Laura grinned. "We were talking about figures and whether some women have too much of a good thing. But I don't think John can tell until he's seen the bare facts."
"Are you challenging me, darling?"
"I'm daring you, dear."
"Silly girl," Betty replied, as she started to unbutton her shirt.
John stared as the redhead removed her shirt and bra. She drew her shoulders well back so that her soft, heavy breasts would stand out to their best advantage. "Well...?" she asked.
"He hasn't seen me, yet," Laura said quickly.
John swiveled his head. While he had been concentrating on Betty, the brown-haired girl had taken off her nightgown. She was sitting up in the bed with her hard, perky breasts exposed to view.
"Well?" Betty asked again. "Who do you like best?"
"As far as I'm concerned, you are both positively perfect," the boy said.
"I think he's trying to con us," Betty said.
"Maybe not," Laura put in. "After all, he has only seen the upper half of us."
With that, the girl slipped out of bed and stood nudely on the floor. John stared at her slim, well-made legs and thighs, her flat belly, her taut abdomen and hard breasts.
"Like me?" she asked.
"How about me?" Betty demanded.
John turned towards her more lush figure: her more curvaceous legs, her rounder hips and belly, her bigger, softer breasts. He was starting to grow dizzy with females. "You are both fantastic," he said truthfully.
"Do you think he's conning us again?" Betty asked.
"With a man there's only one way to tell," Laura giggled.
"Yes, If he were naked, too...."
CHAPTER ONE
John Steward watched the minute hand of the electric wall clock complete the seemingly endless crawl from eleven thirty-four to eleven thirty-five. Now he had twenty-five more minutes to sit in front of the hotel switchboard.
It was John's father who'd decreed that the switchboard of the Rocky Mountain Lodge and Cabins should close down promptly at midnight.
"What the hell," he had said more than once. "I never pretended to be a member of the Hilton chain. What we have here is a damn good vacation hideout. My guests don't expect twenty-four-hour phone and room service."
John moved in his chair in order to make himself more comfortable. Normally, Betty Laeder was in charge of the board and main desk during the evenings. But the girl had asked for the night off and John had been tapped to take her place.
He did not resent this. Every summer since he reached puberty he'd had the job of filling in for whoever was off-duty. But he was glad that this would be his last summer. He was due to graduate from college next spring and could then take an engineering job.
He would probably miss the place more than he wanted to admit. The hotel was situated in the loveliest part of the Rockies. And if what went on in some of the rooms was not always very lovely, that had nothing to do with him.
His father had spelled that out several years ago. "Don't you ever let me catch you near any of the tramps who come here," the man had said. "They got nothing to do with you-nor me either. I sell beds, good food and liquor, and vacation facilities. It's not up to me to say what people do with them."
"Yes," John had answered simply.
He was always a little overwhelmed by his father, a big rugged man who had founded the Rocky Mountain Lodge and Cabins, building the first structure with his bare hands.
It now consisted of a main building with a dining room, bar, lounge, lobby and several upstairs guest rooms. Within easy walking distance from the Lodge were the cluster of guest cabins. Nearby were the trails that were used for horseback riding and the heated swimming pool that was glassed in during the winter months when skiers were attracted to the place.
Under the guidance of Walter Steward, the hotel had become the most successful vacation spot in the entire region. And that, John had to admit, was something to brag about.
He glanced again at the electric clock. There were twenty-one minutes to go, now. Maybe he should risk quitting early tonight. He doubted if any of the guests would be wanting anything. Not any more.
He had just about decided to unplug the board and switch the outside line so that incoming calls would go directly to his father's bedroom, when the buzzer sounded.
The summons was coming from Cabin G, which the Fortune family had taken for the months of July and August.
But though the family included Mr. and Mrs. Fortune and their daughter, Doris, only Mrs. Fortune would be in the cabin, now.
Mr. Fortune was too busy to spend much time, at the hotel. "I can't afford vacations," he once told John. "Hell, I can rarely afford to take off a weekend."
As for Doris-a trim brunette with whom John had a brief summer romance last season-she was also in Skyline City. She had some important parties to attend before coming here, her mother said. From what he remembered, she'd be at one right now.
"What can I do for you, Mrs. Fortune?" John asked, when he had picked up the receiver.
The woman's voice sounded thin and vague. "Who is this?"
"John. John Steward."
There was a laugh that trailed off into a giggle. "What are you doing at the desk?"
"Betty is off tonight, ma'am. Can I get you anything?"
"You can bring me a bottle of good Scotch. I'm all out."
"I'll have Laura take it right over."
"Who said anything about Laura?" the woman asked, in her thick, musky voice.
The question caught John off his guard. "Well ... ah ... she is the waitress. I mean she's still on duty...."
"That's nice, John," Mrs. Fortune said. "But when I told you that I expected to reach Betty, that didn't mean I was disappointed to hear your voice instead. If you send Laura up with the Scotch, though, then I will be disappointed. Do you understand?"
"I ... guess so....But the switchboard. I'm supposed to stay here until midnight."
"Is that the witching hour?" the woman asked, with another little giggle. "It's only fifteen minutes away."
"Yes."
"I'll see you then."
John replaced the receiver. He wondered why Mrs. Fortune had sounded so strange-as if she'd been drinking too much, already. Maybe she had personal problems. Maybe she wanted someone to talk to. If so ... well, as his father always said, never argue with a paying guest.
It was curious that he had never really thought of her as a person in her own right. She had always been Mrs. Fortune, Doris's mother, somebody who had to be treated with kid gloves if he wanted to go on seeing the girl. And for her part, she was coolly pleasant to him.
But she was a handsome looking woman. He conjured up a mental image of her: impeccably dressed, beautifully made up, with black hair, dark eyes and a lush figure. She had to be at least thirty-seven or eight, John considered. And if she looked as fabulous as she did now, what had she been like fifteen years ago?
Suddenly, he felt an impatience to know what she wanted.
To hell with it. Nobody would be bothering him any more tonight. He closed down the board and walked through the lobby to the cocktail lounge.
As he entered, the juke-box was playing softly. A brassy looking blonde was sitting at the bar and two of the booths were occupied with couples. Outside of them, the place was empty of guests. Wherever the action at the Rocky Mountain Lodge and Cabins was tonight, it was obviously not here.
The blonde turned on her bar stool and gave John a coolly appraising look. She obviously liked what she saw. He was a muscular youth of about six-foot-one, with close-cropped brown hair, wide shoulders and a flat stomach. Women usually did approve of him at first sight.
The woman crossed her legs, giving John a glimpse of her gleaming, white thigh. "Hi, there," she said.
"Hello, Mrs. Lee."
"Millie, damn it," the blonde said. "Why can't you learn to call me Millie?"
John laughed, embarrassed. The blonde was about thirty, but her face made her look as if she'd been around for more years than that.
"Sorry," he said. "Hello, Millie."
"That's better. Mr. Lee and myself have been long divorced. As are Mr. Davis and myself and Mr. Barton and myself and a couple of others who came before them and myself."
John had heard this before. He shrugged. "I'm sorry."
"Don't be. It's good. Now you and I can be friends."
The bartender began to chuckle. He was middle-aged and fat. John could not remember a time when he was not middle-aged and fat.
"All the ladies want to be friendly with John," Mike said then. "But it doesn't do them any good. John doesn't have time for women. He thinks about the future. Right, John?"
"Anything you say, Mike."
"You see? He's a serious boy, our John. Now me, on the other hand-I'm always available."
"You, on the other hand, I'm not interested in," the woman retorted good-naturedly.
Mike Curtain's great belly shook and quivered with his laughter. "How do you like that?" he asked, wiping his eyes. "Here I am, the last of the great lovers, and women won't take me seriously."
"Go to hell," Millie Lee smiled at him.
"Oh ... oh...." Mike spluttered, struggling to bring himself under control. Then: "What can I do for you, John? Like a drink? You're of age now."
John waited until the bartender had undergone another seizure of laughing before he answered. This was a private joke between them. John had just turned twenty-one, but for the past four years Mike had been giving him liquor behind his father's back.
"Not this time," John said, when the fat man had finished. "I'm still working. Charge a bottle of Scotch to the Fortune account. That's Cabin G."
"Right," Mike said. He reached under the bar even while John was telling him not to call for Laura.
"Too late," the bartender said. "I just rang for her. But why didn't you want me to?"
"Mrs. Fortune insisted that I bring the bottle to her myself," John replied, flushing.
Millie Lee snorted. "So dear Estelle is on the prowl again, huh? You'd be better off with me. I'm much nicer."
"I know you are," the bartender said in a quavering voice. "If you'd only listen...."
"Shut up, Mike," the woman said evenly.
John turned to see Laura come out of the kitchen. The waitress was wearing a mini-dress uniform that showed off the sharp thrust of her breasts and her slim hips.
"I hope she won't be too mad at being called out here for nothing," John said, trying to change the subject.
"She spends too much time in the kitchen, anyway," Mike Curtain responded. "The exercise will do her good."
John did a double take. "You're a fine one to talk about exercise," he said.
"And she doesn't need any," the blonde woman said firmly. "I hate her enough already."
Laura, a beautifully put-together brunette who was well aware of the effect she made, overheard the last part of Millie's remark. "Who do you hate?" she asked.
"You."
Laura managed to pout impudently. "Why?"
"If you were my age, love, and you saw someone who was not only your age but looked like you-you'd hate her, too."
The bartender's belly began to shake again. "I think you've just been complimented," he said weakly.
The younger woman did not look too certain. But then she was not the sort to examine any compliment too closely. "What did you want me for?" she asked Mike.
"First of all," the fat man said, as he pulled himself together, "you'd better go check on your tables."
"Those couples are more interested in each other than they are in me," she shrugged. "But, okay. What else?"
"I did want you to take a bottle of Scotch to Cabin G," Mike admitted, his face screwing itself into a humorous mask. "But Mrs. Fortune insists on our John making the delivery in person."
"And I'd better get going," John broke in to say. He reached for a bottle which Mike had not yet placed on the bar. "Mrs. Fortune will be getting mad."
None of the other three paid any attention to the remark.
"Is she all by her lonesome tonight?" Laura asked, with one eyebrow raised.
"Yes," the fat man spluttered.
"In that case, John will have a rough time getting away with his virtue intact!"
The bartender rocked back and forth on his heels. "Maybe he doesn't want to," he said, finally handing the boy the bottle of Scotch.
"Of course he does," Millie Lee said, as John grabbed the bottle before Mike could change his mind again and put the Scotch back on its shelf for a while longer.
"Do you?" Mike asked.
"Yes," John said, starting to flee from the room. "Oh, John," Millie called, beckoning him back with a crook of her finger. "What?"
"If you need any help, holler. I'll come over and cream the darne!"
"Sure," John said, leaving once more.
"I don't believe he thinks I could do it," Millie complained.
"She could," Mike said, but by that time the younger man had left the lounge.
Even during the hottest part of the year, the temperature at Rocky Mountain Lodge and Cabins always fell sharply as soon as the sun went down. Tonight was no exception. There was a chill in the air as John walked towards Cabin G, and he was glad that the distance was as short as it was.
He stood at the entrance for a few moments, listening to the angry chirping of crickets and the distant howl of a coyote. Then he rapped sharply at the cabin door.
"Who is it?"
"It's me. John Steward."
The door opened several inches and the unsmiling face of Mrs. Fortune looked out at him. "You certainly took your time," she complained.
"I'm sorry. I...."
She stepped back from the door and opened it. "Well, come on in now."
The woman was wearing a long green wrapper that was belted tightly about the waist. Though her hair had been carefully done for dinner, several strands had fallen out of place by now. Her makeup had started to fade and her face had taken on a slightly coarse appearance.
"I hope you don't mind what I'm wearing," Mrs. Fortune muttered, indicating the wrapper. Then she glared at him almost hostilely. "Why the hell .should you?" she continued. "Come inside."
She stepped behind John and shut the door.
John held the Scotch out, but the woman made no attempt to take it. She placed her hands on her hips and pulled her shoulders back so that her breasts thrust out against the wrapper. She looked John up and down, glaring at first, but then her frown became a smile. "My God," she said. "Look at you...."
"What?"
"You were a kid. I always thought of you as a kid. Now you're a man."
John was embarrassed. "People change."
"Yeah, I know." She shrugged unsteadily. She had had more to drink than he had thought at first. "My daughter, for instance. She's a woman, now. Do you like Doris?" she asked.
John blinked. He had not anticipated her question. "Yes," was all he was able to reply.
"Well, she's not here," the woman replied with capricious truculence. "I'm all alone."
"I know...."
"What do you know? Do you know that Vernon's not here, either?" Her laughter grated harshly on his nerves. "Well, that's not news, is it? He's never here."
John -edged towards the door. The bitterness in the dark-haired woman's voice frightened him. He thought that whatever she said tonight, she would regret it in the morning. And then make a complaint against him. "Mrs. Fortune," he said. "Maybe I'd better go...."
"Estelle," the woman said. "Call me Estelle, damn you."
"All right. Estelle. But I'd...."
"And you're not walking out on me. We'll talk a little. Drink a little. Then you'll go. Maybe."
John nodded in defeat. The one thing he did not want was a scene. And right now this woman was entirely capable of making one.
"Okay," Estelle Fortune said with satisfaction. "You open up the Scotch and I'll tell you where Vernon is. You do want to know where he is, don't you?"
"If you want to tell me." He sat down in a chair and, placing the bottle between his knees, started to pry off the cork with his thumb.
"Of course I want to tell you. He's with some little broad. That's why he's never here. Because he likes to shack up with dozens and dozens of little broads. I'll bet more than half of them are jailbait, too."
"Mrs. Fortune ... I mean, Estelle. You can't be sure...."
"Of course I'm sure," she said. She grabbed the bottle from which John had removed the cap. "Here, give me that. I'll pour us some booze."
She went into the small kitchenette, removed two glasses from a cubpoard, and poured a pair of stiff drinks. "I hope you like yours neat," she said. "I haven't got the patience to dig out the ice or soda."
"This will be fine," John told her. He felt the liquid flow down smoothly and then burn into his stomach.
Estelle finished her drink off in two swift gulps. "Of course I'm sure," she repeated then, putting her glass down with a sigh. "He's a man, isn't he? And I know what men are. Women, too, for that matter...."
John gazed at her and took another sip of the Scotch.
"So I'm all alone," the woman said morosely. "My husband's shacking up with some broad and my daughter....I wonder who she's shacking up with, tonight! Huh, John?"
John straightened up in the chair.
"That really gets to you, doesn't it? Hits you right where you live!" Estelle giggled drunkenly.
"I thought Doris was at a party," John said, though he didn't actually want to say anything.
"That's what she told me. But she's a woman. I thought we decided that." She looked puzzled. "Didn't we decide she's a woman now?"
"Yes. We did."
"There you are." She poured herself another drink and her mood changed as arbitrarily as it had before. "Just a while ago she was a little kid," she said with a reflective shake of her head. "Now she's a woman. Big in front, too. Ever see her naked?"
"I...."
"That's right. Don't answer. Take the fish ... the fifth amendment. But she's big. Got real whoppers. She inherited them from me...."
John stood up. His face was red and he had no idea of what the woman might say next. "I've got to go," he said.
"What for? Do you think I'm lying?"
"No. I just have to go."
But Estelle had placed herself in front of the door so that it was impossible for him to reach it without bodily pushing her out of the way. "Damn it," she said. "You do think I'm lying?"
"I don't...." he began.
She was not listening to him. She took off her wrapper and revealed herself to be in a translucent green nightgown, through which the outlines of her large, firm breasts were clearly visible. Her nipples, John could see, were erect.
Estelle reached up and held her breasts from underneath so that she seemed to be offering them to him through the nightgown. "Not bad, are they?" she said triumphantly. "Not bad for a woman with a daughter who's almost twenty."
"They're ... they're very good."
"Then come here." She inched towards him.
"But...."
"Damn it, don't tell me I was wrong before." She laughed. "Don't tell me you're not a man after all."
Suddenly she was pressing against him. Her lips found his and her tongue forced its way into his mouth. Her body molded itself softly to his body and her thigh forced its way gently into his crotch.
He felt himself stir and begin to grow strong.
"You are a man," she said, tilting her head back teasingly. "Ah, yes-I can feel that you're a man...."
His answer was to clasp her ever more tightly to him, so that his arms, his chest, his thighs seemed to grow more powerful-more masculine-in contrast to her soft femaleness.
Then she was fighting for air. "Let me...."
He released her, conscious now that he might have been hurting her.
She backed away and looked at him with an amused kind of awe. "You take my ... breath away," she said, gasping.
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you."
She laughed throatily as she gained control of herself once more. "You can hurt me anytime. It's just that your belt buckle was digging into my belly."
"My...?"
"See?" She raised her nightgown and he saw that her thighs were fleshy but still good. Above the bikini briefs that clearly outlined her female groin, he could see the imprint of his belt buckle. "See," she said again.
He stared at her. "Yes."
"Well? What are you going to do about it?"
"What do you want me to do?" His voice was breaking ridiculously and his hands were clasping and unclasping themselves.
"What do you think?"
He knelt down and placed his hands on the soft roundness of her rear. His lips found the spot on her belly and kissed it. "Is that better?" he murmured. "Mmnnn...."
His tongue wandered up to the hollow of her navel and explored it. The woman gave a little shiver of delight. "Oh...." she said. "Let's ... let's get into the bedroom."
He straightened up and walked beside her. He still kept one hand on her rear, under the folds of the nightgown. His fingers worked their way inside the bikini briefs so that they held the soft flesh of her buttocks and squeezed.
The woman took a deep breath and rubbed her leg against his. "You're strong...."
"You make me strong."
"That's what I'm best at."
They reached the bedroom and he let her go. She slipped out of her nightgown so that she was nude except for her briefs.
Her whole body was soft and full. Her big, wide-nip pled breasts hung slightly with their own weight, but they were still round and shapely. Her thighs and hips were heavy, and her belly-with the fading red mark of his belt buckle still noticeable-curved well out from her surprisingly narrow waist.
"Do you like me?" she asked.
"Yes...."
"Then take off those clothes of yours."
"Oh," he said, feeling awkward and stupid because he was still dressed. He tore off his clothing-the jacket, tie, shirt, trousers-and by the time he was removing his undershorts he saw that Estelle Fortune had stepped out of her briefs.
He stared at the black shadow under the round of her belly-the goal of his needs and desires. And he realized that she, in her turn, was staring at him.
"You are a man," she said, smiling a smile in which submission was strangely blended with triumph.
"I'll show you." He walked towards her and bent her back onto the bed.
Man, she was soft! he thought. He wondered how women managed to get around in the world, being as soft and weak as they were.
"Easy...." Estelle said, holding him off with a gentle shove of her hand. "Take it easy."
"I won't hurt you," the man promised.
"I know you won't. But I want it to last as long as possible."
Her fingers traveled down his belly and she tickled his chest with her tongue. He took hold of one of her large breasts and pulled it to his lips. She moaned with pleasure and did something with her hand that made him gasp.
"Do you like this?" she asked.
"Yes...."
"I thought you would," she said softly.
For several minutes more they carressed and aroused each other's bodies. Then John felt that he could not take it any more. "Are you ready?" he asked.
"Yes. Are you?"
"More than."
He turned so that she was beneath him and swiftly entered her. The woman's hands locked around his back and she held him so that he could not move.
"Slow and easy," she whispered up at him, as they rested that way for a while. "Isn't this nice?"
"Yes, it is," he said. But then he broke the grip around his back and began the hard, driving male thrust. "But this is nicer...."
"Ah...." she gasped. "Ah ... now....Now!"
And he surged towards now-feeling every muscle in his body grow, strain, tense, knot, lift him towards that fractured instant that seemed to break into fragments as he reached the highest tip-top pinnacle and....
... it was over.
The two lay on the bed, side by side, growing apart until they were almost strangers again.
John got up and walked into the bathroom. When he came back out, he felt embarrassed at his own nudity.
"I'd better go now," he said, turning his back to the woman in order to put on his underclothes.
"I suppose you'd better."
He dressed quickly, not looking around until he was finished. When he did turn, he was relieved to see that Estelle had pulled the sheet up over her.
"Goodnight, then," he said, after hesitating a moment.
"Goodnight."
"Want me to bring the Scotch in from the outer room?"
"No thanks. I'll get it."
He hesitated once more and then walked towards the front door of the cabin. "Goodnight," he called over his shoulder, as he walked out into the chill air.
CHAPTER TWO
One of Walter Steward's favorite boasts was that he never needed an alarm clock. No matter what time he got to sleep at night, he would come fully awake at precisely seven A.M.-ready to face the world and fight for what he thought should be his.
This morning was no exception. Walter left his wife sleeping in their king-sized bed and went into the kitchen to pour some orange juice from the pitcher which was always stored in the refrigerator.
He drank the liquid reflectively, taking deep slow breaths between sips. He hated to leave the Lodge at the height of the busy summer season, but there didn't seem to be much choice. Only last night he'd received the phone call which told him that a large resort hotel in California had just declared bankruptcy and would be auctioning off all its furnishings tomorrow. He had to be there.
Walter ran his hand over the stubble of beard which had appeared on his face while he slept. He was a big man and-naked as he was-he appeared even bigger. His full head of hair was an iron grey and his massive chest and body was matted with grey hair. His arms and shoulders bulged with muscles and his loins managed to look potent even in repose.
The man finished his orange juice, left the glass in the sink, and poured out another glass for his wife.
"Lana," he said, walking over to touch her on the shoulder. "Here's your juice, darling."
The chestnut-haired woman opened her eyes. She was thirty-a good twenty years younger than her husband-and right now she seemed even younger. She had a slender figure and an almost boyish look to her face. But she gloried in the fact that Walter Steward found her irresistible, and had found her so ever since he had first interviewed her for a job here at the hotel.
"What a delicious sight to wake up to," she said now, yawning and smiling with her eyes.
"What sight?" He was puzzled. "The orange juice?"
"No, silly. You. Come and sit with me for a while."
"I have to hurry," he objected gruffly. Compliments always embarrassed him and turned him gruff. "I'm flying to the Coast today. Remember?"
"Of course I remember. But sit with me anyway."
He sat down on the bed as she knew he would. Then-as she also knew he would-he leaned over and kissed her.
"Well," she said, first looking at and then reaching out for him. "Good morning!"
"You're shameless," he laughed. "A shameless wench."
"Listen to who's talking," she teased. "You can't get enough of me, can you? Night and morning too!"
"Damn right I can't!" He flipped the bedclothes back and drank in the sight of her girlish breasts with their small, erect nipples, her slender flanks and flat belly. He reached for her tufted groin. "Damn right I can't," he repeated. "Never ever enough."
She opened her thighs to receive him. "Come here," she said. "Stop talking about it...."
And he was over her, huge arms surrounding her body, hands lifting under her buttocks. He was mastering her, overpowering her, and completing her all at the same time.
When it was over, he sat on the edge of the bed once more to light two cigarettes and hand one to the woman.
"You're always great," he said then.
"And you're not sorry?" she asked, moving to sit beside him.
"Sorry?"
"That you married me. You knew what I was ... before...."
"You were the most perfect creature I ever did meet," he replied, scowling in mock fury. "And don't you dare forget it."
"No, sir."
"Any more of this humble pie, lady, and I'll turn you over my knee."
She laughed. "You do and I know how it'll wind up."
"In that case I would," Walter grinned. "Except that I've got to hurry."
"Because you have to go to California?"
"Yes."
"Take me with you."
He looked at her, considering. He'd thought that they'd had all this out the night before. But now she was tempting him again.
"Please," she said. "I'll miss you."
"And I you, lady. Believe me. But I have to leave someone in charge here, and you know that Sam doesn't have the initiative to take over."
"What about John, darling?"
Walter Steward snorted. "Hell, he's too young. He's still a kid."
"He's a man, Walter," the woman objected. "He'll have graduated college next year. And when you were his age you'd already been on your own for four years."
"Five," the man corrected her automatically. "But that was different. At his age, I was a lot older than he is now."
Lana laughed. "You've got to let go of him sometime. Maybe he'll surprise you."
Walter left the bed and walked over to the dresser to select a pair of shorts. "I don't know," he muttered. "It's this place. We both know what goes on here. Hell, I don't mean it's any worse than any other vacation hotel. But I don't want John getting mixed up in it. Not when he's got a nice girl like Nancy Grant."
She was silent for a moment. Then: "How do you know he's not already mixed up with some of the females here?"
The man glowered. "Do you know that he is?"
"I haven't been spying on him, if that's what you mean," she said quickly. Then she broke into a grin. "But I've already said that he was a man. And we both know what they're like."
The laughter boomed out of the man. "All right. You win." Walter paused in the act of pulling on his trousers. "Do you like John, Lana?" he asked.
"He's your son."
The man made a gesture of impatience. "I know. But do you like him?"
"I'm fond of him, yes," the woman replied. "But why do you ask?"
"I don't know." Walter looked puzzled. "There are times when I think he kind of resents you. And not just because you took his mother's place, but...."
"Oh that." Lana dismissed the subject. "I'm a stepmother, darling. And you know how cruel stepmothers are."
He laughed again. "You're some swell cruel stepmother," he said, sweeping her into his arms.
She pushed him away, gently. "Easy, mister," she said. "Now we both have to hurry."
John Steward usually took breakfast with his father and stepmother in the dining room of the Lodge. This morning he was more tired than usual and dragged himself there sleepy-eyed and late. He was running in luck, however. Because, for the first time that he could remember this summer, the older Stewards were later than he was.
Just about the time that he was starting to feel concerned about them, they walked into the dining room wearing their city clothes.
"Hope we didn't keep you waiting too long," his father said, when he was seated. "We had to dress and start packing."
"Packing?"
"We're going to the West Coast. You'll be driving us to the airport in Skyline City."
"Your father received a phone call," Lana explained, "about a hotel bankruptcy out there. They will be auctioning off the complete furnishings."
"They'll have a lot of stuff we can use," Walter Steward told him. "I can't afford to pass up the chance to bid."
"I get it," John replied.
"Do you? Good." The older man looked at him. Trying to size up his son was always difficult. He wished he knew what really made John tick. Maybe all fathers felt that way about their sons. He wondered.
"Lana will be coming along to keep me company," Walter Steward went on at last. "And while we're away, Sam will be running things."
"Yes."
"But I can't trust him to do everything. I like him, but.
...." Walter paused. "Anyway, he's not my flesh and blood, if you know what I mean."
"I think so," John said, not really sure.
"Okay. So if an emergency arises-not that I expect one, but if something does come up-I'll expect you to take charge." He breathed deeply. "I'll give you the address of where we will be staying on the Coast and phone you every night starting tonight. Right?"
"Maybe John has a date tonight," Lana broke in to say.
The older man looked at his wife, then back at his son. "Do you?"
"Ah ... yes...." He wondered how Lana knew.
"With who? Nancy?"
"Yes."
"That's good." Walter Steward nodded with satisfaction. "You should see more of her, son. She likes you and her father and I had always hoped that some day...."
The older man did not need to finish the sentence. John knew all about his father's hopes for himself and Nancy. Amos Grant was the physician and long-time friend of Walter Steward. The two men both wanted to see the day that Walter's son would marry Amos's daughter.
The strange thing was that John liked the girl as much as he did. She was good company and he enjoyed being with her. But he liked her as a friend, not as a possible wife.
The one girl he might have felt that way about was Doris Fortune. But after last night, any movement in that direction would be impossible....
Lana broke into his train of thought. "You haven't been seeing very much of Nancy lately, have you, John?"
"Haven't I?" he countered.
"Not as much as last year."
"Maybe so," John admitted. He gazed at the boyish-looking woman that his father married. He wondered why he never felt truly at ease with her; why he could never relax in her presence. She was never unpleasant to him. There was not a thing he could rationally complain about. And yet he could not truthfully say that he liked her.
Perhaps it was because she was so intuitive, so knowing. She seemed to know what he was thinking even before he did himself. And that, in a woman, was disconcerting to say the least.
Especially when the woman was so close to his own age. And if she wasn't that close-for ten years did separate them-she was at least closer to him than she was to his father's age....
Was that it? Was he jealous of his father? He didn't know and truthfully didn't want to know.
"Is the big romance dead?" she asked now.
She did look younger than she was. Her body was so vibrant, so femininely strong. She could give Estelle Fortune cards and spades, he thought with apparent irrelevance. "Pardon me...?"
"I asked if the big romance was over."
"Of course not," Walter Steward put in firmly. "You still like Nancy, don't you, John?"
"Yes. Certainly I like her."
"Only like?" Lana asked mildly.
John shrugged.
"Hell, John's too young to make up his mind about a woman yet," the older man said in a bluff voice. "Isn't that right, John?"
"I guess so."
"I think he's old enough," the woman protested.
But neither one of the men at the table answered her. They both attended to the task of finishing up their fried eggs and bacon.
Walter Steward finished his coffee before either of the others. "I'm going to leave you two alone," he said, as he lit a cigarette. "I'll finish the packing and join you outside."
"All right."
John was almost shy with the woman who was sitting across the table from him. It was difficult for him to meet her eye.
"I hope you didn't mind that I asked you about Nancy," Lana said, when her stepson had lit her cigarette.
"No. Of course not."
"I'm glad." She sighed. "You'll have to make up your own mind about her, you know."
"I know."
"And she about you," Lana grinned. "That's right."
"In the meantime," she said, appearing to choose her words with caution, "if I were you I wouldn't be in too much of a hurry. I'd...."
"Yes?"
"Well, I'd simply have a good time. You do know how to have a good time, don't you?"
John stared at her. He wondered what she was getting at. Did she know about last night? Or had she guessed, somehow? Was there some kind of female intuition that told a woman when a man...? But, no. That was nonsense.
"I think I do," he said carefully.
"Good. And John, maybe you should go into Skyline City some day and see your mother."
"My mother?"
"That's right. A man should always see his mother. It gives him a perspective on life."
John nodded. Once again he found himself wishing he knew what this woman was talking about. "I'll do that," he said.
"Fine." She nodded with satisfaction. "And now maybe we'd better finish. We don't want to keep your dad waiting."
CHAPTER THREE
In the central United States, the Great Plains begin near the ninety-eighth meridian, about four hundred and fifty miles west of the Mississippi River. From that point they extend some three hundred fifty miles further west, with the land rising gently and imperceptibly until it reaches an elevation of more than five thousand feet when the Plains come to a sudden end at the eastern foothills of the Rocky Mountains.
It is at this point-still on the Great Plains, but with the towering mountains so close that it seems as if a man could reach out and touch them-that Skyline City occurs.
The city itself has had many incarnations. At first it was no more than a stagecoach stop, a fort and a trading post. Then, with the advent of cattle ranching on the Plains and the discovery of gold in the Rockies, it grew and prospered. It became a center of trade and finance-the captital of an enormous Western empire.
Trade, of course, meant trade-routes. The railroads sent spurs into Skyline and engineers blasted impossible paths so that the iron horse could pass through the natural barrier of the mountains. Highways followed next, with trucks and busses and passenger cars. And then came the airlines.
The early DC-3's were still handicapped by the Rockies and had to fly a hundred miles to the north or south to where they became lower. But with the coming of the jet age, the mountain wall was transformed into a minor inconvenience which forced the great DC-8's and 707's to make a wide, altitude-gaining circle after take-off.
At the same time, industry-attracted by the dry air, near perfect climate and the now easy means of transportation-started to move in. A rubber factory was constructed alongside the Skyline River. A missile-maker moved nearby, then a manufacturer of electronics equipment and an automobile body plant.
So the city grew. Five, six, then seven hundred thousand people crowded themselves within its boundaries, polluting the air and ruining the famous climate which had brought them to Skyline in the first place.
But one thing had not changed through the years. Next door were still the mountains with their clear blue skies, crystal streams and green pine and aspen. Which was why, as the city began slowly to strangulate, vacation spots such as Walter Steward's Rocky Mountain Lodge and Cabins grew more popular than ever.
It was only a sixty-one mile trip between the Lodge and Skyline City. But since most of the route was over tortuously winding mountain roads, it took an average of slightly more than two hours. And for those who were heading to Central Airport, there was an extra twenty-five minute stretch through the city to East Skyline.
John Steward, his father and stepmother were still passing through the downtown section, therefore, when Betty Laeder was waking up back at the hotel.
Betty shared a small room on the third floor of the main building with Laura Brailing. The girls had been employed at the Lodge for nearly two years and by now were close friends. They both worked the late afternoon and evening shift-Betty behind the desk and Laura as a waitress in the cocktail lounge. Since they each liked to sleep late in the mornings, the arrangement suited them perfectly.
This morning, however, Betty's head felt as if it were about to unscrew itself from her body. There was a sour taste in her mouth and her stomach was doing flip-flops. The worst of it was that, from what she could remember of the night before, she had not particularly enjoyed it.
She turned on her side and forced her eyelids open. The clock on the night table said ten forty-five. She was surprised. From the way she felt, she had been sure that it must be somewhere around dawn.
Laura's bed was empty, she realized now. Then she heard a grunt and turned over onto her back once more.
Laura was in the middle of her morning exercises, trying to touch her toes with her fingertips. Since the brown-haired girl was facing away from her and wearing a shorty nightgown, Betty was given a perfect view of her roommate's rear every time the girl bent over.
She stared fascinated at the backs of Laura's slender legs and the round rump that seemed to almost disappear as the other girl bent over, only to reform itself into a definite pair of buttocks as she straightened up again.
Laura stood up for a moment in order to catch her breath. Then she placed her feet as far apart as she could and leaned over to rest the palms and heels of her hands on the rug.
This time Betty could see everything-the whole complicated whoop-de-do! But women were not only complicated when viewed from this angle, but rather ugly to boot, she thought wryly. The most female part of a female was definitely unfeminine-if that made any sense....
She cleared her throat. "I'd appreciate a change of scenery," she said.
Laura straightened up as though she had just been goosed. She turned around rapidly to give her roommate a much more conventional view of the charms which could be clearly seen through her transparent short nightie. "How long have you been awake?" she demanded indignantly.
Betty grinned and pushed a strand of red hair away from her eyes. "Long enough to see what little girls are made of. And it ain't sugar and spice."
"What do you think you're made of?"
"The same thing you are. But I didn't just give a private showing of my private...."
She stopped suddenly as Laura stuck her tongue out, then ran over to her own bed and picked up the pillow.
"Don't!" Betty squealed, placing her hands over her face defensively. "After what happened to me last night, I don't think I could take it."
"Are we going to drop the subject of mine?" the brown-haired girl asked, still threatening.
"Yes, love. Anything you say," she giggled. "I wouldn't have mentioned it in the first place, except there it was. I mean, I couldn't ignore it."
Laura brought the pillow back up again.
"I'm sorry," Betty squeaked. "We won't mention it again."
"Good." Laura let the pillow fall to the foot of her bed.
"Now what did happen to you last night. Did you have a good time?"
"I'll tell you all about it, sweets. But first make us a cup of coffee, will you?"
"Me...? Why should I make the coffee?"
"Because you're my best friend," Betty croaked, as the pain in her head came back. "And anyway it would be very embarrassing for you if I were to drop dead from lack of coffee. They might even call it murder."
"Witch!" the brownette snorted. Then she shrugged. "I guess I'm just a born sucker. But it's the last time. Tomorrow you definitely have to make it."
"Cross my heart," Betty said.
Laura looked as though she were about to answer her, when she thought better of it and went to the bottom drawer of the heavy wooden bureau. There the girls had secreted an electric hot plate. Through fear of fire, Walter Steward had forbidden his employees to keep appliances of that sort in their rooms. But both Betty and Laura figured what their boss didn't know couldn't hurt him.
Laura dug into another drawer for a pot and filled it with water from the sink. A few minutes later the water was at a boil and she was pouring out two cups of instant coffee.
The redhead straightened her pillow against the headboard so that she could sit up straighter in the bed. As usual, she slept in pajama bottoms only. So her full, round breasts with their rosy nipples rested atop the sheet.
"Careful," Laura said, as she handed a cup to the redhead. "Don't spill any hot coffee on your feature attractions."
"Ooh," Betty shivered in mock horror. "That would smart!"
Laura settled into the single armchair the room had to offer. She pulled the front of her nightie down as far as she could before drawing her legs up under her. "Now, tell me about last night," she said.
"It was lousy, love."
"You were with the Korlott brothers, weren't you?"
"Yes. I don't know which one is uglier or more of a monster."
"Why did you go, then?"
"Are you kidding?" Betty gave her friend an incredulous look. "They asked Mr. Steward personally if I could be given the night off to go to a little party they were giving."
"And the boss man said you had to go?"
"Of course not. He asked me if I wanted to attend. You know the way Mr. S. works. A girl doesn't have to do anything here but her job."
Laura laughed cynically. "Yes. But if she takes that too seriously she'll soon be looking for another job. Remember Virgie?"
"Virgie the virgin?"
"Who else? She was sweet, cute and a hell of a good dining room waitress. The only thing was, she believed in saying no."
"So, bye-bye Virgie," Betty said with a sigh. "Exactly."
"Which is why, my sweet, I said yes."
"And...?"
"And what do you think? The party turned out to be an affair for three, with the two Korlotts-Ugly and Uglier-doing their best to manhandle yours truly."
"Did you defend yourself?"
"Fat chance. I was lucky to get though the evening un-bruised." Betty took another sip of her coffee. "Oh, well," she said then. "I did get a hundred dollars each from the boys-which is not a bad little present."
"I'll say it isn't!" Laura commented, with a lift of her eyebrows.
"Plus, I picked up a few extra points with Mr. S."
"Who, for his part, has no idea what happened."
"He's not that much of a hypocrite," Betty said, responding to the caustic tone of the other's voice. "Walter's not bad at all, really, once you get to know him. I think it's mainly that he doesn't want his son to know what's going on here. You know-John the Untouchable."
"He's not all that untouchable any more," Laura put in with a grin.
"What do you mean?" The redhead pulled herself straighter and finished the rest of her coffee. "If you know any dirt, girl, let's hear it."
"Last night when he was subbing for you, dear, Mrs. Fortune got him on the phone and insisted on his bringing her a bottle of Scotch-in person."
"Mrs. Fortune? You mean, Estelle?"
"She's the only one here by that name."
"What happened?"
"Use your imagination, Betty. She's all alone in that cabin. And that's the one woman who is not about to stay alone any longer than she can help it."
Betty giggled. "I can't argue with you there. But isn't she a little old for John?"
"Don't sell our Estelle short, woman. She's still got plenty of that certain zing. And she's not bad-looking, either."
"No, she's not," Betty conceded. "But it's still a shame...."
"What is?"
"That if John's no longer the untouchable bull of the mountains, he couldn't get his kicks with a younger playmate."
"True," Laura said, finishing her coffee and getting out of the chair in order to examine herself in the mirror. "I was thinking much the same thing myself."
"Well, unthink it, baby-doll," the redhead said dangerously. "I thought it first."
"Oh no, you didn't," Laura replied, as she swung around to face the girl on the bed. "John is my little project. As a matter-of-fact, I started working on it last night."
Betty gave the clearly visible figure of the brown-haired girl a cool appraisal with her eyes. "It would be a waste of time, dear. You're much too skinny."
Laura drew herself up so that her small but hard breasts pushed out more firmly against the transparent nightgown. "Skinny, am I?"
"I'm only speaking as a friend."
"Well, listen, friend," Laura said, picking up the pillow again and holding it above her head. "Do you still think I'm skinny?"
"No matter how nasty you get," Betty replied in an injured tone, "the truth is still the...."
"I'll truth you!"
Laura brought the pillow down upon Betty's head and, when the other girl raised her hands to try to fend it off, she jumped on top of the bed and sat straddling her.
"Had enough?" she asked.
"Glub," Betty managed to say.
"All right, then." Laura let go of the pillow to reach under the sheet and catch hold of the soft flesh by Betty's ribs. She tickled the redhead unmercifully until Betty was rolling back and forth, her big breasts moving from side to side.
"Stop!" Betty pleaded, between weak moans of laughter. "I can't take...."
"Are you ready to let me have John?" Laura grinned. "I ... can't ... talk...."
"All right," Laura said, taking pity and folding her arms. "I'll let you have a chance to give up."
Betty emitted a few final gasps of laughter and tried to get her breath back. Laura was still sitting astride her legs, just above the knees. But the girl's shorty nightgown had worked its way up so that Betty was staring directly at Laura's belly button, the round of her stomach, and the dark female triangle of body hair.
"Well?" Laura asked. "Am I still too skinny?"
"I'll tell you."
"Tell me what?"
"That you're vulnerable as hell."
"What?" Then: "You wouldn't dare...!"
"The hell I wouldn't," Betty said, making a grab.
Laura squealed and scrambled away, half-rolling off the bed. "That was no fair," she complained, after she had gotten to her feet.
"Look who's talking about being fair! After the way you tickled me when I was helpless."
"When I think of what I could have done to you. To your proudest features, that is."
Betty folded her arms protectively over her bare breasts. "Let's not get personal," she said mildly.
"Personal...?"
"Anyway," the redhead said, holding up a hand in the sign of peace. "I have an idea."
"What idea?" Laura sounded suspicious. "Let's both go after John."
"A contest, you mean? And may the best woman win?"
"No, darling. I mean that we'll go after him together. We're friends, aren't we? Friends should do everything together."
Laura opened her mouth and then closed it again. "But are we that close friends?" she asked after a while. "We could be, I'll bet. If you're game."
"Oh, me? I'm always ready for anything."
"Anything?"
"It looks like I'll have to be," Laura told her. "And what about Ugly and Uglier?" she wanted to know then. "Were they ready for anything?"
"The Korlott brothers?" Betty replied with a laugh. "That's my secret." She leaped out of bed so that her soft full breasts literally bounced, and took Laura by the hand. "Anyway, we're much nicer than they are."
"Of course we are," Laura said. But there was a peculiar note in her voice.
"What's wrong?"
"Nothing. I was just thinking, though ... What if John doesn't want us?"
"But he has to want us. We're irresistible."
The brown-haired girl snorted. "That's right. I forgot."
Betty gave the other a friendly spank on her unprotected rear. "Never forget that again," she said, as she turned away and dropped her pajama bottoms to the floor.
While the two girls were still getting into their clothes at the hotel, a 707 jet was leaving the boarding area of Skyline City's Central Airport.
John Steward watched as the craft taxied to the edge of the field. It rumbled onto the main runway and made its turn. Then, with engines screaming, it gathered speed and lifted into the air.
After the plane had become a small dot, John stepped back into the terminal building and went to the restaurant for a sandwich and a cup of coffee. He finished his meal quickly and then walked out to the parking lot where he had left the Lodge station wagon.
As John headed back through the city, he found himself growing more and more excited. There would be problems ahead, he knew. He still had qualms about facing Estelle Fortune. And then there was her daughter who should be coming to the hotel either that day or the next. He didn't know what he was going to do about Doris.
But he was looking forward to his date tonight with Nancy Grant. Maybe he'd be able to settle things there, one way or another.
Most of all, however, he was excited by the fact that this was the first time his father had gone away telling him that he should take charge in an emergency. John grinned to himself. Whether or not an emergency arose, he thought, he would probably have more than enough on his hands.
CHAPTER FOUR
Twice a day during the summer season, the Rocky Mountain Lodge and Cabins conducted two horseback rides along the surrounding trails. One-the "beginner's ride"-lasted about forty-five minutes. The other-for "experts"-took two hours from start to finish.
This day, John went along on the afternoon "experts" ride.
It was led by Sam Clairmont, a former rodeo star who was Walter Steward's number one assistant at the hotel.
Sam was small of stature and had a wizened look about him that made him appear older than his forty-five years. He was far from frail, however. There was enormous strength in those wiry arms. Once, when a horse had thrown and threatened to stomp him, John had seen Sam grab the furious animal by his outside legs, lift and topple the beast to the ground, where he kneeled on his neck until the horse submitted.
Sam had come to the hotel ten years ago to take charge of the livestock. John had followed him around every chance he could get, while the man had taught him the tricks of horsemanship-how to guide a horse through dangerous terrane, how to grip with his knees in order to stick on the animal's back, and-when all else failed-the best way to take a fall.
"The main thing," Sam used to say, "is to never show fear. A horse can always tell when his rider's afraid."
"Can he?" the boy asked, impressed.
"Sure can. A horse is like a woman that way."
"A woman?" John was puzzled.
"Yeah. Well, I guess you're too young to know about that, boy. But horses and women are pretty much the same. A man's got to be the master. He can't show fear and he can't draw back."
That night, John almost had Sam fired by repeating that statement to his mother, who was still married to his father at the time.
"It isn't right to permit that man to associate with the boy, Walter," she said, her aristocratic face drawn into lines of disapproval.
His father sighed. It seemed to John that the big man was always sighing now. "I'll talk to him, Alice."
"It will take more than talking. The man's a beast. He's crude. He is no better than one of his animals."
"Yes, dear."
"What are you going to do about it?"
"I said I'd talk to him, didn't I?" The man's voice darkened. "Sam is good with the livestock, Alice. We need him."
"And your son?" John's mother asked coldly. Walter Steward didn't answer.
"If talking doesn't do any good," his wife persisted, "will you let him go?"
"Oh, sure. If talking doesn't do any good."
But of course Sam was not fired. And John doubted if his father even bothered to talk to him. Sam was ... Sam. He was Walter's type of man. And Walter bought his complete loyalty for the simple price of letting him remain Sam.
The person to leave the hotel was John's mother.
That was a year later. And when she went, she took her son with her.
They moved into a house in Skyline City. John was sent to a local private school, the equal, his mother was assured, of any in the East. He wore good clothes all the time, saw movies whenever he wanted to, and led the kind of life that most of his friends envied.
He hated it. The only time he felt really alive was during the summer season, which he was permitted to spend with his father-and of course Sam, who was gradually promoted until he had gained the title of assistant manager.
John was in high school when both of his parents remarried.
His mother was wed to a lawyer named Felix Thurston. He was a distinguished man-a bit pompous, perhaps, but unfailingly polite to his stepson.
Alice had wanted her son to follow in her new husband's footsteps. Felix would take him into his own firm, would give him the connections that a young lawyer usually has to scramble for during the years when he is trying to get started.
But John's bent was toward engineering. And, when he wanted to, he could be every bit as stubborn as his father. So-although there were several major scenes before the thing was decided-Alice finally permitted him to enroll in the out-of-state engineering school where he was offered a scholarship.
By now he hardly saw his mother and stepfather any more. He would spend Christmas and part of his other holidays with them. But during the winters he had his school, and he still insisted on spending July and August at the hotel.
Perhaps that was wrong of him. Laura might well have been right when she suggested that he spend more time with his mother. But he just didn't fit in there. If he felt uncomfortable in Laura's presence, he had nothing at all in common with Felix....
"What are you thinking about, boy?"
John looked up. The trail had widened now, and the horses-knowing it better than most of their riders-had settled into a gentle gallop. Sam Clairmont had taken the opportunity to drop back and ride beside John.
"Nothing much," the younger man said.
"You look lost in thought. Better watch out that you don't fall off your horse from thinkin' too much."
John grinned and followed Sam up to the head of the group in time to slow them all down to a walk when the going got rougher again.
"I guess I was thinking about life," he admitted then.
"Philosophizing, hey? I always said that a man has the right to philosophize once he reached the age of sixty. Which gives me some fifteen years, yet, and you more time 'n you've already lived."
"Maybe so," John said.
"But you ain't convinced. I guess that's your privilege." John did not reply.
"By the way, boy," Sam went on. "What happened between you and Mrs. Fortune last night?"
"My God!" John sounded annoyed. "Does this whole damn hotel have to know everything I do and when I do it?"
"I guess everyone'd like to," Sam came back evenly. "I hear she had you in her room for one hell of a long time. Did anything happen?"
"What if it did?" John asked truculently. "Isn't it my business?"
Sam turned his hard blue eyes on the boy and scrutinized him coldly. Then he smiled. "I reckon it is," he said. "I pretty well reckon you're a man by now."
"Thanks."
If Sam heard the irony, he did not show it. "Don't thank me, boy. It was nature and yourself that did it. All I can tell you to do is be careful."
"Careful about what?"
"If you're really a man, you know about what. Nature sets her trap and you're likely to fall into it."
"I can't help that," John said.
"Not if you're built like the rest of us you can't." Sam grinned and spat out tobacco juice through his brown stained front teeth. "Anyway, even if you do get into trouble, you're not the type to complain."
"I won't," John answered slowly. "But as for my father...."
"Your old man'll have no kick comin'."
"What do you mean by that?" John demanded.
Sam thought for a moment. "Nothing much," he said then.
"You had to mean something."
"Look. There's nothing that goes on around this place that Walter don't know about. And his wife, too."
"I still don't...."
"Boy, look around you. You got eyes and ears. You don't need me to tell you what's as plain as the nose on your face."
"But...."
"Let's skip it," Sam said flatly. "I got reason to be grateful to Walter and anythin' he does is okay with me."
The older man urged his horse into a run, and John and the others had no choice but to keep up with him.
But as he dropped back towards the end of the group, John was still confused and unsettled.
What had Sam actually been talking about? Was he referring to what happened last night between himself and Estelle Fortune? But that didn't make any sense. And taciturn as Sam was, he almost always made sense.
Perhaps he was talking about the whole general atmosphere: the fact that many of the guests had parties that he-the boss's son-was not supposed to know about.
Or maybe it was the fact that Betty, Laura and some of the other girls who worked at the Lodge joined in the parties. That was another thing John was not supposed to know, but did.
But still he wasn't satisfied. He suspected that it was something else. Something that Sam-with all Sam's flaws and virtues-might find shameful....
After the ride, John showered and then went to the swimming pool.
Estelle Fortune was there. She was wearing a brief bikini and her lush body shivered as she sat up to beckon the young man over.
"Doris isn't coming here tonight, after all," the woman said, after John had taken a seat next to her reclining chair.
"Oh?"
"That means I'll be all alone."
John was nervous. The pure sex that he could see in the woman's eyes half-frightened him. "I see," he replied, stupidly.
"You can keep me company again if you want," Estelle said.
"Not tonight, Estelle," he said. "I have ... I have a date."
The lust seemed to vanish as the woman's eyes grew cold. "What sort of a date?"
"Just ... a date." John had an inspiration. "I made it some time ago."
Estelle thought about that for a few moments. Then: "You wouldn't be playing games with me, would you?"
"I don't know what you mean."
"The hell you don't."
"I swear...."
"All right." Estelle sighed and allowed a slow smile to spread over her handsome face. "Maybe you're not playing games. It's just that when a woman puts herself at the mercy of a younger man, she doesn't like to think that he's only using her for what he can get."
John thought back to last night. He did not remember Estelle being at his mercy. But he had sense enough to murmur, "Of course not."
"Good. You do understand. Then maybe we can get together when you come back."
"I ... I don't think so. I might be late...."
The black-haired woman's eyes grew icy once more. "I understand. Who is this girl you're going with?"
John was almost tempted to say that he was going to see a male friend. But the idea of having to lie to Estelle made him angry. "Just a girl. Nancy Grant."
"She's a friend of my daughter, isn't she?"
"They know each other," the man replied, carefully. Estelle Fortune cocked an eyebrow. "Just think," she said. "Competing with a friend of Doris's! The next thing you know I'll be competing with her!"
John turned his head away. Right now he wished that he had not been on the switchboard last night when Estelle had called.
"What are you two talking about?" Millie Lee asked, as she came up to join them.
The blonde was wearing a one-piece red bathing suit that had molded itself to her slender body. She had good legs, John thought. Better legs than Estelle.
The black-haired woman must have noticed this also, for she gave the other a stare that was filled with repugnance. "Nothing that would interest you, dear," she said.
"Anything you do interests me, dear," Millie replied, as she sat herself on the edge of the chaise lounge. Estelle grunted.
"I must say you wear a bikini well," Millie went on, looking critically at Estelle's nearly-nude body. "Especially for a woman your age." She smiled at John. "Did you know that Estelle was eight years older than I?"
John chose not to respond.
"Darling," Estelle said to the blonde. "Shut up." Millie playfully tapped the soft flesh of the other woman's stomach. "Darling, why should I?"
"I'm warning you...."
John got up from his own seat. "I really must be going."
"Must you?" both women asked in a chorus.
"Yes. I have to see Sam Clairmont about something."
The two women kept their eyes fixed upon his muscular back until he had left the swimming pool area.
"Too bad," Millie said then. "We were having such a pleasant conversation."
Estelle moved until she was in a sitting position. "Damn you," she said. "You did that on purpose."
"Did what?"
"You know what." But she went on to explain, anyway. "You broke up my little talk with John."
"How could I...? If he had really wanted to talk to you?"
Estelle glared and got off the chaise lounge. "Are you going inside?" Millie asked politely. The older woman turned to face her. "I don't know what you're tying to pull, Millie...."
"Me?"
"But whatever it is, I'm telling you to be careful." She paused. "And remember that I saw him first."
"That's just it," the blonde murmured. "You've already had him."
But Estelle was already out of earshot.
CHAPTER FIVE
John Steward would have strongly denied that he had to sneak out of the hotel after dinner that evening.
He was careful not to draw attention to himself as he left his room, and he left the main building by the rear entrance. He had no desire to see Mrs. Estelle Fortune, Mrs. Millie Lee or anyone else, for that matter. But he did not actually sneak out.
He did breathe a definite sigh of relief, on the other hand, when he entered the station wagon, started the engine, and slipped the car into gear.
Dr. Amos Grant had his office in Skyline City, where he was also affiliated with what was considered to be the finest teaching hospital in town.
He had first met Walter Steward when he was working his way through medical school. The two men were employed by the local stockyards at the time and, when Amos looked back, he doubted that he could have kept his sanity without the help of his friend.
When Amos became successful enough to take a one month vacation every summer, Walter convinced him to buy a plot of land near his own hotel and to build on it.
The house-with its neo-Spanish construction and back-yard swimming pool-was a twenty minute drive from the Rocky Mountain Lodge and Cabins. John had made the trip hundreds of times and felt as though he could do it driving in his sleep without lights.
Tonight, as usual, he parked in the wide driveway and walked through the patio to the front door.
Mrs. Grant let him in. She was a grey-haired woman in her early fifties, with a still-good figure and intelligent brown eyes.
"Nancy's not ready yet," she said, as she showed John to a chair. "I hope you don't mind."
"Not at all."
She laughed and went on making conversation. "But I guess you didn't really expect her to be ready. You know how we women are when it comes to dressing up for our men."
"Yes, ma'am."
"May I get you a drink while you wait?"
"Thank you. That would be fine."
"A whiskey sour? I have some all prepared."
"Yes. Thanks."
The woman poured the liquor out of an iced cocktail shaker and brought the glass over to him. "It feels strange to be making you drinks. Real drinks, I mean. It's not that long ago since I helped your mother to prepare your formula."
"Now, Emma," her husband said, walking in on the conversation. "You don't want to bore John with ancient history."
He was a small man of about the same age as his wife. She had been a nurse whom Amos had met in his final year of medical school. They had waited until he finished his internship and his residency in internal medicine before they married.
"Drink up, John," he said, pouring one for himself. "We've missed you around here this summer."
John smiled. He was embarrassed and did not know what to say.
"Nancy's missed you, too. That girl really likes you, John."
"I like her," the younger man replied, feeling that something of the sort was expected of him.
"I'm glad to hear that. She's a fine person, even if she is my own daughter. And she's a pretty little thing, too."
"I know...."
"John," Mrs. Grant put in, evidently feeling that the conversation had gone far enough, "where are you planning to take Nancy, tonight?"
"I thought to the Upper Lake Inn."
Mrs. Grant nodded. "That's a nice place."
It was actually the only place in this section of the mountains, John thought. Unless, that is, he were to take the girl back to his father's hotel and its small discotheque. And that he was not about to do.
"Try not to keep her out too late," Dr. Grant said. "Oh, Amos-we can trust John."
The younger man wondered if that was supposed to be a compliment. He rather imagined it was. But it made him feel resentful all the same. Was it that he wasn't man enough to be untrustworthy? Was that what they thought?
He told himself not to be foolish. They were merely talking about someone they had known since he was a child-the son of Amos Grant's closest and oldest friend.
While he was still reassuring himself, Nancy Grant walked into the living room.
She was a small blonde girl who could not have been much over five feet tall. She was wearing a closely fitting white mini-outfit and green panty-stockings.
"You look lovely, dear," Emma Grant said, kissing her daughter on the cheek., "But isn't that skirt a little short?" the doctor asked, frowning.
"All the girls are wearing them that length, now-a-days," his wife replied in a placid voice. "If you say so...."
John walked over to take the girl's hand. "Shall we go?" he asked. "Let's."
Although on the outside the Upper Lake Inn had the most romantic setting imaginable, inside it was hot, stuffy and loud. A five man rock 'n roll combo-not a very good one-played imitations of six-month-old record hits, while two girls in gold lame' leotards danced on the stage.
After dancing several times with Nancy, John decided that she was more talented than either of the professionals and told her so during one of the breaks.
"Thanks," the girl said. "But that's not really saying very much."
John laughed. "Would you like to have their jobs?"
"Not here, for heaven's sake!"
She said it with such honest indignation that John had to laugh again. "Where then?" he asked.
"Do you know the Roaring Club? In Skyline City?"
"That's a wild place," John responded. "The girl dancers don't wear very much there."
The girl shrugged. She did not seem interested. "They wear the essentials."
"I can see your folks letting you do anything like that," John remarked.
"You are right about that," the girl conceded with a wan smile.
"Why do you want to work there, anyway?"
The girl shrugged and turned her face half away from him. "The music's good," she said. Then, almost reluctantly: "I know Marty Steeley."
"Of Marty's Mayhem?"
"Mmnnn."
John raised an eyebrow. "How well do you know him?" he asked, feeling an irrational twinge of annoyance.
"I just know him," she said vaguely.
At that point the Upper Lake Inn's combo began to play once more, and Nancy wanted to dance.
An hour or so later, they ate hamburgers and pie and left shortly after eating.
"Let's take a walk by the lake," John suggested, when they were outside.
The girl seemed to hesitate. "It's a little chilly."
"Would you like me to put my jacket over you?"
"All right ... Thanks."
He placed an arm about Nancy and led her down the path which took them to the lake shore. They stood for a while and looked at the still waters in which the big, yellow globe of the moon seemed to be buried. In the distance, the surrounding mountain peaks stood out like stark black shadows against the star and moon filled sky.
"It's lovely here," Nancy said.
"Yes."
John turned the girl, gently, so that she was facing him. He drew her closer and his lips found hers. If she did not respond immediately, neither did she resist. He felt the vibrant suppleness of her small body and his manhood began to stir.
Suddenly she pulled away.
"What's wrong?" he asked.
"Nothing. But let's go back to the car. It's so ... public here."
He glanced around at the other couples. They were busy concentrating on themselves. It seemed to John that this was as private a place as one could wish for. But if Nancy insisted....
"Okay," he said.
As the two started back up the path, John wondered if there was something wrong after all. Though they had never actually slept together, he and Nancy had gone far beyond the kissing stage last summer. And tonight he could sense a change in her attitude that made him uneasy.
"Would you like to drive up to the lookout?" he asked, when they were in the station wagon. "If you want."
The lookout, as it was called, was near the top of a mountain located five miles from the Inn. In the daytime, it afforded a perfect view of the country below. At night there were always two or three cars parked there.
John switched off the motor when they arrived, and placed his arm around the girl. He held the bosom of her dress and felt her small breast underneath. She felt soft and fragile. Like a delicate bird.
He kissed the lobe of her ear and the side of her neck. Then he unbuttoned the top of her blouse and reached down into the cup of her brassiere. Her breast settled into his hand.
"Please don't do that," she said, as he gently pinched her nipple.
"Did I hurt you?"
"No. But don't do it."
He laughed. He had started something and was not going to halt himself now.
"We have to get reacquainted, don't we?" he murmured, touching her knee with his free hand and running it along the inside of her upper leg. Her flesh was firm under the close-knit cloth of her panty-stockings.
"Don't," she said for a third time, as he touched the side of her groin and kept climbing until he found the bare skin at the top of the green panty-stockings.
"There we are." His hand moved downward once more, along the velvet flesh of her lower belly.
He could feel her stomach muscles stiffen. "Stop it, John. I asked you to stop it."
"Why?" He was more hurt for the moment than angry.
"Because it's no good. You yourself said it was no good, last time."
"That was last year. And what I said was that stopping was no good." He began to caress her again. "We're both more grown-up now. Maybe we won't want to stop."
"Please," she said, sounding almost panic-stricken. "You don't want me. Not really."
"The hell I don't." His voice challenged her. "Like me to prove it?"
"No...."
But he had already released her breast in order to take her hand. She guessed what he was going to do and tried to hold back, but he was far too strong. He pulled her hand to his lap and forced her to feel the rigid proof of his desire.
"Let me go," she begged, struggling futilely in his grip. He was becoming angrier now. "Why? Is there someone else?"
She gasped, but did not answer. "Who is it?" he demanded. "Just ... let me go...."
John took a wild stab in the dark. "Don't tell me it's that long-haired guitar player? Not Marty Steeley?"
When she didn't answer this time, he knew he had guessed right.
"I'll bet you don't tell him to let you go," he said bitterly, strengthening his grip and forcing her hand still tighter against the front of his trousers. "I'll bet you never want to stop with him."
He paused. The words that were coming from his own mouth were those of a stranger. He knew that he was not capable of such cruelty; such stupidity. But he kept talking, nevertheless. "Do you stop? Or do you let Marty baby go all the way?"
"That's ... my business," Nancy hissed in a furious voice that barely managed to hold back the tears.
"I'm making it mine."
"All right." The girl sounded defeated. "All right, I'll ... help you."
"Help me?"
"The way I did before. You remember. With your handkerchief...." She loosened his belt with her free hand and undid the top of his trousers.
"No!" He fairly spat out the word. "That's not good enough any more." He let go of the hand he was holding and started to fumble with the clasps at the back of her bra.
Nancy unzipped his fly all the way down and reached into his shorts. "Like this," she said. Then-when he made no move to release her, but jerked down on her pantie stockings, "What do you want of me?"
"You know damn well what I want!"
"No...."
"I get it. Only with Marty baby, huh?"
"Please, please don't make it any uglier than it is." Tears were in her voice now. But she still managed to say what she had to say. "I'm a doctor's daughter, John. I know how to hurt a man ... badly."
The words shocked him. They sounded so strained and out of place on the lips of this girl. He was suddenly ashamed of himself for having forced her to speak them.
"Yet you'd still do the other?" he commented in a low voice.
"If you want me to." She stopped for a moment, then-sensing that she was going to win the real battle-went on more calmly. "I like you, John. I don't want us to be hateful to each other."
He was silent. He felt his cheeks flush with shame.
"I ... I guess I know how it is with men. When you get all excited and everything. I mean, you have to have relief, don't you?"
Suddenly she felt him start to wilt. "What is it?" she asked nervously.
"Nothing," he snapped. "Not a damn thing."
He tore her hands away from him and began to re-fasten his trousers. She stared at him, then turned away in order to rearrange her clothing.
"I'm sorry," he said, after several minutes of silence. "I'm really sorry."
He shifted his body in order to look at her. The girl was huddled in the opposite corner of the car, knees drawn up under her chin and weeping silently.
"God," he said. "You must think I'm a complete bastard."
"No. Maybe I led you on....I don't know...."
"You didn't." His tone was bitter with self-reproach. "It was my ego. My stupid, fat ego."
Nancy smiled wanly. "Well....That's what men are supposed to have, isn't it?"
"That and other things. Which you aren't interested in."
She gave a half-laugh, half-sob. "If it was me you were interested in," she said, "it would have been different."
"I know."
"You don't ... hate me? I mean, I've never had any use for the sort of girl who teases a man, and then ... You understand."
"A castrating female?"
"Yes. If I thought I was one of those...."
"Don't worry. You're not. It was my big fat ego that caused all the trouble. And if I'd really tried to force you, I would have deserved anything I got."
The girl was silent for another few minutes. "The thing of it is," she said then, "we never were in love. Were we?"
"I guess not."
"It was our parents. Mine and yours. They tried to push us together."
"Yes." He paused. "But you are in love with Marty Steeley?"
She nodded.
"What's he like?"
"You won't be awful about him?" she asked hopefully. "I swear."
"He's ... he's just a man," she said then. "He's a great musician, and he likes to watch me dance, and....I don't know. We want to get married."
"Why don't you?" John wondered.
"My dad. I'm only nineteen and a girl can't marry in this state until she's twenty if her folks don't give their permission."
"Then go out of the state," John suggested.
"Can't do that, either." She shrugged. "Dad has a lot of influence, you know. He's alerted the state highway patrol, and if Marty tries to take me out of the state he'll be arrested for imparing my morals. They have his license plate number and everything. Dad's almost hoping we'll try something like that. Then he can have Marty put in jail and have me made a ward of the court until I'm twenty-one."
"He'd actually go that far?" John asked, plainly disbelieving. It did not sound like the Amos Grant he knew.
"I guess he thinks it's all for my good," Nancy told him. "I can't even hate him, you see. He's convinced that whatever he does is for my good. You and I are supposed to marry."
"Yeah."
"And that's my tale of woe," Nancy concluded. "When you came back late from college and didn't call me for a week, I thought that maybe you'd found someone else, too. But then when you did ask for a date, of course I had to accept."
John felt a stab of irrational pain. "And try to keep me from being too unhappy?" he shot back.
"I know what you must think," the girl said faintly. "But I thought if I let you neck with me ... and then if I did the other ... you'd be satisfied. I guess I was stupid."
"Who's to say?" John replied almost harshly. "I don't guess it's easy being a girl. If a man doesn't want to make it with a woman, all he has to do is lay off and that's usually an end to it. But a girl doesn't have the option of simply not making a pass, does she?"
"No, she doesn't."
John sighed and straightened up. "I guess I'd better get you back home," he said. "All right. But John...."
"Yes?"
"I don't know how to put this, but ... you could do one thing for me if you didn't mind too much."
"What's that?"
"Some time when you have nothing to do, you might want to take me out to the Roaring Club."
"You mean so you could be with Marty while your folks thought you were with me?" John asked, trying his best not to feel hostility.
"It sounds awful, doesn't it?"
"Not very," John said. "I'll think about it."
He switched on the motor and turned on the headlights of the station wagon. Moments later, the car rolled slowly onto the road which led back down the mountain.
CHAPTER SIX
It was strange, John Steward observed to himself, as he pulled the station wagon out of the Grant driveway and headed it back towards the hotel. Nancy probably thought more of him now than she ever had. It was almost as if not trying to rape her had made him a hero. A hero with an aching groin, he thought cynically.
It had been some time since he had suffered the actual physical symptoms of frustration. But they were here now-doubled and tripled in spades. He felt as though someone had attached an iron weight to the bottom of his belly, a weight which was slowly bringing him down.
He wondered if women ever had to go through anything like this. A friend of his once told him that they didn't. Only men. It had something to do with the differences in the way the sexes were made.
"Vive la difference," he said aloud, remembering an old joke. "Except in cases like this."
For an instant he thought he had been a sucker not to take Nancy up on her kind offer.
Then he shook his head violently. No. Rather than that he could always knock softly on the door of Estelle Fortune's cabin.
There was another nice temptation that he'd rather not have put to him right now.
He thought back to Nancy Grant's remark about how she hoped that he had found himself a girl. If he had, he wouldn't have bothered her. II. And if Doris Fortune had arrived at the hotel with Estelle like she was supposed to, then maybe he would have found himself a girl.
But how could he have the nerve to romance her after making love to her mother?
He lit a cigarette and took a slow, brooding drag.
If only his groin didn't ache so....
And what about Millie Lee? That had to have been an invitation she offered him at the pool today. She was a good-looking woman, too. Very stacked. She could satisfy those pressing needs of his. Yes, indeed.
He realized that the thought of Millie and what she offered was beginning to excite him. He grinned to himself and opened the side vent wide. I must be a sex fiend, he thought as he snuffed the cigarette out carefully before tossing it out the window. I must be an out and out sex fiend!
He drove onto the hotel's private road and then to the lot behind the main building, where he left the station wagon. He went in the rear entrance and walked through the building to the desk where he would leave the car keys.
He turned to see that Betty Laeder was sitting in a lobby arm chair reading a magazine.
John was surprised. The electric wall clock said that it was twenty minutes of two.
"What are you doing up at this hour?" he asked, when she had put her magazine down to smile at him.
"I couldn't sleep," she replied. "Why don't you sit down and keep me company for a few minutes?"
"You sure that I'm not interrupting your reading?"
"Absolute sure," Betty grinned. "It's a dull story and this place gives me the creeps when I'm down here by myself in the wee hours. But like I say, I couldn't sleep. And I did hate to disturb Laura."
John pulled out his pack of cigarettes and offered one to the redhead. She was wearing a pair of tight jeans and an open-front shirt that she had tied under her full breasts.
"Want to know what I'd really like?" Betty asked, when her cigarette was lit. "What?"
"A drink."
"Nothing could be easier," John said, getting up and taking the redhead's arm. "Be my guest."
He went behind the desk and took out the key to the cocktail lounge. They stepped inside, turned on the lights, and then stood behind the bar together while the boy poured a drink for Betty and a stiffer one for himself. He was beginning to enjoy himself.
"Here's to you," John said.
"Thank you, sir." The redhead took a sip and licked her lips. "That's what I call hitting the spot."
"I can't argue with you there," he told her. The liquor burned through him and he placed a hand on the girl's shoulder.
"Where did you go tonight?" Betty asked after a bit. "To the Inn. Where else?"
"With that girl of yours? What's her name?"
"Nancy Grant. Yes."
Betty's eyes twinkled. She put her glass down on the bar and John refilled both hers and his own. "And...?" she asked. "And what?"
"That's what I wanted to know: And what?"
John shrugged. He replaced the bottle on its shelf and took another drink. "And nothing much," he admitted then.
The redhead laughed. "You have the sound of a frustrated male."
"How do frustrated males sound?"
"Hoarse and dangerous. Very, very dangerous."
"You don't look terribly afraid," John commented as he finished his second drink.
"But I am," Betty said, her eyes gently mocking.
They were standing face to face now, and the girl had moved so that she was standing no more than an inch or two away from him. John's arms went about her almost as if they had a mind of their own. Her breasts crushed themselves against his chest and her belly did its best to merge with his own. Then their lips met and the girl's tongue darted inside his mouth.
They stayed that way for almost a full minute, then Betty pulled back in order to catch her breath.
"You're quite a guy, aren't you?" the redhead said, grinning with pleasure. "Are you always this ready and willing?"
"Always...?" He looked down and realized what she meant. "Oh," he said. "I'm sorry...."
"Don't apologize. A man should never apologize for being a man. It's when he can't be a man that he has to say he's sorry!"
John laughed. "You have a point."
"Not so, dad," the redhead corrected. "You're the one with the point!"
John laughed and swung the girl to him again. This was more like it. He was fed up with complications. And this was the most uncomplicated female he had met in a long time.
"Where've you been keeping yourself?" he asked, only half-teasingly as Betty's thigh settled against his crotch.
"Around. Waiting for you to notice."
"Yeah? Well, I never suspected anything like this."
The girl moved her thigh gently. "Nor I like this," she said.
John felt like he was going to explode. An inner voice told him to take it easy, to make it last. "Would you like another drink?" he asked.
"Just one," Betty said, after considering for a moment. "Any more than that would be ... would be...." She stopped, trying to think of the right word.
"Redundant?" John suggested.
"What did we done?" the redhead giggled. "I didn't think we done nothing, yet."
"Redundant," John repeated, not certain if he was being put on. "It means something like unnecessary."
"Mmnnn," the girl murmured, opening her eyes wide. "He's intelligent, too!"
John used one hand to pour the drinks. They drank them one-handed, also, with their legs and hips touching.
The man stroked the redhead's bare midriff and felt her muscles contract as she swallowed. She spluttered and held the drink away from her mouth. "That tickles!" she complained.
John worked his fingers under the belt line of her tight jeans until the tip of his middle finger was well below her navel. "How about this?" he asked. "Does this tickle?"
"Oh, my. You keep that up and I'm going to spill my drink all over this nice bar."
"We can't have that," the boy said. He withdrew his hand, then went inside her jeans at the rear. "How's this?"
"It still undoes me," Betty sighed. "I'm a very sensitive girl in either direction."
"I guess I'd better be patient," John said sadly.
"Why not get out of here instead? This is one of those times when a fellow and a girl need the privacy of a small dark room."
"And a soft warm bed?"
Betty tossed her head back. "What do you think?" John drained his glass quickly. "Would you like me to take the bottle along?"
"Mmnn. It may come in handy."
They stepped from behind the bar and turned out the lights in the cocktail lounge.
"Are we going to your room?" the girl asked, as they started to climb the stairs.
"Why not? It's a real nice room."
"I'll just bet it is," the redhead said. "Especially with you in it. But I want to stop at my room, first."
"What for?"
"To get something."
They started up the second flight of stairs. "Whew," Betty said, holding onto John's arm. "Why don't you talk your dad into putting an elevator in? Running up and down these things several times a day is rough on a woman."
"The exercise is good for your figure," John said lightly, as he patted her firm lower belly. "Not that you really need it." His hand wandered down to the rounded crotch that was outlined by her tightly fitting jeans and stayed there for a moment.
"You're turning me on again," the girl told him. Her arms went behind his neck. Her knee raised itself automatically and bent upwards to meet him.
"You're kind of turned on yourself, man," she added, laughing throatily.
"The way you operate, I'm hardly ever turned off," John admitted.
"That's the kind of news I like to hear!"
Betty swung herself away from him. They continued up the rest of the stairs and down the narrow hall to the small room she shared with Laura Brailing.
"Wait here," she told him, as she turned the doorknob silently. "I won't be a minute."
"Okay."
It was more like five minutes before she returned, and to John it seemed an hour. His groin was beginning to throb again, and he wondered if he had been thwarted for a second time that night.
If she tried that, he thought angrily, he would break the door down and rape the girl. With her roommate looking on, if need be!
But then the door opened and Betty was out in the hall again.
"What took so long?" he asked.
"Sorry," the redhead said. "It was Laura. She couldn't sleep either. She wants us to come in with the bottle."
"Oh?"
"I've been trying to talk her out of it," Betty grinned. "But she is my roommate." She touched John on the upper arm. "We won't stay long. We'll have our drink and tell her we want to go for a walk."
"A walk to my room?"
"Where else?"
"All right then," John said, patting Betty on her rear. "But I'm sorry you told her about the bottle."
The redhead opened the door again and John followed her inside. Laura was sitting up in her bed. She was wearing a transparent gown and John could see the firm outlines of her small breasts and the darker shapes of her erect nipples.
"Hi," Laura said, greeting John brightly. "It begins to look like everyone's awake."
"I hope not," Betty put in dryly.
The brown-haired girl laughed lowly, and patted the edge of the bed. "Sit here," she told John. "Thank you," Betty said. "Not you. Him."
"Where he sits," Betty told her, "I sit, also."
Laura shook her head sadly. "Isn't that terrible? My own roommate doesn't trust me." She shrugged her shoulders. "Well, I guess there's room enough for the two of you."
John sat near the foot of the bed and handed the liquor bottle to Betty, who passed it along to the brownette. The man watched as Laura put the bottle to her lips and tilted her head back. Her small breasts pressed against the transparent material of her nightgown. It was fascinating, John thought to himself.
Betty took a drink then, and handed the bottle back to John. "Will you people excuse me for a minute?" she asked, getting to her feet. "I have some rather urgent business."
"Take your time," Laura said blandly.
Betty raised an eyebrow, but left the room anyway.
"Liquor affects some girls that way," Laura said, when she and John were alone.
"How does it affect you?"
Laura winked slyly. "Pass me the bottle. You may even find out."
John moved towards the head of the bed and did as he was asked. Laura took another long pull, then leaned over to place the bottle on the floor. "What do you think of my redheaded roommate?" she asked, smacking her lips.
John did not expect the question. "She's ... nice...."
"Isn't she." The girl's eyes turned mocking. "Of course some people think there's a little too much of her."
"I wouldn't say that," the man teased back.
"It all depends on your point of view. There is one school of thought that says that a slimmer girl has more energy to offer a man. More zest. More of everything, in fact."
"Really?"
"Yes." Laura rubbed her back against the pillow as though she had an itch there. "Then there's the matter of too much of a good thing. I'd be the last to say that Betty isn't outstanding. After all, we are roommates. But it's what a woman does with what she has that counts. Don't you think so?"
"I suppose...."
"Oh, don't just suppose," Laura told him. "A man should be direct. He must take a stand and stick to it."
John was never sure how what happened next came to happen. One moment he was staring at the brown-haired girl's moist, slightly-parted lips and wishing that Betty would stay out of the room for a longer time than he knew she would. The next moment he was crushing the girl's lips against his own.
He was full-length on the bed, with the bedclothes between their bodies. Her sharp pelvis dug up towards him, and he felt himself become more and more ready.
"See what I mean?" Laura murmured after a few moments. "Definitely...."
"What does she mean?" Betty Laeder asked from in back of him.
John sat up and gave the redhead a weak smile.
"The man is speechless," Betty commented caustically.
"Oh, he can make his meaning clear enough when he wants to," Laura said. She did not seem at all put out by the other girl's sudden re-entrance.
"Can he now?"
"Don't you know?" Laura grinned. "But we were talking about figures and whether some women have too much of a good thing. There was nothing personal, of course."
"Of course...."
Laura appeared to be enjoying herself immensely. "But even so, darling," she went on, "I can see how you might want to take it that way."
"Well, John," Betty asked. "Do you think I'm too much of a good thing?"
"No, no," the boy answered, almost too quickly.
"How can he tell?" the brownette protested. "Until he's seen the bare facts, that is."
"Are you challenging me, darling?"
"I'm daring you, dear."
"Silly girl," Betty replied, as she started to unbutton her shirt.
John stared as the redhead removed her shirt and bra. She drew her shoulders well back so that her soft, heavy breasts would stand out to their best advantage. "Well....?" she asked.
"He hasn't seen me, yet," Laura said quickly.
John swiveled his head. While he had been concentrating on Betty, the brown-haired girl had taken off her nightgown. She was sitting up in the bed with her hard, perky breasts exposed to view.
"Well?" Betty asked again. "Who do you like best?"
"You're both very nice," John said, feeling weak and overwhelmed by the display.
"But which are nicer?"
"It depends," John began. "I mean ... one man might want one thing and another something else. As far as I'm concerned, you are both positively perfect."
But if he hoped that was going to satisfy either one of them, he was doomed to disappointment. "I think he's trying to con us," Betty Laeder said indignantly.
"Maybe not," Laura put in. "After all, he has only seen the upper half of us."
With that, the girl slipped out of bed and stood nudely on the floor. John stared at her slim, well-made legs and thighs, her flat belly, her taut abdomen and hard breasts.
"Like me?" she asked.
"How about me?" Betty demanded, before the boy could answer.
John turned towards her more lush figure: her more curvaceous legs, her rounder hips and belly, her bigger, softer breasts. He was starting to grow dizzy with females. "You are both fantastic," he said truthfully.
"Do you think he's conning us again?" Betty asked.
"With a man there's only one way to tell," Laura giggled.
"Yes. If he were naked, too...."
"Wait a minute," John said. "Wait a minute...."
"It's not fair that you have your clothes on," Laura told him. "After all, we did undress for you."
John was about to tell them that it was their idea. But he quickly thought better of that statement. The hell with it, he decided. He took another swig of liquor and removed his jacket.
"We'll help you," Betty said, starting to undo his tie.
"Gladly," Laura put in, as she unbuckled his belt.
Betty took off his shirt and undershirt. Laura dropped his trousers and shorts to the floor. They took a shoe and sock each; after half-leading, half-pushing him to the chair.
John stood up again, as naked as the two women. "I guess he likes us," Betty said, as she stared frankly at his middle.
Laura laughed. "That's for damn surel But which one of us caused this magnificent reaction?"
"Who knows?"
"Who cares?"
"As long as it's there," they said in unison.
Suddenly Laura thrust herself against him. Betty was thrusting from the other side. John put an arm about each of them, lifting them up and carrying them to one of the twin beds.
Then all three of them were sprawled across the bed, laughing, tickling and groping at each other. Two female hands went down John's belly and met between his legs.
"Don't damage him," Betty said.
"I wouldn't dream of it...."
John gasped, then moaned with pleasure. "I can't hold out much longer," he hissed. "Who wants you to...?"
"Who can...?"
Somebody turned out the bed lamp. In darkness now, John felt a heavy breast press against his cheek; then a smaller breast with a hard, erect nipple. For a moment, he had a female groin in each hand. Then he turned and they turned, and he was pressed full against ... which one?
Who cared? They were a twisted tangle of three. He was entering one and one was alongside him and they ... and he....
It was over.
But only briefly.
"I'm still not happy," Laura?-yes, it was Laura-said.
"You will be," Betty told her.
"Do you really think so?"
"Our John can do anything. Anything!"
"Can you?"
Damned if he couldn't! His exhaustion was over. He was growing strong again. Hard and rigid.
"A bloody bull!" Laura cried triumphantly. "The biggest bull in the whole damn field!"
"And what are you?" John asked, laughing deep within his throat.
"I ain't no sacred cow," the girl giggled, clinging to him with all her strength.
"Let me help," Betty said-and she did help, making this time even wilder than the time before. Wilder almost than John could stand. Wilder almost than any man could stand. It was the three of them again-with the two women touching, caressing, grabbing at, exploring, holding not only every part of the boy's body, but every part of each other's body as well. Then it was over.
John sank back on the pillow. "Boy," he gasped, half-fainting. "That was ... wow ... !"
"Yeah," Laura said. "I need a drink."
"Me too," Betty said.
They turned the lamp back on, and each of them took a long pull from the bottle.
They sank back on the bed to rest.
John felt a light hand on his stomach. And it began, again.
And again ... and again....
Until-towards dawn-he was finally able to throw some of his clothes on and stagger back to his own room, feeling more dead than alive.
He left both women fast asleep and he was unconscious himself, the moment he fell across his bed.
CHAPTER SEVEN
It was the morning after. The worst morning after that John Steward had ever known. He felt as though he had spent the previous night spinning around inside a cement mixer. And-what was almost more horrible-he had no memeory of how he got this way.
He moaned and, with a tremendous effort of will, threw the bedclothes from him. He looked down at himself and realized that he was stark naked. What the hell had happened to him?
He turned gingerly so that his feet were on the floor and managed to stand up. His mouth was dry and there was a sick taste in the back of his throat. His head felt so lousy that he could hardly think. He wondered if he'd been in a fight.
Something about the sunlight that was streaming into his room bothered him, and he glanced at the watch that was still attached to his wrist. The damn thing had stopped, but the electric alarm clock-which he must have forgotten to set-read nine forty-five. He had slept right through his regular breakfast with his father.
Then he remembered. His father was on the West Coast with Lana. That part was all right, then. But what about last night?
He ordered himself to think. Not an easy task when he had a pile-driver working on the back of his skull.
But wait a minute. There was that date with Nancy-little Nancy who said no. Then he met Betty. And the two of them met Laura. And the three of them....
He grinned to himself. A man could kill himself that way, he thought. But what a way to go!
John walked into the bathroom and examined himself critically in the mirror. One of those two girls last night had called him a bull, he recalled. But he didn't look very bull-like right now.
And if he were a bull, he'd be the sort to walk two miles out of his way in order to avoid meeting a cute heifer. That is if he had the strength to walk two miles.
"Damn!" he said aloud. "What a night!"
Still, he didn't look too had, he decided, as he surveyed his image. He sucked in his gut and saw the bands of muscle stand out on his belly. Maybe he'd be all right, after all.
And he couldn't stay up here forever. It was time to somehow get moving.
He brushed his teeth and took some of the sour taste from his mouth with mouthwash. Then he shaved and began to dress.
John was eating his breakfast in the dining room when Sam Clairmont walked in and sat down at his table.
"Mind if I join you for a cup of coffee?" the older man asked.
"Be my guest." John looked at the man curiously. "Who's taking out the morning ride?"
"I told one of the boys to." Sam grinned, wisely. "Good thing for you that I did."
"How's that?"
"Your dad called this morning. While you were still asleep."
John swore silently to himself. He should have known that his father would be calling. "What did you tell him?" he asked, finishing his eggs and drinking his coffee in a futile effort to clear his head.
"What are you worried about, boy? Do you think old Sam's the sort of man who would give away a friend?" Sam paused for a moment. Then: "I told him that you were out with the ride."
"Thanks," John said, meaning it. His father would never trust him again if he thought he was sleeping away half the morning after being left in at least nominal charge.
The older man smiled. Sam enjoyed doing things like this, John knew. It made him feel part of the family. Which he was, the youth reminded himself, checking his earlier thought as disloyal.
John called over a waitress and ordered some coffee for Sam and another cup for himself. He was beginning to feel a little more normal now. "I still appreciate what you did," he said, when the girl had left.
"It's like I said," the older man replied. He lit a cigarette. "You must have had a time for yourself last night," he remarked.
John made a sound that could have meant anything.
"I hear you were with Laura and Betty."
"Great GodI" Now the younger man was shocked. How the hell could Sam have found out about that, and so soon?
Sam chuckled over John's look of disbelief. "I told you that you can't keep secrets around here, boy. Especially not you."
"Me?"
"The boss's son."
"Yeah. Sure."
John lapsed into silence as the waitress showed up with their coffee and waited until they were alone again before asking, "Who told you?"
"Oh, I got my spies." The Westerner held up his hand before John could interrupt. "You don't expect me to disclose my ... what do the papers call it, now? ... my sources of information."
John had to laugh. "No, I don't expect you to do that. But it's still damned mysterious."
"You were seen leaving the girls' room in the early dawn," Sam grinned. "That's all I'm going to say."
"That's enough," John muttered. "In the condition I was in then, I couldn't have spotted who saw me if they were standing in my path."
"Hell, boy. Don't be embarrassed. You're a man, ain't you?"
"Yeah."
"And as far as Laura and Betty are concerned-they must have had a good time or they wouldn't have started in with you. I mean, those girls can take care of themselves."
"You can say that again!"
Sam chuckled and grinned like a wise cat. "Hell, you must have been a nice change for them, boy."
"Change?" John repeated. "From what?"
"You know," Sam said, vaguely. "From the other men."
"What other men?" John asked. Then, when Sam didn't respond: "Are you talking about the hotel guests?"
Sam seemed suddenly uncomfortable. "I told you yesterday. Look around. Use your eyes."
John found that he was growing annoyed. "You hinted at a lot of things yesterday," he said. "You didn't tell me anything." He stared straight at the older man, who met his eyes coolly. "Don't you think it's time for some straight talking?"
"Hell, I should have kept my mouth shut before," Sam grumbled. "I was having too good a time ridin' you, I reckon."
"But you didn't keep your mouth shut." Sam did not answer.
"All right," the younger man said, lighting a cigarette and blowing out the match angrily. "Are you telling me that Laura and Betty sleep around with the male guests?"
"You just said that. I didn't."
"Are you denying it then?"
Sam's eyes were cold and his mouth was set in a grim line.
"Okay. We'll take it that you don't deny it." John was trying to think. "Will you deny that they do it for money?"
Once more Sam was silent.
"They're whores, then?" John asked in a flat voice.
"I wouldn't call them whores," Sam said slowly, as though he were forcing himself to say anything at all. "They're more like ... like party girls."
"I guess that's one name for it," John muttered. "What about the other girls who work here? The dame who just brought us coffee, say. Is she a 'party girl', too?" He deliberately gave the phrase a twisted inflection. "Are all of them 'party girls'?"
"Most of 'em," Sam said laconically.
"Gosh." John shook his head in a gesture of self-disgust. "What a jerk I've been. A real square." He shook his head for a second time. "Do you know I never even guessed? All the summers I've been here, and I never guessed a goddamned thing!"
"You weren't meant to."
"Everybody else knew, though. Didn't they?"
Sam shrugged.
"My father," John said, his eyes searching Sam's. "Did he set this whole thing up? Staffing the place with 'party girls'?"
"I don't guess he set anything up. Leastwise, the way you're thinking. Things just happened, that's all. Things have a way of happening."
"Sure. Like last night." John cursed under his breath and struck the palm of one hand with his fist. "I'll bet those broads had a laugh, huh? What were they trying to do? Get in good with the boss through his son?"
Sam looked sadly at the younger man. "Now boy, don't go making yourself out to be somethin' less than you are. Anything they did was because they felt like it. And they was risking their jobs to do it."
"What do you mean?"
"Think, boy. I told you, you weren't meant to know. Hell, if your dad knew what happened last night, he'd fire those girls as quick as that."
"Really?"
"That's right." Sam grinned and tried to lighten the conversation again. "Hell, they must have thought a lot of you. I just hope you were worth it."
"Would he fire you for telling me this?" John wanted to know.
"He might. If he found out."
John lapsed into silence. His mind was still racing furiously. He remembered another vague hint that Sam had given him yesterday. Something about Lana. That she knew everything that was going on, too....
"My father's wife," he said, suddenly. "When she first came here, she worked behind the desk, didn't she? Like Betty Laeder's doing now."
Sam was watching him, narrowly. "I reckon."
"Sure she did," John said emphatically. "I saw her there. But what about the rest of it? Did she do that, too?"
Sam looked at him steadily.
John cursed. "She had to have, didn't she? The girls here are whores and she was one of the girls. That makes Lana a...."
"Don't say the word, boy," Sam told him, in a tone that was all the more dangerous for the fact that it was quiet. "Else I'll have to take you outside and beat your ass in. And don't think I can't do it-for all that you got the weight on me and the years, too."
"You could try," John told him, feeling the anger grow.
"That I'd surely do," Sam said, as though stating an obvious fact, "that I'd surely do."
John read the grim purpose in the older man's hard blue eyes and knew that he was going to back down. He knew, also, that there was no shame in backing down. "I'm sorry," he said.
"Sure, boy." The eyes turned sympathetic. "I know how you feel."
"Do you?"
"At your age you see everything in black and white. When you get as old as I am, a few blacks and whites remain-to keep you a man. But for the rest of it, I guess they're mostly greys."
"I'm not sure I get you," John said.
"Well, loyalty," Sam went on, casually, "that's either black or white. You either are or you ain't. But what a woman did before she married a friend of mine is what I'd call a grey. It don't concern me, and I don't see how it can concern my friend's son."
"Sure," John said.
"Look." Sam gripped the younger man's arm. "Anything that Lana did came as no surprise to Walter. He knew it all before he married her. There were no lies involved. You know that's the way it was, don't you?"
"Yes. I guess I do."
"And I'd say that she's made him a pretty damn good wife. Wouldn't you?"
"Yes."
Sam relaxed the vice-like grip of his fingers. "That's all that really counts, ain't it?"
John thought about this. It was true. It was all that did count. "I'm sorry," he said, as he had before. But this time he was also saying it to his absent father and to Lana as well.
"Okay, boy." Sam smiled. "Don't let it get you down. Being a man don't just mean the ability to take a woman to bed with you or having a set of muscles. It means facing things for what they are-not making them seem worse, or trying to kid yourself about them, either."
"I guess you're right," John conceded. "Did you ever kid yourself, Sam?"
"Still do," Sam told him. "I guess that's part of being human. But I try to do as little of it as possible."
"Yeah." John lit another cigarette and drew his chair back from the table. "I got a long way to go," he said ruefully.
The older man's creases broke into a grin. "If you say so."
"I hope...." He hesitated. "What do you hope?"
"That some day I have a friend as loyal to me as you are to my dad."
"Hell, boy," Sam replied cryptically. "You already have."
And this, like so much that Sam had already told him, was also true. Sam was loyal to him, he recognized. Not just in small ways. Not just in not reporting his failures to his father. But in forcing him-sometimes kindly, sometimes brutally-to face up to the truth.
John stood up from the table and rested a hand on the other man's shoulder. "I'll be seeing you," he said.
"Where are you going?"
"I thought I'd change my clothes and take out one of the horses."
"Want me to come along with you?" Sam asked.
"No." John shook his head. "Thanks a lot, but I'd rather ride off by myself for a while."
"That's a good idea," Sam said. "Helps a man shake the cobwebs out."
John raised his hand in salutation and left the dining room.
CHAPTER EIGHT
The bellboy-neat and well-groomed in his hotel-supplied Western uniform-carried Doris Fortune's luggage to the door of Cabin G and then waited while the girl first rapped on it and then opened it up with the key she had been given at the desk.
"It's all right," she said, glancing about the empty living room. "You can bring the stuff in."
The bellboy gave her a glance of respectful admiration. She was a tall girl with black hair, large breasts and slender hips. Looking at her, one could imagine her mother twenty years before.
"Where do you want them?" the bellboy asked.
"The bags? Let's see....Which is the smaller bedroom?"
"The one on the left."
"Fine. But let me go in first, just to make sure."
Doris checked the bedroom quickly to see that none of her mother's things were there. Then she beckoned to the bellboy. "Would you place the bags on the bed, please?"
"Yes, ma'am."
Doris reached into her purse and took out a dollar bill, which she handed to the man. "Thank you," she said.
"Thank you, ma'am." He touched his forehead in a slightly mocking gesture of deference.
Doris waited until the bellboy had left the cabin before starting to unpack her clothes. She made a neat and careful job of it, but also worked as rapidly as she could. She had eaten an early lunch in Skyline City, and then drove directly to the Lodge in her small two-passenger MG. Now she felt tired and windblown, and was anxious to change into a swim suit and go down to the pool.
"May I help you with that?"
Doris spun around to see her mother standing in the doorway of the bedroom. She was wearing a belted terry-cloth robe and a yellow bandanna that was wrapped about her head.
"Oh, hi," the girl said, giving the older woman a kiss on the cheek. "You startled me."
"Sorry, darling," Estelle Fortune smiled. "I heard you when you came into the cabin, but I was having a nap and it took me a little while to pull myself together."
The woman opened the remaining suitcase and began to fold her daughter's underthings. "Did you have a good time in town with Terri?" she asked.
"It was fun, fun, fun." Doris's grin turned rueful. "Though I have to admit that I was starting to wear out towards the end."
Her mother smiled understandingly. "You'll have a nice rest here. As a matter-of-fact, I was already going to suggest that you go to bed early tonight."
"That's one suggestion you won't have to make twice, Mom," the girl said. "But tell me about yourself. What have you been up to here?"
"Not a thing, dear." The older woman made the statement sound like an admission. "This hotel can be almost too restful when you're all alone."
"Poor thing. And here I thought you might be having a gay romance with a mysterious stranger."
"Doris!" Estelle raised her eyebrows. "What would your father say if he heard you talk like that?"
The girl shrugged. "He'd know I was only teasing."
"There are some things you really shouldn't tease about. At least not until you're older."
The younger woman shrugged her shoulders a second time. She wondered briefly if her mother ever did carry on an affair with another man. Estelle still had the face and figure to attract men, Doris thought. And she had long ago reached the conclusion that her father was not averse to cheating.
Not that she really knew anything. But she had heard enough arguments between her parents to make a shrewd guess.
"A penny for them," her mother said, as she finished helping her daughter unpack and pushed the suitcase under the bed.
"I was only thinking that it was nice to be here," the girl said smoothly. "Tell me something, Mom...."
"What?"
"Have you seen John Steward? You know ... Mr. Steward's son. Is he here this year?"
"Yes. He's here and I've seen him. Why?"
"I was only wondering." Doris removed her blouse and placed it in the drawer she was reserving for laundry. "How is he?"
"The same as ever." Estelle made her voice carefully casual. "Still very handsome."
The two women laughed together.
"I have the feeling that you like him better than you're willing to admit," Estelle said, with a wisely tolerant look.
"Perhaps," Doris replied. She hung her skirt in the closet and dropped her half-slip into the drawer. "Hand me that bikini I left on the bed, will you, Mom?"
"Here."
Estelle looked on critically as her daughter removed her bra and panties. She had a fantastic figure, her daughter. Her belly was flat and there was hardly a hint of sag to her large breasts. They even looked firm when she leaned over to pull on her bikini briefs.
Little girls are so sweet, Estelle thought, remembering. But why the hell did they have to grow up into rivals, with female equipment more fantastic, more desirable, than their mothers?
Oh well, she thought. That's nature. But maybe she could still put a spike in the wheels of progress.
"Let me fasten your bra," she said, as she watched Doris reach behind her back.
"Thank you."
"There," Estelle said, fixing the two clasps that held the bra together. "Now, about John...."
"Yes?" Doris went to the mirror to make a final adjustment of her bra and briefs, then put on a beach robe. "What about him?"
"I ... I don't know how to say this. I mean, you're obviously a woman now. You're no longer a child."
Doris regarded her mother curiously. "Go ahead, Mom."
"All right, then." The woman took a deep breath. "I don't think he's the right sort of young man for you."
"What?" The words took Doris completely by surprise. For a moment she wondered if this were some kind of joke.
"I told you this would be hard to say," Estelle continued pleadingly.
"I'm sure it was," Doris replied. "But please go on. You can't simply leave it like that."
"I don't like to appear stuffy," Estelle said. "But I have observed him since I came here this year, and he looks to me like a young man who is out for whatever he can get from a girl."
Doris raised a cynical brow. "What guy isn't?"
"But John is ruthless. Or at least he could be."
Her daughter digested this for a moment. "I'm a big girl, Mom," she said. "I do know how to take care of myself."
"Perhaps you can," Estelle conceded. "But why place yourself in a dangerous position?" Doris was silent.
Estelle looked at the girl, trying not to let her face reveal any of the conflicting emotions she felt. She disliked herself intensely for what she was saying. But at the same time, she felt a thrill almost like that a soldier feels when he goes to battle.
So, I'm telling a few lies, she said silently to herself. Who said all wasn't fair in love and war?
"It would make me a lot happier if you thought about what I've been saying," she told her daughter.
"I'll do that," the girl replied. "I will think about it."
But the girl did not know exactly how she would think about it. She instinctively knew there was more to this whole thing than appeared on the surface. She wondered what her mother really had against John.
She followed the older woman into the other bedroom and watched while she removed her terry-cloth robe and put on her swim suit.
What a magnificent female animal she was, the girl thought with admiration. She hoped that she would look half that good when she reached her mother's age.
But what did she have against John?
Even more important, though, was what she-Doris-thought about the boy. Last year she had liked him. Their moods seemed to compliment each other and they fit easily together. But she didn't actually take him seriously until after the summer was over and she no longer saw him.
It was during the winter months that she found herself comparing every other man she knew with John. And not only comparing them, but finding them wanting.
At first this was done unconsciously. And when she finally realized what she was doing, she was frightened. She did not want to take a man as seriously as she was beginning to take John. Life should be fun, she reminded herself. Fun, fun, fun....
Which was the real reason she had delayed coming here this summer, and stayed in Skyline to go to parties with her friend Terri. Coming to the Lodge-seeing John again-might be dangerous.
And now her mother was warning her about him for, Doris was positive, some hidden reason of her own.
She would play it cool, she decided. She would play it very cool.
She helped Estelle fasten the back of her suit and held the robe for her. "All ready?" the older woman asked with a smile. "Let's go."
When John Steward came down to the pool that afternoon, he found Estelle and Doris Fortune stretched out on a couple of chaise lounges.
The older woman was taking the sun in a one-piece bathing suit, while her daughter had on a skimpy bikini that perfectly revealed her amazing figure.
Apparently Estelle had not heard about what happened last night. She waved to him with a show of friendliness and told him to come over.
John was still hesitant about meeting Doris in the presence of her mother, but there was no help for that now. He put on the best face he could and pulled a chair up beside theirs.
"Hi," he said to Doris, after greeting her mother. "I was wondering when you'd show up here."
"Were you?" the girl asked, giving him an odd look. "Most definitely. Where have you been keeping yourself?"
"In Skyline," Doris answered. "I see."
The girl was less than friendly this summer, John thought. He felt a twinge of fear as he wondered what her mother might have told her about him.
"I'm afraid Doris has been going to too many parties," Estelle said smoothly. "She is quite tired out."
"Got the best of you, huh?" he remarked to Doris.
"Yes," the girl responded coldly. "If you will excuse me, now, I think I'll take a swim."
"Of course," John said, standing up politely.
He liked the way the girl's rear moved as she walked to the diving board and mounted it. He watched as she executed a perfect swan dive and swam gracefully to the other end of the pool.
Perhaps he should join her in the water....
"John, dear," Estelle said, breaking into his thoughts. "Sit down."
"What...? Oh, yes."
"You do like my daughter, don't you," she remarked quietly.
He didn't know what to say. Hell, what could he say?
The woman respected his silence for a moment. Then she rested her hand on top of his. "I think she may like you, too," she said. "And that's really a shame."
"Why? I don't understand...?"
"You are going to leave her alone, John. You are going to leave her strictly alone. Do you understand that?"
John stared blankly at the woman. Her face was composed, but completely determined. "I understand the words you're using," he said after a while.
"We had an affair the other night," she continued conversationally. "Do you remember that?"
"Yes." The woman was making him feel like a clumsy fool. He assumed she was doing it on purpose.
"What do you think Doris would say if I told her about it? If I said that you had slept with her own mother?"
He struggled to make his own tone as quiet as hers. It was almost, he thought, as if they were talking about the weather. "You wouldn't do that," he said.
"Wouldn't I?" She was smiling. Actually smiling.
"No. You wouldn't want to admit it to her."
"You're right about that," she said, still chatting easily. "I wouldn't want to. But I might have to. A mother sometimes has to make sacrifices in order to protect her daughter."
"To protect your daughter?" John could not control the incredulity in his voice.
"Do you really think you're the sort of man that I'd like Doris to become involved with?" she asked calmly.
"You didn't mind becoming involved with me," John could not help replying.
"I'm a lot more mature than Doris," Estelle said, as if explaining something to a child. "I understand about men. We had a lovely time together and we will have more good times. But you are to leave my daughter alone."
"Or else you'll tell her?"
"If I have to."
John turned away. He was filled with rage, but he did not know what to do about it. His own helplessness made him angrier still.
"What have you told her already?" he asked suddenly.
"Just enough to make her have second thoughts about you," the woman replied.
"I see."
"But you're a charming young man, John, and frankly quite handsome. If you really set your mind to it, therefore, you could probably change her second thoughts back into first ones again. That's why I can't take any chances."
"And you are doing this only for Doris's sake?" he remarked derisively.
The woman lifted a single shoulder. "Does that matter so much? You don't really love her, do you?"
John did not reply. He had no idea if he loved Doris. And now it looked as if he weren't going to have a chance to find out.
"Look," he began again. "What happened between us...."
"What happened between us was fun. Let's keep it that way, please." Her hand moved so that she was gripping his wrist with her nails digging into the skin.
"All right," he said, admitting defeat.
She laughed and patted his hand. "Are you going to be at the party tonight?" she asked.
"What party?"
"At Mark Bromfield's. Cabin K."
"I ... don't know. I haven't been invited."
"I'm inviting you now." She looked directly into his eyes. "Everyone will be there, John, including me." She smiled. "Unfortunately, Doris will be too tired to attend. But then it's not going to be a party for children."
"Oh."
"I'm really doing you a favor, dear. I'm much better for you than a younger girl would be. We merely scratched the surface the other night. I have lots and lots of tricks to show you."
John grunted.
"Oh, you'll like them, dear. I guarantee that." She smiled like a cat about to lick up some cream.
Then her eyes turned to spy Millie Lee approaching them and her whole expression changed. "There's that damned blonde bitch," she grumbled. "If there's one person in this place that I can't stand...."
John stood up again. He hoped that this would give him a chance to leave. He felt as though he had just been brainwashed by an expert and he wanted to be by himself, "If you want to take a dip or something, John," the black-haired woman said, "don't let me keep you." John stood up.
He left just as Millie approached. The blonde was still wearing her one-piece suit-the one which showed off her slender figure so well. But John hardly noticed the effect.
Millie watched him walk off for a moment and then turned to Estelle. "Still robbing the cradle, darling?" she asked.
"Darling," Estelle responded, "why don't you drop dead?"
"I wouldn't want to do you that much of a favor."
The blonde's gaze wandered towards the edge of the pool, to where Doris was climbing out. "Your daughter's cute," she told the woman by her side.
"Thanks."
"I wonder why she doesn't go after John?"
"Oh, I expect she has her reasons," Estelle said blandly.
CHAPTER NINE
John Steward felt completely boxed in, and he didn't know what to do about it.
It was one thing for him to decide that it would not be easy to romance Doris; it was something else for her to have greeted him as coldly as she did. But what her mother had pulled really tore things apart.
Hell, he thought, when he was alone in his room after dinner, it wasn't as though he'd forced himself on Estelle. When he'd brought that bottle of Scotch to her room he had no idea of trying to make it with her. It was she who seduced him. And now she was acting as though she owned him.
He picked up a book and tried to read it, but the words danced on the page. He couldn't concentrate. He was too damn angry.
Hell, he thought again.
The strange thing was that if Estelle hadn't been so possessive, he might well be going through an orgy of self-sacrifice right now. He would be telling himself that he was not good enough for Doris-that she deserved something better than a bloody sex fiend, a lecher.
And maybe he would have been right.
But wasn't that for him to decide? Him and Doris?
Well, right now the decision had been taken out of his hands. He certainly didn't want Doris's mother to tell her about the other night. He could just imagine the way she would present it.
One thing was sure, at least. He would not be making it with Estelle again. From now on, he would do the picking and choosing.
He had to grin to himself at the sudden realization that he wanted-and even more than that, needed-a woman. He'd have thought that he'd be off them for good. But he felt that old craving now, just as though last night and the night before had never been.
Maybe he was a sex fiend, after all.
Or maybe it was simply that a man was always a man, and the only way he could forget about his troubles with females was through another one. Women must be like olives, he thought moodily. You can do without them if you don't know what they are. But the more you try them, the more you want.
But which one did he want?
Estelle? Hell nol Even though-no matter how much he disliked her-he had to admit that she was quite a woman where it counted. He'd have a rough time forcing himself to kick her out of bed. But he would at least try to. He didn't ever want to see that smug look of ownership on her face again.
Okay, then. Not Estelle. And not Doris, either. That was painfully obvious.
It was equally obvious that it couldn't be Nancy. Even his wildest imaginings couldn't conjure up a picture of that. At least while she was head over heels in love with the rock 'n roller.
There was always Millie Lee, John thought. That is unless he had guessed wrong about her. And he did not think that he had.
The blonde was one hell of a female. Her face might be starting to puff up, but her figure was still wild. From the neck down she could still be twenty years old. She had great legs and the nice little rear of hers....He tried to fantasize what she would look like without that bathing suit she liked to wear, and thought that he'd like the sight.
Of course there was no getting around the fact that she was an older woman. And, after his experience with Estelle, he tended to be rather nervous about that.
Of course there was Betty. Or Laura. Or Betty and Laura! He laughed out loud. He did have a ball with those dames last night. Two! He snickered. That was it: one or the other or both. Tonight promised to be interesting, after all.
He read for a while longer, then went down to the cocktail lounge and sat there, drinking and talking to Mike Curtain, until it was time for Laura to go off duty.
"How about having a private drink with me?" he asked the brown-haired girl, as the last of the customers trooped out and Mike began to clean up behind the bar.
"Gee, I'd love to," she said, looking as though she meant it. "But Betty and I promised to go to a party."
"Not the one in Mr. Bromfield's cabin?" John smiled.
Laura's eyes opened in surprise. "How did you know about that?" she wondered.
"The man must be psychic," Betty Laeder put in, as she came through the door to join them.
"Of course I am," John responded. "But in addition to that, I happened to be invited to that party myself."
Betty walked behind the bar to ignore Mike's disapproving glance and pour herself a drink. "In that case," she asked John, "what are you doing in here?"
"Don't you like parties?" Laura wondered.
"Not large ones," John told her.
The two girls giggled together.
"But this one will be fun," Laura said. "A real brawl."
"Yes," Betty agreed. "When Mark-I mean Mr. Bromfield-throws a party, it's always good for some laughs."
"I don't know," John said, weakening.
"Come on," Laura said. "Be a sport."
Mike Curtain had been listening carefully to the conversation. When he broke into it, his voice was far more serious than usual. "Maybe you shouldn't go, John," he said. "I don't know what your father would say...."
"Don't be such a spoil-sport, Mike," Betty told the bartender.
"Now see here, girl," Mike said. "Isn't it enough that you come behind the bar to take my liquor and make more work for me? Do you have to contradict me, too?"
"Leave her alone, Mike," Laura said.
"What I just told Betty goes double for you, my girl."
John was only half-listening to the by-play. "Why shouldn't I go to that blast?" he asked himself. "Just because Estelle will be there?" That was being stupid. He'd be coming with Betty and Laura.
And as far as his father was concerned....Well, he'd think about that later.
"Let's go," he told the girls.
As if on cue, they went to either side of him in order to give him an arm each. "Now, John ... ," Mike started to say. But the younger man silenced the bartender with a grin. "Tell you what, Mike," he said. "You stay here and have an extra drink. It'll improve your temper."
When the door of Cabin K opened to admit them, John, Laura and Betty were met by a blast of raucous music and still louder laughter.
Most everyone at the party seemed drunk already. Through the thick haze of cigarette smoke, John could see that more than half of the men had removed their jackets, ties and shoes. The women had taken off their shoes and many of them had gotten rid of other articles of clothing as well. One girl-wearing only a bra and half-slip-was doing a frug in the center of the room. Exhilarated by her own movements and the cheers of the others, she made a wild bump with her rear, dropped the half-slip to the floor and kicked it high over her head.
John watched the girl hitch up her briefs and continue to dance for a while, until one of the men caught her around the waist and carried her off-struggling, but not very hard.
"I told you it would be a real brawl!" Laura said. "That you did," John admitted.
Mark Bromfield elbowed his way towards them. The big man was soused and his heavy face was sweating. He grunted a greeting to John, then grabbed hold of Betty.
"Now the party can really turn on," he told the redhead.
"You're so-o-o right...."
Mark laughed and slapped Betty across the rear. She stepped out of her shoes, took off her blouse and began to frug.
John felt a stab of jealousy which subsided quickly, however, as Estelle Fortune came over to him.
The older woman was wearing a black slip and her hair was in disarray. "John!" she screamed. "I thought you were going to stand me up."
He smiled nervously at her.
"I figured you were still sore," she continued. '"You know. About what happened at the pool."
"Should I be sore?" he asked.
"Silly boy. What for?" She planted a wet kiss on the boy's lips. "I told you I was thinking of your good...."
The woman's gaze passed vaguely beyond John and landed on Laura. It settled there and grew hard. "What are you doing with John?" she asked, in tones of sudden drunken anger.
"Just being a girl."
"Well be one someplace else, will you? Move around and find youself a paying guest."
If Laura was insulted, she gave no sign of the fact. "Sure," she said, and left.
John tried to call her back, but Estelle was laughing at him. "When I send 'em away, baby, they stay sent away," she said.
Especially when they happen to work here, John thought bitterly. Then he shrugged. Who the hell was he to complain?
"Let's dance," Estelle said. "Wait here. I'll get the record changed. We'll make it something slow and easy, huh?"
John thought of slipping back out the door while Estelle was busy. But the woman was not giving him the chance. She kept hold of his arm and kept him with her as she walked over to the record player and chose an album of ballads.
"There," she said in a few moments. "Isn't that better?"
"Yes."
They were dancing now-or rather swaying from side to side-in the company of five or six other couples. Laura had found herself a man and was dancing near them. Betty was backed up against the wall by Mark Bromfield.
As John turned his head he saw that Millie Lee was in the room, also. She was wearing a sweater and mini-skirt that exposed most of her fine legs.
"What are you thinking about?" Estelle asked in the boy's ear.
"Nothing."
"Not even about me?"
"That's right. About you."
"Well, I'm not nothing."
The woman's heavy breasts were full against him and her pelvis was thrusting forward.
"Is that you?" the woman asked after a moment, aware now of his growing excitement.
John broke away from her angrily. He didn't want to be turned on. "I've got to go," he said.
"Wait ... !" she cried.
Estelle-drunk as she was-managed to push through the room and reach the door of the cabin before him. She stood there, back against the door, laughing. "That was fun," the woman panted. "Now you can kiss me."
"Sure I can." He tried to kiss her lightly on the lips, but she flung her arms about him so that he was forced to physically tear them away once more.
"I really do have to leave," John said with exasperation.
The woman gave him a knowing smile. "Why?"
"I ... I just do. Look ... will you get away from that door?"
"Uh-uh." Estelle did not budge. "If you think I'm going to let you run out on me now, baby...."
John glared at her in mounting frustration. He made a move to grab her shoulders. But before he could complete it, she was reaching down for his groin.
"Hey!" he gasped. "What the hell are you doing?"
"Don't you know?" she teased, as she cupped him skillfully.
"Estelle....Just let me go, will you?" he pleaded. "Not on your life," she giggled. "You're too nice to hold on to."
Estelle moved her hand gently. She was beginning to turn him on despite himself.
He bit his lip. What the hell was he supposed to do about it? He didn't want to slug the woman, but he didn't know of any other way that might make her let go.
A couple of men in the room had noticed his predicament and were joking about it.
"You better do what she says," one of the men called to John. "The way she's got you, you better not argue."
"Boy, that's for sure!" one of his friends agreed loudly.
Estelle shrieked with laughter. "You're just jealous," she called to the men.
"You can say that again!"
Estelle tugged gently at the boy. "Come on," she said "We'll both get out of this dump."
One of the men made another remark. But before Estelle could make up her mind whether to answer him or open the door, Millie Lee was there.
"You like the direct approach, don't you, Estelle?" Millie said, in a half-snear, half-drawl.
"Drop dead," Estelle responded without thinking.
"Not that I blame you," Millie continued. "A woman your age must have a rough time getting a man."
Estelle gaped, then her look changed to one of fury. "What's that about my age?"
"If the shoe fits...."
"I've taken enough from you!" Estelle screamed.
She made a lunge at the blonde woman, but John was in the way. Forgetting about her passion for a moment, she let go of the boy, ran around him and made a dive at Millie, who side-stepped neatly and stuck out her foot. Estelle tripped and went sprawling on her face to the cheers of everyone in the room.
John gaped for a moment, then realized that this was his best chance to escape and backed out through the front door.
"Hey, wait for me!" Millie Lee cried.
John stopped and saw that the blonde was right behind him.
"Where are you going?" the woman asked.
"I don't know," John replied honestly. "I feel like I need another drink, though."
"I'll just bet you do," Millie laughed. "Why don't you have it in my cabin?"
"That sounds inviting," John said. He paused. "What happened to Estelle?"
Millie shrugged. "When I left, she was still flat on her face. Let's walk faster, before she can decide to follow us."
As the two walked up to Cabin B, John found himself wondering why he had accepted the invitation. But on the other hand, why not?
"Here we are," Millie said, as they entered a single-bedroom cabin that was much smaller than the two-bedroom cabin they had just left. "Would you like to make the drinks? I have everything here-gin, vodka, Scotch, bourbon...."
"What are you having?" John asked, as he stepped into the kitchenette.
"Scotch, I guess. Straight on the rocks."
"That sounds good to me, too." John fixed the drinks and handed the woman a glass.
"Here's to you," John said. "Am I glad that you came along when you did."
"What would you have done if I hadn't?" Millie asked curiously.
"I have no idea." The boy hesitated. "I was thinking of slugging her, but...."
"But that wouldn't have looked good, would it?" Millie grinned. "Poor men....You're at such a disadvantage." She began to laugh. "If you could have seen your face...."
"Well, what the hell," John exploded. "How would you have liked it?"
"If Estelle had done that to me" Millie said, "she'd be in the morgue right now."
John chuckled. "Not that. I mean if a man had done it."
"Oh. Oh!" Millie raised her eyebrows. "It would depend on the man, of course. As well as the time and the place."
"I get you," John grinned.
"But isn't it the same way with a man? Doesn't it depend on the woman?"
"And the time and the place."
"Naturally." Millie stood up and looked at him. "What about this woman?" she asked. "And right now?" She raised her hand gently to the front of his trousers.
"That feels good," John said.
"You don't want to get away from me?"
"I ... no...."
Her hand moved in a soft, caressing motion. She cooed at what was happening to him. "Growing ... growing
... grown," she murmured. Then: "Do you know that I was jealous of that fat bitch?"
His only answer was to reach under her mini-skirt and cup the female mound of her crotch.
She gasped. "Let's go into the bedroom."
When they reached the bedroom they were still holding each other. "Let me undress you," the woman begged.
They let go of one another and Millie knelt down to remove John's shoes and socks. Then she removed his tie and shirt and undershirt. A moment later she had taken off the rest of his clothing and he was revealed.
"You're too good for Estelle," Millie said, as she admired the male strength of the boy. "Much too good." She paused to touch him. "Undo me," she said.
"Yes," he breathed, taking off the blonde's blouse and skirt, her garter belt and stockings. When he unclasped her bra, he stopped to kiss the nipple of each breast.
The woman took a shuddering breath. "Go on," she hissed. "I can't control myself. Go on...."
He slid her briefs down then, and saw the dark woman part of her; the mystery part of her. He touched the mystery-explored it-and a great shiver went through her.
"Kiss me," she commanded.
His lips touched her belly and then below. He was between her thighs now, and she was moaning and writhing on the bed.
Then she wriggled around and her lips were on him. And the sensation radiated outward from his groin in stronger and stronger waves. It was almost more than he could bear. Almost more than any man could bear.
And yet this was what he had striven for. What he was striving for-pushed up, carried aloft by his manhood, climbing upward with the last ounce of his male strength.
And there it was: it was upward ... upward ... above the highest imaginable cliff ... beyond the stars ... to the very essence of life itself.
CHAPTER TEN
Estelle Fortune did not wake up until almost noon on the following day. And when she did manage to crawl out of bed, she was in a foul temper.
The scene at the Bromfield cabin was still fresh in her mind. She would never forget it, she told herself. Not if she lived to be one hundred would she ever forget it.
Who did John Steward think he was, anyway? An immature boy with nothing at all to recommend him except the fact that he was young and male and strong.
And she had offered him herself. With all her experience, all her knowledge, all her still-firm lushness. And just because she wanted that ... that thing of his that every male-be he man or goat or dog-came equipped with, he had the damned gall to humiliate her; to run away with that skinny Millie Lee!
Never again, she told herself. She would never again place herself in that position. He could come crawling after her on his hands and knees and she wouldn't give a damn. He had had his chance with her.
And Millie....
She never did like that bleached-blonde tramp. But now, after she'd deliberately tripped her, deliberately sent her sprawling on her face to the raucous jeers of those stupid jerks at the party....
Maybe some day she would have the chance to do Millie some dirt. She would like that, she would get a real kick out of that.
To hell with them, she told herself. To hell with both of them. They were not worth getting all upset about.
The trouble was that she couldn't help herself. Every time she thought of that scene with her sprawled on the floor, John running out the door and Millie tearing after him, she got mad all over again.
She swung her legs to the floor and sat on the edge of the bed for a few moments, anger racing through her.
Her head ached and she was nauseous. On top of everything else, she realized she was hung over.
She had stayed at the party for some time after the two had left, she remembered. She had tried to rush out after them the moment she'd regained her feet. But a man had caught her from behind and by the time she could work herself free of him the two had vanished.
They were at Millie's cabin, no doubt. She recalled wanting to go there-to pull the bleached-blonde hair from Millie's scalp-but somebody had dragged her back inside and poured a drink down her throat.
And then what? The man had placed her on his lap, she remembered. Had said something about the fact that she should forget John, that he was better than John, that what she needed was him....
He had fondled her and she had fondled him, and they left together. That was it.
But in his cabin she found that he was not better than John. He was not nearly as good.
What was it that a girl friend had told her about some man or other? The only big thing about him was his opinion of himself...? That just about described the character she had ended up with last night.
Estelle stood up in disgust and walked into the bathroom. She washed her face and put some heavy cream on. She tried to avoid looking in the mirror. God, she looked ghastly. Like a witch. A vampire....
And she was frustrated. What she needed-what she really needed-was a man. A nice young stud. Only not John Steward. Any stud in the world except John Steward.
Food might help, too. If she had a little food in her stomach-not much, of course, just a little-she might feel better.
She phoned room service and asked for some orange juice, toast and coffee. Then she put on her robe and walked out into the living room.
Doris was there. She was dressed in low-slung hip-hug-gers and a high halter bra. As Estelle looked at the bared, firm skin of her daughter's belly, she felt a new wave of anger rush over her. By what right did this girl look so damn fresh and healthy in the morning when she-Estelle-felt so lousy?
"What are you still doing here?" she asked Doris.
The younger woman seemed hurt. "I was waiting for you, Mom."
"Doesn't that bore you?" Estelle asked raspingly. "I thought you'd have rather spent your time with kids your own age. Swimming or horseback riding or whatever it is you do."
Doris tried a smile. "Not this morning."
"I see." Estelle lit a cigarette. "This tastes lousy," she said, snuffing it out.
"Did you have a nice time at the party last night?" Doris asked, in a carefully neutral voice.
"No," Estelle snapped. "I didn't. The people there were...." She let the words trail off while she lit another cigarette. This time she could stand the taste.
"That reminds me," she said.
"Yes?" Doris asked.
"Your boy friend was there. John Steward. He was disgusting. I was right about him and I don't want you to have anything to do with him."
"What on earth did he do?" the girl asked curiously.
"He made a fool of himself. A complete fool. Do you know that woman, Millie Lee?"
"Of course."
"Well, he made a fool of himself over her," Estelle said with some satisfaction. "He took her back to her cabin and I wouldn't be at all surprised if he spent the night there. And she must be ten years older than he, if she's a day."
Doris appeared to think that over. "It seems to me that Millie was the fool," she said then.
Her mother's eyes bulged and she stood up furiously. "They both acted like fools," she hissed. "And I want you to keep far away from him. Do you understand?"
"If you say so," Doris replied mildly.
"I do say so."
The older woman paused, as if she were going to add to that statement, but then thought better of it. "I'm going back in the bedroom," she said. "Please let me know when my breakfast gets here."
"I will," Doris said.
The girl stared hard at the closed door, as if trying to see through it to the woman beyond.
What had gone on at that party last night? she wondered. What did John really do to make her mother so mad?
She did not believe it was merely the incident with Millie. She knew that her mother disliked the blonde. And she knew that what Estelle said about her was true: that she was cheap, obvious, almost a travesty of herself. But taken by itself, the fact that John Steward had or hadn't spent the night with Millie should not have made Estelle so angry.
As far as men were concerned, Doris knew, her mother was an absolute realist. It was she-Doris-who was the romantic. And even she could not feel too resentful over the incident-if, she reminded herself, it actually was an incident.
John was a man, after all. And wasn't it her mother who had told her time and time again that men were like that?
Most any female could arouse a man, her mother had explained. It wasn't their fault. It was the way nature had made them: vulnerable, exposed. Which was why a woman had to be so careful, her mother had always gone on to state. If she went too far, she could change the mildest man into a raging bull who could easily overpower her. A woman was made so that she could choose whether or not she wished to be aroused. A man had no such choice.
Doris squeezed her thighs together and smiled wryly to herself. That, at least, had been what she was told. She had no real experience to go on. She had always been careful.
Did she believe it? She wasn't sure. It sounded like one of those things that was partly true. She would like to learn for herself, however. It was about time she learned about men.
She got up and walked into her bedroom in order to look in the mirror at the female lines of her body. She blushed suddenly in embarrassment and was glad that her mother had her own bedroom door tightly shut.
When her body first began to change, she remembered, she used to stand nude in front of the mirror for ten and fifteen minutes at a time. She would stare awe-struck at the breasts which seemed to grow with every passing day, at the gradual curving of her hips and thighs, at the new roundness of her lower belly and the spreading triangle of body hair which proved that she was no longer a child.
Then one day her mother came in the room while she was doing this. The woman did not shout or punish. But her casual remarks had such a scathing edge to them that Doris blushed all over. For some years after that, Doris unconsciously avoided her own image while nude.
Even now the thought of her own sexuality embarrassed her. It did not bother her to wear bikinis or the revealing costume she had on today. But she did not like to think of the female areas-the non-neutral areas-that were discreetly covered by cloth.
That feeling was her secret. No one suspected it-not her mother nor her best friends at school. She even undressed readily enough in front of other women. But this was because she managed to put all thoughts of her body out of her mind.
Maybe this was her mistake, she thought now, as she went back into the living room. Maybe this was the real reason, rather than the obvious one, that John had done whatever it was he did with Millie. If she'd used her sex a little more, instead of being so damned cold and standoffish to him, maybe he would have spent the night with her!
Was that what she wanted? Was it?
Hell. She didn't know. She supposed so. Only she was afraid; she was always afraid.
Why couldn't she ever let herself go? Why couldn't she be herself the way her friends were? The way Terri was, for example.
The other night, when she stayed over at Terri's, all the girl could talk about was her boy friend: how strong he was, the thrill she got when he touched her, how wonderful it was to be kissed by him, to be embraced....
She was practically throwing the fact that he was her lover in Doris' face!
And when Terri got undressed, she practically flaunted herself in front of Doris. As if to say: This is what I have. This is my equipment. Are you nearly as much woman! And Doris felt like screaming, yes! I'm more than you! But of course she ignored the challenge. She laughed a little and changed the subject to ... to some television comedy program, for heaven's sake!
And here-seeing John and knowing that she wanted him-she managed to pretend to herself that it didn't matter. Her mother had warned her about him, hadn't she? And it was much easier to decide that of course her mother must be right.
Even this morning when she saw him, she had been cold. Though she had sat down at his table in the dining room.
He had greeted her oddly, too. As though he were angry or overtired or ashamed....
Angry was what she had thought, then. But now-after what Estelle had said-perhaps ashamed would be a better explanation.
She smiled to herself. Whatever the reason, it didn't matter now. And she had handled it badly.
At least her opening hadn't been too bad, she thought, though it hadn't been very original....
"May I sit down here?" she asked.
John looked at her. Surprised? Disconcerted? Ashamed? "Please do," he said, rising.
Doris didn't know what to say next. But why should she have to say anything? she thought with growing turmoil. Wasn't it supposed to be up to the man to start a conversation going?
John called over the waitress and Doris gave out her order.
More silence. Finally Doris had to break it. "You left the pool yesterday while I was still in the water," she said inanely. "Oh?"
"We didn't have a chance to talk." John gazed at her steadily. "I didn't know you wanted to talk," he said.
"But...." She felt like she had crawled out on a limb and he was sawing it off. "Why shouldn't I want to talk with you? We're old friends, aren't we?"
"I didn't get that impression yesterday."
"You mean...." He was still sawing. "Because of me?"
John shrugged.
"I'm sorry. I was tired ... I mean, I really was tired." The boy smiled. "In that case, I'm sorry I didn't stick around."
The waitress brought Doris's breakfast then: orange juice, fried eggs, and coffee.
Doris finished her orange juice and started attacking the eggs. "Well today's another day," she said.
"Yes." John looked at her, frowned, and then continued. "I have to drive into Skyline."
"Do you?"
"Yes. It's ... it's all arranged."
"How long will you be there?"
"All day."
"You'll be coming back this evening then?"
"I ... I don't know. Maybe...."
"I see." The limb Doris was on seemed to drop with a soft plop. "That's that then." John spread his hands helplessly.
"Well, thanks for letting me join you," the girl said coldly, as she finished her still-too-hot coffee.
"I'm sorry," John began. "It's just that I wanted to see...."
"It's really none of my business," Doris broke in to say. She stood up from the table. "Thanks for letting me join you."
"Sure."
"I'll be seeing you," she called back, as she strode quickly away.
"What a perfect little ass I was," Doris thought now, with her cheeks burning hotly. What did she expect of the man? That he should sit around-not making any dates or plans-until she, Doris Fortune, decided that she would talk to him?
"Real men don't let themselves be manipulated that way," she said aloud. "And you know very well that you wouldn't want a man who did."
So here she was. And John?
Who knew? Perhaps he was with that little girl she saw him with a few times last year. That Nancy what's-her-name. She was a cute little thing, as Doris recalled. It would be easy to lose a man to her....
Especially a man you never had.
The doorbell rang, startling her.
"Yes?"
"Room service, ma'am."
"Oh, yes." She opened the door to the waiter and knocked on her mother's bedroom door.
"Mom," she called. "The man's here with your breakfast."
CHAPTER ELEVEN
For John Steward, the morning began with a long-distance phone call from his father.
The call caught him when he was still in bed and asleep and he had to ask the operator to have his father hold on for a moment so that he could run into the bathroom and dash some cold water on his face.
"Hello, John?" His father's voice was as crisp and fresh as it always was, any time day or night. "How have things been going?"
"Fine. Fine Dad."
"No problems?"
"No problems at all." Or at least, he thought there were none that he could tell his father about. Walter Steward would never understand about the mess John seemed to have made of his love life. Or would he? the younger man wondered, suddenly recalling Lana's background.
He felt himself flush. "How are things with you?" he continued, hoping to fill in the pause before it became obvious.
"Fine. Fine. We bought a whole load of stuff. I've arranged to have it trucked back to the Lodge."
"Good," John said. "Is Lana enjoying the trip?"
"I guess she's having fun," Walter Steward chuckled. "She went on a clothes buying spree. We'll both be glad to get home though."
"When will you be here?"
"We're doing our best to get on a flight out of Los Angeles this afternoon. I can't tell you anything else, because so far we haven't been able to confirm our reservations. I'll either wire you from here before we take off or phone the Lodge from the airport at Skyline City. Either you or one of the boys can drive in to pick us up."
"Right," John said. Then: "Ah ... Dad...."
"Yes?"
"I may not be at the hotel when you arrive. I'm thinking of going into the city for the day."
"Skyline?" The man sounded surprised. "What for?"
"I thought I'd drive in to visit Mom. I haven't seen her in a couple of weeks, and...."
"Sure son," Walter Steward said. "You're right. You should see your mother more often. Lana was saying something about that the other day."
"Yes," John said. "She mentioned it to me, too."
"Did she now?" Walter Steward laughed and apparently said something to his wife who must have been standing near him while he phoned. "She's quite a woman, my wife," he went on. "She sends her love to you."
"Give her mine."
They said their goodbyes and John hung up the receiver. He yawned and stretched. He was still exhausted, but he knew that he could not get back to sleep again. He might as well wash and shave for breakfast.
It was strange, he thought, as he ran the hot water in the sink. He had no idea of going into Skyline City before that phone call. It must have been his thoughts of Lana that suggested the plan of seeing his mother. He recalled the way she had mentioned the matter on the morning that he drove his father and her to the airport.
Now that he'd yielded to the impulse, however, it seemed to him not only wise but necessary. It was as if the decision had already been made and had merely been waiting to be discovered. It had, he thought now, an inevitability about it.
He did not know why this should be, or why it seemed so important to him to reach his mother. He was certainly not planning to tell her what was on his mind. If he could not reveal his problems to his father he could certainly not reveal them to her. If he did try, he knew she would first pretend not to understand and finally change the subject.
As for Felix Thurston-her husband-he would listen with a man-of-the-world attitude, then say something original like, "You might as well sow your wild oats while you're young."
John washed the remains of the lather from his face and put on some after-shave lotion.
Why did it seem so necessary for him to go then? he wondered. Was it that he wanted to get away from the hotel? To. see it and himself both in a new perspective?
That certainly had to be part of it. He recognized now that a revulsion had been growing within him over the past few days. A revulsion directed not only at the Rocky Mountain Lodge and Cabins and the life that was lived there, but at himself for being so damned naive for so many years.
He had believed all his father's strictures, his moral preachings. He had thought this place was neither more nor less than what his father told him it was, and that Lana was a strictly-brought-up young woman who had turned down men of her own age for the privilege of measuring up to his father's high standards.
And now what?
Now he had learned that this place was-in part a least-a glorified whore house. That his stepmother was-putting it nicely-a former party girl. And that he, himself, was well on the way to being a complete womanizer.
No wonder he wanted to get away for a while.
He pulled on his trousers with a muffled expression of disgust. Then he went to the phone and gave the operator his mother's number in Skyline City.
John left the station wagon at the hotel and used the small compact to drive into town. He made the trip quickly taking the hairpin curves at just the right rate and then speeding up for the short straightaways. Almost before he knew it he had come down the last of the foothills and had reached the more trafficked area at the edge of town.
All the way there, he kept thinking about that breakfast meeting with Doris. The girl had seemed so different. It was as if she had wanted to tell him something and did not know how to go about it.
Looking back on it, he sensed that she had been reaching out for him and that he had not been perceptive enough to realize it.
"Today's another day," she had said.
"I have to go into Skyline City."
How stupid he had been! Of course he had tried to explain, but then she wouldn't give him a chance and the moment had passed.
Forever?
Who knew?
If only he hadn't been so wrapped up in all his other problems. But then they concerned Doris, didn't they? And her mother. And....
He grinned painfully as he swung the little car onto a wide boulevard that led to his stepfather's house on the outskirts of town. The best thing he could do was to forget about Doris. He would never be able to explain the last few days to her. And once her mother, or Millie, or Laura, or Betty got hold of her, he would not have the opportunity to explain.
Still and all, he almost wished that he had changed his mind again and stayed at the hotel with her today. It might have been useless and even suicidal, but....
Vain regrets, he told himself.
He was at his mother's street now. With a strong effort of will, he put the other thoughts out of his mind and pulled the car into the driveway.
"Darling," his mother was saying, as she looked him over critically. "I'm so glad you could come in to see me. Though of course you might have given me a little more notice...."
"If I'm putting you to any trouble...." John started to say.
"Don't be silly, John. How could you be?"
The woman smiled dazzlingly at him. It was amazing how beautiful she still was, John thought. And that smile of hers! No wonder Felix Thurston had fallen head over heels in love with her.
"I just had an overpowering impulse to see my lovely mother," John said with an overflow of affection.
"And a charming impulse it was," Alice Thurston murmured. Then a sudden shadow seemed to fall across her face. "There isn't anything wrong, is there, John?"
"No, of course not."
"You're not unhappy at the hotel, are you?" John shook his head.
"And your father? He's not being ... unpleasant, is he?"
John was surprised at the question. "Why on earth should he be?"
"I don't know." His mother shook her head slowly. "He can be difficult. But then you've always gotten along well with him, haven't you?" she smiled.
"As well as can be expected," John replied. A familiar gulf seemed to be growing up between his mother and himself. He remembered that he had never heard his father speak unkindly of his ex-wife. As a matter-of-fact, the older Steward hardly spoke of her at all. The subject seemed to embarrass him.
His mother's face had brightened again. "Well," she said. "Let me tell you about the plans I've made for us today."
"You've made plans already?"
"Of course, darling! What do you think I've been doing since you phoned?"
John laughed. His mother and her plans, he thought fondly. Everything always had to be arranged. Leaving things to chance usually turned out to be chancey, she had told him once with perfect seriousness.
He wondered for what must have been the millionth time how she had ever come to marry his father. Had she worked out plans for him? If so, they must have have been among the very few of her plans that had failed.
"What are today's plans, Mom?" he asked.
"First of all, Felix has invited us to have lunch with him and Mr. Robert Primis, downtown. You do know who Mr. Primis is, don't you?"
John had no idea. But from the tone of his mother's voice, he could imagine how his mother had pressured Felix into inviting the two of them. "Yes," he said figuring that his mother would tell him anyway.
He was not disappointed. "He's the Deputy Mayor of Skyline City," she said proudly.
"I'm impressed," John grinned.
"You should be, dear," his mother responded seriously. "Felix has many important friends. Even as an engineer, he could help you...."
"I know, Mom."
His mother looked flustered. "I realize that you want to make good on your own," she said primly, "and I'm proud of you for feeling that way. But at the same time you must be realistic...."
"Yes."
"And practical."
"Of course," John laughed.
Alice Thurston raised her eyebrows. "Really, darling, there are times when you are as bad as your father. There's some sort of wild streak in both of you." She made a charming gesture of resignation. "Oh, well. One can merely do one's best."
"I appreciate it, Mom. I really do."
And there, at least, he was sincere. He knew that his mother always did what she considered best. And when he thought of the way she always tried to help him, he had to feel humble. One of these days, he believed, he might have a son of his own. And if that son rejected his offers of help as consistently as he had rejected his mother's, he would probably beat the kid's head in!
The basic problem was that they were two such completely different persons. Their aims, their goals, their likes, their ambitions had always been in conflict.
The luncheon that day was a good example. He knew very well that the moment he had gotten off the phone with his mother she had started to work on Felix in order to get him to include her and her son in his date with Robert Primis.
And it was not for herself, either. Although she did glory in the company of the rich and the powerful, she simply thought the man might be useful to John.
Mr. Primis understood this very well. And-as a tribute to Felix-indicated that he was perfectly willing to be useful.
"Yes. I will."
"I understand you are studying engineering, John," he said, as he placed his perfectly manicured fingers around a martini glass.
"That's right, sir," John replied. "I'll graduate next spring."
"Fine," Mr. Primis replied. "The country needs good engineers." His face was carefully manicured, too, John saw. And though he had a quick smile, his eyes always remained hard and shrewd.
"What sort of engineering do you plan to specialize in?" the Deputy Mayor asked. "Do you hope to build space ships?"
"No, sir. Structural. I'd like to work on buildings and bridges. That sort of thing."
"Civil engineering, then?"
"That's right."
"Why don't you write me a note ... oh, say, next February or March. Skyline City will be having quite a few new projects. We can always use bright new people." He paused. "Isn't that right, Felix?"
Felix-realizing very well that he had just been offered a favor-smiled and accepted it. "Very true."
"You do write him, John," his mother put in, nudging him meaningfully with the toe of her shoe.
"Mr. Primis is being very nice to you."
"I know he is." John looked at the politician. "Thank you."
"We are very grateful," the woman said. Meaning, John supposed, that she was, even if he wasn't.
But he was grateful: to his mother; to Mr. Primis; and to Felix-who had accepted the favor, even though he knew better than most that it would mean his doing another (perhaps larger) favor in return.
But for all of that, John knew that he would not be dropping Mr. Robert Primis a note.
Why? He had no moral objection to the old routine of favor and counter-favor. Hell, that was the way the world worked. How often at the hotel had he seen his father take a county official and place an arm about his shoulder? Even at school it was, "Lend me your notes for calculus and I'll lend you mine for physics."
It was simply that these people-the Primises of the world-did not interest him. His mother's type of people did not interest him.
He stifled a yawn and realized that he was being bored. He was sorry he had come. Perhaps he should try to get away early-go back to the hotel before dinner.
But no. He couldn't do that. His mother had already made plans for him to eat with her at the house and had invited a whole mob of people.
She was being helpful again, he thought wryly.
A busboy took away their cocktails and a waiter brought the main course. A moment later, the waiter was back. "Mr. John Steward?" he asked.
"Yes?" John responded.
"I have a telephone call for you, sir."
Both Felix and Alice looked surprised. "Who could be calling you here?" the woman asked.
"I have no idea." John turned to the waiter. "Where can I find the phone?"
"I'll have one brought to the table, sir."
"Do that," his mother said. Then she looked at John and frowned slightly. "Unless you think it's your father and you'd like to talk to him privately."
The younger man shrugged. "Please bring the phone," he said.
A few moments later, an extension phone was carried over and John lifted the receiver to his ear. Nancy Grant was on the other end of the line.
"How did you ever find me here?" he asked wonderingly.
"It doesn't matter," the girl said. "I haven't much time, but....All right-if you want to know-I called you at the hotel. They said you were at your mother's and her maid gave me the number of the restaurant."
"Very clever," John said admiringly.
"I'm a clever girl. Resourceful and all that. But I still don't have much time. Can you talk where you are?"
John thought of the others at the table. "Not too well."
"I understand," the girl said, with a slight note of bitterness. "I'm used to this sort of thing." She paused. "The point is that I want to go into town this evening."
"So?" John was both puzzled and intrigued, and a little annoyed, besides.
"I've arranged with a girlfriend to let me stay with her. But I need a date to satisfy my folks."
"Light," John said, "is beginning to dawn."
"Be serious," the girl hissed. "You have no idea how I hate to ask you to do this. I wouldn't if there were any other way."
"Okay," John said, starting to feel sorry for Nancy. "I gather you'd like to be taken to the Roaring Club this evening."
"Yes." Then, in a lower voice: "And dropped there."
"I think that can be arranged," John said with a laugh. "You'll have dinner with me first, of course?"
"I don't...."
"At my mother's house."
"Well...." She hesitated. "Yes." Again there was a brief pause. "My parents are coming back now, John. Thank you very much."
"Wait a minute," John said quickly. "Where shall I pick you up?"
"At my girlfriend's house." She gave him the address. "I'll be ready at about a quarter of seven."
"I'll be there," John told her.
He hung up the receiver and the waiter took the phone away. "What was that all about?" his mother asked. "You remember Nancy Grant, don't you, Mom?"
"Yes. Of course."
His mother, John realized, was of two minds about Nancy. Against the girl was the fact that she was the daughter of Alice's former husband's oldest friend. But going for her was her father's wealth, influence and the respect that most everyone who counted in Skyline City seemed to have for both him and his wife. On balance, then, she had to approve.
"We had a date tonight." John explained, thinking that from what his mother had overheard of the conversation she could, not know anything different. "And we were trying to decide where to go."
"And?"
"Well, we'll end up at the Roaring Club. But I did invite her to have dinner with us first. I hope you don't
"No," his mother said after a moment. "It will be no trouble at all. There will be a lot of people at the house tonight, and it might be a good thing if you did have a date."
"Pardon me, John." Mr. Primis put in, "but were you discussing Dr. Amos Grant's daughter?"
"Yes."
"A fine man, Dr. Grant," the politician said wisely. "And a very charming girl."
Out of the corner of his eye, John could see his mother beam.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Doris Fortune was angry.
She was angry at her mother for her outburst that morning, angry at John Steward for not being at the pool with her, and, most of all, she was angry at herself for not being able to handle either one of them any better than she had.
She was lying face down on a mat. Near the poolside, where she had come after lunch, both to get some sun and hopefully to calm her nerves.
But though the sunshine was every bit as warm and pleasant as she could have wished, her nerves were still in a jangled state.
She turned over in order to spread her suntan more evenly. Her dark complexion tanned beautifully and it was-as her mother had often told her-her best summer feature.
But it was difficult to simply lie there doing nothing.
She reached behind her back and adjusted the pallet so that it would support her in a sitting position.
Her mother stirred on the chaise lounge beside her. "Can I get you anything, dear?"
"No."
"Wouldn't you like a Coke? Or maybe a mild drink? A Tom Collins, perhaps?" The older woman looked concerned, as if she were ashamed at turning on her daughter earlier, but did not know how to make it up.
"No thank you, Mom," Doris said.
The girl glanced about the swimming pool area. The people there were mainly middle-aged: too-stout, balding men, and slender, carefully made-up women. Millie Lee was stretched out not far from them. The hard-looking blonde had sent a smile their way when she had first appeared, but both Doris and her mother had affected not to notice.
,Doris considered the firm lines of Millie's figure. Had John spent last night with her, after all...? No. She did not want to think about that.
She wished she could get her mind off things. If there was only something to do; someone her own age to talk to.
A few younger people had gone out on the afternoon horseback ride, Doris knew. But the only ones around the pool were one girl and two boys who were desultorily tossing a large rubber ball to one another.
Doris remembered the girl from last year. Her name was Rita Perry, and she had a tall, fashion-model figure, with slender hips and tiny breasts. Then, as now, she had been addicted to wearing the briefest of bikinis.
The muscular boy in boxer trunks-Roy something, as Doris recalled-belonged to her. But who was the other boy? The long, thin, dark-haired one with high cheekbones, narrow eyes and a thin, sharp nose.
Though his separate features were far from handsome, he was rather interesting looking in an exotic sort of way.
"Mom," the girl murmured. "Who is that fellow?"
"Roy...?"
"No. The other one. The one on the left."
"Oh." Estelle Fortune peered through her dark glasses. "That's Judge Kramer's son, Philip. He comes from a very lovely background," she said, in a pleased voice. "I know his mother well. We belong to several of the same charitable organizations."
"I see."
"This must be the Kramers' first season at the Lodge," the older woman went on. "I had no idea they were coming here."
Doris nodded.
Her mother looked at her shrewdly. "You'd like Philip, dear," she said. "He would be a very nice boy for you."
At that point, Philip realized that he was being stared at. He returned the gaze of the two women, said something to his friends, dropped the ball and started towards them.
His chest was practically hairless, Doris saw. But there was an incongruous line of black hair that extended down his flat belly until it disappeared under the top of his extra low-cut knit briefs.
"How do you do, Mrs. Fortune," the boy said, speaking politely to Estelle. "I didn't recognize you at first."
"It's good to see you again, Philip," the woman smiled lazily. "Have you met my daughter, Doris?"
"I can't say I have. I've wanted to, though."
Doris raised her eyes. She realized, suddenly, that she'd been staring at his pouch-at the clearly visible outline of his sex. Godl She hoped he hadn't noticed. Or her mother....
Philip was grinning at her. "Why don't you join us?" he asked.
"Yes, do, dear," Estelle put in. "You'll have a good time."
"All right." Doris permitted herself to be assisted from the pallet. She straightened her bra straps, hitched up her bikini bottoms and walked with the youth to join the others.
"Do you know Rita and Roy?" the youth asked. "Yes," Doris said, greeting them.
The four of them threw the ball back and forth for a while, then Roy suggested that they all take a swim.
They dove into the pool and swam to the shallow end, where they began to splash each other. At first it was she and Philip against the other pair, but then it turned into the girls versus the boys, so that Rita and she had to run out of the pool in order to avoid being ducked.
They collapsed on the grass behind the diving board, where the boys threatened to flick towels and the girls pretended to cower.
Then they gave up the pretense and stretched out on the grass with the warm sun beating down and drying their tanned bodies.
Doris felt better now. The physical exercise had drained her of her anger, had soothed and relaxed her.
Philip's back was towards her as he crouched down on his haunches to talk to the reclining Roy. His briefs were pulled tight so that Doris could see the cheeks of his narrow rump. Between his parted thighs, she could make out the soft, cloth-covered masculine bulge. Right now, she could reach out and touch....
She caught herself sharply. What was wrong with her today?
From the corner of her eye, she could see that Rita had been looking at her. The slim girl winked, frankly.
Doris blushed and turned her head aside.
Then Philip wheeled about and said something to her. He was still on his haunches. Now the front of his pouch was staring at her.
"Roy wants to know if we will double date with Rita and him tonight," he told Doris.
"To-tonight?"
"Yes. He said something about a joint called the Upper Lake Inn."
"It's nice...." Doris said. "Then you'll come?"
Doris hesitated for a moment. She thought of John. Supposing he came back to find her gone?
Well...? Supposing he did? What would be so awful about that? Was she supposed to just wait around to let him make up his mind when and where and how long he wanted to see her? And even if she had a mind to do that, he had shown no sign of wanting her to.
Anyway, she thought with bitter satisfaction, her mother had probably been right about him.
As for Philip, he had been sweet this afternoon. And rather fascinating. If only she could get her own thoughts above....
"Well?" he asked, interrupting them. "How about it?"
"I'd love to," she said, only regretting that John was not there to hear her say it.
"Good!" he laughed, then leaned over and kissed her on the lips before she could protest. "We'll have a ball."
"Why not have two?" Rita giggled, breaking into the exchange.
Doris felt her cheeks grow hot again. She did not reply.
That scene took place at about four in the afternoon. At twenty minutes of seven-in Skyline City-John Steward was parking his car in front of a large white stucco house.
"Mrs. Garrand?" he asked, as he rang the doorbell. "Yes...?"
"I'm John Steward. I've come to call for Nancy Grant." The woman-stout, with a broad, pleasant face-stepped back from the door so that he could enter the doorway. "Oh, yes," she said.
She showed John to the couch in the living room, then shouted up the stairs, "Is Nancy ready yet, Kathy? Her young man is here."
"She'll be down in a minute, Ma."
A few moments later, a girl came down wearing blue jeans and a T-shirt. She was plump, with bouncing round breasts. Ten or fifteen years from now, John thought, she would probably be as stout and shapeless as her mother. But right now she was cute as hell.
"Nancy will be right down," she said, looking John over curiously. The boy was certain that she knew what was going on.
John smiled at her. "Will we be seeing you tonight?"
"Yes. My date and I will meet you at the Roaring Club."
"Aren't you going to offer to get Mr. Steward something to drink?" Mrs. Garrand asked her daughter.
"Oh sure, Ma." Her eyes twinkled into John's. "What would you like?"
"Not a thing, now," the boy assured her.
Mrs. Garrand beamed approvingly.
"I'm great at impressing mothers," John thought to himself caustically.
They sat making small-talk for several minutes, then Nancy came into the room. She was wearing a pale blue mini-outfit that made her look utterly feminine and did wonderful things for her golden hair. John felt a twinge of jealousy and wished briefly that she would be spending the entire evening with him.
"You look lovely," he said, and took advantage of the moment to brush her cheek with his lips.
"Thank you," she said, blushing.
"Are you all ready?"
"Yes."
They said their good nights and walked out to the little compact. John opened the right hand door for Nancy, then walked around the car and got in on the driver's side.
"I want to thank you for this," Nancy said, as he started the engine. "You are really being very sweet."
"Not at all. As a matter-of-fact, you're doing me a favor."
"How is that?"
"This dinner," the young man explained. "My mother and stepfather are having lots and lots of people. They are all the type who can be very helpful to my future. I plan to use you as my big excuse to get out of there before it becomes too depressing."
"So that's why you were so insistent about my coming there first?"
"That," John said, "and the pleasure of your company."
"Thank you, sir," the girl replied cutely. "I'll be most happy to be of service."
They drove in silence for a moment or two. Then Nancy said, "I still do appreciate what you are doing for me. Marty and I...."
"There's that name again," John sighed. "I'm growing positively jealous of your Marty."
"No you're not," the girl replied quietly. "Not really. And you wouldn't even say you were if you knew what hell it's been for the two of us."
"I'm sorry," John told her. He laughed abruptly. "It seems like I'm always telling you that, doesn't it?"
The girl did not make a direct reply. "If only we could get married," she murmured, as if to herself.
"I don't see why you don't chance it," John said spontaneously. "Take a bus across the state line to where you can get married. Have Marty meet you there. They can't frame him if you don't travel together, can they?"
"I only wish they couldn't," the girl said bitterly.
"Why don't you try it?" John insisted. "See."
"We already have," the girl said in a low voice. "Marty went first and he was stopped when he got to the bus terminal. The police there have pictures of both of us."
"What did they do to him?"
"They held him there until I arrived. Then they warned us both that if I tried to get on a bus I'd be arrested and sent to reform school."
"My God!" John said. "Then I'll bet they told him that he was free to go anywhere he wanted. Right?"
"How did you know?"
"Simple. If he drives you they can throw him in jail for contributing to the delinquency of a minor. If you try to take off by yourself, you can get put in reform school. Since neither one of you wants to hurt the other, you are both effectively hamstrung."
"Yes," the girl said simply.
"I wish I could think of a way to help you," John said. "There is ... one way," Nancy told him carefully. "What's that?"
"If you were to drive me."
"Huh?" John wondered if the little girl beside him had not been angling for the offer he had just made-if she had not been playing him for a sucker since they had climbed into the car.
"My father likes you," the blonde girl said rapidly. "He wouldn't be suspicious if you were to take me for a drive. Even if he thought that you and I were going to elope, he wouldn't really mind. His whole plan is for us to marry each other, eventually. So if you could drive me across the state line and Marty could meet us there, I know it would work...."
"No," John broke in.
"No, it wouldn't work?" the girl asked, puzzled.
"I meant, no, that I wasn't going to do it," John told her firmly. "As for the chances of it working...." He paused. "I don't have any idea."
"But ... why won't you do it?"
John did his best to answer in a reasonable tone. "Nancy," he said, "I do like you. I even feel sorry for you. After all, I did agree to help you out tonight."
"I told you I was grate...."
"Don't," he cut her off. "You're making me feel like a heel." He shook his head. "I don't know why I should feel like a heel. I just don't want to get involved. Is that so terrible?"
"I suppose not...." The girl sounded as if she were close to tears.
"Your father is my father's friend," he said almost pleadingly. "And he happens to trust me. How would it look if I abused his liking and his trust to help his daughter run off with a man he can't stand?"
"But what about me?" Nancy wailed. "I'm not just Amos Grant's daughter. I'm me!"
God! John thought. How in hell do I defend myself from this?
"Nancy?" he asked her, quietly. "When you called me today, was it only to ask me to help you out tonight? Or was it in the back of your mind to rope me in on an elopement?"
"Well ... perhaps...." she replied in a tiny voice. "In the back of my mind...." John was silent.
"You hate me," the girl said. "I don't blame you for hating me."
"No!" John half-exploded. "I don't hate you." They were practically at his mother's driveway now, and he slowed the car down and parked it with the motor running until they could finish. "It's just that you're not my girl," he went on to say. "You made that perfectly clear, didn't you?"
"I guess...."
"I don't know how you could have made it clearer than you did the other night," he told her.
"All right." Her tone was low but defiant. "I made it clear. I love Marty and I rejected you. Is that my crime? Are you mad at me because I hurt your ego?"
"Leave my ego to hell out of this!" he shouted, exasperated.
She moved to the far corner of the car.
"My ego has nothing to do with this," he said, more quietly. "But you seem to think that you, and Marty too, are somehow my responsibility. I have my own problems, Nancy. I really have."
The girl was silent.
"Well, why should you be my responsibility?" he demanded then.
Once more there was no response.
"Can you give me a reason? Any reason at all?" He slapped his hand across his forehead. "I mean, do you think of me as your responsibility?"
"I might...." Nancy said, in an almost inaudible whisper.
"You might," John repeated. He felt as if he were going mad. This whole thing was ridiculous. What was he doing even discussing it?
"All right," he said at last, desperate to escape the subject. "I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll think about it."
"John...."
"I'm not making any promises," the man cautioned her. "I must be nuts to say this much. But I said I'd think about it and I will."
"I guess that's all I can ask," Nancy murmured.
She doesn't want to press her luck, John thought cynically. Damn wise of her.
"Now you can do a favor for me," he said. "My mother's house is half a block away. Pull yourself together like a good girl, dry your eyes and at least pretend to have fun while we're there."
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
There were twelve for dinner: four guest couples, plus Nancy and John, plus the host and hostess.
All of the guests, John thought, had the kind of dazzling air that goes with money and authority. They might well have been intelligent. But on that point, John couldn't say. To him, most of the conversation seemed to be pleasant noise.
As far as the younger man could gather, the males in the group seemed to be interested in business, finance, politics and sports-though not necessarily in that order. Their wives (he checked with Nancy on this later) were interested in fashions, other women's extra-marital affairs, and the servant problem-again, not necessarily in that order.
Once in a while, however, a couple would get together and make a great effort to bring up a subject that might interest Nancy and John.
Over coffee, for example, a Mr. and Mrs. Zagg (he was either a stockbroker or a banker-John was not sure-and she was a stately brunette who might once have been beautiful) earnestly mentioned the problem of America's young people.
"You're both young," Mrs. Zagg said, looking first at Nancy and then at her escort. "You tell me. Why do they do those awful things?"
"What things?" John asked.
"Those so-called flower children, for example. Why do they behave that way?"
"Maybe they like flowers," Nancy answered.
The woman laughed uncertainly. "I like flowers, too," she said. "But I don't need to take drugs or remain unwashed in order to enjoy them."
"You hit it there, Ethel," her husband said, nodding aggressively. "Why do these kids have to be junkies...."
"Andrew!" his wife broke in, obviously unhappy at her husband's use of the word.
"Junkies is what I said, and junkies they are," the man went on, in a no-nonsense tone. "What I want to know is why. And while you're at it," he said to John, "I'd like to know why they don't wash, shave or cut their hair."
The others at the table were looking almost aggressively at John. The younger man laughed suddenly. "I don't know why you expect me to give you the answers," he said then.
"Aren't you the same age?" another male guest asked accusingly.
John thought he was beginning to understand now. What the others were showing was a hostility between the generations. They were angry at him because he was young. Perhaps at least part of their resentment against the hippies was for the same reason.
When John did not respond for a moment, Nancy did. "If you were the same age as a bank robber," she said sweetly, "would that be a reason to expect you to explain why he robs banks?"
A woman laughed. "She's got you there, Charlie."
"I don't think so at all," the man said angrily. "I mean that has nothing to do with it. I hope I don't have anything in common with a bank robber-no matter what age he is. But all you kids go in for nutty fads: crazy music, long hair on boys, mini-skirts on girls."
"Most of the ladies here are wearing skirts as short as mine," Nancy said.
"Maybe...."
"And I don't wear my hair long," John put in.
"Okay," Charlie said with a small laugh. "I know you don't wear your hair long, John-although a good many kids do. And Nancy, maybe I was wrong about the short skirts. Maybe that's simply the general nuttiness of women's styles...."
"Thank you," his wife murmured dryly.
"But," the man went on doggedly, "you still have to admit that today's kids are a lot wilder than they used to be. That rock 'n roll music, for example. Or so-called music. Most of the songs sound like they were written to hold orgies by."
"To your ears, perhaps," John conceded. "But as far as I've been able to learn, each generation finds a new type of music that the generation before thinks is rather awful. Jazz was considered crude, wasn't it? Then, of course, it grew respectable and the next music-what was it? Swing or bebop? That, too, was condemned in its turn."
"All that may be true, but...."
"I remember reading once," John continued, "that when the waltz first came out it was considered highly immoral."
"Like I was saying," Charlie persisted, "all that may be true. But you still reach a point where you can't go any further."
"It seems to me," Felix Thurston put in smoothly, "that we've managed to wander off the subject. Correct me if I'm wrong, but weren't we discussing out-and-out hippies?"
"Yes...."
"Well, my solution to that problem is quite simple. Wash them, shave them and put them to work. That, in time, would solve everything."
There was a murmur of laughing agreement.
"You are damn right, Felix," a man who hadn't spoken yet said vengefully. "I don't see why I should be forced to work everyday of my life while they get away with just sitting around."
"What do you say, John?" his stepfather wondered.
"It's an answer, I suppose," the younger man replied vaguely.
Twenty-five minutes later, John and Nancy had said their goodbyes and were climbing back into the car in order to drive to the Roaring Club.
"John Steward," Nancy said, with exaggerated respect. "You must be an angel. I don't know how you stood that."
"They're not so bad," John murmured, as he released the brake and pulled into the street.
"Not so bad?" Nancy was shocked by the man's mildness. "Why they ... they hate usl Didn't you hear what they were saying?"
"They're all a little jealous, maybe," John admitted. "But can you blame them? We've got the rest of our lives to lead. Everything's before us."
"Maybe you can talk like that, but I still think...." She broke off, still indignant. "And the hypocrisy of them," she went on after a minute. "Talking about the immorality of our generation! Almost every time I heard two women talking, they were hinting about a third who was having an affair."
John chuckled. "It's a good thing you're not a blackmailer."
"I almost wish I was. It would serve them right." She paused again, then pitched her voice high: " 'They should all get jobs. And get haircuts. And stop listening to that awful music' Don't they think Marty has a job?" she went on in a normal voice. "I'll bet he works twice as hard as any of those old...."
John laughed sharply. "That's what's got you so mad, isn't it? You think they were insulting your Marty."
"Weren't they?"
"Maybe," the boy said. He did not feel like arguing. They drove without talking for a few more minutes. Then Nancy broke the silence. "John...." she said. "Yes?"
"Do you think that's why my father is so terrible about Marty? Because he's not only young, but he ... you know, represents our generation? The one that will supplant his?"
"That's maybe stretching it a bit far," her companion replied. "I think your father's something like my father. They get an idea and work it out in their heads and don't want to listen to what we have to say about it. They're older, so they think they must know best."
"Yes," Nancy said.
"Everything he's done to you has been for what he thinks is your good. You must know that."
"I do know it," the girl agreed. "That's what's so horrible. If I didn't know it, I could hate him."
"That would make it easy, wouldn't it?"
"At least easier," the girl said after a while. Then: "They don't want us to make our own mistakes, do they?"
"Who? Your father?"
"Any of them," Nancy responded impatiently. "Those people we saw tonight. Your mother and stepfather and the rest. They all had their flings-their wild times-during the second World War or in college or wherever.
They made their mistakes and they got over them. But that's all done now, and they're afraid for us to make our mistakes."
"Afraid?"
"Maybe. Maybe that's just it. Maybe they're afraid because they're not young any more and are jealous that we can do the things they once did."
John shrugged. He distrusted this kind of statement. How was he supposed to know what was going on in other people's skulls, he wondered, when he hardly understood what was going on in his own?
But Nancy was still talking earnestly. "The thing is that I want to make my mistakes," she said. "I want to marry Marty and make all sorts of mistakes and have a beautiful, beautiful time making them!"
The volume of sound inside the Roaring Club was equal to that inside the Upper Lake Inn. But-as John realized the moment they walked in-that was the only way in which the two places were equal.
The band at the Upper Lake Inn was raucous and unmusical, with the members of the group rarely in tune with each other. Marty's Mahem, on the other hand, played as a skillful unit that knew and loved what they were doing.
Marty himself played a great electric' guitar, sang and wrote both the music and the lyrics for many of the combo's numbers.
John thought it was a shame that the group had to be stuck in Skyline City. It was true that they made fair money here. They even had a few records out on one of the minor labels. But they needed national exposure. A few jaunts across the country and they would be producing a lot more records-as well as making more money in booking fees. Marty's Mayhem, John felt instinctively, had all the potential to hit the big time.
He had to wonder then if Nancy had been right. Perhaps the kindly Dr. Grant really was jealous of Marty. For Marty-though he did not sport a beard-was the original long-haired kid. And if he did become a wealthy man through his own talent, it would destroy all of the doctor's theories about far-out, rock 'n roll wastrels.
But Dr. Amos Grant's theories were not about to be destroyed, John knew. Anyone could see that if Marty were to make his move it had to be soon-while he was ready for the country and the country ready for him. The longer he waited, at this point, the rougher it would be.
And the situation with Nancy and her father had effectively boxed Marty Steeley in.
The group finished their number, then grinned at the audience who cheered and grinned back.
"Do you like them?" Nancy asked.
"Yes. They're very good," John told her.
"What were you thinking about before?"
"Before?"
"During the number. Your thoughts seemed a million miles away."
"Maybe he was gazing at the dancers," Kathy Garrand said. She was sitting across the table from them with her date-a young man who held one fervent arm about her.
Hell, John thought, both jealous and annoyed at himself for feeling jealous. Everyone's set except me. I haven't a damn thing to be set for.
Then he realized that Kathy's statement called for an answer. "They're very good-looking," he said.
They were all of that. Dressed in the skimpiest of bras and briefs that verged on being G-strings, they knocked themselves out inside their gold cages. As the music started again, John admired their firm female lines.
"Would you like me to ask Marty to get you a date with one of the girls?" Nancy persisted. "No."
"They're sweet girls," Nancy persisted. John remembered that Nancy had talked about going to work here. He hoped that he hadn't offended her by refusing. "I'll want to get back to the hotel tonight," he said. "What...?"
John pointed helplessly at the combo. "I'll tell you later."
As soon as the number had ended, he explained about his father coming home that afternoon. "So I won't be able to stay in town," he said. "In fact, I should leave fairly soon."
"Suit yourself," Nancy shrugged.
John smiled at her. "Do you really want to join those kids in the cages?" he asked.
"After I'm twenty-one," she answered. "Why? Don't you think I could do it?"
"I'm sure you could. But if you were mine I wouldn't let you."
The music started up again and prevented Nancy from answering him. Which might have been just as well-for all she could have done was remind him that she wasn't his.
The group played two more numbers before they took their break. The last was a clever novelty song, played more softly than the others and sung by Marty himself. The crowd cheered and stamped, and seemed put out when he insisted on leaving the stage.
While he was playing, Marty Steeley had seemed fairly tall. But now John could see that he was a small man with a delicate bone structure. He looked almost vulnerable in his seventeenth-century outfit.
He took a seat next to Nancy and kissed her on the cheek. His hair was golden, too; only a shade darker than the girl's.
They went well together, John admitted against his will.
Marty shot John the same friendly grin that he bestowed on his audience from the stage. "I want to thank you," he said, in a surprisingly gentle voice.
"Think nothing of it," John replied, embarrassed. "As I told Nancy, she was doing me a favor, too."
Marty looked at the girl.
"There was a sort of a do at John's folks," she said. "My being there helped him leave early."
Marty shuddered. "Folks!" he said. "How I hate that word!"
John laughed. "Where are your folks?"
"Detroit," he said. "Dad runs a drugstore there. They wanted me to be a classical pianist," he continued, "and had me taking lessons until good old Bach was coming out of my ears. I ran away at sixteen and haven't been back since. But I am sending back the dough they spent on all those wasted lessons."
"What do your parents think now?"
"About what I do?" Marty shrugged. "I guess they're pretty proud. Mom came out here last year to see me. She has all my discs. She told me that she couldn't understand the noise I make, but then I explained that when old Johann Sebastian was alive a lot of people thought he was out of line, too. That seemed to make it all right."
John laughed again. Despite himself, he was starting to like this man.
"Listen," Marty said, "did Nancy tell you that I could fix you up with one of the chicks who work here? The six of us could have a blast later on, after we close."
"He already turned me down," Nancy put in.
"Yeah? Well, hell, man-why don't you think it over?"
"Do," Kathy urged.
The plump girl's date smiled at him. But he was too engrossed in imagining what he and Kathy would be doing later to say anything.
"There's really nothing I'd like better," John said, recalling the almost totally revealed shapes of the dancers and wondering if he was being a sucker. "But I actually have to get back. As a matter-of-fact, I should start off now."
"Oh, you'll have to sit through at least one more session," Marty insisted. "Man, we're going to blow the place apart this time."
"Okay," John surrendered. "One more session."
"Marty...." Nancy said, taking the man's hand and using a small whisper of a voice.
"What's that, baby?"
"I spoke to John. About...." She seemed to hesitate. "About what I said I'd ask him."
Marty frowned. It was as if he disapproved or-John reminded himself cynically-as if he wanted John to think that he disapproved. "Yes?"
"He said he'd think it over."
"Good." He left the chair to stand behind John and place a hand on his shoulder. "Do you know what we're talking about, man?"
"I don't," Kathy interjected.
Marty winked at her. "That's the way I want it," he said. He nudged John again. "How about you?"
"I have a pretty good idea."
"I thought you would have." His voice grew more earnest. "Well, listen, baby-you keep thinking for a while. Hell, this isn't your fight. You mix into somebody else's business, man, then you really got troubles. And for what? You know what I mean?"
"Yes."
"Not that I wouldn't appreciate anything you did," Marty said frankly. "But I want you to know that if it works out the other way, I'll understand." He paused. "Now I got to go backstage for a bit. You'll be here when I get back, won't you?"
"Sure," John promised.
He watched the man walk off and disappear. Damn it, he was a nice guy. He felt suddenly ashamed of the comments he had made the other night and was grateful to Nancy for not complaining about him.
He turned to the girl. "I like your man," he said.
Tears appeared in the corners of Nancy's eyes. "I'm glad," she replied.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
On the dark mountain roads the car headlights seemed to search out strange and monstrous shapes that, at the last minute, reformed themselves into the mundane. There, for example, was only the worn and rocky side of a cliff. That was an overhanging aspen tree. And that menacing mass was merely the dark emptiness of a low valley as seen from the mountainside.
It could be an unnerving experience, driving in the Rockies at night with only the moon and the flickering stars to keep a man in touch with reality. But John was used to it. He recalled the terror he used to feel here as a boy in the back seat of his father's car and smiled.
Today there was no need for terror. A modern man did not have the Indian's belief in the reality of spirits that lurked oh and under the mountains. Nor did he have to reckon with the early settler's knowledge that each hidden shadow or shape could conceal a deadly enemy.
Nowadays, the Rockies were crisscrossed by a network of macadam roads, over which a man could drive in modern automobiles. And if something happened to his engine or if he ran out of fuel, he could count on the state highway patrol showing up before too long and bailing him out of trouble.
There was still grandeur here, John thought. He still felt a sense of awe at the sheer size and wonder and mystery of these facts of nature. But much of the hidden mystery-the mystrious mystery, he might even say-was gone. It was transferred to inside himself. And perhaps that's where it was in the first place.
John grinned to himself and fiddled with the dial of the car radio. He was getting too damned metaphysical, he thought, as he picked up a country music station and after a moment's pause decided to stay with it. The real mystery was what he was doing driving back to the hotel, when he could have been dating one of those chicks from the Roaring Club.
What was so urgent about rushing back home? He could have found a place to stay overnight in Skyline. He had a key to his mother's house and she would have been glad to have him stay there. There was no driving need to talk to his father right away. He was sure he wouldn't be able to see the older man until tomorrow, anyway.
Maybe he just didn't want to get involved with another woman, he thought cynically. Perhaps he would settle down and be a hermit for a while. After the events of the last few days, that seemed logical enough.
Logical, but not true.
No, that old need was with him still. That painful male need which had first found him when he was thirteen and had not let him be since-except for those brief periods of respite after he had temporarily satisfied it. It was there-that old itch-when he had first met Kathy and noticed the bounce of her breasts, when he had driven Nancy first to his mother's house and then to the club, when he had seen the smooth limbs and exposed belly-buttons of the girl dancers.
Hell. He was growing excited now just thinking about them!
He wondered if women were ever tormented this way. Why not? They had gonads too, didn't they?
The thing was, their excitement didn't show. They could at least pretend that it didn't exist and no one could prove them liars. It was obvious when sex was on a man's mind, though. He had to bull ahead and hope that the girl wouldn't stop him.
Which was what John should be doing right now. Making like a bull!
He cursed softly. There was no sense in letting his thoughts get out of hand. He had made his decision and he was stuck with it. Far wiser to concentrate on his driving.
At any rate he was almost home. A few more miles and he'd be parking the car and going to bed. A lonely bed....
Well, maybe that would be good for him for a change-healthful; keep him in training, so to speak.
If only Doris Fortune were there waiting for him, he thought with a sudden pang that was almost physical.
She was the one he wanted. Damn it, yesl Not just a woman, but one woman.
Which was why he was not in town this minute, doing his best to make out with one of the Roaring Club chicks.
A lovely discovery, he thought, starting to sweat. A most brilliant discovery. Too bad he wasn't brilliant enough to make it before it was too late-before her mother had seen to it that it was too late.
Nothing to be done about it now, he told himself. Not a thing to be done about it, now....
He drove into the private hotel road, taking the turn a shade too fast, so that the car skidded and sent a spray of gravel leaping up into the starlit night. In his present mood, the skid gave him an absurd sense of satisfaction.
He drove to the rear lot, braked the car sharply, turned off the engine and lights, and got out.
He took a deep breath of clear night air. "Damn," he said aloud. "Damn, damn, damn...."
Then he heard the muffled scream.
Earlier that night, Doris Fortune was at the Upper Lake Inn doing a new dance called the "speckled trout." The idea was to bend one's knees slightly, keep one's back as straight as possible and wriggle one's shoulders while moving the arms and hands as if they were fins.
Carrying out those movements gave Doris a sensual feeling. Her breasts rubbed against her bra cups so that her nipples were tickled and she could feel them start to stiffen. She glanced at Philip, who was dancing facing her, and realized that he was being aroused, too.
She hoped that things wouldn't get out of hand with him tonight. But it was a vague, fleeting, basically untroubled hope. She had had a lot of nice liquor to drink and was enjoying herself thoroughly. Why spoil the mood by worrying?
She abandoned herself to the dancing. It felt good. It felt real good....
When the music stopped, she gasped for breath and fell into Philip's arms, staying there for a moment while he half-supported her. Then his lips found hers, and she could feel him strong against her.
"That was nice," she said, backing gracefully away from him.
"What? The kiss? Or the Dance?" He was grinning. "Both, silly."
They started walking back to the table. "What do you say we get out of this place?" the boy suggested.
Doris felt hurt. Hadn't she just said that she was having fun? "I thought you were having a good time?" she said.
"Yes-with you." He grinned again and moistened his thin lips with his tongue. "You're great. I mean it. You're a great dancer. But this place is starting to bug me."
"Don't you like it?"
"What's to like? That combo stinks and the food's for the birds."
"The liquor's good, though," Doris giggled.
"Yeah," Philip laughed sharply. "I guess it is at that."
When they reached the table, they found that Rita and Roy were there ahead of them. The husky boy stood up and waited while Philip helped Doris with her chair. They were both sweet, Doris thought.
"How much longer do you want to stay in this joint?" Roy asked Philip.
"The bird and I were just speaking about that. She likes it here. It turns her on."
"Aw, no," Rita said, giving Doris a beseeching look. "You can't mean that, honey. Give us a break...."
Doris felt as though she'd just been outvoted. She didn't want to argue. The others were all too nice to argue with. "All right," she said. "We'll go now if you want to."
"You're sure, babe?" Philip asked, sounding as though he were really concerned.
"Yes." Doris thrilled with pride as she thought that he would have fought for staying had she insisted.
"Okay then, man," he said to Roy. "Let's get the check."
The girls excused themselves and went to the powder room while the boys called over their waiter.
"I still don't think this place is so bad," Doris told the slender girl, as they both sat before a mirror.
"It's not so bad, honey. But the real kicks are to come. "What do you mean?"
"If you don't know...." Rita put on a final dab of eye-shadow and turned to Doris. "There," she said. "How do I look?"
"Great. And me?"
"Oh, you look fine, honey. And not just your face. Those high boots do something for your legs, and I wish I had your bust line."
Doris smiled her thanks. She did look especially sexy tonight, she knew. The boots were white and she was wearing a white mini-dress with a spectacularly low-cut bosom.
"Shall we return to our fates?" she asked."
"Yeah. I don't know why we girls take so much trouble to get all prettied up, when the men'll do their best to tear us apart again."
"Didn't you know?" Doris asked. "We do it for each other."
"That's a dumb reason," Rita replied. "But I can't think of another one."
The men were waiting for them in the foyer of the club. Philip put an arm about Doris's waist and they walked slightly ahead of the other couple. As they got out into the cool, dark night, his hand moved up until it was cupping her breast through the material of her dress.
"Where's the car?" Philip asked after a while.
"That way," Roy instructed him. "Just a little bit. Remember, you're driving back."
"Hey, wait a minute...."
"Come on, buddy. Don't reneg. We flipped for it."
"Yeah." Philip's voice sounded sullen but resigned. "Okay."
When they got to the sedan, Philip held open the door so that Roy and Rita could get into the back seat. Then he helped Doris in the front and climbed around to get behind the steering wheel.
They pulled away smoothly and Philip placed his arm about Doris's shoulder.
"No," Doris said, not really knowing why she said no.
"Don't be like that, baby?"
"Not while you're driving," the girl persisted.
Roy chuckled from the back seat. "Yeah, man," he said in a kidding voice. "Not while you're driving."
"You know what you can do with that," Philip muttered, sullen once more, but knowing that he would either have to subside or risk being labeled a poor sport.
Doris settled herself in the far corner of the seat. She glanced at Philip out of the corner of her eye. It was strange, she thought, how he both attracted and repelled her. She wanted him to want her ... yet she didn't want him. It didn't make much sense, but there it was.
She wished....
What did she wish? That John Steward was there behind the wheel? Sitting beside her? Maybe that was it.
There were murmurs and moans coming from the back seat.
Doris flung an arm to one side and shifted positions so that she could barely manage to see behind her, while pretending not to look.
Rita and Roy were pressed against each other. Roy's arm was around the girl's neck and reaching into her blouse. His other hand was moving gently up the inside of her thighs. Her free hand was at the front of the boy's trousers.
Doris turned again, facing full front. She did not want to see any more. The sight had aroused her and she did not want to be aroused.
But there were still the noises-the moans and giggles and whispered words. And now that she knew what was happening, her ears were so abnormally sensitive that she could pick up the slightest sound.
"That feels good...." Roy murmured.
"Mmnn ... so does that...." Rita answered.
"Easy ... easy...."
"You're so hard and strong....Are all men so hard and strong...?"
"No ... only me....But take it easy ... I won't be able to control myself...."
"That better...?"
"Yes...."
"But don't you stop...."
Doris squirmed in her seat and pressed her thighs together. She wondered if they would ever get back to the hotel, if she would be forced to stay like this always, biting her tongue to keep from grabbing ... something....
But then they were driving up the gravel-surfaced private road of the Lodge and parking the car in the precise spot where they had found it earlier that evening.
"I'm glad that space was available," Philip said. "My old man has to take the car into Skyline tomorrow morning. I really catch hell if he has to hunt for his car when I've had it out the night before."
"Yeah, man," Roy said. "I know what you mean."
Roy and Rita stayed by the car with them for a minute or two. They looked as unselfconscious about what they were feeling as a pair of healthy animals, Doris thought.
"We'd better get inside," Roy said finally.
Rita smiled. She looked directly at Doris and licked her upper lip with her tongue. It was almost as though she had just taken off all her clothes.
"Maybe I'd better be getting in, too," Doris said uncertainly, as the other couple departed.
"Let's take a little walk first, baby."
"Walk...?"
"Sure. Over there. Right beyond that rock." He took her arm and started leading her. "It's pretty. You'll see."
They walked down a brief trail, beyond the rock and through a group of aspens to a clearing. It was lovely there, Doris saw. The moon shown through the trembling leaves and cast a pale glow on the whitish trunks of the trees.
"Well?" Philip asked. "Didn't I tell you it was nice?"
"Yes...."
The boy turned her around then, and held her in his arms. His tongue seemed to crash through the unclosed gates of the girl's teeth to explore the inside of her mouth. Their thighs touched. His groin pressed into hers and she could feel the rigid man of him full against her soft belly.
"Oh!" Doris gasped, as she moved away in order to breathe.
"You really know how to kiss," Philip told her. "So do you....But ... we really should be getting back."
"Sure. In a minute or two. But let's stay here a bit first. Maybe we'll sit down. On the grass."
"I ... don't want to stain my dress."
"We'll sit on my jacket then." He spread it out. "See? Just like Sir Walter Raleigh."
The girl laughed. She still wanted to go back to the hotel. But how could she after that gesture?"
He helped her down and placed one arm around her. His hand went to her breast. "Is that all right?" he asked.
"I ... guess so." As long as he keeps outside, she thought.
He kissed the lobe of her ear and the back of her neck. His hand inched up and explored the top of her bodice.
"I wouldn't want to get that dress stained," he said in a half-crooning tone. "It's much too nice a dress to get stained. Low-cut, too."
"Yes...."
"You're right there, aren't you? All I'd have to do is reach inside, and...."
"No. Don't...."
But he had already reached in and lifted the breast boldly out of its bra cup. She could feel her nipple hardening in the cold.
"Stop it!" she said.
He was not paying attention to her. "That's nice," he said. "Real nice. Now we'll just get the other." And he did. He was holding a breast in each hand now, looking at them and then bending over to kiss the nipples.
"Please...." she begged, conscious of both longing and horror; both wanting and not wanting.
"They're great," he murmured. "Real big and firm. Philip, buddy, you've picked yourself a winner this time."
"I just don't want us to start anything we won't be able to finish," she half-croaked, feeling as though she were in some sort of nightmare where she was involved in one conversation and he a second and neither one of them could get through to the other.
But this time she did get through. And she wished she hadn't.
"Who says we're not going to finish?" he asked. "But...."
"Listen, baby, you've been throwing your ass at me all night. You don't think you're going to turn me off now, do you?"
She was conscious, still, of his hands on her breasts. Conscious that when she breathed, his hand breathed with her. "You don't understand," she moaned.
"Stop fooling yourself," he said roughly. "It's you who don't understand."
Suddenly he released her breasts to grab hold of the top of her dress and her bra. He yanked, hard. She felt the delicate, beautifully made material give.
It was this act that snapped her paralysis. The wanton destructiveness of it filled her with fury. She clawed savagely at his face and jumped to her feet.
"My eye!" the boy screamed. "My damned eye is bleeding!"
She was glad. Adrenolin pumped through her bloodstream as she started to run. But where? Which way was the hotel?
She could hear him behind her, cursing and threatening. She was starting to get winded, with her breath coming in quick gasps. She could feel her big breasts bounce heavily on her chest with every jarring step she took. The thought made her self-conscious.
Then she was caught from behind and toppled. She felt a sick, sweetish pain as her bare breasts were crushed against the earth. Her feet were twisted and she was turned helplessly on her back.
She struggled and tried to kick. But by the time she had the strength to do so, he had forced her legs expertly apart and was between them.
He reached out with his hands and pushed her legs flat so that he could kneel on her thighs and keep her from moving while he tore at her briefs.
Doris wondered helplessly why men had to be that much stronger than women.
And still she tried. Although she knew it was hopeless, she had to try.
She threatened with her nails, but she couldn't reaceh him. At least his eye is still bleeding where I got him before, she thought. That is something.
He must have sensed what she was thinking. He made a fist. "Don't try that again," he snarled.
She screamed.
With a final motion, he tore her briefs completely off. He reached down for her.
At his touch she screamed again-more shrilly, more helplessly.
"Shut up," Philip said.
She kept screaming.
"Shut up or I'll punch you in the stomach. Then you won't be able to scream." His small eyes glittered yellow in the moonlight, and the drops of blood under the left one seemed black.
The girl subsided. What was the use?
"That's better," he said. "Listen, it doesn't have to be this way. I...."
The girl tried to writhe free.
"All right, then," Philip said furiously.
He unbelted his trousers and pushed them down along with his shorts.
Then she saw him. She did not want to look, but had to. She strained her neck so that she could. He was like some ancient obscene carving-a statue of the god of virility, with his great staff and potent roots.
And on that idol, she thought insanely, a maiden is to be broken....
But suddenly the man and the idol too was lifted away from her, was jerked backwards as if by a superior god.
Who...? She wondered. What...?
She didn't know who or what.
She didn't know anything.
She seemed to slip painlessly into a pit far deeper and blacker than the night.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
John Steward tore off in the direction of the scream. He wondered if he was making a damn fool of himself. Even fairly nearby sounds can be distorted in the night mountain air. And what seemed like a scream might well have been female laughter or a shout for joy or even a cry of ecstasy.
But even as he hesitated and slowed his pace, he heard it again.
This time there was no room for doubt. It was a scream-a girl screaming in terror.
He started running again until he was sure he had reached the spot the call had come from. He could not see anyone. The trees were quite close together and filtered out much of the moonlight.
He was about to cry out himself, when he heard the sounds of grunts and thrashing. He stepped between a pair of trees and saw them silhouetted in a single beam of moonlight that played upon them like a spotlight in a theatre.
He did not know who they were. He could not even be certain that the one on top-about to plunge down on the victim-was a man. He acted through sheer instinct, crooking an arm under the chin and yanking.
And it was a man, of course. John could tell that quickly enough by the weight and furious strength of him.
He dragged the other backwards for a short distance, then released his hold to give him a hard shove that sent him sprawling. He saw with a wave of disgust that the man's pants and undershorts had been pulled down around his ankles.
"Get up," John snarled, prodding the bare white rump with his foot.
The man got to his hands and knees. He turned to face John from that position and glared at him. "What the hell...?" he hissed.
John recognized the other boy vaguely, as someone who had come to the hotel a few days ago with his father and mother. He shook, his head in disbelief. "I ought to work you over," he said slowly. Philip cursed sullenly.
"Get out of here," John said, feeling his muscles start to knot. "Pull your damned pants back on and get out of here!"
John turned to go back to the girl, but heard a noise and turned to see Philip lurch towards him, only to be tripped up and pitched to his knees again by the clothing that bound his feet together. He was still in a state of semi-excitement, John noticed, as though his body was taking its own sweet time to adapt to the change in his outlook.
John's grin was without mirth. "I thought I told you to go home," he said.
The boy got slowly back to his feet and started to pull up his pants. He was trembling with rage and frustration.
"What's your name?" John demanded.
"Go to hell."
"Talk nice," John warned, punching him on the cheek.
"Damn you!" Philip cried, beginning a clumsy, one-handed punch to the jaw.
John blocked it easily, and shot a straight left into the long, vulnerable stomach. As the other boy grunted and started to double over, John aimed the same fist at his teeth.
Philip screamed. Blood streamed from his mouth and John felt a sense of satisfaction at the knowledge that he had broken several teeth. He set himself and sent a hard, jolting right to the point of the other boy's jaw.
Philip stopped screaming. His head snapped back and he collapsed. John didn't bother to look at him. He knew that he'd be out cold for some time and that when he did come to he'd be no trouble to anyone.
Now John could go back to check the girl.
He heard her moaning softly and when he knelt beside her he saw that it was Doris.
He felt a red rage of hatred against her assailant. He was almost sorry that he'd already beaten him up. It would be so nice to go back and start all over again.
Doris's clothing was mostly ripped from her, he saw. He pulled her skirt down to cover her groin, then he cradled her head in his lap and patted her cheeks softly.
She moaned again and her eyes fluttered open. "Oh...." she said. "What...?" Then, in a desperate, pleading tone: "Don't ... please don't!"
"It's all right," he said to her. "It's John."
"John...?"
"John Steward."
"Oh. But...? Where's Philip?"
"He won't bother you," John told the girl. "Don't worry about him."
"All right." She paused and her head appeared to clear somewhat. "Did you pull him away from me?"
"Yes."
"You were just in time," she said, with the trace of a giggle. "I thought...." She broke off. "It doesn't matter what I thought, does it?"
John was worried about her. "Can you sit up?" he asked.
"Yes ... I think so."
He helped her reach a sitting position. She looked down and seemed to realize for the first time that her breasts were bare. She moaned painfully and brought her arms up in a protective gesture.
"Why don't you wear my coat?" John said, embarrassed that he had not thought of that earlier. He placed it around Doris's shoulders and buttoned the jacket up the front.
She smiled tearfully at him. "Thank you," she said. "You're very good to me."
"Hell," he said gruffly. "If I'd been here tonight, that bum wouldn't have had a chance to bother you. What was his name? Philip...?"
"Philip Kramer," she said dully.
"How did he get you to come out here with him?"
"He....I went out with him tonight." She shook her head from side to side. "Mom said....He's a judge's son, you know...."
"Sure," John said, angry at himself for asking the question. "Would you like a cigarette?"
"No. Not now."
"Maybe I'd better get you back home," he suggested. "All right...."
He took her arm and helped her to stand. She was a little wobbly, but other than that he thought she'd be all right.
They walked a few feet with the man still supporting Doris. Then she stopped suddenly. "What's that?" she demanded, peering straight ahead.
It was Philip. Hell, John thought, he should have taken her another way.
The thin man was lying flat on his back. His shorts and trousers were still down about his knees. His right leg twitched spasmatically, but outside of that motion he was absolutely still.
"Is he ... all right?" the girl asked anxiously.
"He will be," John replied grimly. "I just knocked him out."
"I cut his eye," the girl said. "But his mouth....What happened to it?"
"He has a few less teeth now," John muttered.
The girl giggled. When her giggles grew strained and threatened to become hysterical, he shook her by the shoulders.
"What is it?" he asked.
"Nothing. Just his ... you know. It's so small." She gasped. "I remember how big it was just before I fainted. Before you ... took him away. It was so big and ... and mighty that I thought it was going to pierce straight through me." She paused. "But now it's teeny-tiny. Like a teeny-tiny dish-rag."
"Yeah," John said. "I'd better get you home."
They were almost at her cabin when she told the boy that she didn't want to go there; that she couldn't stand to be alone.
"Where do you want to go?" John asked, feeling frustrated.
"I don't know. Anywhere. With you, maybe...."
"With me?" He looked at her. "To my room, you mean?"
"If it wouldn't be too much trouble," she said. "I mean, if you don't mind having me. I wouldn't stay long."
"Of course I wouldn't mind," he told her. "But ... your clothes. You can't go in the Lodge like this. Supposing someone saw you?"
"Who would?" she countered. "Not that I give a damn. But if it would embarrass you...." She quickened her pace and headed straight for her cabin.
"No, wait a minute." He caught up to her and took her arm again. "I'm sorry. I was only thinking of your reputation."
"Don't bother."
He called himself every kind of fool. The girl's eyes were filling with tears now, and he could see that she was holding herself in with an effort. It was almost as though he had just slapped her face. Almost as though he had been more cruel to her than Philip had been.
"Look," he said, "I wasn't thinking before. You're right, of course. No one would be up at this hour."
Doris did not answer.
"And if anyone does see us, we'll tell them to go climb a rope and whistle Dixie."
"Really...?" She looked at him as if she wanted to trust him, but didn't know whether it would be safe to.
"While hanging onto the rope with their prehensile toes."
She giggled cautiously. "What's 'prehensile'?"
"Who cares?" he asked.
They walked to the rear of the hotel, went in the back entrance and climbed the stairs to the third floor.
"We'd better be quiet," he said, as he opened the door to his room. "We don't want to disturb people."
"We'll be just like two little mice," she said. "I promise."
He smiled at her and closed the door. She looked so vulnerable sitting there in her torn skirt and his jacket that he almost wanted to cry.
"Would you like a drink?" he asked.
"Yes."
He washed out a pair of glasses in the bathroom and poured some Scotch into each of them.
"Here's to ... something or other," he said, handing her one.
"By all means."
They sipped the liquor.
"That feels nice," Doris said. Her eyes took in the room. "I like this place," she said, after a few minutes. "It looks comfortable. Sort of like you."
The man laughed. "I don't know whether to take that as a compliment or not."
"I was just saying what I thought," Doris told him. "But doesn't it get lonely for you?"
"Lonely?"
"You're all by yourself, aran't you?" He did not reply.
The girl patted the bed next to where she was sitting. "Come here by me," she said.
He looked at her and fought the urge to run across the room and take her in his arms. "I don't think I'd better," he said.
"Oh?"
"Look. I've got to tell you something."
"What?" Her eyes looked clear and untroubled. "The sort of thing that my mother hinted to me about? That you've had other women? Maybe even too many other women?"
"That's part of it," he said. "But your mother didn't tell you the rest, did she? Who the other women were?"
The girl shook her head violently. "I don't want to know."
"One of them was your mother," John heard himself say.
The girl's gaze did not flinch. Maybe she had been half-expecting him to say something like that. Maybe the knowledge had been hidden in her unconscious all the time, so that when he had said what he did, the words felt more as if they had come from her own lips than from his.
"Tell me about it," she said quietly.
So he did. He told her about the phone call from Cabin G, and how he had gone there and what happened after. He told her about her mother's threats to him and about Millie Lee. He even mentioned Betty and Laura-though not by name.
"Is that all of it?" Doris asked when he was finished. Her face looked like a mask of protectiveness.
"What more do you want?" John laughed harshly. "You see now why you shouldn't have anything to do with me."
"I don't like what you've done," the girl said softly. "I ... rather hate it, I suppose. But it did happen before...."
"Before what?"
"Before tonight." Doris's eyes were grave. "Sit by me," she said again.
His brain felt numb. He felt as if he were crossing the room and sitting beside her in a dream that could be shattered by the least shock or even a sudden noise.
"Now put your arms about me," Doris said.
"You're not ... mad?" the boy asked stupidly.
"I don't want to talk about what happened before," the girl said, with an intensity that almost frightened him. "I never want you to mention it again. Do you hear me?"
"Yes," he said, taking her in his arms and kissing her. "Oh, yes."
Her lips tasted good to him and so did the salty skin of her face where the tears had dried. He did not notice the runny make-up or mascara and was the more tender when he came to a bruise.
"Take off the jacket," she gasped.
He removed the garment and looked down at her breasts-her big breasts with their wide, soft nipples.
"That's black and blue there," he said suddenly.
"Yes. I struck a stone when Philip threw me down."
He kissed the bruise and moved his lips up to the nipple. Her breasts were firm but wonderfully soft. He felt a thrill of rage when he thought of those marvels with their delicate network of blue veins actually being hurt by a man.
His tongue darted out and made a little circle around her pink aureoles. He grinned with pleasure as he saw the nipples stiffen. His hand moved gently under the skirt of her torn dress and between her thighs.
"Take my dress off, please," she breathed. "I want to be naked for you."
"Yes." He watched Doris close her eyes as he drew down the ruined remnants of her dress. He finished with her shoes and stockings and helped her settle back on the bed. She was waiting for him, he knew. With her soft breasts, her flat belly, her beautiful lush womanhood, she was waiting for him.
She opened her eyes almost lazily. "Now you," she said. "I want to see you."
He grinned and stripped before her, proudly displaying his hard body.
"You're very strong," she said gently. "Aren't you?"
"Fairly strong," he answered. "But what makes you say that?"
"What you did to Philip. He was strong, too. Strong as hell. But you're even stronger."
He knelt beside her on the bed. One of his hands played with her breasts while the other travelled down the silken skin of her belly. .
The girl touched the rigid bars of muscle at John's stomach. "Like steel," she murmured. "Like steel." Then she went lower and gripped him.
"You're bigger than he is, too, aren't you?" she sighed.
"How the hell would I know?" he gasped.
"Well, you are. Why aren't I afraid of you, then? I was afraid of him."
"Maybe because I don't want you to be afraid," he managed to say. "But can't we forget about Philip?"
"All right," she said, stroking him. She saw the expression on his face and stopped. "Don't you like this?"
"Almost too much," he said.
She laughed as she understood his meaning, then moaned as his hand probed between her thighs to the seat of her womanhood. "Oh, that's lovely," she said. "That's really lovely...."
"Women are lovely creatures," he told her, teasing.
"But not as lovely as men. Men are so strong and hard, but yet they're soft and silky and...."
"And sensitive," he broke in, to get her to stop what she was doing. "Always remember, sensitive."
"How sensitive?" she asked, laughing. "Very. Oh, very, very, very...."
She touched him again, glowing in the feel of him. She cradled his roots in her hand as though they were tiny children. "I'm glad," she murmured. "I'd hate to think you were as invulnerable as you look."
"I'm not," he told her.
She turned onto her back then, and opened her thighs for him. He entered her as gently as he could, but even so she winced.-
"Does that hurt?" he asked.
"Yes...." She bit her lip. "I don't want to spoil it for you, but it's my first...."
"I know." He kissed her. "Just relax."
They lay without moving for a few moments until he could see the tension go out of her face. Then he started in again.
"How is that?"
"Hurts ... but go on."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes. Go on."
He did, little by little and bit by bit. Finally she began to move in a rhythm that matched his own. "Does it feel better now?" he asked.
"Yes. It ... doesn't hurt any more. It feels ... good. It's heaven....It's wonderful, wonderful heaven...."
Her arms tightened about his thick back and they laughed together in exultation. "Now!" she cried. "Now ... now!"
And it was over. They slipped apart, but their eyes were still together. They were still lost in the wonder of what had happened and what they had.
"Would you like a cigarette?" John asked after a while.
"Yes."
John lit two and handed one of them to the girl. They rested nudely on the bed, their free hands touching.
"And to think I've never done that before," the girl said, amazed. "What have I been missing?"
John chuckled. "Hasn't it been worth the wait?"
"Oh, yes." The girl was silent for a moment. Then:
"You know, I just thought of something. If it wasn't for Philip ... for what happened earlier, you know ... we might never have gotten together."
"Yes, we would have," John said firmly. "I guarantee you that."
"If not tonight, tomorrow night?"
"Exactly."
And it was at that moment that the door flew inward with a crash and a screaming woman charged into the room.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Afterwards, John managed to blank out those first terrible few minutes. He could not recall, for instance, the exact words that went to make up the torrent of abuse that poured from Estelle Fortune's mouth.
But what he never did forget was the twisted look of her face. It was contorted with hate, and her lips actually seemed to writhe like poisonous snakes spitting forth their venom.
John had a feeling of unreality. He pulled the bedclothes up so that they covered himself and the girl, as though he were performing the action in the middle of a nightmare.
Doris turned on her side and shrugged her knees up while she buried her face in the pillow and sobbed.
And still the stream of words kept flowing, until at last Estelle became exhausted. The woman stood there, gasping and panting for breath, while a slow trickle of saliva ran down towards her chin.
"Bastard," she said hoarsely, looking straight at John. "You bastard...."
John looked back at her. He could hardly comprehend the loathing he read in her eyes. The woman was wearing a one-piece jump suit. Her face was not made up and she seemed to have aged at least ten years since he had seen her last.
She began to cough and put her hand to her stomach, as though in pain. "Get up," she told her daughter. "Get out of that bed...."
Doris did not move.
"Are you ashamed?" She laughed harshly, and her big breasts heaved under the upper portion of the jump suit. "The naked whore's ashamed!"
She went to get Doris's clothes and found that they were ruined. She held them aloft like trophies.
"So this is what you did to her," she screamed at John. "You got her to come up here, somehow, and then you raped her!"
John could only stare back. It was as if he had been struck dumb.
For the first time Doris spoke. She turned her head and regarded her mother with sick eyes. "He didn't ... rape me," she moaned between her sobs.
"Then what's this?" she demanded, shaking the clothing as if it were a dead animal she herself had battled with and killed. "Did he tear all this off in a fit of passion...?" She began to cough again and dabbed at her sweat-streaked face with a tissue. "He's a very passionate boy, John," she said, her voice rising to new heights of shrillness. "I know how passionate he is. Did he tell you that? Did he tell you how I know?"
"I told her," John responded dully.
For a moment-but just for a moment-Estelle was stopped. "You told her?' she asked more quietly.
"I told her everything."
As Estelle digested this, her surprise gave way to new rage. "You told her," she repeated, as she nursed the anger and let it grow. "And still she slept with you? That's because she's a whore. My daughter's a stinking, lousy whore!"
"She's not," John said.
But Estelle was not listening. "Get out of that bed," she shrieked. "I don't care if you are bare-ass naked. Whore's don't have any modesty. They're not entitled to modesty!"
Then the last feeble restraint seemed to break in the woman and, with a savage cry, she buried her fingers in Doris's hair.
The girl screamed in pain and tried to hold onto the sides of the bed. But it was no use. She was dragged out and dumped on the floor.
"Let her go!" John commanded.
It was as if Estelle had forgotten that he was still in the room. All she could see was the girl that she yanked painfully upright now.
Doris thrashed her arms wildly and flung herself from side to side, so that her bare breasts bounced. The grip on her hair was too strong for her, however, and her cries became weaker as the pain grew more unbearable.
The very horror of the scene stunned John. It couldn't be happening, he thought. This sort of thing just didn't happen.
But it was. And he had to....
Forgetting about his own nakedness, he leaped out of bed and caught Estelle from behind. His fingers dug into the woman's upper arms and once more he ordered her to let Doris go.
But though his grip tore into her muscles until he did not see how she could stand it, she kept her own grip on the girl's hair. Finally, in desperation, John locked his forearm around the woman's throat and closed off her windpipe.
That did it. Slowly, reluctantly, her fingers left Doris's hair and went feebly to her throat.
Still sobbing, Doris flung herself onto the bed, her hands nursing her scalp.
John released Estelle.
The woman took a few labored breaths and, despite the pain in her arms and her throat, flung herself at the boy. She tore at his eyes and aimed her knee at his genitals.
He turned automatically, so that he blocked the kick with his thigh, then gave the woman a shove so that she fell to the floor.
"I don't want to hurt you," he warned.
"Hurt me...?" She began to cry. "What do you think you've already done...?"
He left her crying then, and went to the closet to put on a robe. Then he walked to the bed and recovered Doris.
"You'd better get out of here," he told Estelle.
The woman had made no attempt to get up from where he had flung her. She glared at him with tears streaming from her reddened eyes. "Not without my daughter...."
"Estelle...." he began.
"I'll fix you for this," she sobbed. "You tried to kill me before. You wanted to choke me to death...." John gaped. "You know I didn't."
"I know what happened," the woman cried. "And you hurt my arms. They're already starting to look bruised."
John shook his head. Even in her present state, the woman could hardly be serious.
But she was. "You're an animal," she cried. "A vicious animal. First you ruin my daughter. Then you try to kill me."
"I...." John spluttered. "I was only trying to protect Doris from you."
"I'm her mother," Estelle said.
John checked himself. If he let the anger grow in him, he might kill the woman. But anyway, Estelle was too outrageous to stay angry at.
"It's not funny," she hissed, getting to her feet at last. "It's not funny at all. I'm going to see that you're put in a cage where you won't be able to do any more harm."
"Caged...?"
"When the police get through with you!"
"What the hell is going on in here?" John's father demanded, as he burst into the room with Lana at his heels.
There was complete silence for a few moments while they stared at each other and tried to adjust to the situation.
Both Walter Steward and his wife were in their dressing robes. Their hair was disheveled and Walter looked angry.
"So, you decided to see what your son was doing?" Estelle said after a moment.
"With the racket you've been making, Estelle, you should be surprised that I stayed away this long," the man replied. "Now what has he been doing?"
"He attacked my daughter," Estelle said bitterly.
"That's not true," John put in furiously.
"Well, you might as well have," the woman returned. "You enticed her up here. You made love to her. Then when I found you, you beat me up and tried to kill me!"
"I almost wish I did try to kill her," John muttered.
"There!" Estelle cried triumphantly. "Did you hear him?"
"That still doesn't sound like John," his stepmother said softly. "I've known him a good many years and he's never tried to kill a woman yet."
"Are you calling me a liar?" Estelle demanded shrilly. "Take it easy," Walter said. "We haven't heard John's side of it yet."
"He'll just lie," Estelle hissed. "You have to know that!"
"Let's see." Walter looked at his son. "John...?"
"First of all, Doris was attacked tonight," John said, trying to order events in his mind. "But not by me. She was on a date tonight, with Philip Kramer. A date which you, Estelle, encouraged."
The woman's lips tightened, but she did not reply.
"When I came back from Skyline, I heard Doris cry for help. I pulled Kramer off her and knocked him out."
"Where is he now?" Lana wondered mildly.
John shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe he's still where I left him-minus a few teeth."
Walter Steward chuckled. "Nice going," he said.
"Yes," Estelle sneered. "Wonderful. A real big hero. But why didn't you take her back to her cabin then, hero? Why did you have to bring her up here?"
John did not reply.
Doris moaned. They had almost forgotten about her by now and they looked in half-surprise towards the bed.
"Don't try to talk, darling," Estelle said.
"No ... I have to....You see ... I must be . , . what you said. Mom, John wanted to take me home. I ... wouldn't let him. I insisted on going to his room."
"She's hysterical," Estelle said swiftly. "She doesn't know what she is saying."
But the others were not paying any attention.
"What happened then?" Walter Steward asked his son.
"What do you think?" John responded, angry at having to reply. "We made love. We wanted to. Is that so abnormal?"
"Not where I come from," Lana said gently.
Estelle gave her a malevolent glare. "I know all about your background," she rasped.
"Mind your manners," Walter Steward told the woman evenly. And strangely enough, she subsided.
He turned back to his son. "I meant afterwards," he explained. "After Estelle got here. What happened then?"
"At first I was too stunned to do anything," John admitted honestly. "She cursed some, but that didn't bother me. When she began attacking Doris physically, though, I had to pull her off. That's all there was to it." He paused. "If I'd really wanted to hurt her, don't you think I could have?"
"That makes sense," Walter said, as though thinking aloud.
"That isn't so," Estelle said indignantly. Then her eyes dropped. "All right. Perhaps I was chastising Doris, but I'm her mother. Haven't I the right? How else would I have known she was here, except through a mother's intuition?"
"It was the intuition of a jealous woman," Doris said. She had her sobs under control now, and broke into the conversation in an icy voice that sent shills down John's spine.
Estelle's eyes narrowed into slits. "What are you talking about?"
"You know, Mom. You just didn't want to tell them everything, that's all. You didn't want them to know how you seduced John the other night with a bottle of Scotch and some good old-fashioned sex. You didn't want them to know how mad you were when you realized he preferred your own daughter. How you must have felt that you were too old...."
The woman tensed herself, as though she were preparing to run over to the bed and attack Doris again. But at a look from John and Walter, she unwillingly relaxed.
"I'm sorry, John," Doris said then. "But you never would have told and I wanted them to understand."
"I think we do," Lana said.
Estelle brought herself back under control. "Very well," she said. "I've been insulted. I've been called names. And there doesn't seem to be anything I can do about it. We will let it go at that." She paused and lit a cigarette. John could not help but admire her nerve. "Perhaps Lana will be good enough to lend you some clothing, Doris," she continued then. "We'll all leave the room while you dress and I'll take you back to the cabin. We can talk about all this in the morning."
The girl shook her head. "No."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean that I'm not going back with you."
"But...." Estelle looked helplessly at Walter and his wife. "Are you two just going to stand there and do nothing?"
"What do you want us to do?" the older man asked softly. "Force her to go with you?"
"She is still under twenty-one," Estelle snapped. "I'm still responsible for her."
"You can be responsible tomorrow," Walter Steward told her.
Estelle drew herself up. "If you think it's going to end here, you're very much mistaken," she announced. "I'll call the police. I'll have you all locked up."
"You do that," Walter said with a smile. "If you want to make yourself look like more of a damn fool than you look already, you just call the police. But in the meantime, I think you'd better go."
Estelle hesitated for a moment, then flounced out the door.
They waited until they could hear her footsteps die out, then Walter Steward sighed. "I think what we all need now," he said, "is a drink."
"The Scotch is over there," John told him.
"Right."
Walter poured the liquor and distributed the glasses. John saw how Doris took hers in one hand while using the other to hold the sheet high under her chin. A sweet gesture of modesty, he thought.
"Well, this is one hell of a way to be awakened from a good sleep," Walter said, sipping the Scotch.
"Do you think my ... mother will really go for the police?" Doris asked.
"Not once she gets to thinking about it," Walter told her calmly. "She wouldn't want this whole story to come out in a courtroom. Especially not the part about John and her."
The younger man flushed. "I'm sorry," he said. "Don't apologize to me, boy," his father told him. "That's your girl over there."
"Yes."
"I've already forgiven him," Doris said.
Walter Steward took another drink of Scotch. "That's the thing about women," he commented. "They are all of them forgiving creatures."
His wife laughed. "It's a good thing for you that we are," she said fondly.
They sat quietly for a few more minutes, then Lana got up and faced John. "I think it might be better if you spent the rest of the night on the couch in our suite," she said.
The younger man was surprised. "But...."
"She's right, boy," his father told him. "I don't think there is much of a chance that Estelle will be back tonight, but if I'm wrong, it would be better if she didn't find you with Doris."
John still wasn't sure. He threw a worried glance in the direction of the girl.
"Go ahead," Doris urged gently. "We have the rest of our lives." She smiled suddenly. "And I'll certainly be here in the morning."
"Well, in that case...." John said. He did recognize the logic hi what his father and stepmother had said.
Lana and Walter exchanged glances, as if they were holding some unspoken conversation. Then the older woman turned to Doris. "Would you like me to stay here with you tonight?"
Doris looked embarrassed. "I hate to put you to that much trouble," she said.
"It'll be no trouble at all. And if your mother does decide to come back you might be glad of a friend."
Walter chuckled quietly. "I'd hate to see Estelle if she ever tried to push my wife around," he murmured.
"You are really very nice," John told his stepmother.
"Don't be foolish," the woman replied briskly. "I'll just walk back with you and fetch one of my nightgowns for Doris. Then in the morning I'll see if I can't find some clothes to fit her."
The three of them walked to John's father's rooms, where Lana selected a nightgown and kissed her husband good-night.
"Don't worry," she told John. "I'll take good care of Doris."
"I'm sure you will," the younger man said.
Walter helped his son to take the cushions from the couch and arranged some sheets and a blanket on it.
"Yes sir," Walter said, when they were through, "women are strange creatures. But mighty wonderful ones."
"You're right."
"I know I wouldn't trade Lana for anyone or anything in the world," the man went on. "And I couldn't care less about what Estelle or anyone else might hint about her."
"I wasn't listening to Estelle, Dad," John said firmly. "That's good, son." The older man grinned then. "So you left that Kramer punk with a few busted teeth, huh?"
"I think so."
"I'm proud of you, boy. I only wish I could have gotten a few licks at him myself."
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
When John Steward woke up the next morning it took him several moments to realize where he was. Then he looked up to see his father standing there, and all the events of the previous night came back to him with a rush.
"Doris...?" he asked, sitting bolt upright.
"She's up and dressed," Walter Steward assured him. "Lana is downstairs with her. If you want to throw some clothes on, we can join them for breakfast."
John got off the make-shift bed, put on his robe, and walked back into his own room with his father at his heels.
"What about Estelle?" the younger man asked, as he started to dress.
"What about her?"
"Is she ... making any trouble?"
"Not so far. She ordered breakfast to be sent to her cabin, but outside of that, there hasn't been a peep from her." He paused. "But I think that it might not be a bad idea for you and Doris to make yourselves scarce around here today."
"In case Estelle decides to make a peep after all, you mean?" John asked.
"That's part of the reason," Walter responded. "But then I've also had a phone call from Judge Kramer. It seems that some ruffian beat up his son, Philip."
John laughed. "That's the way he tells it, huh?"
"What did you expect him to say?" Walter asked. "The truth?"
"No. I guess not," John replied, as he laced up his shoes.
"I'm going to have a little talk with the young man," Walter went on easily. "In order to get a good description of the ruffian, of course. When I've finished with him, though, I expect he will have lost his memory."
"You think so?"
"If he's got half a brain that's the way he'll play it," the older man commented. "Not that it will really matter to you. I understand that young Kramer has attacked girls before, but that his father was always able to get the matter quashed by throwing doubt on the girls' morals. No matter what the boy wants to do, the judge won't be stupid enough to bring you to trial."
"Probably not," John said.
"But, like I say, I don't think it'll get that far. The boy will lie about what happened and lie about the identification of his so-called attacker. That will be the end of it."
"Maybe we shouldn't let it be the end of it," John said slowly.
"What do you mean by that?"
"I'd hate to see him go to the dentist, get a new set of teeth, and then attack some other girl," John explained.
"I don't believe that will happen," Walter said, with a wolfish smile. "I think that in our talk I can convince him that if he ever does do anything like that again, I personally will fix him so that he won't be able to attack another woman."
John's laughter had an edge to it. "You may have to follow through on that threat," he said.
"It would be a pleasure."
The younger man went into the bathroom then, and shaved quickly. Then the two went downstairs.
Doris and Lana were waiting for them in the dining room.
Doris was wearing a white skirt and red blouse. She looked even more beautiful than usual, John thought, as he kissed her and sat down at the table.
"What do you think of my new wardrobe?" Doris asked, her eyes twinkling.
"Great," John said. "But where did you get it?"
"Lana. It's really the property of one of the waitresses."
"There is only one girl here in Doris's size," the chestnut-haired woman said, with a teasing smile. "But I'm not going to tell you which girl it is."
"I was telling John upstairs that it would be a good idea for Doris and him to take a ride in the car today," Walter said, when they had ordered their breakfasts.
"You know-while you and I get things all calmed down."
"That might be wise," Lana said seriously. "I think so, too."
The four of them finished eating as rapidly as they could, then walked to the rear where the compact was parked.
"Don't worry about when you get back," John's father told them. "In fact, it might be better if you stayed away until at least after supper."
"Okay."
While the older man walked Doris to the other side of the car, Lana took hold of John's hand. "She is a very sweet child, your Doris," she told him.
"I know." John looked frankly at the woman. Despite her boyish features, she looked mature now, and almost sad. "You're pretty sweet yourself," he said.
Lana kissed him. "Take care of her," she whispered. "You know, it's not a very long trip to the state line."
John's eyes widened. "What are you suggesting?" he grinned.
"Nothing. I was only pointing something out."
"Where are we going?" Doris asked a short time later, as the car hummed along the road to Skyline City.
"I don't know," John replied honestly.
"Nor what we'll do when we get there?"
"There's one thing we could do," John said impulsively.
"What?"
"Get married."
There was a long silence. Neither one of them spoke for so long that John thought that the girl was angry for some reason. But when she did speak, finally, it was in a small, wondering tone of voice.
"Why did you ask me?" she wanted to know.
"Because ... because I love you."
And he realized that the words were true. It was as simple as that and as true as that. He did love her. He was overflowing with love for her. He didn't understand it and he wasn't sure that he wanted to understand it. All he did was recognize it.
"Listen," he said, "I know I haven't much to offer you. I have one year to go in college before I can get a job as an engineer. If we do marry you'll have to work during that year, just as I'll have to work after school. I suppose, therefore, that I haven't the right to ask. But," he went on, his voice firm and sure, "I am asking."
"Yes," the girl said.
"What...?"
"Yes, you fool. I'll marry you."
He reached for her and the car veered crazily until Doris pushed him away again. "I said I'd marry you," she told him. "Not go to a double funeral."
"Don't worry," he said. "Nothing can harm us today."
"Just drive easy."
The boy made a face. "A nagging wife. That's what I've chosen: a nagging wife!" She stuck her tongue out at him.
John drove on. It seemed to him that the car was floating a few inches above the road.
"Where will we get married?" the girl wondered. "Tonan?"
"Yes. That's right across the state line. There's no waiting period or anything...." He broke off to give a sudden laugh.
"What's the matter?"
"Nothing. I just realized that Lana knew that I was in love with you before I did."
"Your stepmother is a smart woman," Doris said quietly. But she would not explain what she meant.
They drove a few miles further. John's heart was singing. Then he realized that there was something else that he had to do. If Doris would let him.
"There is one thing," he said, not sure how to phrase it. "One favor I want you to do for me."
"What's that?"
"Drive from Skyline to Tonan with another man."
"What...?"
"It's like this," John said, and explained to her about Nancy Grant and Marty Steeley.
"In other words," she said, when he was done, "you would call for Nancy and I would drive there with Marty?"
"Exactly. No one would bother Marty as long as he had another girl in the car. If he knew about it, in fact, the doctor would be glad to speed him on his way. And of course I could take Nancy anywhere I wanted to go."
"I don't know if I like this idea," Doris said then.
"Why?"
"I don't think I trust you with that Nancy Grant. From what I remember, she's a mighty pretty girl."
"But...." John began to splutter, and then he saw that Doris was kidding.
"You'll do it?" he asked.
"Of course, silly. The way I feel now, I want all lovers to have a happy ending. We'll drive to Marty's place as soon as we reach Skyline City. You can call Nancy from there."
John smiled foolishly at his girl. Then he settled back to enjoy the rest of the drive.
