"Ooohh! This water's-like ice!" gasped the brunette, flinging her naked curves valiantly down into the darkened lake waters and threshing furiously for a few seconds to make the adjustment from the mild summer night air to the chilling wetness.
"That's what you get for running away from me!" sternly called the rangy male loping purposefully across the moon-tinted sands of the secluded Lake Michigan beach.
Doug Marlowe yelped as his own nude form became violently splashed while he gingerly padded out towards where the unclad young female was now crouched. Dusky waves lapped around the half-hidden contours of her breasts and she laughed, using her hands to scoop up more water, sending silvery deluges forth to harass the advancing big blonde playboy.
"What a way to spend your last night at the resort!" Janet Bates taunted, backing away from those vengefully-groping hands. She flipped quickly on her side and began swimming away from the playful young Adonis, supple arms and legs working in graceful, powerful precision.
"The night isn't spent yet, baby! Neither am I!" Doug dived into the water and lunged after her as she swam out into a shimmering patch of moonlight.
Janet squealed in spluttering protest when his strong hands grabbed her and their twisting bodies became suddenly submerged. They came up laughing and choking. She tossed back her wet mass of long dark brown hair and brushed the water from her eyes, trapping his hands just in time.
"Not in the water, darling! We aren't that amphibious!"
"How do you know? Ever try it?"
"Nope, that's one set of working conditions I haven't experimented with," impishly panted the disheveled young brunette. She saw his grey eyes staring in bold admiration at the full, jutting tips of her creamy bosoms. Her rosy nipples were taut, tingling from contact with the cold lake water. "You said last night that you'd have to leave some fun for the next time you can wheedle a weekend up here out of your father. Now, let's swim! That's what we came for tonight, isn't it?"
Doug grinned, watching her hurl those magnificent 38-inch globes of delight down into the waves, striking out away from where he stood in gently-lapping water up to his chest. He had just a tantalizing glimpse of the round whiteness of her bare buttocks and briskly-kicking legs and again he marveled at his good fortune in finding such a beautiful, well-stacked babe to pass most of the summer with.
Of course, Janet was a lovely but often-used accessory of the plush lakeshore lodge he'd decided on that year. A pretty but mercenary doll who was an expert at playing on a guy's desires. For pay. A gorgeous young prostitute. That's what she really was, although they'd never even hinted the swap of sex for money earned her that definition.
Hell, lots of babes did it for dough. Doug Marlowe started swimming again, himself, pushing easily along across the isolated expanse of lake dimly aglow in the occasional moonlight. She was swimming perhaps ten yards ahead of him, gliding along like a dark-haired water-sprite.
He remembered other girls. Rich, sophisticated babes who took their sex seriously, using their bodies to trap a socially-acceptable husband. Also other girls like that red-haired steno in his dad's real estate office. Mona would have slapped his face if he'd offered her a fifty buck bill following one of their couplings. Yet, she'd accepted plenty of presents. If he stopped to add it all up, his brief bedding acquaintance had cost better than fifty bucks a throw!
Then, there were some of the cute coeds at Layne University. After a few days' visit with the family back in Cleveland, Ohio, he'd be getting back soon to begin the grind of his senior year.
Doug saw he was gradually overtaking the unclad brunette. Time enough for that sort of exercise.
"Race you back in!" he puffed, batting a palm against the water and dousing her with the chilling spray as she glanced back at him.
Janet executed a neat reverse turn and grabbed for one of his vigorously-kicking legs. Her mischievous tug at his ankle dragged him down and sabotaged his sprint towards the secluded stretch of beach.
"You'll have to-do better than-that, slowpoke!" she gaily gasped, making a determined effort to retain her lead.
They rose in shallow water with Doug a stride behind. The nude girl splashed gaily back to the shore, saucily jiggling her buttocks in cadence with her sloshing limbs.
He didn't even try to beat her to the soft, warm bleached sands. Not with such a superb view of her fleeing young curves. She darted into the concealing shadows of the trees where his Rambler Ambassador sedan was parked out of sight from the nearby highway.
Doug Marlowe sped across the beach and captured Janet Bates just as she was snatching up her wispy pink panties from the blanket they'd spread beside the car.
"Now, I'll show you who's slow!"
"Brrrr! My teeth are rattling! Get me excited, honey!" Janet crowded her wet, glistening form willingly against her big, fair-haired lover's body.
His hands slipped down her back, following the curve of her spine out over the firm twin rounds of her shapely buttocks, then tightened to draw their thighs more pleasurably together.
"Ummmmm! You've got me sizzling!" Doug muttered, lips descending. Her waiting red lips parted to permit his probing tongue to rove at will amid her breathless sweetness. Her arms locked them still closer, shoving the delectable pink-puckered circles of her nipples into his chest.
They melted down to the blanket without interrupting the kiss. Their eager bodies blended into the most delightfully intimate union with practiced urgency.
Janet's blue eyes were closed. She moaned with soft, beseeching ecstasy that mounted with his every passionate movement. She forgot what she was. She didn't think about tomorrow when her handsome young client would be gone. The love of the moment was all that counted.
"Let it-happen, darling!" she almost sobbed, fingernails biting fiercely into his furiously-bucking back. "Let it-happen now!"
Her breasts were thundering spheres of shivering fullness and his flushed face was lost amid the creamy cavern. Doug dimly heard her pleased sighs before his own rasping moans of intense gratification made their achievement a duet of thrillingly-fulfilled desires.
He flopped on the damp blanket beside her and for a long while they just stayed there, content in the tranquil silence of the night
"Want a cigarette?" Doug eventually roused himself sufficiently to query. He opened his eyes as he turned his face towards the supine, relaxed young woman who'd given him so much extra pleasure for his money.
Janet's eyes opened, too. She smiled dreamily, letting him look at her voluptuous femininity to his approving satisfaction. She was of about average height and weight and appeared possibly even younger than her 23 years. Her physical measurements and pretty face had gotten her into trouble at an early age when she'd lived in a squalid three-room flat near the factory district in Chicago. Her parents had stayed together long enough to produce nine kids, then had divorced and remarried.
For many years now Janet had been on her own.
During all those years, she didn't know the whereabouts of any of her brothers and sisters. Not that it made any difference; they'd disowned her right along with her mother and that blustery, red-faced, factory shipping clerk she'd married.
"All I want right now is to make this moment last," she murmured, snuggling obediently to him as his hands tugged tenderly, fitted over her breasts. "We have had fun, haven't we, Doug?"
"The best," he said. He lifted his head from the blanket and leaned down to pluck at one of those tempting ruby tips with his mouth.
"I knew we would. Right from that night when one of the cabana boys steered you to my motel room," she said.
"So did I. Instead of the brassy, painted-up doll I expected, there you were in that white floral print dress. Oh, man! Did you ever send me that night!" His fingers squeezed adoringly at her sensationally-rising flesh, then trailed playfully downwards across the satiny flatness of her tummy.
"Now, I'll be sending you again," Janet said wistfully. "Hundreds of miles away. We won't see each other after tonight. In another week, you'll be back at college and I'll be drifting south."
"Down to Florida again for the winter season?" He stopped caressing her and propped himself up on both elbows, rolling over so that his face was suspended between his hands a few inches above hers. He looked down at the beautiful young features framed by the damp, disheveled abundance of rich dark brown tresses swirled on the blanket.
"Not right away. I'll probably take in the conventions in the cities along the Atlantic coast enroute," Janet replied with candid calmness. She'd never pretended with Doug Marlowe. He knew her for exactly what she was.
Maybe, the mild pain he felt at her casual discussion of her plans for plying her trade didn't show outwardly. He tried not to let it, anyway. This was the first time in all their gay, carefree weeks of sailing, swimming and loving together that any real reference had come out about her status as a prostitute the exclusive lakeshore lodge permitted on its premises for the comfort and convenience of well-heeled guests. Well, he was really no better than she was, so how could he condemn her?
He lowered his mouth and savored the clinging fragrant warmth of her full red lips. Their eyes met and her dark blue pupils widened with luminous pleasure at the prolonged embrace.
"I want you to come to college with me, Janet." Doug Marlowe was as surprised as she was at his low, insistent words. He grinned. "Don't look as if I've asked you to get up and go swim all the way across Lake Michigan!"
"That would make more sense than what you just did say."
"What's so fantastic about enrolling at Layne University? Look, I'll fix it up-Dad is on the board of regents and-"
"Whoa, young man! I don't know if you're joking or not but I do know what you're suggesting is madness! Sheer and impossible insanity!" Janet wriggled up into a sitting position on the blanket, long white legs stretched revealingly out in front of her as she folded her arms over her unclothed bosoms and frowned in troubled confusion at the grinning blonde male who was also changing positions.
Doug slid his arm around her bare, slightly-shivering shoulders, saying, "It's the most practical idea I've ever had-let's face it, it's one of the only original thoughts I've ever taken the effort to eke out of my unused brain! Seriously, why not, Janet baby? You can pass for a coed-and believe me, there'll be lots of guys who'll make passes at you? You can enroll as a frosh and we'll keep right on having ourselves a ball!"
"Until someone learns just how welleducated I am, already!"
"Nobody ever has to know!"
"Things can't be that tough for you at college. Surely, you don't have to import your own private, paid-for passion, Doug," quietly said the unsmiling, unresponsive brunette, ignoring the persuasive fondles as his hands grazed the crests of her breasts. Her eyes wavered and she looked off through the shadowy outlines of low-hanging trees at the pale moonstreaks glinting on the lake.
"That reminds me," Doug Marlowe said stiffly, hands withdrawing from those sumptuous swells. He got off the blanket and stalked to the front fender of the blue Rambler sedan. He picked up his medium brown sharkskin slacks and fished his billfold from one of the pockets, then turned and walked back as he leafed through the diminishing wad of currency.
Janet saw how grim and impersonal he'd become as a result of her stinging rebuke. She ignored the proffered fistful of bills. "You could have left-the money tucked discreetly in my purse the way you've always done."
"Uh-uh. Why play lady and gentleman? You want to call a spade a spade? Okay! I'm a spoiled, easygoing college bum-a guy who considers life one great big joke! Want me to define you, baby? Shall I really prove to you that I know all about the birds, bees and babes who can be made for loot?"
"What you won't even try to understand is that I wouldn't fit in your world, Doug! Please try to be sensible-I don't want us to quarrel like this."
He shrugged, watching her gather her lovely legs under her and rise from the blanket. He didn't move to help her. "No sense either of us taking the other too seriously, is there?" he drawled with pretended indifference.
"I-I like you, Doug. Laugh if you wish but it's true," Janet Bates said evenly, standing tall and erect, nude ivory bosoms lifted proudly. "Did you know I've usually charged more than fifty dollars as the daily rate for my admittedly whorish companionship?"
"That's something I still can't quite figure out. How did you-?"
"Get started as a prostitute? That's a standard question, Doug. Usually, too, I provide a standard-and reasonably truthful answer. Males have wanted me ever since I was in my early teens. Finally, one boy who was more clever and better looking than the others had me. Then, there were other boys. I enjoyed the thrilling novelty of sex. I still do, as you very well know. The difference between putting out for free and making a living at the business of professional love-making is that I got smart. I finally realized this is a 'grab-it-while-you-can' type of world and I grab men's money before I let them grab me."
She'd spoken in a low, almost defiant tone, her eyes direct on his features, which were half-hidden in the shadows. Doug Marlowe didn't know if he should feel sorry for her or applaud her for her honest, practical approach to life.
"It's after midnight," he said, squinting briefly at the luminous dial of his watch. He raised his gaze slowly, allowing his eyes to roam once again over those terrific hills and dales. "I guess we'd both better get dressed," he muttered with reluctance. Then, he grinned and their moment of truth ended. "Although I'm game to sneak back to the lodge au naturel if you are, Jan."
"Nope, I know you too well after more than six weeks," impishly responded the luscious young brunette, scooping up her undergarments with a lazily-careless yet beautifully graceful swoop. She wrinkled her small, cute nose at him. "And, I know how those seats in your car fold back, remember?"
"I'll never forget," Doug Marlowe answered gallantly. Then, he spoiled it all by reaching roguishly out and tweaking the nearest dark pink nipple, saying, "That is, until I'm back at dear old Layne University, putting the finishing touches to my higher education. Believe me, baby-some of those campus femmes swing a mean sexbook!"
"You're impossible! Utterly raving!" Janet Bates dodged another playful pull and quickly hobbled around on the blanket, climbing into her pink stepins. "Just what are you majoring in-and don't you dare say sexology!"
"Come along and find out. Please, Janet! Try college fife for a week-just a few days. Then, if you don't take to the regime up there, you can always pull out."
He looked so earnest, so anxiously hopeful. Janet had to smile, then she began to laugh, pointing merrily at him. "Waving your hands around like that, you remind me of an orchestra conductor leading a stirring symphony-music in the raw, under the stars!"
"I'll give you music! You aren't through being conducted-and you won't be until you agree to let me smuggle you through those stately ivy-covered entrance gates!" Doug pounced on the semi-nude girl and started tickling her with insistent determination.
"Ouch! Stop pinching!" Janet squealed, writhing painfully as one hand shifted to her thinly-clad backside. "Your parents would disown you if they-!"
"My mother is so busy moving up through the elite four hundred names in the social register and Dad's so wrapped up in his business and political maneuverings that they'd be glad if I really took an interest in college this year. Or in anything or anyone-just as long as I stay out from underfoot."
His lovely, squirming captive ceased her struggles and went limp in his mauling embraces. Her eyes were closed. Her moist red mouth was invitingly upturned so Doug kissed her. Janet moaned, cuddling fiercely during the clinch.
Why not give college a fast whirl? She didn't delude herself about Doug Marlowe. He couldn't get enough of her now but soon the flaring passions would fade and he'd shop around for another curvaceous playmate. She'd been through the routine with other men. There wasn't any reason to think this time would end any differently.
Anyway, she was curious about campus activities and she'd always secretly envied those girls fortunate enough to attend college.
She pushed him away, and her dark blue eyes opened to gaze solemnly up into his. "I never finished high school, Doug. Skipping the sordid details, I was expelled during my junior year. So you see, I couldn't qualify for admission even if I could pass the tough course."
"Ah, but you aren't giving me any credit for good old American Taiow-how'I Listen, by the time I get finished fixing you up with everything you'll need, they'll think you were the valedictorian beauty queen of-you pick it, Janl You name the high school and I'll take it from there."
He was thinking of Wendell Nelson and the lean, long-faced undergraduate instructor's fondness for money. Next week, the thin, medium-tall commerce department instructor would be one of the bright, ambitious young men helping the aging registrar. It would be a snap. All he'd have to do is have the necessary fake credentials and scholastic records printed and routed through Wendell Nelson.
"Most of the clothes I have would hardly fit in with coed styles," Janet reasoned, shivering with renewed ecstasy when his wandering right hand clamped cozily down over one thrusting firm white mound.
"They'd spot me as a phony right away. Then, we'd both be in trouble I"
"The worst they could do is kick out both of us-and frankly, I doubt that would happen since Dad is one of the school's supporting pillars. Besides, they'll never know! You can easily pass as a nineteen year-old chick-believe me, Jan! There's absolutely nothing to lose-and think of the fun we'll gain."
Eventually, Janet Bates found herself surrendering to the big, good-looking blonde lad's persistence. Not just about becoming a counterfeit dormitory doll at Layne University, either. She sighed, whimpering with breathless excitement as his knowing hands slipped off her panties and restored their again-burning bodies to the blanket
CHAPTER TWO
Professor Wendell Nelson took another friendly, expertly-appraising ogle at the brunette's outstanding young body while Miss Bates was completing the required registration paperwork.
The huge, sunlit confines of Trusker Hall were jammed with milling, murmuring throngs of students. More males and females kept constantly arriving to replace those who'd finished enrolling for the new term. There were a dozen men at desks, each confronted by long waiting fines. So it had always been during Wendell Nelson's four previous years.
Now, beginning his fifth and he hoped final term as an undergraduate professor of commerce, the 28-year-old connoisseur of curves mentally decided he'd like to see more of Doug Marlowe's latest girlfriend.
Janet glanced up just then. She gave him a timid smile, then resumed writing. That glance catalogued the bespectacled university faculty member, who'd obviously been as susceptible to a bribe as Doug had predicted a week earlier. Wendell Nelson would eventually try to make her. The lust had been there in his brown eyes when she'd caught him eyeing the push of her busts against the simple but flattering powder blue jersey frock that Doug Marlowe had assured her was in perfect keeping with clothing worn by other coeds around the campus.
After she'd signed the last enrollment form and had been assigned to a dormitory in a building Wendell Nelson identified only as being the Chandler House without bothering to give her directions on where it was or how she could get there, Janet felt herself crowded aside by an impatient brunette with considerable more heft in every curve.
She wandered amid the swirling confusion and already she wished she'd never listened to Doug. This was far out of her element. She didn't know anybody except that smooth-talking, easy-going blonde bed partner who'd talked her into this stupid masquerade.
"Pardon me, but could you-?" Janet Bates let the question as to how she could reach the dormitory go unasked as a pair of well-built, stylishly-clad coeds went past her on the steps of Trusker Hall, as she emerged.
The college was comparatively small and definitely exclusive. Expensive. Small? Janet gazed in bewildered awe at the multitude of distinguished, baronial buildings and at the scenic, shaded expanse of elaborately-landscaped campus. Maybe the joint was small to a well-traveled, urbane guy like Doug. To her, it was like suddenly awakening and discovering the bed had flown up and landed on another planet!
"Mmmmm-mmm! Lookie, lookie, lookie!" appreciatively drawled a short, fat male sporting a ridiculous little red-and-white striped beanie atop his bushy shock of brown hair that made his round face appear even more chubby as he grinned up and down Janet's temporarily-motionless chassis. "Hey, Herbie! I've got a strong yen to start being a freshman-and I do mean fresh, man!"
The rather gaunt, cadaverous-looking lad sauntering along the sunlit walk beside the rotund frosh was evidently an upperclassman. He frowned, surveying the stunning young brunette in blue.
"You a scab?"
"A-a what?" Janet knew panic. Were they already getting her pegged? But how could they?
"Yeah, you are. Otherwise you'd know that's what we call new 'Dumb Dora's.' I mean, is this your first year?" impatiently elaborated the lanky youth in vest-type brown suede sweater and gray flannel slacks.
"Why, yes. I wonder if you could tell me-?"
"Where's your gidgit?" brusquely bit in the straw-haired harasser. He anticipated her query by the helpless confusion etched on her lovely but flustered face. "This," he growled, snatching the vivid striped beanie from the dumpy freshman's crew-cut head. "You owe me a penalty, scab. Now, come on! Let's get you oriented."
When he advanced, obviously with some intention of taking her arm, Janet bridled, firm chin jutting forth and blue eyes flashing a warning. "You're going too fast for me! I just got here and I was supposed to meet a senior named-"
"Oh, a senior, huh?" suspiciously leered the older of the duet confronting her. "I suppose you've got 'em pl-edged to that guy already, huh?"
"I-if you'd please slow down and let me come up for air, perhaps I'll let you lead me to wherever it is you think I have to go."
"Your panties," disgustedly muttered the gaunt upperclassman called Herbie, exchanging winks with his cherubic frosh charge. "Before the end of the first week, every girl hasta give a pair of panties to some guy, get it?"
"No-but you won't either! That's all, brother! My panties stay right where they are!" Janet whirled, flinging a withering glare at a snub-nosed blonde girl who'd giggled from behind her on the walk.
The short but abundantly-breasted blonde hastily threw up her hands in a gesture of smiling placation. "Herbie doesn't mean that you have to lift your skirt and drop your step-ins right on the spot while some eager-beaver campus bum watches. You just pick out a pair from inventory and hand 'em to him."
Janet's rigid shoulders slumped in relief and she returned the amiable young coed's smile. "I should have known it was something like that. Thanks for deciphering Herbie's gibberish for me."
"Gibberish! Listen, scab! It just so happens I won last year's midwestern conference elecution medal!" spluttered the lanky scarecrow, bristling with outraged resentment. "For that, it's now two penalties! Better wise her up, Mary-before she draws the whole dozen all in her first day!"
"Aw, go easy on the Idd," pleaded the buxom blonde in the light pink sweater and pleated beige skirt. She gave the impressed pair of males a tantalizing profile of the taut risings of her bosoms as she drew a deliberate bead on Herbie, nearly brushing his chest with those persuasive protrusions as she took Janet's arm. "I'll take charge, boys. We'll fix her up with a gidgit and she'll never say an insulting word to you again, so help us! Right, honey?"
Her prompting tug caused Janet to nod her head. The short, fat frosh stepped boldly forward, doffing that ludicrous beanie. "May I humbly request consideration when you prepare to pledge your panties? Since we'll be classmates, I'd sure enjoy skipping the class and working on the-"
"Silence!" Herbie thundered. "Did I give you permission to open that flippity-flappity yippity-yappity? Shut up, Blodgett!"
Properly squelched, the ruefully-leering lad with the chubby jowls and wistfully-ogling eyes backed off, and Janet gave the horse-faced joker named Herbie a grateful smile.
"I really am sorry if I offended you. I'm sorry I'm so stupid about procedures and traditions up here, too."
The smile and low, sultry apology instantly melted Herbie into a beaming bundle of masculine benevolence. He spread his big hands in an open gesture of magnanimous forgiveness. "Now, about those panties. If it should happen that this senior you've pl-edged
'em to already has another pledge, or if some babe who isn't a scab tells you to find another guy, I'd be more than honored to wear them at Saturday night's fracture."
He promptly grabbed the crestfallen Blodgett and hustled him off along the walk without waiting for the befuddled brunette's reply.
"I had no idea college was such a madhouse!" Janet Bates said, turning to look at the diminutive but big-breasted girl who'd befriended her. "Do I have to wear one of those ridiculous caps? Must I give away a pair of briefs-and what's with those penalties?"
The blonde named Mary smiled sympathetically, patting her arm before withdrawing her hand. "It all comes with an awful rush, doesn't it? You'll have to wear a gidgit. That's only for Tiell week'. That, in case you aren't sure yet, is what this is."
"Did Herbie say he'd wear a pair of my panties? I assume Saturday night's fracture means there's some sort of celebration or dance."
"The panties polka, we call it. Whichever campus male you pledge to wears said panties on his head or rolled up on one of his arms during the dance. You hand 'em over Saturday night when he comes to call for you."
At least that much made a silly, incredible sort of sense now. Janet walked willingly beside the blonde. They acquired one of those silly little red-and-white striped beanies which the other girl adjusted to a jaunty angle after they left the lobby of one of the frat houses where every freshman had to report for his or her 'gidgit' and contribute a dollar to pay expenses for both the caps and the Saturday night dance.
"My luggage is still at the bus depot," Janet Bates uncertainly informed the helpful sophomore girl. "I didn't know where I'd be staying so I rented one of those storage lockers for a quarter." She didn't add that she still wasn't sure if she'd be staying.
"Oh, you can walk right back that way and you'll be within a block of your dorm," Mary told her when they'd paused for a cool drink at one of the many fountains stationed at various intervals along the crisscrossing maze of walks.
"You haven't explained about this penalty system or whatever it is," Janet began, but she saw that her plumply-busted companion was gazing in thrilled rapture across the expanse of green lawn and she followed'the other girl's gaze.
A husky, extraordinarily-handsome red -haired male was receiving a clamorous welcome by several dozen converging students as he stepped easily from his new laurel-green station wagon. Even from that distance, Janet was aware of his virile magnetism.
"Who is he?" she inquired. "I'll bet he doesn't have to wait for Saturday night to get his hands on a pair of panties I" she murmured, more to herself than to be heard by the spellbound blonde next to her.
"That's number one of the top ten ranking seniors," the girl named Mary said with a dreamy, detached sort of sigh. "Ranked by where they stand as sought-after catches by coeds," she amended, lost in her own wishful reveries. "This isn't a big school, Janet. Give yourself a week and you'll know practically everyone from the janitors to the Dean."
"Is there a man named Doug Marlowe anywhere in N. that top ten you mentioned?" Janet tried to keep her query casual.
"Doug? Why, he's almost as beautiful a hunk of hemale as All Oh, not that he even bothers with athletics or grabbing for any limelight the way Al does," chattily narrated the little blonde. "In their junior years-last year-both of them were nominated for office. Al for class president, natch. Doug for V. P. Know what that big, indifferent bum of a dream-boat did? He abdicated!"
"He-what?"
"Resigned. Quit. Refused to even pose for the picture that appeared in our annual. He said he couldn't be bothered with such trifles when he had important things to do like sleeping and speeding around the countryside in his car?"
That sounded like Doug. Janet Bates stared at the huge, bullish bruiser in a navy blue athletic sweater and brown slacks who was raucously greeting Allen Edwards. "Is that another of the chosen ten? That big lug with the bullet head and the enormous shoulders?"
"You mean Roy Farnam. No, he's strictly a flunky Al keeps around for kicks, I guess. He's after a job with the engineering company headed by Edwards' father."
"I see what you mean when you say I'd be well acquainted within a week," Janet said, smiling again at the other girl. She imagined Mary was nineteen or twenty years old as compared with her own 23 years. It had pleased her when the talkative blonde assumed she was older than Janet.
"Want to come over and meet some more of the gang? I see my ever-lovin' over there, the sleepy-eyed one leaning against the trunk of that biggest oak tree."
Getting enrolled and those first few encounters with university students were enough harrowing experiences for the moment. Janet shook her head as the pert coed in sweater and skirt started angling across the lawn.
"Right now, I'd like to freshen up and unpack. Thanks loads for coming to my rescue-see you later!"
"Not too much later. At the pantie shenanigans if not sooner," gaily chirped Mary, flipping back a friendly wave.
After she'd picked up the one full-sized suitcase and the smaller tan case at the locker she had rented, Janet located the large red-brick rooming house, which now served as the girl's dorm and was known as Chandler House, without too much difficulty. The slim, attractive woman serving as housemother introduced herself as Mrs. Schoen and escorted Janet up the flight of wide, carpeted stairs.
"We're a comfortable eighteen here. Nineteen if I count myself," cordially remarked the neatly-dressed woman as she indicated a doorway. "You'll be in here, Janet."
The luggage had been getting heavy. Janet placed both suitcases on the floor near the foot of one of the twin beds and looked around. It wasn't an immense bedroom but adequate and well-ventillated with modern, modest-priced furnishings. She saw doors on both side walls. While she stared at one door, it opened and a willowy, golden-haired girl in skin-tight black Capri pants and a silken white blouse glided into the room.
"Hi. We're cellmates. I'm Pat Scott."
Mrs. Schoen smiled in motherly fashion at both lovely young women, backing into the corridor. "Pat, this is Janet Bates. I'll bring up some bath towels and attend to a few more last-minute items while you girls get acquainted."
"Won't you sit down, Pat? I think I'll have a smoke." Janet laughed nervously, aware of how critically the casually-clad girl was watching her. "I need it after a morning like this! Have one with me?"
"Thanks, I just put one out," throatily purred the tanned, confident-mannered girl. "You can't be a frosh. Not the way you handle yourself. Pardon my bluntness but how old are you, Jan? I'm twenty-three. This will be the third college I've been bounced from." Her green eyes swept methodically over Janet's figure again before returning to the equally tall, attractive brunette's face.
Janet rummaged in her beige cloth handbag and came up with a cigarette. Before she could grope again for matches, Patricia Scott was there extending the flame of a platinum pocket fighter.
"I don't think I can be a college freshman, either," Janet said, exhaling a slow, relaxing lungful of smoke. "That's what I'm supposed to try to be, though. I'm twenty-three, myself."
"Birthday in which month?" June.
"I'll have to work out a zodiac reading for you when we get all settled. How come it took you so long to make college, Jan? Family financial problems? Don't be ashamed of the truth. I'm not. My family's loaded. Not that I'd give a damn if we were the poorest peons in New Mexico."
"You could call it general lack," Janet Bates said carefully, walking away from the penetrating gaze of the luscious golden-haired coed. She moved to the windows between the twin beds. They afforded a pleasant view of the small town of Medford. "Lack of funds, lack of knowing what I wanted to do-lack of a high school diploma until very recently," she tacked on truthfully.
"I think we can have fun here. Curious about why I've burned out two other universities?"
"Because you don't give a damn. That pretty well sums it up, doesn't it, Pat?" Janet glanced around from the windows, smiling at the sophisticated blonde.
"I couldn't have said it any better. Hooray for fun. That's my happy little motto."
They both turned as another girl entered the room. She was a medium-sized brunette wearing a decidedly new and inexpensive multicolored, striped cotton dress and carrying a shabby set of black pebble-grained suit-cases that looked as if they'd been resurrected from an attic or storage shed.
Janet smiled but the new arrival was studiously avoiding visual contact with either girl in the room.
"This is my bed," she tersely announced, toeing the matched set of attractive luggage belonging to one of the intruders.
"I'll move it," Janet said.
"No, you won't!" Pat Scott vetoed with sharp decisiveness. "Look, this is strictly 'first come, first served', honey. No reserved roosts in this hen house."
"You're new here, too. It so happens I've been staying here the past two years and this has always been my side of the room. I sleep on my left side and if I have to use that other bed, the early morning sunlight will shine right in my eyes!"
"Oh, how touching!" clucked the girl exhibiting her superior form in the thin white blouse and jet black Capri pants. "Grandma Goodheart told me about you. You are Hazel, aren't you? Of course you are. You have to be."
The drab brunette wearing shell-rimmed glasses that gave her blue eyes an enlarged prominence, looked torn between the urge to fight with the belittling blonde and fling her meagre curves on the bed or burst out bawling. She did neither. Instead, she hoisted one of the bulky black suitcases to the mattress" of her chosen bed and busied herself opening the tarnished brass snaps.
Janet Bates felt instinctively sorry for the moody, defensive brunette. She quietly transported her luggage to the other side of the room. "It wouldn't matter to me if the sun was so hot and bright it singed my eyelashes. When I'm sleeping, nothing disturbs me short of an explosion!"
"That's what there'll be if Miss Stiff-Britches ever tries to ride roughshod over me," ominously declared Patricia Scott. She laughed when Hazel Kil-lian flounced over to the windows between the beds and opened them wider, waving at the drifting layers of cigarette smoke. "What else are you allergic to besides sunlight, other women and tobacco? How about men?"
Janet quickly stubbed out her smoke. "I'm sorry we hit if off wrong," she told Hazel Killian. She cast a pleading look at the lush golden-haired girl who was now leaning insolently against the wall near an inexpensive walnut vanity. It was easy to see that the dark-haired, owlishly-unattractive girl who was to be her roommate came from a poor family and resented the world in general.
They kept all ensuing conversation at a minimum while both Janet and Hazel Killian unpacked and got settled. It was perhaps half an hour later when they heard Mrs. Schoen in the hall, bringing another coed up to her room.
"Girls, I'd like to have you meet Cleo Lambert," called in the matronly housemother. She introduced each of them to the statuesque young female clad in a bright cherry red ensemble consisting of a chic, contour-hugging wool dress and a short, expensively-detailed notched red jacket.
Cleo Lambert nodded, cool reserve in her dark brown eyes as she looked at each girl in carefully-measuring turn. "Mrs. Schoen says we'll be sharing one of the adjoining rooms," she drawled noncommittally, giving Pat Scott an extra appraisal. "I'll try to stay out of your hair as much as possible, Pat."
It was clear that the raven-haired honey wasn't interested in making friends and influencing people-at least not other girls. She'd scarcely looked at the brunette in the cheap frock who wore those mannish shell-rimmed glasses, dismissing Hazel Killian as unworthy of even a smile. The stare she'd afforded Janet Bates wasn't much warmer and the condescending twitch of her perfectly-painted lips when she'd spoken to the blonde in black pants and white blouse faded as she followed the beaming woman in charge of the dormitory along the corridor and into the adjoining room.
Pat Scott laughed. "I have a hunch it's going to be cold in my room," she said, speaking loudly in the direction of the connecting doorway. She'd left the door partially open and Janet Bates frowned warningly, aware that the pampered, arrogant blonde wanted Cleo Lambert to hear her reactions to her new roommate.
Oh, it was shaping into a gay bunch of gals, Janet thought with wry grimness while she finished transferring her frocks and personal effects from her suitcases to the closet and bureau on her side of the dormitory room. She still wondered what could have happened to Doug Marlowe? He'd told her they'd meet just outside the registrar's offices that morning. Now, here she was with the first step taken towards getting an education of sorts at the privately-endowed midwestern university.
She stripped down to her undies after Patricia Scott wandered back into the next room and while Hazel Killian was still putting away articles from those bulky, battered suitcases.
Janet sighed, stretching out on top of the bedspread. She wore only a white bra and briefs in addition to her nylons. She sighed again, wriggling her toes and wondering-what next?
She didn't see the bright, burning lust in the other girl's fascinated stare from across the room, or Janet Bates might have stopped worrying about what could have happened to her rangy blonde college boy lover and started worrying about what twisted desires lay behind the furtive looks of avid sensual interest that Hazel Killian had in Janet's lovely shape.
CHAPTER THREE
"Oh, yes. Yes, she was processed, Marlowe. More than an hour ago, I'd judge," hurriedly muttered Wendell Nelson, pausing in his enrollment of another student. He smirked up at the light-haired senior. "Better not let her get lost around here. Some frat house might smuggle her in and then you'd never find her."
Doug didn't wait around for more of the lank, long-faced instructor's ingratiating efforts at humor. He whirled, striding back through the swarming sea of students awaiting their turn at the desks manned by the elderly registrar and his flock of assistants.
He almost collided with a hulking form in a varsity sweater. Roy Farnam grinned apishly, grunting, "Whatcha say, Dougie? I just got men Al stashed at the Phi Beta Gamma dorm. Hey, he's lookin for you-wants to know if you wanna toss to see who gets the sun porch again this year."
They'd met just inside the entrance and Doug Marlowe pushed open the doors, moving out of the noise and confusion into the balmy sunlight glinting on the building steps. He didn't like the huge bruiser with the wide, close-cropped skull and thick, smirking mouth. Roy Farnam was hunting for a free ride through life and the big stooge had found what he thought was it in the popular, princely personage of Allen Edwards.
"I'll be over later. Right now, I'm looking for someone, Roy," Doug muttered, glancing in annoyed indecision around the campus. He should have asked Wendell Nelson which girl's dorm or rooming house on the approved list Janet had been assigned to. He nearly spun on his heels and went back, but then he decided to walk around on the chance that the lovely brunette call girl he'd persuaded to give college living a whirl could be searching the scenic, well-shaded grounds for him.
Roy Farnam plucked persistently at the sleeve of his dark olive plaid sport coat. "Lots'a new dolls around again this year. You got anything left over from last year you want me to take on as a salvage operation, Dougie?"
Dis-like almost bubbled forth at the crude, swaggering football star's over-amiable familiarity. He'd never encouraged a friendship. He pulled away from the detaining grip on his coat, saying, "You get all the leavings from Al Edwards. Isn't that enough loving for even a sex glutton like you?"
"Yeah, but when Al finishes with 'em, man they're finished-but I mean they've had it and then some!" Roy Farnam ambled along at the taller but considerably less heavier man's side as Doug descended the concrete steps and started hiking north towards the center of the university buildings. "Remember that babe who did that fancy fandango on top of the fieldhouse roof last year? Ginny Weber? Well, Al says poor Ginny won't be comin' back-seems she had a nervous breakdown or somethin' this summer."
Doug Marlowe did recall the fiery-haired sophomore cheerleader. He remembered how passionately Ginny had given herself to the big guy with red hair a few shades darker than her own, and how Al Edwards had ultimately tired of his toyings. Al had pushed Roy Farnam on the shamed, disillusioned coed while he'd taken on a torrid tempest with another girl anxious to be included in his admiring harem.
"I'm not throwing away any left-overs," Doug said in a low, clipped voice. He increased his long-legged, loping strides, hoping to outdistance the mean-eyed meatball tagging along with him. "I'll see you jokers at the frat house later, Roy. Tell Al he can sleep on the sun porch-I'll take the room I had last year."
"Hell, he's already moved in," scoffed the uninsultable senior who practically had to trot to keep his shorter, thicker legs moving at a similar speed. "You know Al would'a won a toss, anyhow-that guy never misses!"
"Oh, he's the greatest," Doug mumbled, surveying a bevy of luscious young lovelies strolling along a distant walk. None of them were Janet Bates.
"You can say that again, boy! Wait 'til he starts wing-footin' it through them holes I'll be plowin' in the center of lines! He's a cinch for number one midwest conference fullback again this season."
"This is where I leave you, Roy. I have to check with the Dean's office about my class schedules." Doug Marlowe veered abruptly to his right, heading for the distinguished faded brown brick structure that was the main administration building.
"Wanna sleep late mornings again, huh? Hell, I don't blame you-you'n Al do your best studyin nights!" meaningfully leered the brutish varsity football center, standing on the walk, big hands planted to his hips as he watched the sharply-dressed senior enter the building.
Doug waited inside the corridor filled with circulating young males and females, peering out through the entrance, waiting for the burly, beetle-browed pest to shuffle off and resume his favorite pastime of girl-watching.
"How are you, Doug? Good to see you," quietly said a low, friendly voice and the tall, dark-haired guy who didn't really have to check on his curriculum turned, smiling at the stocky, brown-haired form of another senior.
"Hi, George. Nice seeing you again, too," Doug Marlowe said, shaking the preferred hand. George Thompson was perhaps the least-noticed senior on the campus. He'd also had the dubious distinction of being the most insignificant male in each of the previous years.
"Seen anything of Cleo Lambert? When we talked at home last weekend, we mentioned something about lunching together in the cafeteria," casually said the neat, pleasant-looking but unhandsome male.
"No, I just pulled in. There was some sort of an accident on the highway and I got hung up waiting for the police to clear the road." Doug felt sorry for the friendly, sincere-mannered guy. George always was-and probably always would be just another anonymous face in the crowd. The original 'Mister Nobody', Al Edwards had once laughingly described him. Unfortunately, the nickname fit. George Thompson had as much chance of making romantic progress with the lush, provocative black-haired chick he'd inquired about as he had of ever becoming President of the United States.
"Well, guess I'd better ramble over to the Chandler House and see if she checked in." The slightly shorter man grinned good-naturedly at Doug. "I thought maybe she'd bumped into you amid all this opening day bedlam."
"I'll hike down that way with you," Doug offered, pushing open the entrance door. "I'm looking for someone, too. On the way, I'll stop in the registration hall and see if I can find out where my missing person is staying."
They walked back along the campus and Doug went in to pry the information he needed from Wendell Nelson while the stocky senior in the medium brown suit waited outside.
"Most of the girls are probably freshening up in their rooms by now," George Thompson said when they resumed strolling in the direction of the off-campus dormitories. "I wonder if your girl has met Cleo yet?"
Doug hadn't been especially pleased to learn that Janet Bates was staying in the same dorm with the ravishing raven-haired honey named Cleo Lambert. Cleo was more concerned with graduating with a wealthy or potentially-successful husband than with any other less tangible honors. That was one reason Doug had yielded to the spur-of-the-minute impulse that night beneath the trees along the Lake Michigan shoreline. Why he'd brought along his own private playmate.
He wasn't sure how much George knew about his relationships with Cleo and a few other pretty, vivacious coeds. Not that he was the only guy who'd scored with her. Al Edwards and three or four of the other bachelors rated as being most-wanted by campus women because of their looks and financial attractiveness had received carefully-measured samples of the magnificent merchandise.
"We've been noticed," Doug muttered, gazing up in response to a concert of wolf-whistles. He stared at the quartet of glamorous young girls draping themselves from open windows. All of them were real eyefuls but none were either Cleo or Janet.
George Thompson smiled slowly, looking at the fetching display of posing pulchritude. "Not we," he said. "You, Doug. The only whistling that gets done at me is when some cop catches me jay-walking."
They entered the stately old rooming house which had been converted to a dormitory. Doug Marlowe thanked the slender, attractively-greying mother hen who volunteered to go upstairs and inform the two chicks of their callers. He then got his first look at another of the dormitory dolls as a striking girl with long, flowing golden tresses passed the older woman on the stairs.
Patricia Scott looked with equal interest at the first really handsome male she'd encountered. "Yes, I do think I'll have fun here," she murmured to herself, giving Doug Marlowe something to watch as she caused her 40-inch bosom to shove even more daringly against the revealing lightweight blouse.
Standing in another corner of the dormitory sitting room, unnoticed as usual, George Thompson was also gaping at the sensational blonde in the skin-hugging black pants and bulging white silk blouse.
Any male who didn't look and look hard when such a voluptuous vision sauntered into a room just wasn't a man!
CHAPTER FOUR
Only a few automobiles were still parked along the darkened Main street of the college community when Doug Marlowe tooled his Rambler sedan to the curb, parking before an unlighted store building.
"I just hope Dad never does sell this firetrap-at least not until graduation time," amended the dark-haired young playboy, dousing lights and ignition, then swinging away from behind the wheel to pull the lovely brunette into his arms.
Janet Bates smiled, freely surrendering her warm red lips for another long, passion-building kiss, feeling Doug's stealthy but confident hands slip between the folds of her beige cashmere coat and fit over her breasts.
She was still smiling when he gently relinquished the embrace and slid towards the door, preparing to climb out. "I can see where having a father in the real estate business comes in handy. What would he do if he knew you and some of your friends have converted the upstairs apartment to a passion pit?"
"We don't call it that," Doug said easily. He levered the door handle, ready to step out. "We always tell our guests it's strictly a sort of home away from home.
A place away from school where guys and their girls can kick off their shoes and relax in an informal atmosphere without fear of being gossiped about the next day."
"Don't the townspeople know what's going on?"
Doug alighted from the car and grinned back at the luscious girl he'd dined with at a local restaurant before taking them for a sightseeing tour. "We don't throw wild parties or toss empty beer cans down into the street. So far, no complaints." He closed the door and hiked around the front of the Ambassador. He opened the door and Janet slipped lithely out to the shadowy sidewalk.
"I don't imagine much sound could escape through those thick brick walls, anyway," quietly mused the dark-haired girl, watching her escort fit a skeleton key to the lock of the door leading to the upstairs of the vacant old building. Janet Bates glanced at the dusty windows. Some of the lettering on the plate glass was still visible through the accumulated dirt. This used to be a variety store. You know, I've always thought it would be interesting to clerk in a dime store or a department store."
"Sore feet, sassing from customers and starvation wages? I can't see you doing that," Doug said, opening the door and fumbling for a moment in search of the old-fashioned fight switch button. The feeble glow of the 25-watt bulb in the fixture at the top of the steep, narrow stairway didn't provide much help. He stood aside, gesturing gallantly for the brunette to go up ahead of him.
Janet entered the hall and started up the creaking planks. She was tired. Quite frankly, she wasn't at all interested in a strenuous sexual workout-not even with the male who was the best-looking and most pleasant client to whom she'd ever hired out her body.
"What if one of your friends decides to come up with his girl?" she inquired while they made the ascension. "That could be embarrassing. Not for me and I know you wouldn't care-but the other guy and girl might."
"We take turns. Usually, no one couple stays up here for more than an hour-almost never more than two hours at a time. And, we have a code. I'll show you our system when we get there." His eyes followed the supple undulations of her backside beneath the beige coat. Her legs were definitely the best set of shapely stems he'd checked out in a long while-possibly the all-time best.
Janet's dark blue eyes widened with surprised admiration when he went ahead of her in the upstairs hallway and switched on a light in one of the rooms. She stood in the doorway, gazing at the select, modern decor of the apartment.
"Even a bar! A TV set and a stereo!" she marveled.
"All the comforts of home," modestly agreed Doug, arm casually slipping around her waist. He led them inside. "Just wait until you see that fabulous bed with that double foam rubber mattress! Baby, I sure hope you like to bounce!"
She permitted him to lead her across the room. She watched him use his free hand to tug one of the window shades halfway up. "Why did you do that, Doug?"
"That, my cute, cuddly friend, is our signal. When that shade's at half-mast it means this joint is occupied. I'll have to pull it down again when we leave," Doug Marlowe explained, already peeling the cashmere clutch coat from her lovely young shoulders.
Janet smiled as they moved in the direction of the mahogany portable bar positioned in one corner of the lavish room illuminated by twin brass table lamps stationed on both sides of the deep maroon sectional.
"It appears you and your buddies have made a fine art of seduction. I can't think of anything you've missed."
"We aim to please. Bourbon?"
She nodded. Doug shucked out of his own dark gray suit coat and placed both coats on the cushions of the sofa before walking behind the well-stocked liquor cabinet and bar. "Not too much tonight. I've picked up a headache and I don't feel much like drinking, Doug."
"Or other indulgences?"
"That's what you pay me for. We working-class people must work."
"We can skip it for tonight, Jan."
"There may not be a tomorrow night. I still feel like I'm in a huge glass goldfish bowl, surrounded by sharks just waiting to slash in for the IdlL"
"You'll get over the jitters. Tomorrow, you'll realize how silly you are to worry. With all the gals and guys milling around school, there isn't a chance anyone will question you. I told you all this before, Jan. Now, quit stewing when there's nothing to stew about and come over and get your drink."
She obediently walked to the bar and picked up the highball he'd blended for her. He was having bourbon on the rocks and after stowing the tray filled with ice cubes back in the freezing compartment built into the bar, he hefted his glass.
"Is this all that college really means to you, Doug? Just another playground? You told me once that you thought you might like to become a research chemist. Are you majoring in science?"
"Let's face it, honey. I'll tie in with Dad when I graduate and become a big wheeler and dealer in real estate. That's what he wants and I owe him some return on his investment in me."
"But you don't like that sort of career!"
"What's the difference what I do? If I want to fool around with lab equipment, I can still do that as a hobby. You ought to see the layout I've got above the garage back there in Cleveland."
She sipped the highball meditatively, then lowered the glass, leaving her full red lips enticingly moist. "I'm sure your father wouldn't want you to conform to his expectations. Not if you have such a strong interest in science, Doug."
"There's just one way to get through life without too much grief. That's by not taking yourself or anything else along the way too seriously. Right now, I want to show you that nice, king-sized bed." His grey eyes had noted the appealing freshness of her pretty red mouth, then moved swiftly down the front of the navy blue jersey frock she wore and his desires were whetted by remembrance of previous passions they'd swapped.
Janet followed him across the thick smoke gray carpeting and into the adjacent bedroom. A flick of the wall switch lit the pair of vanity lamps and revealed the massive double mattress bordered by a bookshelf-type headboard that included a built-in clock radio.
"It's the biggest thing I've ever seen!" The brunette gazed in amused awe at the mirrored walls. "Why, it's rigged up like a fun house on some carnival midway!"
"That's so coupling couples can't look at or think about anything except each other," Doug explained as he watched Janet tilt back her beautiful young face and look at the ceiling which was also covered with mirrored glass. It had been Allen Edwards who had provided the mirrors and directed Roy Farnam and another muscular football lineman to install them. Actually, the gimmick disgusted Doug. He hadn't said anything but he had joined with several other fellows and firmly vetoed the flashy red-haired character's idea of putting in a hidden camera to record mating maneuverings on that over-sized mattress for later screening as a source of entertainment.
Janet Bates finished her highball and turned to walk back to the portable bar with the empty glass. She began unzipping her navy frock on her trip back to the bedroom. "It's been a long day, darling," she whispered, managing to look and sound genuinely eager for the erotic thrills she knew the handsome blonde college senior yearned to enjoy.
Doug Marlowe was standing further inside the room and his back was to the doorway. Yet, wherever he looked, the reflection of his disrobing dark-haired playmate haunted his eyes and stirred smoldering lust into full-fl-edged wanting.
Gone were his good intentions to give the brunette babe he'd bundled into college a rest and an opportunity to get adjusted to new routines. He whirled, crossed the gap between them with two fast strides, and reached urgently for her.
"It's been nearly a week," Doug growled, feverishly unhitching her dark blue bra as she wriggled hurriedly from the skirt and stepped out of it.
"Please turn off the lights," Janet murmured, made strangely uncomfortable by the multitude of mirrored duplications of their rapidly-undressing bodies.
His hands had already seized the unconfined glories of those warm, resilient breasts and his lips were parched for another moist, sweetly-responding taste of her mouth, but he tore away from their torrid clinch long enough to slap at the light switch.
Then, shedding the rest of his suit with impatient disregard for wrinkles, he let the garments fall where he stepped out of them. "Man, ohh, man!" Doug Marlowe groaned with intense satisfaction when his fingers were again busily rousing those rosy nipples into taut, throbbing fullness.
Janet Bates sank down on the huge cushiony in-nersprings softened by generous layers of smooth and absorbing foam rubber. She felt his weight settle on her and the familiar gyrations of their naked legs left her unusually untouched by a matching desire.
Yet, she feigned panting sobs of exquisite pleasure and sighs encouraging and praising the nude, hardworking male for his virile efforts. After all, wasn't that why she was there at Layne University? Wasn't that what she was getting paid for?
CHAPTER FIVE
"And that's Dale Hardesty," Patricia Scott said, glancing across the crowded cafeteria at a husky young male just carrying his tray over to a long table across the large college dining room. "He sits beside me in French Literature. He's already asked me for my panties. What about you-any bids yet?" she drawled, smiling at the quiet, thoughtful-looking brunette beside her.
Janet Bates continued to eat but her mind wasn't on the noon meal. Here it was Friday and to her distressed surprise, she discovered that being a coed was not only an exciting gay adventure but that she was coming to love the scholastic environment and the scenic old school more with every passing hour!
"Hmmm? Oh, no. No bids," she said, realizing that the gorgeous golden-haired girl was awaiting a reply. She glanced at the table where the nice-looking senior identified as Dale Hardesty was slipping into a chair next to Cleo Lambert. Doug Marlowe was at that table, too. He'd grinned once when their eyes had met but now he appeared to be listening to one of the other students and he didn't see her vaguely-troubled look.
Cleo Lambert walked past and took the only unoccupied chair at the table. It happened to be located right next to Doug and Janet Bates felt mild pangs of jealous resentment.
Hazel Kiffian's knees pressed into Janet's underneath their table. "Pass the salt, please," requested the moody, uncommunicative brunette, her blue eyes darting fleeingly over the bodice of the brown wool knit dress Janet wore that day.
"I don't have to ask if you've pl-edged your unmentionables to any of these local casanovas," Pat Scott purred, favoring the bespectacled brunette on the other side of the cafeteria table with undisguised disdain.
"Oh, why don't you put away your claws for a while, Pat? Let the kid alone," said the buxom little blonde named Mary Becker. She sighed, shaking her short light blonde curls as she grimaced at Janet. "You babes must have a real ball in your dorm. Do they always snipe at each other this way?"
Janet smiled back at the girl seated beside her sullen roommate. "Only when they aren't sleeping." She liked Mary Becker. Since the first day when the petite sophomore had taken her part and pried her away from that pair of ogling male students outside the registrar's offices, the two girls had seen each other between classes on a number of occasions. "Do you have your panties ready to present your date tomorrow night? It still seems ridiculous to me that you walk up to a man and hand him a pair of bloomers but-oh, well! You say it's tradition."
"It's also one heck of a good ice-breaker," Pat Scott drawled, shoving aside her tray and leaning back in her chair. "After a girl has given a man a pair of briefs, it's rather impossible for them to stay reserved and over-formal with each other!"
"That's the idea," Mary Becker said. She nudged Hazel Killian. "Say, I think I've got a date for you! Interested?"
Janet watched her roommate's sharp, inscrutable features for any indication of interest. The dark-haired coed in the loose-fitting pearl gray jacket and skirt shook her head without bothering to look up from her tray. "Not the slightest."
Mary shrugged, digging into what remained of her own lunch. Chairs were already scraping as students began leaving the large, well-lighted cafeteria.
"Any female scabs at this table?"
Janet glanced up, looking along the table at the harsh, demanding sound of a male voice. She recognized the bull-necked, bushy-browed countenance that belonged to the senior named Roy Farnam.
"I'm a frosh," piped up a scared-sounding redhead. Her complexion whitened so that all of her freckles stood out, then a flustered blush of color bathed her plain features.
"So am I," said another girl.
Roy Farnam wasn't looking at either coed. His close-set brown eyes were focused on the well-stacked brunette beside that golden-blonde Al Edwards was in the process of making.
"What'sa matter with you? You're a scab, right?" Janet raised her gaze again. "That's why they gave me this stupid red-and-white cap to wear, isn't it? So big, brawny lugs like you can tell?"
Some of the other nearby students stifled gasps and even Mary Becker shook her head in vigorous warning to go easy. Roy Farnam smirked, eyes hotly aimed at those proudly-pushing curves filling out the brown knit fabric.
"I wanna fresh cup of Java-not fresh talk, girlie! Go get it for me."
"Since when did wearing this beanie make me a waitress?" Janet murmured, looking askance at Pat Scott, then across the table at Mary Becker.
"Gidgit. You call that cap a gidgit, remember?" Mary muttered anxiously. "You don't have to wait tables but you do have to get him a cup of coffee. He's a senior. The rules say freshmen have to do anything reasonable any senior asks during this first week."
"Save wear and tear on your nerves. I'll get him his coffee," Patricia Scott flashed a high-voltage smile down the table at the wide-faced senior with the tight crew-cut. "Cream? Sugar?"
"Just cream, sugar. I'll let you wait on me any day!" happily chortled the beefy-faced football star, lewd eyes now running across the blonde's superb bustline.
"I'll run my own errands, Pat." Janet tried to stop the willowy, golden-haired coed in the stunning jade green, jersey dress studded with rhinestones from moving away from the table, but subsided into her own chair as Pat Scott swayed her way between the rows of tables, drawing the admiring attention of virtually every male inhabiting the premises.
Hazel Killian's eyes had diverted from their fixed staring at Janet long enough to watch the graceful swishes of the tanned blonde's pleated skirt. Now swinging her gaze back to the brunette opposite her, Hazel said, "Let her put her body on display! Can't you see how much she likes men to look at her, Janet?"
The vicious scorn in the unattractive girl's muttered tone caused Janet Bates to look quickly at her roommate. There was something almost evil about Hazel Killian; something undefinable as yet that made her very self-conscious and uncomfortable when they were alone in their room together.
"Pat doesn't mean anything when she makes one of her flip remarks. She doesn't have anything against you, Hazel-it's just her way."
"Why, she even called me a queer," Mary Becker chimed in, laughing at the notion that she was anything but a gal who loved her lovings. "Just because I told her yesterday that I thought she had a perfect figure for that jumper-type dress she wore. She insults everyone, Hazel."
"Well, I don't have to take it," grimly said the unconvinced girl beside her. She'd tensed at the cute snub-nosed blonde's reference to queers. Now, her sultry eyes guarded, she shoved back her chair and rose with the metal tray. "All I know is that if she continues poking fun at people, some day, someone is going to take a poke at her!"
Janet stared worriedly after the departing girl in the mannishly-tailored gray suitdress. Mary Becker was also looking at Hazel Killian. The diminutive blonde frowned. "That gal has the disposition of a coiled rattlesnake. Back where I come from in Louisiana, they'd call that one a voodoo doll!"
"Mrs. Schoen told me that Hazel became very close friends with a girl named Virginia Weber last year. They roomed together and became practically inseparable," Janet said quietly, refusing to say anything belittling about the brooding eccentricities of the brunette leaving the cafeteria.
"That may be. I tried to be friendly with her though and you saw how far it got me," Mary Becker said. "Well, who needs her? You've got to get along with her or change rooms. Thank goodness that isn't one of my problems-I've plenty other ones as it is!"
They saw Patricia Scott wending her lazy, gracefully-gliding path back towards them. The tall golden-haired girl carried a cup and saucer in smiling compliance with the demands of Roy Farnam.
Janet Bates cried out involuntarily along with Mary Becker and almost every other girl and guy at the cafeteria table when they saw Pat calmly pull away the collar of the gaudy checkered sport jacket the hulking senior wore and dump the steaming contents of the cup down the back of his neck!
Roy Farnam howled in wrathful pain, chair overturning and clattering noisily to the floor as he shot up, whirling with huge fists bunched.
"Of all the dumb, lousy-!"
"Can't you see the humorous aspects of life, Mr. Farnam?" Pat Scott drawled with sweet, humbling innocence, not at all intimidated by his towering rage. "If you wish, I can go back and bring another cup. Or did that serving quench your thirst for coffee?"
"You've ruined my coat and shirt! Yeah, and I bet my back looks like raw hamburger, too! I oughta-!"
A big, clean-cut male with neatly-brushed dark reddish hair who wore a fashionable medium blue sharkskin suit smoothly stepped between the enraged Roy Farnam and the unafraid blonde, saying, "You oughta thank the lady for bringing you that coffee, Roy. After this, I'm sure you'll stay wide awake all through the afternoon classes."
Chuckles and relieved giggles greeted the timely intervention of Allen Edwards. Janet saw the approving glints of interest in Pat Scott's dark green eyes. Janet looked at the brawny, handsome senior and observed the same marked awareness of an attractive member of the opposite sex.
"Okay, so it was a gag," grudgingly growled the red-faced varsity center. He picked up a napkin and started sopping at the back of his thick neck. He even managed a sickish impersonation of a grin when he saw that everyone had stopped whatever they were doing to take in the show. "Boy, it'll be nothin' but milk for me from now on-that's for sure!" he said, forcing forgiving heartiness into his words.
"Oh-oh," Janet heard Mary Becker mumble. "Don't look now but I think Pat has just got herself included in Al Edward's plans for this year's passions!"
CHAPTER SIX
It was early Friday evening and Doug Marlowe stood in the cool darkness outside the fraternity house, dragging reflectively on a smoke as the screen door slammed.
Allen Edwards may have lacked the dark-haired male's height by an inch but this was compensated for by his broad chest and shoulders. Both young men were big and good-looking although the extroverted redhead worked harder at maintaining his attractiveness.
"We could have used your muscle on this year's team. I still think you'd have made a heck'uva handy running back," Al Edwards said conversationally as he lit a cigarette of his own.
Doug had been thinking about the dance scheduled in the fieldhouse gym following the football game against another university the next day. He hadn't asked Janet yet. He wasn't at all sure he would. His feelings regarding the lovely, soft-voiced brunette who knew from so much previous experience just how to give a guy pleasure were all jumbled up. It bothered him more than a little when he thought of her past. Why couldn't he accept the fun she provided and cheerfully bid her adieu if she still intended to pull up stakes and vamoose for parts unknown some time that weekend?
"Most of my muscles are in my head," Doug said, giving the frat man beside him a wry grin. "Did anyone tell you about the boner I pulled in the chemistry building lab this afternoon?"
"You mean how you forgot to switch off the suction pump and damn near blew up the joint when that vacuum tube exploded?" Allen Edwards chuckled, lounging comfortably against the rear wall of the building. "A little early for Spring fever, amigo. What's her name this time-or aren't you talking?"
"Does there always have to be a woman? You know, that's our trouble, Al. We all like to kid about how we're goofing off and wasting the family fortune by being here. We brag about how we sluffed off in class or about how many times in any one night we slept with some cooperative coed but what's all this fooling around getting us?"
"A well-rounded education, man! A working knowledge of biology that well look back on and consider priceless when we're the age of our fathers." The husky king of the campus squinted curiously at the detached, subdued senior standing in the shadows outside the back door of their fraternity house. "Now I know it's a chick who's got your feathers so ruffled! 'Fess up, Doug-what's so grim?"
"Who's grim? Can't a guy quit with the clowning for a few hours without being accused of hitting a snag in the romance department. Incidentally, I heard from Roy that you made another conquest today. Who's this Patricia Scott? That name sounds familiar."
"It should. She rooms in the same dorm with that ex-flame of yours." Al shoved away from the rough texture of the stucco wall and moved closer to his classmate, continuing to regard Doug with open concern. "Or is Cleo Lambert in the ex category? For a while there last year, I would have almost bet you'd wind up sliding that ring she wants on her finger."
Doug Marlowe dropped the stub of his smoked-down cigarette and ground it out under his heel. Yes, he'd gone hot and heavy with the luscious black-haired Cleopatra who tried so constantly to live up to her namesake when she was cuddled on a couch or in a car with a male she considered eligible. Cleo had used almost every trick in the book to tempt him into blurting out a proposal. Then, when he'd balked, pointing out that it was better not to make too many plans until they were seniors at least, they'd quarreled and the romance petered into nothingness.
"Suppose I ask a few questions for a change," Doug countered, unwilling to get involved in the personal discussion the aggressive, cocksure redhead was trying to provoke. "For instance, what did you do with my shaving stick? I looked all over for it this morning. My favorite tie clasp is missing, too. Did you raid my bureau again?"
"Guilty on both counts. I'll dig 'em up and put 'em back before we sack out tonight," easily promised Al Edwards. He sent his cigarette flipping in a fiery arc across the backyard. "My turn again. You know which gorgeous wench I'm shagging to the Pantie Hop tomorrow night. Will you bite my head off if I mildly inquire who and what color undies you've lined up?"
Doug grinned. "When have I or anyone else ever been able to keep you from doing whatever you damn well please? I've let you push me around ever since we first shook hands four years back. Okay, since you're so nosy, I'll tell you this. So far, I haven't asked anyone to the dance."
"What if the poor gal you do eventually decide to so honor has all her panties shipped off to the laundry? Shame on you for stalling! Wait too long and all the prime pairs will be snatched up!"
"That's a chance a man sometimes has to take," Doug said, laughing and rousing himself from his lethargic moroseness. "Matter of fact, I'm on my way over to the Chandler House now."
"Ah, then it is to be the enchanting Cleo?"
"Yup, you've guessed it." Doug stumbled a trifle from the friendly swat on the shoulder the powerful carrot-top administered, approving his decision.
"Then there's no more mystery about the color, either! See you in enchanting chartreuse, amigo-say, I wonder what shade Pat Scott is partial to?"
At that very moment, the willowy coed with the long abundance of richly-burnished blonde tresses was just emerging from the shower shared by the inmates of the dormitory, wrapping her filmy black negligee around her freshly-scrubbed young curves.
Hazel Killian stared out through the doorway into the hall as Patricia Scott wandered idly past. Her scalding eyes hardened with hatred for the sophisticated, arrogant rich girl.
"Why doesn't she just parade around in the altogether?" querulously muttered the dark-haired lesbian. She rose from the student-type walnut desk on her side of the room and stalked over to close the door.
"Hmmm? Did you say something, Hazel?" Janet Bates raised her head and shifted positions in the chair at the other small desk lighted by a gooseneck lamp. She stretched, stifling a yawn. "I'll never finish wading through this chapter we were assigned in commerce on marketing fundamentals!"
"You act as if you have a kink. Want me to rub your back for you?" solicitously queried the restlessly-prowling brunette approaching her much lovelier counterpart.
Janet decided to do her stretching while standing up. After a prolonged session at studying, her mind was refusing to concentrate, anyway.
"I'm just stiff from so much sitting. How I envy you! You finish your assignments before I even get a decent start." She turned, smiling at Hazel Killian. "Aren't you warm in that heavy housecoat? If you'd like, I can lend you my light blue duster to wear over your lounging pajamas."
"I'm quite comfortable as I am, thank you," tartly responded the bespectacled girl. Then, softening her tone, she said, "Flop down on your bed and roll over on your tummy. Let me show you what a real massage feels like, Janet. I'm sure my hands can loosen you up."
That caused a dilemma for the shapely young woman in the knit-green, pullover sweater and sheathed tan skirt. She knew that her unique, hard-to-decipher roommate would take instant offense if she declined to have her back rubbed. Yet, she wasn't anxious to become too friendly with Hazel Killian. If there was some discreet means of switching rooms, she would have spoken to Mrs. Schoen.
"I should grit my teeth and get back to those books," Janet said, delaying a direct yes or no. She saw the faint animosity compress the other girl's thin red lips. "Well, if you really are set on proving what an excellent masseur you are, all right," she yielded, subsiding to the mattress of her twin bed.
Hazel knelt on the bed and reached out with fingers that were trembling with restrained eagerness to explore other areas of the supine coed's warm, fragrant flesh. "I'll have to pull up your sweater, Janet," she said hoarsely. "Raise up for just a sec, will you?"
With her green sweater bunched up around her throat and shoulders, Janet experienced the first light, relaxing pressures of massaging palms. She closed her eyes, thinking about the events of this-her first and final-week at Layne University.
She couldn't stay. No matter how much she wanted to remain part of the exhilarating, eventful life there on the campus, she had to make the break now before it was too late. Before her strong attachment to her new surroundings got the better of her judgment.
After all, she knew what she was. There were lots of towns to travel through. Countless billfolds to pry open by utilizing the powers of passion. And, the sooner she left, the easier it would be to crowd out all memories of those weeks since she'd met Doug Marlowe.
Those knowing, deftly-gentle hands shifted from the middle of her back, moving downwards along her spine with practiced rotations of the cool, soothing palms. Hazel Killian felt like a long-dormant volcano about to erupt. The very touch of another girl's smooth, satiny white flesh caused her breathing to become more rapid and the nipples of her own small, bra-compressed breasts to prickle with excitement.
A knock against the panel of the closed door caused both coeds to hastily squirm off the mattress and adjust their appearances.
The door opened and Cleo Lambert came in from the hallway. The tall, raven-haired girl wearing a brocaded wine dress with a full skirt and demure neckline smiled distantly at both occupants of the room.
"Am I interrupting anything?" Her brown eyes went from Janet to Hazel, then glanced at the telltale indentation on the bedspread. "I merely wanted to relay a message I was given for you," she murmured, her gaze returning to sweep over the more attractive of the two brunettes.
Janet Bates wasn't especially fond of the high and mighty acting exotic campus queen, anyway. She smiled frostily back across the dormitory room. "You're the last person I'd expect to find playing messenger boy, Cleo."
"Doug Marlowe phoned a few minutes ago. He's coming over. He asked me to tell you this. He said you'd be able to continue with your own plans once you knew he was taking me to the dance tomorrow evening."
Janet stared intently at the smug black-haired coed. "I'm sure you'll both enjoy yourselves. Thanks for delivering his message," she forced herself to say with impersonal calmness. She watched the statuesque girl in the fashionable evening frock turn and swish blithely off down the upstairs hallway.
Oh, she understood Doug's message. He was in effect telling her that she was free; that she could pack and leave whenever she cared to resume her career as a call girl.
She could read between those bitter lines, too. Doug was replacing her charms with the perfumed opulence of Cleo Lambert's luscious curves. Off with the old, on with the new.
He'd paid her tuition for the entire first semester. Her lodgings at Chandler House were also paid up until then. Yet, Doug Marlowe thought nothing of canceling out on his investment. He'd probably spent much more money than that on other boyish whims without giving his extravagance a second thought.
Hazel Killian's hands tugged earnestly at Janet. "Let's finish loosening up those fatigued nerves and muscles," persuasively purred the dark-haired girl, her luminous blue eyes bright behind her thick lensed glasses.
Janet pulled gently but firmly away from those beseeching hands. "Not now. I have to say goodbye to someone." She ignored her eccentric roommate's sullen displeasure and hurriedly touched up her lipstick and fluffed at her long, darkly silken tresses before the vanity mirror on her side of the room.
Downstairs, Doug Marlowe grinned in greeting as the lovely young female with midnight black hair and alluring dark eyes glided into the parlor and smiled a warm welcome.
"This is a nice surprise, Doug. I couldn't believe it was you when you called." Cleo Lambert walked over and placed her hands on his shoulders, fingers tracing in light, possessive patterns as she gave him a look that would have melted an iceberg.
"I wanted to see you before but you know what a rush these first few days always are," Doug Marlowe lied smoothly. He stepped forward, mouth casually descending to brush across her poutingly-poised red lips. She caught her breath with sharp awareness that the desire they'd buried was in the thrilling throes of resurrection.
"Rumor had it that you and that cute little scab you've been seen with were beginning to grow on each other. Obviously, it was just a passing fancy.
I gave her your message, Doug. Let's sit down and talk, shall we?"
"Can you go outside? My car's out in front."
"I really shouldn't. I left my wrap upstairs and I do have to wash my hair."
He took that for yes and began leading her towards the front entrance. They were almost at the parlor doorway when Janet Bates appeared there, blocking the passage.
"I'd like to speak to you for a minute if you don't mind," Janet said quietly, eyes holding Doug's mildly-harassed stare.
"Why don't you get your wrap, Cleo? This night air is turning chilly," suggested the tall, good-looking senior.
Cleo Lambert frowned, definitely resenting the intrusion of the slightly shorter brunette. "A minute is exactly how long it will take me," she said. She brushed impatiently past Janet and swished towards the stairs.
"All I wanted to be sure of is that you're satisfied that I've lived up to my part of our bargain," Janet Bates said softly when they were alone in the shadowy sitting room. "I intended to leave some time Sunday, anyway. After the dance."
"Now, you could slip away tomorrow if you'd rather. Good luck, Jan. We really had fun together, didn't we?" Doug turned away, unwilling to continue looking at the beautiful dark-haired girl. The more he looked, listened to the sound of her voice, thought of the passionate intimacies they'd shared, the more difficult this was becoming for him.
He'd originally picked up the young prostitute as an antidote. He'd spent that summer trying to get the strong, sensual attraction Cleo Lambert had so skillfully created between them out of his system. And, for a while there, he'd been pretty pleased with his remedy. He'd thought Janet Bates was exactly the medicine he'd needed to accomplish his romantic recovery.
That was before he'd become so damned fascinated with the cutey he'd taken on to cure his other ills! Suddenly he'd realized the pressing danger that he might easily fall in love with the girl he'd paid for the pleasures of passion.
Janet followed him over to the fireplace and touched his arm. "Do you want to kiss me goodbye, Doug?"
He stiffened at her touch. He applied what he wanted to be a careless, easy-going grin, swinging around to take her in his arms. "Bon voyage, honey. Here's hoping you make a million."
Their lips went through all the motions of a briefly affectionate farewell kiss and when they separated from the embrace, both were smiling.
"Here's hoping you get just what you want out of your life, too. Goodbye, Doug." Janet turned and walked from the parlor. She didn't look back.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Patricia Scott sighed, snuggling contentedly in the consuming arms of the nude varsity football captain. "This wasn't supposed to happen, Allen. Not until tomorrow night," drowsily murmured the equally-unclad golden blonde.
Allen Edwards chuckled deep in his throat. He was extraordinarily satisfied with this unexpected good fortune. His luck had always been good. He was used to getting all the breaks but he really hadn't had much hope when he'd sauntered into the campus pharmacy and spotted the luscious young society heiress purchasing a pack of cigarettes.
They'd taken a booth near the soda fountain and talked while they'd enjoyed milk shakes. He'd merely wanted to find out more about his date for the dance before attempting the seduction they'd both known was to come, ever since the encounter that noon in the cafeteria.
Pat stirred, lips affectionately nibbling at the lobe of her newest lover's ear. "I've never waited for anything I've really wanted. When you invited me up here to see this apartment, I knew precisely what was coming off. My clothes!"
"Big tanned tranquilizers like these shouldn't be covered, anyway," Allen Edwards drawled, hands working slowly at the firm fullness of her 40-inch bosoms. His bold blue eyes scanned the flaring puckers of those vivid pink nipples, then drifted to another tempting target area further down past the creamy expanse of her navel.
"Let's get one thing straight, though. I'm not and never will be a nympho, Al. I enjoy lovemaking sorties but I can always choose the time, place and man I share them with."
"We've both been around. I don't know about you but I thought this was definitely a top-rated performance, Pat."
"Ohh, it was I Most definitely." She stretched in his fondling arms, long, tanned legs flat and widely apart on the massive mattress. Her green eyes took in their reflections in that abundance of mirrors that had startled her at first.
She'd permitted the husky, handsome square-jawed football fullback and campus leader to lure her into his station wagon on the pretext that he would drive her back to the dormitory. In the front seat, she'd deliberately provoked a kiss, then had trapped his hands before they could skirmish amid the swelling splendor of her busts, saying caresses in cars was one of her few taboos.
Now, entirely exhausted from their wide-open romp, Patricia Scott faintly wondered if she was one of those girls with ever-present desires? If she submitted every time any reasonably good-looking male followed up his natural urges and made a pass?
What was she looking for, anyway? If only she knew! Her eyes went to the mirrored ceiling just as one of the naked redhead's hands trailed down from her tummy and crept teasingly across her untanned white thighs.
"Hey, what's the hurry?" Allen Edwards protested when she flipped her deluxe figure out of his arms and hopped up from the oversized bed with graceful abruptness. His eyes studied the shapely rounds of her backside as she stooped, picking up her filmy mint-green lingerie: "There aren't any classes tomorrow. Besides, it isn't that late, baby."
"You have a football game to play, remember? I wouldn't want to be responsible for dear old Layne U's first loss." Pat stepped quickly into her briefs and shoved her much-handled breasts into the cups of the bra, dancing lithely away as her disappointed bed partner floundered energetically up, hands reaching hungrily for her. "Save some of that surplus go-power for the game and for after the dance," laughingly admonished the blonde, fastening her bra and twisting to one side to avoid another purposeful lunge.
Allen Edwards sighed, shaking his wavy-haired head. "Okay, so you've proved you do have resistance when you want to use it. I'm convinced, Pat baby. Now, let's try some more loving-and don't worry about my reserve supply. I'm a rugged individual, believe me!"
"I said that's all, buster! And that's all!" Patricia shoved hard against the advancing chest of the lusting senior, her voice ringing with terse warning.
He knew enough to quit. He mustered a resigned grin, hands lowering from the sensationally-swelled cups of her green brassiere. "I'll get dressed and fix us a wee drink. Something extra cold for me. As you say, there's always tomorrow night." He winked, reaching down for his striped blue-and-white shorts from the floor beside the elaborate bed. "I have a hunch this joint will really be jumping during and after the dance."
"I don't doubt that for a moment," easily laughed the golden-haired coed, her own sophisticated sense of humor restored.
"Hey, do me a favor, will you?" The red-haired male grinned, donning his shorts. "Take off those panties when you get to your room and put 'em aside for me.
That's the pair I want for tomorrow night's fracas at the fieldhouse."
"Why do men get such kicks from trophies like girl's bloomers? I'll never be able to understand what possible thrill that could be-I certainly don't have any desire to include those boxer-style briefs of yours among my souvenirs."
"I'd yank 'em off right now and give 'em to you if you said the word," Allen Edwards immediately declared. He picked up her crumpled frock and gallantly extended it, saving her the trouble of bending for it.
They dressed and had their drink. Then, the brawny, good-looking college idol sauntered over and pulled down the window shade. They left the apartment and drove along the deserted Medford Main Street.
The station wagon was just cruising off into the night and the sleepy young blonde was entering the dusky front vestibule of the dormitory building when another coed came down the stairs with her luggage.
The girls looked at each other. Janet Bates managed a small, sad smile. "I thought everyone would be tucked in. It's past midnight, Pat."
"Ditto. Except that I saw something's been bothering you all week and I'm not as surprised to see you with your suitcases as you were when you spotted me just now."
"I-this college life is too much of a grind. There's a bus out of here in about an hour." Janet moved slowly towards the front door where the girl in the slightly-rumpled wheat beige frock was standing.
Patricia Scott didn't move aside. Her full red lips curved into a cynical half-smile as she said, "What are you really running away from, honey? A man? Or are you just homesick? If that's what it is, I've got a suggestion. Get on that bus. Go visit your family and have a good, healthy cry in your own room. Then, after you're drained off all those lonely tears, powder up and get back here. This first week away from home is always the roughest. I should know."
"It isn't that. I-well, I just don't belong here, that's all, Pat." Janet Bates tried to move past the willowy young blonde barricading the entrance.
"Did that lesbo bitch you've been rooming with get funny with you? Is that the problem?" sharply whispered the other girl, her green eyes clouding with dislike.
"I guess I always suspected that's what Hazel was. Are you sure, Pat? Not that it makes any real difference. She isn't the reason I've decided to leave college."
"I caught her peeking in through the connecting doorway a couple of nights ago while I was undressing. She's pulled that stunt before. I've seen her watching you lots of times the way a hungry cat watches a mouse it thinks would make a delicious meal. Yeah, she's one of those sexual misfits-no doubt about it." The lovely blonde who was well-experienced in her ability to judge others better than she could know herself smiled reassuringly, gently reaching out to take the suitcases from Janet's hands. "Put 'em down and let's go outside for a smoke while we yak. You said that bus isn't due for an hour."
Reluctantly,-the brunette torn by conflicting emotions allowed her luggage to be placed in the shadowy front hallway of the dormitory. She followed Patricia Scott outside into the silent coolness of the night.
There was light showing in a feeble sliver, beneath the closed door of the room occupied by Doug Marlowe inside the exclusive fraternity house some blocks from the downtown store and apartment building from which Allen Edwards had just returned.
Grinning, the big, red-haired president of the frat chapter contined on his way to the glass-enclosed sun porch which was the most luxuriantly-furnished accommodation in the house.
Roy Farnam blinked, squinting blearily up from the armchair he'd fallen asleep in, as the room flooded with light. "Oh, hiya, AL I must'a snoozed, waitin up for you," amiably rumbled the massive senior devoted to playing stooge to his much wealthier, more popular fraternity brother. "I thought you was gonna sack out early tonight-what'dya mean-early morning?"
"Business, Roy. Something that couldn't wait. Details that had to be attended to," breezily informed the handsome red-haired male, briskly peeling out of his clothes, this time with the idea of grabbing shut-eye instead of curves.
The lumbering, close-cropped frame of Roy Farnam ambled towards the door. "I was gonna take you for a fast fifty bucks or so at gin rummy tonight. Oh, well-guess your cabbage'll keep, huh?"
"That'll be the day! At last count, you owe me approximately five thousand bucks, me bucko!" Allen Edwards balled up his shirt and flung it zestfully across the room at the retreating giant center. "Tell you what, though. You keep those Averey Institute guys off my back and help me romp through to gridiron glory again tomorrow afternoon and we'll forget your debt." He grinned, easily catching the wadded-up shirt the smirking lineman heaved back at him. "Plus, there could be a fifty bonus. If I have a good day out there."
"Whatcha mean-if? Hell, for fifty bucks I'll carry you across them goal lines piggy-back style if I gotta!"
"Get outa here, you big bum! Let Layne University's All-Conference fullback rest!"
"Yeah? I gotta hell'uva hunch you didn't get any rest when you went walkin' around the yard tonight!" Roy Farnam chortled, closing the door hastily to avoid being bombed with a suddenly-heaved brogan.
Allen Edwards finished stripping down to his shorts and stretched, flexing his rippling torso muscles as he grinned at his imposing image in the wall mirror next to the bureau.
It was a good thing Roy was so stupid. Otherwise, the big slob would have known that the rummy hands he'd constantly kept losing had been deftly dealt him from the marked deck there in the top bureau drawer.
They all thought he was born lucky. They were all wrong. A guy made his own luck. That applied to dealings with people as well as playing cards. If anyone around school ever, somehow, tumbled to the fact that his old man was a top echelon wheel in an east coast gambling syndicate instead of a distinguished, much-respected head of a successful New Jersey industrial engineering firm, that would put the skids to his fame and good fortunes.
He doused the fights and flopped down on the bed, yawning as he pulled up the sheet. He just couldn't let it happen, that was all. Not until he'd enjoyed that one last year of basking in the glowing, unquestioning tributes of guys like Roy Farnam and beautiful young babes like Pat Scott or Cleo Lambert
CHAPTER EIGHT
"Oh, sure. Sure, Cleo, I understand." George Thompson stared down at the tips of his shoes. "I know how you feel about him. I'm glad you two patched things up last night."
The striking black-haired girl in the dormitory parlor smiled condescendingly across the sunlit room at the dejected senior. "We'll always be good friends, George. I'm afraid that's all we can ever be," she murmured. Now was the time to get that clarified. She was tired of having the stocky, mild-mannered hometown boy tagging around after her.
George got off the sofa. "Let me know if you ever need me for-well, for anything," he finished lamely. He couldn't disguise being severely let-down. He'd asked Cleo Lambert to the Saturday night dance their first day back on the campus and she'd accepted. Now, on the day of the big football game and ensuing dance in the fieldhouse gymnasium, she'd called him over to notify him their date was cancelled. He trudged from the Chandler House, moving morosely along the bright warmth of the sun-baked walk. He almost collided with the lovely young brunette approaching from the opposite direction.
"Oh, excuse me," George Thompson muttered, ready to move around the girl in the figure-flattering gold sharkskin step-in dress.
Janet Bates smiled forgivingly at the abject senior, saying, "Aren't you one of Doug Marlowe's friends? I think we saw each other the day you and Doug came over to the dorm together. I'm one of Cleo's stablemates."
George looked up and saw what a stunning young woman he'd nearly knocked down. His sincere brown eyes warmed with his friendly grin. "Doug and I couldn't exactly be classed as friends, Miss Bates. We travel in different orbits." His grin diminished noticeably. "Cleo and I circulate in different social orbits, too," he added, brown eyes becoming dull with faint bitterness. "Since you and Doug are friends, I suppose you know he's taking Cleo to tonight's dance."
The shapely brunette saw the hurt in his eyes. She knew how he felt. She'd had her own pride maimed by Doug Marlowe's sudden decision to call their relationship quits and return to romancing the impressively-beautiful black-haired queen of the campus.
Impulsively, Janet's hand went out and rested on the pleasant-looking but unhandsome senior's upper arm. "Cheer up. You know the old saying about how faint heart never wins fair lady. And, please call me Janet. I feel ancient enough this morning without being addressed as 'Miss Bates'!"
That was the truth. She'd slept very little after spending an earnest hour in conversation with Patricia Scott. Pat had argued and lectured until she'd finally agreed to remain at college for a few more days at least.
Actually, deep down inside, Janet never had wanted to leave the campus. She'd only needed the additional moral support of someone like Pat to sway her from her troubled decision to sneak away.
After all, she was paid up for the entire semester. Why shouldn't she treat herself to a little more of the gay, interesting whirl of events she'd come to enjoy so greatly?
George Thompson was so encouraged by her bright words of hope that his responding grin was almost pathetic in its eagerness to believe what she'd told him. He reminded Janet of a friendly young puppy dog with its tail wagging because someone had stopped to pat its head.
"Will you be attending the dance tonight, Misser, I mean-Janet?"
She briefly considered his query. It wouldn't be difficult to snag a date. Pat Scott had already offered to fix her up. Dale Hardesty and that ill-tempered brute of a senior named Roy Farnam were both without women for that evening.
"I will if some noble senior asks me," she pointedly suggested, swiftly deciding in favor of the quiet, well-mannered male standing with her there on the sidewalk.
George Thompson looked startled, then disbelieving that he'd assumed correctly. "You, uh, would you like to go with me?" he eventually blurted, obviously prepared for a negative reply.
I'd love to give you my panties, George!" Janet said gaily, amused by the rapid flush that swept over his clean-shaven cheeks.
"Say, this is wonderful! What a break for me!" gleefully exalted the inspired senior, his grin so wide it threatened to split his victoriously-flushed features. "What time shall I come by tonight, Janet? How's about eight or is that too early?"
"It is a bit early. We don't want to be the first couple on the dance floor. Let's make it an hour later," smilingly suggested the dark-haired counterfeit coed. She watched George Thompson bob his neatly-combed, brown-haired head in vigorous assent. "Right now, I have to get back to my room with these supplies I picked up downtown for myself and some of the girls," Janet Bates said, shifting the manila paper sack containing the various items she'd purchased.
They didn't see three girls at three different windows overlooking the front sidewalks as they swapped friendly farewells until that evening and moved off in opposite destinations.
Cleo Lambert frowned, seeing that busty brunette playing up to poor, unspectacular George Thompson. It wasn't that she cared beans how many girls he chased. It was only that he was loyal and singularly devoted in his attraction to her-and a girl never knew when she might need a man like her hometown boyfriend to fall back on.
Hazel Killian stood before the window in the dormitory room she shared with Janet Bates. She'd scarcely looked at the wide-shouldered male in the inconspicuous sport jacket and brown slacks. Her attention remained centered on the well-built young brunette who was now strolling back towards the dormitory with the drug and cosmetic items she'd gone forth to buy an hour earlier.
Last night, she'd been awakened by her ravishing young roommate's stealthy movements on the other side of the darkened room. She'd pretended sleep while she'd observed Janet's preparations for departure and she'd still been awake much later when the dorm door eased open and she saw the girl return with her luggage.
The vivid glare of mid-morning September sunlight glinted on her shell-rimmed glasses as she let the window curtain flutter back in place and moved back across the room. Lustful thoughts of how delightful the exchange of kisses and more daring intimacies would be with a girl as pretty as Janet brought a warped smile to her lips. Of course, she'd have to proceed with extreme caution, just as she'd done during the year she'd roomed with Virginia Weber.
Remembrance of how hysterical that freckled red-haired coed had become after prolonged weeks of summer living with her at that remote northern Wisconsin motel caused the maimish-minded creature with the deceptive curves depicting womanhood to scowl. Yes, she'd have to go easy with her newest candidate for physical pleasures. She didn't want another near-scandal on her hands.
Patricia Scott was in the bathroom shared by the bevy of females residing in the upstairs dorm rooms. She toweled her breasts, glancing down again at the slight discolorations on those creamy cones from the clutching fondlings of Al Edwards. She stared out at the diminishing form of the man she'd seen Janet Bates bump into on the sidewalk.
Now, what was his name? She'd scarcely noticed him the other day when he'd called at the dormitory along with that handsome boyfriend of Janet's. Or, was Doug Marlowe anyone's private property? She wondered, especially now that Janet had told her he was squiring Cleo Lambert to the dance.
The medicine cabinet mirror was still clouded with steam as a result of the hot shower she'd taken. Pat used the damp towel to wipe off the murky surface and flipped the towel carelessly back across the chrome-plated rack fastened to the tiled wall beside the sink.
Her rich abundance of golden curls had escaped most of the spray. She'd rinsed her hair late last night after she'd finished yakking with Janet Bates. Now, critically turning from side to side, she examined the lush outlines of her nude body, pinkened by the rubbing effects of the rough-textured towel.
The prospect of another sex marathon with that big, demanding football hero was something to look forward to. Yet, he wasn't that much different from the scads of other lusty, good-looking lotharios she'd coupled with. Just what did she expect from a man, anyway?
Pat Scott sighed, bundling her tingling torso into her semi-transparent light blue wrapper and toeing her feet into her fleece-lined slippers. She emerged from the bathroom and swayed her talented hips as she walked towards the room she shared with that stilted, insincere black-haired hussy named Cleo Lambert.
Cleo whirled guiltily from the windows as her room-mate laughed softly, saying, "Could you use a telescope, dear? Seeing anything or anyone interesting out there?"
"Now that you've finally finished, I want to take a bath," haughtily announced the annoyed, regally-attractive coed, flouncing past the wryly-smiling blonde and into the hall.
Pat sauntered over and tapped lightly on the connecting door before opening it and entering the dorm room Janet Bates had just returned to.
"How much was the mouth-wash and aspirin I asked you to bring? I'd better pay you now before both of us forget," said the golden-haired playgirl, noting the jealous wariness that spread over Hazel Killian's moody features at her entrance.
"Oh, darn! I knew there was something I forgot!" Janet said in exasperation, snapping her fingers. "I'm sorry, Pat. I remembered the mouth-wash but I goofed about the aspirin." She turned and walked to the bureau on her side of the room brightened by streaming sun rays. "I have some you can borrow, though." She poked through the top drawer and her hand paused when she saw the vial containing several potent chloral hydrate pellets.
They were a momento from the rugged months when she'd worked the streets of cities at the outset of her sordid career as a streetwalker. A fatherly barkeep had pressed the small bottle of knockout powders into her hand after ejecting an abusive drunk who'd attempted to maul her in one of the booths in a dim corner of the third-rate bar and grill that was on her route.
She'd never used any of those pills. Once she'd plied her trade for a few more months, she'd learned how to take men as they came, how to cope with their desires and turn them to her own advantage.
Just how long had she been an out-and-out whore, anyway? Was it only four years? It seemed that many eternities since she'd first held out her hand, summoning the brazen courage to ask a man for money before they sank into a panting, writhing tangle on some cheap mattress.
And, she'd gradually improved her lot. She'd gone up instead of down, rising from the lowly, much-despised level of a freelance prostitute to an independent call girl registered at the most plush hotels and resorts.
"Can't you find 'em, honey?"
Patricia Scott's casual inquiry shook the solemn-looking young brunette from her self-despising reverie. She located the half-filled bottle of aspirin and closed the drawer, then turned wearing a carefully-adjusted smile of fight-hearted apology.
"I happened to spot an old souvenir while I was rummaging for these. Here, Pat. Take them back to your room and shake out as many as you'll need until you get to the drugstore. I hope you can get rid of that headache."
"I'm getting used to them. One doctor diagnosed 'em as the mild beginnings of what could become a permanent migraine condition," casually remarked the tall, golden-haired girl in the revealing blue wrapper.
Hazel Killian's eyes burned with avid lust as she glared at the ruby nipples shoving against the clinging silken fabric of the worldly blonde's chemise.
Much as the dark-haired lesbo hated Patricia Scott, sight of so much voluptuous flesh brought renewed pangs of lust shooting hotly through her and she turned away to terminate the torture.
Janet Bates watched her friend leave the room with the bottle of mouth-wash and the aspirin. She hummed absent-mindedly to herself as she went back to the bureau and opened the lower drawer where her lingerie was neatly stowed.
Holding up a fine-meshed pair of fragrantly-scented and elegantly-feminine briefs which she'd received as a gift that summer from Doug Marlowe, she smiled at the sulking brunette who'd camped on the edge of the other twin bed to leaf restlessly through a magazine.
"Do you think my date for tonight's dance will like these lace-trimmed drawers, Hazel?
Lowering the magazine, Hazel Killian pushed at the bridge of her glasses and glanced disapprovingly at the pair of frilly white step-ins.
"I'm sure I wouldn't know," crisply replied the unique coed with female looks and masculine lusts. She feigned great interest in the magazine open on the lap of her gray herringbone skirt, discouraging further conversation.
Other girls in their rooms laughed and chatted incessantly, excited over the forthcoming football clash between their school and the eleven huskies from a neighboring college. They discussed dates for the dance who might provide more enjoyable passes, depending on just how far each girl was willing to let things go.
CHAPTER NINE
Doug Marlowe was just leaving Chandler House with Cleo Lambert when George Thompson was admitted by the slim, motherly house chaperon and guided to wait for his date in the ever-popular downstairs sitting room".
George smiled at both the handsome dark-haired guy in the dashing white dinner jacket and at the radiantly lovely girl with midnight black hair who wore a sequinned rose formal.
"We're supposed to pick up another couple," Doug said, steering Cleo towards the front vestibule while he grinned back at the other senior. He vaguely wondered which girl George had asked to pledge him her panties? Possibly that mousy brunette wearing shell-rimmed specs or maybe that skinny dishwater blonde who'd been among the coeds who'd waved down to them the day he and his classmate had hiked over to the girl's dorm.
Cleo Lambert hadn't mentioned the fact that her former admirer and the sexy dark-haired frosh Doug had taken out a few times had paired off for the evening. Now, glancing back at George Thompson across the white ermine shoulder of her wrap, Cleo said, "See you on the dance floor later, George. I'll save one set for you."
"That isn't necessary," quietly retorted the sandy-haired senior attired in a similar white jacket except that he'd paid twelve dollars to rent his outfit at the local men's clothing store while he knew that Doug Marlowe owned several such formal ensembles. He grinned cordially after the couple moving through the front doorway into the starlit darkness, secretly pleased to detect a minor chink in Cleo Lambert's usually flawless poise and lovely self-assurance at his lack of interest in her invitation.
Less than five minutes after that couple had driven away, the sauntering image of a handsome red-haired giant appeared in the parlor archway and Allen Edwards flashed the seated senior a patronizing grin.
"How's it with you, George? Ready to live it up big tonight? Say, how'd you like the game?"
"I didn't see it, Al. While you were bowling over the opposition on the football field, I was putting on storm windows at the library."
"Oh, that's right. You aren't a football fiend like most of these characters around here, are you?" The flashy fullback lounged easily against the wall and glanced at his watch.
"I like football. About one more Saturday afternoon will just about pay for the rent of this tux jacket and trousers." George wasn't ashamed because his family were numbered among the vast majority of middle-classed citizens. He didn't mind working for something as worth-while as the evening ahead.
"My date knows I'd be here at quarter of nine. How long do you think she'll keep me waiting? I'll bet she won't be down for at least another ten minutes."
"Pay me, then," drawled the amused, throaty voice of Patricia Scott and both males jerked quickly to reverently-approving attention as she glided into the sitting room amid a seductive rustling of silk.
Allen Edwards saw the freshly-laundered pair of mint green panties were folded so they could be pinned to the front of his white jacket. He scented the subtle pleasantness of her perfume as she stepped forward and affixed the dainty briefs to his coat.
"That's one bet I don't mind losing," lecherously leered the outgoing extrovert. He winked across the bare tanned softness of the golden-haired honey's shoulder at George Thompson.
George had bolted up from the settee at the entrance of the enchanting vision in frothy cherry red taffeta and satin. He couldn't keep his wide eyes from drinking in the startling depth of the creamy crevice surrounded by lushly-rising spheres of flesh as Patricia Scott swung around and smiled a hello at him.
"You, uh, look very beautiful, Miss Scott," he said, knowing he was faltering badly, reverting to the shy inability to be really at ease in the presence of any lovely, desirable female.
He felt the back of his neck grow hot as her green eyes met his, taking note of how avidly he'd been staring at the low-cut front of her gown. Why did he have to be so infernally tongue-tied and clumsy-minded whenever he looked at a pretty girl?
The greatest shame of his life was his virginity. Oh, he even laughed when other guys told jokes about untried males and their humiliating failure at making love. He'd gone to a house of prostitution once the year after graduating from high school. He'd paid the price asked by the small, flat-chested mulatto he'd been assigned to after she'd led him to the cubicle that served as a bedroom.
But when he'd heard the moaning and grunts of sensual exertion through those paper-thin walls, when he'd stared through the dim room filled with the scent of stale smoke, sweat and heavy perfume, and watched the dark-skinned whore disrobe with all the mechanical disinterest of a robot, he'd lost his nerve along with his grim resolve to get some experience. He'd mumbled an excuse about suddenly not feeling well and he'd stumbled hurriedly from the dingy little room while the girl behind him laughed with shrill scorn at his cowardice.
Patricia Scott saw the dull detachment mask George Thompson's brown eyes as his gaze shifted from her in uneasy discomfort. She felt something in that moment that she'd never thought it possible for her to feel. A sense of sympathetic liking that had absolutely nothing to do with any form of physical attraction between male and female.
"Your date will be down in a few minutes," she said. "I looked in on her before I came down. She's just slipping into her formal."
George nodded, bringing his gaze back for another look at the lavishly-breasted young blonde. "I'm early," he said. "She said nine o'clock. I-well, I just thought this would be as good a place for me to wait as anywhere else, Miss-"
"Sure it is!" heartily interrupted Allen Edwards, confidently sliding his left arm around the tall, sophisticated coed's waist, lips boyishly brashing the silken strands of her attractive coiffure. "Come on, Pat. I left the motor running so the heater would work. Here, I'll help you with your stole," he offered, taking the sable garment draped over her arm and expertly arranging it across her bare shoulders while his eyes delved beyond the chiffon fringes of the cherry-red bodice and enjoyed several more inches of exciting twin spheres from his higher altitude.
They left the unassuming law student alone in the parlor and George Thompson slowly settled back on the settee as the front door closed behind them. He could faintly hear the sounds of other girls upstairs. Someone was playing a radio in one of the rooms. Not all the girls were going to the dance. Enrollment at Layne University was lopsided that year. There were more females than men to go around, a condition which should have enabled the quiet, serious-minded senior to do something about his plight.
Upstairs, Hazel Killian was assisting her roommate with the crepe georgette formal although Janet Bates had attempted to discourage any such help from the suspected lesbian's wandering hands.
Janet tensed when one of those 'accidentally' straying palms happened to make fingering contact with one of her breasts. She stared straight through the heavy lenses of the shorter girl's glasses.
"I'd rather you didn't touch me after this, Hazel. We'll each stay on our own side of the room and we'll get along fine," she said evenly.
Hazel Killian jerked her hands away and a betraying gush of scarlet flared on her sallow cheeks. "Are you suggesting I'm-?"
"Do I have to spell it out? I know what you are. Now that I do know, I'm just telling you to drop any plans you may have had regarding me. Do I make myself clear?"
"Perfectly clear!"
"No need to lose your temper, Hazel. We can continue to room together. Unless you prefer some other arrangement-or force me to speak to Mrs. Schoen about changing my room."
"Go downstairs and go out with that new boyfriend of yours!" viciously raged the frustrated female as her twisted desires boiled with defiant fury. "Let him toy with your breasts and slip his hands under your clothes!"
"Better him than you!" Janet exclaimed before she mastered her own sense of sharp anger at the attempted caressings. Then, she smiled, allowing pity and generous tolerance to replace contemptuous scorn. "I'd still like to be your friend. You have a very brilliant intellect, Hazel. I'm sure that if you sought psychiatric treatment, you could eventually-"
"Don't start trying to talk me into seeing a doctor! I tried that-just once! The head-shrinker I saw had his own notions about how to treat me. He-he grabbed me after we'd had a few drinks. He-almost raped me," shiveringly muttered the unfortunate brunette, eyes narrowed in anguish at the harrowing recollection. Then, Hazel Killian whirled and stalked silently to the darkened windows. She refused to speak or look at Janet again while the more attractive coed completed adjusting her turquoise blue formal and gathered up her small clutch purse and took her mink jacket from the closet.
George Thompson was lost in his own thoughts. He didn't hear the lovely young brunette or notice her appearance in the comfortable sitting room until she was almost directly in front of where he sat. He jumped from the settee and for the second time that evening, his brown eyes fairly bulged with ardent appreciation.
"Wow! Are you for real?"
"Want to pinch me? I'll gladly do the same for you, George." Janet raised her right hand and waved the expensively elaborate pair of frilly dress panties. "How do you intend to wear these?" she asked, much less embarrassed by the filmy white step-ins she held forth than he was.
"Ulp!, I, uh, don't quite know yet," stammered the blushing male, unable to make his hands move and accept the preferred daintily-feminine undies. "Er, uh, how would you suggest I wear them, Janet?"
"Most men will be wearing their trophies pinned to their jackets or rolled up on one arm. I'd suggest a pin. I have a safety pin somewhere in my purse. Hold these, will you?" She stuffed the white briefs under his arm when his hands still failed to function, then busily rummaged through the small cloth handbag for a pin.
George gaped at the rising hints of her 38-inch bosoms demurely skirted by semi-transparent sheer blue rayon. Her thickly-swirled mass of rich dark brown hair was curled in alluring Italian-style ringlets and the moist softness of her full red lips continued to fill his aroused awareness of her beauty with wild, primitive impulses to do more than just stand there looking at her.
Their subsequent arrival at the fieldhouse, ablaze with lights and filled with sounds of dance music being enjoyed by the multitude of females in every shade and style of formals, and males resplendent in dark blue dress suits or wearing white jackets and dark slacks, caused those males to blink, then grin in disbelieving awe, while their dates became momentarily miffed at being ignored in favor of the lovely brunette.
Doug Marlowe hastily apologized for treading on his shapely partner's instep. "Do you see what I see, Cleo?" he muttered, swinging her around on the dance floor so she could look at the couple who had just arrived, creating such a significant stir.
Cleo Lambert didn't enjoy the sight. She saw the happy, clownish grin on George" Thompson's round, good-natured face as he assisted Janet Bates with her wrap there at the improvised checkroom.
"You look as if you've just seen a ghost, darling," she murmured spicily, frowning prettily up at the stunned countenance of her tall, dark-haired escort.
"That's about the size of it, too," Doug said slowly, unable to adjust right away to the fact that Janet had obviously decided to remain at college.
The lank, thin-featured man with a wavy hank of medium brown hair, who was dancing unenthusiastically with the middle-aged wife of another faculty member, perked up considerably when he found his bored glance arrested by sight of the well-curved young brunette being led onto the gym floor by George Thompson.
Associate Professor of Commerce Wendell Nelson forgot to keep moving in time to the music. He forgot that he was engaged in a duty dance with the plumpish, blonde wife of his superior in the commerce department.
It didn't require much thought for him to discern what had happened. Doug Marlowe must have tired of his luscious new plaything or vice versa. Or, perhaps they'd quarreled. At any rate, it was now open season on that cute young quail named Janet Bates.
"Is anything wrong, Wendell dear?" solicitously cooed the buxom frump, pressing her heavily-corsetted body into more noticeable contact with his.
"Wrong? Oh, quite the contrary, Louise. Everything appears to be going along most swimmingly," cryptically chortled the male who had a passion for fair young ladies almost as much as he had for money. He watched Janet Bates and her new boyfriend become immersed in the shadowy midst of the swaying couples surrounding them.
Janet smiled up into the flushed, highly-excited face of George Thompson. "Why, you underrated yourself again, George! You're a very smooth dancer."
She could almost feel his stocky frame swell as her dulcet words of praise inflated his previously empty ego. She flashed another quick, furtive look across his jacket shoulder. Doug Marlowe and his snobbish black-haired babe were dancing deliberately towards them.
George Thompson's grin widened when he spotted Cleo Lambert. "Some crowd, eh? Nice dance, isn't it?"
"Hey! Hey! Will you look at those super-scrumptious panties pinned to that jacket!" Allen Edwards spoke loudly, drawing the smiling attention of dozens of nearby couples as he led Patricia Scott into a series of effortless steps that brought them close to where the spotlight mounted on the gym balcony railing had picked out Janet and George.
Doug Marlowe was looking. He recognized those lace-trimmed silken white briefs immediately. The scowl darkened with displeasure as he met the innocently-smiling gaze of Janet Bates.
"I want to talk to you!"
Both Cleo Lambert and George Thompson gasped, finding themselves pushed into each other's arms as Doug literally kidnapped the dark-haired girl, whose magnificent figure was on such breathtaking display in her blue crepe gown, and steered her across the crowded floor with purposeful abruptness.
"Why are you so upset to see me?" Janet asked, wincing at the biting pressures of his clamped fingers on her arm. "I-I certainly didn't think you'd react like this, Doug!"
"How do you expect me to react? I thought we'd agreed you were to-"
"Sneak off in the middle of the night? I almost did, Doug. Until I was made to realize that it was like running away. Oh, don't look so disturbed! I won't stay much longer. I only want to prove to myself that other men still find me attractive and desirable." She spoke in a low voice as they reached the sidelines and moved into a corner where they stood temporarily alone. "You shook my confidence when you unceremoniously decided to dump me in favor of Cleo Lambert. Didn't it ever occur to you that even whores have feelings? A sense of pride?"
Doug Marlowe released his punishing grasp on her forearm but continued to glare angrily down into her earnest blue eyes. "Okay, so I stuck my neck out and fixed it so you could get in here! I admit you were right and I was wrong! I should never have talked you into coming here!"
"Now, you're half scared to death someone will find out about your boyish escapade. That sweet, respectable Miss Cleo Lambert will learn of our arrangement and give you the air."
"It's not that! It's just that-well, that-!" For the first time in his gay, adventurous existence, Douglas Marlowe discovered he was unable to successfully cope with a situation.
He couldn't tell the lovely, defensively-frowning young brunette the real motive behind his decision to end their affair. He wouldn't even admit to himself that the emotions nagging at him concerning Janet might have been a passionate obsession that could easily be confused with love.
Janet Bates read a different meaning into his stammering scowls. She believed that Doug was ashamed of his summertime intimacies with a professional prostitute, that he bitterly regretted continuing their bought-and-paid-for-passion until the beginning of his senior term at Layne University.
She pulled away from him, starting back towards the gymnasium floor where silhouetted couples clung closely together in time to the music provided by the student dance band.
Doug lunged after her but found himself deflected by the burly form of the apish lug with close-cropped brown hair and a thick-browed wide wedge of a lewdly-smirking mug. Roy Farnam rolled his closeset little eyes, saying, "You can't be a hog, Doug old buddy! The limit's one chick to a customer-one at a time, anyhow! What'cha say I relieve you of either that nifty brunette or that big, ripe tomato you brung, huh?"
"What'cha say you drop dead?" Doug growled angrily, dodging impatiently around the bruiser.
Roy Farnam scratched one side of his bullet-shaped skull, head cocked as he stared after the determined, hostile form of his wealthy fraternity brother. It was almost impossible, yet that soft touch, that easy-going pushover who never argued with anyone about anything, actually had sounded like he might have started growing a backbone!
George Thompson willingly welcomed back his own date for the evening as the set of popular dance ballads concluded and the gym lights were turned up.
"Care for some punch, Janet?" offered the friendly, admiring senior law student, completely ignoring a much-exasperated Cleo Lambert who now found herself stranded without any attention whatesoever.
They were moving along with other couples, in the direction of the festively-decorated serving bar established at the far end of the gym, when Doug plowed through the milling throng and rejoined his date.
"I'm sorry I rushed off like that," unhappily mumbled the distracted senior, eyes searching the crowd for sight of Janet and George Thompson.
"Just what sort of girl do you think I am?" sharply rebuked the raven-haired lovely, breasts thrusting furiously against the bodice of her rose, seqiun-stud-ded formal, brown eyes snapping with censure.
"Desert me like this again and we're through, Doug! I mean it!"
"It won't happen again," soothingly muttered her good-looking date, absently fingering the elastic waistband of the filmy chartreuse briefs rolled up on the sleeve of his dinner jacket. He turned, administering a placating smile. "You're all the woman I intend to concentrate on, Cleo."
She recalled those tempestuous times they'd shared in the fantastic bedroom of that remodeled apartment above a downtown store. Her eyes softened with expectant glows of promise as she linked her hand through his offered arm. "I may just give you the chance to prove that later tonight, darling," she whispered up at him while they wended their way towards the sidelines of the gym.
Wendell Nelson bowed slightly, smiling the wistful, worshiping type grin that usually wowed impressionable young coeds, as he handed a paper cup filled with fruit punch to Janet Bates.
"Please take mine, Miss Bates," the undergraduate professor said with gallant nobility. "You'd perish of thirst if you and George stood in line, waiting your turn."
Janet reminded herself of how lustfully the foppish, wavy-haired instructor had ogled her that day she'd registered at college. She accepted the cup and thanked him with a meagre, noncommittal smile, saying, "The age of chivalry is indeed not dead."
"Yes, thanks, Mr. Nelson," George Thompson said, experiencing the old familiar feeling that he'd once again been forgotten by a girl in favor of another more imposing male.
Wendell Nelson glanced idly across the nulling heads of the laughing, gaily-chattering assemblage of students. He spied Allen Edwards leading that willowy, golden -haired cutie out through one of the side exits into the screening privacy of the darkness beyond the huge field house.
Then, looking back at the fetching young brunette, he deliberately let her see his gaze descend to the neckline of her becoming blue gown. "I wonder if Mr. Thompson would mind sharing your beautiful presence with me long enough for one waltz, Miss Bates?"
"Oh, sure. Sure, go right ahead," George mumbled with forced cheerfulness. Not that he really had anything to say about it, anyway. Who ever listened to him?
Janet sipped at her punch, delaying her own reply, aware that the lean, long-jawed commerce instructor had something besides chivalry in mind. The music had resumed, following the short break of the band camped with music stands and instruments on the brilliantly-illuminated stage at the front of the gymnasium. Some couples were already in motion and others were trailing back to the dance area from the sidelines.
Roy Farnam swiped the petite, full-breasted blonde named Mary Becker from a gaunt junior who played left end for the second string. "I'll bring her back safe and sound, Wally," grinned the giant varsity center, arms closing possessively around the pretty sophomore coed.
"Do you always just reach out and grab what you want?" Mary Becker taunted lightly, smiling even though she wasn't especially enjoying being crashed and leered at by the offensive senior football hero.
Roy laughed. "It's somethin' I learned from my buddy, Al Edwards. Why? Any objections to dancin' with a man instead of a boy?"
"Too bad you couldn't come up with a pair of panties of your own," mocked the fearless little blonde. She had trouble breathing. That bear-like embrace was shoving the tips of her generous young bosoms fiercely against the powerful chest of the surprisingly-graceful grizzly who'd kidnapped her.
"It's what goes in the panties that counts," Roy Farnam said, conscious of how nice those big, soft curves felt poking against his bulk. He tightened the hand holding hers while his other hand slipped roguishly down to and then below the small of her back.
Mary Becker didn't like being fondled there with hundreds of bystanders and other dancing couples watching. Her buttocks squirmed and they lost the tempo of the music as she braced her free hand against him, prying their clinched bodies apart.
"This is-supposed to be a-dance! Not a wrestling match!" panted the outraged girl. "Keep your hands where they belong-or take me back to Wally!"
Aware that nearby couples were taking in the flurry of protesting pulchritude, Roy Farnam quickly resumed the more acceptable form of holding his dancing partner. He even managed an amiable grin, saying, "No more wrestling, baby. Scout's honor-I'll behave." Inwardly, the massive mauler was making dire plans for putting his hands where he thought they belonged. That would come later. Sometime when he cornered the bitchy little blonde alone somewhere.
Patricia Scott turned away from the skirmish between the cute sophomore coed and the hulking senior grappler. She looked up at Allen Edwards, the usual half-amused, half-cynical smile twitching on her full red lips. "Can't you keep your trained flunkie from trying to accomplish rape on a dance floor? If he ever tried anything like that with me, I'd hit him where it hurts!"
The handsome red-haired hero-playboy grinned tolerantly. I'll admit Roy's a wee bit crude in most respects. But, did you see the holes that big lug opened for me this afternoon?"
"Can it be that the great Al Edwards is actually sharing credit for our beloved alma mater's smashing victory? Isn't that contrary to your principles, darling?"
"Never let it be said that Al Edwards doesn't give credit where credit is due. If it hadn't been for Farnam and the others, why I might only have scored two touchdowns instead of five," modestly drawled the brawny fullback, strong white teeth flashing in an attractive grin as he darted another admiring peek down the low-cut bodice of her expensive, cherry red formal at the ivory wealth of cleavage.
Janet Bates was just assuming a discreet, respectable position on the crowded dance floor in the arms of Wendell Nelson. She noted that he would have made an excellent gigolo. His slim hips moved with lithe grace and his hungry-looking lean features were just the sort of looks that appealed to lonely widows or successful, but greying career women.
"Music gives a man a wonderful excuse for holding a girl as lovely as you in his arms," seductively murmured the associate professor. He glanced down into her face, seeing her long, dark lashes were closed over her dark blue eyes and that her luscious young lips were curved in a relaxed smile. He dared to look f urther down. Oh, how those gorgeous juts of creamy flesh got to him! How he ached to see and enjoy more of the superbly-endowed Miss Bates!
Eventually, as the evening progressed, the crowd began dispersing. Couples stole away into the night, arms locked around each other's waists, eyes brimming with affectionate ardor, lips yearning to bring fulfillment after those hours of embracing in cadence with the campus band music.
Roy Farnam watched Doug Marlowe escort Cleo Lambert from the fieldhouse. The burly senior was standing in the shadows beside the building where he had a good view of the cars packed in the darkness of the blacktopped parking area. He saw the big, dark-haired guy in the white dinner jacket haul the black-haired babe in the snazzy rose formal and white ermine wrap into his arms for a prolonged ofinching kiss.
Cleo's luminous brown eyes fluttered open when her mouth was abandoned by her handsome date's lips. She snuggled in against him, swaying purposely so that the delicately-rounded swells of her busts moved temptingly against his chest.
"One more kiss like that and anything can happen!" she whispered shakily, moist red lips begging for more.
Doug Marlowe willingly obliged. His tongue w-edged between her lips and explored the panting sweetness of her warm mouth. His left hand went down and pressed in against the shapely curves of her backside, forcing their eagerly-straining thighs to merge even more disturbingly.
"We both want it to happen, honey!" huskily growled the aroused young male, tingling from tip to toe with sudden desire. "Let's get to where we can let it!" he urged, hurriedly yanking open the door of his Rambler.
Cleo Lambert hesitated, deliberately pretending unwillingness for what her burning body had wanted again ever since she'd quarreled and split up with the man who didn't want to be trapped into marriage.
"We-shouldn't let it go any further than this, Doug," she murmured, refusing to let him pull her into the front seat.
He knew precisely what she was doing to him. It was her way of bringing their relationship to a head; either he told her he loved her and wanted her to become Mrs. Douglas Marlowe or he took her home without benefit of further intimacies.
Visualization of the beautiful dark-haired, wide-breasted girl he'd slept with most of the summer flashed turbulently through his tangled thoughts. He had to shake the memories of those times he'd swapped exquisite sensual thrills with Janet.
With the glum realization that he was damned either way, Doug took the fetching black-haired debutante coed in his arms again. "What's so wrong with two engaged people spending an hour or so getting to know each other better?" he demanded with rough insistence. His mouth slashed down on her waiting lips. The exciting response she gave that kiss informed him that she was ready to pay a return visit to that downtown Medford apartment.
Inside the fieldhouse, Allen Edward was taking his turn at dancing with the terrific-looking brunette who was definitely the sensation of the evening as far as he was concerned.
"Why didn't I see you before? We must have walked within speaking distance of each other sometime this week around school-it just isn't that big a place."
Janet Bates smiled, her head resting lightly against his husky shoulder. "Perhaps you need glasses," she murmured, moving slowly in perfect harmony with his effortless leads while other couples regarded them with mingled envy and admiration.
"Pat tells me you're practically roommates at the Chandler House. After meeting you, I predict a certain beat-up and battered football player will come limping around those prettily-populated premises some night next week and ask you out for a malt or milk shake."
The girl nestled so casually in the big, red-haired campus idol's arms had to admit that Allen Edwards was convincing as well as extremely attractive and virile. She told herself that it was strictly romantic reflex action with the much sought-after senior who headed virtually every college organization he belonged to.
Yet, she had to get over the aching void in her emotions caused by Doug Marlowe's decision to terminate the intimacies for which he'd smuggled her into the school. She had to lose herself in new experiments in passion with other men, if she was ever to break away from the life where she didn't belong to return to her sordid world.
She'd sworn a solemn oath after being kicked out by her mother and step-father and shunned by her brothers and sisters. She'd vowed to become rich and flaunt her success in the jealous, pinched faces of those who'd called her vile names and refused to acknowledge that she was a human being, not of a low form of female animal.
And, since men had caused her teen-aged downfall into lust and degradation, wasn't it only fair and proper that men should be exploited? She always gave good measure for the money they paid for her temporary hire. One thing, she wasn't was a cheat.
Patricia Scott was within a fraction of an inch of George Thompson's height. She could stare easily over the top of his neatly-combed, sandy-brown hair at the other clinching couples surrounding them on the dimness of the dance floor being surveyed by colored spotlights from the the balcony above.
She saw the interest Allen Edwards was displaying for Janet Bates. It failed to disturb her. She'd never misread the big, extroverted school hero's intentions. He was out for all the fun he could get. Well, so was she! Pat drew back slightly in the strong but rather stiffly-held arms of the wide-shouldered senior she was dancing with. She smiled reassuringly at him.
"I'm not fragile, George. Hold me closer. Like this," she said with soft, lilting encouragement, shoving her 40-inch attributes against him so tightly that he almost stumbled backwards.
He felt the thrusting tips of her breasts and the clinging suppleness of her long, lovely thighs and legs pressed pliantly to his stocky frame. Instantly, George Thompson felt the delirious deliciousness of the raging fever within him. His sex-starved torso fairly screamed for even more fuel and he knew that beads of sweat had popped out of every pore.
With a sudden recklessness born of desperation, George heard his voice blurt, "Want to walk around outside for a while, Pat? Whewl They must have the furnace room boilers going full blast in here!"
The tall, exotically-curved blonde laughed, accompanying her escort off the shadowy dance floor. She didn't know about the fieldhouse furnaces, but she'd certainly succeeded in lighting the nice but unhandsome male's boiler!
They left the building via one of the side exits and found themselves quite alone in the moonlit darkness enveloping the bleachers bordering the gridiron where that day's game had been played.
Patricia leaned against George's firm, rigidly set shoulder and sensed that he was trembling as if the fever had abruptly dipped into a spasm of freezing chills. "Mmmm, it's better out here, isn't it?" she whispered, moving around so that she was standing close in front of him. She lazily lifted her arms and slipped them around his neck, saying, "We can dance out here, George. And, no one will be bumping into us."
When she pressed her lavish bosoms into him, his reaction was instinctive-but decidedly not a typical male response. He knew violent panic. Once again, his manhood was being put to the test and he feared another failure.
He tried for a grin but only succeeded in grimacing as if from a sudden pain in the stomach. "I, uh, let's have a smoke, shall we, Pat?"
She couldn't believe it! Was this unimportant, meek-natured nobody actually refusing a sample of her brand of kisses? She tried again, this time moving her hips so that her well-educated thighs rubbed provokingly across his taut, braced frame.
"Who wants to smoke? Haven't you any other bad habits, George?" she breathed, arms tightening around his neck, pulling his flustered face nearer to her waiting lips.
"Janet and Al Edwards will be wondering about us by now," frantically croaked the jittery, masculine novice. He gave a sickly laugh, pulling away from her urging arms. "It's almost too cool out here without any coats, isn't it? I-I'm ready to go back inside if you are, Miss Scott."
So now she was 'Miss Scott' again. Patricia furiously untangled their bodies, moving sharply away from contact with the uninterested male. "Not just cool," she muttered, thoroughly inflamed by her inability to tempt him. "It's damn cold out here! With the deep-freeze you're obviously in, I seriously doubt if you'll ever thaw out, Mr. Thompson!" With that, she whirled and flounced rapidly back into the field-house, nearly colliding with an outgoing couple.
Wendell Nelson studied the miffed young blonde with the qualified speculation of a man who had seduced a fair-to-middling number of coeds in his day, while he lounged on the sidelines near that side exit.
Then, when the watchful instructor observed the morose, shuffling re-entry of George Thompson a few minutes later, he guessed at the reason for the fair-haired Miss Scott's displeasure. His guess was for the right reason, but what he didn't know was that it had been the arrogant, much-pampered coed who'd launched the moonlit overtures and the dejected-looking law student who'd balked at the proposed necking session out there.
When Janet Bates saw the hang-dog look on her chunky escort's face, she also made a guess-and her estimate of the events which had transpired between Patricia and George was right on target.
Much against the strenuous protests of Allen Edwards, Janet told George Thompson he could get her wrap if he was ready to leave the dance. The senior nodded, managing a listless smile that included a nervous, apologetic glance at the still-fuming golden-haired honey he'd been too afraid to kiss.
"What do you think took the wind out of poor old George's sails?" casually queried the big red-haired male standing beside Pat Scott, grinning inquiringly at Janet while her date ambled off towards the checkroom. "He was going pretty good there for a while. Oh, well-guess he isn't used to night life around here," Allen Edwards remarked, thus tossing off all thought of the quiet-mannered classmate he scarcely knew.
"Why don't you be a good boy and get my stole?" drawled the patrician beauty in the vivid red gown, giving the grinning playboy beside her a smoldering look that promised a duplication of last night's pleasures.
After Allen Edwards obligingly sauntered off in the same direction across the thinning crowd occupying the gym, Janet Bates looked at the girl she considered her best friend at the college.
"All George needs is confidence in himself," Janet quietly explained. "I don't want him to get hurt, Pat. If you're just having fun getting a passionate rise out of him-"
"That poor boob doesn't even know what passion means," crisply declared the blonde, her vanity and pride severely dampened. "He might make a good match for that queer you room with-but as a man he's strictly numb from the neck down!"
There wasn't any point in debating the mute point with the other young woman. Janet turned to watch the gliding silhouettes pressed close together on the dance floor until George Thompson returned with her mink jacket. They left, saying goodnight to Patricia before her escort returned, but the willowy coed didn't bother to even look around.
George opened the door of the aging Plymouth sedan he'd told Janet he'd borrowed for the evening from one of the custodians he'd worked with that afternoon. They drove away from the parking lot and Janet caught a glimpse of movement, then thought she recognized the lurking bulk of Roy Farnam near the fieldhouse.
Cruising along the small Main Street of Medford, George Thompson flashed the lovely brunette a grateful look, saying, "I really enjoyed taking you to the dance tonight, Janet." He removed one hand from the wheel-but only to fumble with the pin fastening the ornate silken white pair of step-ins to the jacket he'd rented for the occasion.
"Let me do that," Janet murmured, willfully pushing her breasts into prominent contact with Ins arm as she leaned across the seat and let her lips come within tantalizing inches of his, while she helped remove the pinned pair of panties.
She'd seen the Rambler Ambassador parked at the curb in front of the vacated variety store building and she'd glanced up to confirm that the tell-tale shade on the middle upstairs apartment window was raised to the halfway mark, warning off Doug Marlowe's fellow seducers.
Now, she was bitterly determined to prove that two could play at the love'em-then-leave'em' game. That she could find herself another boyfriend just as easily as Doug had supplied himself with another girlfriend.
"Well, uh, here we are," George Thompson hoarsely and unnecessarily announced, stopping the borrowed sedan outside the lighted confines of Chandler House. He switched off lights and ignition, then reached for the car door handle.
Janet grabbed the uncomfortable senior's shoulder, practically dragging him around to meet the warm, surging sweetness she put into the jolting kiss she gave him!
"Ohhh, George!" she whispered, cuddling shamelessly in his arms before the dazed, wide-eyed male really accepted the torrid tribute as reality. "When you kiss me like that, I-I feel like I'm melting inside! Kiss me again, darling!"
That second long, fiercely-searing embrace caused a total eclipse of George Thompson's self-doubting inhibitions. He clutched at the beautiful dark-haired girl's bare shoulders like a drowning man grabbing at a piece of driftwood, his lips taking over the kiss, his body thudding with wildly-aroused passion.
He didn't know how but suddenly he became aware that one of his hands had delved boldly beyond the clutch folds of her mink jacket, then down the low-cut front of her formal to become involved with the throbbing fullness of a conical area of satiny flesh!
George yanked away the rebellious hand, gulping mightily like a floundering flood victim going down for the third time. "Jan, I-my hand-I mean, I-!"
Her curves thrust forcibly against him and the sweet hotness of her mouth permitted his tongue to probe, instead of form further fumbling words of stricken apology.
He wasn't exactly sure if he started the car again himself or if the panting, disheveled but starry-eyed brunette leaned over and deftly switched on the ignition. Anyway, they were driving away from the girl's dormitory and one of his hands was pulling down the elastic top of the frothy turquoise blue formal and grasping her creamy pink-tipped breast.
"Not in here, darling," Janet Bates softly instructed when they'd swerved off the sideroad he'd located and nearly down a grassy embankment into a drainage ditch because of his lust-blinded urgency to devote full attention to her curves. "Ohhh, George! I-I shouldn't let you-do this to me! I can't help myself, though! Make love to me, darling! Out there under the moon and stars!" she panted, scrambling away from his trembling hands and out of the car.
He was a step behind her as she dashed through the tall, crackling grass and up the shallow embankment towards a gently-rolling farmland meadow. She sank gracefully to the chilled earth, arms reaching up to receive him.
George tore at the intervening fabrics that prevented consummation of their high-voltage intimacies. His breath came in great, rasping sobs. He wasn't thinking. He was just letting the wild, overpowering urges her caresses and encouragements had released take over his burning body. They blended with the high grass surrounding them and when they eventually arose, panting and unsteadily brushing dust and dry grass from one another, George Thompson no longer had to be unsure of his manhood!
CHAPTER TEN
"Would you mind explaining that definition of quasi-corporations again, Mr. Nelson?"
Wendell Nelson hastily removed his dark-rimmed glasses as he glanced up from his desk at the shapely blonde coed in the brown cashmere sweater and pleated gray-checked skirt.
"Why, not at all, Miss Scott! I didn't hear you come in. I was just getting ready to call it a day and abandon the classroom in favor of a snack downtown."
Patricia Scott watched the skinny instructor's eyes rove avidly over the thrusting spheres hugged by the clinging fabric of her snug, pullover sweater. It was the week before Thanksgiving and she was already bored with her existence there at Layne University.
So, she'd decided a new man might help liven up her waning interests. She'd selected the wavy-haired, hollow-cheeked associate professor of commerce because Wendell Nelson was about as opposite as a man could be from that big, over-conceited wolf she'd finally denied further favors after she learned Al Edwards was pitching passion on the side with another girl.
"Now that you mention it, I could do with a hamburger and french fries washed down by a cup of decent coffee, myself," Pat casually advised, arms going up so her hands could fluff absently at the silken tendrils of her golden-blonde hair. She knew exactly what such movements did for her busts and she took delight in the fascinated gape with which the seated instructor regarded that area of her body.
"There's a combination supper club and motel oh, perhaps fifteen miles from here," Wendell Nelson mused hopefully, rising from behind the desk in the darkening classroom.
It was almost 5:00 P. M. on a raw, windy Wednesday. Most students had forsaken the library and campus for the lighted comfort of their dormitories so there wasn't anyone near enough to notice the departure of the lank, narrow-jawed male and the tall, well-built female who slid into the front seat of the car parked behind the commerce building.
Doug Marlowe was standing moodily at one of those cheerily-lighted dorm windows as the headlights of the sedan below cut through the gathering dusk. He didn't especially notice the departing vehicle, though. His troubled mind continued to dwell on the newest campus romance. Why should he let it keep bothering him? Wasn't he engaged to Cleo-unofficially, at least?
"Hey, amigo! How's for lending me your jalopy for tonight?" requested the breezy voice of the fraternity chapter president, Allen Edwards, as he popped into the room without bothering to rap at the closed door.
Doug kept his back to the red-haired college king. He found himself liking the big, super-confident lug less all the time and that bothered him, too. After all, Al Edwards was a classmate and frat brother.
Yeah, but he was also the guy currently making out with Janet Bates.
Doug shrugged his shoulders. "The keys should be over there on top of the bureau. Help yourself."
"Okay, got 'em. Thanks." The grinning senior paused on his way back into the hall. He retraced his steps, nudging the door closed with his foot. "Say, what's bugging you now, Doug? First this fall, you moon around like a love-sick calf who isn't getting any nourishment-now here you go again even when I know you're getting it steady!"
"Not as steady as you," ungraciously growled the dark-haired male at the windows. "Let's not get into that subject."
"Still touchy about discussing your love life, I see. Say, why don't you pick up the phone and give Cleo a buzz? I'm taking Janet Bates to the show at the little theatre. It's some foreign film about a babe who feels quilty as hell because she had an abortion-that juicy sort of stuff.
"There are plenty of dolls right here at this college who've done things almost that bad," Doug muttered darkly. He did swing away from the windows then.
He stared at the good-looking guy wearing a dark olive sport coat and sharply-creased gray flannel slacks.
"Not without our help, they didn't," Al Edwards quipped, winking amiably at the unsmiling playboy who appeared to have lost most of his enthusiasm for continued playing. "Tell you what-you buzz Cleo right now while I use your heap to go over to the garage and see how they're coming on my wagon. Be back in ten or fifteen minutes," he said, already steaming back into the dormitory hallway.
Doug opened his mouth, intending to call out his objections to such a parlay. He sure as hell didn't want to watch Janet being petted and necked by another guy! He reconsidered, seeing it was too late to halt the briskly-striding character, anyway. Janet undoubtedly wouldn't enjoy being mauled in his presence any more than he'd like watching. And, he could show her she wasn't the only babe he found attractive. He'd give Cleo the same sort of passionate workout-and then some!
Hazel Killian was nearest to the pay phone in the upstairs hallway when it shrilled. She went over and lifted the receiver and frowned after the male voice identified itself as belonging to Doug Marlowe.
"Just a minute," she muttered. She let the receiver dangle, thumping against the wallpaper while she stalked down the corridor.
Cleo Lambert and Patricia Scott were both missing from the room they shared. The short, dark-skinned lesbian scowled even more resentfully. Those silly young sluts! Throwing themselves away on filthy, pawing males like Allen Edwards and that equally wealthy, worthless Doug Marlowel
"Were you looking for me?" Cleo Lambert asked coldly, emerging from the bathroom behind the bespectacled brunette.
Hazel Killian turned in the doorway of the deserted room and flicked a disdainful hand in the general direction of the phone. "There's a call for you," she tersely reported. She pushed past the taller girl and went into the room she shared with Janet Bates.
Janet was combing her hair at the vanity when she saw the reflected image of the strange, somehow sinister brunette glide silently through the open doorway. Her existence in the dorm with the sullen, unattractive creature she both despised and pitied was more or less of an armed truce affair. Hazel never again had tried to touch her body although those wicked, slitted blue eyes had covetously ravished her through the thick lenses of those shell-rimmed glasses.
"Your ex-boyfriend seems to be in the mood for love again tonight," maliciously recited the lesbo as she prowled over to her side of the shadowy room and picked up the emery stick from the night stand between the twin beds.
"Which boyfriend do you mean?" Janet calmly retorted, continuing to wield the hairbrush with long, even strokes.
"Oh, that's right-you have spread it around lately, haven't you?" sneeringly accused the girl seated on the edge of her bed. She drew the emery stick vigorously back and forth across the curved tip of one fingernail. "I can see where you'd tire of a colorless nothing like George Thompson, though. What I want to know is who's next on your love list, Janet dear? After Al Edwards tires of you-and he will, you know he wihT
"It won't be you," Janet Bates quietly informed the vicious-natured lesbian, seeing the angry jerk of the other coed's shoulders under the voluminous ter-rycloth duster she wore.
The truth was, George Thompson had shown every sign of mistaking gratitude and physical pleasures for love. He'd even started hinting about an engagement ring as a Christmas gift. That's when Janet had decided she'd have to terminate their frequent intimacies. She'd accepted dates with several other males before the handsome senior rated as the number one eligible bachelor around the school had applied for his turn at trying to kindle a torrid relationship between them.
What no one except the men involved knew was that when it came to more than an occasional necking session, Janet drew and held a firm line. Not even Allen Edwards had accomplished his amorous mission. Not yet, at least.
Janet Bates rose from the vanity bench and crossed the room to the wardrobe closet in her midnight blue rayon slip to select a suitable frock for the evening at the movies in the student union.
She was in the process of pulling up the long back zipper of the navy blue jersey dress she'd chosen, when Cleo Lambert strutted regally in from the adjoining room without bothering to rap.
"You'll want to look your prettiest tonight," the black-haired sophisticate drawled cuttingly, lips etched in a patronizing smile. "It seems Doug and I will be tagging along. Who knows, Jan darling? You may be able to win him back."
"Who says I want to?" hotly flared the semi-dressed brunette, whirling to walk back and inspect her appearance in the vanity mirror. "For all I care, Doug Marlowe can have you! You'll both be getting just what you deserve-and that's nothing!"
"My, my! What sharp claws you have tonight!"
"If you go, I stay right here!"
"Oh? Now, that wouldn't be very mature behavior on your part, now would it, darling?"
"Quit calling me darling! I don't like you any more than you care beans about me!"
Hazel Killian smirked with sadistic enjoyment of the scrapping coeds who considered her less than human dirt. She saw the agitated lifts and plunges of their bosoms and her body shrieked for a long-postponed release as her own breasts quivered with sensual excitement while she sat staring at the verbally-dueling girls.
Cleo Lambert laughed silkenly, her own brown eyes running contemptuously over her rival's slim, voluptuous figure. "That dress must be a copy of one I have. I'll show it to you sometime."
"Don't bother! If you came in here, thinking you could goad and gloat-you're wasting your precious, cultivated breath!" Janet wrenched the cap from her lipstick and posed her lips as she leaned closer to the mirror.
"Of course you'd deny Doug still means anything to you. No girl who's ever lost a man cares to admit she couldn't hold him," poisonously purred the stately young socialite coed. "I've watched you when Doug is around. I've seen how your eyes light up like candles and how those honey-dew cheeks of yours gush with adoring warmth at his very nearness I"
"Oh, what a crazy, mixed-up kid you are!" defiantly yelped Janet Bates, the involuntary rebuttal ruining her attempts to apply the lipstick. She reached down and yanked a tissue from the box on the vanity, wiping away the misplaced scarlet tint slashed accidentally above her trembling upper hp. There were tears in her blue eves. Tears of outraged denial and bitter rage at the other girl's stinging accusations.
"Well, I have to get dressed. I'm sure you won't be juvenile enough to mar what could be an interesting evening," scathingly drawled the departing raven-haired beauty. She flung a withering look at the smug, relishing countenance of the strange and unattractive brunette perched on one of the beds as she swept blithely back to the adjacent room and shut the door.
Hazel Killian placed the emery stick on the night-stand, then shoved up off the edge of the mattress, slinking across the dorm room to consolingly pat the badly-sobbing shoulders of the distraught young woman with her hands braced on the vanity.
"No man is worth one tiny tear, honey. Forget all of those cruel, inconsiderate brutes!" persuasively whispered the scheming siren whose hands tenderly rubbed Janet's convulsively-racking soft shoulders.
For the moment, Janet was too incredibly miserable to be aware of anything except her own deeply-rooted sense of dismal self-shame and regret. If only she'd been born plain and unappealing! If she'd just been smart enough to fend off the ravishing advances of that older boy who'd first seduced her!
It wasn't until she felt the hands cupping her heaving breasts and the subtle push of the other girl's body against her back and heard the quickened pantings of the lesbian's breathing that she stifled a protesting cry of mingled aversion and dismay, wrenching wildly to escape from Hazel Killian's impudent caresses.
"I'll-scream!" Janet choked, desperately fending off the lust-maddened lesbian. "Do you-want me to tell the others-what you are?"
Her frantic gasps seemed only to fling the clawing, moaning weirdo into greater frenzy. They locked together, bodies writhing and swaying while they grappled.
"Let me-love you! Ohhh, please! Please let me just-hug you-kiss you-just once!"
"Hazel! Stop it! Stop it!"
"I'll protect you! I'll save you! Keep vile men from hurting you again!"
Janet freed one hand. She lashed out with all her strength. The open palm cracked sharply against the blazing cheek of the lustful lesbian, knocking off her glasses and sending them smashing to the dorm room floor. One of Hazel Killian's own low-heeled wedgies ground down on the undamaged lenses, crashing the heavy glass and cracking the shell-rimmed plastic frame at the bridge.
The blinded brunette stumbled back, blinking and peering myopically in helpless confusion. Janet Bates felt faint as waves of nausea and tense nerves shrieked at the nearness of even more terrible violence.
"I-I'm sorry about your glasses," whispered the disheveled, unsteady young coed. "This finishes us, Hazel. One of us has to leave this room-you can stay. I'll find another place."
"That won't be necessary," said the crisp, decisive voice of Mrs. Schoen. Both girls whirled, staring at the slim, attractively grey-haired housemother who'd entered the room. "Pack your things, Miss Killian. I've suspected there was something horribly twisted about you but I didn't know what sort of a sick, contemptible person you were until I overheard and saw this struggle."
"I-ohhh, I-I can't see! I need my glasses! I can't even walk without them! Ohhhh, I'm so-dizzy!" moaned the dark-haired coed, her bulky white terry-cloth duster gapping apart at the folds, cloth belt dangling from her waist as she swung ineffectually around, peering vainly down at the shattered spectacles on the floor.
"Nothing like this has ever happened in the nineteen years I've looked after girl's in this building!" angrily said the stem, condemning housemother. "You heard what I told you, Miss Killian-or would you rather be called Mr. Killian? Start packing! I want you out of here within the hour!"
Some fifteen miles away, a couple was just entering the small single-room motel unit as a slyly-grinning youth clad in denim pocketed his tip and left them to their pleasures.
Pat Scott walked casually around the room paneled in cheap imitation knotty pine. The meal they'd just finished at the supper club, which had also proven inferior, had been washed down by a sizeable quantity of cocktails and would be further improved by the contents of the bottle of scotch Wendell Nelson had just extracted from the paper sack he'd carried with him from the bar.
"Want to help me undress?" lazily offered the luscious young blonde, slowly coming about as she slipped off her dark blue polo coat.
The older man who was her instructor at college immediately crossed the room brightened by a floor lamp sited between the double bed and the small writing desk. He looked again at the gorgeous juts of her bosoms against her brown cashmere sweater, at the long, full majesty of thighs out-lined under the pleated gray skirt.
With the f eeling that he was being seduced instead of leading the lovely golden-haired coed along the path to erotic sublimity, Wendell Nelson drew her gently into yielding contact with his alert, strongly-aroused masculinity and found the warm, willing sweetness of her pouting, eager young lips.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Mary Becker gave up her room at another girl's dorm and moved in with Janet Bates the week before classes were dismissed for the semester holidays.
Janet hadn't encouraged such a decision. She'd told the vivacious sophomore coed her tuition and accommodations were paid up only through the first semester and that she doubted if she'd continue staying on at college.
"Don't kid yourself, Jan! Everyone who knows you can see that you're in love with this ivy-cluttered place," confidently pooh-poohed the petite, lushly-curved blonde.
And, it was true. Janet didn't want to leave Layne University. Not now. Not when it appeared that Doug Marlowe and Cleo Lambert were on the verge of splitting again.
So much had happened since that dreadful night when the unattractive dark-skinned girl named Hazel Killian left the campus and disappeared for parts unknown! Janet Bates closed the book she'd been studying while she sat propped on her bed. She watched Mary Becker load the last of her effects in the fawn-colored cosmetic case.
Mary was going home for the holidays. It didn't seem to bother her that the once-sizzling romance she'd shared with her tall, sparse junior had gone kaput. She hummed happily as she closed the case, ready to leave for the Medford railway depot.
Janet's blue eyes went to the open doorway between their room and the dorm room occupied by Patricia Scott and Cleo Lambert. Cleo was already gone. Pat was either out with that lean, foppish associate prof or up in that downtown apartment with Doug Marlowe.
The cynical, worldly golden blonde had bluntly asked Janet if she was in love with Doug, explaining that she'd refuse to go out with the big, dark-haired and good-looking guy should the accusations of Cleo Lambert be fact instead of gossip.
And, Janet Bates had quietly replied that there wasn't a reason she could think of why Pat shouldn't date the senior who considered life one great joke, adding that her own romantic interests were still being catered to by Allen Edwards.
The thought of Allen caused a mild frown to crinkle the lovely young brunette's forehead as she put aside the closed textbook and slipped down from her sitting position on the bed to stretch out at full length on her back. Incredible as it seemed, she still hadn't submitted to the red-haired senior's sexual demands. The swashbuckling campus leader was really getting desperate now. His ego was badly strained by his inability to carry their relationship beyond the kissing phase.
"I wouldn't be surprised to see you wearing a diamond when I get back," Mary Becker said lightly, smiling at the supine young coed from the doorway where the shapely little blonde stood with her luggage. "Well, here I go! Have a nice Christmas, Jan!"
"Don't be surprised if you come back to an empty room, either!" Janet called, rising to walk across their room and watch her friend swing cutely along the upstairs hallway. "Have a wonderful holiday, yourself, Mary!"
She felt very much alone there in the unusual silence of Chandler House. Downstairs, Mrs. Schoen was bustling about, decorating the dorm for the yuletide season, but most of the girls were on their way home for Christmas with their families.
Janet Bates walked slowly back across the room. There was still an hour before Allen called for her to take her dancing at a rustic establishment called the Village Inn, located along the highway between the campus and Medford. It was a popular beer joint frequented by students and they'd stopped there for the first time the night Doug and Cleo had double-dated with Allen and her.
Following the unpleasant skirmish with Hazel Killian that night, Janet hadn't wanted to remain in the room. She'd gone because anything was preferable just then to being around while the sniffling, embittered young lesbian stuffed her belongings into those battered old suitcases.
The movie they'd watched was atrocious and depressing. Both Doug and Allen had laughed, kidding her afterwards because she'd cried during the picture. Cleo Lambert had been sniping at her all evening and when they'd sat in the booth there at the Village Inn, the vindictive black-haired coed had flirted outrageously with both men, obviously daring Janet to do anything about it.
No one had really enjoyed that evening. Doug Marlowe had lapsed into a detached moodiness so that Allen Edwards was forced to redouble his own gay efforts to adjust for the lack of response of his fraternity brother.
Janet went to the windows and gazed out at the desolate darkness enveloping the deserted campus. She had the money. She could pay the tuition and cost of her lodgings there at Chandler House for the balance of the school year.
But did she want to? Did she dare to stay and risk eventual exposure and further shame? She'd entered the college without a legitimite high school diploma, without having earned the right to be there.
And, suppose Doug Marlowe ever mentioned the circumstances under which he'd met her that summer? Would Allen Edwards continue to insist that he'd fallen in love with her if he knew her body had been available for hire-that she'd traded moral self-respect for a cash register?
"Janet, there's someone down here to see you!" cheerily called the motherly voice of Mrs. Schoen from below the stair landing.
The beautiful girl at the windows turned at the sound of the housemother's friendly summons. Her heart leapt at the possibility that the visitor might be Doug! She quickly squelched the notion as idiotic. He wouldn't be interested in renewing their relationship-not even if it was true that he and Cleo Lambert had called it quits.
She went through the mechanical motions of fluffing at her long, dark-brown tresses and inspecting her make-up. Then, wearing her simple green jersey frock and a pair of scuffed, comfortable loafers, she left the room and started down the stairs.
In another part of town, Patricia Scott was in the process of climbing a steep, narrow flight of stairs just then. She glanced impishly back across her shoulder at the ascending male. She caught Doug Marlowe staring up at her legs from several steps below.
"I think you boys should put in an elevator for the convenience of your, uh, shall I call us guests?" humorously drawled the willowy golden-blonde, her green eyes dancing with amorous mischief.
"Wait until you see our Christmas tree," listlessly muttered the dark-haired male in the flecked gray and tan topcoat, hat in one hand, cigarette between the fingers of the other. Doug knew he should feel good about what was to come. He'd attempted to make out with the pampered, arrogant-acting babe on the steps above him for the past several weeks and this was their first voyage up to the downtown Medford apartment; at least their first as a team bent for some torrid tangling on that wide, wild bed.
"Ohh, how pretty!" Patricia Scott approved when they entered the tastefully-furnished living room and Doug walked over to plug in the tree in the opposite comer from the portable bar and liquor cabinet. "You must have spent a fortune on lights and ornaments!"
Doug glanced around from his kneeling position, his grey eyes seeking out far more exciting ornaments as the babe with those 40-inch adornments peeled casually from her coat, revealing the curve-hugging magnificence of her sequinned, coral-red frock. She looked great in red; her favorite color, she'd told him. Yeah, but she'd look even better without any clothes at all!
Doug kept trying to get aroused. Was he sick or something? Most guys around the college-or anyplace else for that matter!-would trade their eye teeth, their bankrolls-anything it took to get shacked up with such a sensationally-built doll!
"I'm not too good at fixing Tom and Jerry mixes but if you're willing to take the chance, I'll give it a whirl," he said, rising to hike across the intimately-lighted room that was a soft blend of colors from the lighted bulbs girding the fir tree. He shrugged from his topcoat, tossed it carelessly across the sofa, then walked behind the bar.
"Never let it be said that I don't take chances. All kinds of crazy, far-out chances," Pat said, smiling on her way over to join him. "Say, you forgot the shade, Doug honey. Want me to give any of the other boys who might want to come up here and show their gals the tree the signal, or don't you care if we get company?"
"They'll see the lights even with the shades down," said the vaguely-troubled senior, reaching for the necessary liquor ingredients. He almost wished some other couple would barge in on them.
"Things are really dead around here at this time of year." Pat yawned, stretching as she watched him begin building their rum and rye concoctions. "Where are the eggs? I can beat away at them."
"Al just brought up a dozen late this afternoon when we stopped up here after the last class. They're over there in that carton on the shelf." I see em.
"Here's the beater, too." Doug handed her the instrument, then dug up the sugar and grated nutmeg from the utility drawer in the liquor cabinet. "We'll have to use hot water instead of milk, though."
"How do you get your water hot?" Pat Scott teased, tossing him a challenging smile as she expertly cracked eggs on the crystal hp of the huge glass punch bowl he'd set on the bar.
"I'll light the gas range and put some on," Doug mumbled, playing it straight although he knew she was teasing him because he'd made no effort to be the aggressor. He stalked across the colorfully-shadowed room towards the apartment-sized gas range set up in the adjoining kitchen.
"You'll be leaving for your home in Cleveland tomorrow?"
"Probably. I'm not too sure what I'll do."
"I'm staying over to keep Janet company. There's nothing for me at home-just more dull parties and meaningless family gatherings for the express purpose of swapping presents that no one ever seems satisfied with."
"I know what you mean." Doug looked back at where the luscious coed was cracking the last of the required eggs. He'd frowned again at the mere mention of Janet Bates. "You and Jan get along pretty well, don't you, Pat?"
"I like her. Maybe, because she's the one gal around here who doesn't either look down her nose at my campus caperings or envy my luck at being born to parents loaded with dough."
"She isn't much like Cleo Lambert, is she?"
"She sure isn't! Ooops, there I go again. I always get my bitchy back up when that high-nosed hypocrite gets into a conversation. Cleo knows I despise her. Which makes us even because she considers me a reckless, over-aggressive tramp."
"No need to apologize. Cleo and I agreed to disagree. She thinks I should pal up to my father and get myself a hunk of his real estate business. When I told her last week I'd definitely decided to go into research chemistry and try to get hooked up with some commercial lab or research foundation department, she really blew her top!"
"Better now than after the wedding march, Doug."
"She may swing around. We both agreed to let these holidays be a sort of mutual 'cooling off' period."
"Well, you're cold, that's fairly obvious." The tall, beautiful coed moved gracefully around the bar, hips swaying with "come-hither" dips as she intercepted him at the sink where he'd intended to run tap water into the copper-tone teakettle. "Me thinks this big rush act you've been giving me has trickled down into less than eager enthusiasm. Correct me if I'm wrong, won't you?"
Doug got water splashed all over his hand instead of getting the cold jet of water from the tap to pour down into the spout of the teakettle when Patricia's immense, deluxe protrusions stabbed into his chest and her amused, softly-parted red lips grazed his cheek.
His nostrils filled with the seductive scent of jasmine. Her mouth nibbled naughtily at the lobe of his ear. She laughed with low sensual pleasure when he banged down the unfilled teakettle, grabbing greedily for those outstanding globes of flesh shoving so remarkably in round profusion at the bright red fabric of her dress.
"Is this eager enough for you, baby?" Doug Marlowe growled, mashing his mouth against those tempting, teasing moist red lips. Her lass was warm and exquisitely responsive. She crowded in with her curves, moaning as his hand went down her spine and shoved fiercely against the firm sweeps of her wriggling backside, pushing their locked thighs savagely together.
It was no good. He just couldn't force his sluggish body to come alive; not even when he'd scooped her off the kitchen linoleum, carrying her gaily-kicking, snuggling form into the bedroom. He stared down at the exposed creaminess of her wondrous white bosoms capped by fiery pink nipples, at the startling golden-whiteness bordering her loins with tanned areas of flesh both above and below, affording a vivid contrast.
"Close your eyes, lover!" Pat Scott murmured with understanding urgency. "Make believe I'm Janet! Or even that black-haired wench Cleo! Just finish what you've started, Doug darling!"
Her hands hauled him down atop her naked loveliness there on the gigantic mattress in the unlighted bedroom. Her searing lips inflamed his, her arms holding his naked body pressed amid the hot supplication of her flesh.
"I-can't!" Doug groaned, experiencing mortal anguish as he fought to achieve the passion the panting, whimpering golden blonde beneath him expected. "Ohh, Pat-I-I just plain-can't!"
"You are in love with Janet, aren't you? Aren't you, Doug?"
"No! Let me get up, Pat! This is-no good!"
"Pretend I'm her! That it's her lips, her breasts, her everything! Admit it, Doug! You do love her-just as I know she loves you!"
The trembling nude coed refused to allow the tortured male to wrench up from their tangle on the dimness of the bed. Her long, supple legs wrapped around him and her arms locked across his straining naked back.
Doug Marlowe nearly yelled with long-frustrated and denied emotions. "Okay! All right! Yes, Yes, I do love Janet! I do love that dark-haired little tramp!"
"Watch what you call her!" Pat angrily uncoiled her limbs and pushed up against the weight of his heaving chest. "If she's a tramp, so am I! So's that refined, allegedly-elegant, black-haired floosie you've been chasing around with!"
"You don't know!" thickly muttered the distraught, badly tormented young male as he whirled away from the bosomy, lithe-bodied blonde on the bed. "You just don't know how impossible the way I feel about Janet is!"
He wouldn't tell her that he'd picked up the girl he'd fallen in love with at the summer resort where she'd plied her trade as a prostitute, or that Janet would only laugh and tell him not to be ridiculous if he ever did admit his feelings to her. He'd never tell anyone about Janet's past.
While he hurriedly hobbled into his shorts and reached down for his slacks, Patricia Scott continued to lay on the wide, oversized mattress, staring at his shadowy, semi-nude frame. Romance was dangerous to tamper with. Did she dare interfere and do what she could to bring Janet and Doug together?
A forlorn individual, with his stocky shoulders bent into the biting sharpness of the dark winter night wind, shuffled along the sidewalk across the street from the vacant Medord store building. George Thompson looked up at the faint glimmerings of multi-colored fights escaping around the edges of the shades pulled over the windows of that upstairs apartment.
He knew whose Rambler Ambassador sedan that was parked there in front of the building. Janet Bates had confided to him that a number of his classmates had furnished those rooms on the second floor and although she hadn't elaborated on the passing remark, he had his own ideas about the purpose for the un-publicized roost.
Lately, his own love life had waned off into lonely nothingness once again. He lacked the money and the car to successfully court any of the cute young coeds available around the school. What was more, he was only interested in one girl now that Janet had kindly but explicitly made him understand there could be no future for them as a pair.
Campus gossip had it that Patricia Scott and that weasle-faced commerce instructor named Wendell Nelson had been swapping hot and heavy intimacies every weekend recently. The same malicious tongues had wagged again only that day, claiming Pat and Doug Marlowe were being seen with their heads conspiritorially close together between classes and that a new romance was beginning to blossom.
George realized he'd stopped walking. He stood at the darkened downtown curb, still staring up at those apartment windows. The headlights of an approaching car swept briefly across him as a late model, laurel-green station wagon turned the corner, cruising up to park at the opposite curb behind the sedan owned by Doug Marlowe.
Janet Bates had recognized the solitary form in the medium gray topcoat being flapped by the severe, penetrating night breeze. Allen Edwards was staring at the apartment and hadn't noticed the presence of George Thompson across the street.
"Looks like good old Doug is spreading a wee bit of Christmas cheer up there. Since the shade isn't at halfmast, I guess it's safe for us to go up and join him."
Janet was silent as the extroverted college senior dismounted from the driver's side and sauntered around the front of the station wagon to assist her out. She stole a quick glance across the deserted Main street and saw that instead of moving on, George Thompson was striding over to join them.
The Medford railway depot was located approximately six blocks from the downtown business district and Mary Becker's pretty young cheeks were flushed from the stinging effects of the winter night air as she walked along a dark, desolate sidewalk in that direction.
Another form suddenly detached itself from the blackness of a doorway just ahead of her. Mary caught sharply at her breath, startled by the unexpected appearance.
Roy Farnam wasn't there in the sparsely populated outlying district by accident. He'd been imbibing in a parked car with Dale Hardesty and two other guys belonging to the same fraternity, when they'd spotted the sexy little blonde making tracks for the depot.
He'd had Dale Hardesty drive him over and drop him off in front of the no longer used concrete block building which had once been a small machine shop. He'd stayed in the doorway until the snippy young babe who'd read him off to a fare-thee-well at the dance earlier that year came along.
Now, feeling the glowing assurance of the whiskey in his belly, recalling how soft and cuddly the blonde's curves had felt in his arms during the dance he'd had with her, Roy Farnam grinned, blocking the sidewalk with his shambling bulk.
"They close the depot right after the six o'clock westbound goes through," he amiably informed Mary Becker. "The waiting room's open, though. You got your ticket?"
Mary saw immediately that the huge, homely senior had been doing considerable drinking. His checkered wool topcoat was unbuttoned and the pork-pie brown hat he wore to keep the cold off his close-cropped, bullet-shaped skull was cocked askew.
"I knew the depot ticket window would be closed," she said calmly, not wishing to reveal the frantic prickles of fear she felt. It was doubtful that any other students or local residents would be inside the abandoned-looking depot just ahead. Those persons who hadn't left on earlier trains or busses would delay departing until morning or would find some means of getting driven over to the larger town where train connections were better.
"Lem'me help with them suitcases," Roy Farnam muttered, maintaining what he considered a charming grin as he closed the last two strides between them, big hands reaching for her luggage.
"That's not necessary, Roy. They aren't that heavy," quietly said the frightened young blonde. She was aware of the raw lust in his close-set dark eyes and his leering grin wasn't the least bit reassuring.
He took the builder fawn-colored suitcase and tugged at the cosmetic case, saying, "I'll mosey in with you'n keep you company for a while. Trains run late this time of year-who knows? You might be stuck here for an hour or more."
There wasn't anything she could do except yield the smaller train case, too. Unless she wanted to struggle for its possession and risk arousing his bestial bad temper.
The waiting room was lit by a feeble bulb in a porcelain ceiling fixture. Garish glints of dim light hid the barren drabness of the stained benches and dusty tile floor. It was warm inside. Heat was provided by the old fashioned black iron, pot-bellied stove that was a relic of bygone eras.
Her worst fears were confirmed as she glanced nervously around the silent confines of the shadowy building. They were completely alone.
Roy Farnam put down her luggage and companionably dug out a crumpled, nearly-empty pack of cigarettes, ambling over to extend a smoke he'd shaken up.
"N-No, thanks," Mary Becker murmured, managing a wan, insecure smile. She became conscious that those insolent eyes weren't looking at her face. She clutched unknowingly at her beige cotton poplin storm coat.
"You don't smoke, huh? Well, don't tell me you're one of those chicks who don't have any vices," slurringly insinuated the bullish senior, stuffing away the cigarettes without taking one, either. "Hey, you'll roast in here in that thing," he said, reaching out as if to unbutton the coat. "Might as well get comfy and-"
"Don't touch me!"
Instantly, Mary Becker regretted her blurted expression of alarmed protest. She tried to placate the sudden drunken scowl that darkened his wide, heavy-browed countenance with a shaky smile, saying, "What I mean is, I'm quite comfortable as I am, Roy." She looked frantically around. "My, but it's dark in here! I brought along a paperback to read on the ride home. There isn't enough light in here to read by, though, is there?"
"Plenty light for me to see whatta cute number you are, though. Hey, what say we sit down and talk, huh? Come on," he urged, unmindful of how rigid her small, well-curved body became as his blunt, powerful fingers laced around the arm trembling beneath the sleeve of her storm coat.
"I really don't mind being alone in here, Roy. You must have other things to do. Aren't you going home over the holidays? Why, the campus was so empty i when I walked to the dorm late this afternoon that I-"
"Bet you've been awful lonesome since you and that second-rate junior tackle busted up. How come he gave up a good thing like you, honey? The guy must be sick in the head!"
"Wally and I thought we were in love. Then, we found out we weren't. That's all there is to tell," Mary Becker murmured, shivering in every fibre as those undiscouraged hands once again plucked at the topmost button below the cowl of her beige storm coat. "Please, Roy! You-you've been drinking and-"
"You think I'm drunk, huh? Uh-uh! I know how to hold my liquor, baby. Yeah, and how to hold lots'a other things!"
"N-No! You-mustn't!" She tried to prevent one of his hands from delving between the folds of her coat but her own desperately-clutching hands lacked the strength. She wrenched wildly away as those fingers closed rudely over one firm, jutting breast.
Roy Farnam chuckled, easily grabbing the sobbing young blonde, hauling her squirming, flailing form onto his lap. His mouth shoved roughly against her panting, quivering red lips. The taste of warm fragrance flushed his beefy jowls with sensual triumph. His invading hand cupped enjoyably over her bust while his other hand held her in the lusty, ravishing embrace.
She tried to bite him, fighting off his fondling abuses with all her terrified might. Her struggles seemed only to sharpen his flaring excitement. One hand dug under the hiked up hem of her dress now while the arm encircling her shoulders tightened, and his other fingers tugged bruisingly at the trapped contour of her breast.
"Relax-enjoy it, doll! You're gon'na get it one way or the other, anyhow!" rasped the frenzied attacker, wedging his hand between her locked knees.
Mary Becker lost all sense of reality. She was helpless to prevent the raging atrocities of his crude caresses and the frightened tears in her eyes blurred her vision, even before merciful blackness engulfed her.
She wasn't conscious of further indecencies. She didn't resist when impatient arms slung her inert chassis on the bench and bunched up her coat and skirt to savagely yank away her underthings.
Roy Farnam was lost in the reddish haze of blind, unreasoning lust. He growled like a rutting grizzly bear as he raped the dazed, unresponding young blonde coed. If someone had entered the desolate depot at that moment, he might have killed, so intense was his raging passion.
CHAPTER TWELVE
"Another slug of Christmas cheer, anyone?" heartily inquired Allen Edwards, gazing around the apartment living room, grinning as he tried to bring the festivities back to life.
"No more for me, thanks," Janet Bates said, managing an answering smile from where she sat next to the expensive stereo unit.
"I've had two already. It's too rich for more," Patricia Scott declared, flashing an approving look at the uncommunicative dark-haired senior who'd concocted the Tom and Jerry mix.
"I'll try again," George Thompson said, rising from the sofa where he'd been sitting beside Doug Marlowe. He brought along the mug and held it across the bar so the handsome red-haired purveyor of drinks could refill it. From where he was standing, George had a fine view of both shapely, contrastingly-lovely coeds.
Doug Marlowe scarcely heard the attempts to liven the proceedings. He wondered if Janet and Al would stay after the rest of them finally vamoosed? It was quite obvious that Al Edwards was hanging on the romantic ropes, badly obsessed with his craving to cuddle with Janet. She was playing Al like an experienced angler works a lure until the sucker goes into a frenzy and gets hooked. Did she want the son of a well-to-do industrial engineer as her husband? Sure, that was probably it; at least until she could wangle a fat, juicy settlement in exchange for a divorce.
Even as he thought the bitter accusations, Doug cursed his own moral weakness. He'd really lived it up all his life, hadn't he? He was a lazy, easy-going kid. A soft touch with a wealthy, assertive old man to smooth out any rough spots along the way. His father kept stuffing money in his pockets. Maybe cash was supposed to substitute for things like companionship and affectionate interest. For as long as Doug could remember, his parents had been too busy to pay much attention to him-too involved in social obligations to visit school and discuss his progress with his teachers-too tied up in business affairs to take him camping or fishing. Oh, they'd shipped him to an expensive, efficiently-operated summer camp. They'd also seen to it that he'd never wanted for anything. . Except real love.
Doug Marlowe almost hated the word. Did orphan kids think they had it rough? Well, let them try on a set of snobbish, self-centered parents like his! They'd beg to be taken back where even strangers cared enough to come to the children's home at Christmas and smile at them with genuine awareness that they were human-not some unwanted burden produced by a biological accident!
"I'm shaking this dreary joint," Doug muttered. He shoved up from the sofa and everyone looked surprised as he reached for his topcoat and hat.
"Hey, what's the sudden rush to go?" Allen Edwards demanded.
"Want me to go with you, Doug?" Patricia Scott made no effort to push her luscious form away from the wall against which she leaned, listening to the subdued strains of stereo music. Her green eyes clearly indicated her reluctance to accompany the restless, dark-haired senior.
"What say we all move it over to the Village Inn?" loudly counseled the handsome purveyor of drinks, moving out from in back of the bar. Al Edwards winked at Janet Bates. "We can always return here, later."
Janet turned from the gregarious campus kingpin to Doug Marlowe. Her blue eyes caught his mood, his sense of intense dissatisfaction. "I think he'd rather make it a solo flight," she quietly informed the others.
"I guess I should drink up and get going, too," George Thompson said but he saw that as usual, no one was listening to him.
No one except Patricia Scott. Pat removed her luscious young chassis from against the wall, hips swaying with effortless seductiveness as she moved towards where the stocky, sandy-haired male stood near the bar with his steaming Tom and Jerry.
"Where would you want to go?" she asked. "What's anywhere else that you can't have right here?"
Doug Marlowe was at the apartment door. He paid no heed to the willowy, golden blonde's dulcet purrs, or to the continued harangues of Allen Edwards about it being too early to break up the evening. He looked slowly back across at where Janet Bates sat near the softly-playing stereo unit.
"I wish we'd met ten years ago," Doug said soberly. Then, he opened the door and walked rapidly along the shadowy upstairs hall and down the stairs.
Janet rose and went to the window where the shade was now raised to the edge of the dividing sill. As Doug entered his car and started to drive from the building, she glanced down at him.
A casual hand came down on her shoulder and a husky frame brushed against her back. "Let's us give good old George a break and sneak out of here," Al Edwards muttered, his palm persuasively massaging her shoulder through the fabric of her green, matte jersey frock.
Janet glanced across the room. She saw Pat smiling provocatively at George Thompson while George poured the blonde in the smiling coral red dress another drink. They were of approximately equal height since the tall young coed was wearing low-heeled wedgies. Her large, well-rounded breasts were practically exploding from the bodice of her frock and Janet knew the other girl was really turning on the heat for the already-flustered law student.
"May I borrow your compact, Pat? I seem to have forgot mine and I'd like to powder up before Allen and I drive over to the Village Inn."
"Hmmm? Oh, of course, Jan. If the boys will excuse us for a minute, I'll do a bit of touching up, too," murmured the shapely young sophisticate. "Don't go 'way, Georgie. Keep it warm for me, won't you?" she teased, handing him the steaming mug.
When they were in the bathroom with the door closed, Janet stared at the other girl. She didn't quite know how to say what she felt had to be said.
"You wanted to tell me something, Jan. Go ahead," Pat murmured, delving into her handbag.
"It-well, it's just that I don't like to see a nice guy get hurt. There aren't many of them around and I'd like to preserve the breed so that decent men don't become completely extinct," quietly said the dark-haired coed, smiling seriously at the blonde busy touching lipstick to her pouting red lips.
"If you're so fond of decent males, why did you drop George?" Patricia Scott murmured, concentrating on her image in the mirror. Then, her green eyes went to Janet's reflection. "Wendell Nelson had a few drinks above his quota one night last month. He let it slip that Doug Marlowe brought you here on forged high school credits which he passed through for a price. How long had Doug been sleeping with you before you came to college, Jan?"
She knew! Pat knew her for what she was! Janet Bates looked swiftly away from the mirror, thrown into shamed confusion.
"I won't-I can't deny that Doug brought me to Layne University as a crazy lark. I only came because I was curious about college life, because I-"
"Because you're as in love with him as he is with you," matter-of-factly supplied the lovely young adventuress, turning from the mirror. "Yes, he does love you, Jan! He told me so."
"He-Doug said he was in love-with me?"
"Tonight! Honey, why do you think he's acting as if someone stuck a burr under his saddle? Why else would lie have suddenly got religion, or whatever you choose to call it, and decided to chuck the family handouts in favor of becoming a research chemist?"
Janet seized her friend's shoulders. "You-this isn't something you're making up because you think it's what I want to hear?" she whispered with pathetic eagerness, heart thudding with earthquaking violence.
"He's so blind jealous of any other man you date that it's almost laughable. Why do you really think he tore out of here? He couldn't stand to see Al Edwards looking at you as if you're an extra-yummy dessert he's just aching to gulp down!"
The skyrocketing exhaltation shining in Janet's blue eyes reached a new height of thrilled ecstasy-then instantly plunged into dulled, stricken despair. Her hands slid off Pat's shoulders.
"Do you want to know why he's really so upset?" she whispered, tears hotly threatening to burst beyond her miserable restraint. "Doug knows my background. He should. He picked me up at a summer resort. One of my more lavish spots for selling sexual favors."
Patricia Scott blinked, lipstick tube clattering to the bathroom floor from her suddenly nerveless fingers. Quickly recovering both lipstick and worldly poise, the tall young blonde said, "You're telling me you used to be a professional?"
"And will be soon again," Janet said slowly, eyes coming up to meet the taller girl's uncensuring gaze. "What you've just told me has helped me make a decision. I'm leaving before I mess up Doug's life any worse than I have already."
"I don't get you, Jan-I simply don't dig your personal philosophy, whatever it is! You only stayed on here all these months in the hope that he'd fall for you-you don't deny that, do you?"
"No, you're right. I did want Doug to love me but I wasn't thinking straight. I was making the worst mistake a girl in my business can commit. I was letting my heart rule instead of my head."
"But now you've got the guy hooked! Listen, Jan! What makes you think we're any better-and differerent inside than you? Cleo Lambert and I both come from well-fixed families so we don't have to peddle our bodies for a price-but that's the only difference there is!"
Impatient knuckles rapped against the closed bathroom door. "Hey, what's going on in there? Somebody fall in or something?" Allen Edwards called through the panel.
Janet tried to thank the lovely, golden-haired girl with a smile. She couldn't say any more. Her ragged emotions wouldn't allow the cloudburst of bitter remorse and fiery shame to stay unchecked much longer. She had to get out of there. Run! Get away from the campus before she weakened and brought disaster to the man she would always love!
Patricia Scott attempted to reach for Janet and reason with the distraught brunette but with a wild wrench, Janet Bates flung open the door and dashed past the big, grinning form of Allen Edwards to snatch up her coat.
"Hey, where are you-?" The rest of the good-looking red-haired senior's query ended abruptly as both he and George Thompson gaped at the abandoned apartment doorway Janet had just fled through.
"What is it, Pat?" George Thompson asked anxiously. He set down the drink on the bar and walked across the room to intercept the unsmiling blonde in the coral red frock as she emerged from the bathroom. "Is there anything I can do? Why was she crying?
"Because she's more of a lady than either Cleo Lambert or I will ever be," soberly declared the thoughtful, green-eyed coed. She looked at George. "You know, you are a nice guy," she said with measured deliberation.
Then, much to the stocky, unimportant senior law student's astonished pleasure, she moved gracefully into his arms and kissed him!
George Thompson may have been quiet and unassuming and he'd never acquire the self-confident assertiveness of the rangy, handsome campus idol who was staring at the clinching couple in utter amazement, but George was no longer afraid of love. He wrapped his strong arms tightly around the luscious, willowy blonde and proved just how ready he was to take over the romantic lead!
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Associate Professor of Commerce Wendell Nelson paled significantly when the president of Layne University calmly but resolutely requested his resignation.
"I, ah, I don't understand, Dr. Forwin!" nervously h-edged the lank, thin-faced instructor as he fidgeted on the carpet in front of the Dean's desk. "Surely, I'm entitled to some explanat-"
"A young woman admitted her enrollment here was made possible by falsified scholastic credentials," directly stated the impassive older man. He shoved the already-prepared resignation letter across the desk for the undergraduate's signature. "Since then, we've checked further, Mr. Nelson. We've discovered more than sufficient grounds for your outright dismissal, perhaps even for your prosecution if we chose to incur the resulting unfavorable publicity."
Wendell Nelson blanched, hastily accepting the pen from the onyx holder which the university president extended. So, that cheap little tramp Doug Marlowe had bribed him into admitting to the school was responsible for his downfall! He should have known, the scowling ex-faculty member grimly reflected, scrawling his name at the bottom of the resignation.
Classes had resumed that morning and the entire campus was buzzing about some of the hectic happenings that had transpired during the semester holidays.
Not many of the students knew about the abrupt departure from amid their ranks of the brunette frosh named Janet Bates. They were too concerned with other events. Most of the talk that bleak, windy morning had to do with the rape of pretty blonde sophomore Mary Becker.
The bruised, semi-unconscious form of the petite, vivacious coed had been discovered on the floor beside one of the benches in the dark desolation of the Medford railway depot by another student.
That other student was Doug Marlowe. Doug ignored the constant questions about the experience as he went through the routines of his college curriculum that day. Unlike the grinning, untroubled dark-haired guy he'd always been, this was a seething, tight-lipped version of Doug Marlowe who was more apt to snarl and brush away people who tried to talk with him than respond to their curious wonderments.
He was grateful when the day of classes ended and he could stalk into the silent sanctuary of the frat house, where he stayed in his room without even bothering with an evening meal to fill the sharp, empty ache that wouldn't leave his belly.
He was stretched out on the bed in the darkness when the hall door banged open and two young men sauntered in. Roy Farnam flipped on the light switch and Allen Edwards cocked his head, regarding the fully-dressed senior on the bed with patronizing concern.
"Must be the flu," Al Edwards declared. "Or, could it be that Dr. Forwin lowered the boom because of that little prank you pulled?"
"Yeah, hey how's about that huh?" gleefully grunted the smirking senior who always walked in the other senior's popular shadow. "We just got the scoop from poor old Wendell Nelson-he's plenty sore at you and that well-stacked chick you imported here!"
'Boy, you really had us fooled! I damn near kidded myself into believing I was gone on her-and all the time you were getting into her pants whenever you felt the urge!" Allen Edwards threw back his handsome red head and laughed.
"Knock if off, you guys!" Doug Marlowe growled, swinging his legs off the mattress and rising into a bad-natured defensive sitting position. "Janet left two letters for me at Chandler House when she ran away! One to me and the other addressed to Dr. Forwin. She left it up to me whether to blow the whistle on her fraudulent enrollment. I gave her letter to the Dean, myself!"
Allen Edwards sobered for a moment, looking closely at the scowling male on the edge of his bed. "They didn't give you the boot too, did they, boy?"
"Dr. Forwin phoned my family long-distance. Dad's coming up here tomorrow. Frankly, I don't give a damn."
"Wow, I think this boy's really sick!" Roy Farnam said heavily, wagging his close-cropped skull from side to side in negative scorn. He nudged the taller, better-looking male beside him. "What he needs is a night up in the apartment with some tender, loving babe to nurse him!"
Allen Edwards grinned again. "Want to borrow back Cleo? She's yours again any time you want her. She's too high-faluting for even me!"
Doug had seen the black-haired honey of the campus hanging possessively on his fraternity brother's arm in the cafeteria that noon. He couldn't care less that Cleo Lambert had decided to set her torrid trap for another socially-acceptable male catch.
"All I want right now is to see that door close with you guys on the outside," listlessly muttered the restless young man as he rose from the bed and hiked stiffly over to the bureau for his pack of cigarettes.
"Remember that queer-that lesbian who used to room with your private property?" Allen Edwards asked, striding easily over to help himself to a smoke. "One of the guys saw her in Chicago over the holidays. She was in a restaurant with some simpering middle-aged biddy and they were holding hands under the table. Now, ain't that sweet?"
"Butt out, will you? Suddenly, I'm starting not to like you, Al! You and your contempt for everyone except yourself! Your glory-hogging, puffed-up personality is wearing thin! I can see the dirt beneath the gloss!"
The red-haired male crushed the cigarette he'd snatched from Doug's pack into shreds as his hands became fists and his shoulders bunched with indignant fury at such unprecedented insults.
"Call for you, Al," Dale Hardesty said, sticking his head into the room, unknowingly preventing those fists from hitting Doug. "Long distance from New York-think it's your father."
"I'll be back," Allen Edwards said tersely, face still white with hard-lipped wrath.
After he'd whirled and stomped from the room, Roy Farnam wet his thick lips and said, "We're your pals, Doug! You ain't got any call to read us off. We just come in because we knew you was low-we thought you'd like a little company."
"You thought wrong. Beat it, will you?"
"Okay, okay! Oh, I guess Al'n me understand. It must'a been a rough holiday for you-what with maybe bein kicked out'a college starin' you in the face and then that commotion about that sophomore babe who claims some guy raped her." Roy Farnam's close-set brown eyes cunningly searched the detached lean features of the dark -haired man moving back towards the bed with his cigarette. "I never can remember her name, even. She probably asked for what she got. She say anything when you found her-hey, how come you went over to the depot that night, anyhow?"
"Her name's Mary Becker and she did get criminally-assaulted," Doug Marlowe recited brusquely, giving the hulking questioner the same answers he gave everyone who asked. He didn't feel it was anyone's business why he'd rushed to the Medford train depot late the same night Al Edwards had returned from the apartment and informed him that Janet was checking out. He'd tried the bus depot after summoning help for the whimpering coed he'd discovered in the forlorn darkness of the waiting room, but he'd been too late by then. The bus scheduled for Chicago and points south had rolled away from the downtown Medford bus station twenty minutes earlier. And yes, the elderly ticket agent did sell a one-way passage aboard that bus to a beautiful young brunette answering the description Doug gave him of Janet.
"Lots'a babes tease a guy and scream rape when the guy makes 'em come across," persisted Roy Farnam, lumbering over to stand above the other senior who'd flopped back on the bed to drag deeply on his smoke, grey eyes closed against the light. Mottled, furtive emotions flickered over the gargantuan features of Roy Farnam. "Think she'll tell the cops who the guy was?"
"Her parents are still trying to persuade her to stay at college. She'll take a long time getting over what happened to her," Doug Marlowe mused, speaking more to himself than replying to the anxious query. "The guy who did it must be a filthy animal who belongs in a cage! Yes, she'll name him and he'll pay with about ten years behind bars-which isn't punishment enough. A guy like that should be castrated!"
"She-hell, she wasn't a virgin! I can name you a lot of guys who made her," Roy Farnam blurted, sweating as guilty fear gushed through his thickset frame. "S'pose the guy had friends who'd swear they made her? No jury would convict a guy of rape if the babe was made out to be-!"
"You! You're the son of a bitch!" Doug cried, eyes flaring open with aroused revelation. He saw the bull-necked bruiser back away, wildly shaking his bullet-cropped skull in vigorous denial, but he saw also the distorted mask of trapped self-accusation etched in those piggish little eyes.
"She played up to me! She let me neck her and pet hell out'a her and then she tried to turn it off!" desperately blubbered the drooling, harassed-looking brute as Doug Marlowe jumped off the bed, advancing with swift, avenging strides.
"I should have guessed it had to be a bastard like you!" Doug put all the pent-up loathing and bitterness within him into the smashing right fist he sent at Roy Famam's face.
The crashing impact of knuckles against flesh sounded like a meat tenderizer slamming down on a hunk of steak. The blow took Roy Farnam squarely, flattening his pug nose into a sodden mass of spraying blood, sending the burly hulk careening backwards to collide with the wall.
"Damn you! I'll-kill ya!" choked the blood splattered scavenger. He bounced off the wall, his great fists murderously flailing.
The ensuing brawl shook the entire upper floor of the aging fraternity house. Other male students came boiling from their rooms but no one interfered at the risk of getting larruped by the slugging, ripping tangle of combatants.
Allen Edwards rushed along the hall, elbowing aside lesser men, arriving in time to see a bloodied, banged-up Doug Marlowe land a series of body blows that caused Roy Farnam to hug his fractured ribs so that the looping roundhouse right hand hurled by the staggering, dark-haired senior connected solidly with the blunt jut of his antagonist's jaw.
Roy Farnam's thick legs buckled and his feebly-clawing hands tore vainly, clutching at the tattered remnants of Doug's shirt and slacks as he oozed to the floor and groveled, sobbing harshly amid his own gore.
The room was a shambles.
So was Doug Marlowe. He fingered a loosened tooth and spit blood into an already-sodden hankie while other silent, stunned students assisted the badly-beaten senior from the room.
"That-stooge of yours-is the slob who-raped Mary Becker!" Doug gasped, glaring at the strangely-subdued, shattered-looking redhead.
"I know. Roy told me about it the very next day. He was sorry as hell but he'd been boozing with Dale Hardesty and a couple other guys. You know how he is when he's loaded, Doug."
Allen Edwards walked slowly over and uprighted an overturned chair. He leaned on the back of the chair and he was neither swashbuckling or super-confident.
I'm sure Mary Becker's family would like to hear how you justify what that slimy crud did to their daughter!" Doug winced as his tongue explored another cut inside his cheek. He scowled, seeing how crestfallen the other male appeared. "Don't tell me your father called and said he's reducing your allowance! Or do you look so sour because of the way I ruptured our so-called friendship?"
There won't be any more monthly checks from my Dad. The federal grand-jury just indicted him and a dozen other east coast syndicate members."
"Syndicate-? But, I thought your father was an engineer!"
"Oh, sure, sure he is. Best damned engineer at setting up horse-playing parlors or gambling rooms you ever saw! I'm finished here, Doug. The old man just called to warn me about the big splash in tomorrow morning's papers so I could tuck tail and run for it."
"You aren't to blame for what your father did! Stay on! Let 'em say their worst! I would!"
"Yeah? Then how come you've already packed most of your own stuff?" Al Edwards mumbled cynically, eyes going to the empty closet and the luggage along the wall just outside the open closet door. "Uh-uh, amigo! I've had it."
All this was more than Doug Marlowe could digest. He sank dazedly to the edge of the disordered bed and absently applied the crimson-spotted white hankie to his puffed, painful lips. He watched the no-longer-cocksure senior turn and scuff lethargically down the hall to begin packing.
Layne University was losing faculty members and students at an alarming rate. Doug smiled until his wounded lips reminded him that such movements of his mouth were unwise. He found ironic humor in the passing thought that even campus idols had feet of clay.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
"I still can't believe it, can you?" Patricia Scott said, lowering the afternoon edition of the newspaper the next day to look across the campus malt shop booth at George Thompson. "No wonder there were police and reporters swarming all over the joint today!"
"They weren't only looking for Al Edwards," George said, conscious of the silken warmth of knees pressed against his under the booth table. "Dale Hardesty told me that there's a warrant out for Roy Farnam. It seems he took off late last night and no one has any idea of where he went."
"They'll find him. Or what's left of him. I hear Doug Marlowe turned into a raging tiger and practically chewed that big ape into bloody bits!"
"Doug looked like he'd walked into a threshing machine when I saw him on his way over to the Dean's office with his father this morning." George played idly with the straw in his milk shake. He sighed. "I used to envy fellows like Al and Doug their expensive clothes, flashy cars and easy-going popularity. Now, I'm glad to be just an anonymous joe sweating out a law degree the hard way!"
Pat smiled, playing with the small diamond engagement ring she'd received a few nights previous to the latest scandal rocking the hallowed halls of Layne University. Her green eyes regarded the modest, unassuming senior with adoring respect.
"You'll be the best lawyer Oshkosh, Wisconsin, ever had! Unless you let my family pressure you into becoming a high-salaried young exec in one of the corporations they control."
"We've talked that out, honey. Once I've taken a stand, I don't get pushed very easily," George said, eyes marveling at the perfect patrician beauty of her features beneath her softly-coiffured mass of golden-blonde curls. He pressed his knees against hers with added emphasis, grinning his love for her as he said, "Who cares if I graduate in the middle of the pack where my niche in life seems to be? No guy will leave here with a better sort of diploma than I'll have when you're Mrs. Thompson! Think I'll mount you and hang you up in whatever cheap second-floor Oshkosh law office I rent."
T go for the mounting part," impishly murmured the radiant young blonde coed, her knees parting so one of his knees could slip between the silken warmth of her nylons and dark maroon skirt.
Cleo Lambert saw the couple who were so obviously absorbed with each other that the rest of the world had faded out of existence for them. Her dark brown eyes clouded with envy as she left the malt shop. Her own world was in disillusioned wreckage. She had no steady suitor, no real friends there at the college.
A gaunt, horse-faced student named Herbert and a stubby, moon-faced frosh she knew only as Blodgett nearly ran her down as she emerged from the doorway of the campus hangout.
"Man, do I love black hair!" Cleo heard the fat freshman wistfully praise.
"Yeah, yeah! You love brown hair, yellow hair-you'd even love a chick with no hair if she Jet you!" contemptuously scorned the upperclassman named Herbie.
Cleo Lambert kept walking, the staccato clicks of her heels beating a lonely tattoo along the dusty walk leading back towards the main segment of the school buildings.
Another would-be wolf whistled approvingly at the enticing thrusts of her sweater-clad bosoms in profile as she moved regally past the dormitory steps where he sat, but she pretended he wasn't there.
She'd learned one lesson well at college. After this, there wouldn't be any more free samples. The man who eventually came along and proved his background and interests coincided with her own was going to have to marry her before they investigated erotic intimacies!
Doug Marlowe was at the window in his restored fraternity house room. He saw the luscious dark-haired coed in the blue sweater and light tan skirt swinging past like a proud queen among the peasants.
He could see the dim blurs of other students circulating around the wooded grounds below. It had been a rugged day and now night appeared to be bringing tranquility back to the campus.
"Under the circumstances, I'm relieved that you'll transfer to a southern university to complete the year," said his father, hand on the doorknob, topcoat draped across the arm of his charcoal gray business suit. "Dr. Forwin was quite fair, I thought, considering everything."
Doug and his father had never been close. There didn't seem to be any reason why they should start now. Doug stayed at the darkening windows. "Thanks for coming, Dad. Give my regards to Mother." At least his father hadn't delivered any stern parental lectures about his lack of sense and disregard for moral ethics.
"I left a few hundred dollars on the writing desk, Doug. Is there anything else you need before I start back? It's quite a long drive. I'll have to get started."
"I'd have been expelled if you hadn't been who you are. That's doing a lot. You see, I need the degree if I'm going to make a connection with some research lab after graduation."
The older man looked relieved although he sighed, saying, "The future doesn't have to be decided all at once. We can talk things over when the proper time comes, Doug." He opened the door, then glanced uncertainly back. He didn't really know his son. He realized his own shortcomings and he couldn't blame his son for so much misguided behavior. "It's better that the girl you were getting infatuated with preferred to return to the life you took her from. Give yourself time to get some perspective, Doug. Things will all look different a few months from now."
The door eased gently shut and Doug Marlowe was alone in his room. He was all packed. All that remained was for him to wait until morning, then return to the Dean's office and pick up his typed and signed set of transfer credentials.
The campus was almost completely dark when he finally turned and walked away from the windows. Where was Janet Bates at that moment? Was she primping before a mirror in some hotel or motel room? Would she soon be smiling provokingly up into the eagerly-appraising eyes of some well-heeled salesman or fun-minded executive?
He stared at the small stack of currency his father had left on the desk. Passion for a price. All he had to do was pocket the money and go out and find himself some other shapely young prostitute with long, fragrantly-silken dark brown hair and deep, intelligent blue eyes.
There were lots of babes as well-built and sexually stimulating as Janet. As lovely and much fun to be with.
Oh yeah? Name one, his own intellect jeered. He reached out and angrily swept the sheaf of currency to the floor, then glared accusingly down at the scattered green bills.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
"Uh, your folks tell me you've decided to quit school," hesitantly said the lanky, neatly-dressed college junior standing at the foot of the hospital bed. His solemn gaze went up over the bedcovers outlining the form of Mary Becker's pert young body and remained fixed on her pretty snub-nosed face as she nodded, managing a wan smile.
"I only came to college because most of the other girls and boys back where I live considered getting more education the thing to do," quietly admitted the girl propped on her pillows in the iron bed.
"I wish you'd stay," slowly said the unhandsome but pleasant-looking, dark-eyed junior who was studying to become a CPA. "We-that is, I thought we might try dating again, Mary," he lamely suggested, eyes falling away from hers.
"You don't have to feel sorry for me, Wally. I'm all right now. I can even talk about it without blubbering or cringing."
"That crud! How I'd like to finish the job Doug Marlowe started on him!" Wally fought to control his fiercely-raised voice. He grinned apologetically, feeling awkward discussing the subject almost as painful to him as it must have been to her.
Mary reached out towards the miserable-looking junior with both hands, saying, "Don't hate Roy Farnam, Wally! Hate can make people get twisted inside. Come over here. Sit down and hold my hand while we talk. She smiled, turning to glance out the windows at the streaming rays of sunlight glinting on the wintry bareness of trees outside the hospital room. "Doug came over yesterday, just before he drove off to the Florida college he transferred to."
"You know, that guy sure changed, didn't he? I always considered him pretty worthless," said the tall, lean young man as he moved around the bed and firmly gripped both Mary Becker's soft, small hands.
"Doug knew I was close friends with the girl I roomed with for a little while. I showed him the nice letter I received from Janet Bates. You should have seen his eyes brighten and his breath quicken when he saw the return address on that envelope!"
They smiled into each other's eyes. "Our trouble was that we were both scared to fall in love," Wally said in a low voice that had a forceful, convincing ring. He gave her warm hands a squeeze. "I'm not scared any more. I want you to stay, Mary. Give us another chance, will you? I won't take anything but yes for your answer!"
The harried-looking woman in the starched white nurse's uniform who entered the room paused, seeing the rapidly-recuperating rape victim being soundly kissed by her visitor-and kissing fervently back!
There wasn't anything in hospital regulations that forbade such an excellent form of therapy. The nurse took time from her ever-demanding duties to smile her pleased approval at the clinching couple before she silently retreated and left them blissfully unobserved.
Late the same day, many hundreds of miles south in the waning, sunlit splendor of the tourist paradise called Tampa, Florida, a chic, lovely brunette wearing a demure green frock adorned by a single-strand necklace of simulated pearls was wrapping the purchases just made by a good-looking, tanned gentleman she believed was more interested in the contents of her bodice than in the items he'd bought.
"I'm sure your wife will enjoy sending these souveniers back home to your friends and relatives," she said, flashing the sportily-dressed vacationist a brief, impersonal smile as she handed him the package.
"Now, if I could only find a suitable momento for myself," insolently drawled the leering male. He sucked in his middle so that the traces of a middle-aged paunch beneath the flamboyant, gaudy print sport shirt worn outside his medium-gray slacks was less noticeable, his gaze traversing the stunningly-sheathed figure of the luscious young salesgirl.
Janet would have once set the price and led the ogling playboy to her "business office." Now, she merely made the smile turn frosty as she moved away to wait upon a flabby matron who dared dump her sagging curves into an abbreviated white sunsuit, above which a floppy-brimmed straw hat was perched, effectively disquising the tell-tale bluish tint of her drab grey hair.
It was within ten minutes of closing time for the downtown Tampa department store. Janet Bates catered to the fluttery, undecided wants of the plump female tourist while the unsuccessful male shopper clumped off along the aisle without the souvenier he'd tried to collect for himself.
This was her third week as a clerk and almost her second month away from Layne University. During all that time, Janet kept her life uncluttered by men. Oh, she'd considered plying her former profession again-and certainly the work was easier and the pay was much better. Yet, she just couldn't revert to the role of being a calloused, cynical call girl. Something inside her rebelled at the thought of permitting another man to touch her naked flesh and pantingly mash his searing mouth down over her lips while they tossed on a mattress.
"Want a tall, cool one before we limp to our respective rooming houses?" cordially chirped a short, cuddlesome flaxen blonde who reminded Janet of Mary Becker. Other salesgirls were already hurrying toward the exits while the manager and his fledgling troop of trainee assistants bustled about, checking out cash registers and switching off lights.
Janet Bates smiled at the young blonde named Peggy, saying, "I want to soak my feet in something soothing and hotl Am I glad this is Saturday!"
"Ditto! Well, see you back at the grind Monday A. M.," called the departing blonde.
Janet almost jumped when a hand brushed at her backside. She turned, managing a smile at the sneaky, balding floor manager who had stepped behind the counter and got in a free feel on the pretext of crowding past her to check out her day's receipts.
"You fit in here very nicely, Miss Bates," smugly complimented the lecherously fatuous supervisor as he reluctantly turned his attention from her voluptuous curves to the taped record he'd torn from the cash register indicating the day's sales in the department.
Old Baldy was getting to be more and more of a problem. Some day, she'd have to slap him down and she'd be out of a job. Peggy had warned her about the fondling old creep. She wouldn't be the first girl who'd had to put in amorous overtime in order to hang on at the store.
As the lovely brunette walked unhurriedly along the downtown Tampa sidewalks, the refreshing feel of the sea-dampened air sweeping mildly across her troubled young features changed the slight frown into a grateful look of tired satisfaction.
She stopped at a drugstore and purchased several current paperback novels. Reading in the quiet comfort of her suburban room was one of her few real pleasures. She'd discovered that getting immersed in the problems of private eyes or wrongfully-accused heroines helped her keep from thinking about Doug Marlowe and reflecting backwards on the shamed sordiness of her past.
Except that she saw with a heart-leaping start that this time no book would prevent such thoughts! Not with the blue Rambler Ambassador sedan at the curb in front of the neat, brownstone rooming house. Not with the tall, dark-haired man in the dark, olive, plaid sport coat and tan slacks striding towards where she stood frozen. She stared in shocked disbelief at his lean, good-looking face, which was set in grim, purposeful recognition!
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
This is kidnapping!" Janet stormed, furiously resisting as Doug Marlowe attempted to force her into the front seat of his sedan.
A pair of passing women flung them startled stares and Doug snarled at them, saying, "What would you do with a wife who leaves five hungry little kids unfed and in dirty diapers so that she can have a good time with the laundry routeman?"
Both females flipped sternly disapproving and rebuking sniffs at the wide-eyed brunette and marched swiftly onward, leaving her to her fate.
"Now, get in there before I fix it so you get tarred and feathered!" Doug commanded, bestowing a prompting swat on her shapely bottom when she balked at the insistent tuggings of his hand.
It was either get in under her own power or be bodily lifted and dumped in the front seat. Janet slid sullenly across the cushion as he slammed the door and sprinted around the front of the Rambler to yank open the door on the driver's side.
Tou always were crazy but I didn't think you were crazy crazy," Janet said sharply, refusing to look at him as the car cruised away from the rooming house.
I'm a customer with a yen for more of the merchandise you carry in stock," taunted the man staring bleakly out through the windshield at the twilight ribbon of road ahead. "You are still in the business, aren't you, baby?"
Janet's heart throbbed with hurt at his cave-mannish treatment and scornful opinion of her. She stole a quick look at the resolute set of his squarish chin and the compressed firmness of his lips. Why did she have to be so terribly much in love with the big dope?
"Of course," she made herself reply, making her voice sound sexy and brittle with detached indifference. "Except the price has gone up down here, Doug. It's a hundred-fifty for the night or seventy-five for once. Can you pay me now? It's not that I don't trust you but we might as well get it established that you're just another client."
'You haven't run into Al Edwards down here, have you? I'm not sure he's in this part of Florida but I understand he and his father bought a garage after his old man was let off with a stiff fine and placed on federal probation."
"Allen wouldn't walk across the street to see me. We both know how easy it is for him to get all the girls he wants."
"Oh, but not a girl who holds out on him! You really dented his ego, Jan. Tell me something-why did you? And don't tell me you didn't find him attractive."
"Questions like that don't go along with the financed fun you're entitled to, Mr. Marlowe," evenly said the girl huddled as far across the front seat as possible from the rangy young male who'd popped so devastatingly back into her newly-established life.
Doug guided the Ambassador off the main road and tooled it to a halt beneath the low-hanging tropical trees in a secluded wayside picnic area. He switched off the ignition and twisted out from behind the wheel, sliding across the seat. He put his right arm casually around her shoulders and felt her tremble, while his left hand went straying upwards to fit just as casually over the thrusting contour of her breast beneath the soft, clinging green frock.
"Let me bring you some more news about people we know," he muttered, experiencing an almost overwhelming urge to crush her quivering loveliness to him and deluge those full red lips, parted in distressed protest at his daring caresses, with rains of steaming kisses. "For example, did you know George Thompson and Pat Scott announced their betrothal in last month's college paper? Or that Roy Farnam was crippled for keeps in a collision with a semi after shaking a pursuing prowl car?"
Janet shook her head, fighting to keep the hot, swimming tears from flooding from her shining dark blue eyes. She moved inwards against the ravaging clutchings of his hands, forcing a sensual half-smile of calculating greed.
"Did you bring me out here to talk? If so, fork over the money, honey! The rate's the same whether we make with conversation or a more physical workout!"
Doug grinned, releasing her. He slid back across the seat and climbed out of the parked car. "I'll bring our blanket. We won't waste any more valuable time."
They hiked beyond the thick, leafy cover of the bent trees and she watched him shake out and spread the blanket she remembered so well. It was early evening by then and the sun had given way to the pale piece of crescent-shaped moon rising in the deepening blue of the sky.
She stifled an anguished cry when he grabbed for her, hauling them down on the blanket in an intimate sprawl. His hands slipped beneath her skirt and jerked anxiously at her panties.
"I-Doug, I-!"
"Relax, will you? Even a girl who works in a department store and spends all her nights alone in a lonely little cubbyhole of a room needs a man to make her remember she's a woman!"
Janet's tear-filled eyes flashed into widened blue pools of bewildered wonder. "You-how did you-?"
"Your landlady is a very obliging, well-informed old gal," Doug chuckled softly, his hands becoming tender and reverently persuasive now as he grinned down at the blurred white loveliness of her face from beside her on the blanket. "Why, for ten bucks she even let me take your luggage and stow it in the trunk of our jalopy!"
"Our-? Doug! What are you saying?" Janet attempted to twist away from the fingers which had freed her breasts and were roguishly tampering with the sensitive puckerings of her aroused ruby nipples.
"For another twenty bucks, the man at the county license bureau agreed to wait for us until-let's see," Doug cheerfully drawled, squinting momentarily at the luminous dial of his watch. "We have just enough time to finish what I started and dash down there to fill out that wedding license."
The incredulous, thoroughly confused girl stretched supinely under the winking stars attempted to raise herself, lips parting in panting protest. She didn't get to say anything. Not when his mouth found hers and his tody came down with a bold definiteness of passionate purpose that caused both of them to gasp in ecstactic awareness.
Doug transferred his caresses to the heaving exquisiteness of her pink-tipped creamy bosom while Janet moaned excitedly. Gone was the harlot, the dormitory doll who'd tried to run away from love.
The girl in her place was all the woman any man could ask for to be a helpmate in the lusty, thrilling version of chemical research their eager bodies were experimenting with. An experiment that would require the rest of their lives to complete!
