As her Caddy roared down the road, I stood there and called her a bitch. Of course, she didn't hear me.
No one else heard me, either. That was the kind of town it was. Town? Hell, it was nothing but a cafe, a tavern, two gas stations and a motel. It went by the name of Linden and it straddled a two-lane secondary highway that connected U. S. 99 with Yosemite Park.
I looked around. There were no cars coming at the moment and dusk was closing around the place like a shroud. Across the road a red sign in front of a small rustic building spelled out the single word Cafe. Two cars and a pickup-camper were parked on the bare earth in front of the place. Farther down the road, just this side of the first gas station, blue and red neon flashed in front of the tavern where another two or three cars were parked. In the other direction there was a three-pump gas station and, across from it, a neat little motel with ten or twelve units strung out under a common roof. The roof was made of shake shingles and the exterior was rough hewn, like that of the cafe. It had a patch of very green grass between the road and the blacktopped parking area and there was a neon sign in front of the office which read Linden Lodge and, beneath that, Vacancy.
You could say this much for the burg: the air was cool and clean. It was about three thousand feet high, in the foothills of the Sierra.
Several things bugged me at the moment, in addition to my healthy hatred of Maude Bessler's guts: one, I was hungry; two, I had to find a place to spend the night; three, I was almost broke; and, four, I had to take a leak. Taking first things first, I walked across to the gas station, carrying my single suitcase, and went to the can.
After Nature was satisfied, I stepped to the wash basin and squinted in the mirror at the face which 48-year-old Maude Bessler had been so nuts about. I laughed and the face laughed back at me.
I'd always thought it was a pretty good face as faces went. It had dark brown eyes set fairly far apart under thick brows that matched a mop of boyishly unruly black hair. The features were strong enough, without being too hard. It was an easy-going, take-life-as-it-comes sort of face. The face went with a 22-year-old body that was five-eleven, weighed one seventy-five, and had always been in good working condition.
As I began to wash my face and hands, I kept thinking about old Maude and what she had done to me. The lousy bitch!
It had started the day I saw her small ad in one of the Los Angeles papers. It was in Help Wanted, Male.
That was a section I'd been scouring pretty carefully since getting out of the Army a couple of weeks before. I wasn't interested just then in launching myself on the business career for which college had prepared me. I'd wanted to rattle around a bit and get over the stiffness of Army life.
Maude's ad had seemed made to order. It had read something like this: Young Man as Chauffeur. No experience necessary. Must be single and pee to travel. Salary plus all expenses. It had been tagged with a box number.
The damned ad should have read: Young Man as stud. Must be willing to service fat. and ugly 48-year-old female. All expenses plus salary if you survive.
I hadn't survived the first night, so I'd drawn no salary at all. In fact, I hadn't even begun the first night. As soon as old Maude made it clear to me what the job really included, I had told her what she could do with the whole proposition. We were about half-way between Fresno and Yosemite at the time, Maude having planned to spend our first night out of L. A. at one of the hotels in the park. When she started talking about sharing a room, I drew the line and that was when the deal blew up. Of course, I had been warned long defore. Thinking back over it, I decided that her eyes and the way she had talked when she had first interviewed me should have tipped me off. But I had liked the idea of traveling around the West in a brand new Caddy with somebody else footing the bills, and the salary of two hundred a month over and above al! expenses had seemed damned good. But it wasn't.
What I would have had to do for that two hundred and traveling expenses would have made the pay mighty small. After we'd started to fight about sharing a room, old Maude had gotten teed off and had begun spelling it out to me in the plainest terms. That was when I pulled the Caddy to a stop in Linden and got out.
I could have sued her for misrepresenting the job, I suppose. And maybe the State Labor Commission would have been interested. But I was glad just to be rid of the bitch.
The situation did pose some problems, however. After I had met my immediate need for a place to spend the night and a meal, there would still be the matter of raising enough money to get me the hell back to civilization.
Again it was first things first. I was afraid that if I didn't arrange for a room before I went to the cafe for dinner, the motel might be filled up. The summer tourist season had just gotten underway and lots of people were driving to Yosemite.
I crossed the highway to the Linden Lodge, rounded the little flower bed at the corner of the office, and opened the glass paneled door. A bell rang somewhere in back. The office was small with barely enough room for a couple of wicker chairs and a rack of postcards and travel folders on the customer's side of the knotty pine counter. On the wall behind the counter was the customary row of open-end mail boxes and various printed notices. There was also an open doorway leading to what I presumed to be the manager's apartment. I waited, and then heard movement in the next room.
First through the doorway was a pair of breasts. They were not large breasts, but they were shapely and cocked high. They poked against a thin white jersey, through which I could see the lines of a white brassiere. Below the jersey was a pair of blue short-shorts topping full, golden-brown thighs.
The face that went with the ensemble was not young-but not really old, either-and it was attractively tanned. The women used quite a bit of makeup including the most vivid lipstick I'd seen in some time. Her hair was short and dyed a phony but attractive shade of deep auburn. I guessed she was about 36 or 37.
"Yes?" She smiled invitingly.
"I'd like a room, please," I said. "For the night."
"Single?" she asked.
"Yes."
From beneath the counter she produced a registration card which she placed in front of me. I picked up the ballpoint pen lying beside it and wrote Rob Elmore, Los Angeles. The next two or three spaces called for information about an automobile.
"I don't have a car," I said, pushing the card back towards the woman.
"You don't?" She looked at me with surprise. But there was something else on her face, too-a special little eye sparkle and quirk of the lips that denoted interest. I'm talking about man-woman interest. "How did you happen to get to an out-of-the-way place like this without a car?"
"It's a long story," I said, studying that look she was giving me and wondering what could be done about it.
"Well, even though we are a motel, you don't have to have a car to stay here," she told me. "The room is eight dollars. Want to see it?"
"I'm sure it will be all right," I said. "Anyway, I don't have much choice, do I? This seems to be the only place in town."
"It is," she said, still looking at me in that toe-curling way of hers.
Finally she snapped out of it and turned to the row of mailboxes on the wall behind her, reaching to lift a key from one of them. The posture gave me a good profile view of her right breast. It was very youthful-looking for a woman of her age-concave at the top and roundly full below. She took her time fishing the key from the box.
She turned back and handed the key to me. "It's number 4," she said.
I dug in my pants and came up with the small roll of bills that comprised my entire financial worth. I picked off one of my two tens and placed it on the counter.
The woman said, "Excuse me for being so nosy, but since you don't have a car, how are you planning to leave town tomorrow?"
"I don't know," I replied frankly. "I guess I'll just have to solve that problem when it hits me in the face."
She picked up my ten and made change from under the counter. She held two singles out to me. Then she turned on that look again. "You in trouble?" she asked.
I grinned at her. "Not unless you could call being stranded in this town with no transportation, no job, and nineteen bucks in my pocket trouble."
Her eyes narrowed as she looked at me, her lips still with that little quirk that had been playing over them ever since we'd started to talk. "I'd call it trouble," she said casually.
"Well, this isn't the worst spot I've ever been in." I flashed the grin again, picked up my suitcase, turned toward the door.
"Wait a minute," the woman said.
I turned back to her.
"You in the market for a job?"
I looked at her for a few moments. "Maybe. Do you know of one to be had around here?"
"Mm-hmm." She nodded in a quick little way that seemed to express a great deal of latent energy. She was a live wire, this babe.
"Where?" I asked her.
"Right here. We need a clerk."
I laughed. "Now, wait a minute. I don't know much about the motel business, but it strikes me that a place with ten or twelve rooms can be handled pretty nicely by one or two persons. And the second person would be a maid rather than a clerk, wouldn't they?"
"Ordinarily," the woman said, not changing the expression on her face. Her eyes were impudently green. In fact, the entire expression she'd been giving me was impudent-sexually impudent, you might say. It was the sort of impudence which says, I'm a woman, you're a man, and what are you going to do about it?
She took a long time before saying anything else, but I waited. Finally it came: "My husband and I own and run this place, but he spends a lot of time with his hobby and I like to get my sleep. So we need a man to watch the desk at night. We couldn't pay much, but at least you'd have a room, and you'd have to be on duty only three or four hours. We close up at midnight. Maybe you could pick up some other kind of work around here during the day."
I looked at her and thought it over. What the hell kind of hobby would her husband have that would interfere with his watching the desk at night, I wondered. I could think of one-and with that look of hers, it would have been very understandable-but she had said she liked to get her sleep, and that didn't jibe at all.
"Well?" she asked, still smiling at me tauntingly with her eyes and just the corners of her mouth.
I cleared my throat. "I guess I could try it out." I set my suitcase down.
"Good!" She lifted my ten dollar bill from beneath the counter and held it out to me.
I took it and extended to her the two singles which I had folded in my hand. She placed her cool fingers around mine to draw the bills away.
This babe meant business, I said to myself. It surprised me. A woman like Maude Bessler throwing herself at a guy my age I could understand, but a good-looking dame like this?
The thought nympho registered in my mind. Maybe.
"Why the look?" she asked me. "Is my nose missing, or something?"
"No," I said. "You have nothing missing, as far as I can see."
Her smile deepened and for the first time I caught the gleam of white teeth behind her red lips. "That was a nice compliment."
I didn't think it was very nice. But, then, it wasn't intended to be. It was intended to be fresh ... and I could see that was what she liked.
I began to wonder whether the job she had offered me was really a job at all. Could she have just been putting me on?
"This job" I said to her, placing a careful emphasis on the word. "When does it start ... tonight?"
"If you like," she said, not batting an eye.
"Suits me."
"Good!" She reached and opened a low wooden gate beside the registration counter. "Why don't you come in and park your suitcase somewhere? Then I can sort of ... show you around, hm?"
"Why not?" I said. "I'm a little hungry, though. I haven't had dinner yet. When does the cafe down the road close?"
"Don't worry about the cafe," she told me as I stepped behind the counter. I put down my suitcase and, when I straightened up, found her standing very close, the two little peaks at her front almost touching my chest. She smelled good. "Why don't I just fix you something to eat?" Her eyes searched mine brazenly. "That is, if you wouldn't mind?"
"Sounds good," I said.
She smiled. Then she took my arm in both of her hands and drew it close to her, maneuvering me towards the doorway which led to her apartment. During the course of the maneuver, she was careful to let my arm rub across both of her pert up-tilted breasts. They felt firm as the devil.
It's always been my nature to want to know where I'm going. That was why I said what I next did, figuring it might help me find out right away: "You're stacked."
Her only answer was "Mmmmmmmm," as she looked up into my eyes.
"Your husband around?" I asked.
"He drove to Fresno this evening," she said, her voice having grown a bit husky. "He needed something for his hobby."
We were standing very close together in the doorway between her living room and the office. The front of her white jersey was moving up and down slowly, just inches away from me.
"What is his hobby, anyway?" I asked, knowing damned well what my hobby would be if I was married to that hot piece of property.
"Photography," she said. "He takes pictures of birds and animals ... and things."
"Oh."
"Let's ... go into the apartment, shall we?"
"Sure," I said and walked through the doorway. She followed and closed the door with a firm snap.
The apartment was small but colorful and cozy. There were bright-colored drapes across the front windows and gaily figured covers on the sofa and matching chair. The walls were knotty pine. There was a fireplace in one corner of the room, but the evening was not cool enough to have it burning. Through a door in the opposite wall of the room I could see a dinette which connected, I presumed, with a kitchen that was out of sight from where we were standing. There were two other doors, one half-open with darkness beyond it, and the other closed.
The woman stepped close to me again, almost touching the tips of her breasts to my chest. "What shall we do first?" she asked.
This was the damnedest! I said to myself. She was flinging it at me-as brazenly as I'd ever seen it flung in my life; more brazenly even than Maude Bessler had done it. I guessed that my new "employer" want-ed to make the most of an evening when the old man happened to be away and she was anxious to get started. Then, too, she probably had few opportunities for fun and games around that little town. Even the guests at the motel were probably mostly couples; this was not the sort of location where many men traveling alone would stop.
It occurred to me suddenly that I didn't know the woman's name. So I ignored her question and asked one of my own.
"Norma Wolcott," she said in reply, then added, "Isn't that a gas?"
"I don't know," I said. "A name's a name."
"I like yours," she told me. "Rob. That's kind of suggestive, you know. I like it a lot better than Robert or Bobby."
"Thanks," I said, wondering if I should put my arms around her right away. At the moment, we were standing so close that I would only have had to lean slightly to encounter her firm upsurging boobies.
"Your name isn't all I like about you, Rob," she said, her voice at bedroom pitch. She batted those flirty green eyes and raised her slim right hand to grasp my left bicep. "Mmmmmmmm. It's as large as I knew it would be."
"You think it will come in handy around the motel?" I asked. "For carrying things, I mean."
"It might," she said softly. She extended a pink tongue and touched her full lower hp. When the tongue had darted back out of sight, the redness glistened.
I looked at her for several seconds and she looked at me. Then I asked, "How long is your husband going to be away?"
"Until midnight maybe," she said.
"That gives us a little over three hours, doesn't it?"
"Something like that," she said.
"Well ... shall we get started?"
Her eyes slitted like a cat's-and she came right up against me, pressing those hard breasts of hers into my chest and bringing her mouth crushingly up against mine. I gathered her in my arms, feeling her warm litheness. She was a bundle of latent energy just waiting for a guy to come along and light her fuse. I was the guy, I told myself with certainty.
Her tongue tip danced in and out of my mouth and mine played with it-touching, rubbing, curling and circling all around. Her lower body was jammed hard against mine and a natural reaction was commencing. She wriggled and rubbed back and forth, encouraging it. A little of that kind of encouragement went a long way, as Norma found out.
She tore her mouth from mine. "Man!" she said heatedly. "That's wild!"
I bent and swept her up in my arms, making for the half-open door with darkness behind it. "Just how old is your husband?" I asked her on the way.
"Fifty," she said.
"That's not so old," I told her.
"With him it is."
"Nothing, huh?" I said. "Like an oyster."
With the door open I could find my way to the bed. I dropped her on top of it. "What's the matter?" I asked, laughing. "Don't you like oysters?"
She said, "I like red meat better."
That zinged me and I bent right away to unfasten her shorts. I began peeling them away and found a pair of thin white briefs beneath them. The briefs were almost transparent and no heavier than tissue paper. I brought the shorts to her feet and took off her sandals with them. Then I grasped her white jersey at the bottom and, with her sitting up to help me, drew it over her head. The fasteners on her bra popped eas-fly.
Her breasts were pert as you please-the kind that remind you of little schoolboy apples. The tips of them, already half-hard, were a dark luscious red. I brushed back and forth across them with my open hands, feeling the nipples prick me. The breasts hardly gave a bit. They were tight jobs. I decided no infant had ever sucked them.
Norma lay back with a little moan and arched her lower body, which was an invitation for me to remove her panties. They came away like a silken cobweb and she was all there before me. She flexed her legs while I studied her in the half-darkness.
"Hurry and get undressed," she told me.
I did.
I depressed the bed with my knees and began by taking one of her slim golden-brown legs between both my hands and feeling and working it from calf to thigh-top. When I reached the upper end of the journey, one hand was in position to do something else and that was what it did. She moaned and wriggled. After just a bit of that, I moved both-hands down to the other calf and worked up that leg. When I reached the top, she thrust herself at me. She was soft and very ready.
I pressed my lips against her navel and she uttered a little mewing cry, after which I let my mouth hop zigzag to her breasts. I pressed the undercurves of them first, carefully avoiding her nipples which were now swollen and standing high. Then I placed my hands at the outer side of each breast and squeezed them toward each other. They didn't give by much. With some women you can bring the nipples right together so that both can be caressed at the same time. With Norma this wasn't possible.
I squeezed her two breasts then, my fingers up along their sides and my thumbs beneath them. After doing that a few times, I bent down and began kissing the nipples. They were like little pebbles. They tasted tangy good.
"Take me now, Rob," Norma said in a voice that seemed almost to be strangling. "Take me!"
I raised up and crawled forward. She kicked at either side of me, grabbed hold, and, before I knew what had happened, she was pulling me in.
"Oohhhhhh...." she said.
"Yeah!" I agreed, pressing forcefully.
She didn't wait for me to start the action but set the rhythm herself, those slim legs of hers having the strength of boa constrictors. I gave her jolt for jolt and she liked it. She liked it so damned much she began to tell me about it in words that I hadn't heard since I'd left the Army. , "Yeah, baby," I said, and started using the words myself.
That helped to make her little hips just go crazy and she threw them at me like she didn't care if she ever got them back. I was giving mine to her in the same way and soon, at that rate, we began clawing at the very top of the pinnacle. She ooooed and aahhhhed and whimpered, then got tight as a willow bow ready to snap.
She snapped, I speeded up and finished ... and then we clutched one another and sailed off into nothing.
Two or three minutes later, when we had disentangled and I was sitting up beside her, she said, "You were marvelous!" She kind of breathed it in the way someone might say thank you. they had been dying of thirst in the desert and you had just fed them a guzzle of water.
I laughed slightly. "I kind of gathered you thought so. You were damned good yourself."
Then she was touching me. "That's just wonderful!"
"Don't know what I'd do without it," I said, grinning down at her. "But it's not exactly something rare."
"Around here it is," she told me.
I bent and kissed her. Her lips were very soft and very warm. There seemed to be no resistance in them at all. When I straightened up, I said, "Did you really mean it about that job? I won't hold you to it, you know."
She sat up quickly. "I did mean it, Rob." Her face was anxious. "Don't back out on me."
"Okay," I responded, "but what's hubby going to say?"
"He won't mind."
I shrugged.
CHAPTER TWO
Hubby didn't seem to mind at all.
When Norma introduced us, at about eleven-thirty that night, Ralph Wolcott looked me over pleasantly, opened his pink little mouth and said, "Well ... so we have a young man to help us. Fine ... fine!" He nodded his white-topped head in complete agreement.
Ralph Wolcott was pink and white and dapper. He was a small man who wore rimless glasses and was dressed in a snappy brown sport coat with darker slacks, a tan shirt, and a green string tie. He had arrived back at the motel in his Chrysler station wagon and walked into the office with a large store bundle under his arm. Photo equipment, I presumed, from what Norma had told me earlier.
He looked the type, all right-the type of guy who would rather be out snapping pictures of birds than snapping at his wife's ... well, you get the idea.
In other words, he was a nut. At least, that was my first reaction.
Maybe, though, it wasn't his fault that he had lost interest in sex. Maybe it had happened for strictly physical reasons. I was prepared to give Ralph Wolcott the benefit of the doubt.
It still bothered me how the Wolcotts could afford to hire a clerk for a motel of that size. Later, when the three of us were chatting in the living room over coffee, I learned the answer.
They owned the motel free and clear. Wolcott had retired two years before as head of a Los Angeles investment firm and had moved to Linden and built the motel for cash. He intended to spend the rest of his life there, he said, and all he expected from the place was a living. At eight dollars single and twelve dollars double, per room, they stood to take in a hundred dollars or more a night and taxes and utilities were not high in Linden. So they were doing all right.
Norma sat on the arm of his chair for a while as we talked, swinging one of her trim golden legs back and forth lazily. From time to time she would pat her husband's cheek or extend her arm around his shoulders and they would exchange loving smiles. It kind of turned my stomach.
It wasn't hard to realize what she saw in him, though. He had given her an easy life with the money rolling in steadily and plenty of leisure. There was practically no maintenance to do around the place, since it was almost new, and I learned that they hired a local girl to come in during the day and make up the rooms.
We talked about the mountains, the hunting and fishing and the wildlife in general. Ralph was no hunter, however. He enthused about his success with the camera photographing deer and squirrels and the various species of birds with which the Yosemite region abounds. He got out some expensive leather-bound albums and showed his photographs to me. They were in color and remarkably good. I displayed the proper amount of appreciation.
It was almost two o'clock when the session broke up and I walked out to the office to get my suitcase and carry it down the line to Room 4. The Wolcotts had told me I could use that room and had asked how much cash salary I wanted in addition for handling the motel desk six nights a week from eight o'clock to midnight. I figured that a motel clerk probably wasn't worth more than two bucks an hour and I stood to get that much in the room alone-daily rate, that is. Actually, the remuneration came to more, considering that I had one night off. Of course, the room was worth a little less by the week, so I figured it just about balanced out.
I hemmed and hawed, not knowing what to say, and Norma suggested, "Why don't we include dinner, as well? If Rob wouldn't mind, that is."
"That's fine," I responded. "A room and one meal a day is certainly payment enough."
"Do you really think so?" Ralph asked me solicitously.
I nodded firmly.
"Very well," he said with a smile. "It's all settled, then."
I didn't know what work I could pick up around Linden during the day, but I was sure I could find something. Anyway, there was more than just room and board riding on the proposition as far as I was concerned. There was also Norma.
I dropped off to sleep thinking about her.
* * *
The next morning I looked the burg over.
At that time of day the highway was quite crowded with cars on their way to Yosemite, and a fair number of them stopped either at the cafe, one of the gas stations, or at the tavern. The tourist season was just getting into gear, and I could see that Linden stood to do all right before it was over.
I first checked with the guy who ran the gas station across the road from the motel, but he told me that he had all the help he needed.
My next stop was the cafe where I had breakfast and yakked with a thin, large-nosed waitress. After we'd gotten acquainted, I told her I was working part-time at the motel and was interested in picking up something to do during the day. She said the cafe had nothing open but that she understood Grif Molett was looking for a guy to run the photo and curio shop he was setting up next door to his tavern.
I had noticed the newly constructed annex at one front corner of the tavern building and had wondered what was to be done with it. As yet it bore no sign and its front window was bare as a baby's bottom.
I went over to see Grif Molett and found him in the tavern.
He was tall, with shoulders like an ox, a deeply tanned and craggy face, and hair that seemed to bubble out of his half-Open lumberjack shirt. The hair on his head, thick and black, was almost as curly as that on his chest. He was perhaps 39 or 40.
He bit on a cigar and eyed me closely as we stood near the end of his bar and I told him what I was after. Finally he took the cigar stump away from his teeth, nodded once without saying anything and turned, indicating with a quick inclination of his head that he wanted me to follow him around the bar and through a door in back.
We sat down in his two-by-four, messy office and he propped his heavy boots on top of the desk. "So ya want a job, huh?" He placed the half-smoked cigar back in his mouth again and puffed on it.
"That's what I need," I said.
"Y'ever sold stuff before?"
I nodded. "While I was going to college, I peddled brushes and that crap door-to-door."
"Yeah?" A slow grin took over his face as he removed the cigar. "If y'could make money at that, y'could sure as hell handle what I'm settin' up."
"I hope so," I said.
"Plannin' to stay in Linden long?" he asked me. "For the summer, maybe," I said. "Well, that's as long as I'd need yuh."
"I'd like the job, Mr. Molett," I told him. "Grif's the name ... and you're?"
"Rob Elmore."
He dropped his feet to the bare floor with a heavy thump and leaned forward to stick a beefy hand in front of me. "Okay, let's give it a try, huh? Just day-to-day until we're both sure we like it. The shop will be ready to open on Friday." That was three days off.
"What hours would you need me?" I asked.
Molett twisted his mouth around. "We'll open at seven," he said. "People come through here kind'a early. Lot of 'em need film and some of the other stuff we'll have t'sell. Better make it seven to five-thirty. I'll have somebody relieve you a half-hour for lunch."
He was talking about a pretty long day, but the idea didn't bother me. I didn't figure there'd be much to do in the shop. That would mean I'd be sitting on my fanny most of the time and I figured I could take ten hours of that without strain.
"What will it pay?" I asked.
He didn't hesitate, having obviously thought it over before I asked. "Ten bucks a day against percentage. I like t'give a guy an incentive."
Whether that was any good or not depended, of course, on how the percentage would run. I questioned him on it and he grabbed a piece of paper and a stubby pencil. He began jotting down the different kinds of merchandise the shop would sell and showing me the breakdown on each. It seemed straight enough. I had no idea what kind of volume to expect, but at least I was sure of sixty bucks for a six-day week, which is what I presumed Molett had in mind. My room and dinners had already been taken care of along with another very important male essential which could, if a guy wasn't lucky, run him into a fair amount of dough. That was going to be free as far as I was concerned and probably available in as large a quantity as I could handle, judging by what had happened the night before.
"I'll give it a try," I said.
"Okay." Grif Molett stood up. "See ya Friday morning then, huh? On second thought, y'better drop around some time Thursday so we can get squared away ahead of the opening."
"Sure thing, Grif," I told him and headed out.
"So long, Rob."
I walked back to the motel, satisfied with the connections I had made during my first fifteen hours in Linden. Connections. Yeah. That got me to thinking about Norma Wolcott again.
As I walked past the motel office and back to my room, I noticed Ralph's big Chrysler wagon parked there. I wondered if he was going out in the woods that day to take pictures of the birds. And when he did-if he did-I wondered if Norma would come strolling back to see me.
He did.
And she did.
Stretched out on top of my bed, I'd had time to smoke a cigarette no more than half-way down when a light rapping sounded at the door. I opened it.
Norma smiled at me. "I saw you go out a while ago. Have any luck in landing a daytime job?"
"As a matter-of-fact, I did. I start Friday ... working for Grif Molett."
"His new shop, huh?"
"Yeah." I opened the door further and stepped to the side. "Come in."
She didn't wait to be asked twice. I closed the door after her and held out my pack of Pall Malls. She took one with red-nailed fingers. I lit it for her and she expelled the smoke in a nervous burst. She sat down in a chair near my unmade bed.
That morning she wore a light blouse with a crazy multi-colored pattern. It had no sleeves, a square neck-fine, and hung outside her green capri pants. There were four white buttons holding the front of the blouse together.
"Oh, I meant to talk to you about your room," she said, then added, "the service, I mean. You mind making your own bed? I'll have Kathy-she's our maid-come in once a week to clean."
"That's fine," I said.
We looked at one another over our cigarettes for a few seconds, she in the chair and me sitting on the side of the bed. There was no more than four feet of space between us.
"Husband leave?" I asked her.
She nodded and expelled smoke. "He went out to track deer."
"Who's watching the store?" I asked.
"Nobody will be along now," she said. "It's too early."
"You might get a call, though," I said. "A reservation or something?"
"Don't worry about it."
"It strikes me that you folks are awfully careless about the way you run this business," I said. "Of course, it's none of my affair."
Norma smiled thinly. "We're not trying to make a fortune. Neither one of us is interested in that."
I was tempted to ask if that hadn't been the reason she had married old Ralph. But, of course, I didn't.
Neither Norma nor I spoke for a while. Her eyes caught mine and then looked down. She interested herself in flicking some ashes off one of her tight pant-legs. The pants were lime green and made of thin, shiny cotton.
I knew I could take her then and there. That was what she had come for. She was just waiting for me to ease her up from that chair and spread her out across the bed.
I thought about it a little. She was a married woman and I didn't like the idea of encroaching on another man's domain. But, hell, it wasn't Ralph's domain, was it? A woman is to be made love to, not just to be looked at and conversed with. If I could believe Norma, Ralph had no desire ... and apparently no ability to make love to her. So, in that way at least, she wasn't his, was she?
Oh, hell, what was the use of rationalizing it? I had taken her three times the night before. It had been good for both of us and both of us knew damned well it was going to happen again ... and again and again. That was part of the deal, wasn't it? Why else was I hanging around there?
I snubbed out my cigarette and stood up. "Do you want to get undressed?" I asked her.
Her eyes widened for just an instant and then narrowed as she smiled. "You don't stand much on ceremony, do you?"
"Did you last night?" I said. Maybe it sounded kind of nasty, but I figured we both might as well be frank.
Her expression sobered somewhat. She stood up, still holding her cigarette. "No I didn't, I suppose." She searched my eyes. "You probably have a pretty low opinion of me."
"Not at all," I told her. "I understand the fix you're in. Even if you got into it with your eyes open, there's no reason why you should be a martyr. You must be giving Ralph all he expects from a wife, judging by the way he looked at you and talked last night. He seems satisfied."
"Yes, he's satisfied," she said tonelessly.
I shrugged and took hold of her very slender waist. Her flesh was warm beneath the thin blouse she wore.
"You've had quite a few women, haven't you, Rob?" she asked me.
"I'm not exactly the backward type," I told her.
"No," she said. "And you're handsome, too. Very handsome." She paused, then added, "And well built."
"You think so?"
She laughed throatily. "Now, don't be coy. Coyness doesn't become you in the least."
"So I'm big where it counts," I said matter-of-factly.
She pushed herself deeper into my arms and our fronts came together. I slipped one hand up her back and felt no brassiere beneath her blouse. At her front there were just the tight little mounds of her breasts burning into me.
"Does it bother you that I'm ... older?" Norma asked. I "I hadn't even thought about it," I said. And I hadn't. Of course, when I first met her I had made a guess at her age during the cataloguing process I have for women. Whenever I meet one, I make a mental note of certain things about her-hair color, height, whether she's too fat or too thin, her kind of look, the size of her breastworks, and her age. But it hadn't bothered me. I had laid older. And I'd laid younger ones who'd acted a hell of a lot older, believe you me. The late thirties are a good age for most women-it's when they're really raring to do. They see the change of life coming up on the horizon and it scares them. Then, too, they're spotting gray hairs and new wrinkles. They usually want to get all they can while the getting is still good.
One thing was for sure-Norma was out for all she could get from me.
I wanted to guard against one thing with her. I didn't want the deal to get sticky. I knew I wouldn't ever fall in love with her and I didn't want her to fall for me. It was going to be just sex and nothing more, or else I was going to back out of it. I would have to keep my senses sharp for the signs, if there should be any, that Norma was losing her head.
Right then, though, my senses were sharpening in another direction. I had started on the lower buttons of her blouse. Undoing the bottom two had made it possible for me to slip my hand up inside and grasp first one and then the other of her firm little cupcakes. I worked them slowly, teasing the nipples with my thumb and forefinger. She had good nipples. It was a shame they had never been used for what Nature had intended.
I asked her, "Were you married before, Norma?"
"Yes," she said, her voice already somewhat hoarse. "When I was real young. He ran out on me."
"You never had a baby, huh?"
"He didn't want one."
"That's too bad," I said.
"After he left, I concentrated on a business career," she told me, deciding, I guess, that I should know something about her. Or maybe she just wanted to talk about herself; most people do. So we stood there, close together, my hand up in her blouse and playing with her breasts while she added, "That's how I met Ralph. I was working for his company as a secretary."
"Did you know about him before you were married?" I asked. "I mean, that he was impotent?"
She nodded, her eyes heavily lidded. "He said there would be no sex between us. He wanted me for a companion. He really loves me."
"Did you think you could do without it?" I asked, still kneading her breasts. "Or did you plan right from the start to pick up your kicks on the side?"
She flashed a look at me. "That's nasty!"
"Sorry. Sometimes I'm too frank."
"Oh, I guess it was a fair question," she reconsidered. "Maybe the answer's yes. Maybe his money blinded me. Maybe ... oh, honey, I don't know." She had slowly been heating up and by that time had accumulated a good head of steam. She was squirming. "This is no time to talk about it. Just take care of me."
"Okay," I said, quickly undoing the remaining buttons on her blouse and taking it off her shoulders and down her arms. She stood bare-breasted in front of rne, her red nipples very high and hard.
I clawed at the fasteners on the side of her green capri pants and got them open. She helped me shuck the pants off her hips and down her thighs. Then she sat on the side of the bed and handed me her cigarette which she had been holding all the rime. It had almost burned out.
I dropped the butt in an ashtray and bent in front of her to draw her pants the rest of the way off, together with her sandals. She wore no underwear at all.
I stripped off my sport shirt and lowered my pants and shorts together. She had been watching frankly, and a sharp sigh escaped from her mouth like an explosion.
She immediately lay back, her body assuming a kitty-corner position on the mussed bed. She made like a Y. I accepted the invitation her posture offered, but held myself from her long enough to bend and touch my lips to each of her nipples and then to the flat plane around her navel and below.
Her legs were up and flexing. "Come on," she said urgently.
My hand helping, I moved to the contact. I wanted to tease her for a minute, but she surged forward and sheathed me ... all the way.
I began going, striking a slow pace. When Norma tried to increase the tempo, I wouldn't follow. She squirmed and made agitated little noises. Finally I had to slip my hand down beneath her and around her small buttocks to force her to keep the pace I wanted.
She began talking again ... as she had done before. I smiled to myself. Women! I went along with it, holding no words back, and I could tell that what I said was helping what I did, and the two together were handing her a real dandy kick.
We began to up-tempo and it didn't take long after that. She was clawing and panting and then she popped. I growled down at her at just about the same instant.
It was fireworks-better than the fourth of July!
Later she said, "Oh, you're the very best, Robbie-the best in the world."
"Easy, now," I chuckled.
"But you are, babykins. Mmmmmmm...." She let her lips slide around on my chest and points south. When she had gone far enough south, I lifted her head gently.
"Any danger that your husband might be coming back soon?" I asked.
"Oh, don't worry about him...."
"You talk almost as if he wouldn't care if he should walk in here and catch us hard at it."
"Huh!" She reached across me for a cigarette. "He'd probably enjoy it."
"What was that?" I asked, taking a cigarette myself. I struck a match, then eyed her closely as I lit her smoke.
"Nothing," she said.
"No. I want to know what you meant."
"I shouldn't talk about it," she said. "Goddamnit!" I flared. "If we know one another well enough to sex, I guess we know one another well enough to discuss things."
She blew out smoke. She was lying on her back, looking at the light fixture on the ceiling. "My husband is a voyeur.
"So, who isn't?" I responded. She glanced at me questioningly. "There's not a man alive who doesn't like to look. If a guy says he doesn't, he's either lying or not really alive sexually." I paused. "Of course, when it serves as a substitute for the real thing...."
"With Ralph it does," Norma said. "That's the way he gets his kicks."
"So he's not entirely unable?"
"The real way he is."
"He's sick," I said. "I know it."
"Does he know it?" I asked. "If he does, he's happy to stay that way."
"To each his own, I guess."
We smoked quietly for a few seconds. "Does he make you undress in front of him?" I asked.
"He likes me to. He doesn't make me do anything. He's very kind."
"It must be difficult for you."
"It isn't all jollies."
"You going to stick with it?" I asked casually. "I'd be a fool not to," she said. "There are fools and fools. I mean, people can be foolish in different ways."
"Do you really think I'm foolish to stay with Ralph?" Her eyes searched mine. At that moment, they looked a paler green than they had seemed before.
I shrugged. "It isn't for me to say." I decided that I'd better not pursue the line of talk. She might get to thinking that I was making a pitch for her myself-for all of her, that is, instead of just for what I had been using.
We chatted lightly after that and Norma began to get chummy again. She snuggled against me and her hands began roaming around. They produced the inevitable reaction and Norma seemed delighted when she saw it.
I guessed it had been a long time for her up to yesterday. Let her have her fill, I thought, as I swung on top of her again. I didn't exactly mind, either.
That go was a long one. We just inched our way up the mountain, pausing from time to time to rest. It was a good and deeply satisfying climb and, after we'd rolled over the top together, we knew we'd been somewhere.
We dressed then and Norma asked me if I'd like to come up to her apartment for some lunch. I said she didn't have to do that, but she insisted. She said I'd better let her go first-"so we won't shock the neighbors too badly," was the way she put it. Actually there were no neighbors close by and, at that hour, the motel was almost empty of guests.
We had cold meat sandwiches and beer. It tasted damned good.
Afterwards I returned to my room. Norma's husband had not appeared.
CHAPTER THREE
That night I learned the real truth about Ralph Wolcott-all of it.
What Norma had told me about him earlier had conditioned my mind in a certain way; otherwise I probably wouldn't have hopped the thought train I started riding after Ralph stopped me from placing Mr. and Mrs. David Sellman in Room 7.
Ralph, who had been seated with me behind the counter in the small office, spoke up as I reached for the key and said, "Seven's taken; give them Room I."
I blinked at him, knowing damned well that Room 7 wasn't rented. But it didn't make any difference to me, so I handed the Sellmans the key to number I instead.
Mrs. Sellman was one of those lean, eat-you-alive sort of blondes-leggy, lithe, built for speed. She had a fashionably tousled head of hair that had both the color and form of a strawstack, but it was a lot silkier. She was in her late twenties. Her husband was dark and maybe 35.
"Why'd you do that?" I asked Ralph after they had left the office.
"One's a little better unit," he said. "They look like good customers-might come back."
Though I had been told all the rooms were alike, I didn't pursue the point with him. It was Ralph's place; he could run it any way he wanted. Still, the incident tripped a process in my mind.
He stood up. "Well, Rob, I have some film to develop. I think you can handle things by yourself now."
"Sure," I said. "Get some good shots today?"
"Very good," he said, walking into his living room. "I'll be busy for a while. Have to lock the door to make sure there's no sudden light while I'm working."
"Okay," I said, wondering what door he meant.
I glanced into the living room and saw him walk to the door in the room's inside wall-the one which had been closed both times when I was in the apartment and which I had presumed led to a spare bedroom. It was next to the Wolcotts' bedroom and it also adjoined the first rental unit.
Ralph took a ring of keys from his pocket, fitted one to a Yale lock in the door, and let himself in. He closed the door behind him before turning a light on inside.
He had certainly left the office abruptly, I thought. We'd been talking about the living habits of deer, of all things. I'd done some hunting with my father when I was a kid and the topic had seemed to interest both of us. As soon as the Sellmans had left the office and headed for their room, however, Ralph had jumped right up.
Their room. My mental wheels were whirring now. He'd insisted that they be placed in Room I instead of Room 7, and Room I was right next to Ralph's "dark room" into which he had just disappeared. And Ralph was a peeper. His own wife had told me that he got his kicks that way.
Right then I had the strong suspicion that there was something Norma had not told me-something that, if I was going to work there, I damned well ought to know.
She was not in the apartment just then, having driven to the nearest sizable town, about twenty miles away, to do some grocery shopping.
I thought of Ralph in that room right next to the Sellmans' unit-the unit he had insisted they occupy. Mrs. Sellman was a looker. If I had been a Peeping Tom and had been sizing up prospective subjects, I would have chosen the Sellmans.
And Ralph was a photographer, too. All his equipment was in that room. Moreover, he had built the motel himself-or, at least, he'd had it done to his specifications. There was such a thing as a one-way glass-a mirror from one side and clear glass from the other. And there were structural tricks that could have been used.
Even though there was not a bit of proof, the whole thing fitted together as neatly as the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. The picture that resulted was not a pretty one.
I stood in the quiet office, listening to the tick of the clock that was propped at one end of the counter, and thought about my suspicion. Was it crazy? I asked myself. Had I run off on a tangent?
I didn't know much about abnormal psychology, but it seemed to me that a setup such as I'd imagined would have been considered ideal by a Peeping Tom. A new subject every night, I thought. He could put the best-looking ones in that room and then sit on the other side of their dresser mirror that was really a window, his little camera all cocked and ready to go. He could take stills, movies ... the works. Hell, he could even have cameras concealed in the other walls and ceiling, for that matter, and control them all from his own room. He could shoot from all angles ... and with ultrafast film to pick up even action that took place in the dark.
Then he could view the pictures later at his leisure and get his kicks over and over again.
Damn!
If Norma hadn't told me that Ralph got satisfaction only as a voyeur, I wouldn't have suspected a thing. But now it seemed to make the firmest kind of sense.
Norma must know, I decided. She'd have to!
I stayed in the office and fidgeted, thinking about what Ralph might be doing in there ... and what Mr. and Mrs. Sellman might be doing in Room I. They hadn't re-appeared. Other customers came and I rented two more rooms. By then it was nine-thirty and Ralph had not come out. Neither had the Sellmans and I presumed that they were in for the night.
Finally, at about quarter of ten, Norma drove up in the Chrysler. I walked out in front and helped her carry in the groceries.
When I'd placed them on the tile drainboard in the kitchen, I said, "Come out to the office for a minute, will you?"
She looked at me questioningly, having apparently detected something in my voice. But she went. Quietly I closed the door between the office and the Wolcotts' living room.
"Sit down," I said to Norma, talking very low.
"What is it?" She sat.
"Your husband," I said. "Did you tell me everything about him?"
"What do you mean?"
"About his ... sickness?"
Her eyes narrowed quickly and in that look I had just about as much confirmation as I needed. But I pressed: "I don't give a damn about somebody else's morals except when I'm affected, and it happens that I'm affected by this."
"By ... what?" She almost choked on the words.
"Don't kid me, Norma. I'm a big boy. I have eyes and I can at least add two and two."
"Is he in there?" she asked, inclining her auburn head slightly in the direction of the "dark room."
"He sure as hell is," I told her. "And you should have seen the sex boat that dropped her anchor in Room I. I was going to put her in 7 but Ralph was sitting here and he made me give her I instead. Right afterwards, he disappeared."
Norma sighed and looked down at her hands.
"You're his wife-half owner of this place, I presume. Doesn't it bother you?"
"Yes," she said softly.
"But you still put up with it."
"It means a lot to him," she said, "and it doesn't really hurt anybody. He doesn't peddle the films or anything like that. He doesn't even show them to his friends. Nobody knows about this except him and me."
"And me," I put in.
She looked at me. "What are you going to do about it?" she asked levelly.
"Damned if I know," I said. "I guess it's really none of my business as long as I'm not a party to it. But I am a party to it if I work here."
"So you're leaving?" she asked. There was definite anxiety in her tone.
I gave her a long look. I didn't want to leave. I really didn't want to. It wasn't that I'd fallen for Norma, but she was a swinger and things had been going fine. Hell, I even liked the damned little town.
"Don't leave, Rob," she said. She paused, her green eyes measuring mine. "He's really very clever about it. The people in the room could never find out. It's as safe as it can be. And it's really harmless. Nobody's hurt."
"Does he keep the films and pictures?" I asked. She nodded.
"What if somebody guessed what he was doing and broke in here and grabbed them? Or what if somebody just stumbled onto them? Your maid, for instance."
"She never goes into that room," Norma said. "It's always locked."
"Well, what if it wasn't some day?" I pressed. "Or what if there was a fire?"
She looked at me silently.
"It's dynamite, baby. We could all go to jail."
"You and I, too?" she asked.
"Hell, yes! We're accessories. You're a co-owner of the place and that makes you responsible for what goes on. I'm the one who assigns the rooms."
"Oh, Rob...."
I swore softly to myself.
"It wouldn't be so bad if he just peeked" I said, "but taking pictures...."
"Yes."
"How long's this been going on?" She said, "From the beginning." I whistled softly. "He must have one hell of a collection!"
"He has."
"You seen them?"
"Some."
It was the damnedest thing I'd ever run across. Most wives wouldn't have put up with it. But most women Norma's age wouldn't have stayed married to Ralph, either. He wasn't really old enough so that they could look forward to a quick payoff. He was probably good for twenty or thirty years yet. The average woman, who was out for loot, would have dumped him shortly after the marriage and taken him down the line for a fat settlement.
Norma, I decided, wasn't particularly mercenary. She seemed to like the easy, casual life which Ralph had given her ... and I guess she liked Ralph, too. Except for sex practices, they apparently were a well-matched couple.
"What are you going to do?" Norma asked me shakily.
"I'm not going to tell anybody, if that's what you mean."
"That isn't what I meant," she said more firmly. I looked at her.
"I meant, are you going to leave?"
"Damn it, Norma...."
She reached and took my hand. "Don't ... please."
"I'll think it over," I said.
"If there's any trouble, I'll say you didn't know what he was doing."
"How will you be able to do that when he sits out here and watches until he sees the subjects that he wants and then tells me to place them in Room I? I suppose he'll be doing that each night."
"No," she said. "He usually has that room rented by eight o'clock. It must have just happened that the first women to come in tonight were dogs."
I shook my head in disgust and looked down..
"I know how it must seem to you," she said. "I felt the same way at first. It's no credit to me, I suppose, that I got used to what he was doing. Somehow it doesn't seem so bad now."
"Bad ... good...." I said. "I don't know about those things. I'm no moralist. It's just that it's dangerous."
"You really think so, hm?"
"Yeah, I really think so," I echoed dryly.
"Well...." She sighed.
I'll think it over."
"All right, Rob." She got up and walked into the apartment, leaving the connecting door open.
* * *
It was quite late when Ralph Wolcott emerged from the room in which he had locked himself. He didn't step to the office or even glance in my direction. He walked directly to the kitchen. I heard the clink of ice cubes in a glass; he was fixing himself a drink.
He had closed the door of the photography room behind him and I presumed that it had automatically locked.
In the time since I had talked with Norma, as I sat in the office thinking about it, I had developed a strong desire to get into that room and see some of the pictures Ralph had taken. Part of my reason was mere curiosity, I guess-maybe that was most of it. But there was something else, too. I had told Norma that morning that all men enjoyed looking. Well, I couldn't really speak for all men-who can?
But I enjoyed it and I knew that a good many other men did, and that included looking at pictures as well as at live women, I wouldn't have taken the pictures, you understand, any more than I would have peeked in somebody's window. As I had told Norma, those things were dangerous. More important than that, I would have lost a good chunk of my self-respect if I'd done such a thing. I didn't really think of it as a moral question, as far as I was concerned. It had more to do with pride-pride in my manliness. It seemed to me that it wasn't unmanly to look at such pictures, but that it was unmanly to take them.
That probably didn't make much sense, but it was the way I felt about it ... or the way I rationalized it, I don't know.
At any rate, the desire was growing within me to get inside that room. I tried at first to fight it down, but got nowhere. The lure seemed to become larger and larger. Finally I promised myself that I would do it. The only question that remained was how?
Ralph and Norma went to bed shortly before midnight, leaving me to lock up. At twelve I turned off the large sign and lit the No in front of the word Vacancy. Then I set the lock on the outside door.
I stepped into the Wolcotts' living room and stood still for a few seconds, listening. Their bedroom door was closed, of course, and there were no sounds from inside. Carefully I crossed the room to the other door-the door to the photography room-and tried the knob. It turned but the Yale lock held the door closed.
Ralph had carried the key in his pants, I told myself. It was either still there or else he had placed it on his dresser or some such place. In any event, it would be somewhere in his bedroom. Assuming he and Norma were asleep, it would be easy enough to tiptoe in there and....
What the living hell was I thinking about?
Was I actually considering walking into somebody's bedroom while they were sleeping and stealing one of their keys?
Come off it, Elmore!
I turned out the lights and left the place, checking to make sure the outside door had locked.
* * *
The next morning I walked out for breakfast and returned to my room, noting that the Wolcotts' Chrysler was parked beside the office. I looked at television for a little while-each unit in the motel was equipped with it-and stepped outside from time to time to see if the Chrysler was still there. It was. Evidently Ralph was staying in that morning. I wondered if he was developing the films he had exposed the night before.
Norma didn't come to see me. The morning dragged.
The room began assuming larger and larger proportions in my mind. Maybe it was mostly curiosity or maybe it was lust, I don't know. But I had to get in there.
After a while I got up and started pacing the floor. The entire business was getting to me. There was the desire to see exactly what was in the room-the setup and the pictures themselves-and there was also the worry of being a party to the taking of the pictures.
I had an idea that, if Ralph were to leave, Norma could get me into the room.
But Ralph didn't leave.
I waited most of the morning and the Chrysler remained parked by the office. The departing of guests and Cathy, the high school girl, doing her cleaning and moving her cart from room to room, comprised the only activity around the place. Norma and Ralph both remained out of sight.
Finally, at about eleven-thirty, I walked down the line to the office. Norma, who apparently had been working in the kitchen, came to the front when she heard the bell. She was wearing a white blouse and dark tapered pants with an apron wrapped around the front of them.
She smiled at me. "Morning, Rob."
"Hi," I said and glanced around meaningfully.
She got the idea, her expression sobering. "He's in there." She nodded toward the photography room.
"Is he going to be around all day?" I asked.
She came up close to me. "I hope not." She raised a delicate hand and began feeling one of my ears.
"Easy," I said. "He might step out here any moment."
She made a little face and took her hand away. "Have you decided what you're going to do?" she asked me.
"Before I make up my mind, there's a thing I want you to help me with," I said.
"Anything, lover," she whispered.
"I want to get inside that room."
She stared at me for a few moments.
"I want to see just what kind of set-up he's got there," I said. "Also, I want to see what kind of pictures he's taken."
"I don't know, Rob," she said-
"You mean you can't help me get in?"
"I don't know if I should," she said frankly.
"Why the hell not?"
She hesitated, looking at me. "Well, why do you want to?"
"I want to see how bad it is."
"Don't be angry if I blurt out something, will you?" she asked.
"No."
"You aren't thinking of making trouble for Ralph."
"No. You have my word on that."
She studied me for a few more seconds. "All right. I'll let you in there. He'll be going into Fresno this afternoon, I think. He has to visit a linen supply house."
"Do you have a key to the room?"
"Yes. He wanted me to have it in case of an "emergency."
"When will he be leaving?" I asked.
"Around one or two o'clock."
I grasped one of her hands and squeezed it. "Will you come back as soon as he's gone?"
"I was planning on it," she said, a naughty gleam in her eyes.
"I'll be waiting."
"How about some lunch?" she invited.
"No ... I'm not going to impose on you that way. I'll run over to the cafe."
"But it's no imposition, Rob," she said.
"I think it is." I released her hand and gave her a smile. "I'll see you later."
CHAPTER FOUR
It was one twenty-five when Norma Wolcott showed up at my room, and by one twenty-nine I had her down on my bed.
I made love to her with passionate vigor and she matched every thrust of my hips with a counter-thrust of her own. We hit the finish line together.
At one forty we got up and dressed, after which she said, "Come on-you can see what you want now."
I followed her back to her apartment and she took a key from her bedroom and unlocked the photography room for me. She flicked on a light.
The room, air conditioned by the central unit that served the entire motel, had no windows. There was a long table and sink at one side. On and near it was some elaborate apparatus which, I presumed, was for the processing of movie film. Along the opposite wall were several steel cabinets in which Ralph apparently stored his "collection". In the wall adjoining Unit I there was a sliding wood panel. A movie camera stood on a tripod in front of it and an expensive-looking still camera lay on a nearby table. A little ways to the right, a movie screen was set up. Across the room an 8 mm projector stood on another small table, several reels of film lying around it.
I walked over to the sliding panel and moved it to the side. Suddenly I was looking through a small window into the adjoining room. The window was directly opposite the bed.
"This is a dresser mirror on the other side," Norma said. "When Unit I is occupied, it has to be dark in this room before the wood panel is opened. Ralph uses a very fast film, and the lights are cleverly placed in the other room. He has a couple of other cameras concealed in the walls of the next room, also; there's a false partition at one end of a closet and in the bathroom. He can shoot from all angles." She pointed to a couple of switches on electric cords which disappeared into the wall beside us. "He controls the other cameras from here. They have very quiet mechanisms. After the people check out, he goes into Unit I and replaces the exposed film with new film and resets the equipment."
"It's just the kind of set-up I imagined," I told her.
"You haven't seen it all," she said, pointing to a tape recorder which I had noticed earlier on the table with the still camera, located to the left of the peeping window. "That's hooked up with a microphone built into the headboard of the bed."
I whistled softly as I looked at it and thought about how Ralph had been amusing himself for the last couple of years.
Norma stepped to the tape recorder and flicked it on. The tape began rewinding. "You want to hear some?" she asked me.
I shrugged.
After she'd run the tape backward for a while, she stopped the machine. "This must be from last night," she said. "He didn't get around to filing it away."
"Filing it?" I asked.
"Oh, yes. He catalogues and files the tapes and films so that he can play them back together. He has several hundred sets."
I'll bet he has," I said dryly.
She punched a couple of buttons on the recorder and suddenly there were voices in the room-whispering and tense:
(Woman) "Come over here, Davie ... now, hm?"
(Pause.) "What the devil are you doing? ... I'm waiting, dopey...."
(Man, farther away) "It's this damn alarm clock. I can't get it set."
(Woman) "Forget it."
(Man) "Forget it, hell! You want to get to the park early tomorrow, don't you?"
(Woman) "Right now I only care about one thing."
(Man, chuckling) "Well, I won't argue with you about that...." (He was approaching closer to the microphone.)
There was the sound of bed springs creaking and then....
(Woman, very softly) "Oohhh ... that's it, Davie. Mmmmm...."
(Man) "Why'd you have to put on this thing?"
(Woman) "I thought you'd like it. Isn't it pretty?"
(Man) "What's under it is prettier."
(Woman) "Mmmmmmm...."
(Man) "I mean this ... and this...."
(Woman) "Mmmmmmm ... oohhhh, Davie ... mmmmmmmm ... kiss them ... oh, that's...."
Norma punched the machine off.
I looked at her. "Why'd you do that?"
"You have the idea now, don't you?" She asked. She watched me for a few seconds. "Don't tell me you like to listen to that."
"I was curious," I said.
"A man could pick up a lot of pointers on how to treat women by playing Ralph's films and recordings.
You don't need them though, baby," she added, coming close and slipping an arm around my waist. "You don't need any instructions at all."
I spanked her little butt. "Thanks."
Norma pressed another button on the recorder and the tape began to run through, but silently. "We'd better leave it where Ralph had it," she said, "or he'll know I was in here. I'd have to answer questions."
I watched the tape running for a while and then extended a finger and punched the button for sound:
The bedsprings were going crazy, almost drowning out the couple's gasping words.
I punched the sound off again.
I cleared my throat before I tried to speak. "That's pretty rich stuff," I said. "You mean he's got hundreds of tapes like this?"
"Ummm-hmmm." Norma nodded.
"What about pictures?" I asked her.
She walked to one of the steel cabinets and unlocked it with a small key. A row of leather-bound albums standing on edge filled one shelf. Reels of movie film filled another. At the bottom were scissors and paste and other odds and ends of stuff.
I slipped out one of the albums and opened it. The double page in front of me bore a total of ten photo prints-ten of the frankest sex pictures I had ever seen. And to think that he had book after book like that!
I leafed some more pages. Each picture was labeled with a date and an index number, which I presumed corresponded with the numbers on the movie film and tape recordings. The pictures showed men and women undressing, sex play, and the real stuff on the bed. Everything imaginable was included in the shots.
"Are you learning anything?" Norma inquired impishly.
"He has a gold mine here," I said absently. Norma looked at me.
"How about the movies he took last night?" I asked. "Has he developed them yet?"
"He went to work on it early this morning," she said. "That broad last night must have been something!"
I walked over to the projector. "Are these the ones?" I asked, handling the reels on the table beside the machine.
"I suppose so," Norma said.
"How about seeing them?" I asked.
She shrugged, picked up a reel and placed it on the projector. It was a late model machine that required practically no threading. When she had it ready, I snapped off the room's overhead light.
The projector began flickering against the screen across the room. The pictures were clear and sharp ... and in color.
I whistled. "Your husband knows his business,' I said.
Norma laughed dryly.
The woman-the lithe, long-legged blonde-had just taken her dress off and was standing in a black bra and lacy half-slip. The man was stripping in the background of the picture. The blonde stretched the waistband of her slip and let it down, stepping from it.
"Good legs, huh?" Norma said. "Yeah," I agreed.
The legs were encased in black hose, whose shiny tops were drawn tightly on slender but strong-looking thighs. The hose were held by black garter straps attached to a garter belt beneath the woman's black panties. She turned and walked to a suitcase, selected a two-piece black shorty nightgown with red trimming, and then made for the bathroom.
"Hah!" Norma said.
"Looks like she's the bashful type," I commented.
"She's just being wise," Norma told me. "A smart woman knows it isn't good to show her man too much too often. Teasing is what keeps up his interest."
"Yeah?"
"Speaking of keeping up one's interest...." she said, her hand finding me.
"That's not fair," I complained and lifted her fingers away. "I can't help it."
Norma laughed. "Okay. I know you're a healthy boy."
Ralph must have stopped the camera and started it again later, for the blonde was back in the room and climbing into bed while her husband, in just his pajama bottoms, was picking a small alarm clock off the dresser and looking at it. The blonde stretched out on the bed, arranged a sheet to cover her waist-high, and waited. She was saying something and I guess the film was then at the point where we had begun to play the recording a little while ago. "
Norma and I watched, not touching one another, while the man walked over to the bed and climbed onto it. He began opening the top of his wife's nightie.
"Any more?" Norma asked, her voice a bit husky. "Just a little," I said.
The projector kept grinding. In spite of the air conditioning, it suddenly began to get warm in the small room. I watched the flickering screen in fascination as the husband and wife began their lovemaking. Norma slipped up against me.
The top of the blonde's nightie was quickly gone, as was the sheet, and the man's pajamas no longer covered him. The woman had breasts that were small but well-nippled. Her nipples were the kind whose aureoles swelled up very high, creating secondary hills on top of the larger hills of her breasts. Ralph's camera zoomed in on them as the woman's husband did likewise. After he had paid his respects to each of them, the man began roaming in a southerly direction. When the wife's black frilly pants got in his way, he slipped them down.
Norma and I watched the entire scene.
That blonde's legs were just as strong and just as active as I knew they would be.
When it was finally over, Norma and I had no choice but to drop to the floor and act out what we had been watching.
Later-after we had replaced everything in the room just as Ralph had had it-we locked the place up and went to Norma's living room where we sat down with a pair of cigarettes.
"Well...." she said, "what do you think?"
"I don't know. Words fail me."
"What are you going to do? Have you decided?"
"I know what I ought to do," I said. "I ought to get the hell away from here. And you ought to, also."
She cocked an eyebrow at me. "Is that a proposal, Robbie?"
"No," I said quickly.
She looked down.
"Are you going to leave?" she asked.
I chewed my lip a little. "I don't really want to."
"I'm glad," she said.
"But I'm afraid it's not safe to hang around," I added. "Too many things could happen."
"It's safe," Norma told me. "You've seen the kind of set-up Ralph has. And he's quiet as a mouse when he's working in that room. No one will ever get wise."
"Maybe."
Norma was watching me speculatively. "Rob bie...."
"Yeah?"
"What did you mean before when you said those pictures of Ralph's were a gold mine?"
I blinked at her a couple of times. "Just that he could sell them for a good piece of change. There's a market for that kind of stuff, you know."
"You weren't thinking of...."
"God, no!" I said firmly. "But the stuff does have a value-a pretty high value, too, I'd imagine."
"Ralph would never sell it," Norma said.
"I hope not. That's what really would get him in trouble. If one of the subjects ever saw himself in those pictures and figured out where they were taken, there'd be hell to pay!"
"Ralph's too smart to get mixed up in that sort of thing," Norma said.
I remained silent for a few moments, watching the smoke rise from my cigarette.
Norma came over to my chair, sat on the arm of it, and took my hand in hers. "What are you going to do, Rob?"
"Don't push me," I said.
"Okay ... take your time. Think it over carefully." She hesitated. "Don't tell Ralph I let you in the room, will you?"
"Don't worry," I said.
"If it wasn't for me, you'd take off, wouldn't you?" Norma asked.
"If it wasn't for you, I probably wouldn't have lit here in the first place."
She squeezed my hand tighter. "I need you, Rob."
"And I like you a lot, too, baby."
"Just ... like?" she asked pointedly.
Oh-oh! The conversation, I realized, was moving in the wrong direction.
"I'm not a very steady guy, Norma," I said. "You might as well know that. I like you a lot. We're good together. But there's no use getting serious."
"That's the way it is, huh?"
"Afraid so."
She leaned down against me. "You're the wild type, I know. But that type's been tamed before. Give me a little time, tiger."
"There's no future for us, Norma," I said.
"Well, I guess the lady got told," she remarked, straightening up.
"Sorry," I said. "It's not that I don't like you and admire you very much. But I just don't want to get-serious."
"Okay. Then we're not serious." I grasped her hand and gave it a squeeze. "Friends, though, huh?"
"Friends," she said, squeezing back. I stood up.
"And you're not pulling out?"
"Not for a while, at least," I said.
I knew, when I said it, that it was probably a mistake. But I'd made mistakes before, and I'll make more of them before I'm through.
"See you for dinner," Norma said as I headed out through the office.
"Yeah, see you," I responded.
CHAPTER FIVE
The next day I got together with Grif Molett to go over with him the operation of the camera and curio shop. The day after that, Friday, I went to work-if you can call it working to sit on your butt and get up once in a while to sell fifty cents' worth of film or a couple of postcards. Grif had not put in much of a stock for the opening and I didn't see where I stood to make much on the percentage deal. But I wasn't looking to get rich around Linden, anyway.
It was a pleasant place to live. The air was clear and sharp and sweet-smelling. Even in June, it wasn't hot during the day and the mornings and evenings were definitely cool. You could look out the window and see miles and miles of rolling timber land with the towering purple Sierra in the background. It was fresh and clean.
But what Ralph Wolcott was doing in that town wasn't fresh and clean.
And neither was what I was doing to Norma, considering that she was someone else's wife. And I was doing it quite regularly-like once or twice a day. Norma saw to that. I'm not complaining, mind you. She was good stuff. But she was married stuff, too, and even though Ralph wasn't man enough to take care of her himself, I still felt guilty about the thing. I didn't see how it could last for long.
I hadn't been back in Ralph's special room since the one visit Norma and I had made to it. Though I was curious to see more of his "work", Norma didn't offer to unlock the door again and I didn't want to ask her to do it. It was just as well for me to stay clear, I decided.
Ralph usually managed to get Unit I rented before I went on duty in the motel office at eight o'clock and he spent a large part of each evening in "the room". It was a wonder to me that Norma would put up with that. She was remarkably tolerant.
On the nights when Ralph hadn't spotted his "subjects" by the time I showed up to go to work, he would sometimes suggest that I sit down in the kitchen with a beer-and with Norma. He never offered an explanation and, of course, I didn't ask for one.
When he finally left the office and said something like, "Well, you can take over now, Rob," I knew that he had found the woman he wanted for the night. At least one pretty good looker came along every evening.
You would think that a guy would get damned tired of just looking and photographing, but I guessed Ralph never had and probably never would. It seemed to be all he wanted. I wondered if, even when he was younger, he had ever enjoyed sex the real way. I wondered, too, what had gotten him started on that oddball way of getting his kicks. When I tried to question Norma about it, she would say nothing. Either she didn't know or just didn't want to talk about it. She never talked against her husband and I had to give her credit for that. She certainly was not the cry-baby type, at all.
One evening she and Ralph left the place all dressed up at eight o'clock and told me they wouldn't be back before I closed the office at midnight. They were going, they said, into Fresno for some night life.
Ralph was pretty good to his wife, I decided-in every way but one. She had most of the material possessions she wanted and he showed her affection and took her out. They had companionship, I guessed.
Well, their marital situation-good or bad-was no concern of mine. My only worry was the illegality of the "hobby" Ralph practiced while I was on duty at the motel counter. And that continued to bug me. But I stuck.
Finally, after I had been there almost two weeks, I realized that I had stuck too long to break away. For that was when she arrived.
How can I tell you about Sandi Wolcott?
Words can't describe a sunset on the ocean ... or the groove into which a hip jazz group can find its way. Words can't describe Sandi Wolcott, either.
I can tell you that she was Ralph's daughter-by a former marriage, of course-which proved that he had once been capable of normal responses. Sandi attended university at Berkeley and had come to Linden to spend some time with her father during her summer vacation. Neither Ralph nor Norma had mentioned her to me previously, so her arrival that Saturday morning was quite a surprise.
I can also say that Sandi was 20 years old, light blonde, and blue-eyed.
From there on....
Well, imagine the most beautiful blonde you've ever seen. Now make the face just a little sexier-but fresh and open-eyed-and tumble the blonde hair around in Brigitte Bardot fashion, with a free-swinging lock falling down her back almost to her waist. Got it?
Now, as for her body....
Her waist was tiny. So much for that.
Below the waist she curved out in a way that was very warm and lush. She was wearing one of those shifts that seem deceptively loose in places, but grab a girl tightly where the grabbing is best. The way it grabbed Sandi across her backside was enough to make you break out in a sweat. When she walked, there was all kinds of action ... but neat. And you could see the lines of her pants.
They say it's what's up front that counts. If that's true, then Sandi counted with the best of them. She was definitely the melon type, meaning that her breasts were extremely large and very full and round. But they were shapely, too. Each large mound stood outward in separate splendor.
Her dress ended right at the knees and she wore no stockings, but her legs were as creamy smooth as if she had hose on. The ankles were slim and delicate and the calves flared gently, giving promise of the shapeliest of thighs.
Sandi Wolcott was a rare dish!
Through the front window of the curio shop I had noticed her breeze past in her white Corvette, and even what I had seen in that first glimpse had captured my interest. I had known from the way her car was slowing that she intended to stop in town. After she'd gone by, I walked to the front door and looked down the road, watching the Corvette whip into the driveway of the Linden Lodge. She was a guest, I presumed.
An hour or so later I was startled to see her walking up to the front door of the shop with Ralph Wolcott beside her, beaming proudly and holding onto her arm. That was when I really discovered her exceptional beauty.
Ralph introduced us and told Sandi, "Rob is helping us run the motel, darling. He handles the desk at night from eight to twelve."
See looked me over. "How nice." There was something just a little uppity in her voice, as if she knew she was hot stuff and regarded me as one of the peasants. But she didn't rub it in. She was too smooth for that. There was just a suggestion of it.
"Are you going to be in town long, Miss Wolcott?" I asked.
That was when she told me that she attended the university and would be going back for her senior year in the Fall. It seemed indefinite as to just how much of her summer she would be spending in Linden; she hinted at interests and activities in Berkeley that would draw her back there before September.
I would have bet that she had interests, all right-male interests-or, at least, that there were a lot of males who were interested in her.
As we were chatting about nothing, the way first acquaintances do, Grif Molett ambled in through the back door, which connected to his office in the old tavern building. His eyes lit up when he saw Sandi and he bulled his way into the conversation.
Pretty soon Ralph maneuvered Sandi away from us and to the door with the smiling explanation that there were several other people he wanted her to meet. I took it that she had never spent any time in town before.
After the door had closed, Grif moved up to the front window and squinted, watching the way her lush buttocks stretched and pulled at the fabric of her shift as she walked away.
"Ooooooo-eeeeeee!" he said appreciatively as he finally turned back toward the room. "What a can!"
"Yeah, she's got one, all right," I agreed.
"And did y'see that pair 'a bumpers?" he asked enthusiastically.
"I have eyes," I told him.
"How the hell did a namby-pamby like Ralph Wolcott ever father a sex-bomb like that?"
I laughed. "It's kind of hard to figure, isn't it?"
"Ralph's first wife must have been a looker! That's all I can say." Grif pulled a straight chair up near the small desk at the rear of the shop and lit on it, propping his feet up. "That Norma's no beauty contest winner, but she's the type that might fool ya. How about it, Rob-gotten into her, yet?"
I shot him a sharp glance. "What the hell kind of question is that?"
His eyes narrowed but he grinned. "Now, don't go flyin' off the handle! I just wondered if you'd done any good for yourself around there, that's all. Her husband's on the old side; I've always figured he didn't keep little Norma too happy."
"I wouldn't know."
I had never liked to talk about my conquests the way some guys did. Hell, I didn't make girls just to give me something to brag about.
"Okay ... okay," Grif said. "I figured you for a wide-awake young buck, that's all. Hell, I'd of gone after Norma myself if I wasn't married. A married guy's got to be a little careful around a town like this where everybody knows everybody."
"I guess so," I said.
"I'll bet Norma's the type who would do it, all right," he said, apparently determined to stick to the subject.
"What about the stacked blonde?" I asked, just to get his mind off Norma. "You think she'd go?"
"That one?" He squinted his eyes and worked his mouth around, giving the matter careful thought. "It would all depend on the guy, I'd say. You can be damned sure she's had it put to her more times than one."
"Think you could make it?" I asked him.
"Hell, yes! But it would take a little time, and some dough, and I'd have to have room to operate. As I said, bein' married and in a little town like this...."
"Yeah."
I had been thinking about going after Sandi Wolcott. I had started working on the idea the moment that Ralph had brought her into the shop. She was wild stuff, I wasn't so gone on Norma that I couldn't think of something younger and tastier and a whole lot better built. And that was Sandi. Ralph's daughter, hm? If I could get to her, I speculated, wouldn't that be a kick in the head-making his wife and his daughter both? I had no sooner thought it than I mentally kicked myself.
That didn't flag the thought-train, however.
Sandi looked like she wouldn't be too easy to approach. That made her all the more interesting. I had made the cool ones ... and had known the unbeatable thrill of feeling them get hot and explode when I finally had them under me. Of course, I had missed sometimes, too. What guy hasn't?
Sandi.
I wondered what Norma's reaction would be if she saw me trying to make it with another broad. She was pretty easy-going, but she was hung up on me, too. She had made that clear. I was afraid she wouldn't sit still for competition. There would be a fuss. And a fuss could turn out to be nasty.
Of course, I was in a position to make trouble for Ralph and Norma both-more trouble than she could make for me.
Hell, what was I thinking about? I didn't want to hurt her. I liked Norma. Maybe I shouldn't get greedy, hm? I had my hands pretty full, as it was.
But when a woman like Sandi Wolcott arrives in town, you don't just tune her out of your mind like you'd switch channels on a TV set. Like it or not, she was in my brain and my brain was telling me to do something about it.
That evening Ralph forsook his "hobby" entirely, spending his time in the living room with his wife and Sandi. The two women seemed to get along well and Ralph was in the best of spirits. I'd had a chance to get better acquainted with Sandi at dinner and maybe it was nothing more than my male ego asserting itself, but it seemed to me that she was warming towards me a little.
One thing that we had in common was college. We talked about campus life and some of the subjects we each had taken.
Norma seemed to take an interest in the interest I was taking in Sandi. She was aware, all right, that she had competition. Well, there wasn't a woman in the world who wouldn't have been aware of competition when Sandi Wolcott was around. She was that fresh and youthful and tantalizingly built.
It was late in the evening when I got my first break as far as Sandi was concerned. Ralph had moved Sandi into Unit 5, which happened to be just on the other side of mine. When Ralph and Norma retired for the night, Sandi headed out through the office where I had been sitting reading an article in one of the popular men's magazines.
I smiled and told her "goodnight" and she returned it. Then she glanced casually at the magazine I was holding. It happened that on the page opposite the one which carried the story there was a large color shot of a beautiful bare-busted girl.
"Hm," Sandi said, not unpleasantly, "she's well endowed, isn't she?"
I glanced at the picture, then looked up at her. "Is that how they're saying it on campus these days?"
Her eyes sparkled a bit. "That's the egghead way," she told me.
"I didn't think that eggheads paid much attention to girls ... uh, endowments. I thought they were too busy with jazz like cube roots and relativity theories."
"You'd be surprised, daddy," she drawled huskily. The way she said it zinged me.
"You in a hurry to turn in?" I asked her. "If not, I could sure use some company."
Sandi shrugged prettily and sat down on the extra chair. She slipped one leg over the other immediately and I saw some distance up her smooth thighs. They were, as I said, without stockings. Had she been wearing stockings, I would have been able to see above their tops.
"I don't want to tear you away from your magazine," Sandi said.
I tossed the magazine on a shelf under the registration counter. "It's not that entertaining."
"That kind of magazine is really the thing today on campus," she told me.
"I imagine."
"In fact, it's getting so the girls are jealous of those damned models."
"I'll bet you're not, though," I said. "Why not?"
"You've got more to offer than any model I've ever seen," I told her.
"Now, wait a minute." She smiled and the look in her eyes told me she had liked the remark.
I decided to follow up the gambit. "It's true," I said. "You've got a figure that puts them all to shame. Have you ever done any modeling?"
She laughed slightly and shook her head, which made her blonde hair toss. I wanted to get my fingers into it.
"Guys have wanted to photograph me," she said, "but that was as far as it went. I had no desire to pose."
"That's a shame." I grinned at her, trying to put a lot into it. "The photographic world has missed something."
"Daddy's quite a photographer," Sandi said, adding, "Did you know that?"
I cleared my throat. "Yes, I know."
"Do you know anything about the subject, Rob?"
"Afraid not. My interest in photography has always been limited to models."
She shifted slightly in her chair and looked at me, amusement flickering in her large, cool, far-apart blue eyes. "What kind of models do you prefer?"
"Female ones," I said.
She threw away a little laugh. "I assumed that, kook. But what sort? I mean, what types do you like?"
"Seriously?" I asked. "Sure."
"Well ... every girl in the world is different. She has to be considered as an entirety. Some are interesting and some aren't."
"You mean, figure doesn't have a lot to do with it?" Sandi asked.
"Sure it does," I said. "But it isn't everything. I've known very attractive girls who were flat-chested. Everything else being equal, though, I prefer the ones with large-how did we say it before?-endowments. Like yours, for example," I added, getting fresh again.
I hadn't gone too far. She was eating the patter up. Her eyes looked at me with increasing interest.
"I know I have a rather unusual build," she said. "There's no use being coy about it. It can be a bore sometimes, though. As soon as a man looks at me, I know exactly what he's thinking. Sometimes I feel as if men don't see me as a person, at all, but just a pair of large breasts. Can you understand what I mean?"
"I think I do," I said, happy that the conversation had progressed so far. "You have a lot more than beautiful breasts, however. Your entire figure is exceptional. And your legs, too."
"Do you think so?" she asked.
"Definitely." I took the opportunity to drop my eyes and look her legs over frankly. The way she was sitting, and with the stylish shortness of her skirt, there was a lot to be seen. It was all neat and creamy and very smooth. Sandi Wolcott had been put together with Nature's most loving care.
Suddenly she stood up. "Well, thanks for all the compliments, Rob, but I think it's me for bed now."
It's you for bed, all right, baby! I said to myself. You were just made for it! And how I'd like to make you on it!
I watched her tender and very shapely rear move to the gate at the end of the registration counter and then disappear from sight. When she'd gotten halfway to the door, I jogged myself into speech:
"I was wondering, Sandi, if tomorrow evening you would go out with me? It's my night off. We could drive into Fresno maybe and have dinner."
She looked at me a little while, those wide girlish eyes difficult to read, and then she said, "Sounds great, Rob. I'd like it."
"The only thing is ... I don't have a car." I figured I might as well make that clear right at the beginning.
"That's all right," she replied quickly. "We can take mine."
"How about six or so?" I suggested, adding, "So that we can have plenty of time."
"I'll be ready," she told me.
We smiled goodnights and, after the front door of the office had closed, I could have jumped three feet into the air and clicked my heels. Things were rolling!
When the door opened a couple of minutes later to admit a late-arriving guest, I must have stared at him dumbly. But I recovered in time to rent him a room and relieve him of eight dollars.
Sandi.
She was all I could think about for the rest of that evening, and later after I had gone to bed. I visualized her lying in a bed just like mine, right against the opposite side of the wall I lay next to. Only the wall kept our twin beds from becoming a king-sized double. And only the wall kept me from rolling over to her ... and rolling onto her ... and....
Thinking of that made my body startlingly ready, and I cursed to myself.
What a girl she was! What a 24-karat, revolving sex machine!
I wasn't falling in love with her, I told myself-anymore than I had fallen for Norma. I was just hot for her, that was all. But she'd fired me hotter than any other girl I'd ever met.
Sleep seemed hours away as I lay there and finally I got up and scrounged in the dark for my cigarettes. I found them and lit up.
Sometimes girls with figures like Sandi's were a disappointment, I had learned. The way a woman is built isn't always an indication of how sexy she is. But Sandi not only had the build; she had the look, as well. I was willing to bet that she knew her way around in bed and that she had a feel for it.
At any rate, I could hardly wait to find out.
Suddenly I'd forgotten Norma-almost as if I had never known her at all.
And that was awkward, too.
For Norma came to call the next morning-even before I'd got my pants on.
CHAPTER SIX
"Well, hi," I said, greeting her at the door and scratching the sleep out of my head.
"Hi, yourself, tiger," she said, walking into the room.
"Keep your voice down," I warned. "Do you want Sandi to hear us?"
"Don't worry about that, tiger," Norma said. "She took off early ... with Ralph. He took her up in the woods to track squirrels or some damned thing." Norma dropped on the side of my mussed-up bed. That morning, for the first time, she was wearing a skirt. It was a wide one in a multi-colored pattern and a white blouse topped it. After looking the night before at the way Sandi's big breasts pushed out the top of her dress, Norma's seemed like molehills.
"Cigarette?" I asked, picking up my pack of Pall Malls and shaking them at her.
"Thanks." She took one. Then her eyes fastened on me. "Pretty casual this morning, aren't you?" she asked playfully.
All I wore were my pajama pants-I hadn't bothered with a robe-and I guess right then I was suffering from gaposis.
"Sorry," I said, pulling myself together.
"Don't apologize, tiger," she said. "You ought to know what I like by now."
"I know what you like," I told her.
"Well, how about it, then?" she asked brazenly.
I didn't want to. There was my date with Sandi that evening, and I wanted to be in peak shape for it. I didn't flatter myself that I could talk Sandi out of her panties the first night, but you never could tell. If a girl happened to be in just the right frame of mind and if she and the guy clicked solidly ... well, anything could happen.
But here was Norma, sitting on my bed, and me with just my pajama bottoms on ... and she was looking at me as if I were a juicy steak just off the grill.
I decided to throw her a curve.
"I have to light out of here," I said. "Grif wanted to see me first thing this morning."
"Grif?" she echoed. "This is Sunday. You aren't working today, are you?"
"No. He just wanted to talk. Something about putting in some new stock at the shop tomorrow."
Norma's eyes narrowed. "Robbie...."
"Yeah?" I looked at her through the smoke from my cigarette.
"Nothing's changed, has it?"
"Why the hell should you ask that?" I queried.
"Oh, I don't know," she said. "A nasty thought crossed my mind was all. I heard you and Sandi yakking it up out in the office after Ralph and I had gone to bed." She hesitated, watching me. "She's off limits, Rob."
"What the hell are you talking about?" I demanded. Anger had suddenly risen in me. What right did she have to say something like that?
"Just what I said-nothing more, nothing less." She blew smoke out into the air.
"If I was planning to make time with Sandi," I told her, "wouldn't it be up to her to give the go-ahead or flash the stop light? Where do you get off...."
"Ralph thinks a lot of her," Norma said. "She's not just a toy to play with. Anyway, there's you and me, Rob. Don't you think that gives me some right?"
"Not to say something like you just did," I snapped back. "You don't own me, you know."
"You've made that very clear," Norma replied dryly.
"Well, that's the way it has to be."
"Okay."
"It happens that Sandi and I are going out tonight," I said, deciding that I might as well let Norma know about it there and then. She would know by evening, anyway. "But it's just friendly. She doesn't know anyone else her own age around here and...."
"So you're doing her a big fat favor, huh?" Norma was beginning to reveal a side of her nature I hadn't seen before. But women often did that when they thought they might be losing their men. And Norma regarded me as hers; there was no question about that.
"I didn't mean it that way," I said. "It will just be a sociable evening, that's all."
"Well, see that you keep it that way," Norma snapped.
"Look, baby...." I moved up closer to her. "I don't like to have you talk to me like that."
"Tough!" was all she said.
"Let's not fight, huh?" I suggested, putting a hand on her shoulder.
"Then be good to me, Rob," she said. Her eyes had melted. She wanted it bad.
"You know I'd like to, Norma, but I have to rush now. I told you."
"Can't that bastard wait?" she demanded angrily.
"He's my boss, you know."
"But this is a holiday."
"You want to tell him that?" I asked, walking to the dresser to get out socks and underwear.
"When do you have to be there?" she pressed. "I'm late now," I answered. She swore-rather indelicately for a woman. "Sorry, Kitten," I said.
Norma ground her cigarette out with her foot angrily. "Oh, shut up!"
"Now, baby...."
"Go see your damned boss, but don't expect me to be waiting for you when you get back!" She walked out and slammed the door.
Well, I was glad to hear that, I commented inwardly. That meant I was safe for the rest of the day, I hoped.
I was never one to let myself be forced into sex. I hadn't let Maude Bessler do it and, even though Norma was a hell of a lot more attractive, I wouldn't let her do it, either. A man isn't a man anymore when he lets a woman do the leading. It's nice when they let you know they want it, but when they think that they can just crook their little pinky and make you jump ... unh-uh!
I showered, shaved, dressed, and strolled out of the motel and up the highway. In case Norma was watching from her window, I wanted it to look as if I had been telling her the truth, so I walked into Grif's tavern. But I didn't ask to see him. I just went over to the bar and ordered a beer. Grif didn't show and, after I'd finished the brew, I got up and walked out.
Grif had put in a rack of paperbacks at the curio shop and I'd taken a pair of them home with me the day before. I returned to the motel, stretched out on the bed, and began reading one.
Norma left me alone.
That evening Sandi dressed in a white sheath. It had a round neckline but was not cut very deeply. You could see just the beginning swells of what she had, and that was all. The rest you had to imagine ... but, from the way the front of the dress surged outward, it wasn't hard to do. She was loaded, all right!
I only hoped she wasn't all bound up in one of those real heavy brassieres and that, when she took the bra off, her double features would drop way down around her waist. I'd seen babes like that. What a disappointment to have your desire titillated all evening by the vision of a couple of high-standing beauties only to discover, when you got the babe's bra off, that she had a pair of floppers.
I didn't think Sandi's were floppers, though. She wasn't the least bit fat and she seemed to have good muscle tone all over. There was nothing indolent about the way she moved. No, hers would be stand-up jobs, I was pretty certain.
I could hardly wait to find out for sure.
But I was determined to play it cool. Rushing a girl like Sandi was apt to be disastrous-if she didn't want to be rushed, that is. I would have to take my cue from her.
She let me drive the Corvette and it was a joy piloting that baby over the rolling foothill highway. The noise of the wind whipping past us precluded much talk, so we each kept pretty still and enjoyed the evening and the fresh air and the sense of freedom that you get when you ride through the country in that kind of car.
It took us about an hour to reach Fresno. Sandi didn't know any more about the town than I did, so we cruised around for a little while before we decided on a place to eat. We finally chose an interesting looking restaurant that advertised Armenian food.
The atmosphere was exotic and the shish-kabob delicious. By the time dinner was over, we were in a mellow mood. The two cocktails we'd had before, together with the wine which accompanied our food, had helped.
We settled on a movie then, being lucky enough to spot one that we both had wanted to see. It had a sexy theme and some rather frank dialogue, which didn't hurt our mood. Afterwards we stopped in at an intimate club and had another pair of drinks.
We talked softly, our eyes saying more than our mouths did, and I was highly encouraged by the prospects. Before we left the club our hands had met beneath the table and Sandi's fingers had clasped mine warmly. There was no doubt that she was a responsive girl.
As we drove away from the place, feeling almost as if we were floating on the midnight air, I reached over and took her hand again. She didn't seem reluctant to give it to me. Her fingers were long and tapering and soft ... but, as I said, very warm. They exerted just enough pressure against mine to let me know that Sandi was not entirely passive about the whole thing. My thoughts began to race ahead to our arrival back at the motel ... my hopes steadily rising.
When we got there, I headed the Corvette into the painted slot on the asphalt in front of Room 5 and turned off the key.
Sandi smiled across at me. "That seemed like flying," she said softly, almost duplicating my own earlier impression.
"It went too fast," I said. "In fact, the entire evening went too fast."
"Did it?"
We were holding hands avidly then, and her fingers were answering the pressure of my own.
"Of course," I said slowly, "the evening doesn't have to be over yet."
She looked at me-not warily; her eyes were sparkling.
"Would you have a nightcap with me?" I asked.
"Well ... maybe one."
"My place or yours?" I asked her.
"I presume you have the liquor," she said, smiling.
"My place it is, then." I hopped out of the car and walked around to help Sandi alight. As she swung her knees around, the form and coloring of them, beneath very sheer nylons, really set me off. This girl was strictly ring-a-ding and it began to look as if I was going to have her. I swallowed against the lump that had risen in my throat at the thought of it. She had me feeling like a kid just out of junior high school.
She entered my motel room without any attitude of reluctance or disdain. She walked in with the bearing of a princess going to a ball. Well, it would be a ball, all right, if I had anything to say about it!
My booze-a half-used fifth of Haig and Haig-lay on its side in my top dresser drawer. After inviting Sandi to be seated, I took it out and set it on top of the dresser, then walked into the bathroom to get a pair of glasses.
"I hope you don't mind taking it neat, as the Britishers say." I smiled at her. "Of course, we do have water."
"Neat is fine," Sandi responded. "I don't like a lot of fuss with things."
I wondered what she meant by that. It sounded like it might be a leading remark but I couldn't be sure. Maybe it was more the devil-may-care tone in which she'd said it, I decided.
She sipped the scotch and acted as if she liked it. We occupied the two chairs with which the room was equipped. But the bed-neatly made and waiting-was right beside us. Sandi had paid it no attention. She was acting as if we were in a club or in a living room with a group of friends, instead of alone in my bedroom at a little after one o'clock in the morning.
We chatted about the movie we had seen and I timed my drink to disappear with Sandi's. I stood up and reached for her glass.
"I said one, Rob," she told me.
"But it's been too good an evening to stop with that," I responded.
She looked up at me. "You're very persuasive."
"Well, thanks." I took the glass out of her hands.
As I walked over to the dresser to pour some more booze, Sandi said, "I'll bet lots of girls have found you persuasive haven't they, Rob?"
I laughed. "That would be telling."
She didn't say anything else. I poured our second drinks and carried them over to her. I stood for a moment in front of her, holding both glasses. "If this place had a radio, I'd invite you to dance with me," I said.
She stood up slowly, her front almost against mine. "I'm pretty good at humming," she said softly. "I'm afraid I can't hum up a twist, though."
"Who wants to twist, anyway?" I responded. "I was thinking more of a tango."
She laughed, taking the glass I handed her. "I'm afraid I'll have to beg off on that, too. How about a waltz or something?"
I moved closer to her and eased my right arm around her small waist. She was very supple and very warm and she came gently up against me. Her perfume was intoxicating-almost more so than the scotch. I whispered against her ear, "I have a better idea. Let's just stand still like this."
"Mmmmm," she said, seeming to enjoy at least the titillation. "That might lead to things." I still wasn't sure if she intended to follow through. She might just be teasing me.
Still holding her close, I turned my head and lifted my glass of scotch. She did the same and we touched glasses as they were on their way to our lips. We each sipped and lowered the glasses again. Our lips were very close at that moment. It required only that each of us turn our heads a trifle. I began to turn mine first and then Sandi did the same. Our mouths were directly opposite each other, with no more than an inch or so of space separating them. Sandi's lips glistened from the liquor. They were pink and lush and inviting.
I closed the inch of space and then closed my mouth on hers. Our lips caught and moved, each pair against the other. Hers were open slightly. I was holding my glass between the thumb and forefinger of my left hand and I moved the hand slightly to bring it in contact with her right hand, which held her glass. I took her glass between my first and second fingers and she released it. As this happened, we continued kissing lightly. I lowered both glasses in my left hand and reached to set them on the nightstand which was beside and slightly behind Sandi. Then, my left hand finally free, I placed it at her back together with my right and pulled her more tightly against me.
It was then that I felt the surge of Sandi's large breasts and it was then that Sandi's lips quivered suddenly and moved farther apart. At the same time, her right hand lifted to the back of my neck where her fingers began playing with the short hairs.
My mouth clamped more tightly-more hungrily-against hers, our heads tilting slightly farther to the side. And then I unleashed my tongue, driving it between Sandi's teeth.
The response was instantaneous ... and strong. It was so strong that I no longer wondered about how the evening would end for us. I was sure that it was all decided in Sandi's mind. She had decided to give in to me. Hell, I told myself, maybe she had decided before we had even left the motel earlier. Some girls were like that, I believed. They were two jumps ahead of the guy in their own little minds and they knew, long before he began to make his play, whether they'd respond or cold-shoulder him.
Sandi's shoulders weren't cold. And her lips weren't cold, either.
Neither was her tongue. I was feeling that, then-darting and sliding against mine like a hot little snake.
She was alive and ready. There was no use holding back. With that realization I slid my right hand from her waist down the surging outcurve of her left buttock. I had been aware that she was ungirdled; my eyes had told me that. Now my hand was telling me that all that was between her snug sheath and her body was one, perhaps two, layers of the thinnest, silkiest nylon. I now had my hand on the fullest part of her buttock. I pulled gently and squeezed my fingers around the taut but generous curve of flesh.
Sandi moaned and bit at my lower lip. A little dart of pain goaded me. I grasped her buttock more roughly and shook and rolled it. The thin fabric of her sheath slid against the even thinner and silkier stuff beneath it, but I had the notion that her skin was the silkiest of all.
Suddenly Sandi pressed her hands against my chest and propelled herself backward and out of my embrace. Her cheeks were flushed and she was gasping. "I'd better get back to my room," she said heatedly and looked around for her clutch bag.
I couldn't believe it. "Hey, now wait a minute...." I began.
She picked up her bag and walked to the door. "Sandi, you can't just walk out on me like this," I protested.
She turned in the open doorway and reached up to pat my cheek. Her slim fingers now felt cool. "I had a very nice time," she said with a little affectionate smile.
"Yeah, but Sandi...." She blew me a little kiss. " 'Night." I stood there with my face hanging out and watched the door close on a promising evening.
CHAPTER SEVEN
When it comes to strong words, I guess I know as many as any other guy. During the next ten minutes, I think I used every one of them-speaking them softly, of course, so that Sandi couldn't hear me through the wall. I still had hopes for her. The way she had acted made me feel that I would eventually win her prize. The hell of it was that I had wanted it that night. I needed it that night. Right then, let me tell you, I was in no condition to climb into bed alone and try to drift to dreamland. I heard sounds now and then from the next room and I visualized Sandi in there, as I had visualized her before. That didn't help one damned bit.
I saw her taking off her dress ... and her slip, if she had been wearing one ... and I saw....
Well, you know what I imagined. I thought of the entire collection of goodies that goes by the name woman, knowing that Sandi's would be better than most-her breasts bigger and firmer and pinker at their tips, her backside rounder and baby-smooth to the touch, her thighs like satin-skinned, white, tapering pythons, and I knew that what she had at the lower vee of her belly would be softer and silkier than I had ever touched....
I had thought it was all going to be mine that night.
Son of a bitch!
I rammed my fist into a pillow and stood there, my heart hammering and sweat beading my forehead at the hairline. I looked down and cursed again.
I found my glass of unfinished scotch, tossed it off, then picked up Sandi's and did the same with that. I dug for a cigarette.
Son of a bitch!
I began slowly to get undressed.
I should never have given her a tumble in the first place, I told myself. So she was young and she had a lush, wiggly backside! So she had a pair of breasts that knocked your eyes out! So what? I had Norma, hadn't I? And wasn't Norma enough for any red-blooded male?
That line of argument didn't help. Sandi was in my blood, and now that I had gotten my arms around her for a few minutes and had felt her hot little tongue in my mouth and had handled her, I knew there would be no stopping until I'd possessed her.
I finished undressing, doused the light, and crawled nude between the sheets.
I would get her, I felt certain. She had wanted to go. Her flushed face and her panting and the eager thrust of her tongue had not been just put on. I knew girls well enough to be sure of that. But she wanted me to dangle for a while before she handed me the key. She wanted me to think about it and maybe she wanted to think about it, too. Maybe she wanted me to get sticky and give her a lot of love talk.
Well, maybe I would do that little thing. Sandi was worth it, I told myself. She was worth going all out to win.
Norma?
No, I couldn't be satisfied with Norma anymore. Not after having this blonde sexcat in my hands. Nor-ma's buttocks were skimpy nothings compared to the rich, perfect cheeks of Sandi's behind. And when it came to breasts....
I hadn't even touched Sandi's, but I had felt them against me. And they were full and surging. I knew that they would overflow my hands and that they would be hard beneath the superficial softness and that she would have large nipples that would stretch way out and....
I punched the mattress with all the force I could bring to bear. If I didn't stop thinking this way, I would never fall asleep.
I lay there, forcing my mind blank, and gradually my excitement subsided. I put out my cigarette and lay in the quiet darkness until finally-I don't know how-sleep covered me with its blanket.
In the morning I went directly to work without seeing either Sandi or Norma. I felt ragged, as if I could break into pieces at the slightest sound.
Grif prowled into the curio shop shortly after I opened it and gave me a leering grin. "Well, did y'get anywhere with that blonde?" He flopped onto a chair and stretched his feet across my small desk.
"What are you talking about?" I demanded.
"I saw you ridin' off with her last night," he said. "Is she as fast as that Corvette of hers?"
I turned my back on him and didn't answer.
"Guess ya didn't get any," Grif said. "If you'd gotten it, you'd be in a better mood this morning."
"Why don't you take a running jump," I told him. So, he was my boss! The way I felt right then, I didn't give a damn.
He laughed heartily. "A little tart like that can really give ya a rough time," he said philosophically. "You'd be smart, Rob boy, to concentrate on the other one. That Norma. She'd be grateful and she'd let y'know it, too. Anyway, I'm not so sure she wouldn't be a better lay. The lean ones are usually friskier ... and Norma's just the right age. Tied up to an old crud like Ralph, you can bet that she's in need of some."
He kept rattling on like that until I finally blurted, "For cripes sake, shut up!"
He looked at me in open-mouthed surprise for a moment and then put his head back and roared with laughter. "Boy, you're really hung up, aren't ya?" He laughed some more and, after he'd subsided, said, "Well, y'got my sympathies. Hope y'can work it out ... or work it in huh?" He laughed again, then stood up and, after giving me a few instructions about the day's business, walked out through the back door.
The day dragged. Business was not very brisk, which gave me lots of time to think. And that was just what I didn't need.
That evening at dinner Ralph announced that he, Norma and Sandi were all going to visit friends and that they would probably not be back until late. Sandi smiled at me. She had been warm and pleasant. Norma had been something less than that, but she hadn't behaved in such a way as to let either Ralph or the younger girl know that she and I were on the outs.
I watched them drive away and sat morosely behind the motel counter, calling myself eight different kinds of damned fool for letting myself get boxed up the way I was.
A sweep of headlights in front of the office jarred my bitter mood and, when the front door opened, my world temporarily brightened again. That's the way it is, and I thank Heaven for it. No matter how nuts a guy might be over a certain woman, he can always have his attention momentarily diverted by another one.
The one who walked through the door was Sex Itself. She had wide but half-lidded eyes and lots of ash blonde hair that fell free about her shoulders with only the merest suggestion of a wave in it. She had a wide-lipped mouth that was hot pink. She wore apricot pants and a plain white shirt.
The man with her was sun-bronzed and tall. He had a blond crewcut and a what-the-devil sparkle in his gray eyes.
They made quite a pair.
"Y'got a room?" the guy asked while the woman stood there smoldering and looked at me. "Yes, sir," I said. "For one night?" He nodded.
"That's twelve dollars, double. Do you want to see it?"
"No need," he told me and reached for the ballpoint pen on the counter.
I shoved a registration card in front of him and turned to the row of boxes behind me. My eyes fell immediately on the box for Unit I. The key was in it. Unit I, which I had not even thought about up to that time, was vacant.
Unit I!
The thought burned into my brain like a red-hot brand.
"Well?" the guy at the counter asked sharply.
My hand almost trembling, I lifted the key to Unit I from the box and handed it to him. He took it and gave me a twenty. I made change.
The guy stepped to the door, opened it, and the woman walked around him and through the doorway. Her buttocks twisted those tight pants of hers like I had seldom seen women's pants twist before.
The blood was throbbing through me as I thought about what I was going to do. It was wrong and I knew it. For some damned reason, right then I didn't seem to care.
I stepped into the Wolcotts' living room and closed the door between that room and the office. There was a bell on the outside door which rang in the apartment so that I would know if a customer walked in.
I rushed through the apartment and into Ralph and Norma's bedroom. Her key had to be there somewhere, I told myself. She wouldn't have taken it with her, would she?
I pawed around her dresser, into little porcelain boxes containing pins and needles and other junk. Then I pulled open the top dresser drawer and ... there it was. I immediately recognized the room key that Norma had used before, which was on a plain ring together with the keys to the storage cabinets inside the room. I picked the keyring up with trembling fingers and rushed back to the living room and to the locked door. I jabbed the key at the lock ... slipped it in ... and the lock turned. I walked into the photography room.
I glanced behind me to make certain that the Venetian blinds were closed on the outside wall of the living room. They were. But there was a light on. Hurriedly I walked back into the living room and turned the lamp off. The entire apartment was then in darkness.
Feeling my way back across the room and into the photography room once more, I finally reached the opposite wall and quietly located the sliding wood panel. I grasped its small knob and slipped it back.
Light struck me in the face from the adjoining room and it was just as if I were looking through an uncurtained window. The woman was standing there beside the bed, her back to me, and the man was a few feet away, unbuttoning his sport shirt and saying something to her. He stripped the shirt off, revealing a good chest that was as bronzed as was his face.
The woman then raised her hands to the buttons on her shirt and began undoing them while still facing the man and with her back toward me. I studied at very close range the pouting curves encased in her tight apricot pants and found myself wanting to see them bare-as bare as they could get.
She shrugged the white shirt down her arms and I unconsciously pursed my lips when I saw that she was without a brassiere. Her back was completely bare.
The man came to her then, taking her in his arms. They kissed and he covered the large cheeks of her bottom with his large hands. For a few moments, he was very busy kneading the supple flesh he found there, then his fingers stole up the dividing cleft and-to the waistband of her pants where he took hold of a zipper. He slowly pulled the zipper down.
The woman wore no underpants. As the apricot fabric parted, it revealed nothing but her ... and a hell of a lot of her, I might add. The man pulled it as far as it would go and then slipped his right hand through the opening of the cloth and directly onto and over her bare behind. He handled her buttocks like they were two loaves of white risen dough.
She seemed to be clutching him and pressing herself harder to him. After a little bit, as he kept feeling and rubbing her, her hips began grinding. Finally she propelled herself backward from him and I could tell that her hands were working with his belt. The man shucked her pants down her thighs then, after which he went to his haunches and worked them the rest of the way, the woman lifting first one leg and then the other to help him with his task.
As he stood up, she brushed his pants down. He kicked them off his feet and away. He was wearing jockey briefs, but the woman was between him and me and I found her bare backside too interesting to look at anything else.
After they had kissed and loved it up for a while longer, the woman turned suddenly and crawled onto the bed. She flopped to her back and, for the first time, I saw her breasts. They were not very large but not too small, either. They were round, mounding nicely when she lay on her back, and they were neatly capped with rose-beige aureoles. The nipples in their centers had hardly yet begun to lift.
The woman's husband-or whoever he was-quickly took care of that. He bent over her, standing naked beside the bed, and began fingering the points of her breasts. Then he got down on the bed beside her and went at her nipples with his lips. They were hard by then. The woman was panting and squirming, her face screwed up and her legs flexing in the air.
I wanted to tell that guy to do something about those damned legs. Hell, I wanted to do something about them myself!
But the man took care of it. No TV cowboy could have swung into the saddle more gracefully.
As the guy started going, the woman acted as if she was trying to touch the ceiling with her feet ... and then she was riding a bicycle ... and then she was climbing on the underside Of a tree limb.....
And the guy seemed to be trying to drill his way to China!
I sweated.
I heard the bell sound in the living room. I heard it without really thinking about what it meant. Because I didn't give a damn. I didn't give a damn for anything right then but to watch what that guy was doing to that sexy broad and to imagine myself as the one who was doing it.
Dirty? Perverted?
I don't know. Ah I know is that I had never been a peeper but there I was peeping. Maybe it was because of how heated up I'd gotten over Sandi; maybe it was her fault. Maybe it was nothing more than what most guys would have done, given the opportunity. I don't know. But I was watching the banging that was going on and I was enjoying it in a vicarious way and not giving one solitary thought to the fact that a bell had sounded.
And then it happened.
"Hey? Anybody here?"
The door behind me, on the other side of the room, had opened. I bolted upright and froze.
"Heyyyyyyy ... What the...."
I closed the wood panel and whirled around. Grif was standing there in a shaft of light shining from the other room. He was gaping. Then his face lit up in a wild, leering grin and he moved towards me. "What the hell kind of deal have you got here, Rob?"
"Beat it, Grif!" I said, my voice sounding rough as a file on sandpaper.
"Beat it, hell!" he rasped, pushing me aside and reaching for the knob on the sliding panel.
"You can't do that!" I said desperately, tearing at his arm. "The light back there!" I tossed my head toward the open door.
"Then close the door, Rob boy," he said.
I knew there was no use fighting with him. For one thing, I was afraid the people next door would hear us. So I walked to the door and pushed it closed.
Grif pulled back the panel and stuck his head right in front of the glowing glass.
The couple was still going at it and it was hot and heavy by then. The woman had her face turned toward us, her eyes jammed closed, her hair fanned over the pillow, and her heels were drumming against the man's back as she held him by the buttocks.
"Holy Toledo!" Grif breathed as he watched it.
I watched it, too, but it wasn't the same, then. Fear had all but frozen me.
What was going to happen? I asked myself desperately. Ralph's secret was out now and, worse than that, I was involved right up to my eyeballs!
Why had I done it? I asked myself. Why hadn't I been more careful?
It was too late for bemoaning things then. The damage had been done. I turned away before the couple next door had finished and I stood in the darkness, my hands against my face, wishing like hell that I could somehow live over the last half-hour.
CHAPTER EIGHT
"Oooooooo-eeeeeeee!" Grif exclaimed after he had pawed through several of Ralph's albums and had run a reel of his movies on the screen. "This is the damnedest collection I ever saw! There's everything here, Robbie!"
"Yeah," I said. I was feeling more dismal than I had ever remembered.
Grif walked over to me. "Who else knows about this stuff?"
"Ralph ... Norma ... me."
"And me" Grif added with a leer. "Don't forget that."
I didn't say anything.
The big man ambled around the room, sizing up the various pieces of equipment.
"Let's get the hell out of here," I told him. "Why so anxious, Robbie?"
"Why do you think?" I snapped. "Ralph and Norma might be home early. Anyway, I've got to get back to the office."
"Why? The bell hasn't gone off, has it?"
"We've just got to clear out of here, that's all," I said.
"Okay, okay." Grif moved toward the door.
"First we've got to put the stuff back the way we found it," I said.
Grif moved to help me and, in a couple of minutes, the room was in order. We walked out, closed the door, and I led the way to the motel office.
"Y'know," Grif said as he flopped in the extra chair behind the motel counter, "it was a damn good thing I moseyed over here today. I just thought I'd shoot the bull with ya for a little wlule and find out how you were makin' out with the blonde. I had no idea there was anything like this goin' on in the joint."
"What are you going to do about it?" I asked Grif, throwing it at him in much the same way Norma had once thrown the question at me.
Grif slipped a cigar out of his pocket and stripped the paper from it. "It ain't so much what I'm gonna do right now, Robbie, but what you're gonna do."
"I don't follow you," I said warily.
Grif stuck the cigar into his mouth, dug for matches, and lit up. He was taking his time and I waited for whatever it was he intended to spring.
"You're gonna have a little talk with your boss, Robbie," he said at last. "You're gonna wise him up to a coupl'a things."
"Like what?" I demanded.
"Like what you ... and him ... and me are gonna do with all those lovely pictures he's got stashed away in there."
"What do you want to do with them?" I asked slowly. I knew what he had in mind. It could be only one thing.
Grif laughed at me. "What the hell you think, Robbie? We're gonna make ourselves rich, boy-Ralph and me and you, too. I'm insistin' that you get your cut, because you're the one that tipped me off about this whole thing."
I just stared at him.
"Look, you're kind'a young, so I don't know how much you know about stuff like this, but there's a hell of a big business in dirty pictures in this country. Both movies and still shots. Guys pay a pretty penny t'get 'em. And the stuff Ralph has in there is some of the best I've seen. The reason it's so good is that the people weren't actin'. And y'can sure as hell tell the difference, boy. And the pictures are sharp and clear.
"I know a little about this because I've rented this kind'a films for my lodge get-togethers. We've shown 'em in a back room at the tavern. And the guy I've done business with in Fresno has connections in L. A. with the main line of the racket. If I can rent from him, I can sell to him. Get it? He'd go ape to get his hands on the kind'a stuff Ralph has in that room."
"It's out, Grif," I said firmly. "O-U-I. Forget it."
His expression changed. "Oh, no, Robbie. It's not out at all. It's in! I'm in! What I know could put you and your boss both in jail and don't you forget it."
My skin was beginning to crawl. "Look, Grif, Ralph doesn't know that I know anything about that room of his. I just happened onto it. I can't go and talk to him about it."
"Then I will," Grif said.
"Damn it, no!"
"Look, Rob," Grif said, leaning forward and pointing at me with the wet end of his cigar, "let's get this straight, huh? I ain't gonna forget what I saw in there. Understand? So get that out'a your skull. And you and me or one of us is sure as shootin' gonna have a talk with Ralphie. I'll leave it up to you which one it's gonna be."
"Ralph hasn't been doing this as a business," I said.
"It's just the way he gets his kicks. It's a hobby, you might say. He won't stand still for a proposition to sell the stuff. I'm sure of that."
"Oh, yes, he will, Robbie," Grif said. "Because if he don't, he knows I can blow the whistle on him-and on you, too. Don't forget that. He'll stand still for it. He ain't got no choice. And he'll keep grindin' those pictures out, and we'll keep sellin' 'em. Hell, this is a deal that will keep the three of us in clover for years. By the time we quit, we'll have enough dough to hold us for the rest of our lives."
"But the deal won't hold," I said. "As soon as one of the guys in those pictures sees himself in it, he'll raise all kinds of hell."
"Aww, crap!" Grif said. "There ain't one chance in a hundred of that happening. In the first place, it ain't too likely any of the guys in the pictures will ever see them. But, even if they do, d'ya think they'd want to embarrass themselves by kickin' up a fuss? Hell, that's the last thing in the world they'd do, boy! They'd just hide their heads and hope t'hell nobody they know would recognize them. Anyway, not all of those guys were with their wives, kiddo. Don't forget that. That's somethin' else they wouldn't want'a talk about."
"Still it's mighty damned risky. The cops somewhere might get hold of some of the pictures and...."
"And what?" Grif demanded. "You think they can identify this place by those interior shots? Come off it, Rob-they wouldn't even know where t'start lookin'."
Maybe he was right. The racket might prove safer than I had thought. Still, I didn't want anything to do with it. I told him so again.
Grif blew out some cigar smoke and stood up. "Well, you think it over, Rob. There's time. But just remember that if you don't talk t'Ralph, I'm goin' to. And if I have t'do it that way, I'll cut you straight out'a the deal."
I stood and watched the big man walk around the counter and to the front door. "Sweet dreams, boy," he said to me and waved a beefy hand as he let himself out of the office.
A late customer came in right after Grif left and I had to take care of him. Then I walked into the Wolcotts' apartment and checked the door to the photography room. It was locked. I walked into the bedroom and returned the key ring to the place where I had found it in Norma's dresser.
What a mess! I said to myself as I slumped once more behind the motel counter. I had really done it. Of all people to tumble to Ralph's "hobby", it had to be a fast buck artist like Grif Molett! I was sure he had meant business when he'd said he would make trouble if Ralph wouldn't deal with him.
I didn't know what I was going to do.
To make everything just that much worse, I was in a hell of a shape myself. After what had happened the evening before with Sandi, watching the couple next door going at one another had given me such a head of steam that I knew I'd have to find some way to work it off.
Sandi would be home soon, I told myself.
Yeah ... I had a fat chance there, all right! Last night she'd turned it off when we were both flying. Since she wouldn't follow through then, she sure wasn't going to do it now, after a genteel evening with her parents at the home of friends.
I couldn't remember when I'd been in such a bad way.
I sat there and sulked and tried to think of some way of handling Grif Molett without talking to Ralph about his proposition. Finally, at a little after eleven, headlights swung up the driveway and I figured it was the Wolcotts coming home.
I was right.
Ralph and Norma walked in, their faces relaxed and happy, and Sandi came with them. Ralph, who was in a particularly jovial mood, invited me into their apartment to have a nightcap. We drank and visited for a while and no other business drove into the motel.
At quarter of midnight, Sandi stood up. She was wearing a full, pleated broadcloth skirt of light blue and a trim white blouse beneath which her breasts stood like mountain peaks. "I feel like bedtime, folks," she said. "See you in the morning."
"All right, darling," Ralph told her sweetly. Then he glanced at me. "You can turn in, too, if you want to, Rob. There won't be any more business tonight."
"Okay," I said and bid Norma and him goodnight. Then I followed Sandi out of the office and locked the place up.
"Have a nice evening?" I asked her as we walked together toward our rooms. This was the first chance we'd had to talk privately since the evening before.
"It wasn't as much fun as the last one," Sandi told me.
"I'll bet!" Bitterness tinged my voice, coming out more strongly than I had intended. "It isn't every night that you can tease a guy out of his head and then leave him burning."
She looked at me. "Is that what you think?"
"Well, that's what happened, wasn't it?"
She grasped my arm, pulling herself hard against me and letting her right breast jam into my bicep. God, she was firm! She laughed softly-sexily-beside my ear. "It wasn't that way at all, Robbie. I thought you knew about girls."
"What do you mean?" I asked, turning toward her. Our lips were almost touching.
"Yesterday was one of those days."
"No kidding?" I said excitedly. "You mean, otherwise you would have...."
"Couldn't you tell how I was feeling, Robbie?" she asked intently. "Can't you see it in my eyes right now?"
"Darling," I murmured, drawing her close to me. "Oh, baby...." Right out there in the open I held her tight and kissed her with all the hunger that had been building up inside me for the last couple of days. She responded in the same way, her tongue thrusting and bobbing. I slid my right hand down her back and onto her buttocks and they felt wild under that billowy but thin skirt.
That was when I said it-and the hell of it was, I meant it, too: "I love you, Sandi."
"And I love you, Rob," she whispered in return. "Also ... I'm all right today."
All I could think about was getting her into a room. I chose hers. As I urged her toward the door, she didn't protest. I flipped the wall switch, putting on a small lamp, and closed the door. Carefully I adjusted the window shades.
"God, Sandi, how I've wanted you!" I exclaimed as I faced her once more and pulled her up against me.
"And I've wanted you, Rob," she murmured, her voice like dark blue velvet. "Maybe it's a shameless thing to say, but it's true. So why not be honest? When it happened to me, I knew it would happen just like this."
I held her close and kissed the scented softness of her neck. Then I pressed my hands against her back and our mouths met again. Our tongues duelled hotly.
After a minute or so, Sandi pulled away. "Don't waste time," she said. "Just undress me, huh?"
Never in my life had I received a more welcome invitation.
I tore at the buttons down the front of her blouse.
One. Two. I could see her light pink brassiere and how well it was packed. As I got the third button, the backs of my hands brushed her brassiered peaks. Then I pulled the blouse out from beneath the waistband of her skirt. There was one final button right at the bottom and I had to undo that before brushing the blouse off her shoulders and down her arms.
I tore at the self-belt on her skirt, had it open, and pulled the tiny zipper at the side. Her skirt dropped, forming a large blue ring around her feet. She wore a frilly petticoat of pink and white lace which I made short work of, dropping it on top of the skirt.
Then Sandi stood before me in just her pants and brassiere. Both garments were very pale pink, the pants so fight and filmy that I could see through them. They clung to her smooth little belly, and the vee of her loins was as tempting as I had imagined it to be. And during the last couple of days, I had imagined it plenty! Also, she was true blonde.
"Finish it, Robbie," Sandi said. She looked at me in an anxious, open-eyed way that was little-girlish and sophisticated all at the same time. She was a maddening creature, her hair wound around the top of her head in a gorgeous blonde mop and lying partially over one shoulder and down her back.
I moved up to her, reached around to her back, and yanked at the hook fasteners on her overloaded brassiere.
"Mmmmmm," she said in a tremulous little lilt as the hooks gave way and I drew the bra ribbons down her arms.
My mouth dropped open. I couldn't help it. I swear that never in all my life had I seen such a completely gorgeous pair of breasts. They were big ones-oh, 39's, anyway-but they stood right up and out there. That was the thing. There was practically no sag about them. They were like the kind you see on the cartoon babes in the men's magazines and better than you hardly ever see in real life. They were, at the same time, thoroughly rounded and as full as you please. And her nipples....
I could say a lot about Sandi's nipples alone. First, their aureoles capped each white thrusting mound as if she had bent over a tub of cherry juice and let her bazooms hang downward into it. And right in the center of each wide ring, a tough little nipple sat. They were round and crinkly and looked as if they could stand out half-an-inch. I decided to see....
I put out my two hands, fingers pointing upward, and extended a thumb beneath each big breast while my fingers slipped up their outer sides. Then I tightened my grip around them and felt the luscious yielding of her flesh. It was like taking hold of a couple of smooth-skinned footballs. I squeezed them, released, squeezed and released. Sandi put her head back slightly and closed her eyes.
As I worked her breasts harder and harder, I let my fingers slip towards the nipples which were then half-erect. I worked the breasts all the way out until I finally had just Sandi's nipples between my forefingers and thumbs. I pulled at them gently, as if I was trying to free a couple of stuck doorbell buttons. Out they came.
They stood way out-like bright red rocks! But they were yielding, too. They were more like little nubs of bubble gum.
"Take off my pants, Robbie," Sandi finally said as she began squirming.
So I let her breasts stand by themselves for a moment, which they did nicely, pointing at me like a couple of big guns, and I dropped my hands to her waist at either side. I caught the very thin elastic of her panties and hauled it down. I quickly bent in front of her to carry her pale pink pants down her thighs and past her knees. Then I gathered them in my hands, stretching each leg hole in turn so that she could lift her shoes through. She stepped to the side and I threw her pants onto the chair where her bra and blouse already lay. Then I picked her slip and skirt off the rug and lay them with the other clothes. Except for her high-heeled shoes, Sandi was completely nude.
As I stood up in front of her and began to tear at my own sport shirt, Sandi turned, presenting a tantalizing view of her rounded and outcurving backside. It was pinkish white in color and as smooth as a baby's. The cleft that separated her two mounds was deep and tight.
She bent slightly to strip the bedspread down off her bed and then to take off the blanket and top sheet. While she did that, I threw my shirt away and then dropped my trousers and shorts, kicking them to one side.
She half-turned to face me, let her eyes sweep the length of my naked body, and smiled in what seemed to be a look of anticipation. Then she almost leaped onto the bed, her stiff-pointed bosom tossing. She landed on a knee and pivoted to a sitting position. Before she could stretch out on her back, I was down on the bed beside her and had pulled her around so that her back was against my chest. Before the final round started, I wanted to have one more go at her breasts. I slipped my hands beneath her arms and to her front and took one in each of my hands and began to knead and squeeze them slowly.
Now, there are all kinds and there are assorted words to describe them. For instance, there are boobs and there are knockers. Sandi's were large and round, softly firm, and perfectly nippled. Sandi's were perfect. That was the only word that did them justice.
I squeezed them and she moaned and murmured.
"You like that, baby?" I asked her breathlessly.
"Oh, yes ... yesssssss, Robbie...."
Suddenly I relaxed the pressure and held my hands loosely beneath them, my palms just touching their undersides and my fingers extended loosely up in front of them.
"Move them, honey," I whispered.
She twisted her shoulders and shook them back and forth. They bounded like crazy, the nipples dragging back and forth across my fingers.
She stopped shaking and I held my hands where they were.
"Squeeze them some more," she said.
I pressed them lightly with just my fingertips, enjoying the delicious give of them with the firmness underneath. "They're beauties!" I said passionately.
"Mmmmmmmm...." She put her head back on my shoulder.
"More, darling," she pleaded, after my fingers had stopped and I held her large breasts quietly and looked down at their thrusting, rose-nippled whiteness. Her nipples had become a half-inch long, I decided.
Impetuously Sandi placed each of her hands on the backs of mine and pressed them hard to her again. "Oooohhhh, that's it!" she hissed in ecstasy. "Oh, squeeze them until I just go crazy!"
I squeezed them.
She moaned and wriggled and tossed her hair against my shoulder.
"They're lovely," I told her, still working them vigorously.
"I used to think they were too big," she murmured. "Oh, no!"
"Kiss me now, Robbie," she said, turning to bite my ear.
I grasped her shoulders, turned her to face me, and bent in front of her. I grasped her bosom in my two hands and lowered my mouth to its surging flesh. It was sweet. I went to her neck and did the same thing.
"Now shake them some more," I told her as I held my mouth there.
She shook them and the nipples dragged back and forth across my parted lips.
"Ooh!" she exclaimed. "Oh, they never felt so big and bursting!"
Then I eased her onto her back.
Her legs made room for me and I moved up to her, pausing just a moment to let my fingers caress the velvet area toward which I was headed. Then, my fingers helping and my other hand helping also, I moved into union with her.
She gasped pleasurably and her legs moved up to clamp around me.
I began, wanting to take it slow and steady. But I couldn't do that for long. Sandi wouldn't let me. She thrust and revolved and squirmed, her entire body alive and moving.
Her mouth was open and her eyes were open, too. I held myself on straight arms to watch the passion on her face. Suddenly she grasped a large trembling breast between her hands and shoved it up to me.
"Kiss it!" she demanded. "Kiss it while you go at me!"
As is usually the case with women who have her degree of development up there, her breasts were as sexually sensitive as any other part of her body. So I bent my head to the side and, without breaking rhythm, pressed my mouth down to the red nipple she was thrusting up at me.
She cried out with joy as my lips and tongue took it and I kept loving her both ways until she began to emit a series of sharp little cries and her whole body tightened beneath and around me.
I moved for ah I was worth ... jolting, jolting, jolting.
Finally she screamed, her breast bobbed free, and we got to glory together.
CHAPTER NINE
We lay there in the silent darkness, enjoying the satisfaction of each other's nearness, and for a long time neither of us spoke.
Finally Sandi said, "I had no idea it could be so wonderful. It was never this way before."
"The difference is love," I told her.
I had always shied away from that word because it had represented confinement-an end to the freewheeling, go-where-you-want, bang-whbm-you-please kind of life I'd enjoyed. But a guy can't live that kind of life forever. Now I no longer wanted to.
"Robbie?"
"Yes, darling." I nibbled at Sandi's earlobe. It was as sweet and fresh and lovely as the rest of her.
"Are you sure you love me?"
"I've never been more sure of anything," I told her. "Mmmmmmmm...." she said softly and nuzzled me.
"You're the loveliest, most wonderful girl I've ever met and I'm wild about you."
"Oh, how I like to hear you say things like that!" she responded.
"It scares me a little," I said, "to think that it happened so fast."
Sandi replied, "I knew that when I found the right man it would hit me like an explosion in the stars." She planted warm little kisses along my neck. "And you're the right man for me, ange!"
In a surprisingly short rime we were ready to make love again. This time it was different than the first frantic mating. This rime we each let it build slowly.
I kissed Sandi from head to toe, and had her turn over so that I could trail my lips up the backs of her legs and so that I could pet and fondle her lovely cheeks and kiss them. When I eased her back-downward on the bed again, I spent some further time at the rose-dpped wonders that were her breasts. And then she was ready for me.
I moved on top of her and her lower body lifted in search of mine. We touched and she moaned softly and then, in a single thrust, I became fully a part of her and she seemed to shudder all over at the thrill of it and she raised her satin legs to clasp me.
We began moving Once more.
The first time had been like a rocket blast, but now it was more like a slow chugging train ride. Gradually, as the train began to climb, the chugging increased in tempo. Up ... up ... up. After an agonizing length of time, it reached the crest and suddenly seemed to jump the tracks and be floating.
We remained clasped together, my mouth against Sandi's soft blonde hair and her arms around me, and we said nothing. Talk would have been meaningless and empty.
I had scarcely lifted myself from her and rolled onto my back when Sandi's smooth, even breathing told me that she was asleep. I drew the sheet and blanket over her nude body and stood up. In the darkness I began to dress.
I didn't want to spend the night in her room. I was concerned that Ralph or Norma might come to see her first thing in the morning. Anyway, I had to think. I knew that sleep was not going to take me.
In my own room I had a drink and then sat down with a cigarette and wondered what the hell I could do to get Grif Molett off my back ... and what the future offered for Sandi and me. I hadn't just been telling Sandi what she'd wanted to hear a little while ago. I had meant every word I had spoken to her.
It was love, all right-the capital L kind. I was crazy for her and there was no possibility of my walking away this time.
So what was the answer? Why did Sandi and I have to be fouled up by the problem of her father and Grif?
As much as I racked my brain, I couldn't see a way out of it. Grif was a greedy, unscrupulous bastard, and the situation with Ralph and his oddball "hobby" was made to Grif's order. I didn't figure it would do any good to try to persuade him to forget about it. That would have been like trying to persuade a wolf to forget a herd of sheep he had spotted in a meadow.
And Ralph ... if I were to go to him and tell him that I knew about his "hobby" and had accidentally let Grif find out about it, I was sure he would panic. Who knows what would follow after that. Whatever it would be, I knew it wouldn't be good for Sandi and me.
So what could I do?
There was one thing I felt I had to do and that was to tell Norma. She had let me in on Ralph's secret in the beginning and she was mixed up in it herself. I felt I owed her the chance at least to protect herself, if there was a way to do it. She could leave Ralph, but I was pretty certain she wouldn't.
It was for damned sure that I wasn't going to take part in the dirty business that Grif had proposed. What was more, I couldn't see Ralph agreeing to it, either. But neither could I see Grif giving up. I had no idea what the outcome of it all would be.
I sat and smoked and then got up and paced for a while. I didn't feel the least bit sleepy.
If it hadn't been for Sandi, my course would have been clear. I would have packed my things and hitched a ride out of Linden the next morning.
But now I couldn't do that. And I couldn't, in good conscience, try to persuade Sandi to leave town with me while her father was in a mess that I had helped make for him. Of course, it had really been his own doing. Even if I hadn't let Grif learn the truth of what was going on in the motel, it would have come out eventually in some other way. A thing like that can't be kept hidden forever. Still, I felt damned sorry to have been the one to spill it.
If there had only been a way out-something that I could have done. But I couldn't see any.
In the morning-after having dozed in the chair for altogether no more than a couple of hours-I shaved and showered, then dressed and went immediately to see Norma. The station wagon was not parked in front of the motel office, so I was certain that Ralph was away.
As far as my job at Grif's shop was concerned, I decided to hell with that. Grif and I were through.
The door of the motel office was open and I walked in. I waited for a minute and Norma appeared. She was carrying a coffee cup in her hand and she looked at me questioningly.
"Well ... no job today?" she asked me.
"I have to talk with you, Norma," I said. "Are you alone?"
"Mm-hmm." She eyed me carefully. Her attitude was something less than pleasant. "I don't know what we could have to talk about, Rob."
"We have plenty to talk about," I told her. "And I don't think you'd care to have it discussed out here."
She looked at me for a couple more seconds, then made a slight motion of her head toward the apartment and turned back inside. I followed her and closed the door between her living room and the office.
"Coffee?" she asked as if she figured the invitation was one she had to extend but she didn't much care if I accepted it or not.
I needed a cup right then. I said, "Yes, thanks."
I followed Norma out to the kitchen where she took a pryex cup off a shelf and poured from a gleaming percolator.
"Now, what's the big problem?" Norma asked as I sipped the brew.
"Somebody else knows about Ralph's hobby," I told her.
Her face tightened. "Who?" she demanded. "Think of all the people in this town and tell me the one you'd least want to have know about it."
"Don't play games with me, Rob," she said. "Okay," I told her. "It's Grif Molett."
"Oh, no!" she cried out. "It's true."
"How the hell did it happen?" she demanded. "Did you tell him?" She stared at me as if she could hardly believe I had, but could think of no other explanation.
"No. But it was my fault that he found out. I was in Ralph's room last night when both of you were away. Grif walked into the apartment and caught me."
"Rob!"
"I'm sorry, Norma. I wouldn't have had it happen for the world."
Norma sank to a chair and stared dully down at the coffee cup in her hand.
"The worst part of it," I continued, "is that Grif wants to go into business with Ralph selling the stuff. He asked me to put the proposition up to Ralph. When I said I couldn't do that, he threatened to see Ralph himself. He said that if Ralph wouldn't cooperate with him, he'd blow the whistle on the whole set-up."
"You stupid fool, Rob!" Norma railed.
"I guess I deserve that," I told her.
"How could you have done such a crazy thing-to leave the office unattended and then not even to lock the connecting door?"
"I don't know," I said. "A hot-looking broad came in and I put her in Unit I. The only thing I could think about was getting a glimpse of her with her pants off. I ransacked your bedroom until I found the key to Ralph's door. I guess I just took it for granted nobody would come walking into the apartment."
Norma took a ragged breath, then let it flow out from her and put her face against her hand.
"I'm very sorry," I told her once again. "And I can't see what the hell to do about it. Grif s not the kind to give up easy when he sees a chance to make a pile of loot. He has a contact, he told me, with a guy in Fresno who deals in this kind of stuff. Grif figures on setting up a permanent deal with the guy and keeping him supplied with movies and stills on a regular basis-selling them as fast as Ralph can grind them out."
"Oh, that rotten louse...." Norma exclaimed.
"Damned if I can see a way out," I told her.
"There's a way out for you, all right," she said, raising her head and speaking bitterly. "You can just run. Ralph and I are the ones in the wringer."
"No," I told her. "I'm not running."
"Why not?" She asked. She stared at me. "You were thinking about running out before, when I first told you about what Ralph was doing here."
"I know, but things are different now."
"In what way?"
Well, here goes, I told myself. She might as well have the complete picture.
"Sandi and I are in love with each other," I said.
Norma drew back as if she had just had her face slapped. "No."
"It's one of those things, Norma," I said limply. "I couldn't help it. Neither of us could."
"You bastard!"
"
"Easy, now," I warned.
"You are!" she exclaimed, her voice rising. Tears began to form in her eyes. "You are a complete bastard!"
"I wouldn't let many people call me a name like that," I said.
"For Ralph's sake," she told me, "I'm not going to let you have Sandi. You'll ruin her life."
"She doesn't think so," I said.
"No," Norma snapped bitterly, "of course she doesn't. What does she know? She's just a kid. You're smooth, and she likes the feel of that big thing you've got and the way you use it. I know how it happened, because I went the route."
"Don't be silly, Norma," I said. "There was never anything between us but kicks. You know that. I made that clear to you at the beginning."
"Kicks ... yeah," she said, her voice dripping with acid.
"Don't try to upset Sandi and me," I warned her. "The girl is old enough to know what she's doing and old enough to make up her own mind."
Norma set down her coffee cup, arose, and walked across the room. I stood where I was and continued sipping the coffee.
"You've made a pretty mess for us, Rob," she said, her back still turned to me.
I didn't answer. To my way of thinking, the mess was there long before I came along.
She whirled. "You keep out of it from now on, do you understand? Leave Grif Molett to me."
"I never had any intention of getting mixed up in it," I told her. "I felt I should tell you about Grif because you were the one who showed me Ralph's setup. Of course, if you hadn't, I'd have tumbled to it, anyway. But that's neither here nor there. It's your baby now, Norma-yours and Ralph's. Of course, if there's any way I can help you, I will."
"You've already helped plenty!" she said.
"Okay." I finished my coffee and set the cup down. "I guess there's nothing more to be said."
"Are you going to work this morning?" Norma asked, following me out through the living room.
"No."
"You quitting?"
"Hell, yes."
"Why?"
"Because I don't care for Grif Molett's guts," I told her.
"What are you going to tell him?" she wanted to know.
"Probably just that."
"Don't talk to him about this other."
"Don't worry."
At the outside door, I turned to face her. "I still want to be friends, Norma." She just looked at me.
"I really like you a lot. I'm sorry about this trouble."
She didn't say anything, but kept eyeing me, her mouth set in a very firm line.
"You know, the one best way out of this thing for both Ralph and yourself would be for him to burn all the stuff he's got in that room and fix that peephole. Molett couldn't do anything, then. If he told anyone, there'd be no evidence and nothing would be done."
"Thanks for the advice, Rob," she said. "You don't think Ralph would do it, huh?" I asked. "I won't ask him to."
"Why the hell not?"
"Because I love him, and I want him to live his life the way he wants to." She hesitated. "You wouldn't understand a kind of love like that, I guess. Because we have no sex together, you think we have no marriage. Well, you're wrong, Rob. Ralph and I have a lot. And I'm not going to see it destroyed."
"You think that making Ralph give up his dirty hobby would destroy it?"
"It would take the kick out of life for him," she said, then added, "I won't let that happen."
"Okay, Norma. Maybe you know what you're doing.
I walked away from there with the feeling that Norma and Ralph had probably the craziest marriage I'd ever heard about.
CHAPTER TEN
I went to Molett's place, walking past the curio shop which was closed tight, and on into the tavern. There were a couple of guys at the bar and a man and woman at one of the tables. I sat at the bar myself and when Carl, the lanky barman, came over I asked him if Grif was around.
"Unh-uh," Carl said. "He drove into Fresno. Be back about noon, he said."
"All right. Give me a beer."
As he drew it, he asked, "Aren't you running the shop today?"
"Nope."
"Why?"
"That's between Grif and me," I said.
Carl, rebuffed, made a so-what facial gesture and set my beer in front of me. I paid for it and lifted the glass to take a sip, dunking to myself that I was having one hell of a breakfast-a cup of coffee and a glass of beer.
The beer didn't taste bad, though.
When I'd finished it, I walked out and took my time returning to the motel. Right then I missed not having a car. I didn't want to sit around the motel room, and I didn't want to talk to anybody-even Sandi.
I wondered what Norma planned to do about Grif. She had something in mind, I figured, but I had no idea what it could be.
She and Ralph were in a mess, all right, any way you looked at it.
After I'd been in the room for a while, I decided that Sandi must have gone up to see Norma-or gone somewhere-because, not only did she not come to see me, I didn't hear any moving around next door. I tried to read but couldn't sustain any interest in the paperback and finally threw it down. I spent the rest of the morning smoking and alternately pacing and sitting.
At quarter of twelve I walked out and up the road to Grif's tavern again. This time, when I approached the curio shop, I saw him in there. He was waiting on a couple of customers.
I walked in and stood to one side until the people had left.
"So what the hell happened t'you?" Grif growled as he came over to me.
"I'm through," I told him. "Yeah?"
"You can pay me the base wage I have coming and forget about the percentage deal," I said. I had worked three days since payday.
"What brought this on?" he asked, glowering at me.
"I'll give you one guess."
"Don't be a damned fool, Rob," he said. He looked at me for a minute and his eyes began to light up a little. "I was in t'see that guy in Fresno this morning-the one I told you about. He's hot t'go. Says he can handle all the stuff I can give him." Grif paused again. "You talk to Ralph yet?"
"No and I'm not going to."
His face hardened. "You are a fool, boy!"
"Pay me so I can get the hell out of here," I clipped.
He stood there for a few moments, leaning slightly forward and glowering, his hands hooked in the back pockets of his pants, then he turned and walked to the cash register. He punched the drawer open. ."Three days," he said. "Right?" I
"Yeah."
He handed me two tens and two fives. "Worry about your own income tax," he told me.
"Thanks." I pocketed the money and turned to leave.
"Maybe y'thought I was just slingin' bull when I said I'd go to Ralph myself, huh?" he asked, talking to my back.
I didn't answer him and opened the door.
"You're cuttin' your own throat, boy," he yelled after me.
I walked out and closed the door.
As I passed the motel office, Sandi ran out and met me. In white short shorts and a blue sweater-like top, she looked delicious. "Hi, Rob," she said happily. "No work today?"
"The job petered out," I told her.
She came up to me and pressed herself into my arms. I clasped her warmly and we shared a kiss that was almost powerful enough to make me feel good again. I knew one thing-the world was a lot better place when I had Sandi's lush and wonderful body pressed up against mine.
When our kiss had ended, she whispered breathlessly, "How would you like to go on a picnic, baby?
Dad and Norma and I are just getting ready to take off."
"Better count me out," I said, clasping her around the waist and walking a few steps with her that way. I could feel her full, taut-muscled buttocks moving just below my fingers and I remembered how they had felt the night before when Sandi hadn't had any clothes on.
"Why, Rob?' she asked. "That's family stuff, baby. I'd be butting in."
"No, you wouldn't, honey," Sandi assured me. "I'm sure Dad and Norma would love to have you."
"Well, maybe some other time," I said. "Okay," she agreed.
We stopped walking and I pulled Sandi around in front of me, plastering my body tightly against hers again. That skimpy outfit she was wearing was almost like nothing. "Love me?" I asked as we touched noses.
"Like crazy," she said.
We kissed again.
Later, lying on my bed in Room 4, I thought about her for a long time and then I picked up the paperback I had been reading and managed to plow through another thirty or forty pages. Then it lost me and, for want of anything better, I flipped on the TV set and tuned the local UHF channels until I looked in on an old Bob Hope movie. I watched that to its ending, then went back to the novel again.
Somehow I made it through the afternoon or, at least, most of it. It was around four o'clock when there was a rapping on my door and I opened it to admit Norma.
"Hi," I said, surprised that she should be paying me a visit.
She walked in quickly and dropped to a chair, crossing her legs. She was dressed in her usual style-blouse and capris.
I closed the door and said, "To what do I owe the pleasure?"
"I've just seen Grif," she stated. "I thought I ought to tell you so you could relax-although why I give a damn whether you sleep or not is beyond me."
"You mean you've straightened things out with him?" I asked incredulously.
She nodded and began casting her eyes about my room. I figured she wanted a cigarette so I went to get a pack, asking at the same time, "How the hell did you swing that?"
"Don't talk to anyone about it," she said in a warning tone, her eyes holding mine.
I stuck a pack of Pall Malls out to her and she took one. "I don't talk out of turn, Norma."
She waited until I had lit her cigarette and my own, and then she said, "I agreed to give him what he wants."
"You-what?"
"Ralph won't know the difference," she said. "I can sneak the movies and stills out of his collection, a few at a time, and Grif can run them into Fresno where the man he's going to work with can have them copied. It can be done the same day and Grif can get Ralph's pictures back to me before night."
"But you can't do that without Ralph's knowledge," I said.
"I have to. He'd never agree to it."
"And you think that's the only way out?"
"Can you see any other?" she asked.
"I told you this morning," I reminded her.
"That's no good. Ralph mustn't know about this trouble at all."
"I think you're very foolish," I said. "This is going to be damned risky for you."
"I don't think so," she said. "I agree with Grif that it's safe. I didn't want to do anything like this but, now that Grif's found out what's going on, I haven't any choice."
"So you and he are partners, hm?"
"Yes," she said.
I looked at her for a moment. "How far does that partnership extend?"
"That's no concern of yours," she snapped.
"No, I guess it isn't. I'm just curious."
She smoked silently and I didn't press the matter. I had a pretty good idea that Grif would be getting to her ... if he hadn't already. He liked her looks-he'd let me know that-and she was in the market now that I had dropped her for Sandi.
I laughed inwardly. That really made for a cozy situation, I decided-Ralph snapping pictures of unsuspecting couples in the motel, Norma sneaking them out and giving them to Grif to sell, and Norma and Grif jazzing up a storm on the side. It was funny as hell. And it stunk!
"Well, lots'a luck, baby," I said as I squashed out my cigarette.
Norma stood up. "Incidentally, I think you'd better find yourself another spot."
"Does that come from you or from Ralph?"
"From me," she said. "Ralph won't care much, one way or the other."
"He might," I said. I'll bet he's liked this set-up the last couple of weeks-not having to run back and forth from his dark room to take care of the office, or having to make you do it for him. From now on, you won't be able to, anyway-you'll be too busy with Grif."
Norma swung her arm as hard as she could, swiping a stinging slap across the side of my face.
Rage blossomed in me. I yanked her wrist, pulling her half-around, and flailed my hand at her fanny. When it connected, it sounded like a rifle shot in the open air.
"Ooww!" she yelled.
I let her go. "Watch out who you're slapping, baby."
She faced me. "I hate you, Rob!"
"You do, really?" I gave her a grin.
She was still hot for me. Hell, I told myself, I could tumble her on my bed right then and there if I wanted to.
"You're the lowest animal I've ever seen," she said.
"Ha-ha," I said softly, still giving her the grin.
"I want you out of this place right now," she raged. "I can't stand the sight of you!"
I stepped close to her, grasped her wrist again and held it up, making her look at me. "You don't really mean that, Norma," I said smoothly. "You still go for me. I can see it in those hot eyes of yours."
"No!" She made a fist of her free hand and hammered it against my chest.
I laughed and continued to hold her.
"You egotistical bum!" she yelled at me.
I looked at her more seriously. "I don't like to be called names," I said. "You keep talking like that and I may have to do something-you may force me to it."
"Bum! Bum! Bum!" Her face was flushed and her body tight with excitement as she almost screamed the word at me.
"All right, baby," I said. "I warned you."
I sat down on the bed, at the same time nipping her around and down over my knees. She squirmed and kicked, but I succeeded in holding her in place by means of an arm tight across her upper back. I raised my right hand and brought it down against her thinly covered bottom.
Norma squealed.
I spanked her and spanked her and she kicked and hollered like crazy. I knew that Sandi, if she was in her room next door, could hear the racket and would probably think I was committing rape. But right then I didn't care. I wanted to teach Norma a lesson and at the same time, I guess, work out some of the frustrated rage that had accumulated within me-rage for Grif Molett and old Ralph Wolcott and, yes, for Norma, too. It made me mad to think that Norma would make a deal with Grif behind her husband's back ... and it made me mad to think of her in the sack with Grif. I don't know why. I certainly had no claim to her and didn't want one. But I sure as hell got a charge out of paddling her little butt right then!
When I finally stopped spanking and released my left arm, Norma rolled off my knees and onto the carpeted floor. She rolled over a second time, stretched out on her belly, and lay there sobbing. I stood up, looked down at her for a few moments, then reached to the nightstand to get my cigarettes.
I lit up and sat in a chair. Neither one of us spoke. Norma cried quietly.
"When I leave," I said finally, "Sandi's going with me. I think Ralph would like it better if we stayed on for a few more days, rather than to cut her visit so short. Do you agree?"
Norma didn't answer.
"I'm sorry it had to come to this between us," I added. "But nobody rubs my nose in it. I didn't mistreat you, Norma. If you fell for me, that was your lookout. As far as I was concerned, it was only fun and games. You're married and there's a difference in our ages. You're an attractive woman-and, damn it, I still like you-but there was never any future for us."
I walked over, bent down, and raised her to her feet. "Now, be a good girl, will you?"
She gave me a quick look, dabbed at her eyes, and stomped to the door, twisting her backside impudently. She let herself out without saying a word.
Three minutes later there was a soft rapping at the door. I opened it.
Sandi stood there, still wearing the white short-shorts and blue jersey top that was thin and right enough to make her breasts stick out like torpedoes. Her eyes reproached me. "What was all that going on in here?" she asked.
"Come on in," I said, holding the door open and stepping aside.
She walked in. I looked at her fancy buttocks as they undulated past and desire began to spread in my loins.
Sandi sat down and lifted one lush leg over the other, which pulled her short-shorts so high on one underthigh that I could see the leg elastic of her silken panties. "Well, Mister Elmore?" she asked.
"It was your step-mother," I said.
"That I know. I peeked as she was leaving."
"She came back here and started calling me names. I wouldn't stand still for it and gave her a spanking."
Amusement flickered in Sandi's eyes and around her mouth. She wriggled her bottom on the chair. "You spanked her, hm?"
"Yeah."
"I didn't know you were such a caveman type," Sandi said.
"You'd be surprised."
She looked at me for a few moments. "Why would Norma be calling you names?"
"You've got me," I said. "She told me I was through around here and asked me to leave. I said I thought it was up to your father to give me notice if I was going to get one, and she got real angry."
"Huh! Imagine that."
"I think she's trying to break us up, cupcake," I said, moving closer to her.
Sandi uncrossed her legs and stood on them. She pressed against me. "She'll never be able to do that."
"I hope not," I said, putting my arms around her and immediately dropping my right hand to feel and caress the lush curves of her bottom. Under those thin tight shorts and her thinner, tighter underpants, she felt like a million dollars.
"Mmmmmmm ... angel...." Sandi whispered. "Maybe you'll get mad and spank me some time, hm?"
"Maybe I will," I said. "Would you like it?"
"I might."
I petted her some more, then put both hands at her waist, worked them under her thin jersey at the back, and slipped them up and around to the front until her large brassiered breasts were in my hands. Damn, I'd never get tired of holding and feeling them!
We didn't say much after that. In moments I had the jersey up over her head and thrown away and then I began unfastening her shorts. As I did it, Sandi undid the buttons down the front of my shirt. Her shorts dropped to the floor and she stepped out of them. Then I shrugged my shirt off.
She was a dream standing there in white brassiere and matching tissue-thin panties.
I put my hands on my belt but she said, "No ... let me."
I didn't argue.
She unbuckled the belt, unfastened the top of my pants, and de-zipped the fly. My pants dropped and I kicked them away.
We embraced passionately, her smooth belly sliding and rotating against me, our mouths stuck together, and our tongues speaking to one another in the most direct way that tongues can ... soundlessly. I held and handled the nylon-covered cheeks of her bottom and then lifted my hands to the clasp on the back of her brassiere. I unhooked it. We stopped kissing and I backed up to take her bra away.
Again her white, round, high-standing breasts were bare and trembling in front of me. The deep pink nipples were crinkly and there were little goose bumps in the paler aureoles that ringed them. Slowly I reached up and captured as much of them as possible in each of my hands and I began kneading.
"Oohh, you really know how to treat them," Sandi said to me.
I kept working and let the friction of my thumbs across their peaks tease her nipples into startling erection. She had the highest and brightest nipples I had ever seen.
"Wow! You sure have a beautiful set," I told her heatedly.
"You said that last night," Sandi reminded me.
"And I'll keep saying it," I said, still kneading them in my fingers. "I'll say it every day and every night and...."
I stopped talking when Sandi's hands found me, which wasn't difficult for them to do right then.
I released her breasts and we kissed some more while I slipped my hands down her back and caught the waist elastic of her panties. I moved it downward, slowly denuding her hips and pouting buttocks. I had to bend slightly to carry her pants on down her thighs and away. I kissed her bare thighs, then stood up and shucked my shorts down. It took me another few seconds to throw off my shoes and socks and, by the time I was finished, Sandi had taken a position on my bed.
It was the classic position of women who are ready to be made love to. But I wasn't quite ready for that phase, yet.
I said, "Turn over, baby."
She turned over.
I feasted my eyes on the glory of her round, smooth, curving buttocks, separated by a crevice that started high and was deep and tight. I traced it with my fingertips and caressed her entire body with both of my hands, feeling and watching the taut, springy tremble of her youthful flesh. Then I bent and kissed her.
After that I was ready for her to turn back. I helped her with my hands.
Her knees up, her heels digging into the bed, she offered her treasure to me. I lowered myself to her and plundered it.
"Ooh!" she said as I became part of her.
And then we started going.
And going.
And it was just as terrific as the night before-better, maybe.
I had not the slightest doubt in the world that Sandi was the girl I had wanted ever since I was twelve years old.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
That evening I worked in the motel office as usual, though I had not taken dinner with the Wolcotts. I had eaten at the cafe up the road.
Ralph was friendly as ever when I showed up at eight o'clock, but he immediately left the office and went into his dark room. I assumed that he had lined up his "subjects" for that night because the key to Unit I was not in the box.
A few minutes later, Norma emerged from the living room and said nothing to me as she walked around the registration counter and out through the front entrance. I settled down with a copy of the Fresno Bee, which I had picked up at the cafe, and began to read.
During the first forty-five minutes, two parties arrived to rent rooms and there was a phone call from a prospective guest in a town down the road who wanted to know if we had any vacancies. I told him we had but, when he asked to reserve one, I said my instructions didn't permit me to hold a room without a cash deposit. He said he would reach Linden in about forty-five minutes and hoped we would still have a room available. I expressed a similar hope and hung up.
I wasn't so concerned that evening about the situation at the Linden Lodge. Norma thought she had it in hand as far as Grif Molett was concerned. By the time the thing blew up, as I knew damned well it would some day, I would be long gone ... and Sandi with me, I hoped.
I wondered if I owed it to Sandi to tell her about the mess-after ah, her father was involved-but decided firmly against it. I had no right. It wasn't my business. And, anyway, what could Sandi do? I decided that for her to know would only make things worse.
Ralph remained in his "work" room and it looked as if he would be there for the evening. I read my paper, the clock at the end of the counter furnishing the only sound to be heard.
Until Sandi arrived, that is.
I recognized the purr of her Corvette as headlights swept the front of the motel. Moments later, she came through the door like a hurricane. Her face was twisted in worried concern.
"Hey, what's the matter?" I asked.
"Where's Dad?" she demanded.
"In his dark room," I said, nodding my head in that direction. As far as Sandi knew, he used the room to develop and print the pictures he took of the wild life in the woods. Wild life! He specialized in that, all right, but it was a different kind of wild life altogether.
She walked to the end of the counter, pushed the little gate, and walked around to where I had risen to my feet. She was dressed that evening in a red-and-white checkered shirt and beige ranch pants.
She moved up very close to me and whispered, "Rob, something terrible is happening."
I wondered what she had stumbled onto.
"Easy, now," I said. "Sit down. Tell me about it."
She sat, then leaned forward and spoke as softly as possible. "I just saw Norma. I'd been out for a drive and stopped for gas at the station across from the tavern. Norma came walking up the road and looked around but I guess she didn't see me. She walked along the side of the tavern building to the house that's right behind it. She didn't go to the front door but to a door at the side. She rapped and a man opened it. A man, Rob. She walked right inside. Rob, I've been parked up the street all this time-that was about an hour ago-and Norma hasn't come out."
I cleared my throat and looked down at my hands.
"Well, say something, can't you?" Sandi demanded.
"What is there to say?" I asked, then added lamely, "There's probably a perfectly good explanation."
"Oh, there's a good explanation, ah right," Sandi said sarcastically. "She's two-timing my father. She's a cheating slut!"
"Take it easy," I said, grasping her arm.
"Who lives in that house, Rob-do you know?"
"Yeah," I said. She could have found out from anyone in Linden.
"Who?"
"Guy named Grif Molett. He owns the tavern and the curio shop. I used to work for him."
"What's he like?" Sandi asked. "He's a man," I said.
"Oh, that Norma!" Sandi was seething. "How could she treat Daddy this way?"
"You shouldn't jump to conclusions, Sandi," I cautioned. "Grif is married. Norma's probably just visiting him and his wife."
"Crap!" Sandi said. "She went to a side door and the door opened right away. Inside the house looked almost dark. Norma walked in quickly and the door closed. No lights went on. What does that look like?"
"I wouldn't know," I said, wondering how long I could keep acting like a jackass.
"Oh, Rob, come off it!" Sandi studied me silently or a few moments and then said, "Hey, do you know omething about this?" She reached to take hold of my hand. "Rob, look at me."
"Yeah?"
"Do you know anything about this?" she repeated.
"I don't think it's any of my business, Sandi," I said.
"Well, it's my business! After all, my father is involved, isn't he? If you know what's been going on, you ought to tell me."
"Even if something is going on, what can you do?" asked her.
"I can tell my father," she said, straightening up. "I know how you feel, honey," I said, "but think about it a minute-would it really make things better o tell him?"
"Rob ... how can you talk this way?" Sandi seemed hocked by my attitude. "He's her husband; she's his wife. He certainly should know if...."
"Sandi, look-your father's a lot older than Norma. Maybe that has something to do with it."
"I don't see that it has anything to do with it at all," she retorted angrily.
"Keep your voice down," I warned. "He'll hear you."
"He'll hear me anyway in just a few minutes," Sandi said, but somewhat softer. "I'm going right in there and tell him what I saw."
"Please, Sandi...."
She looked at me closely. "You did know about it, didn't you?"
"Look, if I tell you what I know-everything-will you promise to think it over carefully before you go busting in there and talk to your father?"
"Rob...." She looked at me in concern, my words and tone apparently having succeeded in conveying the idea that the situation was worse than she had thought.
"Do you promise?" I repeated.
"Yes," she said softly.
"Okay."
Telling her seemed to be the only way to keep her from breaking things wide open. I hadn't wanted to do it, but now it looked like the lesser of the evils. I figured that, when she had heard all of it, she would conclude that there was nothing she could do.
"Norma's got a thing going with Grif Molett, all right," I said and watched Sandi's face tighten. "I don't know how far she's involved with him. Whatever's going on, it just started. Crazy as it sounds, Norma took up with Molett to try to protect your father."
I could tell, from the way Sandi looked at me, that I might as well have asked her to believe that storks bring babies.
"Your father has a peculiar hobby, Sandi," I said, speaking very quietly so that our conversation could not be overheard in the photography room.
"What are you talking about?" she demanded.
"His photography."
"What's peculiar about that?" she wanted to know. "He takes pictures of the motel guests in bed."
Sandi stiffened. "That isn't so!" She loved me, but she wasn't about to stand by while I slandered her father. I admired her for that. Only what I was saying happened to be the truth.
I went on from there and told her all of it-how Grif had found out about "the room"-everything. Sandi sat back in her chair and stared hard at me but her eyes were no longer accusing. She had barely a word to say through the entire thing.
Finally, when I was through talking, Sandi lowered her head in despair and said, "God, what a mess!"
"It is," I admitted, "and I'm partly to blame for it. So is Norma. But, of-course, your father is the one who brought it all on himself. He was bound to be found out sooner or later."
"Have Norma and Molett actually sold any of the pictures yet?" Sandi asked.
"I don't think so. They've just worked out the deal."
"Then we have to stop them," Sandi said. "We can't let this happen!"
"I'd like to see it stopped, too," I told her, "but I don't see how that can be done. There's nothing I can do about it, except to go to Ralph and tell him everything. But I don't really feel I have that right. Norma's his wife and she doesn't want him told."
"But I'm his daughter and a lot closer to him than that woman," Sandi said. "I think he should be told so that he can stop this awful thing-burn the pictures and not take any more of them."
"From your standpoint-and from mine-that would seem to be the right solution," I said, "but Norma doesn't think so. Even though you're his daughter, Norma probably knows Ralph a lot better than you do, Sandi. She doesn't think he can give his hobby up."
"That's nonsense," Sandi said. "People can change. What Dad needs is psychiatric help."
"Sure," I agreed. "But a psychiatrist can't help someone who doesn't want to be helped. Even then, it's pretty hard to change the habits and attitudes of a man your father's age. I'm inclined to agree with Norma. I'd be afraid of what might happen if all this was brought out in the open before your father and he was told that he'd have to give this thing up."
"But, Rob, we can't just stand by and not do anything," Sandi said.
"I don't think we should stand by," I said. "I think we should get the hell out of here-both of us-and right now."
We looked at one another for several moments, then Sandi shifted her gaze to the floor. "I guess you're right."
We didn't say any more because at that moment there was a sound at the front door. I assumed it was a customer; they had twice interrupted us before. This time, however, it was Norma who walked into the office.
She stood for a moment staring at us. We probably looked guilty as hell, huddled close together behind the counter. It was funny, but Norma didn't look guilty at all. She was a hell of a woman!
"Well ... what's all this?" she asked, looking from me to Sandi. She wasn't smiling, but she wasn't obviously unfriendly, either.
"Nothing," I said, rising and taking the opportunity to straighten the junk that was on the registration counter.
Norma walked to the end of the counter and through the little gate. "Ralph still busy in his dark room?" she asked.
I said, "Yeah."
Sandi stood up. "Well, I'm going to bed. Goodnight, all." Her tone was dry as the desert in August.
After she had walked out, Norma asked, "What's with her?"
"Damned if I know," I said disinterestedly.
Norma stepped closer to me. "Listen, if you've been talking out of turn...."
I faced her. "How's Grif, huh?"
She recoiled. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"Nothing," I said, then added, "You can have my notice, Norma, effective right now. I'm leaving."
"All right," she said. "This is kind of a quick reversal for you, isn't it?" She paused, studying me. "Is Sandi going with you?"
"Ask her," I said and walked out.
CHAPTER TWELVE
I kept to my own room and Sandi remained in hers-for a while, that is.
I was sitting up in bed, smoking, with one lamp burning in the room, and I heard her rap at the door. I got out of bed and opened it.
Sandi-in slippers and a short white robe-walked in. I was in pajama pants only.
"I've been thinking," Sandi said as I closed the door behind her.
I grinned. "Commendable."
"There's a way out, Rob." She sat down and crossed her legs. Her robe fell away. Under it she wore a red shorty nightgown and panties of the same color, with a lacy black trim. The outfit was sexy as hell!
I sat on the bed and looked at her ... as if I could do anything else considering the way she was dressed and the way she was sitting right then. "What are you talking about?" I asked.
"Just this-if Grif Molett didn't have any way of marketing the pictures of Dad's, there wouldn't be any problem, would there?"
"I guess not," I said, still not seeing exactly what she had in mind.
"Maybe we can see to it that this man in Fresno-this contact of his-won't handle them."
"How could we swing that?" I asked.
"By letting him know how the pictures were taken, that Molett has no right to them, and that he's getting them by threat and without the knowledge of their owner. Don't you think that, if he knew that, the contact would get cold feet and refuse to handle the stuff?"
I thought it over. "It's possible," I said. "But it's also possible that Grif could find another way to market the pictures. Anyway, I don't think Grif would tell me now who he plans to do business with. I could have found out if I'd agreed to play along with his proposition, but now...."
"I think there's still a way," Sandi said, her eyes looking confident and wise.
"How?"
"Through me."
"How could you manage it?"
She stood up and slowly unbuttoned her robe. She took it off and lay it over the back of a chair. She was thrilling in that red baby doll set, her breasts standing up and pointing outward beneath it. She slowly turned around. I looked at her tiny waist, the flare of her hips and the lush curves of her buttocks, and at her full bare thighs.
"What are you trying to do," I asked, "derail the conversation?"
She faced me, her eyes sparkling. "I'm pretty sexy-looking, aren't I?"
"Is fire hot?"
"Okay. Do you think I'm sexy enough for Grif Molett to want to take some pictures of me-au natur-ale and in interesting poses?"
"I can see his tongue hanging out," I told her, getting a glimmer now of what she was driving at.
"And do you think his friend in Fresno would be willing to handle the pictures?" Sandi asked.
"He'd probably be damned anxious," I said.
Sandi sat down again, forgetting about her robe, and flung one luscious leg over the other. The sight was almost enough to blind you!
"So why couldn't you in the morning go to Grif...." Sandi began.
I finished the thought for her: " ... and tell him that you're in need of some money and would be willing to pose for a few pictures."
"Exactly."
"It might work," I told her. "At least, I think it will get us through to the man in Fresno, all right."
"Then it's worth a try, isn't it?" she asked. "Yes ... if you want to."
"I do, Rob." Suddenly she stood up and smiled at me. "Right now, though, I want something else."
"Such as?" I asked playfully, grasping her at the waist and drawing her close.
She whispered, "I want you to make me stop thinking about what kind of father I have and about the whole rotten mess."
"Don't be too hard on your father, Sandi," I said. "I'll bet he loves you and he's probably a wonderful man in all ways but one."
"I always thought he was the world's greatest," she said. "That's why what you told me came as such a shock."
"I'm sorry to have had to tell it," I said. "But I'm glad you did."
I nuzzled her. Then my hands slipped up beneath her shorty nightgown and played with the elastic on the top of her frilly pants.
She began breathing heavily and I could feel her fingers pulling the drawstring of my pajamas. The pajamas dropped.
I slipped her panties down, took them off her feet, then straightened up and removed the top portion of her nightgown. She then stood naked in front of me.
Once more I was almost awe-struck by the sight of her, even though I had seen her nude several times before. "Man, you're sure beautiful," I said.
"I can see you think so," she answered.
"What's better than seeing?" I asked her.
"Feeling," she said.
I urged her down onto the bed. First I kissed her, then took a couple of minutes to gather the lush fullness of her breasts and tease her rosy nipples with my fingers and with my tongue. After that I let her feel what she really wanted.
Sandi cried out and tightened her arms and legs around me. "Ooh, love me like crazy, Rob!" she demanded. "Hammer me! I need it!"
I loved her like crazy. I hammered her.
That night we flew as high as the X-15!
The next morning I walked to Grif's curio shop, getting there just as he was opening.
"What the hell do you want?" was the way he greeted me.
"This will probably throw you, Grif," I began, "but I want to talk about that proposition with the pictures."
"You're too late," he said. "The arrangements are ah made. Too bad, sonny boy, but y'cut yourself out of that one."
"I'm not talking about the motel deal," I said. "I know you and Norma got together on that."
He gave me a wise look. "Did we get together!"
"Good, huh?"
"Don't jazz me now, Robbie! You know, don't yuh?"
"Yeah," I said, "but I know another one that's better."
I didn't want to talk to another guy about Sandi, but I figured it would make my pitch to Grif more convincing. As it was, he had cause to be suspicious of me, and also I didn't know what Norma might have told him.
Grif looked at me with interest and fingered the cigar stub in his mouth. "You talkin' about that hot blonde-the one with the great big boobies?"
"Yeah," I said, grinning confidentially. "And you ought to see those jobs naked. Mama mia!"
"I'll bet!" Grif's eyes were glowing lustfully.
I figured this was the best way to win his confidence so I went on: "Round and ripe and they don't hang, man! They stand up there!"
"You really made it, huh?" Grif asked.
"With bells, daddy!"
"And y'just couldn't keep from moseyin' over here to gloat, is that it?"
"No," I said. "Not entirely. I said I had a proposition for you."
He squinted at me. "What is it?"
"The broad needs money," I told him. "Some buck over in Berkeley knocked her up and it's going to take a quick grand for her to get fixed. I got an idea as to how she could make it and I talked her into the deal. She'll pose for your friend in Fresno."
"Yeah?" Grif said. I had said his tongue would be hanging out. It almost literally was.
"She's never done this sort of thing before, but she really needs the dough."
Grif's eyes narrowed. "How come you're toutin' her for this?"
"I've got to do something with her," I told him. "I want to hold onto her and I'm not about to get married just to give a name to somebody else's kid. Also, I don't want her getting like a balloon. Can you blame me?"
"Nope," Grif said. He chomped on his cigar. "The thing is, though ... this guy in Fresno ain't no photographer. But maybe, if this broad's as hot stuff as you say she is, he could send her to a photographer in L. A. That's where a lot of the pictures come from." Grif paused. "Will she do anything?"
"The works," I told him. "I let her know she'd have to act as well as pose and she said okay. I made it clear there'd be guys in the pictures with her."
"Damn, boy, I gotta give you credit!" Grif said.
"Can you set things up for her?" I asked.
Grif looked at me, his eyes gleaming. "I'd like t'see what she's got, first."
"You can see the pictures afterwards," I said.
"Unh-uh." He shook his head. "You bring her over here first. I gotta know what I'm recommendin' to Freddie."
"Freddie," I repeated casually. "He's the Fresno man?"
"Yeah. Freddie Piatt. He runs a hardware store. Hardware. That's pretty good, huh?" Grif laughed.
"Pretty good," I agreed.
I had the information I wanted.
"So how's about it?" Grif asked.
"How's about what?" I responded.
"Bringin' the babe over to show me what she's got," he said.
"Cool down, daddy," I advised him. "You've got enough to keep you occupied with Norma."
Grif moved up close and latched onto my shirt front. "Man to man, now-this babe doesn't really mean anything to yuh, does she?"
"I told you I wasn't going to marry the girl," I said. "She's kicks."
"Okay, so let a buddy have some kicks, too, huh?"
"I'm not going to pass her around, if that's what you're getting at," I flared indignantly. "She's mine, damn it!"
"I didn't mean that, Rob boy," he said. "I just want to get a look at her-in the buff, I mean. There ain't nothin' wrong with that, is there? Hell, if she's gonna pose in front of a camera and do the things she's gonna do...." He looked at me intently. "You can tell her I insist on it before I'll pass her along to Freddie, can't you?"
"But you won't insist on it, will you?" Tasked.
"Well, you can tell her that," he said. "Damn, Rob, she's just about the hottest lookin' piece I ever seen-I mean, with her clothes on. I'd sure as hell like to get a squint at her naked."
"Well ... I don't know, Grif." I let him believe I was thinking it over. Actually I was just interested in getting out gracefully, now that I knew who the Fresno man was.
Grif twisted my shirt-front again. "I just wanta get a look at her titties, Rob," he said. "You can understand that."
I could understand it, all right. He was a man, wasn't he? There was hardly a man in the world who wouldn't have jumped at the chance to see what Sandi had. But what she had was ah mine ... and it was going to stay ah mine, if I had anything to say about it.
"Well, I'll talk with her, Grif," I said.
"Don't put it up to her that way," he said. "Just tell her she'd have t'let me have sort of an audition before I make the contact with Freddie ... okay?"
"I'll see what I can do," I said.
"See if you can bring her back here today. We can go into the house. The wife's away until evening."
"Okay," I said. "I'll get back to you, Grif."
I started for the door.
"Man ... man...." Grif was saying behind me, half to himself. "I can hardly wait to get a look at those jigglers!"
"See you later, Grif," I said as I walked out.
See him, hell! I never expected to see that scum again. And as far as him seeing Sandi's tits was concerned ... he should live so long!
Sandi was packed by the time I got back to the motel. I threw my own stuff together and we each loaded our things into the Corvette.
When we were ready to go, I asked Sandi to wait while I headed toward the motel office. I thought that I should at least say goodbye to the Wolcotts. It was strange, I told myself, that they weren't out there.
Surely Sandi had told her father she was leaving. But maybe she didn't, I decided.
I was half-way to the front of the motel when all hell suddenly broke loose.
A man with no pants on came running out of Unit I ... and in his hand he was brandishing Ralph's movie camera. Wearing just shorts, he was headed for the Wolcotts' apartment.
For a moment I froze, gaping in amazement. Then, when I realized what had happened, I began running, too. Somehow the one-way glass between Ralph's room and Unit I had broken, the guy in Unit I had seen the camera standing on the other side of what he had thought was a mirror ... he had grabbed it, and now he was on his way to see Ralph for a showdown.
And Ralph was home, too. The Chrysler station wagon was parked there.
I wondered if Ralph had been behind that camera when the glass had broken. And how the hell had it broken, anyway?
I was just a few jumps behind the pantsless man as he charged through the office. When I got to the Wolcotts' living room door, the guy had lifted Ralph out of a chair, his hand clenching the string tie that Ralph always wore around his throat, and his other hand holding the movie camera high over Ralph's head. Ralph was staring and gasping for air, the tie almost strangling him. Norma was standing a few feet away shrieking.
I fell on Ralph's assailant from the back, whirled him around, and smashed a fist to the middle of his face. He stumbled backward, letting Ralph go. Norma rushed to her husband who had fallen to the floor in the middle of the room.
The guy who had been going after Ralph was just as big as me, but I had taken him by surprise and had a strong advantage. I was determined to play the advantage for all it was worth. Without giving him a chance to gain his balance, I was on top of him swinging lefts and rights. One of them finally completed the job and he stretched out.
After I had caught my breath I turned back to where Ralph had fallen. He was still on the rug. Norma was kneeling beside him, patting his cheeks and trying to bring him around. His complexion, normally pink, was assuming the color of ashes.
"The guy didn't strangle him that badly, did he?" I demanded.
"No, it's his heart," Norma said. "His heart has been weak for years." She was almost beside herself with anguish. "Call a doctor, Rob, quick. Oh, God, quick!"
I couldn't call him quickly enough. Ralph was dead before I had made it to the phone.
Later I found out that he hadn't been behind the camera when the one-way glass had broken. He and Norma had been sitting in the living room. The guests in Unit I had been squabbling while they were getting dressed to leave and the wife had gotten so teed off she had thrown a hairbrush at her husband.
It had missed him but had scored a perfect bull's eye on the dresser mirror. When she and her husband saw the set-up Ralph had behind that mirror, they forgot they were mad at one another and that's when I'd stumbled onto the scene.
It was too bad, I guess, that I wasn't close enough at that moment to have saved Ralph. And yet-another way you look at it-maybe it was just as well that everything happened as it did.
The guy who had given Ralph the heart attack was not prosecuted, the circumstances being what they were. And neither was Norma. I backed up her story that she'd had nothing to do with Ralph's "hobby". His collection, of course, was confiscated, destined from then on to furnish kicks only for policemen.
Norma sold the motel as soon as she could and took off, for what destination I don't know. One thing was for sure-she had enough money to build the kind of life she wanted.
And Sandi and me?
We're living in Berkeley now-as man and wife, of course. And it's legal, too. She's trying to finish her schooling while I push pencils in the San Francisco office of one of the big oil companies.
It's a great life, man! I highly recommend it. And do you know what? That story I gave Grif Molett about why Sandi needed money and why she had agreed to pose for the pictures ... it was no he, after ah.
She was knocked higher than a kite, all right!
But no guy in Berkeley had done it. It had happened right in Linden and by the efforts of you-know-who. The first damned night, I think.
I wasn't sore when I learned about it. Hell, it was the best news I'd ever had. But it was going to interfere with Sandi's diploma ... or, at least, delay it for a while.
But she agreed with me that motherhood was more important than any degree a university could hand out, so the diploma can wait.
The way Sandi and I feel about one another, that diploma might have to wait for a long, long time.
