it was over. My body was wet and terribly heavy, I knew, and her breath was dry and labored ... but she would not let me roll away. She was making no demands. It was solely an expression of affection, I realized. She wanted to hold the warm masculinity of me against her. She wanted to let me know that she was completely submissive, and if I wanted to take her again, she was there, right there, and I could do anything I wished, and she would be ready for me. If I wanted just to he there, panting upon her, that was all right, too.
"Steve-" she began, in a voice that barely rode on breath.
"Yes, baby?"
"I-I want to tell you something."
"I want to tell you a lot of things."
"Oh, Steve, this is something in particular. I'm not ashamed! Perhaps I should be; I thought all along I would be! I've had a very strict upbringing by the book and-"
"I understand, baby."
"No, no, I want to tell you," she persisted. "This is something special ... once in a lifetime for a girl. Do you know what I mean? I'm really not good at this sort of thing. You know-explaining things. But I want to explain this to you ... I'm not the kind of girl who would surrender to a man unless ... unless I loved him. And it seems to me that I fell in love with you at first sight! Is that possible?"
Oh Jesus, I asked myself, Jesus, Jesus, what in the hell was I doing here with this ... nice girl? I was touched by her words and felt a satisfaction and warm happiness that I knew was not only momentary ... and all of a sudden this bitter sweetness made me hot, flustered, and anguished ... like a time just before tears.
Where was my male-whore's pride ... of emotional unattachment? I questioned myself furiously. After all, not an hour before I had firmly vowed that all feelings of affections were totally out of the picture for me-as a bang-bang sex machine with only money on mind. Then I had been evoked by Shirley, and almost immediately after that....
Where had my selfish greed for the Easy Street life gone? Suddenly it had just seemed to vanish, to be replaced by certain feelings of ... tenderness and caring ... and a spark....
Abruptly, I felt the ache within my heart and knew that it was of a need, of more than a sexual anguish that only needed almost constant relief. Indeed, there was something much more-a desperate wanting to commit myself to ... things ... ordinary....
But I was already committed! To the stud-hustling game ... and full blind speed ahead! First things first, I told myself in a self-chastising fury-what would falling in love get me? A bloom off the rose that would surely soon wither ... a bunch of ornery kid-brats no doubt ... and mortgages up to here! I needed those like a hole in the head!
And so I quickly aroused hatred for Shirley, and it was different this time, it was violent, and she was stunned horrified ... when my big, muscular hands gripped her with convulsive strength, wrenching her, and hugeness and hysteria took her at the same moment. And when she tried to retreat, even if for only the particle of an instant, I dug my fingers into the small of her back, clawing her back to me, with a complete turbulence that swamped her at my finish, and it nearly drove her out of her mind as my violence triggered her emotions and sent them off like crazy fireworks. But of course it was all meant to hurtfully kill everything that Shirley felt for me in a human way ... and so I tore and raged at her like a wild bull ... until her Seventh Heaven spell was broken and shattered in bitterness and hate ... and a painful vacuum of bloody horror.
Then I jumped up quickly and jerked my swim briefs back on. All the while Shirley gagged on her sobs. She could not understand what had so abruptly turned me into a raging jungle beast ... and I wasn't about to ever tell her, naturally. I felt as if Shirley could very well be my end, but I couldn't allow her to quench my thirst for the sexually curious; I was much too aroused by recent experiences to stick to one kind of diet, no matter how rewarding ... and Shirley was! So, I put down contentment and conjured up starvation again.
And smiling satisfiedly, I hurried from the room.
CHAPTER SIX
Back by the pool, I stretched my long slim body out on a chaise lounge and just lay there, luxuriating in the soft foam-rubber pad and pillow, feeling comfortable, fulfilled-and remote. And I let my gaze wander skyward, into the momentary oblivion of the endless blue horizon. An echelon of five sea-gulls drifted by within my sight, none of them moving a wing, just sailing along on the currents of air, aloof, uncaring.
Wouldn't it be wonderful to be able to do that, I thought. Not fly really, but just coast through life that way, going wherever you want, doing whatever you wish, and not having to lift a finger, or a wing, to do it-wouldn't that be the greatest? I must earnestly try to do just that!
Gradually, I became aware that the swish had saddled up to me like some malignant magnet. I shuddered inside, but at the same time I put down my instant repulsion. After all, I had to have a one-track mind since I was so determined to make my body no more than an instrument; I couldn't afford brains ... just the beef sale. The conscience was an uninvited and completely unwelcomed guest at my body's assignations of profitable perversions.
"Hi there," the swish simpered sweetly and sickly. "I'm Baden. Baden Barnes. And you are God's latest golden gift to the Sunshine State, so I've heard," he added with a grotesque giggle.
"Come off it," I growled. "What's your room number? Go on upstairs and I'll follow in three minutes."
"Oh ... don't be so stupid-silly! I want to dress you up first, doll."
"Dress me up?" I blinked.
"Yes!" he lightly lisped. "In a tantalizing tropical tux."
"Are you serious?" I asked pleasantly, then exploded, "Or out of your mind, with a sun stroke!"
Baden flicked a limp wrist at my knee. "I've just got a real thing for studs in tux. C'mon, doll. I'll take you to my seduction sanctum."
"How far away?" I inquired a bit warily.
"Right here in the hotel!" was the giggly answer. "I own the men's and ladies apparel shop on the lower lobby level. And it's all closed up today for inventory, the sign says, but really for my bestiality!"
Suddenly it was funny to me. I blinked repeatedly at the stick-thin slenderness of his body and chuckled aloud at the repetitious thought that Baden Barnes looked as much like a woman as I had ever seen. He was about forty-five, I thought, and his rather highfalutin', flowery English tickled me to no end.
"Lead onward, Christian soldier!" I guffawed, following him into the hotel where the shop's wide window and glass door were completely shrouded with a heavy muslin drape. And inside, Baden pushed the knob lock.
"Now we must dress you all up like a fashion plate, doll," he said in a practical business tone.
And screaming swish or fantastically mixed-up faggot-or God only knows what!-he immediately proceeded to outfit me, from head to toe, in formal wear that would have put Liberace's attire to shuddering shame!
"It's the berries," I had to admit, perhaps egotistically vainly, as I surveyed myself in the full length mirror that was attached to the dressing room door.
"You look divine, doll!" Baden tittered. "Now, let's go into my window display."
"Crazy," I muttered, standing in the middle of the display window and looking at the "dressing." For a second, I could imagine that I was in somebody's small living room, because the window was decorated with a sofa and chairs and tables and lamps ... replete with groupings of mannequins, dressed in Baden's own sunshine-fashion creations!
"Won't you sit down on the sofa?" he invited me. "And I'll serve the champagne!"
"Real crazy!" I decided. "Just what the hell is your story?"
Baden popped the champagne bottle's cork. "Well, I have an absolute compulsion to be a bit bizarre, now and then. Fort Lauderdale to me is the sort of place where tremendously exciting sexual things don't just happen, because the sub-tropical climate often makes people lazy-bones. Can you believe that?"
"From my experiences, not yet," I admitted, fatiguedly.
"Well, it's true." Baden made one of those formless gestures that meant nothing. "No one down here likes particularly to fornicate with a dazzling flair to the environment. People only consider getting their rocks off-if you'll pardon that tacky expression! Anyhow, I attempt to give sexual relations in Florida a little chic and flair. It's not impossible to combat indifference, you know."
I said, "I'll bet you came here from New York City, didn't you?"
"But of course," Baden said flatly. "That's where all the gay flair and chic in the world is. And now I must try to rub some of it off on you all; I feel compelled to give people a little of the bizarre in their sexual environment."
He served and sipped champagne with me, and I had a sudden wild thought: This is the Mad Hatter's tea party! It was all so nonsensical, really ... yet hilarious, in a certain weird way.
Then Baden shifted his eyes away from me, and he frowned. "When you stop to think seriously about my effort though, it doesn't seem quite natural, does it? Do you suppose there's something wrong with me?"
"I suppose there's something wrong with all of us in one way or another," I answered evasively.
"That's exactly the conclusion I've come to all the times I've thought about it! There just doesn't seem to be any other conclusion to come to, so there's no use in thinking about it at all. Especially since I want to really surprise you! If you'll excuse me for several minutes...."
"You're excused," I grinned. "I'll finish my champagne-and hold my breath. I must admit this is pretty kicky, and it's obvious that you are going to top things ... so hurry the hell up!"
"Patience, patience!" he giggled. "You seem like a perceptive person, so please don't let your stud horniness overpower your genuine, shimmering, intense flair for the chic."
"Jesus, no," I smiled wryly. "I won't let that happen, believe me."
Baden lightly kissed my lips and murmured, "I want you to savor all this until you have taken everything from it, and the storm of your desire builds to such a complete turbulence that you will finally take me with power and violence."
"Jesus," I repeated, in a voice that barely rode on awed breath.
"Think chic!" he told me emphatically and wiggled out of the window display.
Watching his rump leaving made me suddenly excited carnally, and feeling carnally excited made me feel thirsty. I wanted more champagne, which would help me bide the time too, so I got up and went to the display bar-cart and poured some. Then, it was strange and irrational how another feeling came over me abruptly. One moment I was pouring the champagne and everything was all right and getting better, and the next moment everything was going wrong, and there didn't seem to be any reason for it except that I experienced the sudden creepy feeling that I was being watched. This was unnerving, of course, and even more so when the free-floating anxiety attached itself suddenly to the thick muslin that covered the large plate-glass window.
After drinking half the glass of champagne greedily and staring at the muslin-curtain un-blinkingly for several seconds, I tiptoed over to the window and peeked outside ... and peering right back at me with their round curious faces pressed practically against the glass were two middle-aged women window shoppers! All three of us gasped and stared, frozen in momentary disbelief. Then the one woman grabbed the other's pudgy arm, which she immediately shook to get the hand off, and her voice came dully to me as it was diluted through the window glass.
"What is the display of?" she asked me.
Nervously, I largely mouthed the words, "Go away."
The other woman pulled herself up into a huff. "Don't you dare be so fresh," she glared at me.
Her friend said firmly to her, "He must be a faggot."
And I said, "Go ... to ... hell!"
"Well, of all the-" She screamed, "I'll report you, you nasty queer!"
"My name is Baden Barnes," I said and thumbed my nose at them, and they glared furiously at me before stalking away.
There. I'm not usually such a son of a bitch, to tell the truth. I don't care to make a gesture that will get someone in dutch and might cost them business. But I reasoned calmly and rationally that Baden would certainly admit to himself later that this was bizarre when he was called on the carpet by the hotel management. At least, I figured that he would surely have to appreciate my flair, for the melodramatic. So I had no feelings of guilt as I sipped my drink and waited for him to return with his surprise. Commitment to guilt is one thing, and commitment to Baden's chic was another, I reasoned. If he wanted some real fun and games, two could play. This was only logical, I thought with a kind of chic-flair that the situation had strictly imposed upon me.
Baden's voice called, "Stud! Come and find me!"
I blinked. "Hide and seek?"
"Yes indeed!"
I let the champagne hit me, and ducking out of the display window, I stared around ... at emptiness! The entire shop consisted of only one large room, and it was completely deserted!
"You disappear through a trap door under the carpet?" I shouted.
Silence.
After a moment, I felt pretty miffed, then I remembered that lots of swishes like to dress in drag ... and a near blush heated my face as I began to tweak the even dozen mannequins standing silently and rigidly around the shop! And the more that turned out to be just plaster, the more furious I felt, like some foiled beast!
"God damnit!" I growled. "Cut out the teasing game, will you? I've just about had it up to here! Fun is fun ... but enough's enough! This is ... foolish!"
Yet, again-the almost sinister silence!
Furious, with my blood beating impatiently, I practically whacked at the store dummies now. Naturally, I was compelled by some frustration ... but mostly by acid annoyance. The swish was toying with me, to gain a certain superiority over my masculinity! And I felt that I was being reduced, inch by inch, to a used instrument of perverted pleasure. So, this was ugly!
"Here I am, doll," came the whispered giggle.
I whirled, crouching in massive readiness, and blinked at a svelte mannequin in a pale green gown of satin and silk, with a high-piled blonde wig ... and privately cursed the champagne that Baden had obviously planned would get to me. Otherwise, completely sober, the roughness of the quivering skin would have been an immediate give away.
Infuriated, I hooked my fingers into the deep front vee of Baden's gown ... and ripped it down to practically shreds with one powerful sweep of my arm!
"You filthy beast!" Baden wailed after an initial scream. "You horrible stud! This isn't a rape session! This gown sells for two hundred dollars! And you've absolutely ruined it!"
"Use it for dusting rags now," I snarled.
"Get out, get out, get out!"
"After you get what you really want," I laughed. "And I get my usual fee, plus tip!"
"No money!" came the sobbing insistence.
"What?!"
"I gave you an experience in chic and flair! That's a priceless gift in Florida! And that's all you get!"
"Wanta bet?" I growled.
"I don't keep five cents in cash in the cash register!"
"Poor you," I snarled, right after his pink and white nakedness as he scampered into the display window. "I'll take it out on you!"
"Oh, you haven't understood this! You have no appreciation."
"But you will," I corrected the wailing transvestite. "When you learn not to tease a trick without a treat!"
And it was irrational how the thought came to me, but as I covered Baden's body with my hot torso I suddenly wondered if the two window shoppers had maybe come back, and I wanted to rear up and rip off the muslin curtain and let them watch horrified as I beat down with my virility and mind pumping furiously to the struggles of the body under me.
Then abruptly, the strange perversion of Baden's nightmare-like fantasy seemed to seep into my mind and taint my sanity, and I had an incredible urge ... to make a reality of my own fancy, to completely submit to the distorted demands of insane passion and brutal lust!
In a nightmarish flash, the compulsion came over me ... to bite savagely into his neck! I could nearly taste blood, tangy on my lips, and one hand smothered the scream from Baden's lips. And I tried to imagine what it would be like to be unable to give up the fantasy-desire to tear his flesh with my teeth, to let my right hand go to the pulsating, scream tense throat and close my fingers hard and sharp around it, until his cries died and the intense struggle became more violent, more frenzied, which I imagined would only carnally excite me more until my teeth would rip the skin on the back of his neck while my hand constricted on the life left in his throat.
And in a final urgency, I might lean down and sink my teeth into Baden's rump, but from his throat would come the no-sound which told me that I had done it finally-played the fantasy to the absolute hilt of perversion.
"I'm going to die!" came the anguished insistence that snapped me right out of this momentary insanity. "You beastly rapist! Get out, get out, get out!"
"I'm out," I growled, shaking my head to completely dispel the still lingering horrors of my ... capability? "You just feel mighty lucky that it happened to me when it did! I might have ... killed you!"
In the hotel hallway, I leaned against the wall, submitting to the onrush of my tortured thoughts. In my whirling mind I couldn't determine a single cause for my near breakdown in a moment's analysis. I only knew that somehow the awful act of murder was perhaps not beyond my bounds during the ecstasy of insane passion! And I couldn't really blame it on the nature of the specific assignation with Baden. My own repressed desires had to contribute heavily ... and perhaps a sordid sort of craving to break the normal shackles that Shirley had hinted to impose upon me. I didn't actually know. But I did know surely that I would have to let my mind appraise any sexual act of brutal lust from now on. My desire to make my body only an instrument was sheer folly ... and definitely dangerous to my carefree career!
CHAPTER SEVEN
Teddy told me, as we were leaving the hotel around six o'clock, that we were going to a "real swinging party" that night.
"Swell! What kind of a swinging party?" I asked him.
"An orgy," he answered, laughing.
"Sounds like fun!"
"Oh, it will be, Steve," he nodded empatically. "When a lot of whores and stud-hustlers get together and let their pants down ... you can imagine ... it's a pretty wild bash."
"Sounds as if the party will be restricted to us professional people," I remarked.
"That's the ticket," confirmed Teddy. "The bunch of beauties you'll meet tonight are all members of our clan who work the various beach hotels."
"Oh. Well then, I don't quite understand," I confessed. "What's the occasion? I mean, why fun and frolic among ourselves? Just to learn a few new tricks of the trade?"
"And you probably will!" Teddy guffawed. "We all sort of ... have club meetings, once a month. You know ... just for the hell of it."
"That's interesting. Wonderful! What you're really saying is ... we beautiful people get together to enjoy sex-and show off to one another!"
"Okay, sure it's sort of vain on our part," Teddy growled. "But just you wait-you'll get your cash register gut full of piggish pig-tricks after a few weeks. And when the experimental novelty wears off, you'll want to make a distinction between business and pleasure, too."
"Yeah ... I suppose so," I admitted solemn-ly, remembering the swish and thinking that I didn't want to make a regular habit of any impersonal sensualists, really. "Now tell me-who's throwing the party tonight?"
"A couple of the girl whores ... who pooled some of their non-taxable profits and rented a nice and secluded pool-house on the outskirts of town."
"Sounds like the berries," I winked impishly.
And it was. We arrived at seven-thirty, and from the half dozen cars parked in the circular driveway I knew that the party was well started. Getting out of the MG, I heard the incessant babble of talk and laughter from within the small but fashionable house, nestled well back from the street and nearly obscured from all views by a large, thick grove of Banyan trees. Teddy led me up the long walk to the front door and knocked; I took a deep breath and prepared myself for anything.
The door opened and I stared at a slight, boldly female girl wearing only gold lame toreadors. I'm afraid that my mouth flew open at a first glance of her bare big breasts. I wasn't prepared for this ... delicious welcome!
"Hi. I'm Carol. Carol Henderson," she said pleasantly. She didn't wait until I closed my mouth and came out of my dumbfoundedness. She nearly yanked me over the doorstep and shut the door quickly. "The neighbors are all old fogies, but a couple of the men might be peeping toms," she added in explanation of her abrupt action.
"Hi, Carol," I smiled warmly, coming to. "Very nice ... to meet you."
"Same here," she nodded, obviously surveying the firm bulge at one side of my very tight jeans. "So you are God's newest gift to the beach scene. Thank you, God!"
"And you are a divine gift yourself," I put in my own two cent's worth.
"Cliff hangers, aren't they?" she asked, cupping those fantastic breasts out at me with both hands.
"I'd like to climb those cliffs ... with my mouth," I grinned.
"Be my guest," she said. "Later! I have to stick on door-duty until everybody gets here. Meanwhile, have a drink. The portable bar is stocked ... out on the pool-patio."
"Thanks," I nodded, then turning to Teddy, said, "Lead on. I can certainly use a stiff drink, now!"
Carol grabbed my arm and squeezed slightly. "Just a minute-all your clothes get checked here at the front door. Don't be shy!"
"Who is?" I shrugged, smiling broadly. I unbuttoned my shirt.
"Mind if I watch?" giggled Carol as my fingers unhooked my belt and pulled down the zipper on my pants.
"Turn your back and I'll...."
"You can do that too, later!"
"Hot dog!"
There was another moment of appraisal between us, than I denuded myself unashamedly ... even expectantly.
"Merry Christmas," Carol said soberly. "You are a hunk and a half, Steve."
"Isn't everybody here?" Teddy asked jealously, looking down proudly.
"We never invite puny people," Carol giggled.
"After all, it's what's up front that really counts!"
"This is going to be one hell of a great party!" I laughed with gigantic expectation.
"You'd better believe it!" Carol assured me.
"Just remember, Carol, we have a date."
"In a few minutes ... that'll seem like hours." She banged the flat palm of her hand against the front door. "Damn guests who can't arrive on time!"
For a moment, I considered going over and grabbing a mouthfull of her bulging breasts and nailing her against the foyer wall. Then I decided to endure the waiting game, revelling in a sense of frenetic anticipation. And I followed Teddy on out to the pool-patio where the welcome was manifold.
I gasped and stared, almost frozen in delicious disbelief. I felt a tingle up and down my body, and I blinked at ... at least a dozen nude girls and an equal number of naked boys. All gorgeous. All right out of a beautiful, lusty dream. They were drinking and talking and laughing around and in the pool, and I hesitated a minute to notice the way they were grouped. Mostly they were mixed in equal portions of both sexes. But here, two masculine homosexual hustlers, there three very unobvious Lesbians. Nothing seemed to be happening ... yet ... but the voices and darting eyes were fever pitched, anticipatory, I knew. Then Teddy laughed at me.
"Carol and this whole set-up really have you all shook up! Huh, Steve?"
"Yeah, I could overflow the pool," I admitted, suddenly a little self-conscious of my bobbing flag-pole as we began to mingle.
"Oh, what a masterpiece!" a pleasantly plump girl beamed at me, and I felt myself blush. "Welcome! I'm Nancy Owen, your co-hostess. And you are...."
"I'm Steve Reynolds."
"Everybody!" she cried loudly. "This is Steve. Steve Reynolds. Swings a big stick, eh gang?" There was a moment of laughter when I wanted to dig a hole and crawl in out of embarrassment, then Nancy went on, "Now then ... let's all get balling! And since Steve is fresh and new here among us tonight ... I'm going to be a perfect hostess and let him ignite the fireworks! Kiss my big pink buttons, Steve!"
There was a general hullabaloo of excitement, but I was oblivious to the buzz and everything else around me as I quickly concentrated on nibbling at Nancy's marvelous display. I pecked and tongued and kissed away in mouth-fuls of sweet, hardening pleasure, and succulent seconds later Nancy was moaning deep down in her throat and shivering delightedly as I buried my face, played my tongue briskly, and received her splendid spewings as hungrily and gratefully as any starving vulture his profuse appetizer.
"Succulent, huh?" Nancy asked down at me.
"It certainly whets the ferocious appetite," I blinked, my blood beating furiously, my strong legs quivering with impatience. "Now I want to lay you down somewhere ... like right here on this chaise lounge!"
"Bottoms up!" someone demanded, and Nancy hunched forward with her hands digging into my shoulders, encouraging a big beefy young man who continued to sip his drink all the while.
"Crazy, huh?" Nancy giggled at me. "Real crazy. But fun!" I answered, looking around the merry crowd while I waited impatiently.
Everywhere there were clutching, panting, pumping bodies! It was as if I'd stumbled into some modern version of Dante's ... Shangri-la! Teddy was pool-side; that is, he was sprawled on his back over the edge with his legs spread wide apart and his feet kicking up water-waves while only his companion's bobbing head was visible out of the water. And no sooner was she at him in an established rhythm when his contorted chest was straddled by a big, broad-shouldered, handsome homosexual hustler.
"Jeez," I mumbled, blinking repeatedly at the fabulous figures entangled in vivid passion all around me.
"Greatest circus you ever saw, huh?" Nancy huffed.
"Say that again!"
"It'll go on for the whole damned night. You got that kind of stamina, Stevie?"
"I'm saying my prayers!" I laughed.
Then Nancy's fingernails dug into my shoulders, and she and her drinking companion cried out together, and this time no one interfered when I threw her to the chaise lounge and flung myself upon her, driving her head back and down into the pillow with the force of my kisses, and the lust-maddened passion behind them. Her body arched to meet the strength of my amorous attack. My left arm was around her, so completely encircling her body that I held the nipple of her left breast in a nest of clustered fingertips, and then my right hand went down her body, over her moving hips, over the thigh, and she was ready, rising to meet me.
Her arms were around my neck and shoulders, holding me in fierceness, for everything in her body was now terribly alive to me. But she wanted to savor this moment until she had taken everything from it, and her body would be going mad for what she knew I would do next. And so she held me off, turning her body from one side to the other, keeping her thighs between us, never letting me get quite to her. But suddenly her tumultuous emotions, now wild, geysered swiftly, and it was unbearable not to let me take her. We cried out at almost the same instant, and came together in a raging ferocity.
Our bodies clenched and unclenched, beat together, parted, came together again. My voice was hardly more than a guttural snarl in her ear, and she was not much more articulate herself. We were beyond words.
I became, abruptly, a son of sexual sandwich!
With a sly smile, a ravishing red head passed in front of my blurred vision ... then a second later her breasts bumped against my hard, rocking back! Her nipples were as hard as sea-shells.
"Don't mind me," she panted into my right ear, then "Mmmm...!"
With a pleasant shock, I felt her kisses. The red head was kissing my broad back, letting her tongue glide around ... and down. She nipped a bit of my flesh between her teeth.
"Owww...!" I shouted, tensing at the minute pang of pain, and instinctively thrusting out my hips.
"Marvelous!" cried Nancy. "Bite him again!"
Instead, she continued her descent until ... it was the most electrifying ecstasy I could experience! The red head knew just how to tune me up so that I would play Nancy like a grand piano. And the things I felt came out in cries swelling to shrieks, and suddenly I began to rock and rip apart just as....
The familiar voice cried out, "Oh, no! No-o-o-o...!"
My head writhed up. I was hot, then cold, then hot again ... with the dynamic eruption ... and horror!
Minus clothes but with camera ... was Shirley!
CHAPTER EIGHT
By the time my spasms subsided and I got back up on my feet again, Shirley was nowhere in sight. Whirling, I faced Teddy at pool-side; he was sitting up on the edge now in a state of tranquil exhaustion.
I knelt down beside him. "Explain," I snapped, "what Shirley Boyer is doing here."
Teddy looked blank. "Huh? Who?"
"You know who-the photographer from the hotel...."
"Oh. That Shirley."
"How did she get ... mixed up in this?" I asked him. "And don't try to tell me you don't know...!"
"Okay, okay ... I know, I know, it was a camp," Teddy said quickly. "She was invited to take party pictures ... but of course Carol took the film away from her at the front door."
"Shirley didn't know what was coming off until she walked in on this scene! Did she?"
"Nope! Surprise, surprise...."
"She was ... stricken, horrified ... terrified!"
Teddy shrugged. "She'll soon get over it-probably join right in!"
"Over my dead body!" I heard my own guttural snarl.
"Oh, ho-ho-ho! If it isn't the white knight in shining armor! Well ... that's a real switch now-when you were the ravaging black knight with Shirley only this afternoon!"
I swallowed hard. "You didn't see ... the circumstances!"
"Nope. Only the pitch and fast acceptance ... and I don't particularly give a tinker's damn about anything else! But let me tell you something, Steve ... plank Shirley or anyone again during your working hours for free-and you'll be in real dutch with me!"
"Oh, Jesus," I snarled. "We studs ought to have a union-to take you pool-boy pimps down a peg or two, or three!"
"And you take a good hard look at the competition all around you," growled Teddy. "Then come off the high-horse that you are the biggest shot!"
"Tell me," I asked uneasily, "was Shirley's invitation all your idea?"
"W-what difference does it make?"
"Plenty to me! If you did this to pay me back ... if you deliberately schemed against that poor sweet kid...."
"You'll do nothing!" Teddy cried firmly. "Because ... a devil stud doesn't get involved emotionally-can't afford to! So don't get yourself all lathered up, Steve. Any involvement will just tear you to pieces ... then you can kiss Easy Street good-bye! But maybe that's what you really want to do already. Is it? Be honest now!"
Instead, I sort of side-tracked. "Look at me! Listen to me! I'm still a human being, regardless-and I don't go for sick stuff and tacky toying with a nice girl like Shirley. That's all!"
"Is it? No, I don't think so," Teddy disagreed calmly. "I think you've got a case of ... the sentimental hots for her! I'm pretty sure you've got ... heart!"
"Well ... that's my problem!"
"Lick it! Or ... I'll have to scratch you off my list, Steve."
"Oh, sure, sure ... I can't have my cake and eat it too!" I admitted obviously ... chokedly. "Let's forget it. Just tell me ... where you suppose Shirley is right now?"
"I saw her go back into the house with Carol," Teddy told me, then smiled slyly. "Don't worry-she's in good ... hands!"
I knew this was a dirty insinuation. "You're not suggesting-" I began tensely.
"Uh-huh!" laughed Teddy. "Our co-hostess with the big balloons is a real switch-hitter!"
"You're a rotten bastard!" I cried, feeling my blood soaring, a sinking rush in my heart.
Angrily, I stood up and stepped back, fighting against a killing urge to raise my foot and bring it down upon Teddy, to smash him under the water and hold him down there until he would never be able to bother anyone again.
But, abruptly, my response turned on Shirley. Where was she in the house? And what was Carol doing to her? I had to find her as quickly as possible-get her away. And when this was done, maybe I wouldn't try to control myself ... maybe I would think seriously about our tomorrows. Whirling, I raced inside....
But I was too late! In the quiet bedroom hallway I heard the softly murmuring voices, and froze just outside a doorway at first sight of ... Carol kissing Shirley's breasts, taking the pink nubs into her hot mouth, molding the breasts, squeezing, fondling. Then her hand moved to Shirley's loins, and her thighs opened with excitement and the first thrills of pleasure. But Shirley was passive, taking, not giving! And this pleased me through my bother.
"Men are such awful beasts," Carol was muttering now. "But I'll make you forget them for the rest of your life. You'll never let another man touch you again when you feel the wonderful thrills a girl can give you. It's the only way I really like it!"
"But ... I'm not queer," Shirley objected in a nervous voice. "And it's perverted for girls to do things ... to each other. Oh, please...."
But Carol went on nibbling. "It's only natural nowadays for girls to turn to other girls. It's unnatural for girls not to get something out of sex. It's ... the men's fault. For some reason this world is now full of mama's boys and hard-hearted wolves. They either hop on and off like wild bulls or they can't hop on at all. But girls are gentle with other girls...."
The lesbian kissed ... lower ... till I saw Shirley's sensitive thigh muscles jump at the touch, till her breathing increased with the intensely delicate pleasure, till she began to shake as if laughing silently ... or crying.
And then I interrupted!
"So here you are, Carol!"
She jumped up as if propelled by a cannon; Shirley gasped and stared at me as I strode forward, her face white as a sheet of bond paper.
"I wish I had a horse-whip," Carol snapped at me. "So I could beat you bloody to within an inch of your life for raping this lovely girl!"
"Oh, cut out the phony melodramatics," I told her curtly. "They aren't going to get you any further with Shirley now. Can the dykish sweet-talk!"
"Why, you ... bastard!"
Suddenly, Carol's hand shot out at rne. A sharp smack on the side of my face. Breathing heavily, I grabbed her arm and twisted hard enough to force her down to her knees with a painful moan.
"You filthy beast!" she hissed up at me.
"Shut up and stay there on the floor," I warned her. "Or I'll whack you silly!"
Shirley cried out, "Leave her alone! Oh ... you're hurting her! I-I'll scream for help!"
"Just find your clothes and get dressed, Shirley," I commanded in a loud roar. "Then I'm going to hustle you out of this Sodom!"
Shirley began to cry. "No! Leave me alone! Keep away from me! I'm not going anywhere with you! You're crazy! You make me sick!"
I brought my free hand up in a placating gesture. "Okay, okay ... I was crazy this afternoon. I was crazy ... rough! And I'm sorry as all hell!"
"No! I don't believe you! Liar!"
"All right," I growled. "I'm still a rotten bastard. But, do you really believe this dyke is going to give you any nicer treatment after she turns you on full force?"
"Oh ... crap!" I shouted. "Anyway, is she what you want for a sex partner?"
"Men are stupid, rough beasts! I hate men!" Shirley insisted.
My heart pounded with dynamite intensity. "That's my fault," I had to admit in all honesty. "But ... I desperately want to make it up to you! Shirley, I want to show you, proof-positive ... men can be gentle, too!"
"No! No, no, no!" she denied me. "Will you please get out and leave me alone? Let me be ... with Carol!"
"You don't know what you're saying!" I insisted. "You are just ... hysterical! Carol won't cure you! If anything ... she'll only make your heart-ache worse! Ten, a hundred times bitter-worse!"
"I want to ... be held again," Shirley moaned. "I want to be gently held ... and cuddled ... and stroked...."
"Not by a dyke!" I cried.
"Oh ... yes!"
And suddenly, Shirley spun off the bed and locked her arms around Carol's stomach. It was in this startling instant that Carol jerked one hand free from my grasp and raked her fingernails down my left leg.
And she hissed, "If I could only reach your knockers...!"
"You bitch!" I quickly crouched and bit her left nipple. Hard! Then the other one! Harder! The surges of pain that surged through her body were transmitted to my tight hand grasp on both her wrists ... but abruptly she did not cry out any more!
For a second, I wondered what had happened to her, then I gnashed my teeth on Carol's skin again ... with a sudden and strange kind of terrible awareness and feverish anxiety ... I became deliberately cruel with my mouth.
And in a moment Carol was making the short, harsh demands that I had expected!
"Oh ... yes! You're hurting me! I ... want you to hurt me! Bite me! Please ... bite me! Oh, yes! Harder! That's right! I can't stand it ... I can't stand it ... Men are beasts! They hurt ... but oh-h-h-h ... it's so beautiful ... until they stop hurting ... oh-h-h-h-h...!"
Now, Shirley's horrified sobs intermingled with Carol's choking', ugly sounds, and meanwhile Shirley had let go of her and crouched back on the bedroom carpet like a surprised but intrigued kitten, disbelieving the sights and sounds of true nature. Good! This is what I wanted to happen!
Then, as I embraced Carol's body, still gnawing and sometimes ripping with my teeth, tasting the salt-sweet tang of blood, sanity and reality exploded for two or three minutes while I invaded her intimately, with power and violence and full fast fury to reach deep ... deeper within her very soul to rip and tear her from painful limb to limb.
"Oh-h-h-h ... Oh-h-h-h...!" It was Shirley!
I jerked.
The shock of her high, hot moans was an electrifying jolt back to the reality of our situation ... which was so completely unbelievable to me! Again and again the sickening sight reverberated against my eyeballs, and I felt sick to my stomach and gasped aloud with ... sorrow!
All I could see was Shirley's hunched body ... while Carol provoked her headlong rush to completion! And I knew ... Shirley was only grateful with wild, unseeing eyes to a primitive response to a situation that didn't exist.
"Stop ... it!" I managed the command somehow.
But I was lost in my own swirling daze of slamming passion!
Deep within my aching heart, the absolute horror was tearing me apart by bits and pieces ... but I couldn't lift a finger-couldn't possibly fling them apart while my explosive tension erupted again and again in accord with Shirley's howling, constant spasms and Carol's echoing flailing up body that I tormentedly assailed with slowly subsiding eruptions.
At long last, I was spent and my body became limp. I gasped for air and managed to extricate myself and roll over on the soft cotton carpet, face up. And all I did was gasp, breathe huge gulps of air into my dry lungs ... and most painful of all ... listen to Shirley's parched giggles! I felt bitter; I felt battle-weary ... and beaten down to a pulp!
"Damn!" It was Carol who spoke first. "You bastard, Steve! You selfish, animalistic bastard! And then you men dare to wonder why women turn to other women...!"
"Tell it to the angels, baby," I snarled. "No lesbian lover can give you the sort of rough stuff you really love!"
"Go to hell," she mumbled, immediately scrambling off somewhere to lick her bleeding wounds.
Shirley still crouched swaying in the middle of the room. But she had stopped giggling now that sanity had returned. And she really did look helpless and forlon and confused. I stared at her. This was the time to cinch it. I had to nip everything she felt in the bud. After that....
I said, "Well, Shirley ... did you really get something out of it?"
There was a long silence. Then, "I-I don't want to talk about it."
"I don't either. Not really. But we're going to!"
"No! I won't listen...."
"You'll listen!" I demanded. "It's the damnedest thing-all I wanted to do was show Carol up to you as sick, rotten, and twisted
... and instead, everything became contagious! Why? Why did you join in, Shirley?"
"What do you care!" she flared quickly.
"I can't help caring about it. Because ... because I feel partly responsible!"
"Well, you should! You are!"
I gulped. "I know...."
"I never want a man to touch me again!" she wailed. "After this afternoon, after you ... ripped me apart ... I'm frightened out of my wits over men!"
"Oh, I know, I'm sure! But ... you mustn't turn to girls in-in despair and fear and fatalistic acceptance!"
"Why not?" she blinked.
"Because ... I-I like you and...!"
"Oh, don't make me laugh!" snorted Shirley.
"I do like you! Shirley, listen to me ... look at me! I was rough with you this afternoon because ... you seemed to catch me in an ordinary kind of loving trap that I've avoided like the plague, all my life!"
"Isn't that ... interesting!" she said sarcastically. "Well, I couldn't care less about it ... anymore!"
"Nevertheless, you're going to hear me out," I said flatly. "You are going to listen to my side of things!"
"No! I won't listen to your ... feeble excuses for-for raping me!"
She put her hands over both ears ... and I jerked them down.
My words raced, desperately explaining how personal poverty can so easily make a guy a greedy, selfish opportunist reaching and striving almost insanely for the Golden Fleece-when all his life rich girls wouldn't let him alone, and showered him, unasking, with compensating gifts for his manhood's favors.
I said, more than a little bitterly, "I've always been a poor nobody ... and rich girls who sought me out always bestowed presents on me because, to their way of thinking, everything has to be bought. Price-tags are ingrained and casually accepted for everything they want. It's simply the way of that world ... that dupes a guy, I'll admit. But catches him up, unmindful of the rosy-colored glasses that such girls force him to put on! And ... a guy eventually becomes conditioned-trapped by all the worldly goodies that are right there for him, without the asking! Now, Shirley, do you understand a little ... why I had to balk this afternoon at the-the sweet ordinary?"
She nodded jerkily. "Y-yes ... you are just a weak, mortal man. And-in admitting to me that you take the easy path of least resistance ... you disgust me!" i tensed incredibly. My heart thudded. Then I couldn't help becoming self-defensive!
"And what do you think you're being, Shirley? If you turn to other girls for sex now ... you're just as weak-and damned!"
"So ... be it!" she snapped.
"You don't mean that!"
"Yes I do," she insisted flatly.
"But, that's absurd ... when you just chewed me out!"
"Maybe-maybe we're two lost souls," she said. "Maybe we have to get lots of things out of our systems."
"Shirley! You're only encouraging me to...."
"To go your own merry ways?" she finished my thought for me, quickly.
"Yes!" I cried, searching desperately for a ... tie to bind us now in mutual need and satisfaction!
"I think ... you must go your way, Steve. And I mine!"
"No, no!"
"I really do," she said very casually. "You still have a terrible sexual wanderlust. And after today ... so do I!"
"What?"
Shirley smiled sadly. "Among other things, I'm afraid your ... wicked rebellion, sexually speaking ... turned me on strong!"
I reeled. "Oh my God, what's good for the goose is good for the gander, too! Right?"
"R-right," decided Shirley. "Believe me, I didn't want or expect this to happen! In my wildest nightmares ... I never dreamed of experimenting-of being promiscuous with my body."
"And I don't think you can be!" I asserted. But, somehow, I seemed to know that I was already clutching at the last straw.
"I have to find out what I am-sexually," Shirley was continuing now. "At this moment I'm completely lost. Maybe I am feminine-normal; maybe I'm basically a lesbian! I just don't really know anything except ... I must search for my true nature now! I have to sample ... a few things in bed...."
"With dykes," I spat disgustedly.
"Even-even with other men, maybe!"
Instantly, I saw red ... I saw jealous stars! "But teacher gets your royal shaft! Don't I?"
"Y-yes," Shirley nodded slowly in a voice that barely rode on breath.
"Thanks a lot!"
"Oh, Steve, please ... you couldn't expect me to let you ... so soon after...."
"Okay, okay, I know ... color me brute-bastard because somebody has to be the scapegoat in your frame of mind!"
"Y-yes-I guess so ... you hurt me terribly!"
"Well, for Christ's sake, just give me a single chance to make the amends!" I pleaded. "Doesn't everybody get a second chance, usually? Give me mine!"
But Shirley was adamant. "No, Steve. You are asking too much of me ... too soon! I can't really explain to you; I'm not any good at this sort of thing-you know-explaining things...."
"Because you want to turn me off," I growled. "That's all there is to it! You're afraid of me ... and, that I might be right-that we might be too good for each other! Instead, you'd rather ... whore!"
Shirley turned away from me. "You-you make it all seem so ugly!"
"It is ugly," I insisted. "What you want ... both of us to do is ... filthy! And, if we care about each other at all...."
"I don't know that any more! I don't have ... any feelings, about anything!"
I shook my head sadly. It was a mess-a real mess ... that I had made! And, talking about it now was just like spilling out words against a brick wall. Nothing helped!
"All right," I muttered dejectedly. "Just tell me honestly, Shirley ... who really turned you on a few minutes ago?"
She blinked at me. "You mean , ... was it you or Carol that got me so physically excited? Well, the answer is ... both!"
"But you've got to distinguish...."
"I can't! not yet. Not until ... I experiment!"
"Oh, Jesus, Jesus-this is a mess!"
"Not really," Shirley disagreed quickly. "It's only your certain kind of guilt that makes you feel that way, Steve. Because ... because you really still want to be your own free agent! I know that you feel that settling down to one girl would be nice-but it would also be absolute folly ... until your system is spent and exhausted!"
I wanted to be doubtful ... but everything told me that Shirley had hit the nail on its head! So why fight city hall any longer? Because I was emotionally irresolute-just a great big kid at heart, I must admit ... and so I began to act like a spoiled, angry boy who just had a stick of candy or his favorite toy taken away from him ... I had to childishly rebel in a vain, inane attempt to punish Shirley ... by being the low-down horny life of the party! It was like saying "now see what you've driven me to do" ... when all I was doing was prolonging the "rude awakening"!
"Just watch me," I snarled at her. "I'm going to sex it up and lay 'em low"!
CHAPTER NINE
The "entertainment" that had been "brought back by popular demand" was just about ready to begin the "performance" when I returned to the pool-patio. But on my way out through the living room, Teddy waylaid me for a few minutes-not angrily, but quite coolly and calmly and seemingly a bit awe-struck.
"Hear you roughed Carol up," he clucked.
"So? She asked for everything she had coming."
"I don't doubt it! But-you don't mess up the beauties at these parties. At least, not so teeth bites leave their mark for a couple of days; that's not kosher."
"Kosher be damned," I shrugged.
"I thought you ought to know ... Carol won't be able to peddle her pants until nature heals her skin. And whores can't get unemployment insurance!"
"So sue me!"
"Fun-ny! I suggest you keep out of her way now."
"Maybe I'd just better cut out altogether," I said, a bit miffed.
"Hell, no! Don't be silly," Teddy grinned. "Co-hostess Nancy thinks it all a hoot and a holler!"
"Oh, yeah?"
"Nancy can't stand bi-sexual girls," he said in a confidential tone.
"That's odd. I mean, when they're roommates, sharing this house...."
Teddy smiled. "Only because Nancy is a closet dyke. Yes. Lots of whores are; they basically despise all men."
"It's a tough, cruel world," I chuckled. "Send crying towels."
A low murmur of anticipation went up from the pool-patio; I turned and looked out, wondering what was about to happen. I wasn't long in finding out.
"Don't just stand there with your mouth and imagination watering," Teddy laughed. "Come on and see tonight's piece-de-resistance."
The "piece-de-resistance" was the hugest man I had ever seen. He stood nearly seven feet tall ... and he was a Negro. Not dark brown. He was typically Nubian ebony ... black as a Halloween midnight. And ugly. He was heavy featured, thick and ugly as an acid-scarred ... I don't know what! Indescribable! Horrendous!
I shuddered. "Integration be damned! I thought this was still the deep South. But that's darkest Africa!"
"A nightmarish King-Kong incarnate," agreed Teddy, laughing. "Get the costume."
I had already noticed. He was wearing a tight white leather crotchless garment that unabashedly displayed everything. I blinked, incredulous. And I shuddered again ... at the long thick vicious bullwhip that dangled carelessly from his ruthlessly great hand.
"This can't be for real," I said to Teddy.
He chuckled. "Kong ain't just gonna stand there all night, like a statue. Believe me, baby, and ... look there!"
The new sight drew my eyes-and loud gasp! The girl, joining Kong across the width of the pool from us "spectators," was very young and petite ... certainly a tiny midget! Her skin was snow white, too! And she was dressed in a tight black leotard-with red, high-heeled booties.
The whole effect of both of them was totally incongruent to anything imaginable ... but I got a warped mental picture, somehow, of "Uncle Tom's Cabin." Granted, there was no ice for Little Eva to flee across; she'd probably walk on the pool water! In her booties, I knew surely that I could do it!
"W-what's the name of the game?" I stammered in a breathless voice.
"Snow White Meets King-Kong," Teddy whispered, grinning. "We expect her to take the whip away from him ... and turn it on him."
"That's-impossible!"
"Watch!"
I wasn't quite prepared for the abrupt action ... as suddenly, the air was punctured with a sharp crack. Surprise, instinctive recoil, and shock leaped through me and my eyes missed the first darting lash of Kong's whip stinging Snow White's breasts.
Swish! went the whip again, cutting through the tropical still air and crack! it cut around her quivering buttocks. Swish, crack! Swish, crack! Two more blows were delivered in rapid succession ... tearing the upper part of the leotard completely off ... exposing swollen breasts that were beginning to trickle blood.
Now a high, almost giddy murmur of approval went up from the closely gathered crowd. Someone handed me a tall glass full of straight scotch and I sipped it eagerly to whet my parched throat ... and I watched ... Snow White, after three more lashes, reached out and miraculously grabbed the flicking whip end, quickly jerking it in a winding manner around her waist in a rapid motion to maybe jerk it out of Kong's hand. In that instant....
"Stop the action!" Carol's cry came.
"Oh Christ, NO!" other cries went up. There was the immediate loud babble of objection and disappointment.
"Shut up." Carol shouted them down. "Let's be different tonight! Let's make empathy for ourselves ... by having one of us replace Snow White for the rest of the performance! How about it, gang? Any volunteers?"
Silence was never so golden!
"Carol, don't be crazy," Nancy told her at last. "We all value our skins too highly to let them get ripped off!"
"But I insist ... someone among us isn't scared chicken crapless. ARE YOU, STEVE REYNOLDS?"
I felt my heart stop cold; my knees nearly buckled. "She go completely off her rocker with that question?" I managed to ask Teddy.
"Carol's nailing you to the cross," he observed. "Talk about a woman scorned! You put her on the frying pan; now she's putting you into the fire!"
"Like hell you say!"
"Join Kong!" Carol commanded me. Her golden hair was a halo around her devilish hate-twisted face. Her eyes were slits with dagger-sharp stares, and her bruised mouth, which I had so recently chewed to hurt, was distorted almost grotesquely in quivering detestation. "Steve! Let's see if you can receive as well as you give torture!"
"You insane bitch!" I laughed. "Up your wazoo! With a red hot poker!"
She screamed, "KONG! GET HIM! TAKE HIM-WHIP HIM! HE'S ALL YOURS!"
Almost instantly, my "business acquaintances" backed off as if I were suddenly a contaminated lecherous leper ... and Kong started slowly walking around the pool toward me-dragging his bullwhip!
"Teddy-" I began, in a hoarse choked breath.
"Forget it!" he gasped. "This isn't my mess. You're on your own!"
"You cruddy bastard!"
"Kong wants you to take his whip away," he hissed, as a parting gesture.
So I knew what the score was; at least, I knew what I was up against now. But how much did Kong want me to have that whip? How long and how difficult would he make the contest? And ... could I possibly endure the lash of his whip time enough?
Abruptly, there it was-a searing white-hot thin long line of fire ripped across my bare broad chest. The shock was electrifying and stomach-sickening. I tensed incredibly ... but there wasn't any time to submit to the self-pity of pain. Swish! Crack! My buttocks were slashed ... and automatically, in a man's instinctive way of self-preservation, my hands flew down to cover my groin.
"Burn his butt to bits!" Carol cried out with high, hot vengeance. "Rip him to shreds, Kong!"
I could neither think nor plan clearly and sanely ... but I quickly vowed that Carol would never see me whipped to cringing, humiliating bondage. Somehow I would conquer ... Kong's whip, at least ... and after that Carol had better snap her fingers like a Miss Mandrake the Magician and just disappear! Because I was going to give her full comeuppance of some sort.
Swish ... :! I crouched low and charged Kong under the flicking whip that crack! slapped the cement pool deck. And I drove at him, sending a vicious right hook to the crotch ... that was like slamming my fist into a solid stone wall!
But ... Kong twitched and moaned softly-with satisfaction! My blow had not completely failed. So I stayed in close and hammered away, putting my weight and shoulders behind every punch to that enormous hard crotch ... and I prayed! In vain! Kong slipped quickly back suddenly, and in the next moment my body was vulnerable to the bullwhip again and CRACK!! it sliced my hunched-backed buttocks with such a fiery zing that I thought I felt the red welts popping up.
My shocked reaction was startling. Crazy! Great pain tore through me in swelling throbs, but I felt a very madness of painful pleasure! The line between pain and pleasure is thin, and there seemed a strange kind of overpowering relief at just discovering ... this newest thrill! But it was not possible to savor this moment until I had really taken something from it for the "book" ... because I wouldn't give Carol a moment of satisfaction! That damned dyke bitch wasn't going to catch an instant's glimpse of my painful pleasure! So, I mustered all my strength and charged in at Kong's rock belly with the top of my head ... and miraculously succeeded in goring him, off guard, to the flat of his back!
"Oh, Goddamn you!" Carol shrieked at me. "You! Kong! Up and at him!"
"Yeah. Up, Kong!" I agreed. "So I can beat you and beat you and beat you ... back down!"
"Oh dear," came someone's lusty twitter. "This is delightfully delicious!"
"You miserable black beast!" Carol hissed. "On your feet! And beat him bloody!"
"Do as she says," I dared.
Instead, to my utter amazement, Kong assumed a kneeling position directly in front of me ... then he handed the bullwhip up to me!
"To hell with you, Kong!" Carol snarled.
Again and again I lashed him. "Lawdy, lawdy, lawdy!" he shouted shrilly, his eyes glazed with insane pleasurable pain. "That's nice, man! That's the greatest! Beat me, man! Beat me bloody! And ... I'll ... kiss your ... feet! Master! I ... am ... your ... slave! Lawd ... it over me! Master! I'm your slave!"
I was frankly flabbergasted! I was so absolutely amazed ... and, yes, shocked at his frame of unintegrated mind! ... that I actually froze with the bullwhip-frowning at this sobbing, frothing giant who was slobbering over my feet now. (Later I learned that Kong suffered a terribly oppressive guilt of some horrendous kind-he was actually college educated, but he was strangely ashamed of his race's rabble-rousers ... a credit to both black and white America ... until sex entered the picture ... then he somehow reverted back to being a "Mississippi nigger slave." His words!)
And his pleading cry now was, "Order me! Please, Master ... order me to-"
"Rip Snow White apart!" came the high and harsh chant of passion-thirsty crowd. "Rip Snow White! Rip Snow White! Rip Snow White!" became the chant of the cheering section, over and over again.
And I was stil dum-founded-frozen to the spot. I was also speechless.
"What are you waiting for? Do something!" Just as Carol made this livid explosive outcry, she grabbed the bullwhip out of my relaxed hand ... and I heard it zing-sail through the air ... across my broad back!
My immediate reaction was an overpowering impetus ... to turn and toss her to her back on the cement patio with such force that all the air whooshed out of her, as if out of a pricked balloon. Then I immediately kicked her over onto her stomach and ground the heel of my left foot in the very tender small of her back.
"Take her, Kong!" I raged insanely. "Rip her apart!"
Soggy with emotional horror, the others couldn't seem to move a muscle-only generally gasp or gulp hard ... and watch fascinated. Until....
Kong obeyed me ... with brutal deadly intent.
Then Carol fainted in anguished agony. Of all the rotten luck!
CHAPTER TEN
It took me a long time to wake up. In fact, it seemed to me that consciousness did not want to return to me-a discouraging warning that I was in a pretty bad state and shape, So I kept my eyes closed and groaned. My tongue felt as if it had been out all night licking barnacles from the bottom of a cattle boat ... my stomach was practicing homicidal high jumps ... and my bruised, cut skin, particularly my marred buttocks, still dully throbbed-tingled with searing fire. All this was not the kind of mental therapy I needed just then.
I thought, one of the things I could do about the hurt and hangover was go back to sleep again. I didn't know the time of day and did not care. Judging from the slant of the sun as I peek-squinted just once at the Venetian blind-slatted windows, it was probably fairly late, mid-afternoon. But it made no difference. I just wanted to lie there in the bed and doze off again as quickly as possible. When you're asleep, you're unconscious, and nothing hurts. So I groaned again and turned on my side.
Immediately, something soft and warm pressed against my stomach. In the throes of my generally repulsive agony, I thought at first it was Teddy lying there beside me. Then I sluggishly remembered the Venetian blinds which Teddy didn't have at his windows. Plainly I was not in his bed.
I opened my eyes as far as I could. The first thing I saw was the milk-white mound of a plump hip, conspicuously feminine. Two plump legs lay crossed on the bed. I forced myself to look higher. But I did not know who the blonde girl was, for one rounded arm lay across her face. She had the slightly flattened look of a person who had been through quite a night, and was patiently sleeping it off.
I stared. I was now beyond groaning, or gasping in surprise. And I remembered practically nothing of the night before, except that two blonde girls had latched on to me in giggling delight just as soon as Carol fainted under Kong's agonizing torture ... and these two girls had mixed me a very special "high potency" drink that had obviously caused my sanity to explode. Also, obviously, this was one of the blondes.
To save both of us any embarrassment, I decided it would be best if I bowed out while she was still asleep. It would also save the embarrassment of having her look me in the face and call me a certain kind of creep, which was what I felt like all of a sudden as I vaguely remembered using some peculiar techniques.
Cautiously, quietly now, so as not to disturb her sleep, I turned over to leave the bed by the other side ... and there, to my left, lay the other plump blonde, her ripe mouth pursed, as if from the last kiss, her heavy breasts pressed together like two delicious, cherry-topped vanilla puddings.
I furrowed my aching forehead, trying to think. One little blonde was bad enough, but two flattened-out little blondes, sleeping me off, well-it rather staggered even me. And they still had me in a spot that I didn't know quite how to get out of. I was surrounded! I could not climb out of either side of the bed without waking at least one of them.
Yet I had to get away before they regained consciousness and maybe made an outcry of....further demands! For if they did raise that kind of a fuss, there would undoubtedly be hell to pay; in my present condition, I probably wouldn't have been able to raise a finger, let alone....
I remained motionless. I was afraid to move even a finger for fear one of them would wake up, look me straight in the eye, and scream ... more! At length, it occurred to me that if I went off the foot of the bed, I might make it without ruffling their slumbers. So, slowly, an inch at a time, I slid down the bed, moving my naked body as smoothly as possible, and when at long last my knees bent over the foot of the bed, I sat up, taking care not to breathe.
A few moments later I was on my feet and free of the blonde-covered bed. At this point, I permitted myself a breath of relief. Then I hurled myself into my scattered clothes and tiptoed to the door of the tiny efficiency apartment. Just as I was reaching for the doorknob, a heavy-lidded voice purred from behind me, and my tired blood turned to buttermilk.
The voice laughed softly, "Well, Steve! You don't look so bright eyed and bushy tailed any more."
"Wow! I'll bet you're just dead tuckered out, Steve," said another voice, much like the first one.
"Yeah," I grunted. "I feel like I've been put through a meat grinder-many times!"
Both the girls giggled. I blinked at them in the bed, then my head whirled as remembrance flooded my lethargy. They were identical twins! And it seemed to me, if they hadn't shifted bed positions after they finally allowed me to pass out, the one on the right was Elsie, and her twin sister was Delsie.
In a practical tone, Elsie told me, "You didn't have to try to sneak out on us, Steve. It always makes us sick before noon."
"But it's a quarter till two!" exclaimed Delsie, holding up an alarm clock.
"So long, girls!" I said quickly. "I'm still sick-and late!"
"For what? You think you gotta dash to send Carol a dozen white lilies?" Elsie asked evilly.
"W-what, exactly, happened to her?" I inquired shakily. "I mean, after...."
The girls howled with laughter!
"Delsie, I told you that magic potion we doped Steve with was instant insanity," Elsie twittered. "Poor guy didn't get to enjoy the fantastic fun he made for everyone! Including us-most of all!"
I was abruptly annoyed and demanded, "Look, tell me what happened to Carol."
"Don't worry about it, Steve," Delsie said almost soberly, then smiled maliciously. "Her bloody butt is going to burn like wild-fire for three or four days, but she'll survive."
"Sure?"
"Positive," Elsie laughed. "Say, what's with you, Steve? Why the guilty feeling today?"
"Carol's still a human being," I admitted. Then I asked quickly, "How are you girls coming out of it?"
"Wanta try us?" Delsie answered with a wink.
"I-I'd rather not. Save it." Elsie said, "I think you're flabbergasted by our resiliency, Steve. Don't be. We're not Amazons; we just have pills for almost everything. Wanta pop a pep-up pill with us?"
"No, thanks."
"Suit yourself," Delsie shrugged and chuckled. "But we're going to drag you back into bed, anyway!"
"Like hell, you are!" I said flatly. "What the hell-I'm beat down to a pulp!"
"Well, we've got a thing or two for solidifying," Elsie assured me.
Abruptly, they propelled themselves off the bed and came at me as if I were the fifty yard dash finishing line ... and I felt as if I were being hurled through the air across the small room, and then the terrible twins threw me to the bed and flung themselves upon me, tearing off my clothes, and I was nude again. I did not struggle; what the hell-I was weak from the entire night's frenzy, and mesmerized ... pleasantly! So I lay back in the bed, my arms up on the pillow at either side of my head, in a position of complete and sly surrender, and let them have a go at me. My body felt unbearably limp ... but watching the twins became, in a sense, a completely visual experiment for me. That is, watching their love's labors lost gave me a strange sort of sadistic pleasure! Derived, undoubtedly, from their ridiculous, nymphomaniacal and unquenchable horniness.
The girls swept over my body like vacuum cleaners. Elsie grasped and sucked my tongue tightly between her lips, and Delsie plastered her body flat atop me and crashed her breasts into my chest again and again; then Elsie did the same thing across my eyes and mouth, until at last she moaned out in sheer frustration.
But after five, ten minutes ... everything was as it had been in the very beginning: sad. "Sorry, girls," I grinned.
"Oh, no," Elsie whimpered. "No, no, no, Steve."
"I can't," I said flatly.
"You can," Delsie groaned. "Here-" She grabbed me under the legs and forced them apart and up.
"It's really no use," I said after a few more moments.
"We don't give up the ship!" Elsie cried desperately and she was gone for a moment as she groped for something underneath the bed, then extracted and handed me ... two monstrous masterpieces!
"Well, I'll be ... twins really do have twin every things!" I chuckled.
"Go ahead-beat the band!" Delsie hollered. She bounced once, then settled against my left side.
On my right, Elsie was already pumping my arm and blithering, "Hot dog ... hot dog!"
"Go, GO!" Delsie panted.
The twins thrashed on the bed, delighting in their headlong rush to completion. And then, much to my surprise-albeit to my weary, nearly numb relief-they jumped right up, afterwards.
"Black coffee, Steve?" asked Elsie in a practical tone.
"Okay. Strong," I muttered.
"You know it," Delsie seconded. "We've still got a long, wild work day ahead of us."
"Oh Christ, don't mention it," I said. "Look at the time-I'm going to get hell from Teddy when I appear at the hotel pool ... if I can possibly drag myself over there."
"You're a real nut, Steve," said Elsie, brewing the coffee on a hot-plate.
"How come?" I inquired. "What do you mean by that crack?"
"Don't get mad at us," Delsie said.
"Hell, no," Elsie countered. "You haven't been stud-hustling very long?"
"Nope. Are you complaining about something I did or didn't do to you two?"
"Hell no!" Elsie repeated herself. "I'm just trying to say that you got a quick education, but fast, from Teddy ... and now you really don't need him any more!"
"To work at the Breakers Hotel, I do. He's big boss-with his steel thumb right on us whores!"
"That's what you think," said Delsie. "I mean, Teddy's all a lot of hot air. Among other things. Give him the royal shaft!"
"But quick," Elsie went on with her two cent's worth. "Teddy was just plain dumb to bring someone with your equipment to the monthly party last night. But he never learns-he never keeps his initiates in the dark for very long. Wise up, Steve!"
"Teddy will continue to use you just as long as you let him, and that's all," explained Delsie. "When you put your foot down with him, Steve, he'll jump like a jack rabbit at your demands. To begin with, slice his cut to twenty-five percent!"
"He'll stand still for anything-from you, beautiful baby," said Elsie. "Believe us, he will. He'll let you work the Breakers at almost all costs to himself. Because ... every pool-boy pimp at the party last night will give his eye-teeth to hustle for you!"
I frowned. "Don't put me on...."
"Swear on a stack of Bibles!" Delsie said seriously. "We all hate Teddy's style and system. And we all like you. So fair warning ... lay the law down to him-today!"
"Yeah," Elsie nodded in agreement. "Get out from under while the getting is still good!"
"That's a ... curious statement, kind of," I said. "What's the non-subtle hint mean, in plain English?"
"Use your imagination," Delsie replied evenly.
"It's sluggish-way under par, I'm afraid. But ... you don't mean-some sort of ... blackmail!" I laughed. "Teddy couldn't possibly get a single thing on me!"
"Wanta bet?" Elsie challenged me. "He's done it before, and I'll bet he'll do it again with others."
"But not with me," I said confidently. "Anyhow, thanks a bunch for your forewarning and concern; I really do appreciate it. But I don't need it. Steve Reynolds' life is an open book ... with no apologies to anyone. Ever!"
"Here. Drink your coffee," Delsie said sourly. "I just hope you don't have to eat your words!"
I didn't have to question her about it. "What did Teddy get on you? Any how?"
Shirley couldn't control her sobs. She flung her head on my sore shoulder, but I didn't object. We huddled behind the tall, thick shrubbery that screened out the employee's entrance to the hotel, forty five minutes later. Shirley had been watching all day for a cab to drop me off, and by now she was practically in a state of hysterical collapse as she shakily handed me....
A perfect Polaroid snapshot ... of that notorious three-way! r
"That bastard! That rotten bastard!" I hissed, tearing the picture to tiny shreds.
"That solves nothing, Steve! He says he has another one ... hidden somewhere. Of course he would! Maybe several others! You and Carol and I weren't in any condition to know; we were so blind and unseeing with passion that he could have snapped a dozen! Now ... he says I've got to go to work for him on the side-as one of his w-whores! And God only knows what else he has in store for me! He was so ... nasty! Otherwise, he's going to send some filth about me to my folks!"
"Over my dead body," I told her firmly. "I'll break his neck first!"
"My parents would die! Something like that would just kill them! I know it!"
"Shirley, Shirley, take it easy," I husked. "I swear to God, I'll give Teddy his comeuppance over this!"
"That'll be the day," the familiar voice came from behind me. It was Teddy.
Without uttering a word, I balled both fists, spun around wildly, and managed to land a hard left to Teddy's ribs, following it at once with a vicious right hook to the chin. Surprised and completely off guard, he buckled at the knees, staggered one step toward me, then fell down on the cement walk.
The angry blood congested in my face. "Get up so I can wipe up the ground with you!" I hollered.
And Teddy cried, "God damn you! Don't you lay another finger on me."
"I'm going to beat you up," I assured him.
"And that will definitely get a picture sent to her precious parents!" Teddy yelled, wiping away the blood that dribbled down his chin.
"No, no, NO! DON'T!" Shirley pleaded in tears.
"He's only scared and bluffing," I said.
"Try me!" Teddy snarled. "If you touch me, Steve ... or if you don't continue to toe the mark I lay down ... a vivid picture gets sent home to Indiana! Get the, er-picture? Pun!"
"I get it," I hissed. "You didn't want to particularly recruit Shirley ... all this was just a God damned way to keep me in step!"
"Ah, the light at last," Teddy chuckled. "Steve, you're positively the best stud I've latched on to in several seasons.-And, you can make me a small fortune. Naturally I'm not going to let you get away from me!"
"Okay, okay," I breathed heavily. I was a little crazed, and desperate. "So maybe I deserve you-for being such a stupid son of a bitch. Maybe I'll have to beg my butt off to you, too...."
"Oh, you will!"
"Well ... that's okay," I panted. "That's okay, Teddy. For the time being! If ... you let Shirley cut out of this mess!"
Teddy hesitated and looked up at her. "Really scared of this whole scene, doll?"
"Oh yes!"
"Okey-doke, you don't have to make it, Shirley doll ... except with Carol!" he said harshly. "Because she's got real hideous hots for you-and she can have you now, for as long as she wants you. That way, I don't give in to Steve too much-and wound my pride of lordship!"
"It's no deal!" I snapped.
And Teddy snarled, "It's set and settled-or else the postman rings. That's that!"
"Wanta bet? Nobody gets in touch with the postman ... under pain sedatives in the hospital!" I enlightened him.
"But you can't keep me down forever," Teddy defied me. "There will eventually come a day ... there always does! And I'm a great one for biding my time ... when I really want to serve up a full measure of just dessert!"
"In that case, I'll follow you like a shadow-stick right on your tail!"
"Who are you kidding, huh?" Teddy asked with a twisted grin. "I have you right smack flat over the old barrel, Steve! So stop annoying me even more with your anger and feeble threats-or I'm just liable to lower the boom anyway, out of sheer spite!"
Dead silence ruled. I stood over Teddy, breathing heavily. Shirley sobbed, her face buried in her hands. Finally she looked at me.
"We're trapped by him, Steve," she said brokenly. "There's nothing else to do, but obey him. Nothing at all!"
"Not at this moment," I corrected her. "But time will tell...."
"Forget it," Teddy laughed. "Don't count your chickens ... don't turn my slow simmer on to the boiling point!"
The enraged blood congested in my face again. "I'll get you for this, Teddy. Some day, some how-I'll pay you back in full, awful measure. Mark my words! I'm going to get you-but good!" I felt a surge of powerful confidence. "I'll cut your heart out for this!"
"Tit for tat?" Teddy laughed. "I'm all aquiver."
"You'd just better shake in your boots," I growled. "And say your prayers! Fair warning...."
"I couldn't be scared less, Steve."
But it sounded like false bravado to me. God knew, Teddy had just better know the war path, I thought. For he had converted me into a man with a purpose ... hell-bent after his family jewels!
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Methodically now, I began to manipulate life in terms of my vicious vendetta against Teddy. I had an insane, graphic urge to commit murder, pure deliberate murder; I wanted to wring his neck ... after I twisted a butcher knife through his lascivious guts and let him slowly bleed out. But I was not a killer. While I believed in an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth in this particular circumstances, I didn't have it in me at all to take a life in vicious cold blood. There were other meaner ways, though....
Think, think, I told myself. Think! Yet no satisfactory justice jelled. I decided that I was still too dazed, too close to the whole matter, too highly emotionally involved at the moment to think clearly and sanely enough to plunge ahead directly. And so I bided my time ... with a certain relish! Yes, I must admit that I rather wanted to be sickly sadistic with Teddy, eventually. And I was a patient man-an unforgiving man, too. For finally I let the bells ring loud and clear ... at long last I permitted something deep down inside me to make me keenly aware that the "love" in life is perhaps the only real "joy"-after the wild oats of sex are sowed. Bluntly, I suppose I only craved the ordinary ... love ... but I was not prepared to open my heart wide and disguise my zeal for the sexual experimental just yet! And this I also discovered: neither was Shirley!
"Come on, I'll take you home in a cab," I told her after Teddy staggered away in his cocky triumph, laughing off my serious threats.
"Oh ... no. No," she said stunned stubbornly. "I mean, I can't beg off work-I have appointments to photograph some hotel guests by the pool."
"And you're in fine shape for that, aren't you?" I said wryly. "You are trembling like a leaf in a hurricane; your eyes are almost swollen shut from tears!"
"I've just got to pull myself together, that's all," Shirley wailed. "I'll be all right in a few minutes. Really I will!"
I registered doubt and disgust. "Listen to me-do you want to stick around here ... until Teddy makes a phone call and Carol comes to pick you up after work?"
Shirley's eyes went wide. "Why not? That arrangement is in the cards! Isn't it? We-I agreed to go along with ... her devious desires!"
"Well, you don't have to fling your body at her right today!"
Shirley sighed heavily. "Why prolong the pain ... and pleasure?"
"P-pleasure!" I snapped chokedly. "You can't possibly still be looking forward to ... dyke sex!"
Shirley looked sheepish. "Maybe it is insane ... but yes, I still have to find out and learn my nature, regardless."
"Goddamnit! I could ... spank the daylights out of you!"
"Maybe that will come later, too-if I can bring myself to it."
I was flabbergasted. "Shirley, all this isn't fun and games!"
"Some of it has got to be treated that way," she snapped back. "Or else I'll go right out of my mind!"
Instantly, I knew she had a point. "Okay, okay," I said shakily. "Just don't-please don't get yourself into any deeper hot water if you place any value on...."
"What?"
"O-our-friendship!"
"Oh, Steve ... don't rationalize us now!" Shirley cried. "Granted, we're in a real mess together. But ... it really doesn't change what I told you last night-we have to be our own free agents! We must experiment ... take and learn ... and only then can we decide something-from our experiences."
"Oh hell!" I exploded. "Maybe we ought to just go jump in the ocean right now...!"
Shirley registered annoyance. "Steve, who are you trying to kid? If I went completely along with you now-I mean married you-it would make us both miserable for the rest of our entire lives because ... we'd always be thinking of what we'd missed with others! So let's not play round robin about it any more; let's just take one day at a time, and things-experiences-as they happen to us."
"And that kind of action is surely the beginning of our end," I thundered. "Once we really go our separate ways, I really doubt that we'll ever get back together. Sex will pull us too far apart!"
"Well ... only time will truly tell that."
"Big deal," I growled. "Boiling everything down ... you just seem to have a lot of phony optimism!"
"Oh ... this isn't getting us anywhere!"
Shirley cried in a voice that was full of frustration.
"No, it's not. So ... I'll see you around, Shirley," I muttered angrily hurt. "If this is really the way you want to play it ... I'm not going to let any grass grow under my feet either!" And I stalked off in a trembling huff ... making at least one fast and solid decision.
I took the nearest cab straight back to Teddy's apartment and ran to the bedroom closet and pulled down my three suitcases. I was going to clear out of there. Enough was enough-of tainted, twisted Teddy. The move would undoubtedly T Teddy off even more, I realized, since my "week" with him wasn't up yet ... but I couldn't have cared less, and I imagined that he would be glad I was getting out when he calmed down and considered it sanely, because we were both so overwrought with each other that it wasn't really impossible that, together in the same apartment for a whole night, we just might fly off the handle, come to blatant blows ... and actually kill one another! At least, that's the fact I laid down to him before he could get a word in edge-wise when he came home in a huff while I was packing my last bag.
"I thought you'd try this!" he fumed.
"Don't try to stop me," I warned him, then quickly pointed my feelings out to him as I folded my shirts.
"Okay, I'm sick of sex with you anyway," Teddy shrugged after I'd finished speaking my thoughts. "You're good riddance! But you be on time, bright eyed and bushy tailed too, at the pool tomorrow morning-out of sight isn't out from under my thumb by a long shot!"
"Don't start anything again," I said evenly, snapping my suitcases shut. "Don't you dare start one more thing now-or I'm liable to bash your brains out! I mean it, Teddy. I've had you up to here-and then some!"
Abruptly, he changed his tactic-turte. "Aw-w-w-w, Steve-it doesn't have to end like this, in a rage of hate, does it?"
I glared at him, sighing in bewilderment. "Of all the low down ... you made the battle bed...!"
"Yeah, yeah," he grinned impishly. "Color me son of a bitch. But, you know ... we're birds of a feather, you and I! And we really do deserve each other-with my brains and your talent ... we could milk the horny tourists dry!"
I sat down on the bed. I traced the leather binding of a suitcase with my fingers. My voice sounded odd as I began to he. "I might-I just might go along with you, all the way ... if you'd let Shirley clean out, and destroy those pictures of her."
Teddy stared hard at me for a moment, then he grinned boyishly. "What the hell, pal ... I need some insurance-against you!"
"No deal, then. And don't beg-"
"Oh, I never beg for anything," he said easily. "It just seems such a crying shame to me that you ... fell head over heels for a girl."
"What did you expect? I'm not queer!" I snapped.
"Nope. And, that's the pity! Maybe-maybe I could find some gorgeous gay guy to switch you!"
"Meaning?" I inquired.
Teddy shrugged. "Gay boys of your type don't have any morals ... or manners to other human beings. They are human cash registers, that's all. And before they're too old to cut the mustard-they're filthy rich! It's the lap of luxury, if you can bring yourself to play the A.C.-D.C. role with tricks."
Now I affected an impish grin. "You know-you know, maybe I've lost all sight of my common sense lately!"
Teddy looked at me with raised eyebrows. "You really would reconsider and give Shirley the old heave-ho, after all?"
"Aren't nice girls a dime a dozen?" I countered.
And I began to shake inside; I felt sick to my stomach. Now that I had baited Teddy this far, I suddenly wanted to stop and bash his teeth down his throat and get away. I could hardly stand it ... but I had to start his comeuppance. And it was going to be repulsive business for me-yet just the beginning for him!
Teddy frowned a bit. "Isn't your change of attitude-a little sudden?"
"Let's say-I'd rather switch than fight!" I shrugged. "Seriously I'm a stud hustler, first and foremost. I guess I've lost all sight of that lately; I've been some kind of a nut! I mean, where does settling down ever get the common man? I'll tell you-right behind the eight ball of a sky-high stack of bills! And I've always wanted to be free as a bird ... until I let that little bitch put her strings on me!"
"Shirley wants to hog-tie you to the conventional," Teddy agreed.
"That's for damned sure! But the picture has suddenly cleared up for me," I assured him. "And, no dizzy dame is ever going to strap me to her apron strings!"
"I knew you'd eventually come to," Teddy chuckled delightedly.
"I've just flushed Shirley all out of my system."
"Are you-very sure, Steve?"
I nodded emphatically. "I'm sure. Now, don't just stand there looking at me in that dumbfounded way. Come here ... to the reformed saint! And let's be real sinners!"
"You mean...?"
"You're a hell of a hunk trick for fun, Teddy. Come here!"
"Damn, you are something, too!" Teddy said, his eyes rolling after I kissed him with an ardor that startled him ... and scattered all his lingering doubts about me, willy-nilly. "Let's get naked!"
We did in a flash; then I became the eager aggressor-silently making him completely surrender until he was absolutely delirious over being wanted, needed, conquered. And my hypnotizing fingers kneaded the muscles of his wide shoulders,-went down the sides of his rib cage ... and I slowly followed all this up with the caressing of my mouth and tongue ... until the instant he cried out in his stupendous happiness, the instant his hands went on my head and pulled at my hair ... I deliberately buckled my balance ... and at the same time gnashed my teeth. Hard!
The tender flesh tore, top and bottom! Neither the tangy taste of spurting blood nor the shriek swelling to a scream from Teddy's throat gave me any response of victory or excitement. To tell the truth, I was rather appalled and ashamed that some deep, dark force of angry evil within me had goaded me to this revengeful extent. I'll never forget ... Teddy's painful incoherence.
"Oh-O-O-O-damn, damn, damn! It's ... ah-h-h-h ... k-k-killing me! Oh! Oh! OH-H-HELP ME! You bastard! You r-r-rotten bastard! You did that d-d-deliberately!"
"You're insane ... with pain!" I cried out emphatically. "The way you were thrashing about made me lose my balance."
"L-l-liar!" Teddy's breath was dry and labored; his body was doubled up and heaved with spasms. "G-g-gotta call my doctor! G-g-gotta get help!"
"Let me-"
"N-o-no! You get ... o-o-out of here! I'll get you I-I-later for this! I'll kill you!"
"Listen to me!" I shouted. "It was an accident! I'm so sorry...."
"Go to h-h-hell!"
Suddenly, I couldn't stand it. I heard myself stammer again, "I ... I'm sorry." Then I bumped through the bedroom doorway, lugging my suitcases, and a moment later I bolted outside into the fresh clean air. I was outraged inside; the mere idea that I had stooped to Teddy's level of things infuriated me.
What was I becoming? That's what my conscience flung at me! Was my participation in the stud-hustling game perverting me to the worst evil corruption imaginable?
Abruptly, it seemed pretty plain ... I had to go through my own personal hell-fire and damnation ... and there was still quite a way to go ... before I reached Shirley-I had to cut out my own rot!
And I was one, I reminded myself, who always believed that money wasn't the root of all evil ... and that love was a game for fools.
My stomach suddenly rose, turned over, and fell away. I dropped my suitcases, rushed to bend over the curb ... but I was laughing-at life's bitter injustice.
I heard a car come up and stop in front of me. I ignored it. Then a motherly-feminine voice said, "Bettsy, help that poor young man!"
CHAPTER TWELVE
The sixteen year old Lolita leaned over and opened the convertible car door for me.
"Climb in," she said dully.
I hesitated, and her full-fleshed Mama had a small conniption.
"You simply must get off your feet, young man, and relax. Despite your rich deep sun-tan, you are as pale as a ghost! And don't you need a lift somewhere?"
"T-thanks, but ... I-I don't know where I'm going," I stammered, blinking from one to the other. Daughter Bettsy was svelte and summer-browned, wearing a petulant, vague and vacant expression, and her kindly mother reminded me of home-cooking and flower-gardens.
"Get in, please," she said firmly. "You are coming home to our apartment with us, for a big bowl of nourishing chicken soup. And I won't take no for an answer!"
"Lady-you don't just pick up strangers off the street!"
"Mama does," came Bettsy's answer to my amazement. "Stash your suitcases in the back seat ... and don't argue with the Duchess!"
"The Duchess?" I asked, sensing that it was her mother's nickname.
"Incongruous, isn't it?" the Duchess queried me, then immediately explained, "When a woman is disgustingly plain and dowdy ... she has to be something else-if only in name! Otherwise, such women often times grow bitter. Let him sit between us, Bettsy...."
I was dazed and dazzled, from my still recent exploit with Teddy ... and mother-and-daugh-ter didn't exactly put a very abrupt end to my fluster. They were, in a word ... fascinating!
"Bettsy is my beautiful baby," the Duchess expounded as she drove the big Lincoln smoothly but slowly. "But at sixteen, she still has not learned to be blase about passion!"
"Crap," Bettsy said, with pouted lips. "It's always your idea to cruise the beach streets and pick up the studs, Duchess!"
I choked on my own spit; I tapped my chest with my fist and cleared my throat. "What is this, with you two?"
The Duchess said inanely, "Relax. Would you like some music on the car radio?"
"I just want to know...!"
"Questions-answers," snorted Bettsy. "Stud-smuck! The merry-go-round goes round ... just shut up and enjoy the ride, Steve!"
"That's ... pretty damned difficult, you know!"
"Whoop dee doop!" Bettsy laughed lewdly. "Don't let your intelligence get nosey and foul things all up."
"It's really a kook pick-up," the Duchess smiled sweetly. "But tempus fugit and we'll all come out in the wash, so to speak, if you'll hold still...."
"For what?" I blinked-grinned.
"For the Duchess and me, that's what!" Bettsy poked me in the ribs. "See, we Bourbon-booze it up at breakfast because all we've got is each other. Arid the Duchess is really a square until she gets lighted."
The Duchess snapped her fingers. "I still know how to cut the cake! Here we are now!"
She braked the car with a lurching abruptness.
My mind was really reeling! It was nearly impossible to make heads or tails ... especially when the Duchess, who looked like the Mother of us all, assumed the rootie-toot hipster speech of her dangerous daughter.
They were both dead drunk. That's all I could decide definitely. And inside their furnished apartment, the chicken soup "bit" tossed me through another loop. I mean, the Duchess insisted upon ... spoon-feeding me!
"That's a good boy! One for the money-two for the show ... three to make ready-and four to go!"
"Hold it, hold it!" I chokingly insisted. "You're practically pouring the soup ... down my front!"
"Then quit spitting, slob," Bettsy said.
"Drooling like a baby," the Duchess corrected her.
"I-I've had enough," I declined the broth.
The Duchess quivered noticeably. "Full to the gills?" she husked.
"That depends ... on what you have in mind!" I blinked.
"Juicy hot dog," Bettsy cinched it.
I drew a deep, jdiscouraged breath. "Look-this is way out weird. Maybe-so weird it's too way out, for me."
"That's a real gasser," Bettsy said. "Quit rippling the pool, fool ... or we'll sick the cops on you and swear our heads off that you forced your way in here!"
"What's with you two?" I asked the Duchess without looking at her.
"We've got a system, that's all," she replied evasively.
"So hit the bathroom now," Bettsy commanded.
"I-I don't have to go...." The Duchess laughed. "In the medicine cabinet, you'll find a large economy bottle of baby oil, Steve. We want you to strip and douse the whole bottle all over your body."
"Just be sure you are as slippery as a snake," Bettsy added. "Peel out, lout!"
"Haven't I got something coming before we start this brawl?" I asked of the Duchess.
"Pay day, hey...!" She flipped me a twenty dollar bill.
I wanted to decline it and get the hell out of there. This was madness! Mother and daughter were ... insane! And I felt again and again ... disgust for their vices. It was surely complete perversion, a shame! I felt dreadfully debased ... and used and terribly conquered. I wanted to run out. But I was too intrigued!
Once alone, in the bathroom, my pride pushed up ... stimulated by the greasy oil. Yes! It was positively erotic to make myself an "electric" eel. The invisible sexual sun heated me and ... the only thing I could put down was conscience.
Yet, going out into the bedroom, I still gulped and blinked hard. The scene was absolutely hypnotic and ... rather marvelous! There, lying perfectly still in the middle of the king-size bed, was a bare Bettsy, her arms up on the pillow at either side of her head, in a position of complete surrender. For a moment I was only excitingly impressed! And then I was genuinely ... shocked? No! Just totally taken aback seeing the Duchess ... standing quite motionless beside the bed-fully dressed-with a yardstick in her hand!
"That's-crazy!" I exclaimed, indicating the plastic yardstick with a quick nod of my head.
"Bettsy misbehaves some times," the Duchess pointed out. "Both of you must play fair. Keep it clean!"
"I-I don't get it, exactly."
"Go man go!" Bettsy breathed. "The Duchess's yardstick will draw the line!"
"Obviously, odd-ball," I said inanely.
And then I was upon Bettsy-slipping, slithering, sliding!-and her arms went around me, encircling my oily body while she squirmed and wiggled underneath me ... lubricating her vibrant skin with magic-motions that caused my emotions to geyser swiftly. And suddenly it was unbearable not to have her.
But she held me off, turning her body from one side to the other, keeping her thighs between us, never letting me get quite to her. And I had a strange, wild thought: She was completely conscious of doing this! Somehow I knew it was deliberate ... but why?
"Baby, Bettsy-" I began, in a passion panting voice that barely rode on turbulent breath.
"Oh ... yes! I want you to-"
Abruptly, there it was-and the sharp smack of the yardstick on my buttocks was just enough ... at that precise, ecstasy-throbbing moment ... to trigger the shattering acme!
I cursed, "Jesus ... damn!"
And laughing gas couldn't have provoked any more giggling laughter out of the Duchess!
"Foiled again," Bettsy pouted, when it was finally all over ... her tense tummy.
"Told you to keep it clean," the Duchess chortled. "We're not going to have Bettsy lose ... her virginity!"
The three of us exchanged rapid glances, and then I jumped up ... with almost hysterical excitement!
"What is the score?" I demanded huskily. "Tell me, or I promise you ... I'll breed the both of you!"
"Know anything about teen-age nymphomaniacs?" the Duchess asked me deliberately. "Would you want to marry one, Steve?"
"Well, hell, I don't really know-but guess I couldn't last long in a real kook marriage setup!"
"Exactly," the Duchess said flatly. "No man ever wants to marry a gluttonous girl! And so I have a mission ... to teach my baby, Bettsy, to be blase about passion."
I blinked hard. "In other words, you give her the cake ... but won't let her eat it!"
"That's right!" the Duchess guffawed. "And I stand over every assignation with a yardstick ... to make certain her virginity isn't stolen!"
"And, do you honestly think that is the cure-all?"
The Duchess shrugged. "After you fiddle rather constantly ... boredom sets in!"
"Oh ... lots of luck!" I offered her magnanimously. "I think you both have ... holes in your heads!"
"We're drunk skunks," Bettsy explained it.
"Drunk smucks," I corrected her. "And God only knows what else-probably daffy and downright ... dangerous! At least, certainly disgusting! You are an outrage as mother and daughter, like a sick joke!"
The Duchess laughed-triumphantly! "And what are you, Steve? I'll tell you! You are nothing but ... a flesh-dispenser for the most diverse forms of perverse lust! That's all you are!"
"I am ... something more," I insisted.
But when I Was finally alone, in the shower ... I washed my body thoroughly with the frantic feeling that I wanted...."out of my skin"!
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The newspaper advertisement read: "Gentleman wanted for large pleasant room with private entrance and bath. Convenient location, reasonable rent, privileges."
It was those "privileges" that caught my eye and fired my always wild imagination with an inkling of anticipation ... that was thoroughly warranted!
There was no answer when I knocked on the front door of the cute house to inquire about the room. I knocked louder. Still no answer. Then I heard the soft strains of music; it seemed to come through from the back of the house. Probably the landlady had her ear bent to a portable radio. Maybe she was sunbathing, too.
She was ... lying on a red plastic chaise lounge beside the sparkling blue-green water of the backyard pool. She wore a blue polka-dot bikini of thin cotton. The soft skin that covered her Junoesque-fine figure was bronze-tinted. Her thick ash-blonde hair was teased high, and this luscious landlady boasted large cantaloupe-like breasts which made my mouth sweetly water.
I smiled to myself, cleared my throat, and said, "Hi there! I'm Steve Reynolds. About renting the room...."
She raised her lovely head and squinted at me. "Oh, yes!" she said, smiling. "I'm Helen Wallace." She reached to a tripod table nearby and picked up a pair of wrap-around "insect-eye" sunglasses, then gestured to a chair. "Sit down. Want a drink?"
I sat. "Fine, thanks. I am thirsty."
"So am I. The sun's really gotten to me this afternoon. What do you want?"
"Scotch on the rocks will be fine."
She poured from another tripod table within her easy reach. I watched ... unable to keep my eyes from roaming her nearly naked body, noticing her buxom, lusciously rounded hips, noting, too, and with special relish, her firm full womanly thighs which suddenly made me squirm a bit-cross my legs.
She handed me the drink then, saying, "I think you'll do just splendidly ... that is, if you like the room I have to offer."
"I'll take it sight unseen," I said flatly, "Oh ... good. Cheers!" She tipped her own stiff drink. "And call me Helen. Old-fashioned formality bugs me. Where are you from, Steve?"
"I lived in the North. Ohio. I'm a bachelor," I added.
"Well, I should hope so! And now you're,, down here. In all this glorious invigorating sunshine!"
"Yeah, it's the greatest," I grinned.
"Isn't it!" she agreed, smiling. "My husband retired down here five months ago, and has been dead three," came the abrupt good news.
"I'm sorry," I offered affected sympathy.
"Oh, you needn't be ... he isn't!" she assured me lightly. "Harve was sixty-seven and would have been the last man on earth to regret the way he died ... from a heart attack in bed with me."
"W-what a ... nice way to go to the happy hunting ground!"
"Yes, it was for him," she agreed matter-of-factly. "I was twenty-three when he married me, after his wife's timely death, and Harve had little alarm about death after our two years of particularly passionate marriage. He died with a smile on his lips. And my kisses."
"Again-how nice."
Helen moved to the edge of the lounge. "So the widow is going to stay on down here for a while ... until I get bored with my hobby."
"What's that?"
"I do water colors. Here-see for yourself what you think...."
My eyes fell on the first of the four full-colored sketches that she turned over and spread out on the table between us. It was a self-sketch of Helen with her blouse torn to show her exquisitely large and pink-pointed nipples, and she was languishing on her knees before a handsome young man who could have been a college stud-hero. His manhood was in full view, outlined in exact detail ... and her lips dripped honey!
"Whew!" I whistled. "How did you let that one get away?"
"Oh, he was my husband's nephew from California. Just came for the funeral."
"Whose?"
Helen laughed uproarishly. "Practice makes perfect!"
"I'll bet you are," I muttered.
And she asked immediately, "Would you pose for a quick sketch some time, Steve ... like right now?"
I was a little leery. "Maybe-maybe you won't want to rent me the room afterwards."
"Oh, don't be silly. I've turned down a dozen gentlemen since I placed that ad ... just waiting and praying for the likes of you!"
"Yeah, my pants are so tight that everything's perfectly obvious, huh?"
"Oh God, yes!" she breathed.
Then she seized my hand, and I felt as if I were being hurled through the air toward the house, and then we were in her "studio" which was obviously an extra bedroom. Helen reached for her easel ... and I grabbed her.
Her lips went eagerly to meet mine, and she put her arm around my neck to hold me there in the first excitement of the kiss. And then my own arms went hard around her, pulling her tight to me. My mouth burned down into hers, and my tongue was hard and thrusting between her opened lips. We stood swaying together, and I knew how deep the kiss was going into her, for I could feel the tightening of her breasts against me, the rising nipples, and she pressed her thighs against mine. My fingers hooked into the elastic of her flimsy bikini bra, and pulled it off in one sweep of my arm, and then ... she struggled free!
"Hey," I complained. "Come back here!"
"Down, down, eager-beaver," she said. "I can never sketch afterwards."
"But I don't want to just pose!"
"You promised," she said accusingly.
"Did I? I must have had a mad moment...."
"Ah no, you don't squirm out of anything ... except your clothes."
"Well ... okay, notorious landlady," I grinned. "But I always warn all teasers ... the pressure builds up-and up!"
"Goody," she smiled. "I like the thrill of an erupting volcano."
"The exact term to apply," I nodded down to my shorts, and then I tugged them off.
"W-why ... that's obscene!" Helen shrieked ... with delight. "I'll sketch you in in pencil first. Why don't you just ... well, I don't know ... anything at all," she gaped, her eyes as big as sparkling saucers.
"Anything?" I questioned. "Don't give me un-artistic ideas!"
"Hold it ... just one second," she gave in, dropping her easel but picking up a painter's brush. "As soon as I fill this brush with purple tempra ... I'll paint you!"
"What?!" I shouted. "You mean ... literally ...?"
"Why not?" she guffawed, giggling. "We'll both get a tremendous kick out of it ... I assure you, Steve. It's wild!"
"I suppose so ... I...." And then, before I could register anything more to say in curious bafflement, Helen was upon me ... with her loaded paint brush. Swish! Swish ... she drew circles around my flat hard nipples, then slap! she swished the paint brush into my belly button.
The effect was electrifying! Little whinnies of wild desire and pleasure ebbed up from my spastic stomach as she absolutely ground the brush around and round in continuous circular motions of relentless, adamant prodding that wetly seemed to tickle me deliriously clear down to my twitching toes. It was ecstasy, and the whining little moans swelled to cries when she offered the brush some other places and the paint dribbled delectably down my jerking legs.
Helen giggled gorgeously. My eyes were nearly glazed over, almost sightless, but my strong hands were still alive and able to wrench the bottom of the bikini from her and reveal her naked flesh. Her breath sharply quickened as my strong fingers kneaded the voluptuous flesh of her behind, and she shimmied and whimpered and dug her fingers into my back. Her hips began small regular movements.
And she begged, "Do it! I want to feel you...!"
I panted in her ear, "Take it easy. There's a long way to go yet."
Then I began to suck on her peach pit-like nipples. That felt so good ... and my fingers delved downward, parting her inner thighs wide, and I probed slowly, tenderly, until her breath sucked in as she felt the first faint stirrings of satisfaction seeking its vibrant way up. Then I stopped, and again I gave her no choice. I drew her to me, enfolded her, and there was nothing she could do about it until I was ready. I tormented her with my hands and lips, drawing her to me then pushing her away, only to draw her close again more furiously than before.
"Please, please...!" she begged hoarsely.
And each time I whispered, "A little longer ... a minute more."
"No ... no ... I beg you ... please! I can't stand it!"
This was good. This was damn good. This, perhaps, was what I wanted, needed-to hear a woman beg, to see a woman supplicant ... the way Shirley refused to yield to me! So I settled on the threshold of the warmest of all transient homes, feeling Helen's body sway in resigned acquiescence.
Then, suddenly, a shudder communicated with my senses, abruptly followed by a lurch and a tremor, and I had to surrender myself to her passion as hungry hips thrusted and rolled, reaching out for me, punching out a frantic rhythm beat. The devouring softness, the feel of needing arms and legs, the gurgles of exotic joy, all of this together spelled out a magnificent magic that overwhelmed me all at once.
"What are you doing to me?" she gasped into my ear harshly. "Tell me, you hunk! Tell me what you are doing!"
I told her ... and she echoed a low throaty chant of her favorite bedroom words. I named everything with all the common terms. Louder, louder, louder she repeated them until it was a frenzy, a madness, and she was screaming the words in a high soprano that I was sure could be heard for a block. But I was beyond caring ... virtually senseless ... and I reached my peak with a roar that drowned out her shrieks!
After a while, I rolled away to lay at her side on the floor. "Did you know how loud you sang out?" I grinned impishly.
"Oh ... I do it every time," she smiled. "And you rather got carried away yourself."
"I'm sorry ... if the neighbors...."
"Oh, they don't seem to mind. Never any complaints, at least ... from two old maids on one side, and a swish-faggot bachelor on the other!"
"Invite them to high tea," I chuckled.
"You scared me to death for a few moments, you know that, Steve?" Helen asked suddenly.
"Whatever scared great big luscious you?"
"No, I'm serious about ... those welts on your butt, Steve. They gave me the obvious wrong impression of you, at first."
"It was one hell of a party," I shrugged.
"It must have been!" Her tone was full of curiosity. "Want to tell me all about it?"
"Nope. I'd better not ... get myself all worked up again."
"Well ... I'm not just nibby," she assured me.
"But you want to play mother hen, don't you?"
"Not to pry into your personal business, Steve. It just seems to me ... maybe you need a soft shoulder to cry on. And here's mine!"
"T-thanks." I was being tempted.
"Level with me, Steve. You know it's no damn good to keep everything bottled up tight inside."
"And strangers know best?"
"Yes! Sometimes they really do," Helen said firmly. "Because a stranger, like me, can be pretty cold-fish objective about your problems ... if they really are such problems!"
"Oh are they! Okay ... I'll shoot the whole works," I decided. For one thing, I did want to get everything off my chest to someone, and for another thing I had a sudden, peculiar kind of inkling that Helen just might provide the "missing link" of common sense about my problems that I was too overwrought to see if a solution was, maybe, right in front of my nose. So I spilled the whole bag of beans ... rehashing everything from Barbara on.
"Good God, Steve!" the words came low and throaty. "You've really balled it!"
"Yep." I drew a long discouraged breath. "It's a mess, isn't it?"
"Yes, a mess. But ... don't blame Shirley for lying in her bed! You made your own, too!"
"Oh hell, don't start that bit ... what's good for the goose is good for the gander. I've heard that before-from Shirley!"
"Well, I don't doubt it!" Helen exclaimed. "She has every right, you know ... to be too pure is to be selfish-mostly to yourself! I mean, we can't hide our lusts, Steve, or they burn our insides like cancer."
"But sexuality just goes on and on," I reasoned. "There must be a thousand and one ways ... a never-ending stream of experience that can be had. And that doesn't leave much room for anything else!"
"Like love and marriage?" Helen questioned.
"Exactly!"
"Level with yourself, Steve. Are you really ready to settle down to all sorts of responsibilities that love imposes?"
"Hell yes! In fact, I'm ready to punch a time clock and put in a nine-to-five day on a conventional job."
"All for love!"
"Don't be bitchy sarcastic," I warned her. "I knew you wouldn't understand...."
"Oh, I understand you perfectly!" Helen assured me. "Your trouble is ... you are a hotheaded bastard, Steve!"
"W-what?" I nearly shouted.
"I hate a righteous sinner who rushes in where fools fear to tread," she explained calmly. "And you have botched up most things all by your crazy self ... by being a stupid catalyst!"
"I'll be damned." I studied her, my eyes weary. "Okay, I opened the book of sin for Shirley by humping Carol right in front of her," I said in a dull voice. "And I guess I really screwed things up by biting Teddy's...."
"You certainly did!" she agreed almost passionately. "Now Teddy will really use Shirley to pay you back ... and you can't show your face to him."
"What are you saying? I can't skip town!"
Helen shrugged. "I'm afraid that's the logical solution."
"You are no help!"
"I didn't say that's what I would suggest."
I perked up my ears. "Okay, spell it out in plain English, will you?"
Helen smoked, and for a long while she didn't say a word. Then she drew a long, deep breath.
"Stop the fun and games, Steve. Your silly retaliations show what you properly are, don't they? I mean, you are guilty of assuming a false image, of living a fairy-tale role. What a fool you have been! What a dishonest fool! You sliced away your true nature-denied its very existence and performed merely as a stud in a convenient mental void ... until Shirley reduced you to stark reality that you still refused to face. And so you dragged her right into the nightmare with you; you made her join the fun and games because-because that life is rather devoid of hum-drum responsibilities, and as long as she's the phony whore you can keep on being the wanton stud ... which is the easiest path to follow!"
I blinked flabbergasted. "Are you saying, in so many words, that I encourage all this evil just because I'm a weak sister?"
"Everybody wants life to be beautifully easy," Helen said gently. "And you have conditioned yourself to that fantasy for one hell of a long time, Steve. But you can't have your cake and eat it, too!"
"Suddenly, this-this is like trying to watch a double feature of my life on a single screen!" I cried out.
"You are confused, and it's no wonder...."
"No, no, I think I understand now," I insisted. "I've always been quite ordinary, deep down inside ... and my sexuality has only been a little boy crutch to let me behave irresponsibly, like a male Auntie Mame!"
"That's the ticket."
"But Helen...!"
"What?"
"H-how in the world do I correct this mess I've made?"
"Why ... I suggest cave-man tactics!" she chuckled.
"Huh?"
"Toss Shirley over your shoulder and beat it out of town!"
"Y-you must be kidding," I stammered. "Remember the blackmail bit! Teddy still has those pictures of Shirley ... and he would mail them in a flash!"
She clucked for a moment. "Haven't you discovered Teddy's ... Achilles heel?"
"N-no. W-what is it?"
"Oh, Steve ... now I'll level with you. You see, I don't always like to be honest with myself either. And that is because I really did love my husband-and because-because this terrible Teddy done me wrong too!" she blurted.
I could have been knocked over by a feather. "Y-you know him?"
"Like a bad book, I'm sorry to say. Harve and I rented an ocean-front cabana at the Breakers Hotel last season-and Teddy attached himself to us like a leech because Harve always waved a wad of big bills around ... not to show off; it was just my husband's flashy way to...." She stopped. "Y-yes? Go on!"
"This is sort of tearing me apart, you know that?" she asked abruptly but didn't hesitate. "Anyhow, Teddy wormed his way into Harve's affections because he catered to my husband like the son he never had ... and Teddy got some 'secrets' out of him."
"Then Teddy posed for you in the nude," I guessed.
Helen flushed. "One session-but I never touched his body! Harve flew back North to tie up the final strings on the sale of his business, and Teddy just appeared here at the house to pester me for a nude water-color to give his girlfriend. So I gave in...."
"And he blackmailed you with the sketch," I finished the obvious for her.
"Oh God, did he!" Helen cried bitterly. "For money and-and occasional sex, in the pool boys' private cabana while Harve was in swimming in the ocean. What else could I do? My God! Human beings are stupid bitches and bastards, sometimes. But the worm always turns!"
I furrowed my brow. "I guess I don't understand...."
"As I said, Teddy has an Achilles heel ... and you are the catalyst for his undoing, Steve! Together, you and I are going to pin him to the old rugged cross!"
"You've left me completely in the dark," I said frankly.
"Oh, but not for long!" Helen cried joyously. "Now let's get dressed and go through with my plans right now."
"Eureka!" I fairly cheered. "You are like manna from Heaven for me, Helen. How about dressing up in a tux and being best man at my wedding?"
Helen smiled broadly. "Huh-uh. But I will give you the bachelor party!"
"And some party that would be!"
"You'd better believe it," she laughed. "You'd never make it to the church on time ... without adrenalin!"
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
"Get out of here or I'll call the cops!"
Teddy's threat was loud with harsh intent, but quivery with amazement ... as Helen and I barged our way in as soon as he opened the apartment door a crack.
"Small world stuff," Helen said rather deliriously. "The underdogs have united to get your goat, Teddy Bear!"
"Come off it! That'll be the day!" he guffawed, his cock-suredness suddenly rising. "How in the hell did you two find each other's company? That's a bitchen bit of mystery...!"
"No mystery. The gentle gods sometimes deal fair and square," Helen assured him.
And Teddy notified her, "You are just ripening yourself again for a ton of trouble, Mrs. Wallace."
"Oh no, you can't touch me with a ten-foot pole any more. I'm free and clear of you ... ever since Harve died. I have absolutely nothing to fear ... except a bit of conscience for the few lies I might have to tell the investigating police detectives!" Helen blurted.
"You want the cops over here?" Teddy asked with strong curiosity.
"Only if need be," she shrugged. "That is, if you don't fully cooperate with Steve and me...."
"Screw you both. And get out!"
"We're in," I growled. "And we're going to stay right in here until we get ... some satisfaction!"
"You filthy son of a bitch!" Teddy cried out. "You've already ruined me for weeks, maybe months! But I'll get even with you. I'll see that Shirley gets screwed to death now!"
"Wanta bet?" I breathed, restraining myself under previous orders from Helen.
And she said quickly, "Let's get down to business. Blackmail is a dirty rotten word and we're blackballing it, Teddy, nipping the foul flower once and for all!"
"You're really going to the cops with it?"
"Not on your life! Steve and I aren't interested in creating a nasty scene that would be very embarrassing. And so ... you are going to destroy the evidence of blackmail yourself, Teddy Bear!"
"Hah, hah, HAH!" he howled mirthlessly. "Let me get this straight. You expect me just to hand over your water color together with those snaps of Shirley?"
"Exactly. You'll burn them in that big ashtray in the middle of your coffee table," Helen instructed him.
"Go to hell, you dreamers."
Helen smiled secretly for a moment. Then she methodically opened her large pocketbook ... and pulled out a revolver!
"Good Christ, Mrs. Wallace!" Teddy's words came through a brittle laugh. "Who are you trying to kid? You wouldn't pull that trigger on any body in a million years!"
"No I wouldn't ... to kill them," Helen admitted in casual agreement. "The gun is just to hold on you until Steve does his job. But I can promise you a pistol whipping if you don't get us those pictures right now."
Teddy gulped. Then, "I'll call your bluff."
"All right. Ready, Steve?" Helen asked brightly. "The paint and brush are in my purse. Please get them out and proceed."
"W-what are you going to do?" Teddy asked, watching me uncap the paint can.
Helen said, "Tell me, Teddy. Did you see the James Bond movie Goldfinger?"
Again he guffawed. "You silly bitch ... you wouldn't murder me like that in cold blood!"
"Of course not," Helen said disdainfully. "But-like Mr. Goldfinger, I'm prepared to have your skin painted ... with a very special paint; I mixed it myself ... for skin irritation that will leave permanent pockmarks!"
Teddy twitched nervously. "I-I don't believe you a single bit!"
"Well ... you'll see! Steve ... Teddy, stand still! You are right-I could never kill you. But I might accidentally shoot you ... in the groin!"
"Why have you still got such a big burr up your butt?" he asked her in amazement.
Helen smiled a little sadly. "Because you made my life a living hell of constant worry with your blackmail-and because I think Steve and Shirley deserve a right to happiness ... as I experienced happiness in my marriage before you soured the sweet, tender grapes."
"Ah-hah! The Lady Macbeth of Fort Lauderdale," Teddy said sarcastically. "I may cry me a river...."
"Oh, you will!" Helen assured him. "And after your precious skin ... your Achilles heel ... is blemished and made ugly by my paint, you'll also probably dig a hole for yourself and crawl in!"
There was a long silence. All the hot air seemed to have whooshed out of Teddy, as if out of a pricked balloon ... and he squirmed.
"All right, w-what the hell-I lose this one," he said at last. "You can burn the stuff! It's all taped up underneath the coffee table."
I fingered under for it in a flash. "Is this really all of it, Teddy?"
"E-everything! I swear...!"
I struck a match and the small bonfire in the large ash tray came a second later.
It was in the second that Teddy screamed, covering his crotch with his hands. For abruptly ... Helen had struck his shoulder as hard as she could with the pistol butt.
She cried, "God ... damn ... you!"
And Teddy yelled hysterically, "Go ahead ... kill me ... but I've still got the last laugh!"
"What's that?" I panted.
"Shirley is getting it but good tonight ... from Madge Carpenter and her crew!"
Helen's intake of breath was in horror, and my mind went into instant flip-flops.
"Level with me, Helen. I can take the bad news."
"Steve, this is sick-ghastly!" she said in pain. "The most notorious leather-lovers south of the Florida state line! And Madge herself is the biggest bull dyke alive; she'll tear Shirley to shreds!"
"Touche, touche," Teddy cackled.
"Teddy! Where have they taken her, for God's sake?" she demanded impatiently.
"On the schooner," he hissed.
"Oh god," Helen husked. "My God, Steve...!"
For a blinding moment, my mind conjured up images of hellish horror ... then my sanity exploded and I charged Teddy like a raging animal, hooking savagely with rights and lefts to his face and body.
Teddy was not in any trouble yet. He was backing away, blocking all punches rather easily, then ... he managed to scoop up an ash tray and fling it into my face! I ducked ... but not quick enough. The ashes did their intended trick in my eyes. And Teddy, in close now, landed a hard left to my ribs, followed it with a right to the kidneys, hammered away, putting his weight and shoulders behind every punch until....
Suddenly he screamed ... then I heard him fall to the floor.
"I'm not really like this, Steve," Helen said brokenly. "I'm not really like this at all. But I had to fight fire with fire."
I rubbed my still unseeing eyes. "W-what did you do to him?" I panted blindly. "You didn't ...!"
"Steve! I had to do something, for God's sake!" she cried. "Yes ... I butted the pistol into his sore crotch! The pain sent him out like a light."
"Oh, Jesus," I breathed. "Jesus, Jesus ... now I've dragged you into all this unspeakable filth, Helen! I've got the real shakes...."
"Well, shake 'em off, Steve!" she ordered with pique. "We've got to get your eyes shaped up again and find that damned schooner!"
"I want you out of this, Helen!"
"Forget it, I'm staying in," she said flatly. "Maybe I'm-a bit kooky for excitement. All I know is ... I want the perverse bastards in this town to learn a lesson. Never tangle with a Black Widow!"
"All right, then ... just one question. The paint in that can was actually harmless, wasn't it?"
There was a long pause. Then she chuckled ... enigmatically!
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
It was dark when we wound up on a sandy side-road off the beach highway and Helen parked her car in a grove of Australian pines, which screened it from the road.
She explained, "We'll have to hike it from here on foot ... up the beach about half a mile, then over the dunes to the Intercoastal canal."
"And what makes you so sure the schooner will be anchored there?" I asked stupidly.
"I've heard lots of scuttlebutt. And this is really the only stretch of waterway for miles around that affords almost total privacy. I don't think we made a mistake coming out here," she added firmly.
I nodded. "I'll take your word ... and I pray to God you are right! Let's get on with it."
We scurried out of the car and plodded through the thick, heavy sand for almost five minutes before following a narrow path leading away from the beach between two dunes, capped by a thick growth of sea-grape bushes.
"Keep down now among the stand of sea-grape," Helen whispered flicking off her flashlight. "If the schooner is here at all, it should be just about there ... and there it be!"
It was a handsome boat-all white and mahogany, with two tall masts. I felt a terrible tingle up and down my body, but for a moment I hesitated and admired the big beauty that looked so slim and eager, ready to run through any sea. Then slowly, I became aware of movement on deck, and when I looked more sharply I gasped and stared, frozen in disbelief.
Shirley was lashed to the mast, and three hooded despoilers, in various stages of leather dress and undress, stood looking at her naked, voluptuous beauty!
"I'll kill them with my bare hands!" I managed to husk.
"Keep quiet and down," Helen commanded me. "There might be a guard watch here on shore."
"I don't care...!"
"Shush!" Helen snapped. "This is a deadly game, Steve. Believe me, Madge Carpenter and her crew are dangerous! And this could be-bad trouble."
"Then I want you out!"
"I'm staying in-until the bitter end," she assured me. "Besides, you couldn't possibly accomplish this rescue mission successfully without my help."
"Like?"
"Like distracting their attention while you swim out and slip aboard. And this I do by creating a real loud ruckus here on shore."
"But that's too dangerous for you, Helen!"
"Naw. Remember, I have a gun-that's not a toy!"
"And if they do too?" I breathed.
"That Carpenter bitch bull wouldn't stand for a shoot out, Steve. Granted, she has money she hasn't counted yet-but intuition tells me she wouldn't want to burn it up on criminal defense lawyers."
"Okay," I sighed. "Let's get the ball rolling-before those pukes touch Shirley!"
I went down to my shorts, then slipped into the tepid water of the canal, swimming out to the schooner with long, easy strokes. The Inter-coastal was calm, breathing in the gentle swells that pulsed from the southeast, and I submerged for about the last fifty yards, then came gently blowing to the surface to hear Helen shouting at the schooner party from back on shore.
"Somebody help me! Please-help me! I'm ... in danger-of my life!"
Above me-I was now poised on the lowest rung of the aft ladder-I heard the scuffle of feet running away from me to the forward deck, then voices called out to Helen, and I scurried up ... up ... up on deck. And before Shirley could utter a surprised cry I was clinging to her, and her cheek fell against my chest and she sobbed quietly as if the moment were an accumulation of all earthly tragedy.
Neither of us spoke a word; this was not a time for words ... and I had to work quickly to unshackle her from the mast. I knelt and examined the leg-irons those depraved bastards had put on her, then thanked God they weren't securely locked.
Suddenly Shirley quivered tense and screamed!
"You! Come here to me!" demanded a strong, slightly female voice from behind me.
I whirled, stumbling to a half-crouch, and my eyes went wide and bugged at sight of the big Amazon. Standing in white leather high heeled boots with her head completely hooded was a devil dyke taller than any Tarzan. But it was the long three-tongued whip she dangled menacingly that drew my eyes to nearly popping out.
"Well? Who the hell are you, miserable man?" this devil dyke further demanded. "Answer me!"
"Up yours, Mister Madge Carpenter!" I snarled.
"How the hell do you know my name?"
"Can the twenty questions," I snapped, freeing Shirley from the mast at last. "Over the side, Shirley!"
"Stop-in your tracks!" Madge thundered.
Instead, I grabbed Shirley and half-dragged her across the deck to the ladder in her terror and stupification. I seemed to have the strength and daring of twenty men ... but I wasn't prepared for Madge's abrupt fury ... and the triple lash of her whip cut into my broad back so furiously that I almost toppled. I staggered back into balance ... only to get the vicious whip wrapped around my legs-and with one swift tug of Madge's powerful arm ... I was floored on the hard deck!
For a moment I was stunned by the air being knocked out of me; I was only conscious of the agonizing screams pouring out of Shirley again and again. Then I heard Madge yelling, "I'll punish you for spoiling my party! You miserable fool-I'll teach you to trespass!"
Now there was noise-gruff voices, rough cries ... and again the black leather whip slashed across my back and buttocks without mercy. Then two hooded men grabbed me by the hair, dragged me across the deck, and my arms and legs were pulled almost out of their sockets as they arranged me in a spread-eagled position. Naturally I tried to fight them ... but I was completely helpless! I shook my head from side to side ... yet the peculiar, mouthless leather helmet was fitted over my head in a moment ... in the exact moment that Shirley was fitted with a like one that stopped her sobbing, hideous screams.
Through the narrow eye-slits of the helmet I watched Madge come toward me ... with what evil intent? Her huge hands, covered with tight white leather gloves, started to twitch with small spasms, then the eager fingers suddenly flicked like little snakes to rip off my shorts in splitting shreds. And she began to fondle me intimately, to tweak me cruelly ... to no appreciable degree under the despicable circumstances! But she continued the lewd caresses, plying the line of my limpness until she was reassured that she could not possibly firm my tissues, and then she stepped back.
For a moment she was gone, and there was the sound of her pulling something from a leather bag. Then she was in front of me again ... displaying an impossibly long, absolutely monstrous artificial object! And I damned near passed out! There wasn't a doubt in the world about where she was going to put it!
Yet I was strangely transfixed with the excellent theatrical flair Madge employed as she strapped it securely around her hips. It was done with ease and deliberate slow motion action, as if she wanted to savor this extended time until she had taken everything from it ... or wait for the moment that I would begin to beg for mercy by struggling my body! But I gritted my teeth and vowed not to give her this satisfaction.
Then it happened!
It was inevitable!
One moment Madge slithered out of my view, slipping behind me ... the next moment her icy hands gripped me by the hips ... and she made full abrupt use of the artificial object.
The shock and agony tore me into pieces. There was no escaping the incredible torture-I was distended, stretched, scorched ... then hammered over and over again with steady swift savagery, until the burning and searing drove me close to numbing shock.
And then suddenly her arms moved down from my captive chest and her fingers became adamant again. And the most astonishing part of this was ... this time the kneading effect was electrifying! Every muscle, every fiber of my entire body fought against the humiliating result that Madge desired. But suddenly-it happened! Unmercifully she continued the repetitious thrusts that wrenched me apart again, until the split moment of ecstasy was sheer agony once more ... and endured with her harsh laughter now in my ringing ears.
Five, ten minutes later-abruptly, Madge withdrew, heedless of what the still-powerful object ripped out from my insides with its disengagement ... and leaped back before my watery eyes to stride deliberately over to the wiggling Shirley!
I made a silent shriek in the mouthless hood and struggled now ... but the men who had fitted the hood for me regrasped me in complete bondage! I must admit that I felt very close to vomiting ... when Madge swatted the flat handle of her whip across Shirley's buttocks!
Again and again she was punished by the handle whacking, until her creamy white skin was flushed red with rawness, and her entire body quivered with jolting quakes at each blatant blow.
Then Madge moved behind!
She assumed the position with her fingernails digging into Shirley's heaving breasts and-and- Helen swore the command. "Hold it! That's enough!" she screamed from the schooner's rail that she clutched almost precariously ... pointing the pistol!
And it was as if Madge Carpenter and her crew became instantly hypnotized and paralyzed to total immobility. The four strong hands shot off me ... and in a moment I had plucked the stifling leather hood up over my head and Shirley's alike. She began to shake as if laughing silently in some terrible relief; then she fainted.
"Get 'em!" Madge commanded her crew of bullies.
And Helen cried out, "I'll shoot! I mean it. Nobody moves a muscle, until the Coast Guard gets here.. My companion back ashore went after them," she added the he smoothly. "Get yourself and Shirley over the side, Steve!"
I had already hauled Shirley over the railing, close to Helen, when Madge suddenly called the whole bluff and started a small pandemonium by commanding, "Somebody start the engines! Then we'll get them-run them down in the water!"
We forgot the ladder and quickly jumped. In my arms, Shirley's dead weight acted like a buoy to keep us surfaced, and after a moment Helen came shaking her head and blowing up right beside us.
It was in that moment that Madge's warning was delivered in a high, hoarse shout. "My God! Don't forget to turn on the blower to flush out the gasoline before you switch on the ignition...!"
Boom! Boom! Boom!
The air and water reverberated with three successive and thunderous explosions. A massive geyser of red-hot flames shot skyward, igniting the black starless night in a searing glow of nature's fury....
And the oil slick water-top all around us was suddenly ablaze!
"Under! Go under!" Helen screamed ... then a tongue of flame scorched and sizzled her long wet hair!
Stunned, I grabbed breath and dove. I knew that Shirley, still unconscious, would get her lungs filled ... but there was absolutely no other way to escape. Underwater, Shirley's dead weight seemed to hold me back, to fight against me, but I frantically lunged, on ... on ... on. Miles ... miles-and my lungs were bursting to the point of dizzy nausea ... the limit just before the claim of water-logged unconsciousness ... and then the silent deep surrendered and spewed us up on the sandy shore!
Then Shirley was yanked away from me. Down she went to the ground with a zealous Helen performing the obvious duty of artificial respiration. Three minutes ... five minutes! A twinge of horror was steadily growing within me.
Abruptly, there it was-a sputter first, then a choked and gagging cough!
I hunch-crouched there in the soggy sand watching the mysterious spurt of life being reactivated, and then I wanted to beat my chest and yell from the treetops like a Tarzan ... tamed at long last!
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
I lifted my mouth and Shirley's lips came eagerly to meet mine. Her arm went around my neck to hold me there in the first excitement of the kiss, and then my own arms went gently hard around her, pulling her tight to me. Her mouth burned down onto mine, and my entire body and soul erupted into a raging tempest at the very touch of her exceedingly warm embrace. The moment I felt the hungry heat of her mouth over mine I began to tremble and tickle with desire.
Now I locked my muscular arms about her tender back and clutched her almost desperately to my broad chest. I couldn't lose her now ... I couldn't! She was back in my arms again, and I would never let her go and stray any more!
With the recurrent twitches on my awakening, Shirley pressed her body forward. I felt her hands traverse my back, and I supported her at the hips. I wanted her closer ... she wanted me closer to her. She pressed firmly and slowly undulated. I surged against her in a growing rhythm of need. Our clothed bodies groped excitedly to find each other as our kiss grew in fervor.
So far our mouths had moved back and forth, up and down in slow but meaningful motions. I pecked and nipped about her lips, enclosing them completely, then allowed her mouth to savor my lips. Her body started to shudder next. Every nerve was fired and ready, I knew. And so with our bodies crushed together as closely as our clothing would allow, I let my tongue tip venture gently between her lips. She sipped at it, savoring every morsel of its meaning. Her own tongue then touched mine and they intermingled. Now the embrace was complete. We stood swaying together, and both knew how deep the kiss was going into each other, for I could feel the tightening of her breasts against me, the rising nipples, and she pressed her tighs against mine. And I pressed my own hand against her right breast, and she moaned with rising delight when my fingers began a rhythmic stroking, lifting the breast and feeling through the fabric of her brassiere for the erect nipple. Our teeth grated together in the furious demand of the kisses.
"Oh, Steve ... Steve!" Shirley cried during a momentary gasp for breath.
I nibbled wetly along her throat and about her ear, my own breath gushing in and out frantically.
"Do you love me, Shirley?" I husked while tonguing the sweet pink hard-shell.
"Oh, yes-yes!" she cried softly in return. Her hand caressed the back of my head as she looked up plaintively into my near-misty eyes. "I do ... Ido!"
"And-you know what I want, don't you? Do you really want it too?"
"I do, I do! Honest I do," she assured me, practically breathless with anticipation. "I've wanted only you all along."
"You have?"
"Didn't you know?"
"Yes, I knew-deep down inside, somewhere, it was the thing that kept me going ... chasing after you. Because I wanted only you, too."
"And now I've faced the whole truth and I'm delighted to accept it," Shirley smiled. "I want to tell you something, Steve."
"I want to tell you a lot of things."
"This is something in particular. Perhaps there are a lot of things, too. Right now it's impossible to believe that I once vowed to-well-experiment with men and women, vicariously. I should have known it was impossible for me...."
"I understand, darling."
"No, no, I want to tell you," she insisted, then put her hands against my chest-a fragile barrier, yet enough to hold me from her. "I must have been completely crazy! I should have known that a girl like me couldn't dilute all moral convictions. That sometimes simple solution is beyond the bounds of my limits. And it struck home like searing lightning that nightmarish night on the schooner last week. The intimate and sacred act of sex was being viciously violated right before my very eyes, and I realized that I had contributed to the awful sacrilege by sacrificing you to totally degrading, despicable perversity! Your desecration was surely my syndrome and-and I could still kill myself over it!"
"Don't be silly! I'm all right," I said with a chuckle. "Of course I haven't hardly been able to sit down this past week...!"
"I know, I know!" Shirley cried desperately.
"Shush. It's all over." I brought a hand up and touched her cheek ever so lightly. "You're such a baby," I whispered almost under my breath. "Such a sweet little baby ... who must let devil dogs lie back down and go to sleep, now."
Shirley's breath was still heavy with guilt and self-recrimination. I felt it lifting her breasts high with each deep inhale. As we stood close to each other, I looked down at her, and she looked up-the magic of intimacy pervaded the dimly lit room. This time was good. It was a time of honesty. And now that Shirley had been honest and knew that she would have her lover, this time was very good ... and what I wanted her to feel was the intangible bonding agent behind marriage, the feeling of belonging to another ... with love, adoration, and security.
For a moment I released her and began to pull off my own clothes. As I did so, Shirley unhooked her belt and sat down on the bed. As I stepped out of my trousers, I watched her pause to feast her eyes on my body.
"I'm a very lucky girl, Steve," she smiled. "And I adore you!"
I was undressed except for my jockey shorts. "Flattery will get you everywhere with me," I grinned. "So on with it."
Shirley had removed her shoes but that was all. Now she smiled in acknowledgement of my suggestion and lifted her skirt. She undid her garters and slowly rolled her nylons down over her thighs and calves, then stood up and wiggled out of her sheath and slip. And in one sweep of her arm, it seemed, she pulled off her panties and bra, and she was nude.
I was practically transfixed in my study-approval of her figure. "Beautiful," I said with a sigh. My eyes drifted up and down her compact curves. "I think you have the most beautiful breasts I've ever seen! Come here, you...."
Shirley crossed the carpet silently and stood before me. I gathered my hands around her tiny waist and drew her closer again. I kissed her lightly on the lips, and then I kissed the pink tip of one breast and then the other.
"Angel nipples," I commented as my hands patted and weighted the firm flesh of her bottom.
"Do I look like an angel?" Shirley asked girlishly.
"Yep," I said, still enjoying the firm roundness of her breasts with my nibbling mouth.
Shirley giggled. "In that case maybe I should act like a real saint. I mean, I'll spend all my time just admiring your male perfection-and you can stand off worshipping me from afar."
"I don't dig that at all," I muttered, guiding her toward the bed and pulling off my shorts.
"Well ... you'd better not!"
She lay in the bed, her arms up on the pillow at either side of her head, in a position of complete surrender. Then I was upon her, and the kiss returned us to our earlier passionate fervancy almost at once, and her body arched in readiness, making room for me. Directly above her, I lifted my body on outstretched arms for final preparations. We both cried out at almost the same instant, and came together in a raging ferocity of love.
"Oh, darling!" she cried out at my instinctive dive for depth, and began to pound her fists against my back.
"Is it okay?" I gasped in alarm. I felt her body tense. "Should I take it easier?"
"Oh ... no!" she cried, clutching me and thrusting her hips higher. "Don't ever stop ... never ... never ... NEVER!"
Our bodies clenched and unclenched, beat together, parted, came together again. And when I seemed to retreat, even if for only the particle of an instant, she dug her fingernails into my shoulders, clawing me back to her, though I did not have to be compelled in this way, for I was back down before her nails drew blood.
Abruptly, there it was. I led the spastic course with Shirley following in perfect step-and it came in a high hot rush, and went on and on, and both of us cried out when it came, and this time her fingernails bit deep into my shoulders and raked down my ribs and she bit into my lip, and there was the salt-sweet tang of blood, while my big, muscular hands gripped her with convulsive strength, wrenching her, but not to hurt. In the last frenzied moment of reaching this peak, our legs thrashed and tightened, our arms constricted, our lips mashed together-capturing every vibration, every bodily nuance, until slowly subsiding passions drifted through our bodies like gently swaying palms.
Feeling a mutual lingering joy, we lay back, our bodies still touching at the hips and along the lengths of our legs, hers soft and yielding, mine muscular and hard, but slumped against hers. I was half-turned towards her, breathing, or rather panting, against the side of her face, and my hand lay across her breast, cupping it in my palm, but making no demands on it.
Shirley lightly kissed my ear and murmured, "Darling...."
She was making no demands, either. It was solely an expression of affection, for our highest heavenly joy lingered leisurely and its departure seemed an even greater kind of ecstasy.
Soon I had to speak out, though. "Shirley angel-" I began in a whisper. "Yes, darling?"
"Now I want to tell you something in particular ... important."
"What is it?"
"I've been-well-quite a devil stud, all my life."
"Oh, Steve! What difference does it make, now?"
"To me? I'll tell you-and this is only part of what I want to tell you. This studship, it was only my walk on the wild side ... through the personal hell of a phony rebellion against most things decent and normal. Because I thought the world owed me an easy life of luxury, and my rather titanic manhood was my passport ... until you showed me the nice bright light, Shirley! Granted, I was dragged back down into the black hellish depths again for a while ... but all the time, from the moment I laid eyes on you, I knew you were the only girl to salve my wounds and cure me."
"Thank you, darling," she whispered in breathless sincerity, and sighed her personal contentment at achievement.
And so I knew that I could never qualify any of this now ... even though, surely, others greatly compounded in their own way to this happy end result. Yes indeed! Certainly Barbara began my doubts and denial with a vengeance ... by driving me straight into the arms of Frustrated, who contributed the first saving grace: the notion that I could become the completely depraved, inhuman stud. And that took me into Satan's lair, where in the guise of Teddy that devilish bastard sacrificed me to the charade-players ... only Clara and Fritz Bartelme merely pointed up to me the fact that people need people, always! Backfire; a score for my sanity. Then, Smash! I rebelled against all involvement with Shirley and willy-nilly conjured up the sweet pleasures and delights of uninhibited orgy "fun." Until ... again, the twins Elsie and Delsie began to save part of my day with their foreboding warning of danger, perhaps blackmail. And then momentarily Satan came into his own with me as Shirley lost her senses and the monster-filled pits of passion yawned invitingly and would have swallowed us both up forever and ever, I'm almost positive ... if Helen Wallace hadn't come into the picture as the Good Fairy.
It was like fitting together the giant pieces of a great human jigsaw puzzle; everyone contributing a clearly defined piece to fit my sanity together in natural place ... many times against my distorted Satan-saturated judgement. But humans were my keepers ... and won out!
Now a week had unwound almost everything back down to a relaxing and enjoyable normalacy. After the schooner explosion, Madge Carpenter and her crew had been fished out of the Intercoastal Waterway and arrested almost at once when the Coast Guard instigated a rather thorough police investigation from blinking incredulously at their peculiar leather clothing. Then, from their spilling lots of beans, the Fort Lauderdale vice squad launched a probe into the beach-hotel scene ... and Teddy must have skipped town in the very nick of time. The devil's own luck! At least, his name was not included in the newspapers with a lot of the other whores, studs, and pool-boy pimps.
Miraculously-I know no other term for it-Shirley and I completely escaped the blood-bath of public retribution for our wanton involvement. Yet ... hadn't we suffered and paid a pretty high price in our own ways? I think so.
Now, after this joyous night, we would jet to Shirley's Indiana home in the glorious morning .' ... yes, to be married in her girlhood church, with all the festive trimmings-and Helen as the maid of honor. Meanwhile, ever since that last night of horror, we had been Helen's house-guests and-and-I had been thinking all of this against Shirley's cheek, and suddenly now I felt the movement of her lips lightly brushing my face, and it was like a series of small kisses, punctuating the final sweet happiness I was feeling throughout.
I lifted my face and kissed her on the lips. Then my arms were around her again, and she was there, right there, right down there, and her arms held me too, and she merged herself with me, answering my urgency and demands, wrapping her limbs around me so that everything would be there for me, and I could not slip away.
The acme was not so sudden as the preview before. The terminal violence was there again, of course, and it nearly drove her out of her mind when I triggered her and her emotions went off like fireworks. But it took longer and went to a height, and a depth, too, that the first performance had not reached. My voice was a hoarse gutteral shout when triumph came to me and glory detonated-from every artery and vein, or so it seemed to me.
"Oh, angel baby!" I panted as the last delirious, delicious drop became part of her. "That's what I call ... a shattering ecstasy!"
"And me, too." Shirley smiled, her hands still moving against the small of my back, stroking me, then she whispered, "Let's keep at it!"
We struck fire again ... building our incredible pleasure until all the past was forgotten. And we came to a crashing, pulsating, mind-dissolving conclusion ... in a Shangri-la where we planned to stay for a lifetime.
