The words hung in the air for a moment. He couldn't get used to the girl's slang. Gutter slang was-the motto of the house on Prospect Street. And language was used to the fullest. Long talks in the living room, and long discussions in the bedroom after and during sex. And even in the bathroom where they gathered and made love there too.
Slang, gutter words and strange philosophical terms smacked against each other. "You shouldn't say screwing but I made love to you," he said.
Tracy giggled. "Your age is showing. You screwed me and it was great." She paused. "But why do you feel guilty? You're human. I'm human. Screwing, making love, is fun. Why feel guilty?"
Greg kissed her damp scalp. He felt her firm buttocks through the thin panties and he felt himself stirring. He pressed himself against her. "You're a maniac, Tracy."
CHAPTER ONE
Greg stared across the room, straining to hear what Armadegli was saying. Unable to hear, Greg sat quietly on the bed, his eighth drink of the evening warming in his hand.
Across the room, Armadegli whispered, "And no weirdos, right? Just good, clean American girls, huh?" Somebody on the other end of the phone apparently agreed, and Armadegli replaced the phone with a look of triumph.
"Hey, Greg," he said, turning to Greg, "now we swing. We really swing! That was Phil Travers, of the Philadelphia office. He's doing public relations for the conference, and he's going to help make our last night here a blast." Armadegli laughed tightly. Greg started to smile, but the smile felt too tight, too forced.
Greg felt a wave of dizziness from the many drinks Armadegli had insisted he drink. "Hell, boy. This is company money. Let the company worry about the expense," he kept saying. Greg burped once, and the acid taste of booze filled his mouth.
Armadegli had ordered girls. Just a phone call, Greg thought, and girls would materialize. Greg started to say, "Mister Armadegli, I wonder if we-" but Armadegli cut him off.
"Call me Phillip. We're all on the company team. That's the Gaines way. Now, down the hatch with that drink, and let's fix us a couple more before the girls get here." He smiled across at Greg, but Greg gave up trying to smile back. Somehow between the drinks and the four-day round of speeches, talks, and animated film presentations, on "the new wave of buying-selling technology as relevant to the retail department store and its management," Greg felt sick. He tried to catalogue his thoughts. Was he sick from the drinks-or was it the whole conference? One of the major ingredients, he knew, was Roberta.
He thought back four days earlier, when Roberta had kissed him goodbye at the airport. She seemed-he tried to focus in on the right word-she seemed distant. Almost cold. They had made love just before Roberta took Greg to Kennedy International, and it had been-Greg found the right word immediately-nice. " Nice. Not stars and rocket ships and trips to outer space while he lay above her, feeling her clutching him. Just nice. "I came," she had said quietly into Greg's ear. Not a confession of something marvelous, just a quiet directive to get off. "I came."
Greg climbed off her, and as he was padding around the room for his clothes, Roberta lay quietly watching him. He wanted to tell her something, but the thought eluded him then, as it did now. It had been a quiet trip to the airport.
Now he sat quietly on the bed in the two-room suite at the Hilton-Shroeder, wondering what the rest of the conference would bring. For the last four days, the G.R. Gaines Interdepartmental Store Managers conference had clobbered his mind with facts, chalk talks, film clips, testimonials of higher sales potentials, and blank faces.
Now Greg remembered only the blank faces. Managers and assistant managers from the New York City, Os-wego, Philadelphia, Newark and Hamtramck stores-and their respective sub-assistants-had been there.
When Armadegli had first asked Greg to accompany him on the trip, Greg had been proud of the honor. For a new executive, the invitation to attend the convention-at company expense-to be wined and dined and talked to at a managers' conference was a positive sign.
Greg wished, as he sat on the bed watching Armadegli, that he could somehow resummon the anticipation and the glow of accomplishment that he felt when first told of the conference.
He burped again, and the taste of liquor rose in his throat. He made a mental note to abstain when Armadegli asked him again to "have another one."
Greg stared at the back of Armadegli's head as the older man watched the street. "Hey, Greg. There's a whole world of people out there, my boy. And they all want to dress for the roles they're playing. And we're here to sell 'em the goods, right?" Greg nodded and managed a perfunctory, "Uh huh. Yep. We sell 'em the goods."
Armadegli turned from the window and nodded to the door. "Travers is sending up some good, clean American quiff. And man, I'm ready to swing." He sounded forced, Greg thought.
Almost as if he were really saying, "Listen, Greg, Travers has gone to a lot of trouble to get us some women, so let's treat 'em good, huh?" He showed no particular interest whether or not Greg wanted a woman.
Greg asked quietly, "Whores?"
Armadegli frowned. "Whores! Hell no, not whores! Models, my boy. Young, vibrant, delicately scented models. Probably from the Philadelphia store. Hey, Greg, you don't look too pleased.
"Remember, my boy, the male animal is just that. An animal. Sex outside of the bonds of matrimony is necessary, now and then, for any healthy American male. 'Specially one on the way up, hey boy?"
Armadegli walked from the window and patted Greg's shoulder. "And you're on the way up, my boy. Yessir, on the way up." Greg started to nod an appreciative 'thank you,' but the older man had turned and was already mixing up another set of drinks from the bar near the door. Greg was just about to refuse the kindness, when the girls arrived. They laughed and chatted as they waited outside the door.
Armadegli opened the hotel room door, and Greg stared past his head into the hallway. Two girls were there, both of them not much over twenty or so.
The taller girl, in a leather vest pants suit, smiled and said, "Hi! I'm Laura, and this is Denise. You must be Phillip." Greg watched as Armadegli smiled a welcome to the girls and gallantly stood aside, his arm resting on the doorframe, to let the girls enter the suite.
Laura walked serenely into the room and looked around. "Hmm. They treat you New York guys pretty good. The Newark manager only has one room, and no view of the river, either. These are very nice accommodations." She didn't seem to be looking directly into Armadegli's eyes, Greg noticed. Rather, she seemed to be talking to a point directly in the middle of Armadegli's forehead. Greg smiled at that. It was usually Armadegli who talked to foreheads. He almost giggled at the mental picture of the two of them locked in heated discussion, and neither aware of each other's lack of eye contact.
The other girl, Denise, shorter and apparently fuller in the bosom, stood quietly in the center of the room, getting used to the surroundings. Greg watched the scene unfold. Armadegli gets Laura.
It was that simple. The girls hadn't been in the room more than thirty seconds, and already Armadegli had made his choice, and his choice had agreed. Greg knew that he would get Denise.
He found himself immediately comparing the girl to Roberta. He knew he would do it. In the three years of his marriage, Greg knew that when the time came for him to be unfaithful to her, he would compare his newfound bed partner with his wife.
And now, as he stared at the miniskirted girl with the big, hazel eyes, he knew Roberta had suddenly lost some points in the struggle to hold a husband.
Denise was lovely. Not beautiful, Greg thought as he watched her lick her lips delicately, just lovely. She stood quietly, her body relaxed. She seemed confident enough, but was apparently the type of woman who let the man talk first.
Greg saw that she was a good deal shorter than he was, and an inch or so shorter than Roberta. She held her chest upward, as if exhibiting herself to all viewers. Her breasts, neatly cleaved by a bra-halter, looked mar-velously firm, and eminently holdable. Greg found himself not all sorry about the turn of events, and more than a little grateful to Travers. "Drink?" he asked the girl. She nodded quickly, and Greg liked the way she smiled.
He walked to the bar and mixed a rye-and-ginger. "Not too much booze, please," Denise said softly, and Roger added another plus to his estimate of the girl. Her voice was pleasant. It lacked the intense, almost knife-like hardness of Roberta's voice. Then Greg forced himself to stop comparing the girl with his wife.
"Nice city," he managed lamely, handing the glass to Denise. She brought the drink to her lips and nodded. He watched as she dipped her tongue into the top of the drink, in a cat-like gesture.
Armadegli wasted no time with Laura. Even as Greg' and Denise stood quietly chatting by the bar, Armadegli and Laura were walking off to the other room of the suite. Armadegli paused and looked at Greg. "Listen, Geg, if you need me, whistle." And he giggled as he slid the partition closed. The door no sooner closed, when Greg heard a squeal from Laura, than a deep guffaw from Armadegli. Greg stared at the closed door for a moment before he realized that Denise was staring at him.
"You're married, aren't you?" she asked casually. Greg nodded. "I thought so. The married ones always gauge each other's behavior. Phillip goes into a bedroom, so it's okay for you to do the same thing. Like a club, or something. You an executive?"
Greg started to nod yes, but stopped-his eyes widened as Denise quickly lifted her skirt and began to unfasten her stockings. He watched as the girl slowly rolled the stockings down her legs-then as she sat down lightly on the bed to take them off completely.
"I like married men. They're usually more-well-more experienced. Not like the younger cats. All hands and hardons, but no cool, you agree?"
Greg smiled. "I guess so, if you say so."
Denise finished taking off her stockings, then sat up on the bed. "That sounds like I'm a pro, I guess. I'm not a pro, though. I just like to fool around. That's how come I got this job."
Greg watched as Denise began to fiddle with the zipper on the back of her halter. With her arms pulled behind her, her breasts were pressed tight against the fabric of the halter, and Greg saw her nipples against the fabric.
He felt a stirring in his groin, and licked his lips. "Er, uh. Job?" he asked.
"Yeah, I model clothes for Gaines. Mostly in New York, but now and then I get to go to conferences and things. I like modeling." By this time, Denise had the zipper unzipped, and with one deft movement, she lifted the halter above her head and tossed it across the bed where it landed expertly on the chair near the picture window. Greg stared at her.
Denise, aware of the show she was giving, inhaled deeply and let her musc'es pull the weight of her breasts up until they stood straight and firm. Greg noticed how delicately tanned her skin was-but there was no fish-belly white where a bathing suit had been. Greg smiled as he realized this was a girl who either sunbathed in the nude, or spent time under a sunlamp. He opted for the former.
"You're lovely," he said quietly, staring at her perfect breasts, neatly emphasized by the pink-brown, pointed nipples. "Yeah," she answered. "They're my models, really. I used-to do nudies. Nude movies, dig? I got a lot of mileage out of these." She moved her hands up to her breasts and cupped them, with her nipples peeking delicately out from between her fingers.
"You ever shoot film? I do private modeling, for a small fee." Greg watched as Denise tweaked her nipples until they were hardened points. He saw how selfishly she held herself, and realized that she took more than piide in her body. She gave the appearance of almost making love to herself.
She sat on the bed, staring up at Greg, and asked, "You want to take this off?" She glanced down at her skirt and up to Greg. He stood there a moment, deciding. He felt the growing tautness between his legs and on an impulse, nodded. "Yes. If I may."
Denise smiled and lay back on the bed. She moved herself until she was comfortable. "Men like to undress girls. I don't know why. Must be a kick to be a man. All hard and long. Just be wild," she said chattily. Greg managed to grunt an affirmative, and bent to the bed.
"Now be careful, this is a ninety-dollar skirt," she giggled. Greg smiled, and gently began to tug the skirt down her hips. She lifted her rump to assist him. Within seconds, he felt his shaft almost strangling in the confines of his trousers.
While he tugged at the skirt, Denise began to fool with his belt and zipper. Just as he got the skirt down to Denise's knees, she managed to lower his trousers as he leaned over her. Immediately, he felt himself jut through his shorts. Denise giggled, "Hmm. Nice. Men are so damned male! Some of them, anyway."
Greg succeeded in slipping the miniskirt from her legs and tossed it in the general direction of the chair on which she'd thrown her halter. He kicked his trousers free and stood up, removing his shirt.
Denise lay quietly on the bed, her hands cupped around her breasts again. She wore transparent, bikini panties. Greg dropped his shorts, and finished undressing her.
"Tour hands are warm. I like that," she said quietly, still staring directly into Greg's face. He found he could stare back at her-directly into her hazel eyes. She had a way of almost smiling so that small laugh-crinkles appeared around her eyes. Greg liked that. This is a girl, he thought, who spends a lot of time laughing.
He felt his member throbbing, and he hoped he would be able to please Her. Not explode too soon, but soon enough. He hooked his hands in the sheer fabric of her panties and Denise cooperated by lifting her hips from the bed.
Greg slid the pants down her legs and let them drop to the deeply carpeted floor. He traced with his eyes the soft swell of her breasts, and the satin-like fineness of her stomach. He explored her navel, then he slowly traced a path down her smooth belly to the curly triangle. "Lovely," he said again.
Denise reached her arms up to him, and pulled Greg down to the bed. "Now, let's see what happens," she said teasingly. Greg felt her hand suddenly grasp his now almost impossibly hard organ.
With the drinks still actively causing colors and shapes in his mind, Greg was almost certain that sparks had emitted from her touch. He smiled widely down at her.
He leaned down, and lying next to her, gently kissed her ear. She smiled, her eyes closed in a sort of mini-ecstasy, and he heard her sigh deeply. She squeezed her hand tightly around his shaft, causing him to wince in pleasure.
"Hmm. Nice," she murmured. "But first, let's get you done. Second time around, you can take your time." She rolled over, until she was flat on her back, at the same time, tugged at Greg's hips, forcing him to be poised above her. "Now, Greg. Now."
She moved her legs apart, and Greg felt her hand guiding him against her. He felt her warmth as he pressed himself against her. She gave a small moan, and pressed Greg's buttocks down. Greg felt himself slide in, and at the same time, he felt her contract around him in an exquisite tautness.
She began to move her hips, first upward and downward, coaxing him deeply into her, then, once he felt firmly imprisoned in her, from side to side, sending shivers of electricity along the length of Greg's body.
He felt himself growing even more erect as she began to slam her hips up against him. He bent his head to her breasts and closed his mouth around a nipple, sucking die taut button until it was rock hard between his lips.
He felt her contract around his shaft, and knew that he would soon explode. Suddenly, even as Greg felt himself going over the top, he felt Denise's body arch triumphantly, and he felt her begin to contract even more tightly around him as she, too, reached her moment.
He came like an explosion of pure fire. Denise groaned loudly, her legs tightly wrapped around Greg's waist, pulling him further into her.
His mind slowly came back to the room. She lay under him, her eyes open, staring up at him. "Man. Who'd have thought? Whew. That's the first time that ever happened on the first time out. Man!" Greg stared down at the girl and smiled. Her remark made him seem suddenly a giant. He wondered quickly if she was sincere, then, with her contractions still keeping him between her legs, he decided she was either a satisfied woman, or a hell of a good liar.
"You're wondering if I did? Don't wonder. I did," she said, almost as if she had read his mind. "That's pretty important to a guy, huh? A chick coming, I mean."
Greg leaned down and pressed his face to her cheek. "Yep," he said. "Pretty important." She laughed quietly and wiggled her hips, causing Greg to feel himself almost ready again.
He lay there quietly without moving. He recalled that lately when he and Roberta had made love, she had almost always pushed him off her. He hadn't liked the idea, but had never been able to figure out why. Now, with Denise lying contentedly under him, patiently holding him, he realized what it was that was missing with Roberta once they had made love.
It was the warmth afterward, the spent ecstasy slowly ebbing, the hot fire slowly cooling down. And, he added, the absolute intimacy of his body lying quietly in hers, the battle of the sexes for the moment stilled, and only her slight contractions to signal further charges. It was a good feeling, he decided.
Denise lay quietly, her hands resting lightly on Greg's back. "Wanna see something?" she asked. Greg whispered yes into her hair., She began to flex her inner parts, caressing Greg's shaft in a special, warm way. He felt himself rising within her.
Just then, the door to the other part of the suite opened. Armadegli stood there nude, his arm around Laura, who was also nude. "Hey, Greg, ol' boy. Good, very good. I was worried about you, my boy. But I see you're right in there, Back in the saddle again, eh? Heh heh." Greg turned his head around and stared quietly at Armadegli and Laura. Denise lay quietly, apparently "unconcerned.
"I'm not finished, Phil. Just a moment, huh?" He felt ridiculous. Was this a new ingredient? He felt somehow anticipatory. The addition of Armadegli and Laura to the bedroom wasn't just two more people. It was more like an equation. Sex with one woman was fine. Sex with two women would be fine plus a variable. And the addition of Armadegli would be an ingredient, too. Albeit, an unknown.
Greg lay poised, his shaft in Denise. He didn't say anything. A strange feeling of expectation came over him, and he wondered what the next move would be.
Laura broke the silence. "Two's company, you know, so four's an orgy! Whee, let's orgy!" She laughed loudly and walked quickly across the room. Greg watched her, then turned his eyes to Denise. She lay under him, gently moving her hips against him, drawing him on.
"I don't care what you do, Laura," she said quietly, "just don't pull him off me." Greg felt her contract again, and he knew she was building fast.
"Well, er. Ah. Uh," Armadegli said nervously. "Hmm. A little extra, huh? Okay?" But he stood his ground, waiting to see what Laura was going to do next. Laura clambered onto the bed, and took a position behind Denise and Greg, so that she was cradling Denise's head in her lap. Greg lifted his eyes and stared at the pink buttons of Laura's nipples directly in front of his mouth.
"Oh boy," Laura said in a stage whisper, "orgy time." Denise laughed as Laura pressed her breasts against Greg's face. He felt his shaft throbbing deeply within Denise, and as Laura pushed her breasts to his face, he opened his mouth and took her closest nipple into his mouth. Laura immediately began to move herself back and forth against Denise's head. Suddenly, Laura pushed herself upward slightly, so that she was straddled across Denise's face, her nipple firmly in Greg's mouth as he lay above Denise.
Greg felt the movement, and pulled his head back from Laura's chest. The girl had moved herself into a sitting position, her cleft now pressed against Denise's mouth.
Greg forgot to move his hips against Denise for a moment as he adjusted his mind to this strange new encounter between humans. Laura was careful not to sit completely down, but instead poised herself directly against Denise's mouth.
As Greg watched, he saw the union of Laura and Denise, and he saw Denise suddenly flick her tongue up, licking at Laura's moist sex, as she moaned happily.
Greg watched as Denise began to push her tongue upward, finally parting the cleft Laura pressed toward her. Then, as Laura began to gyrate against Denise's now frantically probing tongue, Greg felt Denise's in-sides begin to contract again. She was rapidly approaching her moment.
"Jesus," Armadegli cried from across the room, "will you look at that!" He laughed loudly, nervously, and walked to the bed. Greg felt himself surrounded by flesh. He knew he was about to explode. And for the space of a full moment, he forgot to be amazed at what was happening and threw himself full into the melee of arms, legs, groins, tongues, labia and breasts.
He felt himself beginning to erupt in Denise, and at the same time, he felt her begin to rapidly contract. Laura, too, was groaning ecstatically, her orgasm starting.
Armadegli stood next to the bed, wondering where to assist. "Oh, wow," he kept saying. And "Jesus, look at that!" Suddenly, Laura grabbed Denise's head in a wrestler's grasp, and as Greg stared at the girl's contorted face, she groaned and began to shudder against Denise's kiss.
At the same instant, Greg felt himself burst into Denise even as she thrashed to the limits of her apparently stupendous orgasm. Armadegli watched and clapped his hands in glee.
Within seconds, it was over. Laura fell back from Denise's mouth and lay quietly, her eyes closed as the shudders of her orgasm passed into memory.
Spent, Greg waited a few moments, then when he felt Denise expel his shaft, he rolled from her, to wind up sitting next to her and Laura. He laughed quietly to himself.
"Damn, that was fantastic"
"Me next, huh? Me next," Armadegli cried.
Denise lay quietly on her back, her hand resting on Greg's leg, her eyes focused softly on his face.
"First time you ever grouped?" she asked him. Greg nodded, turning to Laura. The girl lay quietly on her side, her eyes closed. He turned back to Denise, "You can get pretty involved in that. I mean, it's wrong-and yet...."
"Wrong?" Denise asked. "How is it wrong? What, you got some book on morals? Listen, man. All sex is supposed to be wrong. So what the hell is the difference as to how wrong you get? Some guys diddle sheep, some women prefer to get theirs from dogs. They're wrong. Or are they? Group sex is groovy. It's like twenty orgasms, instead of only two or three." She stretched, arching her body.
Greg nodded, his body in full agreement, but his mind not ready to accept the fact. "Hey, now me," yelled Armadegli. Greg rolled up to a sitting position, and stared at Armadegli. The older man was erect, and Greg noticed Laura open her eyes quickly to stare between Armadegli's legs. She shrugged. "Now him" she said laconically.
Denise sat up on the bed, and Greg noticed how her nipple had become distended from his apparently urgent sucking. The effect was somehow intriguing. He climbed off the bed.
"Listen," he said. "I've got a phone call to make. I'll be back in a minute."
He walked to the other room of the suite, and closed the door behind him just as Armadegli was settling him-self between Laura's legs. Denise had already clambered to a sitting position atop Laura's face.
Greg closed the door behind him and dialed the hotel lobby. Within moments, the operator had him connected with his apartment in New York. He waited as the phone rang four, then five times.
Roberta apparently wasn't home. He wondered suddenly, for the first time in his marriage, whether she was out with another man. Immediately, he knew why he wondered.
Sex was marriage. It was inconceivable to Greg that Roberta could be out playing around and still be married. And, Greg reasoned, since he had been faithful to her for the three years of their marriage, it was impossible to think she wouldn't have been. Until Denise, he added.
Now that he had been unfaithful, it suddenly seemed a very human thing to do. And he wondered fleetingly, as the phone rang for the seventh distant time, if Roberta had discovered that, too. Fidelity works only if it's adhered to by both partners. Let one, Greg thought to himself as he hung up the phone, cheat-and the game is over. Thereafter, fidelity bred suspicion. He felt a certain sadness as he sat back on the bed.
Sadness because of his own infidelity, he knew, but more-because for the first time, he doubted Roberta. He searched the room for a cigarette, found it and lit it. He sat back down on the bed and listened to the giggles, guffaws, and pantings from the other room.
After a while he got up and trudged to the door. He slid it open and smiled at the tableau of Armadegli on his back, Laura rocking rapidly back and forth as she sat on his waist, and Denise happily astride Armadegli's frantically flicking tongue.
They all had dinner then, a late supper at a swank restaurant on Philadelphia's north end. Armadegli almost swaggered as they entered the place. And, a ninety-five dollar meal later, he swaggered again as they headed for the hotel.
"We get off here," Laura said as the cab pulled to a stop. "It's been great." Armadegli, his eyes now puffed in exhaustion, was only too quick to say, "Well, er, uh, yes. It's been great. Really has, girls. Sure you both won't come up for a nightcap?" It was obvious he didn't mean it.
Denise quietly shook her head no, and Laura was already out of the cab as Greg said, "You said you were in the New York office?" Denise nodded, and pausing momentarily before she spoke, as if she were considering the ramifications of telling Greg, finally said, "Yes. The New York office. Channing. Ask for Denise Channing if you call." Then, with a flash of white thigh as she got up from the cab's seat and out the door, she said, "Please call. I'll expect you."
Greg smiled at the girls as he watched them walk to the cab stand. He kept his head turned to the back of his cab even as they sped off into the late night traffic.
Armadegli watched Greg for a moment, then said, "That's trouble, my boy. Fooling around on a conference trip is one thing, Greg. But, and remember this, Gaines executives don't crap in their own backyards. Keep her for Philadelphia trips, not in New York."
Greg turned from watching the girls as they waited for a cab, and started to say something. He changed thought in midsentence as he said, "But she was-well, it was fun while it lasted."
Armadegli nodded. The cab turned a corner and the girls disappeared from view. Greg settled himself for the ride back to the hotel. There'd be sleep, now, he thought happily.
And tomorrow, back to New York City, and Roberta, He wondered if he would ever bring himself to tell her, He closed his eyes for a moment, and almost started at the vision he saw Roberta stood before him, taller than him by at least three feet. She was nude. Her breasts dangled menacingly on her huge chest, and each was tipped with spigots. While he stared, Roberta suddenly lifted her hands to cup her breasts. From each spigot, a long jet of lava squirted down on Greg. The hot, sticky fluid covered his face, searing him.
He awoke suddenly. The cab had arrived at the hotel. Armadegli was half out of the cab before it fully stopped. He slammed a five dollar bill into the driver's hand and laughed, "Keep the change, my friend. A gesture of brotherly love from New York to Philadelphia. Heh heh." The driver nodded curtly.
Greg felt his stomach suddenly lurch as he climbed out after his superior. "And now, my boy, one more drink to trim the wick of this eventful evening, eh?"
Greg dejectedly followed Armadegli into the hotel cocktail lounge. Two hours later, and after four more drinks, Greg numbly let himself off at the ninth floor. He managed to make it to the room before he vomited.
The following morning, Armadegli and Greg made the plane with only six minutes to spare. "What a conference, eh, Greg?" Armadegli laughed as they settled themselves for the flight to New York.
Greg nodded. "Yeah. What a conference."
CHAPTER TWO
Greg's head ached in geometric progression to the intensity of the 707's engines. At the point where the big jet was awaiting takeoff okay, Greg would have described the ache as unbearable. As the big ship finally began to roar down the asphalt runway, then to laboriously lift off on its forty five degree climb to altitude, the ache became indescribable.
He closed his eyes and pressed his stomach out against the seat belt to ease the pounding in his head. The trick worked only slightly, and that was because it transposed his headache to a stomach ache. He kept his eyes closed until the stewardess began her scripted "Hello, this is flight 456 to New York and London," and so on.
Armadegli, his thoughts wrapped up in the merchandising trade publication he was reading, paid no attention to Greg's mumbled laments. "Hey, Greg. Look at this. The Oswego office has set up a new mod boutique. Hmm. Bears watching." He rattled the slick-papered magazine in front of Greg, demanding his attention. Greg forced his eyes open and mumbled a perfunctory "Uh huh. We should. By all means." The jet's whine settled into a dull roar.
Now that the plane was at altitude, Greg thought to ask the stewardess for an aspirin. He rummaged through his brain for several recipes for curing hangovers. He wondered half seriously if he'd have the nerve to ask the girl for a Bloody Mary, but the thought of the ingredients stopped him.
After forcing a burp, which he half hid behind his hand, Greg found he could keep his eyes open without any severe increase in his headache. He swore again, as he glanced at Armadegli's blown, puffed face and reddened eyes, that he'd permanently forego any further drinking bouts with him.
But, Greg admitted after staring at the older man for a moment, Armadegli did hold his hangover well. Greg decided it must be an art and turned his attention to the couple seated directly across the aisle. Kids, he guessed. They'd boarded at Philadelphia.
The girl, who sat on the aisle seat, was talking animatedly with her friend, a boy or man with long, shoulder length hair and a full beard, and a gold earring dangled from his right ear.
Both of the people were barefoot, and Greg noticed that neither of the two strangely garbed people paid the slightest attention to the glances other passengers and-the stewardesses were giving them. He wondered for a moment if this was due to a studied disinterest, or from a sincere disregard for the opinions of others. After watching them for a moment more, he decided that they really couldn't have cared less what others thought of them. He debated this a while, then found himself wishing that he, too, could forget the opinions of his fellow passengers and do exactly what he wanted to do at the moment, which was to he prone on the carpeted floor of the plane and fall sound asleep. He pictured himself doing it, and a momentary smile creased his face. He continued to watch the two young people.
The roar of the engines settled somewhat, and Greg found that by cocking his head slightly, he could hear the young couple's conversation as they chatted excitedly.
"And for cryin' out loud, they busted him for seeds! Can you imagine?" the girl was saying, "they actually busted him for two little seeds! As if you could smoke them!" Whoever "he" was, Greg surmised from the conversation that a friend had recently been arrested. He wondered for a second or two what "seeds" they were referring to, then decided it must have been marijuana seeds. He wondered quickly if the young couple smoked dope. The notion bothered him.
While the girl talked, the boy listened attentively. Greg saw that he wasn't just waiting for her to finish her sentence so that he could insert his opinion-he was really listening. It made Greg think suddenly of being back in college, listening to an especially good lecturer or teacher. Each word is important-then the response would be a progression of the topic, not a bid for attention.
The plane bumped down a few hundred feet as it hit a low pressure center, and the girl's Mexican vest lifted on her chest. Greg saw that the girl wore nothing under it. He caught a fleeting glimpse of her young, well pro-portioned breasts, tipped with glowing pink nipples.
He thought back quickly to Denise. How last night in the hotel, she had been so proud of her body, as if it was a precious gift, and not the repository of evil lustings. The two across the aisle seemed to Greg to have a healthy look about them. He thought that it must be their youth. Despite their bizarre clothes, they seemed clean.
He listened, then, as the young man started to talk. "Hey, man. You know Denmark has abolished censorship? Good move, huh? They did it a couple of years go, and now the porno writers and the skin flick producers have nothing to sell. Nobody's buying. Wild, really wild." Greg smiled at the youth's use of the word "man" for the totally feminine girl who listened in rapt attention.
The girl nodded gravely. "Yeah. Too bad they don't try that here. Might save a hell of a lot of psychiatrist's bills. But then, you'd have the AMA on your back." Somehow, the girl, though younger and apparently of a larger build, reminded Greg of Denise. He found himself, as he listened to their conversation, as deeply involved as they were. Greg didn't notice Armadegli staring at him.
After a moment, Armadegli dug an inquiring elbow in Greg's side. "Hey, Greg. You taking wierdo lessons?" Greg turned to Armadegli and smiled a half smile. "Huh?" he asked.
Armadegli nodded to the young pair across the aisle. "Them. Jesus, lookit them. Filthy. Absolutely filthy. Eccch! She's probably diseased." Greg let the smile fade on his face as he stared into the older man's eyes. He saw how the previous evening's booze had caused red, almost welt-like puffs under the rims of Armadegli's eyes, and Greg noticed tiny flecks of white saliva forming at the corners of Armadegli's mouth. Considering his face for a moment, Greg decided that Armadegli was the one who looked ill, not the young people. He kept silent and turned back to the couple. Armadegli made a loud snorting sound and returned to scanning the "Department Store Review of Fashions."
Greg took more time now in scanning the couple next to him. They paid no attention to him. He saw the young man wore a bright, apparently silk shirt, deeply purple and strangely iridescent. Over the shirt, the youth wore a Mexican vest, similar to the girl's. He had looped, in several casual windings around his neck, a necklace of brightly colored beads. Around his head, keeping his brown hair out of his eyes, he wore an ornamented leather headband, as American Indians are often pictured wearing.
The effect, after once gotten used to, was pleasant, Greg mused. Casual, and at the same time carefully thought out. And probably most important, free-looking, as if the freedom to dress the way he desired was more important to the youth than any particular fashion dictate.
The girl's outfit was similar only in its bright coloring. Her leather skirt was fringed around the hem, giving an Indian effect. It was short, even shorter than most miniskirts. She sat back unconcerned as the leather skirt climbed her thighs to show a small patch of her underwear. Greg smiled at the thought of Armadegli's prying eyes toying up the girl's dress to rest on the delicately protuberant mound between her legs. Only to loudly say, " ... and she's probably diseased." If she was, Greg decided as he watched her, hers was a kind disease. And one that he would readily wish on the rest of America's womanhood.
The girl nodded at something her partner said and then started to yawn. She raised her arms high above her head, and Greg saw again the twin mounds of her lovely breasts as she stretched. The youth glanced at Greg and saw him staring. Instead of a jealous sneer, the youth merely glanced to where Greg was looking and smiled. The smile was, Greg recalled later, almost like a thunderbolt. Warm, flashing, open and absolutely impossible not to return. Greg smiled back, and immediately felt a warm blush spreading across his face. He thought to look away, but something in the youth's eyes said 'Don't be frightened. Look all you want. Beautiful, isn't she?' Greg felt his mouth work its way from a half smile of amenity, to a wide grin of enjoyment. He nodded, still smiling, and continued to stare at the girl as she yawned. When she finished and lowered her arms, to bring the vest down around her breasts again, Greg realized she was staring at him, too. He looked into the girl's eyes and felt immediately like a Peeping Tom. He felt embarrassed.
The girl, obviously aware of his eyes on her breasts, merely smiled at him, however. Her smile, too, was open and friendly. She nodded a hello and immediately turned back to continue her conversation with the youth next to her.
Listening more, Greg learned that the couple were from suburban Bala Cynwyd, and were headed from Philadelphia, via New York and London to Algeria. The only bad note to his eavesdropping came when he heard the girl say, quite casually, " ... and they got grass for two bucks a kilo. Imagine, two bucks a kilo. Oh, wow."
Nearing Kennedy International, the captain suddenly announced on the loudspeaker, "We'll be circling New York for half an hour waiting on a landing okay. We'll be on the ground by 5:15. Thank you." Greg glanced at his watch and cursed under his breath. Five-fifteen. That meant the plane would be more than forty-five minutes late. Then, immediate relief set in. There'd be no arguments about his lateness from Roberta-this was her night out, as Thursday evening had been for the last year.
His headache returned, and Greg sat back with his eyes closed to spend the remaining moments of the flight resting. He began to play a small fantasy as he hovered on the brink of dozing.
He would get home. Roberta would be there, a drink ready and sitting like a jewel on a serving tray. She would be wearing only a diaphanous gown. The crinkled, carmine tips of her ample breasts would be barely visible through the sheer fabric. He would kiss her, his tongue flashing into her mouth, to be sucked warmly by Roberta's pursed lips.
He would down the drink slowly. While he drank, Roberta's hands would be busy at his trousers, lowering them. He would be hard and ready for her, and longer than ever imagined. She would slowly begin to caress him as he stood there, sipping his drink.
She would look deeply into his eyes, and at the same time, she would slowly lower herself to her knees. He would look down at her benevolently.
There would be a moment of electricity as he felt the warmth of Roberta's mouth. He would smile and close his eyes, and Roberta wouldn't stop; rather, she'd welcome his eruption.
"I'm sorry, but you'll have to put your shoes on. It's a regulation." Greg snapped his eyes open and saw the back of the young stewardess as she knelt in the aisle, talking earnestly to the young couple across from him.
"But why? What difference could it possibly make? Besides, my shoes, and her shoes, are packed away in the belly of this plane. Don't be such an eager beaver, huh?" The youth's voice was soft but the encounter with the stewardess caused it to rise a little.
Greg blinked the sleep from his eyes and stared across at the three. The girl had hunched her legs up on the seat, and was staring over the tops of her knees to the seat in front of her. She seemed to be paying no attention to the stewardess, whose face was becoming redder each second as she implored the couple to put on their shoes. Finally, after no success with the youth, and aware that the girl wouldn't even talk to her, the stewardess walked crisply to the front of the airplane. Greg smiled at the youth and nodded, as if to say, "Give 'em hell, sport." The youth nodded back in exasperated agreement.
Greg wondered if the stewardess was talking with the captain; "Lissen, cap. We got this freaky couple with no shoes on, and the chick has these great looking boobs she keeps flashing around. Want me to throw him and her out the aft window?"
The captain's voice again came over the plane's loudspeaker system. "Fasten your seat belts please. We'll be landing in six minutes. The time is now 5:17 eastern standard time."
Nine minutes later, the plane rolled to a stop at two horseshoe shaped loading platforms. Greg was surprised to see two uniformed policemen immediately get on board the aircraft. The stewardess followed immediately behind the policemen, and all three headed straight for the couple across the aisle from Greg. "That's them, right there," the stewardess was saying.
"You have to put your shoes on, kids," the older of the two policemen said, rather kindly. The youth started to say something, but the younger of the policemen, a dark haired man of about twenty-seven, perhaps a young thirty, sneered, "Look, don't give us an argument, huh? Just put your frappin' shoes on, will yuh?"
The girl's eyes opened wider, and she turned to the youth, a question in her eyes. The young man got up slowly and stared at the policeman. "Now, look, this is ridiculous. We have shoes, but they're locked away in the luggage compartment. You want us to cover our feet so bad? Okay-we cover our feet!" He reached for the front of the luggage rack above his head.
Greg saw he was obviously trying to grab a blanket there, but the younger policeman apparently misinterpreted the sudden move and before the youth could grab the blanket, the policeman raised his night stick in the air, ready to slam it down on the youth's head. The girl screamed, and the older of the two policemen grabbed his partner's arm. "Jesus, Loring. Hold it, will yuh? The kid's just reaching for a blanket." A man three seats down laughed.
The younger policeman dropped his arm grudgingly and stared at his partner. His face reddened in frustrated anger and embarrassment. "Well, goddamit. You gotta watch these pinko bastards. Gotta watch 'em close. Okay, wise guy, you get off here. Up!"
Neither of the two "pinkos" offered any resistance, and Greg was dumbfounded to see the two policemen guide the couple to the door.
The last he saw of the two, the girl was walking stoically behind the youth, who by now was handcuffed to the older policeman. After they left, and as the rest of the passengers, were getting off, Greg overheard one woman of about fifty exclaim, "Well, that snotty kid had it coming. And did you see that girl? Naked as a jay bird under that filthy rag. Serves em right!"
Greg made an elaborate mental shrug. Armadegli, who stood by laughing as the two were arrested, grabbed Greg's arm. "See that, Greg? Only way to handle 'em. One good chop to the neck, and pow. That's all it takes. One good chop to the neck. Damn punk kids."
Greg nodded and fell in line behind Armadegli as the two snaked their way to the passenger door. Greg debated Armadegli's remark.
He walked closely past the stewardess who stood in a neighborly fashion just to the cabin side of the passenger door, wishing all and sundry " ... a pleasant day, and thanks for flying Pan-World."
He stared at her face. She seemed pretty, in a cosmetically packaged sort of way. Just above the collar of the miniskirted uniform she wore, Greg noticed a deep red blemish. It was a love bite, he guessed. She had apparently had as good a time in Philadelphia as he had. He and Armadegli headed for the baggage area.
Armadegli pushed his way through the baggage wait, and laughing, dropped Greg's suitcase at his feet. "See, Greg? You gotta push to get what you want. Push. Always push for what you want!"
By this time, Greg was deeply back into his headache. He found he had been clenching his jaw since the incident with the policemen and the young people on the plane.
The thought of sharing a cab with Armadegli all the way to New York was preposterous, so he fled, "Listen, Phillip. Roberta will be along for me in a little while. We're going out to Long Island tonight. You hop a cab and I'll see you tomorrow at work. Okay?" Armadegli frowned and answered, "Oh. I thought we could stop at I the lounge for a few quickies. Oh well, no harm done. Greg, get plenty of sleep tonight. After the report, that Greg wondered why he bothered to ask Armadegli, "What report?" The answer was obvious, and had been bothering Greg all day. Armadegli had a boss, too, and he'd want a report.
Armadegli lost no time in replying, "I want you to submit a complete report on the conference. Names, awards, ideas. Lots of graphs, too. Got to earn this expense account loot, y'know. Drop it on my desk in the morning, Sadie'll type it and hand it in for me. I'm going to be in late. Very late."
Greg nodded numbly and shook Armadegli's hand. The older man's eyes suddenly locked onto Greg's. "And Greg, be sure to leave out the little fiesta last night, right? We're back in home territory now." He laughed self-consciously.
Greg stared at him and nodded. "Sure, Phillip. Sure." Armadegli glanced around to his right, then to his left. "And Greg, at work tomorrow, drop the Phillip, huh? call me Mister Armadegli. Image, you know. Right?"
Greg nodded again, dropping Armadegli's hand. He started to say something, but a slowing cab caught Armadegli's attention. Before Greg could voice this thought, Armadegli had given his suitcase to the redcap and had already turned to the still moving cab. The cab stopped, and the driver took the suitcase from the redcap, then slid it in the front seat. Armadegli settled in.
The cab started off, and Greg felt obligated to hand the redcap a fifty cent piece for his assistance.
The clock just above the Mohawk Airlines ticket counter showed almost five-thirty. Greg thought to call Roberta, but reasoned that she had probably already left for her mother's. And, he found himself admitting, he didn't particularly care to go through one of Roberta's cross-examinations.
"What did you do? Where did you stay? Did you learn anything?" And other questions, too, he added. "Whom did you sleep with?" But, he thought as he walked back out to the cab stand, that one wouldn't be asked out loud. Just implied.
He felt a further twinge of sadness as he recalled his realization of the previous evening. He'd been unfaithful. Thus, from now on, there'd be that question in Roberta's eyes-even if it wasn't there in reality, he'd put it there. He wondered for a moment how long it would take for the guilt feelings to assuage themselves. Until he could again tell himself that his marriage was whole.
Then, as he waited for a cab to pull up, he wondered if it was simply his infidelity that made him wary of his marriage. Something more, perhaps. Something elusive. The glow that lingers in the mind's eye once the light is turned off, or tire feeling one gets when a book is merely scanned and not read. Something remains elusively real, yet indistinct.
He forked two fingers in his mouth and whistled down a cab. No redcap materialized, so Greg lugged his own suitcase to the cab and propped it on the floor by his seat.
He gave the driver his address, and sat back to watch the meter run on the long ride through Queens, the Midtown Tunnel, and into Manhattan.
He found himself wondering, as the cab passed the glut of neon that passes for architecture on both sides of the tunnel, where the two kids on the plane were now.
He let his mind conjure up an image of them, chained to a dingy wall in a sub-sub-sub basement of a jail. A mustachioed policeman languidly stroked a cat o' nine tails as he eyes the girl's lovely naked body. "So, you pinko creeps. You'd dare to go on an American plane shoeless, eh? Well, (swat, swat) that for you! Hah!" Mercifully, the girl slumped into unconsciousness.
The driver turned around as the cab slowed for the tunnel toll. "Mac, you got change for a five?" the driver asked. Greg nodded and fished five singles from his wallet. The driver handed him a five dollar bill and accepted Greg's singles.
The toll guard who took the money, a morose looking Negro of about fifty, grunted a laconic "Thank you" and the cab sped into the tunnel. Greg thought back to the time when he was a young child seeing the toll takers resplendent in their uniforms, handling all that magic money-how exciting it was all then. He mused how his life had seemed to change, a little each day, until now, the uniform, the handling of the money, seeing all the cars pass by and all the people in them, seemed dull.
Like his life had become, he mused as the cab exited the tunnel and turned into the "uptown" lane. Dull. And he wondered if that fit himself. Hardly, he amended. The image of Denise under him filled his mind.
He wondered if he'd ever see her again. Then, as the cab headed uptown on Seventh Avenue, he found himself hoping that he would see her again.
By the time his cab got to eighty-sixth street, Greg's mood had elevated a bit. The image of Denise, her breasts cupped in her hands, was imprinted on his mind.
Now, he thought, that's reality. Not some futile gesture of bizarre dress, or love beads and exotic prayers like the kids on the plane. Reality is the pressure he felt growing in his groin. Pressure that could only be alleviated by a woman.
Half-erect by now, Greg found himself almost wishing that Roberta would be home. A little lovemaking would soothe the kinks out of his tired frame, he felt. Then, amending his thought, he switched to the image of Denise instead of Roberta. The pressure increased immediately. Besides, he thought, Roberta would be out, anyway.
CHAPTER THREE
Roberta was out. Her note, hastily scrawled on a small blackboard by the hall phone said, "I had to leave, sorry. I'm at Mother's. There's a TV dinner in the fridge. Love."
Greg rummaged in the freezer compartment of the still unpaid for refrigerator and found the dinner. He debated, imagining what the Mexican combination plate would do to his still queasy stomach. He decided that the small hunger pangs he had would probably grow into giants within an hour or so, and resignedly, he flipped on the timer dial on the wall oven. He slipped the foil wrapped dinner into the oven and spent a moment or two watching the heating bars start to glow redly.
The clock above the oven showed just after seven-thirty. He considered for a moment calling Roberta at her mother's, then decided that the call would be wasted. Roberta would know he got home alright. Besides, he reasoned, the few hours alone would be refreshing. Roberta would probably be late, as usual, and he'd have the evening to himself to watch "Star Voyage" on the TV.
"Star Voyage," in full, living color, was one of Greg's favorite programs. He enjoyed the use of wild costumes, and the almost manic way in which the show's bigger-than-life characters laughed and fought their way through the alien universe. Always winning, of course. Against Martians, Venusian mammoths, and Plutonian Armadeglies. Armadillos, he corrected himself.
He chuckled as he caught his error of pronunciation. Armadegli for Armadillo. One sucks ants, he chuckled. The other sucks souls dry. Greg remembered Armadegli's demand for a report.
The smell of the frozen Mexican dinner began to fill the small kitchen, and Greg found he had guessed right. He was starting to be really hungry. He rummaged again through the refrigerator and found a half-flat bottle of ginger ale. He retrieved the dinner from the oven, and set both dinner and drink on the table. He began to mentally construct the report on the conference.
Half an hour later, he had the basic outline of the report worked out in his head. He was about to clean up the mess he'd created, and start typing when he heard the music.
Loud, almost floor shaking music was bombarding the tiled ceiling of the apartment. Greg, at first, smiled and guessed Milo and Christine were having another party.
Their Friday night affairs were the talk of the building. Without fail, Milo and Christine threw a party every Friday evening. Usually, however, they were quieter.
Roberta had met Christine one day at the basement laundry area, and over their respective washes, the two young women had chatted and become friendly.
Milo, Christine's husband, was a city inspector for the Board of Weights and Measures. A licensed electrician and electrical engineer, Milo chose to dwell at the low five-figure end of the affluent society by staying well secured within the city's Civil Service system. His job with the city paid him about eleven thousand annually-enough, Christine always laughed to Roberta, to keep them in booze and records.
Greg had met Christine only once, although he'd spoken to Milo several times in the hallway elevator as both men returned from their jobs in the evening. Greg's feelings for Milo were vague. He didn't particularly like the younger man, nor did he dislike him. He lingered midway between neutrality and slight distaste for Milo.
Now Christine, he often thought, that was a different story. The one time he'd met her, he had been impressed. She was pretty; not Hollywood pretty, but certainly not "home town girl" pretty, either. Her figure that day last summer when she sat, bikinied and casual with a rum and coke clinking in her hand, was good to the point of being almost obscene.
Her breasts were large, yet from the way the bikini draped on her, they were firm. Greg had tried not to stare at her, but lost the battle.
The two girls had been chatting, and each time Christine laughed, she had lowered her head, causing her shoulders to press forward, baring even more of her cleavage. The laughs continued, and Greg's wide eyes had glimpsed down into her bikini top, to see the crinkled edges of her nipples. Embarrassed at his immediate physical reaction, he had stammered a hurried " ... er, I'll be in the living room reading" and tromped off, to muse about this beautiful neighbor.
He hadn't seen her since, but Roberta's day to day gossip about Milo and Christine upstairs triggered many fantasies in which Greg would be the aggressor, and Christine the sexual recipient.
The music from upstairs seemed to be growing louder. At one point, just as Greg was lugging his portable typewriter to the kitchen table to begin the report, a loud thud reverberated through the ceiling, followed by a moment of silence, then a chorus of what sounded like cheers and boos.
His mind refused to form the necessary sentences to get the report rolling. Greg thought by concentrating he could eliminate the roar of the upstairs party.
After tearing five different first pages of the report from the typewriter, he eventually sat back, staring at the ceiling. Whatever they were doing now, it sounded almost like a wrestling match, or a karate exhibition. Shouts, cheers, loud music, and an occasional bumping sound all echoed in Greg's kitchen.
He sat for about fifteen minutes conjuring up images of the party upstairs, complete with bald men with lampshades on their heads. Finally in exasperation, he pushed his chair back from the typewriter and trudged to the hall telephone table. He searched around and found the directory, with a vague notion of calling Milo and asking him to quiet his guests.
He flipped open the book and stopped. He almost laughed out loud when he realized he didn't know the couple's surname. Morgan? Mondrian? Montpeher? He found himself smiling.
He'd lived in the building since he and Roberta were first married, three years ago. In those three years, Roberta had probably talked about the couple upstairs at least five hundred times, and never once had the question of their name come up.
Greg found himself sure that their initial letter was "M", but as to the rest of the name, he was at a loss to remember it-if ever, he wondered, he had known it. He slid the phone book back under the telephone stand. The noise from upstairs continued. Greg's nerves built the noise into a deafening roar, a sound-view of Niagara from two feet away. He felt his headache returning, and the thought of the still unstarted report made the ache pound with increased intensity.
On inspiration, he decided to walk down to the lobby, locate Mdo's name on his mailbox, and, armed with the name, look up the phone number. He put his jacket on and started for the lobby.
Downstairs, just as Greg walked from the main lobby of the building to the glass walled vestibule where the chrome plated mail boxes were lined up in neat geometry, he saw Mister Karbedjian.
The old man shuffled across the lobby. Greg smiled good naturedly and nodded. "Evening, Mister Karbedjian." The old man stopped and shifted the newspaper wrapped bundle of garbage he carried. He smiled a toothless, old man's grin and nodded his head three times in succession. "'Alio, Mister Williams. 'Tsnice to t'see you. Lofly efenink, eh?" Greg nodded as the old man walked through the glass door into the vestibule.
Greg began to scan the rows of mailboxes looking for Milo's name. Karbedjian paused before the boxes, too, He peered into his box and sadly shook his head. "No ledder fum fambly, still. Soon I guess. It here soon a ledder." He looked up from his peering and glanced into Greg's face. "You look for fambly's ledder, too?"
Greg smiled and said, "No: I'm looking for a name. The couple in 18C. Above us. I want to find out their name."
Karbedjian shifted his garbage bag again and shook his head.
"Hey, Mist' Williams. They bad nooz. Bad, bad nooz, Always makin' soch racket. Can't never sleep fum racket they make. Phew. Noisy, all time noisy poddies."
Greg nodded. "Yep. They got one going on now I want to call them and tell them to quiet down." Karbedjian opened his mouth, started to say something, then fell silent. Greg continued to scan the rows of mail boxes. He finally located apartment 18C and saw the name. Morland.
Karbedjian kept watching Greg. He shifted his garbage bag from one arm to the other. Finally, chewing his lip as he spoke, he asked,"
"Why you call on phone? I'm good friends, no? Your wife is...." Greg interrupted by saying, "I don't have the nerve to bust in on their party. I just want to ask Milo to cool it a little."
Karbedjian stopped staring at Greg and returned to looking at his mailbox. Something seemed to be bothering the old man, but Greg interpreted his sudden silence to be sadness at his always empty mailbox. Karbedjian lived in 19C; that was about all anyone knew of him.
He was seen at least twice a day peering into his mailbox, and one Passover, two years ago, four middle-aged people were seen entering his apartment. They left three hours later, and that was the extent of Karbedjian's visitors. Greg guessed the old man to be on the dole from his married children, and often felt a sadness as he watched the old man peer patiently into his usually empty mailbox.
After more peering, Karbedjian nodded "Good ni' Mista Williams," and trudged off toward the street. Greg stared after the old man for a while, then carefully formed a mental image of the word "Morland" in his mind to remember it until he, got to his apartment.
He turned and started for the main lobby. He walked to the elevator, and hummed quietly as he waited the car's arrival. He found his headache was lessening. The trip downstairs, away from the accusing typewriter and the raucous party noises from upstairs, had eased the throbbing.
The car arrived at the first floor, and the doors slid open. Greg got on, and saw Mrs. Prothero. He smiled "Evening." Mrs. Prothero lived in 12D and was a widow.
Greg thought back to the open house party he and Roberta had thrown when they'd first moved into the new building. Mrs. Prothero, twenty-nine and pretty in a school teacherish way, had had seven martinis.
She had gotten morosely, maudlinly drunk. Then she had stripped. Just before taking off her bra, she had passed out.
Greg remembered back to the party, and a quick image of the woman-dead drunk, her cotton panties clutched high on her hips, her foam-lined bra half off, her pitiably small breasts peeping out from under the fabric-and had felt immediate remorse.
He'd tried to assist her. She had awakened when Roberta forced some ginger ale down her mouth. Then she had vomited. Greg lifted her up off the living room floor and carried her through the rows of silently laughing neighbors into the bedroom.
Still very drunk, the widow had held her arms up to him, imploring Greg to make love to her. He had refused, and instead, gently tucked her under the blanket and sat for two hours, holding her hand and telling her she wasn't quite the fool she thought she was. She eventually stopped crying, and slightly sobered, thanked Greg profusely for not "molesting" her.
At four in the morning, when the guests were leaving, Greg had walked her to her apartment. He'd seen her only twice since then, and both times from a distance.
Now, face to face with Mrs. Prothero, he felt his face reddening as he held his hand out to the woman. She smiled at him, not really looking into his eyes, and mumbled "Good evening, Greg. And how are you?" Her proffered hand felt clammy.
"I'm fine" and "Well, so long" made up the entire elevator ride to the 12th floor, where Mrs. Prothero got off. Greg wished that he had talked more with her. But, he thought, the guilt of silence wasn't all his.
By the time he got to his floor, he forgot the meeting entirely. Inside, he dialed information.
"I'm sorry, but the Morlands have requested that their phone number be kept confidential. If this is an emergency, I'll connect you with the chief operator. Thank you," the impersonal voice on the phone said. Greg stared at the instrument for a thought or two, then dropped it back into its blue cradle. Another thunderous boom came through the ceiling, and Greg let the echo of it force his feet to the front door. He'd go up and tell Milo in person. Enough was enough.
Rather than wait for the elevator, Greg climbed the metal fire stairs to the 18th floor. His shoes clanked in hollow echoes as he walked up.
At the 18th floor, Greg had a moment of annoyance when the fire door, installed for safety in the event the elevators were not operative in an emergency, stuck on the hinges. He grunted a couple of hard pushes, and the door swung outward.
The 18th floor looked Just like the 17th floor. Greg walked purposefully to apartment 18C, hesitated a moment, then knocked on the door.
He waited a full sixty seconds, listening to the sound of the party inside, then knocked again; three sturdy raps. The noise seemed to be abating a little, and Greg wondered in panic if perhaps he wasn't being a spoil sport. "Party pooper" Roberta used to call him, back when they still gave parties. It was two and a half year since he and Roberta had given one.
Someone began to inch the door open. Greg though it strange that the door didn't open fully, but he smiled when he recognized Christine's face peering out behind the dangling lock-chain.
"Greg! Well, I'll be goddamned. Greg!" she squealed and Greg felt immediately foolish. "Hi," he said simply all thought of yelling at the girl gone in a glimpse of he blonde head.
Her head was all he saw. Christine kept the door chain on. She studied him for a second or so, the turned behind her. "Milo! It's Greg. Greg Williams, from downstairs. Roberta's Greg." Greg still thought strange the way Christine kept hiding behind the door The party sounds had stopped entirely now, except for an occasional chuckle or giggle from within.
Milo apparently answered Christine, for she turned back to the doorway. "You want to come in?" she asked but made no effort to open the door. Greg lamely began "Well, I heard the noise through the railing and-" Chris laughed gaily and said, "Hell. Come on in. You' neighbor enough."
Greg almost shouted when she opened the door. She was stark naked and had large blue circles painted around her breasts, with her nipples done in a contrasting shade of crimson. The effect was astounding. Concentric painted circles in varied hues ringed her navel. Greg stood his ground in the doorway, and roved his eyes over Christine. She stood quietly, a smile flicking on her face. Finally, after Greg stopped gulping and blinking, she said "Greg. You're staring. Come on in." He didn't think to argue.
He smiled, wondering what he could say in answer, and hesitated a moment before Christine's beckoning arm. "Well, I-er-uh. You're-er." He felt his ears getting warm and knew that a deep blush was creeping across his face. Christine seemed calm enough.
Christine stepped aside from the door frame and, gently pulling Greg's arm, dragged him into the apartment. The brightly lighted hallway dulled his vision for he dimly lit room, and it was ten or fifteen seconds before he saw that Christine wasn't the only naked person in the large living room. The room was full of naked people-all of them staring at him as if it were he, and not them, that looked out of place. An orgy, Greg thought, he'd interrupted an orgy. "What's wrong, Greg? Surprised?" asked Christine, her large blue eyes laughing. "Strip down, meet the folks," she added gesturing around the room. Greg suddenly recalled the scene in the bedroom at the hotel with Denise and Laura, and the flaccid but eager Armadegli. The picture blurred into insignificance as he poked around the living room of Chris' apartment. Greg thought he recognized several of the guests, they were all about thirty, or younger, and they all stared back in amused interest. One girl, her trim belly neatly criss-crossed with a body-paint rendition of the Union Jack, hollered across the room, "Chris, you sure this guy's neighborly?"
Chris laughed easily and nodded, "Yep. Greg's our downstairs neighbor. Roberta's his wife." The girl seemed satisfied with Chris's pronouncement and went back to tickling the man whom she sat straddled over.
Even as Greg watched, the girl grasped the man organ in her hands, and adjusting herself carefully aimed him into her.
As Greg watched wide-eyed, the girl lowered herself on the man's rod until she was fully enveloping him The man, Greg couldn't see his face, grabbed the girl buttocks and pulled her down firmly against him. Chris watched Greg's eyes for a moment, and saw that he was staring at the fornicating couple.
She said, "Took you long enough, Greg. To come up, mean." Greg listened but didn't hear. He stared around the room, pulling his glance away from the now thrashing couple just twenty feet away.
"Oh, come on. Strip, you fuddy duddy," Chris laughed energetically, as she began to tug at Greg's jacket. He grunted a forced laugh, and decided to let her have her way. Chris managed to get his jacket and tie off, when her cool hands slid inside Greg's now soggy white shirt. "Darned uncomfortable clothes," she chortled.
Greg let her work her hands under his belt, then felt sparks as she dipped her hand down to his groin, and his trousers. "Okay, Okay," he said, "I'll strip."
Two people, a girl and a man Greg recognized from the laundry room, laughed toward them, "Atta boy, Greg. Get naked." Chris kept tugging at Greg's belt, a after a moment, Greg cringed inwardly as his trousers fell around his ankles.
That far into the spirit of the room, Greg gave up pretense at trying to understand the goings-on, and dropped his shirt and shorts, socks and shoes onto his jacket and trousers. He stood back from the mound clothes and shrugged his shoulders, as if to ask, "Well, what's next?" Christine smiled warmly, her breasts jiggling up and down on her chest, as she suddenly threw her arms around Greg's neck.
"Ooh," she hollered gaily, "I love tall men. Especially big tall men. And you are big, Greg. Hmm, nice and big." She stared down between the union of their bodies to Greg's shaft, which by now was standing fully erect.
Greg gave up trying to fathom Chris' and the other guests' behavior. Christine gave a yell and jumped up around Greg's waist. I He held her close and felt the end of his shaft pressed between their respective bellies. Christine, still hanging onto Greg with her legs wrapped around his waist, lowered one hand to his shaft and carefully placed him against her as she leaned to kiss him.
He felt her tongue in his ear, and at the same time, he felt her push herself against him. Deliciously, he slid into her, his hands cupping her rounded, firm buttocks. He held her against him, and felt her encircling him. He began to move his hips against hers, but she said, "No, Greg. Don't move. Just carry me. I want to introduce you to the guests." Greg felt himself just moments from explosion, but complied with Chris's dictate, clumsily carrying her around as she introduced him to the couples.
CHAPTER FOUR
There were more couples. Greg, with Christine still impaled on him, her legs clutched up around his waist, her hands holding onto his broad shoulders, met the people in the living room. He felt himself only physically involved with Christine; his body signalled he was about to explode within her. Christine had brought him to the point at which he was about to lose all control. But his mind refused to turn off.
This is impossible, he tried to tell himself. He had walked in on an orgy. And instead of the-guests being frightened, they had smiled greetings, offered handshakes, and the beautiful hostess now sat happily against him. But his mind refused to come into the union. A voice, a feeling perhaps, kept saying who are you?
What's happening? He felt Christine's sex tighten around him; she was about to explode, too. The holy union of his body with hers had triggered her, her moment was imminent.
"Stop for a minute, Greg. Just stand here," she breathed into his ear. And Greg gave up thinking for a moment to feel her slam her hips against him, to feel her contract in ecstasy around him. She moaned, thrashing herself against him as much as the clumsy position allowed.
"Now!" she screamed, and Greg clutched tightly on her buttocks as Christine went over the top-two-three-then a magnificent four times. Even as he felt his eruption begin the voice began to return asking the same questions.
Then the questions died as he erupted mightily within Christine's clutching sex. His explosion jumped to maximum intensity, then stayed for what seemed to be an eternity. He felt his fluid spurting as Christine worked her inner muscles to coax him on.
When they were finished, he felt weak. Holding Christine up around his waist, then exploding into her, had drained him. He sighed deeply and looked around the room for a convenient place to deposit her. She nodded toward a couch.
Christine felt him falling to flaccidity within her, and smiled. "Not bad, Greg. Not bad for a first time." He smiled an answer and walked to the nearby couch. A couple on the couch had become so involved in their actions they had slipped halfway to the floor. Greg walked to the free end of the couch and leaned forward.
He felt Christine slip from the end of his now falling shaft and helped her to a sitting position on the couch. She threw her head back and laughed.-"Whew. Too much! Just too much. I'm glad you finally came up." She fell back against the couch, legs casually wide.
Greg heard the echo of her remark. "Finally?" he said, staring at her chest. Her breasts stood firm and heavy, her nipples now beginning to grow soft in the warm afterglow of successful sex. "What do you mean by finally?" he asked.
"The invitation's been out to you for the longest time. I'm just glad you finally decided to take me up on it." She paused a moment, her pink tongue quickly circling a delicate arc around her lips. "You did know you were invited?" she asked.
The couple on the end of the couch slid to the floor and finished their mutual orgasm rolling on the thick carpet.
Greg glanced down at the couple and recognized both of them. But there was something wrong. The girl was Mrs. Gardon; Greg had seen her many times in the neighborhood supermarket. But the man, who now lay panting in grateful exhaustion above her, was Jerry Hanson. Jerry had a bread route, and had moved into the apartment building, with his lovely wife Jennifer, only three months before. They were a friendly, open couple.
If Jerry Hanson was sweating between Mrs. Gardon's warm thighs, where the hell was Jerry's wife? And where in this melange of arms, legs, breasts, genitals and laughter was Mrs. Gardon's husband Frank? Greg turned to stare at Christine who was quietly letting him rove his eyes among the guests. Where was Milo?
Christine seemed to read Greg's mind. "He's in the bedroom. Some of us like group sex, and some of us, Milo, for instance, like the solitude of the bedroom." She watched Greg's face slip into a frown. "What's wrong, Greg," she asked.
He looked from her eyes to the curve of her bosom, to the slight bulge of her belly, to the nap of moist, curly hair between her legs, then up to her eyes again. "I don't believe this," he said. "I came up here ready to scream at you about the noise. I was Greg Williams. I lived here in this apartment building. I knew you, or thought I did. I walked in here, and I've just made love to you. And I haven't even been here fifteen minutes." He roved his glance around the room again, saw four couples at the far end actively involved in an apparently hilarious daisy chain, then added, "Now I don't know anything. Everything seems upside down."
Christine looked quietly back at him, her blue eyes radiant in the aftermath of their lovemaking. The sounds of the party continued, by now just giggles, happy grunts, and a sporadic panting from the couple who lay head-to-groin with each other across the large living room. Soon, even they subsided into merely heavy breathing. The hi-fi set snicked repetitively over and over as a finished jazz record refused to stop its revolutions.
"There are more people here?" Greg quietly asked. He had a specific question in mind, but the bone-smashing, nerve tearing answer could only be yes. He didn't know if he could face the answer. Christine watched his face for a while, then jumped up from the couch. "Hey, Greg. Come on, meet some of the other people you still haven't seen." Greg nodded numbly and got up from his half-crouch in front of Christine.
"Might as well give you the guided tour" she laughed. He followed her to the kitchen. Once inside, Greg saw six people gathered around the kitchen table. They were playing some sort of game that involved regular playing cards, electric slot-cars whirring merrily on half inch wide tracks, a set of three dice, and a parcheesi board.
Greg gave up almost immediately trying to fathom the rules of the game, and fell to staring at the people. Most of them were already naked, but one girl, whom Greg didn't recognize, still had a long line bra and her panties on.
At a roll of the dice, the girl squealed and moved her model car several feet ahead on the track. Then, with a shy glance at the man to her left, she reached down and stroked his sex. "Ooh, it is, it is," she cried, and then quickly scooped up three cards from the pile in front of her. She arranged the cards carefully, then squealed again as she said, "Oh, three red cards? That, with Mel's dork, makes a total of seven Mille. I'm going to win, I just know it!" She rolled the small car two feet further around the circular track, then frowned, as she saw her car stop just inches behind her opponent's.
One of the other participants, a red haired nude woman laughed malevolently. "You can't have three meld with only four feet of travel on a throw of three.
Take off your bra, Louise." Resignedly, the girl complied.
Greg fought to stop from laughing. The game defied anything he'd ever seen. But, he marvelled as the girl's bra came off, the end result of the game seemed to be worth it. Once freed from the bra, the girl's breasts swung seductively as she tossed the garment to the floor. Immediately, the man to her right reached over and casually began to massage her nipple, forcing it upright and hard. She giggled, but didn't stop him. Christine explained.
"Looks weird, I guess. They call it slot-cheezi-oker or something like that. The object is to make the game so complicated no one can win-then they all have to get naked. Sexy, though," she admitted as Greg stood with his arm draped around Christine's waist.
As Greg stared, one man got up from his chair and stood behind one of the seated, nude, women. He pressed his groin against the back of her head and laughed. "Turn around, Marlene. A surprise for you." The girl turned around, and Greg watched as she opened her mouth around the man's half-formed erection.
"No fair, Max, you cheated," yelled one of the other men, and the laugh travelled around the table. Within seconds, the man's weapon had grown to fill the girl's mouth.
"Come on, there's more" said Christine. Greg nodded goodbye to the players and followed Christine through the kitchen.
Just as he got to the small hallway separating the kitchen from the rest of the apartment, he stopped; his attention caught by a couple on the floor by the freezer.
A girl lay on her back, apparently nude. Greg had to stare for a moment to be sure. The man, who lay on his side next to her, had covered the naked girl's body with whipped cream from an aerosol dispenser, and was quietly licking it off.
Greg watched as the man's tongue first made patterned traces on the girl's softly undulating belly, then lower on her hips and thighs. A mound of the white cream was carefully centered just covering her sex, and the man took his time reaching the mounded mons. After a few moments, the girl moaned loudly, and grabbed the man's head, at the same time spreading her legs far apart. "Ooh, there. Put some there" she murmured, pressing her finger against her cleft. The man complied, and she wiggled her body in delirious abandon as she felt the cool cream froth against her warm sex.
The can now empty, the girl pressed the man's head against her, saying quietly, "Lick, Morris. Lick!" Greg smiled down at them and shrugged. "To each his own, I guess" he laughed toward Christine who waited a few feet down the hall.
Further down the hallway, Greg saw another couple. Though the woman sat on the man locked quietly in sexual union, neither moved. They stared deeply into each other's eyes, making no movement or sound whatsoever. Greg looked questioningly to Christine. She held a finger up to her lips and whispered, "Shh. They're playing yab-yum. The object is to last as long as you can without moving. It's great, but it's mind-blowing after a while. Shh."
Greg tiptoed past the couple and continued his tour, Christine came to one of two bedrooms in the apartment, and held her hand on the doorknob, awaiting Greg.
"Come on in here a minute, Greg," she said. Greg walked through the door as Christine opened it. Inside, he waited a moment until his eyes could adjust to the brightness of what appeared to be photographer's fights, Two women and a man lay in a tumble on the massive bed. Greg saw another woman, nude and shapely, taking pictures of the frantically thrashing trio.
At one point, the man rolled onto his back, and immediately one of the girls straddled his swaying weapon, spearing herself expertly as the man adjusted the other girl across his face.
Once settled, the man contentedly bumped his hips upward, forcing his shaft deeply into the girl who sat on his waist, while at the same time, he moved the buttocks of the other girl against his mouth. The camera clicked away, and Greg asked Christine, "Aren't they afraid of taking pictures? What if some should get lost, or fall in the wrong-"
But Christine interrupted him with a toss of head. "Dummy. There's no film in the camera. That's just Henrietta's thing. She likes to pretend she's photographing people making love. She gets her jollies that way. Right, Henrietta?"
The girl nodded, concentrating on setting up the next shot. Greg noticed that, after each click of the empty camera, the girl stood quietly, letting shudders trip happily along her belly and her thighs.
He turned his head to ask Christine another question, and saw still another couple on the floor by the heavy, oaken dresser. They were both women, and both were so deeply locked in their head to belly embrace that they failed to see Greg and Christine watching them. He turned to Christine questioningly.
"Not many of them in our group. But it's allowed. Not with two guys, though. Guys who are queer are a drag at a party. We learned that the hard way. They get too jealous. Girls, though, it's allowed. They're both married, and they both swing both ways. That's Gloria on the bottom, and that's Celia on top," she said matter-of-factly. Greg nodded gravely, as if he understood all there was to understand about the reference to " ... our group."
Christine watched the women for a moment, then said, "Come on. There's more." Greg followed her back out the door to the bathroom, after one last glance at the women.
Christine knocked on the bathroom door. "Everybody decent?" she called. A woman's voice answered back, "Sure. Come on in." Christine opened the bathroom door, and Greg looked past her bare shoulder into the bathroom.
The tub was filled with what appeared to be milk. Greg saw twelve or fourteen empty gallon milk containers scattered around the tiled room and decided it was indeed milk.
The milk was filled with people. Greg almost laughed as he saw two men in the tub with what appeared to be a three legged girl. Suddenly, the milk parted, and a fourth person, a girl Greg recognized as being a clerk at the Post Office four blocks away, sat up. She blew a geyser of milk into the air and hollered, "Whew, I thought I was going to drown! O, hi, Christine. Hey, I recognize you there. You're-you're, er. Oh, damn. I've seen you at the Post Office."
She sat back quietly as one of the men began to rub his shaft against her bare, milk covered breasts.
Greg nodded to her and smiled a greeting. "I'm Greg Williams. I'm in 18C. Hi." The girl smiled back. "Hi."
She waved her arm around the tableau in the milk filled tub and said, "I'd say come on in, but the tub's crowded. Like maybe later?" Greg said sure. "Later," and turned to follow Christine out the door. Back in the hall, Christine paused a moment. "Greg, I think you should go into the next room by yourself. Don't ask why. Okay?"
The weight of Greg's unasked question felt suddenly like an anvil tied around his shoulders. She would tell him if he asked-but some hint of fear in his face, or perhaps something stronger than fear, told her it would be prudent to let Greg open the final door himself. I'll wait for you in the living room, Greg."
Greg watched her pad off down the hallway to the living room and he stood there, gathering his courage for the final door. So far, the half hour or so he'd spent at the apartment upstairs from his had been dream-like, devoid of any real substance except for a pleasant, fulfilled feeling.
But even that, as he stood with his hand on the door to the bedroom, was fast disappearing. Looking quickly down the nail, Greg felt as if the whole fabric of events in the mad half hour had been just that-a fabric. Something he'd constructed from the material of his mind, and something consequently fake.
There were small laughs in the room. People were in there. Greg cocked his ear at the door and heard what appeared to be more laughter, but muted, as if the participants inside were involved in doing something too strange for the rest of the strange apartment.
He thought for a moment of the old gag. Pinch yourself, you'll wake up. He was almost tempted to try it. There was another small laugh-a woman's giggle. Then, a gruffer, maris laugh.
Greg turned the glass doorknob and felt it slip in his sweating fingers. The door lock snicked free. He pushed on the door. It opened inward.
He stood framed in the light from the hallway behind him. He saw Roberta.
CHAPTER FIVE
She didn't see him at first. Nor did Milo and Vern. They were busy, all of them involved in an intricate triangle of legs and genitalia.
Roberta lay on her back, her head dangling off one side of the bed. Vern lay between her legs, which she had lifted high, her knees thrust upward to her chest. Milo stood on the floor by Roberta's head, his hands pressing her breasts into a flattened mass of pink flesh that seemed to ooze between his fingers. His hips were pressed against Roberta's head, as she kept his member imprisoned in her mouth.
Milo was leaning in over her, as she worked her mouth around him. Vern, thrusting his hips between her legs, held himself off from her, so that he could lean toward Milo. As Greg watched, their lips were pressed against each other's in a fingering, lover's lass. Roberta revolved her body under Vern in seeming ecstasy.
It was a good minute and a half before Milo and Vern broke off their kiss to turn at the same instant and see Greg. Milo immediately pulled his hips back, his saliva moistened shaft bobbing in sudden freedom.
Vern remained between Roberta's legs to stare dumbfounded at Greg as he stood watching them. Roberta Kelt the absence of Milo from her mouth and looked up at him-saw him facing the door where Greg stood-and screamed.
Greg stood. Outwardly quiet, but inside his mind there was chaos. The note from Roberta: a he. The previous week's note from Roberta, another he. Then, as pages are nipped off from a calendar in the hollywood imitation of passing events, the many, many notes from Roberta. All lies.
Greg blinked twice. Oddly, he found himself remembering back to a lecture he'd heard as an undergraduate. An eminent semanticist once said that in the final analysis, words don't work. Greg agreed.
He knew he had to say something to break the tension of the moment. His mouth refused to work. His mind refused to find the words to form the correct sentence. And as he watched, his mind numb, Roberta screamed again.
Milo, recognizing Greg a few seconds after he turned to look at him, jumped backward, caught his foot on a bedroom chair, and landed in a heap on the floor. He scampered to his feet and, once upright, walked with some semblance of calmness toward Greg.
Greg, on an impulse, stood aside to let Milo pass. As the small man walked by him, he said, "You would have found out sooner or later. I'm sorry it had to be this way, Greg."
Greg saw the words as if they were written down on the bottom of the screen of a foreign film. Milo left the room, closing the door quietly.
Vern, his hips still lodged between Roberta's legs, looked down at Roberta, then up to Greg. He chewed his mouth for a second or two, then asked quietly, "Are you her husband?"
Greg blinked again, his mind etching in every detail of the scene of his wife lying under the heavy man's body, pierced by the man's erect shaft.
Greg said quietly, "Get up." Vern answered, "At least give us a moment to get dressed." Greg shook his head!
"No. Get up now, you son of a bitch, or I'll kill you right here."
Roberta screamed again, and moved in frustration under Vern, trying to get herself freed from the core which moments ago had so delightfully filled her.
Vern got up. Greg heard him pluck himself from Roberta. As soon as Vern had lifted himself from her, Roberta slammed her legs down on the bed, then clamped them tightly together. The sound of her legs slapping together reminded Greg of a gunshot.
Vern rolled to a sitting position on the side of the bed and began to rummage on the floor for his clothes. Greg paid no attention to him, but kept his eyes on Roberta. She lay on her back, her chest heaving. Heavy red marks accented Milo's hand prints on her breasts.
Greg's mind worked. The trips to her mother's were all lies. In all probability, he thought, Roberta had been coming upstairs to this apartment for the better part of a year, since the notes first began. "Greg, I'm at Mother's. There's a dinner in the fridge. Love."
Greg stared at Roberta and said, "You too. Get up. Get dressed." He heard the echo of his own words and thought they sounded hollow.
He watched as Roberta, for some reason based in modesty, or perhaps based more in fear, placed her hand on her groin, to shield her sex from Greg's eyes. The gesture was ludicrous.
"I can explain, Greg. I can explain," she said, her eyes wide in fear.
Greg said, again, "Get up and get dressed."
By this time, Vern had struggled into his trousers. Greg turned from Roberta and looked at the man. "You're small. I could kill you with one good kick, you, you're not worth it. Get the hell out of this room." Vern started to say something, saw the look in Greg's eyes, and stopped. He looked to Roberta on the bed. "Reason with him, Robbie," he said with a slight trace of fear in his voice.
Greg's mind exploded at Vern's use of the nickname. It had been Greg's pet name for her. And now Vern, his shaft still wet from her clutching, used the name, too.
As if taking her body wasn't enough; he had to steal her name, too. Greg half turned, and aimed a smashing fist at Vern's jaw. Vern saw it coming and raised his arm, neatly warding off the punch. He scampered across the room.
"Goddam it, Greg. Be sensible. This is a party, and we're all grownups. Simmer down." Greg stood by the bed, his chest heaving as he fought the urge to go after Vern and kill him.
Vern's voice rose as he implored, "Sweet Jesus. This is insane. Greg, this is an orgy! Don't you understand? Roberta is here because she wants to be here Damn it, you're invited, too. Isn't that right, Robbie?
Roberta lay on the bed, now doubly frightened. She had lied to Greg, then compounded the he by telling club members that Greg knew of the orgy, but that he had refused to belong.
Vern saw that Roberta was caught in the he, and revamping his argument quickly, said, "All right. You didn't know. You know why she didn't tell you? You're standing there livid, and that's answer enough. You're out of step with the times, Greg. This is America in 1969. Sex is accepted now."
Greg turned to stare at Vern, then calmly walked up to him. Vern watched Greg's face carefully. Greg forced a grimace that passed in the tension filled room for a smile. He walked to a point where he was standing directly in front of Vern.
Vern, misreading Greg's twisted grimace for a smile, extended his hand. "No hard feelings, Greg?" He doubled over in pain as Greg brought his hand, in the classic Karate manner, deep into Vern's gut.
There was no sound, except for a small grunt as Vern fell onto the floor. Roberta started to scream but changed her mind as Greg turned to talk to the bed.
If yon touch me, so help me God, I'll get everybody in this apartment to come in here and be witnesses," she said thickly. Greg stopped by the bed, staring down at her. He reached down and quietly patted her between her legs. "There now," he managed to say. "I won t hurt you. I won't touch you." He stood up, feeling her moisture evaporating on his hand.
He said very quietly, "You're not worth killing. You're not even worth hurting. Just get up, get dressed, and come downstairs with me. I want to talk to you."
He turned and stepped over Vern's unconscious body. He thought to aim a well placed kick at the fallen man, but didn't, reasoning that Vern unconscious was only a well earned revenge, but Vern dead was another matter.
Instead, Greg glanced back to the bed, and saw that Roberta was gathering her things from the floor by the bed's side. He walked out the door, shutting it quietly behind him. He donned his clothes.
The walk to the living room seemed to be a hundred miles long, and to take at least that many years. Once there, Greg found that most of the couples had dressed and left.
A few die hards, perhaps anxious to see blood skilled, had remained behind. One couple, apparently o obvious to the fact that a man had caught his wife being simultaneously serviced by two men, were still happily locked together. Greg stepped over them and walked to the apartment door.
Christine ran to the door. "You found them? I wanted to tell you, but couldn't figure out how. Don't be too hard on her, Greg. She is a grownup, and she does have a right to her own land of life." Christine had put on a robe, covering her nakedness.
Greg looked down at her, and saw how she barely came up to his shoulder. She managed to look even sexier in the robe. He wondered for a moment how he could feel anything at all, considering the tableau he'd interrupted in the bedroom.
As he stared down at Christine, cataloguing his feelings, it occurred to him that the reason he could feel something for Christine was because he now felt nothing for Roberta. Nothing at all.
No hate. No malice. No desire to hurt her, to maim her. And absolutely no desire ever to make love to her again. He stated at Christine until she was forced to look away. Then he said, "I won't hurt her. I'm just leaving."
Christine nodded, staring down the hall to the bedroom. "I heard a groan before, then a thud. Did youer-did you hurt Vern?"
Greg answered with a nod, "Yes." Christine's face fell into a quick frown as she said, "You loused up a good thing, Greg. You ruined something that could have been good for you. So your marriage was falling apart. So what? Marriage today is only a convenient economic arrangement, anyway. You could have had me or any other woman here tonight, as much as you wanted. You'd have gotten over Roberta's he. You'd have found the one damn thing that makes sense in this world. Fun. And you blew it by frightening the hell out of Roberta and maybe permanently injuring Vern. You're a fool."
Greg inhaled deeply, and the smell of Christine's body triggered something in his mind. He reached his arms down to her shoulders and pulled her against him. He forced his lips against hers, and forced his tongue into her mouth. He felt her body fight against him.
She fought for air, and he felt her foot kicking ineffectively at his shin bone. She didn't respond to his kiss, and he knew he didn't expect her to. He merely wanted to taste her.
Finished, he let her go. She wiped a hand across her mouth. "Remember that kiss, Greg," she said. "It's your last from me. Get out. I'll send Roberta down only when I'm sure you won't 'kill her. Now get the hell out of here.
Greg turned and opened the door to the hall. He didn't remember walking down the hall to the stairway, going down the stairs to the seventeenth floor, or entering his apartment.
He found his mind again when he let the acid taste of straight bourbon burn its way into his mouth. He blinked once or twice, then looked at his watch. It had been almost two hours since he'd left the apartment upstairs.
He sat on the edge of the couch, waiting for Roberta. It felt odd, somehow, to be sitting in his apartment. As if it were no longer his-just hers.
The furniture, each piece of which once had a special significance, now seemed to belong to somebody else. The couch he sat on didn't feel right. He amended that statement as he though about it-it didn't feel safe. It seemed that there was no safety anywhere in the apartment.
No safety from Roberta's lies. No place to sit quietly and say, "All right. Games's over now. No more lies, just truths." No safety from her body either-the body that she so casually gave to strangers-several strangers at once, in fact.
It was another half hour before Greg remembered the party at the Philadelphia hotel. And then the questions started in his mind. Roberta had been unfaithful, but then, he knew, so had he. But, he reasoned, she had been unfaithful first.
Then, he amended again, it makes no difference who's unfaithful first. Fidelity in a marriage is ... and the carefully constructed dialogue he engaged himself in collapsed as he found an answer.
He had been unfaithful because he wanted to be. She had been unfaithful because she wanted to be. So, they were mutually miserable.
He got up, and carefully dumped his drink onto the flowered print of the couch, and then dropped the glass down onto the glass of the coffee table top. Both the glass and the top broke.
He stared down at the jagged shards of the coffee table top and smiled down at his image. Broken face. Broken marriage. Broken life.
He put his suit jacket on, then donned his topcoat. He walked into the bedroom and rummaged around in a top drawer for a checkbook. A vague notion bothered him apart from the vision of Roberta spread so seductively under Vern. Money, he thought. He'd need money. He decided he'd withdraw two thirds of their savings, about fifteen hundred dollars, and he'd take the car.
The rest-the furniture, the color television set, the appliances-these he'd leave Roberta. Payments remained on some of the items, but Roberta, if she wanted to keep them, could easily afford the payments from her salary as a researcher for Branton, Forsythe, Driscoll and Coombs.
Greg found himself wondering, as he glanced for a final time around the apartment, if perhaps it wasn't Roberta's job that caused her entrance into the orgy.
At the ad agency, Roberta spent hours each day poring over newspapers and magazines searching out the ingredients in the current news that might make for trends. And, Greg, reasoned, with inordinate amount of sexuality apparent in America wouldn't some of it rub off, from the newspaper and magazine accounts onto her? He snorted, annoyed with himself.
He started for the door, then realized he'd need some clothes. He fished through his closet and found another sports jacket, a pair of slacks, and a raincoat. He stuffed some toilet articles quickly into a travel case, then shoved the travel case into his two-suiter. He stared at the colorful Philadelphia sticker.
Roberta had given him the two-suiter for a birthday some time back. He toyed with the notion of leaving it and putting his clothes into a cardboard box, but decided that a gesture like that would be just that-a meaningless gesture.
Packed, he stopped in the doorway and lit a cigarette. The apartment stared back at him. Empty, quiet and overwhelmingly sad. He shut the door and locked it, then slipped his key under the door sill, to hear it clink beyond his reach.
His next stop was a telephone booth. He rummaged in his jacket pocket and found the slip of paper he had written Denise's phone number on. It was a Beekman exchange. That meant she was not too far from him. He found himself sweating as he dialed her number.
Denise's voice was cool when she answered the phone and remained cool until Greg identified himself. Then "Wow! My friend the traveling salesman. Sure I remember you. Damn straight I do. Up here? Sure. Give me ten minutes." He enjoyed her excitement.
And that was that, he sighed, Throw away the key, make the necessary phone calls, drive a few blocks and enter a new life. Zap, pow-end of chapter.
He got in his car and headed for Seventy-ninth street. He found himself envisioning Denise. Nude, her breasts swinging invitingly, her skin fresh from her shower, her body sweet smelling. He didn't think about Roberta.
He almost smiled.
CHAPTER SIX
Half an hour later Greg sat comfortably in a leather! covered TV chair, enjoying the drink Denise had pre-l pared for him. She sat across from him, her body neatly! balanced on the edge of an ultra-modern freeform chair.
She smiled over her glass as Greg finished telling her of his encounter with the swap club, and his ordeal with Roberta and Vern. He left out any mention of Milo! Some notion of chivalry caused him to feel guilt at telling about Milo with his organ between Roberta's lips.
He looked up at Denise, expecting sympathy. She i threw her head back and guffawed. "Whooee. What a trip! A whole house full of screwers, huh? And you're upset? What the hell for? From your actions in Philly, I, er, got the impression you couldn't have cared less about your wife or what she did. After all, I recall your face peering at me over Laura's shoulder. Tit for tat, buddy. Sauce for the goose, dig? Your pride is ruptured, but that's all. Your marriage was washing up long before that." She finished and sipped again at her drink.
Greg started to answer her; then stopped. How could he tell her it was more than a case of bruised pride. That after Philadelphia and that wild weekend, he decided to try again with Roberta.
He stared at Denise for a while, then got up, fidgeting. "What's wrong? I say something too heavy for you?" she asked. Greg shook his head, "No. It's just that-well, I kind of expected some sympathy or something from you. Not the cold shoulder."
"Oh, poor baby. He's actually sulking. Oh, come off it, Greg. You're a big boy. And in case you haven't looked lately, I'm a big girl, too." She stood up, her eyes staring into Greg's. "Remember?" she taunted with a touch of false venom.
Greg saw she was trying to get him out of himself. He forced a smile and took another mouthful of his drink. "I remember. I remember very well in fact. That's why I came up."
Denise watched him for a moment, then walked to the stereo in the corner next to the, window that fronted onto seventy-ninth street. She selected a couple of records from the disordered stack on the thick carpet, then set the mechanism to working.
In moments, the living room was filled with the raucous sound of a rock 'n' roll combo. The volume was just short of deafening. "I like it loud," she hollered.
Greg nodded, the music too loud for him to speak. Denise looked once out onto the street, eight floors below, then turned back to Greg. "You want to see me strip? I do it very professionally."
Greg looked at her for a moment, then nodded again. "Sure," he tried to shout. His shout was lost in the cacophony. Denise smiled, her body already started to weave in time to the steady, heavy beat.
She danced to the middle of the room, her eyes on Greg, but her mind already at work choreographing her movements. Greg sipped again at his drink, his eyes on Denise.
In the middle of the room, she daintily kicked off her shoes. Greg laughed as one sailed past his head.
Denise kept waving, her hips revolving seductively as she danced. She stopped for a moment, and her body still suggesting movement, bent to remove her stockings.
Somehow, Denise managed to make that look sexy. She rolled first one, then the other, of her stockings down her legs. They fell in a diaphanous flutter to the carpet.
Upright again, Denise weaved in rhythm with the music-this time slowly unbuttoning the buttons down the front of her dress. As Greg watched, she undid the buttons, then with the music reaching a crescendo, she shook her shoulders.
The dress slipped from her shoulders-then fell in a flutter from her hips to land in a tumble at her feet. She stepped out of the dress, and Greg stared at her.
Her brassiere was sheer enough to suggest the dark edges of her nipples. She smiled as she saw the gleam of interest in Greg's eyes. With one fast motion, she dropped her half slip to the carpet.
She danced now in her bra and panties. The music built and Denise began to fondle her breasts through the fabric of her bra. Greg watched the small buttons of her nipples press tautly against the thin fabric.
She danced a few more steps, her hips still undulating and brought her hands up behind her back to unhook her brassiere. She knew the value of suspense and Greg felt his shaft hardening as he watched her slowly unhook her bra.
With a flourish of music, Denise plucked the bra from her chest.
Freed, her breasts fell forward, then bobbed on her chest. Greg saw that her nipples were hard, and he felt his shaft bob in answering tautness.
The music built again, and Denise lowered her hands to her panties. She whirled around, presenting her back to Greg's eyes. While he watched, Denise began to lower her panties around her buttocks, all the while dancing an unbelievably erotic combination of steps to the blasting music.
With the panties down and her buttocks bared, Denise turned to face Greg. He saw that she had maneuvered the panties so that they covered only her mons.
He stared at the soft bulge of her belly, then to the dark triangle of her pubic hair at the bottom of her belly. She watched Greg's eyes, and tantalized him with rolling movements of her hips and breasts.
The music was familiar to her, she had apparently danced to it many times, learning its intricacies and rhythms, and timing her body to respond to it.
A blast of bongos, augmented by a nerve jarring twang from a guitar signalled her finale. Slowly she began to inch the panties down. Her pubic hair peeked over the fabric as she lowered them inch by inch.
With a shout of manic triumph, she dropped them from her hips and let them fall in a tiny flutter to her ankles. Daintily, she stepped from the panties and stood completely naked before Greg's chair. He smiled a wide smile and clapped his hands.
The music died away in the background, and the record ended. Greg stared up at Denise as she stood before him. "C'mere" he said. Denise walked to his chair, to wind up standing a foot or so away from him, her body nude and open before his eyes.
He reached his arms to her hips and drew her body toward him. "I wanted to do this at the hotel, but stopped. I won't stop now" he said. Denise shuddered in delight at the feel of his hands on her hips as he brought her against his face.
He stared at the triangle between her legs. She seemed to sense what he wanted, and moved her legs slightly apart. He looked directly between her legs, staring at the cleft she presented him.
She shuddered again, this time more noticeably, as Greg began to nuzzle his face against her. He felt her hands gripping his head, then felt her fingers entwine in his hair as his tongue probed. He pulled her buttocks to him.
She groaned as he parted her labia with his tongue.
Her smell was female, tangy, fresh. Yet redolent enough of musk and sex to cause Greg's shaft to press painfully hard against his trousers.
He pushed his kiss against her, and felt her gathering momentum as she moved her hips in time with his tongue. Soon she was forcing herself against his rnouth with bone jarring lunges. Her breath began to come in gasps, her body thrashed in ecstasy. Greg, too, as he felt her straining against his kiss, felt a kind of ecstasy. Her moment became his moment, and her sighs of release signaled a release of sorts for him, too.
She shuddered, standing pressed against him, her belly undulating, her sex contracting in wild lurches. She shouted, then her shout subsided into small moans of pleasure as the spasms shook her. Then she was finished.
She remained against Greg, her legs spread, her belly heaving as she came back to earth. Then, without a word, she stepped back from him. Greg watched her eyes, and saw she planned something for him. He waited.
"Get undressed, Greg." she requested. Greg dropped his clothes to the floor. "Now, he back," she commanded. Greg eased himself back comfortably into the large chair.
"Move your legs a bit," she urged. When she had positioned him the way she wanted, Denise fell to her knees in front of the chair. Greg felt her warm kisses as she tantalizingly worked her way up his legs. She reached her hand up and began to stroke Greg's shaft.
He felt a drop of moisture fall from his glans, lubricating her hand as she stroked him. The sensation was intoxicating. Soon she knelt directly in front of him, her hair fanned out on his thighs. He forced himself to keep his hands still, and fought the urge to grab her head and force her mouth onto his throbbing weapon. She'd get there soon enough, he told himself, so he lay back quietly, feeling her warm darting tongue.
Just before he lost control and would have grabbed her, he felt her mouth begin small kisses on his shaft. Slowly Denise worked on him, until Greg thought he'd burst.
Then, at exactly the right moment, almost as if Denise were working from a programmed manual on Greg's anatomy, he felt his shaft sucked deeply into her. He moaned at the excruciating warmth of her tightly pursed lips as she accepted him.
She ran her fingers along his belly, his thighs, then between his legs, gently cupping his sac in a tender but firm grip. He felt his moment coming, and he knew he was about to burst into her mouth. He wondered, with a tiny portion of his mind, if she would stop. A moment later, he knew she wouldn't.
He grabbed her head, pressing her onto him. She seemed to welcome his grip, and her mouth circled him even tighter. Then, in a burst of magnificent colors in his mind, Greg felt his fluid begin its journey down the length of his shaft.
Denise felt him erupting, and her hand squeezed between his legs, as she began to work her throat muscles in order to take every drop. Greg arched his back and forced his body against her mouth.
He later felt as if it had taken a million years and endless comet tails before he finished, and she never once removed her mouth from him. Rather, she seemed to welcome all he had.
He lay quietly then, and watched as Denise padded across the living room to quietly step into the bathroom for a minute. He heard the water running from the tap, and within moments, she was back.
"Too bad you didn't stay with your wife's club, Greg,'" she said. "You could have taught them a few things." He smiled as she walked to the couch. She still looked vulnerable, almost little girl-like. Her face was glowing, and her eyes told him she was ready for another trip to ecstasy.
She lay down on the couch, her legs apart slightly. "Let's have a rematch" she said languidly. Greg got up, and walked to the couch. Denise held her arms up to him, a gesture of pleading, it seemed. He settled himself above her, and felt his diminished shaft press lightly, flaccidly, against her.
She began to roll her hips under him, coaxing him to hardness. Soon, he felt himself growing. Within what seemed like only a few seconds, he was as hard as before. "Hmm" she said into his mouth as he kissed her, "You don't waste too much time down, do you?"
He pressed his body against her, and he felt her hand grasp his shaft. She wiggled a bit under him, then he felt her aim him into her. Once aligned, he pushed. He felt himself sink tightly into her warmth.
Deliciously, he lay quietly encased in her, feeling her heart beating in a gentle rhythm as he toyed with a nipple. Soon, Denise began to push her hips upward against him, drawing his length into her.
He shifted a bit, and placed his hands under her buttocks. Then, when he felt her beginning to tighten down on him, he pulled her upward, welding his body to hers. On an impulse, he pressed his finger against the taut dot of her anus. She moaned, it was a happy moan. He felt the dot working in tiny spasms that correlated to the rhythms her sex now began to play.
She let her feelings take complete charge and Greg felt her starting to go over the top. Then, Denise slammed her hands down on his buttocks above her, urging him on, pleading with him for more.
She moaned, her mouth open against his, and he felt her nails dig small dents in his buttocks as she came. He moaned too. Then, for the second time in less than fifteen minutes, he felt himself ready to discharge into her.
The explosions of his shaft was almost painful, and he thought for a moment that he was going to explode right along with his weapon. Denise, her orgasm almost finished, felt him erupting deep within her, and the feeling triggered yet another shudder along the length of her body. Finally, their explosions stopped.
Greg lay panting, his head resting on the soft mounds of her breasts. He tasted her sweat, and delighted in her salty taste as he ran his tongue in small traces between her breasts.
It was a full ten minutes before she spoke. Greg listened, his eyes closed as he rested on her. "Colors," she said. "I saw magnificent colors." She shivered again in memory of the kaleidoscope that had flashed into her mind during their lovemaking. Greg felt proud. But more than that, he felt somehow more. More of a man, more of a human being, and perhaps most important, he thought quietly, more free.
The debacle of the apartment, the horror of the interrupted triangle-with him cast as as the villian-lost the hard edge of reality, and the scene with Roberta, Milo, and Vern was now just a dim memory. Almost as if he hadn't lived through it at all. It was Denise who'd done this for him, he reasoned. And his next thought jarred him.
Did he love her? Had he fallen for her-not only physically, but emotionally. Had her body pulled him into freedom? And was the feeling he now experienced for her only gratitude, or did he really feel love for the delightful girl?
He kept his head against her chest and heard her steady heartbeat. He stopped wondering about his feelings then, and gave in to sleep. Denise, hearing his breathing even out to a quiet, sleepy rhythm, wiggled her body once to ensure her hold on his organ and slept herself.
He woke up first, feeling her body still warm around him and he smiled as he lifted his head to stare down at her. She looked beautiful in her sleep. Her face relaxed into soft lines, and her warm breath puffed a strand of her soft hair into waving, golden fronds.
He kissed her gently on the top of her nose. She wiggled her nose-a delightful, innocent wiggle. Greg leaned his head down and kissed her again, this time gently forcing his tongue into her mouth. He tasted her sleep taste, and enjoyed it.
She woke up, felt him still in her, and smiled up at him. He felt her body warming under him, and felt his shaft starting to rise again. She smiled as she felt him filling her.
Within moments, they were deep into each other's bodies, and soon they crashed together into an abyss, then roared over the top to completion.
Exhausted now, Greg gently pulled himself from Denise and stood up. "Any food around? I'm starving to death." Denise yawned deeply, stretching her arms upward-a beautiful, sensuous odalisque. "Sure," she said, settling back after the yawn. Then she got up and walked to the small kitchen that faced off the living room.
Greg found his cigarettes and lit two of them, walking into the kitchen to hand her one. She let him place the cigarette between her lips, and inhaled deeply, half closing one eye to escape the smoke's sting.
Soon the smell of bacon and eggs filled the kitchen, and Greg watched as Denise expertly flipped the food onto two plates. 'Toast?" she asked. "Thirty pieces," he laughed.
Twenty minutes later, as Denise poured him a third cup of steaming coffee, she said matter-of-factly, "I'm going to Texas."
Greg looked up from his toast. 'Texas? What the hell's in Texas?" She placed the coffee pot back on the three burner stove and sat down across from him. She began to toy with an end of toast in small circles of coagulating egg yolk. "Oh, not much in Texas. But I'm going to El Paso. Mexico is just across the border. I'm going to strip there in a nightclub."
Greg watched her toying with the toast, and felt suddenly heavy. The periods of ecstasy,, only slightly interrupted by breathing time, were beginning to wear off. Making love to Denise was forever, but now she was saying that it would end.
Her body-firm, young, pliant-was going to be taken from him. And worse, she would leave him none of her mind, either. The warm words, the happy giggles-these would all be gone.
"You're going to strip? You mean a strip teaser?" he asked.
"Yep. I've been practicing. I'm sick of modeling for Gaines. And stripping pays well. Chuy Maneco-he's the owner of the Noche Del Rio in Juarez-told me manager that I can get about four bills a week. Just for showing my boobs on stage?" She stopped toying with the toast and looked deeply into Greg's eyes.
"Hey. You want to kill two birds with one stone?" she asked him. He looked at her, saw how her breasts peeked mischievously between the open folds of her robe, and saw the flush on what appeared to be happiness on her face. He watched her as she waited for his answer. After staring at her for a long moment, he said, "Sure. How?"
"Come with me. Oh, it'll be a ball. An absolute ball! Just think of it. The two of us in Mexico. Bull fights, fiestas. Oh wow! Think of it." Her eyes danced as she envisioned the two of them laughing up and down the streets of Juarez.
Greg watched her face, and after a moment of hesitation, answered, "Why not? I'm a free agent. When do we leave." Denise hollered merrily, "Yippee!" and jumped up to kiss Greg's butter smeared mouth. She sat heavily down on his lap, and hugged his head to her bosom. "Man, what a ball. What a genuine blast I-we're gonna have!" They spent the next two hours talk-ling excitedly about the trip-and established that they'd leave in Greg's car the next night. Greg had a fourth cup of coffee, and then he carried Denise to the small bedroom.
This time, they took their time. When he felt himself buried in her, he lay quietly above her, feeling her doing strange but wonderful things to him.
And again, they exploded togeter, her legs thrown up around his waist, her mouth open against his, her tongue rammed deeply into his mouth. Afterward, when Denise slept peacefully, Greg began to plan his next day's activities.
There'd be the bank. He'd draw out the fifteen hundred dollars. There'd be some bad moments with Mister Armadegli. He laughed as he lay in bed composing his remarks to his ex-boss.
"Take your report, Armadegli, and shove it up your ass. I'm through sir. And regards to you from Denise." The few moments he spent planning die day sent him into a dreamless, peaceful sleep.
In the morning, when they both got up shortly after nine, the plans Greg had worked out so elaborately the night before collapsed in puddles of anxiety as he faced the day.
Only when Denise called in to Gaines and he actually heard her quit, did Greg feel that perhaps he too could have the same courage.
"Don't be silly, Greg. Don't go there in person. Hell just pick up the phone and do what I did. After all, what are they going to do? Fire you?" She wore only her pants and a light robe. Her coral tipped breasts bobbed out through the opening of the robe each time she walked or shifted, and Greg decided that she was to good to lose. He screwed up his courage and dialed Mister Armadegli's private number at the office.
The words weren't quite the ones he'd planned on using, but six minutes after he'd called, Greg was out of work. He hung the phone back on its cradle and let the echo of Armadegli's words ring for a while in his ears;
"You're crazy, young man. You're throwing away a good thing. Think it over.
That's what Christine had said. "You're throwing away a good thing Greg," He wondered about it for half an hour or so, but soon-with Denise laughing and exposing herself all over the apartment-he fell into her mood.
She went with him to the bank. There were some strained moments as he stood in front of the teller's window. He thought Roberta might have beat him to the bank account, but the thought proved wrong. The total amount came to just over twenty-four hundred dollars. Two-thirds of that, some sixteen hundred dollars, soon nestled in his hand.
Then, after a quick lunch, they headed for Denise's apartment again. She spent the rest of the afternoon packing, calling friends to hysterically giggle and tell them of her departure and good fortune, and generally doing woman things.
Greg amused himself by sitting in the big leather chair and conjuring up images of what his own friends would be thinking once they found out the news. "You mean he quit his job? How awful. He had such a good future with Gaines." And Roberta's mother would be livid with rage. "You mean he just up and left you? No word?" The game became flat after a while, and Greg found himself instead conjuring up images of Mexico.
Most of the images, he found, were erotic. At about five-fifteen, he began to dose off.
At six-thirty, Denise jammed tickling fingers into his ribs and announced, "Psst! I'm packed. Let's split, huh?"
A half hour after that, they were entering the Jersey Turnpike, an Esso Station road-map to the United States spread on Denise's lap. "Greg, let's drive all the way to Columbus before we stop. It's only about five inches on the map."
They laughed and drove, stopped for coffee, laughed and drove some more, and stopped for innumerable more cups of coffee. Greg felt his past trailing off into the black distance behind the car. Each mile catalogued on the speedometer lessened the pull of his life in New York. The clicking numbers said freedom.
By the time they hit Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, Greg found himself whistling and laughing at almost everything Denise said. The map showed they had travelled four of the five inches. Fifty miles further, he found himself nodding as he drove. Denise lay curled up on the front seat, her head on his lap. He squinted his eyes at the road ahead and decided to stop at a motel. The proprietor was friendly enough, and the room was comfortable.
There was one bad moment. Greg woke up about eight o'clock in the morning, two hours after they had settled into the motel. Something disturbing tugged at his mind.
Denise was in the bathroom. He called to her. She didn't answer. He got out of the bed and padded to the bathroom door. "Hey, what're you doing?" he called to her playfully. She didn't answer. He knocked again, calling, "Hey, you all right?"
For some reason, he became frightened and pushed on the door. It opened. Denise jumped from the side of the bathtub where she had been sitting. Her purse was next to her and as Greg stood there, a smile disappearing on his face, she quickly jammed something into the purse. He walked into the room.
He stared at her, then something make him look to her arm. A small ooze of blood traced a small rivulet down the length of her arm to her clenched hand.
"Get the hell out of here, Greg. Please." She said. Her voice was tight. Greg started to ask her what was wrong-but the look in her eyes told him to remain quiet.
He turned slowly and shut the bathroom door behind him. Later, as he lay with his hands behind his head waiting for Denise to come back to bed, he wondered what'd he'd caught her doing.
It was several minutes before he realized. She was injecting herself with something. He felt empty.
He wondered what she was using. It was another five minutes before Denise came out. She was smiling, widely.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The bright lights were there, just as Denise said they'd be. The streets of Juarez were alive with tourists, Mexicans, and horny GI's. The city seemed like a giant animal that stretched and began to come alive only when the sun went down.
But the aura was colorless. The music seemed only raucous. The crowded streets seemed only dirty. The ubiquitous strolling mariachi singers seemed only off key. Discordancy reigned.
Greg knew why. He hadn't asked Denise what she'd been injecting hersef with. The fear of her answer stopped him from asking. But, in not knowing, he found himself speculating.
Heroin? Morphine? Something worse? He let her lead him by the hand through the streets crowded with side-, walk stalls that sold plaster bulls and Mexican silver jewelry and evil looking switch blades.
He bought her a bracelet. She bought him a sombrero, wide brimmed and exotic, with red and green spangles; sewed into its rim. She giggled when he donned it, and for just a moment, some of the joy he felt when they had first started the trip returned. But it died when he lowered his eyes to her arm and saw a fresh, slightly bruised mark. Another needle mark, he guessed. He left the forgotten sombrero at a bar.
They checked into a small two story hotel just off Avenida Lerdo. The "Casa de Las Luces Azules," it was called. The house of blue lights. Greg felt a sadness at that.
Since discovering the needle marks on Denise's arm, he found sex with her had become-while not routine-ordinary. His mind remained behind when he entered her body, to stand quietly next to the bed-and question. Physically, though, he performed well Denise either didn't notice his change in attitude, or pretended not to notice.
"Hey, Greg," she said after they had been there for two days, "Tonight, you get to see me do my stuff." Greg forced a smile and buried his head back into the Mexican newspaper he was trying to translate with the help of his high school Spanish. Denise had called her new boss, and was expected in.
At seven-fifteen that night, as Greg lay on the bed in the hotel room staring at the ceiling, Denise announced cheerfully, "Okay, Greg. I'm off. I want to go there alone. It's just a few blocks down from the border bridge on Juarez Avenue. Come up and watch me, but don't get there much before nine. Okay?" She marched to the bed, and Greg saw she held a small suitcase. Her working clothes, he guessed.
She leaned down over the bed and kissed him. He felt the warmth of her lips on his and fought the urge to grab her, drag her down to the bed with him and tell her, "Now goddamnit. You're not going to take off your clothes for a bunch of horny GI's. And what's this crap you're pumping into your arm every night?" But he remained silent, and tasted her lips against his.
Her kiss seemed different. Tender, rather than passionate. He wondered for a moment if she'd come back to the hotel.
"Listen," she said, "you will come over, won't you? To see m dance?" Her voice sounded pleading. He forced another smile and nodded, "Sure. I'll be there at the stroke of nine. Good luck."
She remained leaning over the bed and Greg caught' the smell of her perfume. She stared at him, her eyes; questioning. Then, with a heavy blink, she broke away and started to turn for the door. Greg watched her walk-quietly to the door and open it. "Good luck!" he called.
She didn't turn around. Greg watched the door close slowly after her. He sighed and continued to lay on the bed. Across the street, a neon sign advertising "Girls-Girls-Girls," glimmered on and off, sending fingers of color through the stained curtain into the hotel room. It seemed late, Greg thought. Very late.
At eight-fifty-five, Greg was at the "Noche Del Rio." He followed the short, thin waiter as the man steered expertly through a jungle of tables and khaki-clad legs. The club was crowded with the usual Friday night bunch of American tourists and fresh-paid GI's. Shouts, curses, loud laughter, and an occasional rebel yell punctuated the thick, smoke-laden air. The smell of cheap booze permeated everything, and Greg got the; impression that the floor was sticky.
The waiter took Greg to a small table off in a corner, Obviously, from the way he waited after Greg sat down,, he wanted Greg to bribe his way to a better table, but Greg settled into the seat and immediately asked for a rye Manhattan. The waiter shrugged the Mexican equivalent of "cheapskate" and went off to get Greg his drink.
Greg stared around the nightclub. It was packed. Perhaps two hundred people-all men-were jammed into small tables with weak looking drinks before them.
The Master of Ceremonies, Felipe "Bonk" Gonsalves was kidding the ringside GI's. "Hey lessen, you guys want to see poosy tonight? Lots of poosy? Okay, you gotj to clap! You got to let the girls know you want them, no?" He grinned, exposing his gold teeth and slammed hands together "Like thees, you see?" The crowded audience guffawed, stomped their feet, and demanded, in one voice, "Girls, you mother! We want girls!"
"Bonk' Gonsalves laughed a high-pitched little and wave'd to the band stand behind him. "Oye! Maestro, vamos a jugar la musical" And the tired band began to play.
Greg sat and yawned his way through five mediocre strippers who paraded around m rapidly depleting costumes. Sagging breasts and bellies with appendicitis scars swayed back and forth before his eyes. Of the five girls, only one had the nerve-or the figure-to strip down completely.
And when she did, the house went wild. The band played a Mexican arrangement of "Granada," and the girl casually dropped her G-string. Her belly undulated, and the GI's and tourists whistled, screamed, shouted, and one man, fat and balding, tried to jump up onto the small stage to grab the girl. She squealed and ran offstage.
Laughing, the man fell flat on his stomach and lay there, tears of drunken joy streaming from his eyes. The house went wild again, and a young crewcutted GI yelled, "Go get her, fat ass!"
"Bonk' Gonsalves helped the man to his table and climbed back onto the stage area. "An' now ladees and gennilmen, all the way from New Jork-I take a bunch of pride m presenting for your feelthy minds and bugging eyes. Mees Denise Channing!"
The applause was deafening. Something m Gonsalves' delivery indicated that this next girl would be someding extra, super special Several GI's pulled their small tables closer to the stage area The band began to play.
Greg, his head now swimming with the alcohol from six rotgut cocktails, applauded along with the mob. He recognized the music-it was the same rock and roll piece Denise had played for him that night at her apartment.
This time, because of the tired band and their lack of electronic gear, the music sounded flat like week old ginger ale. Where there should have been crescendos, there were only tiny bleats. Where there should have been echo, there was only the hooting and shouting of the audience.
Denise came out. She seemed confident enough, and Greg stared hard to detect a sign of nervousness. He found none, and felt sadness that he didn't.
Denise began to strip. The routine was the same as she had done for Greg, but he found himself remaining soft. The tired bank, the roaring audience and the drinks all kept him from reacting to her.
Halfway into her number, Denise slipped on a patch of whiskey spilled earlier from the bald man's glass. Greg started in his seat, but before he could stand, "Bonk" Gonsalves had run to her and quickly hoisted her to her feet. Greg noticed that he had caressed her breasts as he assisted her. She smiled at him, bowed to the audience, and waved the band to continue her music.
Gonsalves, from the sidelines, yelled above the music, "Hey, you guys see that? Let's hear it for the girl from New York!" The crowd went wild, and Denise looked radiant as she expertly teased her brassiere from her chest and shoulders.
The band managed to keep just a beat or two ahead of, or behind her, but when she dropped the brassiere onto the top of a GI's table, the effect was as if she had exploded a cannon.
The applause was thunderous, but died quickly as each man in the room pressed imagined hands on her firm, uptilted breasts. She had rouged her nipples, and in the spotlight, her breasts were offset by the deep red tips.
The men in the place quieted down, and hot eyes traveled the length of her body as she weaved across the stage to the sound of the tired band. Denise began to bump her groin at the audience.
Greg ordered his seventh drink and gulped it down before the waiter could leave his table. "Another, hombre" Greg said thickly, his eyes on Denise. "God, what a body," one GI shouted.
The waiter trotted off to the bar, and Greg found his eyes making double images of Denise as she danced. He blinked hard, trying to force his eyes to see correctly. By now, Denise was wearing only a G-string, as she sensuously ran her hands on her thighs.
Downstairs, a waiter whispered quietly to Benny, the doorman. "Hey, lock the door. The new girl is going to take on a few of the customers. Don't let any police or MFs in for a while." The doorman nodded and closed the door, locking it from inside.
Upstairs, Denise was slowly lowering her G-string. Greg fought his eyes and tried to focus. Two Denise's-then six-then eight-danced before his eyes. The spangled G-string fell to the stage, and Denise, with the band bleating a high note of triumph, stood naked before four hundred hot, prying eyes.
Greg grabbed a waiter's sleeve. "Gimme 'nuther one, gimme 'nuther Manhattan." He slapped a ten dollar bill into the waiter's hand. "Here's a dollar. Gimme n'uther one." The waiter pocketed the ten dollar bill and ran to fetch Greg another drink.
Denise stood naked on the stage. Her legs were slightly apart, and she was pierced by two hundred penises as the audience watched her. "Bonk" Gonsalves walked quickly onto the stage and hefted his microphone. "La-dees and gerinilinen," he screamed above the thunderous applause. "Ladees and gennilmen. Tonight, we gonna see poosy. Lots o' poosy."
The crowd began to stamp their feet and yell, "Morel Morel" Denise stood quietly just outside the spear of fuschia light from the spotlight. "Bonk" looked toward the door, and raised a questioning eyebrow. A waiter stationed there made an "okay" sign with his circled finger and thumb, and "Bonk" Gonsalves said, "Theese lovely girl is up here all kinds of lonely. Who gon' make her happy? Who gonna please thees lovely Norte-americana?"
Five tables of GI's immediately jumped up and began to run to the stage. "Bonk" Gonsalves waited till they were just about to climb up onto the stage when he announced, "Eet's only five hundred dollars, amigos." And he laughed into the microphone.
Two burly waiters had climbed onto the stage and stood protectively by, just in case the GI's made it to the stage. Greg felt his head falling to the table. He gave up fighting the drinks and lay with his head on his arms, his eyes staring dolefully at the stage, and at the quietly waiting naked Denise.
Just then, a tall man in a wide-brimmed stetson cowboy hat stood up a few tables from the stage area. "You serious, pardner?" he asked in what sounded like a stage-learned cowboy accent. "Bonk" Gonsalves looked again to the door, and saw that there were no police or MFs in the club. "Si, I'm serious. You got five hundred American dollars in cashF' The fuschia spotlight swung to the Texan.
The big Texan reached into his jacket pocket and produced a billfold. The audience fell absolutely quiet. Greg tried to focus on the man but saw three.
He felt his stomach churning. He wondered drunkenly if it was from the drinks or from the way the tall Texan stood so confidently, his wallet opened and a splay of bills leaking from its folded darkness. Laughing, the Texan waved the wallet.
"Damn right ah do. Right here, pardner!" The audience began to chuckle, and one GI, perched at a table on the balcony overlooking the stage yelled down, "Son of a bitch, you better have more than money!" The crowd laughed.
"Okay, meester, let's see the color of your money," the master of ceremonies yelled. Even drunlc, Greg found i difficult to believe. Would Denise actually let this loud mouth into her? He tried to lift his head, but it felt disconnected from his neck.
The tall man walked to the stage and Denise smiled openly at him, her hands demurely folded before her groin. The man handed several bills to "Bonk" Gonsalves, who counted them quickly and stuffed them into his pocket. He lifted his microphone.
"Okay, you horny mothers, here we gol" The band began a number, and Denise, after a whispered consultation with "Bonk" Gonsalves, during which time he handed her half of the money, began to fiddle with the tall man's trousers.
Greg stared hard, and by a sheer effort of will, managed to clear his vision. Denise was stripping the man down. The audience was clapping in unison, and the lights had been dimmed just enough to outline the tall man as his trousers fell to the stage floor. He was erect, and despite the jeers of the audience, he was huge. Greg brought himself to a standing position.
"Siddown, ya' creep!" yelled a GI behind him. Greg started to walk to the stage. The big man put his hands on Denise's breasts. The band played louder. Greg saw the man playing with her nipples, and he saw Denise smiling up at the man, apparently enjoying the feel of his hands.
The band played louder, and the man pulled Denise against him, lifting her off the floor, to have her belly press his erect weapon against his body.
Greg was almost to the stage. The two burly waiters watched Denise and the tall man, and didn't see Greg as lie worked his way in spasmodic lurches between the packed tables.
The man started to kneel down, dragging Denise with him. She lay to the floor, and wound up staring up the man, her legs apart, her hands clutching the two-hundred and fifty dollars "Bonk" Gonsalves had handed her. He lay down between her legs.
Greg reached the stage area just as Denise was placing the man's member against her. One of the waiters saw Greg out of the corner of his eye. He ran to him.
Denise, with the audience roaring its approval, pushed her hips upward, putting him into her. Greg felt the waiter's rough arm on his and turned to him. He wanted to scream, "No. Make him stop. I'll pay the goddamn five hundred, but don't let him rip into my Denise!" But he managed only to mumble, "No. G'dammit. No."
By now the other waiter and Gonsalves had run to their cohort's assistance. The three of them dragged Greg from the stage and the audience clapped approval.
Greg was pulled backward. He stumbled against a table. It fell in a clatter of broken glass, smashed bottles and screamed curses from the men who sat there. He turned to one of the young GI's.
The GI smashed his fist full into Greg's chin.
Onstage, Denise and the tall man were thrashing about, and the big man was just starting his explosion as Greg fell to the floor. Still barely conscious, he tried to get to his feet.
He managed to stand up, but as he was starting a punch of his own, he vomited. The gush spirted out onto the young GI's uniform, and another punch answered the first.
Onstage, the big man groaned his release into Denise's locked body, and she responded with a welding of her hips to his. Greg passed out.
"Four hours later, Greg came to in an alley behind the "Noche Del Rio." He lay there for a full ten minutes, trying to clear his mind. After a while, as the chilly air crept into his bones, he decided his head was where it should be.
He lifted his arm and rubbed the lump on his chin, and felt blood. Dried now, the blood caked off onto his fingers. He groaned, more to see if he still could than from pain, and felt the other lump on his temple.
Those two lumps he could account for, he remembered. But the pain in his chest eluded him. He finally guessed he had been kicked. He slowly sat up. He saw he was sitting in a pool of dried blood and vomit.
He rubbed his eyes and looked down the alley. Not more than two hundred feet away, on Avenida Juarez, the world went noisily about its Friday night business.
Ten minutes more of tentative probings and Greg found he was still whole, though braised in many places. Then he thought to check his wallet. Painfully, he reached into his jacket pocket.
It was there, but the money was gone. He knew it would be gone. He remembered he had had eleven hundred dollars left of the sixteen hundred he'd started the trip with.
And it was gone. He slipped the wallet back into his jacket pocket. He tried to stand up and found that by holding onto the red brick wall to his right, he could just manage it.
He looked again to the street. A small shoeshine boy, his kit dangling from a looped rope around his shoulder, stared back down the alley at Greg. After a while, the boy walked on.
Greg walked a few steps, and found his legs still worked. He made it to the street. Nobody paid the slightest attention to him. He thought for a moment, debating if he should go back upstairs to find the man or men who stole his wallet.
He gave up the idea. Visions of Denise clobbered his mind. To go back upstairs and get beat up again would be bad, but at least it would salve his bruised ego But to go back upstairs and see Denise with her white legs wrapped around some horny customer would be a death blow. He decided to go back to the hotel.
He staggered past the "Noche Del Rio" and wondered where his hotel was. He found it, eventually, and ignored the desk clerk's questioning look. He climbed the stairs to his room and fell exhausted on the bed. He hoped sleep would come quickly. Then, with another vision of Denise spread on the stage floor clobbering his brain, he sat up. He knew he couldn't be there when she returned.
The only answer to maintaining his sanity would be to leave the room, leave the hotel, leave the city. He thought again for a moment. El Paso lay just over the border. His car was parked in the "Park Rite" lot, with the tariff prepaid. He could sleep in the car. And, in the morning, with a clearer head, he could plan his next move. He stumbled from the room and walked downstairs. He daubed at the caked blood on his face.
"Washroom?" he asked the clerk. "Perdon ame?" asked the clerk. "Cuarto de hanosF' Greg remembered to say. The clerk pointed down the hall. Greg followed the man's arm.
He soaked his face for a full ten minutes in ice-cold water. It felt wonderful. Then, after combing his hair and rubbing off some stains from his jacket, he felt almost human.
He walked to the bridge, and dropped his last dime in the clinking coin box at the Mexican side. The Mexican customs guard handed him back eight pennies. Ahead, the El Paso skyline twinkled.
Farther down the bridge, just to the Mexican side of the line, four teen aged Mexican boys waited with palms out-stretched. "Pennies, senor? You gotta pennies?" Greg dropped his last eight cents into their hands.
He retrieved his car and drove aimlessly through the streets of El Paso until he found a likely looking spot to park. It was high on a cliff cut out of the side of Mount Franklin. As he entered the steep drive, he saw a sigh, with chiseled letters, announcing "Scenic Drive. Elevation 4,542 feet."
He drove to the top of the roadway and found himself now sitting high above the city, which lay spread out before him like a sleeping enemy. He slumped against the driver's seat and stared morosely toward a distant freight yard. A switch engine pulled four or five filled ore cars around the yard, and Greg heard the distant noises of the rattling freight cars.
Now and then, he heard a far-off car horn blast into the crisp, starry night air. Then he slept for about six hours and woke up to find a Texas highway patrolman standing next to the car window.
"Friend, this ain't a motel. Sleep somewhere else," the man said, not too maliciously. Greg started the car's engine and thought to drive back down into the city to have coffee and something to eat at a diner or cafe.
He tooled down the drive, then remembered he had no money. He got to the end of the drive and pulled to the curb. The patrolman had followed him down the road.
Greg saw the police car slowing to a stop behind him and he started the car up again, this time driving as if he had someplace to go. After a few blocks, the patrolman's car left him.
Just ahead of him Greg saw the sign. It was in garish neon, and about fifteen feet high. "Smiling Sid Buys Cars! Instant Cash!" The sign blinked on and off, and Greg stared at it-almost passing it before the idea fully formed in his head.
He'd sell the car. If "Smiling Sid" had instant cash, instant cash meant coffee. And perhaps enough money to get a fresh start. Greg drove the car onto the black asphalt of the lot.
The gasoline gauge read empty.
CHAPTER EIGHT
"Smiling Sid Blum" the sign on the ancient desk said The man wore a blue gabardine suit, cut in the Western style. He looked up at Greg, and removed his cowboy boots from the desk-top. He stretched, and gave Greg a long, appraising stare.
He nodded past Greg's shoulder to the car on the black-top. "Your car?" he asked. He stared at Greg' soiled jacket, then back to the car.
"Yeah, it's mine." Greg flipped through the various cards in his wallet, and selected the registration for the car. "Here," he said, handing it to the man.
"Oh, New York, huh?" The man had seen the license plates, he knew the car was from New York, but he checked the registration number against the plates, any way.
"Yep," Greg said, "New York."
Greg sighed deeply and leaned back against the door way. "What'll you give me for her?"
"Waal, let's just look her over, huh?" Greg watched the sign blink on and off for a few more blinks. The man adjusted a ten-gallon hat on his head, then walked outside the shack to appraise Greg's car.
He walked around it. He kicked the tires. He opened the door and peered in, looking at the speedometer She's got forty-three thousand miles on her," he said.
He slammed the door, listening as he did it. He walked to the back of the car and stuck his finger in the exhaust pipe, wiping the sooty residue on his handkerchief. He put the handkerchief back into his pocket, then said, "Well, tell you what. 'Bout four sixty-five is all I can go on her. She needs tires, and she's got some valve trouble."
"I need five-fifty," Greg said, annoyed that he'd have to bargain. Greg hated Smiling Sid Blum deeply, emotionally, and forever. Smiling Sid opened the left front door, leaned in and flipped on the car's radio. He listened a moment, scratching his head.
"Four ninety," he said after a moment. "That's about top dollar I kin give you." He left the sentence hanging, as if to add, "Take it or leave it." Greg decided to take it. "And that's a pretty good deal, Ah think," Smiling Sid said. Greg nodded gravely.
Then came the signing of papers, a frantic search for a notary at the cafe across the street, and the changing of the tide. In half an hour, Greg was stuffing the bills into his wallet and walking off the car lot to the street.
He recalled how happy he and Roberta had been when he'd first brought the car home. It was two years ago, already. It had been showroom new, and Greg had paid twenty-seven hundred dollars for it.
They had paid cash. "No sense tying ourselves down with a bunch of debts," Roberta had said. Greg, of course, agreed. And later, Roberta had become angry when the car dealer refused to give them a discount for cash. Greg had been embarrassed for her. "Why in hell do you get so excited over money." And she had answered, "Money, my dear, is important. Very important."
They had driven the car around the neighborhood, then over to Roberta's mother's. He and Roberta had even made love once in the back seat.
Greg tried to walk directly off the lot, but he allowed himself one last look at the car sitting under the early afternoon El Paso sun. The license plates were caked by mud from fifteen states. So long, he thought, it's been good to know you. Smiling Sid Blum was trying vainly to start the engine as Greg reached the street. Greg waved back at him.
He walked down the street, peering into store windows. His wallet, fat with the money from the sale of the car, made a lump in his jacket pocket. He thought to walk into one of the stores and buy some clean clothes, then changed his mind. He thought, if they don't like the way I look, the hell with them.
He continued to walk along, then stopped for a hamburger at a small crowded restaurant. Some of the GI's in the place looked at him. He ate nonchalantly and stared back.
He saw a girl walk hurriedly by, and he followed her with his eyes. She was tall and blonde, and Greg thought immediately of Christine. He wished he could press a magic button and transport himself the twenty-five hundred miles to the warmth of his apartment. A drink seemed like a good idea.
He walked into a bar on Dyer Street, closed the door behind him and sat down at the stool directly in front of the bar girl. "Bourbon on the rocks, please," he asked.
"We don't serve no hard liquor, mister. This is Texas." The girl brought her eyes up from the beer tap, and said, "Just Falstaff. You want a beer?"
He thought to tell her to forget it, then decided to have the beer. Even a beer, he thought, might help dull the edges a bit. The girl smiled at his nod, and pulled the handle, sending a gush of beer into the glass.
Greg drank it quickly. Four beers later, the girl leaned over the counter toward Greg. "You seem pretty uptight about something," she said. Her voice was friendly, interested.
Greg stared at her. The beers were beginning to hit him a little bit. He found he liked the numb feeling around the edges of his lips. The girl was pretty-not pretty like Christine, or Roberta, and not sultry, like Denise, but nevertheless pretty, in a washed out sort of way.
Dark, brown hair, and she was a little on the thin side. She wore heavy make-up and a blouse made of thin, almost transparent cotton. Greg stared at her chest, looking through the blouse to her breasts. He thought he could make out the girls' dark nipples through the thin material of the bra. She knew how to tease for tips, anyway, he thought as he sipped at another beer. A little show was always good for half a buck.
He continued to stare at her as she leaned toward him over the bar. "Yeah, I'm uptight. May I have another beer?" he said.
She shrugged her shoulders and poured him another. He carefully selected a single from the stack of bills, then returned the stack to his pocket. Her eyes followed his hand. She cocked her head and half closed her eyes. "You a yankee?" She sounded suspicious.
Greg smiled. "I'm from New York, if that's what you mean."
"I could tell you was a Yankee. From the way you talked." She stared intently into Greg's face. "You in the army here? You don't look like a doggie." As she talked, Greg decided she was pretty.
"Doggie?" He sipped his beer and waited for her to answer.
"Yeah, a doggie." The jukebox started in again, playing a whining, country-western tune about a country boy lost in the big city. It fit in, somehow. "Doggie's are GI's. Infantry, mostly." She was getting prettier, Greg thought. Almost beautiful.
"Shoot, we get lots of doggies in here." She leaned in closer to Greg, her blouse fell open at the top, and Greg j stared at the pink cleft between her breasts.
She watched his eyes, then pushed her shoulders forward to give Greg a better view. "You look different," she said. "You an artist?"
Greg needed a haircut. His hair curled around the edges of his ears, and formed flip-curls at the base of his neck. He hadn't shaved since the hotel room with Denise. "Artist? No," he answered, "I'm a researcher." Her eyes opened wide. "Huh?"
"I do research. I'm doing a one-man study on the American Phenomenon of the Sexual Revolution." He watched to see her reaction. The beers made him feel warm, and her presence helped the feeling along. He wondered quickly if she'd think he was crazy.
"You one of them college guys? A professor? You sure talk funny, I mean." She half smiled, not sure whether to believe Greg or not. She was deliberately ignoring a young GI corporal who had come in and was waiting patiently at the bar three stools down waiting to be served.
"You have a customer," Greg said, nodding toward the soldier. The kid was tapping the bar with a rolled up five-dollar bill. Greg turned back to her.
"Betsy'll get him. I want to talk with you, not him." Greg felt flattered. He smiled at her. "Can I buy you a beer?" She shook her head no.
"The boss would have a fit. Besides, I can't drink legal in Texas. You got to be twenty-one. I'm only twenty." She leaned closer over the bar.
"You don't look twenty," he said as she pushed her breasts toward his hands quietly resting on the bar top. He could clearly make out the dark circles of her nipples under her blouse.
"Yeah," she said. "I guess I look kind of older. I been around a little, I guess." Finally, the young corporal three stools down from Greg said, "Hey, Helen. How's "bout a little service, huh?" He looked and sounded annoyed.
Greg nodded toward him again and said, "Helen, serve him. Then come back and talk to me." She frowned good-naturedly and ambled down to the GI. "Shoot, Rick. Keep your pants on. I'm coming."
Greg smiled as he watched the girl pour a beer for the corporal.
"Hey, Betsy!" Helen called to the back of the bar. In a moment, a short, red-haired girl, obviously pregnant, came out of the back and headed toward the bar. "Betsy, take care of the bar for me a minute, huh?" Helen asked.
Betsy nodded quietly and began to gather glasses from the bar top. She seemed a little older than Helen, perhaps about twenty-five, at the most, twenty-nine. But she took the demand from Helen quietly, apparently used to having Helen assume the role of boss.
Helen walked back to Greg. He shoved his empty glass toward the back of the bar.
"Another? Already? Shoot, you sure can pack it away, can't you?" She smiled and yanked on the tap. The beer gurgled into Greg's glass and he flipped another dollar across the bar top.
The juke box started in again, this time on a song Greg had heard several times on the car radio driving across the country with Denise. "I've Got A Tiger By The Tail," it wailed. Greg laughed quietly at the song as Helen slid the beer glass across the bar to him. "What's so funny?" she asked.
She resumed her breasts-on-the-bar position and her eyes laughed along with Greg. "Some of us have tigers by the tail," he said, "And some of us have monkeys on our backs. I've got a little pussy on the bar." He smiled at his joke and felt his head spin slightly.
Helen watched him for a moment, then said softly, "And a snake in your pants, I'll just bet." She had her eyes half closed, a new, inquisitive look in them.
Greg caught her tone. "You free? After a while, I mean?" he asked.
"Maybe. You got something in mind?" She leaned closer to him, and he smelled her perfume. He gently , pushed his folded hands forward on the bar until he touched the top of her breast with his fingers. She didn't move back.
"I get off at about midnight." She paused, then she said, "You want to wait around for me?" Greg's fingertip touched her hardening nipple through the blouse. She leaned closer to his hands, and he felt the give of her flesh through the fabric. She pushed forward, causing her bosom to rest on Greg's hands. He moved his fingers gently against her. She smiled.
"Sure," he said. I'll wait." Why not, he thought. Why the hell not? Play the juke box, and let's all be merry. "Yeah," he said again, "I'll wait."
He changed some singles into quarters and stuffed them into the juke box. He listened to more country-western music. As the evening wore on, the bar became crowded with GI's. Young kinds, mostly, stationed in El Paso. They were crisp in startched khaki and most of them wanted to dance with Helen. With luck, the'd get a feel of her breast, maybe even a rub against her crotch, all the while swimming in the smell of her perfume.
Greg sipped beers all night long and watched as Helen, and even pregnant Betsy, teased, wiggled hips, let blouse buttons fall open, and conned their way into about fifteen dollars in quarter and half-dollar tips.
He got up unsteadily after about two hours and began to play the bowling machine. He chose Helen as his opponent, and lost three dollars to her.
At about ten-forty-five, Greg staggered again to the juke box. He accidentally stepped on the young corporal's foot. The kid, still mad from Helen's having deserted him for Greg earlier at the bar, sneered at Greg. "Watch it, buster. Watch your goddamn foot," His eyes snapped at Greg.
"Sorry," Greg mumbled, and he turned back to the juke box.
"Creepy beatnik," the kid drawled. The words stung the back of Greg's neck. Beatnik? he thought. He'd never been called a beatnik before. He let the word echo in his head. Then he turned around and started to swing at the corporal.
The kid ducked easily, and brought his fist back to let Greg have it in the mouth. Greg tried to focus on him.
"Rick! Cool it," Helen said calmly, and stepped between the lad and Greg. The corporal let his hand fall down to his side and stared at her. "He said he was sorry. Now cool it," she repeated.
"You let beatniks in here?" he demanded to know.
"Shh," Helen said. "Drink your beer. Leave him alone, Rick." She put her hands on his chest and gently pushed him back into the booth. He sat down heavily, his eyes boring into Greg's.
Greg tried to answer the kid, but the words were stuck thickly in his mouth. Beatnik? Denise is a dope freak, stripping in Juarez. Roberta's getting her jollies under Vern. And me, I'm a beatnik.
Okay, he thought drunkenly, truth is truth. "Lemme buy you a beer, kid." He lurched to the booth. "We'll dunk the truth in foamy Falstaff." He tried to steady himself with his hand on the edge of the table.
"Keep your damned money, you creep," the soldier said. His southern drawl accented the hate in his eyes. Greg nodded sadly, then staggered back to the bar. "I've got a tiger by the tail...." wailed the juke box. Greg flipped another dollar across the bar toward Helen.
"Gimme 'nuther beer, Helen," he mumbled. She tilted her eyes up to him as she filled his glass. She lifted the dollar bill, rang up twenty-five cents on the cash register and pocketed the change.
He saw that Helen would be off from work in another half hour. Through the window of the bar across Dyer Street, Greg saw a motel. Big and garish. A huge neon obelisk proclaimed 'The Sahara Motel, Your Home Away From Home."
Greg stared at the motel, and decided it was as good a place as any. He found it strange to think that Denise was only twelve miles away. Across the Mexican border, taking her clothes off at that moment for the hot eyes of a bunch of soldiers and airmen.
He sipped his beer and wondered what Roberta was doing at the moment. In her apartment, high on the 17th floor of her concrete Olympus. He pictured Vern and Roberta locked in sexual combat on the still-to-be-paid-for bed in the bedroom. He ground his cigarette into the ash tray. He forced his mind back to the bar. It was midnight.
"Last call." Helen called loudly. Several GI's roared "No," and laughingly jammed up to the bar for one last beer. The young corporal got up drunkenly from the booth, and staggered past Greg unseeing. He lurched out the door. "Last call" Helen hollered again. "Yeah," one private yelled back, "Motel time!" Helen laughed as she poured the last of the evening's beers.
The GI's drank up, and ambled slowly out to the dark street. Greg waited till the bar was empty except for Helen and Betsy. He watched as Helen emptied the cash register, stuffing the bills and change into a brown cloth bag. She walked back to the rear of the bar, through a door. She came back out in just a moment, without the cloth bag.
"Well, 'nuther day, 'nuther dollah," she said. Her drawl seemed heavier. A night's work, and how many beers did she have? Fifteen? Twenty?
"You ready?" he asked. She had put on a cotton, mannish jacket. She looked poor. Ragged somehow.
She nodded she was ready, and Greg got off the bar stool. She turned off the main light switch, and the bar went dark. The juke box still wailed in the corner by the bowling machine. "Betsy, get the juke box, huh?"
Betsy pulled the plug from the wall and the record whined to a stop. "A tiger by the taillll...."
They walked outside, and Helen locked the door with a key from her purse.
Helen said goodbye to Betsy, who climbed into a pickup truck. A young man, wearing a black cowboy hat, sat behind the wheel. There was a baby propped on a car seat between Betsy and the young man, "Her husband?" Greg asked. "Nope," Helen answered simply. She didn't say anymore, so Greg let it pass. The pickup truck drove off.
A chill wind whined down from Mount Franklin and Greg watched the lights from the TV towers there blink in the desert night, Helen didn't say much, she just let Greg lead her to the motel across the street. Almost, Greg thought as he held her arm, as if she knew the scene and was playing it by heart.
In the lobby, Greg asked, "Should I sign it Mr. and Mrs.?" He tried to focus on the register. The clerk stood back, watching Helen and Greg. He nodded to Helen, she nodded back.
"Howdy, Paul," she said softly. "Howdy, Helen," he answered. Greg managed to get his eyes working, and signed the register "Mr. and Mrs. Greg Smith." A cab pulled up across the street for the corporal.
"That's fifteen bucks for the night." the clerk said, bored, Greg fished three fives from the wad of bills he brought from his pocket and handed them to the clerk The clerk took the bills, and eyed the wad of money Greg shoved back into the jacket. The clerk looked from Greg to Helen. Her eyes remained blank.
Greg hefted the motel room key in his hand and said, "Well, Mrs. Texas Lady, let's make it, shall we?" He staggered a bit, but managed to lead her to the elevator They got off at the second floor. The clerk pushed the door to their room open.
The clerk stood there, watching Greg. Greg stared at him uncomprehendingly for a moment, then realized why the man waited. "Oh, sorry." He fished a single form the pocket, and handed it to the clerk. The door closed and Greg turned to face Helen.
She stood in the middle of the small motel room. Her perfume seemed stronger now. She shook the the jacket from her shoulders and said, "I always like this place."
Yeah, Greg thought dimly. Always. She began to unbutton her blouse.
CHAPTER NINE
Helen undid the last button on her blouse, and paused a moment before she took it off. "That door locked?" He walked to the door, tried the handle, then nodded for her to continue. She watched his eyes almost as if she were expecting him to leap at her, start tearing at her clothes. "Interesting?" she asked, with just an edge of shyness in her voice. Greg nodded. "Well, you sure do stare at a girl, I mean," she said.
She let the blouse fall to the floor. Greg caught the gesture. Some girls-the professionals, anyway-always folded their clothes carefully. They took their time. And they knew that the sex would eventually be over. In a few minutes, half an hour, maybe even an hour. And after sex everybody'd get dressed again and the carefully folded clothes would have remained neat.
No trace remaining of the graspings, the lungings, the sighs and the groans.
Helen stood there, her blouse off, her thin cotton bra not doing much to hide her delightfully small breasts.
Greg saw that her hips were then, almost boyish, but rounded enough to show she was a woman. She smiled at him and said, "You gonna leave the light on?" He nodded, "Yep."
She hesitated a moment, her hands behind her back, ready to unhook her bra. Laura, Christine, Denise. Certainly Denise. And now Helen. He watched her objectively, his head cocked to One side.
Helen averted her eyes from him and kept her hands behind her back. "I feel funny. Taking off my stuff in front of you with you looking at me like that. And with the light on, too. Shoot." She almost blushed. But not quite, Greg saw. He smiled at her.
"What's so darned funny?" She put her hands at her sides, the bra still hooked. "You think I got small bosoms, right?" She looked petulant for a minute. "You ever hear that anything more than a handful is wasted?" She stared at him not sure if he'd laugh at her or not. He stopped smiling.
"I think you're lovely. Beautiful." He blinked his eyes heavily a few times, and felt the beers still churning in his stomach and his head still spinning slightly from its effects. "Don't stop, please." He gestured for her to continue. "And I don't think you have small bosoms."
She brought her hands up behind her back and quickly unhooked the bra. She gave a little hunch of her shoulders as she pulled the bra off. Her breasts bobbed as she tossed the bra onto the dresser. The movement delighted Greg. It was just the motion he'd expect from a young girl. "What in the hell are you smiling about now? It's creepy, you smiling at me like that. Ain't you ever seen a girl take her clothes off? Shoot!"
"I'm not laughing at you, really. I just feel kind of woozy. The beer, I guess." He forced himself to stop grinning.
She lifted her arm, pointing to the radio on the table near the bed. "Turn on the radio, huh?" Greg leaned over and flicked the dial. The music was soft, muted. Pleasant, Greg thought.
Helen started to rub the red marks where her bra had dug into her chest. She saw his eyes follow her hands. She stopped abruptly. "I don't do this with everybody," she said. Greg nodded. "I mean I ain't a whore. Just th guys I like, and I like you." She had her hands on the waist of her skirt. "And I can tell you like me. Eight?"
"Yeah," he said, "I like you Helen."
She made no production out of removing her skirt, just dropped it quickly. Greg saw she wore cotton underpants. "It's Tuesday," he said, fighting another smile.
"Shoot, I know it's Tuesday. Why do you mention that?" her fingers, hooked into the waist of her pants, paused.
'Your pants have 'Thursday' printed on them." He tried not to smile at her.
"Huh?" She looked down at the day of the week embroidered in blue on the thigh of her pants. "Oh, yeah. Thursday. You sure look for the weirdest things in a girl. What the hell difference what day it is?"
Yeah, he thought. What the hell is the difference. No difference in the day. No difference in the girl. No difference in the world. He saw that her belly was slightly pouched. It looked kind of sexy, he thought. He felt the familiar stirring in his groin. Helen bent and pulled off the pants, then stood up quickly.
"Okay, now?" she asked. He nodded appreciatively. He noticed that his mood flicked from impassive objectivity to a sudden hot demand for her. He smiled slowly and held out his arms. "Mighty nice. Now come here."
"Hmmm," she said softly as Greg buried his face in her chest. He reached his hands up and pressed her breasts against the sides of his head. He felt her tremble slightly as he took her nipple in his mouth. He bit down gently on the hardening flesh. She shuddered and held his head against her breasts.
He felt her hands at his trousers. He let her have her way. Soon, they were both naked, she on her back next to him, her legs tight together. He reached down her belly and gently pushed at her sex. "No, no," she murmured. He stopped his hand.
"No? Okay. No." He pulled his hand from her belly and moved slightly away from her. She lay there, surprised. She was breathing heavily. He turned his head and looked down the length of her body. Her breasts lay slightly flattened on her chest, her nipples a deep pink, and he saw the delicate blonde nap of her groin, with her navel a small dent just before it.
He tickled her navel with his finger. "Ever put salt in there?" he asked. He continued to gently point his finger into the dent on her stomach.
"Huh? What?" She giggled at his finger and sucked in her breath. Her stomach fell, and the blonde mound below it jutted higher. "Salt? What are you talking about?"
"Yeah. Salt, in your navel. Great place to keep it when you're eating celery in bed." He watched the blonde mound as it fell back.
"Hey lissen. You crazy? I'm laying here stark naked, and you want to talk about salt in my belly button? Shoot!" She moved onto her side, propped her head onto her hand and looked at his face. "Man, you are strange. Even for a Yankee."
He got mad. "Strange? Me? You're the one who's strange. You invite me out for a roll in the hay, then you say 'no' like some stupid high school girl. Come off it, huh?" He let a hard edge come into his voice as he talked. "You might just as well use your body for a damn salt cellar if you're going to act like a professional virgin about it."
"Well, it's just that I never-"
"Never what? Made love with a man? Come off it, Helen. Let's be grownups. Just for a little while, huh?" He pushed himself up onto his arms, then swung his body above hers. Her legs were still tight together. He stuck a foot between her legs and began to pry them apart. "Never?" he asked again. He was hard, urgent And he was annoyed at her, yet eager to penetrate her. He felt a power over her as her eyes opened wide. Fright, he wondered; or gratitude that he was making the decision, and not her. Not fright, he decided as the forced her legs apart.
She let him get her legs slightly apart, but still she prevented him from entering her. "Ouch, goddamn. You're too rough!" Her eyes had gone cloudy.
He put one hand on her breast and began to massage her nipple. It hardened to his touch. He felt his head beginning to spin again from the beer. He stopped forcing her legs for a moment and tried to get her back in focus. His hand still squeezed her nipple roughly.
"Ouch," she said, "that hurts. I mean-it's nice." Greg waited till he stopped spinning, still poised above her, ready to penetrate her. He leaned his face down to hers, and parted her lips with his tongue. She tasted sweet. Her teeth were smooth to his tongue. He felt her teeth part, then felt the tip of her tongue against his. He felt her shudder gently as he pried at her legs again.
She moved them apart with less force now, and soon, they were wide, waiting for him. He lowered himself to her, and she moaned as she felt him go deeply into her. She closed her eyes.
He lay quite still. "Shh," he said.
"What's the matter, darling?" she whispered.
"I'm listening," he said, lying quite still in her.
"Whatta you mean, you're listening?" She popped her eyes open again. Greg smiled and didn't move as he felt himself deep inside her. He whispered very softly, "Shh. I'm listening to the beat of the universe." He felt her sex tighten around him, involuntarily.
"Well, for God's sake. Will you listen to that! You're outta your cotton pickin' mind. Get offa me!" She began to roll from side to side, in an effort to force him from her.
He kept himself pressed deep into her, and she soon forgot why she was rolling from side to side as the feelings began to magnify inside her. She decided after a while that the movement counted only for itself.
She began to bump her hips up and down against him. Her legs flew up around Greg's back, her hips bumping up and down on the bed. Soon her breathing was hoarse and she began to moan. "Oh, for God's sake. Move!" she cried. Greg waited a moment, feeling her passion under him.
Then he began to move. Slowly at first, then in a rhythm that matched hers, then even faster than hers. I They reached a high point together. She almost' screamed as she felt him burst inside her. He kept moving for a moment longer, then fell across her breasts. He; felt a bead of sweat fall from his forehead onto her cheek. She wiggled her hips once more, then lay quite still.
After a while, she said "Whew! You're somethin' else! You really are somethin' else. Crazy. Whew!" She flicked her tongue across her lips. He lay on top of her, still caught within her, and smiled into her soft, blonde hair.
"Yeah, somethin' else," he repeated. Something else than what, he wondered. Something else than Greg Williams? Something else, but I'm not quite there yet. He wondered, as he smelled her clean hair, what the "something else" would be.
Is this it? he wondered. One night stands in cheap hotels in distant cities? Eventually not even names, just sexes and nipples and belly buttons.
Roberta's face flashed into his mind. He decided to call her. Not to talk to her, he thought to himself. Just dial her number, hear her voice asking "Who is it?" Who would he be?, he wondered.
"I gotta get up," Helen said. Greg rolled from her and fell onto his side. Helen's hair had fallen in a tangle across her face. In the soft glow from the table lamp, she looked innocent, almost child-like.
'I'll be right back," Helen said as she walked from the bed. Greg watched her walk, and he noticed the jaunty bounce of her buttocks as she headed for the bathroom. He heard her shyly turn on the bathroom sink faucet to mask the sound of her urinating. It was a lonely sound, he thought.
He stretched across the bed to his jacket and took a cigarette from the pocket. He smoked in silence, watching the neon obelisk glow softly through the motel room window.
Helen came back from the bathroom. "You really researching sex? I mean, on the level." Greg took a deep puff on the cigarette and nodded as he exhaled the smoke across the bed.
"Yep," he said. She pursed her lips for his cigarette and he held it to her mouth. She inhaled deeply, and her breasts rose as she sucked the smoke into her lungs. Greg took the cigarette from her lips.
"What'd you find out so far? About sex, I mean?" she asked as she adjusted herself into a sitting position, legs tight together again. She absently reached down and pulled the edge of the sheet over her lap. "Anything interesting?"
Greg saw how her nipples had become soft again, expanded into delicate pink circles, almost invisible against the pink of her breasts.
"Oh, sure," he said, "I've learned lots of things. Sex is good. Sex is bad. It's free, sometimes, and sometimes it's expensive. But it's always kind of hypocritical."
She studied his remark. "You mean phony? Hypocritical means phony, don't it?"
Greg leaned back on the bed. His head ached from the beer and the tension of their lovemaking. "Empty, you know?" he said. "Like there's something always missing." He wished she'd shut up and stop forcing him to think, to verbalize.
"Yeah," she said softly. "Like just now. I know you really don't like me. You just-well-you just wanted to lay me. Without any love. That's what you mean, empty." She blushed, this time genuinely, and Greg was surprised.
He stared at Helen's softly rising and falling breasts.
Love, he thought, was Roberta's hands like birds, as they buttered a piece of toast on a Saturday morning. Love was that night when we first bought the wedding ring at that little jewelry store on 59th street. And she said he paid too much for it. And how they laughed because they'd already lived together for three months before even announcing their engagement.
Love, he thought, is this ripping in my guts every time I think of Vern's fat hips jammed between her lovely legs, Roberta. Or, he corrected himself quickly, is that pride?
"You got to have love to really have sex," Helen said. T guess that sounds corny, huh? To a researcher, I mean?"
Greg's eyes flared. "Love? What the hell do you know about love? Do you even know my name?" He reached down and ripped the sheet from her lap, running his hand quickly between her legs. "Still warm from love, huh?" he said sarcastically.
She backed away from his hand, scuttering across the bed sideways. Her eyes grew wide again, but this time the fright was real. "Hey, don't get mad at me. Shoot, I know your name. Damn it, it's Greg!"
He sighed deeply and felt silly at his anger, and annoyed at himself for trying to hurt the girl He felt his conscience tugging at him. "I'm sorry I yelled at you." He put his hand gently on her hip. She let it rest there, this time making no effort to retrieve the sheet.
"That's okay. I'm kind of used to it." She blew out her lips in a sigh, adding, "Clyde always used to yell at me."
"Clyde? Who's Clyde?" He began to trace little circles on her hip. He watched the goose-bumps form. She wiggled slightly and answered, "He's my husband."
"You're married." He stopped tracing the little circles on her hip.
"I think so. I'm not sure, any more." She spoke very softly.
"What do you mean, you think so. What the hell kind of answer is that?"
"I left him. Last year, in the summer. He was stationed here. We got married back home, and I came here to be with him. "I'm from Alabama. Anyway, I did stay with him for a while. Clyde was always getting ordered to go on these stupid long marches and maneuvers, and I got sort of lonesome. I met this guy, Teddy. He was a car salesman."
She paused a moment, her eyes looking off into space. Greg saw that she was almost unaware of him. She caught her breath, then began again. "I let him, well, I let him lay me. It was bad. Clyde found out from one of his buddies, and we had a hell of a fight."
"And you left him," Greg added.
"Yeah. And the baby." She turned to look at him. Her face a sudden, open, hurt.
"You had a baby?" He looked at her body. There were few signs of it, but she was young enough to have gone through labor without any permanent scars. There were only slight marks on the underside of her breasts, so slight as to be almost invisible.
"Yeah, I had a baby. Little Clyde. He's, let's see, he's about 20 months old now. Sometimes I miss him something fierce. When Clyde left me, after he got discharged, he went back to Alabama. I was kind of afraid to go back. He took the baby with him. And I stayed here." She moved her legs a bit, settling herself on the bed. Greg tried not to believe her.
I just want to get laid, he thought. Not involved. Yet, he believed her. Somehow, from the way she said it so flatly, so matter-of-factly, he believed her. She was telling the truth. He felt a pang of conscience.
"You miss Clyde? Your husband, I mean?" He felt the warmth of her leg where his hand was resting. He wondered how he could be talking of such sadness and still be feeling the stirring in his groin as she adjusted her sum legs under her.
"Yeah. Sometimes. Like before, when you were-when you were in me. I let myself imagine it was Clyde.
You ever do that? Let yourself imagine it's somebody else?"
He nodded quietly, his hand slowly moving the length) of her thigh. "Sometimes I do. But I try not to." He got a flash of Vern, Milo and Roberta locked in sexual abandon and he shook his head quickly. "It's not healthy to do that. You could go crazy."
"I do it a lot. I mean, not that I go to bed so often-oh hell. I do it sometimes, I mean." She blushed again and lowered herself onto her stomach. Greg ran his hand gently along her thing to her buttock and watched more goose bumps. She smiled and rolled to her side, facing him. "It's kind of funny, ain't it? My lying here naked with you, feeling your fingers on me, and talking about Clyde." Her navel was a delightful occasion in her belly.
"Yeah," he said, "funny." He leaned down and kissed her hip. She shuddered quietly and he kissed her again, a little lower. She seemed embarrassed at first, but the feeling was too good to fight. She shuddered again.
"Clyde wouldn't do that to me. He was pretty bad at makin' love." She shivered as Greg's mouth toyed with the flesh she now presented to him gratefully. She moaned as Greg forced her legs completely apart and kissed her cleft.
"Oh!" she said, as she felt his teeth do something to her. Then, "Let's stop the talk. Oh, God. Stop!" she suddenly pushed against Greg's lips. He felt her open for him, and he thought Roberta's name.
"Oh, Clyde," Helen shouted.
"I'm Greg," he said.
Then she was at her peak, and he brought her over. She lay quietly after that, for just a moment, then she began to move herself down the length of the bed, along Greg's body. He waited in the half darkened room, then felt her mouth on him.
He lay back and sighed as she added a new experience to her lovemaking abilities. Enjoy, he thought, enjoy.
CHAPTER TEN
The desert wind swept by outside the motel window. As Greg lay in bed next to Helen, he watched the neon sign blink on and off, causing Helen's small breasts to appear and disappear. as she breathed quietly in her sleep. The sheet was down below her waist, and her pink flesh formed a muted contrast to the white sheet.
Her breathing sounded easy and relaxed as Greg watched her. She smiled in her sleep as Greg leaned over and kissed her tenderly.
He slipped him arm from underneath her head and sat up in the bed. The beer was completely worn off. He felt the beginnings of a hangover. He stared at the clock in the half-darkened room. It was three-thirty.
He walked to the chair near the bed, grabbed his clothes and struggled into his trousers. Helen stirred in her sleep. He waited till she quieted, finished dressing. then walked quietly to the door. He looked back at her, then quietly walked out to the carpeted hallway. He closed the door softly behind him, and headed toward the lobby.
The desk clerk, the same one from before, was reading a copy of "Playboy." Greg approached him. "Got change for a five?" The clerk looked up. "I want to make a phone call." Greg slid the five dollar bill across the desk. The sleepy clerk made change, then went back to his magazine, mumbling "Nice night, huh?"
"Uh huh," Greg said. He found the lobby phone booths and dialed his number in New York. He listened as the operator requested "Ninety cents more for the first three minutes, sir." He plunked the required change into the phone. The operator did her chore, and Greg heard the clicks and tones travel the twenty-five hundred miles from El Paso to New York.
The phone rang after a while, and Greg felt his palms beginning to grow damp. One ring. Two rings. On the third ring, he heard the phone picked up. "Hello?" It was Roberta's voice.
He didn't answer her. "Hello?" she repeated. "Hello! Damn it! Who is this?" She tapped the phone cradle. "Who is this?"
And Greg wondered, was Vern standing there, too? His hand immediately on her breast, waiting? Smiling? Greg's throat ached to talk. To say something that would wipe away the distance and the miles and the hurt.
"Hello?" she said again. "Listen, I know there's somebody on this line. Now who is it? Vern?"
So, Greg thought, Vern's not there. He waited a moment, then said, his voice behind his hand, "Sorry, must have the wrong number." He started to bring the phone down.
"Greg? Is this Greg?" She sounded excited. Or frightened? Or concerned? All of them, he decided. "Greg? Is that you?"
He listened a bit longer, then slowly hung up the phone. He stared at it for a moment, then opened the door and stepped back into the bright lobby.
He leaned against the cool surface of the glass door. He saw that his hands were shaking. He felt a drop of sweat run down his back. He reached into his pocket and took out a cigarette. His fingers shook as he fit it.
He inhaled the smoke deeply into his lungs, and tried to get his jaw to unclench.
He pictured Roberta. Twenty-five hundred miles away, standing in confusion by the phone. Wondering why he called. Then, probably deciding it wasn't him after all, and going back to bed.
He wondered what she was wearing. The blue robe, probably. The one he'd given her that day so many months ago. He had tried to seduce her with a new robe, he thought grimly. He smiled as he remembered the champagne he'd bought. New York Domestic, but not cheap. And the pathetic candles. She didn't even light them at supper. "Let's save them," she said. "For an occasion."
Greg finished the smoke, snapped the butt across the hallway lobby and watched it come to rest against the chrome bucket that held the artificial palm tree. In the background he heard the muted sounds of piped-in music.
He sighed and started back to the motel room. He wondered if Helen had awakened. He passed the desk clerk, nodded, and walked down the carpeted hallway to the room.
Helen was still sleeping. Her legs were apart, and she had wiggled the sheet down to her knees. She lay on her back, her arms outstretched, her head flung to one side. Greg stood in the room, closing the door softly behind him. He stared at Helen on the bed.
He lit another cigarette and settled himself on the bed next to Helen. She felt him lay down on the bed, and smuggled herself against his hip as he settled himself. Her warmth felt good.
He inhaled deeply, holding the smoke in his lungs. Then he exhaled and watched the smoke fan out over the room. He took another drag and tried to force Roberta's face from his mind.
After a while, he felt the delicious, sliding sensation of exhaustion take hold. He let the feeling work on him, let himself fall through the drift. Peaceful, he thought. Nice and peaceful.
He welcomed the feeling. Soon, with his hand resting! gently on Helen's chest, his fingers absently playing with the tender flesh of her nipple, he was sound asleep.
He didn't hear Helen as she woke up about half an hour later. She gently removed his hand from her breast, kissed it tenderly, and put it down by his side. She; leaned over him, her breasts swinging free, and kissed him on the back of his neck as she got out of die bed; She stood there for a moment, watching him, then walked to the dresser.
Much later, somebody was knocking on Greg's coffin lid. He tried to block out the noise. Let me alone, he thought. I'm dead. Go away! The knocking grew louder, He pulled the casket-coverlet over his head, but the knocking grew louder.
"Hey mister! Mister, it's checkout time," Greg heard through the heavy wooden planks of his coffin. Go away, I'm dead. Leave me alone, he thought. Suddenly, he came awake.
The weak light streamed in through the window, from a high, pale afternoon sun. Motel, he thought dully. I'm in a motel, not in a coffin. I'm with Helen, in El Paso, in a motel.
Greg shook his head, trying to force the fuzzy images of coffins and graveyards away. "Just a minute, huh?" he hollered to the person knocking on the door.
"Hey, bud. It's checkout time," the voice said. Greg stared at the rumpled bed next to him. Helen was gone. He looked to the chair where last night she placed her clothes. The chair sat forlornly, empty, in a shaft of pale sunlight from the window. Greg got out of the bed, padded to the door.
"What time is it?" he asked through the door.
"Four-fifteen. You're forty-five minutes late past checkout time now. If you're gonna stay, okay. If not, you gotta get out, or pay another night. Okay?"
"All right, give me a minute to get dressed." Greg heard the clerk walk from the door. The beer, he decided, had given him a hell of a hangover. He felt his stomach rebelling, then realized he hadn't eaten in almost forty-eight hours.
He went to the bathroom, turned on the faucet, and splashed handfuls of cold water into his face. He sucked at the tap greedily, and swallowed the water. Gradually, his head cleared enough to think at least small thoughts.
So, he reasoned, Helen's gone. Back to work, he supposed. He wondered why she didn't wake him. He examined his razor, saw that the blade really wouldn't stand another shave. There was no toothpaste left, either. He swished more water around in his mouth.
He warmed a little at the thought of Helen last night. So young, eager, and willing to learn. He decided that he'd give her some money. Maybe take her to supper.
Greg got dressed, and stuffed his few toilet articles into the travel case. He saw a cigarette butt on the floor by the bed and a burned spot on the rug.
Outside, in the lobby, Greg saw die coffee shop. He'd eat first, then go and see her. He felt good.
"More coffee?" The girl poised over the table, the chrome pitcher of coffee ready for Greg's nod. "Please," he said. The coffee gurgled into his cup.
He sipped at the third cup and asked himself "Why not?" Why not ask Helen to come back to New York with him? At least they'd have each other. He warmed at the thought of living with her. Showing her the sights of New York. Hearing her Alabama squeal each time she found a new thing to be amazed at. He smiled as he drank his coffee. He decided to ask her. He hoped she'd be willing.
He'd buy two bus tickets-that would be about one hundred and seventy dollars. Plenty left to find an apartment. The more he thought about it, the better he liked the idea.
He drank the last of the coffee, and nodded to the girl for his check. She added it quickly, then dropped it onto Greg's table with a smile and walked to another customer.
Greg watched her as she swayed away. Nice body, he thought. Then he remembered Helen. How she had slept with her face curled in a smile. Like a sexy kitten.
He stood in front of the cash register, dropped the check onto the rubber pad, and opened his wallet.
The money was gone. He got panicky for a second then remembered he'd taken the wad of bills out of the wallet to pay the room clerk last night. He sighed and reached into his other pocket for the money, but felt nothing there.
He reached into his trousers pockets. He turned the pockets inside out, and even took off his jacket, thinking perhaps it had fallen into the lining. He saw a white envelope flutter to the floor from his jacket's inside pocket.
He ripped it open. Helen's handwriting looked cramped, painfully young. Innocent, almost, against the severe lettering of the motel stationery. He read the mote. "Dear Greg. I'm glad we talked last night. You made me see the light. I still love Clyde, and I'm going back to him in Alabama. I'm very sorry I had to do it this way, and I hope someday you'll forgive me. I have taken the money to fly back to Clyde and my dear little son. I love you, too. P.S. I left you five dollars. Helen."
He read the note twice more. The cash register girl looked at his face. "Are you all right, sir?" she asked.
"Yeah," he said after a long moment. "I'm fine. Just fine." He slipped the five dollar bill out of the wallet, and dropped it onto the rubber pad. The girl took out three-twenty and gave him the change. It plunked dully ont the rubber pad. Greg scooped it up, jammed it into his pocket, and sighed deeply.
He sat down in the imitation-leather chair, and stared across the street toward the bar where last night he had met Helen.
Dear Helen was now several hundred miles away, with his money. He pictured himself running down the runway after her plane. "Stop, thief. Stop! She has my money!"
As he sat watching the bar across the street, the pickup truck arrived. The young man with the black cowboy hat was driving, and Greg watched as Betsy kissed the infant propped on the car seat next to the young man, then kissed the young man, too. She walked into the bar. The tires of the truck squealed and roared off down the highway. Greg wondered if he should go over and talk to Betsy. He decided not to.
He lit his last cigarette and watched the cars roar by on the highway separating him from the bar.
Twenty minutes later, Greg spent some of the money for another package of cigarettes. He had a dollar and forty cents left. He lit one of the cigarettes and walked slowly out to the highway.
After a moment, a bus stopped in front of him. "Downtown?" Greg asked. The driver nodded. Greg climbed up, and deposited a quarter into the chattering toll box. He found a seat and watched the El Paso streets as he rode the bus downtown. Off to his right, Mount Franklin looked big and confident.
He wished his mind could go blank. Just flick the magic switch and wind up in New York. He pictured the lonely, asphalt distance between him and Roberta, and Chris' apartment and even the store. Somehow, they looked good.
"Plaza" the driver said loudly. "Last stop." Greg looked up and saw that they had arrived at a downtown park surrounded on its four sides by tall city buildings.
Many people were walking, most of them with packages. A department store had a record player going. "Deck the halls with boughs of holly...." Greg stepped down from the bus and felt a shiver as the cold air hit him. It was getting dark fast. The temperature was falling.
He wondered absently which hotel he'd left his overcoat in. The one with Denise? Helen? He shivered again, and headed into the small park.
An old Mexican woman, her head wrapped in a black shawl and her feet wrapped with brown paper bags, sidled up to him. "Merry Creesmas, Senor. Joo gotta penny for the poor?" She moved sadly from one foot to the other.
Greg looked at the woman for a moment, then reached impulsively into his pocket for some change. He handed her a quarter. "Here." She smiled as her hand touched his quickly, and he said, "Merry Christmas, Ma'am."
"Gracias, gracias," She said. She clutched the quarter and walked off. Greg sat down heavily on a park bench. The cold iron bit through his trousers. A couple of GI's in full dress winter uniforms walked by. One was carrying a bottle wrapped in brown paper. They stared at Greg for a moment, then quickly walked away, mumbling to each other.
The sun was sinking behind the roof of the "White-house Department Store," just across the street from the park. The darkening shadow crept along the curb toward Greg's cold bench. He jammed his head down into his shoulders, trying to keep warm. He pushed his hands deeply into his pants pockets. He felt the cold edges of the few coins he had left. Three more GI's passed as he sat there. They stared at him, and walked on, sneering.
Greg's chin scratched against his neck as he huddled in his jacket. He was dirty, he thought. He needed a shave. And, he calculated for a moment, he owned ninety cents to his name. He huddled in to the cold as the sun sank behind the tall building across the street.
After a while, Greg didn't care if the passing people saw him crying or not.
"Deck the halls with boughs of holly." a girl sang as she skipped past Greg. She saw him, and turned to her mother. "Momma, see the man crying?"
"Come along dear," the woman said, grabbing the girl's hand. Greg didn't look up. Their voices were distant, out of focus. He hunched his head deeper into his jacket.
That's when Limerick came and sat down next to him. "Can I help?" he asked. Greg looked up.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The youth stood there, as if he were waiting for Greg to comment. Greg said nothing.
Limerick continued to stand in front of Greg. "It's not much of a night. Is it?" He nudged Greg's foot gently but firmly.
Greg blinked a few times. "You crazy or something?" he said. "I really need this jazz."
"I'm Limerick. Limerick Rosenfeld." He was about nineteen, perhaps twenty. Or perhaps even older. Greg stared up at him. The youth was bearded. He wore an outlandish cowboy hat, floppy and well worn. And rough-out cowboy boots. He looked like a flea-bitten Buffalo Bill. He locked eyes with Greg, then broke into a wide smile.
"Well, you stopped crying, anyway," he smiled broadly-
"What the hell are you," Greg asked, "a leprechaun?" He had to force himself to keep from smiling, despite the bone chilling cold.
The guy was funny looking. He wore gold -rimmed square glasses, and Greg saw the stem of a pipe jutting from his pants pocket.
"Look," Greg said, "I've got troubles. Bad troubles, and I really don't need you to bother me. Just leave me alone, huh?" He shivered as he spoke, and hunched his head more deeply into his shoulders. The sun was edging down behind the tall building across the street, and the shoppers continued to hurry past.
There were people lining up for buses at the various destination signs scattered the length of the curb adjacent to the park. As the sun went down, the wind from the desert increased, causing the temperature to drop fast. Greg felt his backside freezing on the cold iron bench.
Limerick stood there, poised between a smile and a frown. He thought a moment, then said, "I got troubles. You've got troubles. Everybody's got troubles." He squatted down, on his haunches, and looked at Greg closely. "You waiting to get busted or something?" His voice was high, higher than it would have appeared from looking at him. Without the beard, he might have looked almost like a girl. His hair was long, almost down to his shoulders.
"No," said Greg gloomily. "But it might not be a bad idea. A jail at least would be warm." He shivered again and tried to keep his shoulders from shaking. "Damn it, it's freezing. I thought this was supposed to be a warm climate."
The youth nodded and continued to stare at Greg. Greg felt another deep shudder pass through him, and began to stamp his feet up and down on the concrete.
"You're from New York," the youth said. A statement, not a question. As if he already knew the answer.
"How'd you know?"
"Your accent. Not many New York accents in El Paso." The youth rocked back and forth on his heels, blew on his hands, and looked quickly around the park. "All the pretty people. See them shopping. See them spend their money. See their gifts, ho-ho." All this was said with a rhythm, as if he were reading from a child's book of verse. Greg followed his gaze, stared at the hurrying shoppers.
The youth turned back to Greg. "I'd lend you my jacket, but then, I'd freeze. And that'd be silly. I'd like to lend you something better."
Greg looked down at the squatting youth quickly. "What? for instance."
"Well, my car. But it's not here now. My restaurant. Except I don't have one." He sounded like he was reciting. "How about friendship?"
Greg half-smiled, and snorted, "Oh, you're queer, right?" He let the half smile turn into a sneer as he looked away from the youth. "Beat it. I don't dig queers."
The youth kept staring at Greg. "We're all queer. For one thing or another. Now me, I'm queer to help you. I have a positive fetish about helping you. And you sure as hell could use some help." He paused a moment, then added, "How 'bout you coming and eating with us?" He didn't wait for Greg's answer. He stood up to his full height-about six feet-and gestured down the street Greg was confused. The guy was too much, he thought.
But actually, he reasoned, he didn't seem queer. Not "gay" queer. Maybe just "strange" queer. And Greg wondered, what did the guy mean about "us". His wife? His boy friend?
"You got an apartment?" Greg asked guardedly. He felt his lips chattering, and he heard himself stutter as he talked to the young man. His hands were numb, though jammed deeply into his pockets. Across the park plaza, he heard the lonely call of a newspaper boy.
Greg forced himself to sit back against the bench, forced his feet to stop their stamping, and tried to form the words carefully. "I'm flat broke. I can't pay you any money."
"So? Big deal. We're all broke. Come on." Limerick started to walk off. Greg got up and began to follow him.
Eight blocks later, Linterick turned in at the gate of a large Victorian house. The place was old, and needed re-pair. But, Greg thought as he looked up at the windows, it looked warm. "Come on in. Everybody's home," the youth said.
The fireplace was going full blast. Greg saw a group of people seated around it. Males and females.
"Hey!" Limerick shouted, "Look what I found." They turned and looked at Greg. Greg saw they all looked rather young. The young men had long hair, much like Limerick's. A couple of the people nodded "Hello."
"A pilgrim!" shouted one of the girls. She jumped up and walked over to Greg. "I'm Tracy. Hi." She was pretty. Greg guessed she was about eighteen or so. Her hair was long, down to her waist and it lay perfectly straight and blonde.
She wore a long suede shirt, or maybe it was a dress. Greg wasn't sure. She wore a colorful necklace of painted wooden beads around her neck.
Her figure was young, but full. Greg saw how the front of her suede dress was pushed forward by her breasts. She wore no lipstick, but had heavy eye make up on. The effect was startling.
"Hello," he said Tin Greg Will-"
Limerick took charge. "He's cold, probably hungry, and he's from New York. Those are his credentials. Welcome, Greg." He made a small bow and smiled. The girl-Tracy-took Greg's hand and pulled him to the fireplace.
Greg heard a half-dozen names. Marion, Squirrel, Martha, John, and Allison. Two of the names he had trouble pronouncing: Ananda, and Yahargan, they sounded alike.
Tracy pushed Greg down, so that he was sitting in front of the fire. He sighed in relief as the warm fingers of flames brought color to his cheeks. "You look like you could use some food," Tracy said. She handed him an apple and a few loose frankfurters. "This is today's haul. Not much, but it's food, huh?"
Greg nodded and bit into the apple. It was the world's best apple, he decided. He wondered what to say next. "It's a pretty good apple."
Tracy smiled at him and then turned her face to the fire again. "You don't have to talk. Just groove for a while. You'll talk later when you get relaxed." She pulled his arm, bringing him closer to her. He felt her hip brush softly against him as she settled herself. He finished die apple and bit into one of the frankfurters.
One of the others watched him. "Hey man. Phallic! Absolutely phallic!" He smiled, and the others in the room laughed softly. Greg wasn't sure if they were laughing at him or not. He scanned their faces, and decided they weren't. Greg felt his face redden in a rush of embarrassment as he realized what the youth had meant. He brought the frankfurter down to his side. He sniffed the air, and wondered if the smell was marijuana.
He sat for a while staring into the fire, feeling the soft push of the girl's hip, then looked slowly around the large room. Red, yellow, blue and silver discs and squares and dots and stripes emblazoned the walls in a mad design. He saw that there were some writings on the walls. They looked as if they had been done with a candle flame. Some of the sayings were obscene, some esoteric, but all of them were interesting.
He looked off to his right, and saw what appeared to be a kitchen. There were some posters on the kitchen walls. One was a huge photograph of Che Guevara, and next to it, a large photo of female genitalia. The refrigerator, what he could see of it from his angle, had been painted a deep purple, and there were some huge, brightly colored flowers painted on its door. In the exact center of the refrigerator door was painted a great staring blue eye.
Tracy watched him stare around the rooms. She shifted a bit and he felt the warmth of her hip move a little closer. He liked the feeling.
He nodded, "It's different," He felt himself relaxing.
The fire flickered strange lights onto the living room walls.
Greg began to look around him at the people. One of the girls had a wedding band on her finger. He looked at the fingers of the men, and saw that one of them had a matching band. Both rings looked rough-hewn, almost home made.
"We call it Morris," she said brightly.
"Huh? You call what Morris?"
"The house," she said. "Morris House. We were going to call it Maxwell, but somebody's already used that idea. So we call it Morris. Morris House." She let her eyes follow Greg's gaze around the room. She seemed proud of the house, and the way it had been decorated.
"You people live here? Together, I mean?" He had heard of them from newspaper stories, and tongue in cheek articles in Time and Life Magazines. Hippie houses. Crash pads. He remembered the couple on the plane.
He remembered how the other passengers on the plane from Philadelphia were quick to point out how dirty the hippies were. He looked at this group of young people, and decided that he was far dirtier than they were. He self-consciously brushed some mud from his shoe as he sat in front of the fire.
"Uh huh," Tracy said. "We live here. Together, there are eight of us. Now, that is. There were fourteen of us until last week. They got busted for pot. But luckily, they made bail and they cut out. Denver, I think."
Greg listened to the sound of her voice. Lilting, he thought. And he got a charge out of the way she talked-almost in a kind of verbal shorthand.
He thought it curious that she didn't mention anything about their respective sexes. Just "us" as if gender wasn't important. Just people. Eight warm people. He felt suddenly as if the world was ten thousand miles away.
"You wanna blow some pot?" Tracy said it as if she had asked him, "You want a glass of water?" No trace of' concern for the morality of legality of it. He shook his head no. "I want to gather my thoughts. This place is-j well, it's strange."
"Yeah," she said. "I guess it would be." She turned slightly, and held her head at a quizzical angle. "You beat?"
Greg misunderstood her. "I'm tired, if that's what you mean."
"No man, beat, like in beatnik." Greg smiled at this and stared into the fire. That word again. "No, I don't think so."
"Well, you look like it. You're kind of old, aren't you?" Greg liked her candor. The probing questions asked in the young voice. Not sticky-sweet, but disarming, just the same.
"Old? I'm thirty."
"Well, that's old. To be on the bum, I mean."
"How do you know I'm on the bum? Not just poor?" He stared at her eyes, a half smile on his mouth.
"Come on, man. That's a ninety-dollar jacket you got on." Greg looked down at his jacket, and remembered where he'd gotten it.
That small store off Fifth Avenue in New York, He'd bought it with the check Roberta had given him for his birthday two years ago. He remembered the fight they'd had.
"Hell," she said, "what's the difference. If I buy you something, it probably won't fit you, and besides, Greg, you don't like my taste in your clothes."
And Tracy was almost right. The jacket had cost ninety-five dollars. Roberta's check-on their joint bank account-had been drawn for only ninety dollars. He had torn up the check, and written another one. Happy birthday.
The rich Greg Williams, he thought as he stared at the girl's face. In his ninety-five dollar jacket being called a beatnik by a hippie in El Paso.
"Well, okay," he said. "I am on the bum. Have been, too, for about-oh, let's see-about four weeks, now. I had a fight. I left my wife. And my job, I might add." He heard himself saying it, and it sounded silly. Childish, somehow. He felt old-and immature, at the same time.
"Yeah," Tracy said softly. "Most of us have had fights with people. Parents, mostly. But it's the same land of thing. The fight, then the leaving of everything. Then the bumming around. It's a drag, being alone."
Greg nodded. The girl was genuinely friendly. No fear, no long hesitations while she thought of a lie, or a circular half-truth. She said what she thought. Greg decided he could like her. "I've heard about kids like you. You're er-hippies?"
"Oh balls. That sounds so damn organization-man. No man, we're just people living here, having a ball. Dig?"
She settled herself more comfortably, and Greg saw that she made no effort to keep the dress from riding up her thighs. He looked quickly at her, then turned his head back to the fire. He handed her the last of the frankfurters. "Here, I'm full. Thanks."
She took the frankfurter and began to nibble on it absently. "I hooked these. These and the apples. I had some bananas, too, but we ate them."
Greg smiled as she spoke. He sat quietly for a time, watching the flames. After a while, one of the youths got up, stretched, and then grabbed a girl's hand. "Come on," he said. "Let's make it." She smiled and got up. They headed toward a door, walked through it, and left it slightly open. Greg followed them with his eyes.
"You look interested," Tracy said as she stared into the fire.
"Huh? Oh yes. I was er-I was uh-are they going to make love? Just like that? He says 'Let's make it?' and they do?"
Words had a way of sounding ridiculous. The room, e people, the fireplace, made words seem ineffective. He watched shadows dancing on the bedroom wall as the couple undressed in the room. He forced his eyes from the doorway. "Kind of nonchalant, aren't they?"
"So? They should beat a drum? Sure, they're nonchalant." She turned to stare at him. "You want a long, involved lecture on the relative morals of the post World' War Two Generation versus the Depression generation? Or how about a discourse on the inability of your age group to bridge the 'generation gap' ?
She didn't sound mad, just overly patient. As if she were talking to a younger brother, or a dun-witted classmate. "You know, you're from a different world. I keep hearing about it. But it's only when I talk to people of your age, that I really see it. You're in another world."
Greg let the words sink in. The two in the bedroom were probably at each other by now and enjoying it immensely. He started to answer Tracy, then stopped. What could he say? No, really, I dig sex. But it's got to be dirty, or I can't accept it? Or yes, I'm from another generation, and to understand you would be too much trouble. So I find it easier to put you down?
"I like your dress. It makes you look sexy." He watched Tracy's breasts push at the front of the suede dress. He heard some little gigglings and movements from the bedroom where the young couple were by now locked against each other. Crawling in and around, and on top of each other. He felt his groin beginning to stir.
"Yor're from the horny' generation," Tracy said. "You see Marion and Squirrel go off to make it, and you get all kinds of vampire-looking, and you foam at the mouth. Sex, even somebody else's sex, sets you howling, That's what I mean. You're from another world."
Greg watched as Tracy adjusted herself on the rug in front of the fireplace, and again, his eyes travelled up her dress. He looked quickly back to the fire. She caught the quick movement, and smiled again. She deliberately let the suede dress slide all the way up her thighs as she sat there. Then, watching Greg's eyes steal back to her legs, she smiled. "It's kind of interesting to watch you, though. Your hang-ups are painted on your face."
Greg felt mildly uncomfortable. As if he were a butterfly pinned to a wall. "I'm human, you know. Besides, I can hear them." Marion and Squirrel were deep in each other's bodies by now, and their moans and giggles could be heard clearly from the bedroom.
"So? You dig their scene? Go make it with them," she answered. "They won't mind. It'd be a kick. Go ahead." Her face was composed. Not annoyed, not sarcastic, not even mocking. She was serious, Greg saw. Absolutely serious.
He frowned, causing Tracy to smile broadly. "See? Just the reaction I would have expected from you. You are now frowning an establishment frown." She giggled deep in her throat and moved closer to him.
He felt the pressure of her thigh against his leg. None of the others in front of the fire paid the least attention. The fire, dying now, cast flickering shadows on their faces as they watched it. Greg guessed they were all half-high, perhaps from marijuana.
Limerick was sitting there, idly tapping his fingers on a small drum and listening to some inner rhythm he had going in his head. His eyes were closed.
Greg spoke softly at first. "This is a weird scene, really." He felt her leg pressing against his, and he glanced at her bosom. Obligingly, Tracy leaned forward to jam a stick into the glowing embers of the fire, and Greg watched as her dress showed more clearly. He ached to feel her young flesh in his hands. He wondered if she'd let him.
"Sweeny among the nightingales," she mumbled soft-
"Huh?" He had heard the expression before. Was it from a poem?
"Nothing, I just said you're Sweeny among the nightingales."
Hippies, he thought. A strange bunch. He pulled gently at her arm, and she toppled down against He felt her bosom press against his chest. He held her in j his arms, not caring for the moment to go any farther.
"Greg," she said, "I'm going to teach you to swing! Even if you're senile." She giggled and moved herself in his arms.
"So teach me," he said. Her breath was sweet as she opened her mouth for his tongue. Her blonde hair brushed against his face. After a moment, he broke the kiss.
Greg turned to see if they were being watched by the others. No one seemed to notice them. He looked again! at Tracy, and watched as she slipped the suede dress from her body. After a moment, he didn't care if the; others were watching or not.
The smell of her was like perfume. Young, tangy, and just a slight echo of woman. She moaned softly as ha placed his hand between her legs. He felt her, already moist.
"You're a dirty old man," she giggled, shuddering.
"Shhh" he said, playing his fingers against her.
The sounds Limerick made on the small drum set a counterpoint to Greg's heartbeats. The youth of the girl the insanity of the moment, the heat of her young body, all combined to rock his senses into a warm, tight, spiraling tailspin.
She moved her hand lazily, then more urgently,; through Greg's trousers, finally opening them sufficiently to take a firm hold on his shaft. The drumbeat, the smoke from the pipe one of the others had lit, the flickering ashes of the dying fire, formed a montage of color and sight and sounds.
Greg inhaled Tracy's presence. He kissed quickly at a lock of her hair as it brushed against his face. He watched the suede dress slip gently to the floor. And he felt the tight buttons of her nipples as she pressed her chest to his face.
Her small hands clutched his head and she sighed happily as his hand plied the flesh between her legs. He felt her shudder involuntarily as he hit a particularly tender area, then he pulled her body under him. He pressed against her thighs, and she opened herself for him. He felt himself sink warmly into her. She made no sound, just smiled softly up at him, her eyes wide and welcoming.
Tracy moved her hips to meet his, and she held happily to Greg's waist as he lunged into her. Her legs lay parted, knees just off the carpeted floor. The flames danced on her face, and her blue eyes smiled as Greg felt himself reaching his moment. She anticipated his arrival, and moved herself faster under him. Her eyes dosed just as his closed, and he felt his orgasm start its explosive journey down the length of his shaft to blast deeply into the girl's warm body. She arched her body upward, pulling him down at the same time, so that she had all of him exploding into her. Then it was over.
He thought back to the mad scene he interrupted at Chris' apartment. The bodies locked in sexual contact, the laughter, the glow of sexually sated human animals. Somehow, though, the orgy scene managed to retain its I patina of evil ... while here, now, with Tracy, and the other people just yards away-this didn't seem evil.
He wondered, as he felt her contracting around his falling shaft, if the change was in him, or in the circumstances. After a while, he decided it a little of both.
His travels across the country with Denise, his trip to the bottom of the sociological barrel-winding up in his own vomit and blood in a Mexican alley-these had snipped the edges from his view of life.
And now, he found he could love the girl under him with no embarrassment at the presence of others. He wondered for a moment if the same feeling would have eventually come upon him had he stayed and participated that night at Chris' apartment.
He felt himself spent. He lay down on her, supporting his body on his arms. He gently flicked his tongue against her breast. She giggled. "Not bad, for an old duffer." She bumped her chest against his mouth, her nipple still hard.
"I get better as we go along," he laughed. He moved his head slowly to the side, and looked at the others in the room. They stared into the fireplace, or lay with their eyes closed, appreciating the warmth.
Greg felt himself starting to fall from Tracy. She brought her legs together, to trap him inside her, and pulled his head to her bosom again. "Shh, my establishment baby. Lay quietly. Dig me. Like I'm digging you. Hmm, you smell good. Like love." She tickled his earlobe with her tongue.
One of the young men in the room languidly reached out an arm to one of the girls. She snuggled around the fireside, and came to rest next to him. The boy lifted the girl's dress over her head and began to kiss her body, starting at her breasts, working his kisses downward to her belly.
Greg watched, and wondered why he didn't feel like a Peeping Tom. It seemed all right to watch them, as if he, too, would help bring the girl to pleasure with his eyes, and, too, as if he could assist the youth's pleasure by staring. Greg watched as the girl propped herself astride the youth's hips. Greg saw the youth's shaft penetrate deeply into her. He felt himself growing hard again. Reaching an arm under Tracy, he pulled her buttocks to him and felt her legs open for him again.
The other couple didn't move, just lay attached to each other in a static, sexual ballet. Immobile, with only their inner selves pulsating., Tracy smiled again as Greg entered her, then whispered quietly, "Don't move this time. Just he still. Dig it all."
Greg heard himself say "Yes."
Soon, the final couple began to make love. Clothes rustled to the floor, and the fire ebbed to a soft, rosy glow. Love shadows danced on the painted walls as breasts were kissed, hands were helped, and legs were parted for urgent shafts. , Greg felt himself growing. Physically, within Tracy, but mentally, too. Not growing in intelligence, he thought as he examined the feeling of remaining still within the girl, but emotion-type' growing. As if, by not bringing himself to his peak, he was absorbing something from Tracy. Love? Strength? Freedom? All three, he decided.
The girl was beginning to involuntarily stir beneath.
After a while, Tracy found it difficult to remain still, and she began to rotate her hips. At one point, she signalled Greg to roll onto his side. She expertly rolled with him, kept him within her, and wound up moving her hips up and down above him. Greg felt himself ready to burst again.
He pressed his hand to her hips now from side to side, coaxing him to an even greater effort, and he felt her use muscles deep inside her to bring him to a point of almost screaming.
He tried to fight the moan as he went over the edge, and he noted with satisfaction that Tracy moaned too.
Afterward, with Tracy still nude, and with others having finished their lovemaking and still nude, too, and nude himself, Greg and the people in the room slept quietly in the front of the warm fire.
CHAPTER TWELVE
There was seldom a time in the old house on Prospect Street that somebody wasn't laughing at something. And there was seldom a time that there wasn't some couple, or trio, using one of the great, fluffy mattresses bought second-hand from a junk shoppe on Stanton Street.
Greg was timid at first, bothered by the notion that he was living on their food, on their money, and on their acceptance of him.
The sex part was great. But, he, thought, there was more than sex. Like the night, several days after he'd arrived, when Tracy patiently began to show him the way-out, almost manic kick it could be to just sit and watch a candle. To let the candle thoroughly take hold, and experience the changes as his mind soared into the candle flame. It took patience on her part, and will power from him. But he'd touched at the edges of high anyway, and Tracy was pleased. "I never turned on an ex-suburbanite before," she said.
"I'm not an ex-suburbanite," he answered, grinning. "I'm too young. I was born only a month ago," He found he heard the word love frequently.
Squirrel loved Marion. And Squirrel loved Limerick, And he loved Tracy. And Marion loved Limerick, and Dave, and Martha, and Tracy and Squirrel. And on some nights when they were all lying around the fire, warmed from within by a couple of swigs of Gallo Port, Marion even loved the Police.
"We ought to go down to the station-house and give them something," she had said. And Limerick had laughed and said, "Yeah. A vomit bomb." The idea that they were doing something illegal most of the time, making wild, unmarried love, in defiance of the law, gave everything an added touch of excitement.
Greg felt it, too. It became a tightly knotted fist in his stomach. Each time he'd hear a knock on the front door, he'd quickly count the people in the house. If they were all there it meant a stranger. And a stranger could mean the Police. And Police could mean trouble. He agreed with Limerick, he'd like to give the Police something. Not a vomit bomb. More like a hydrogen bomb. Right on the desk of the Chief, he laughed.
It was Thursday morning. Tracy was washing her hair, with Greg's assistance, in the porcelain sink in the kitchen. The weather had broken a little, and the outside temperature was in the mild fifties. Sunlight streamed in through the window and danced in bright patterns on the worn linoleum floor.
"You know, Greg, it's funny," Tracy said as the lather was worked around in her long hair, "you feeling so guilty, I mean."
Greg stood behind her. His hands gently kneaded the mounds of white lather in her hair, his fingertips felt the edges of her ears as he massaged the lather around. "What's so funny about it? I'm thirty years old. You're barely an adult. And we've made love, oh, I'd say about twenty times in the past week. That's enough to get me about four hundred years in jail."
He pushed her head under the water and she snorted ang giggled as the water ran into her mouth and nose. He let her up after a bit and began to massage her scalp again.
"Hmm," she said as his fingers worked, "that's nice. Seriously, Greg. You feel guilty about screwing me?"
The words hung in the air for a moment. He couldn't get used to the girl's use of slang. Gutter slang, and no holds barred, was the motto of the house on Prospect Street. And language was used to the fullest. Long talks in the living room, and long discussions in the bedroom after, and sometimes during, lovemaking. And even long, heated discussions in the bathroom as one of them would be in the tub, the others wandering in and out, adding comments, or subtracting a laughed-at thesis.
Slang, gutter words, and strange, bookish philosophical terms, smacked against each other as they talked. True communication was the usual result. "You shouldn't say screwing. I made love to you," he said.
Tracy giggled. "Uh huh. Your age is showing. You screwed. And it's great." She paused a moment, "All right. You made love to me. But why do you feel guilty? You're human. I'm human. Screwing, making love, is fun. So why feel guilty?"
Greg leaned over her, kissed her damp scalp and smelled the clean smell of her soapy hair. He felt her firm buttocks through the thin panties she was wearing and he felt himself stirring as he pressed himself against her. "You're a maniac. Society-"
"Up society's, man!" she snorted, interrupting him. "Christ. You have to do your own thing. Be your own person. Not a fright-face. All plastic, and reflecting the fears of the no-no people."
She pressed her backside against him as she went on, "They shake their heads at you, at your freedom, clobber you with their laws, then they run home and read Playboy with one hand." She pressed herself against him harder, and laughed as she said, "Hey man, your guilt is all in your head. It's not in your pants."
He continued to massage her scalp as he pressed himself against her backside. He ran his arms from her head down to her breasts. He lifted the bra from them and began to manipulate her nipples to button-like hardness.
"Hmm. Not so guilty now, huh?" she said as she pulled his head down to her cheek.
He smelled her soapy smell, and squeezed her breasts 'just a little harder. She began to roll her hips against him, urging him on, and delighting in the way he rose against her flesh. "My very own dirty old man," she giggled, forcing herself against him.
The front door slammed open, and Limerick tromped in through the hallway to the kitchen. "Deck the halls with bowls of hashish" he sang, off key. He clomped into the kitchen, and walked quickly to Greg and Tracy at the sink. He kissed Greg quickly on the back of the neck, "Evening Greg" he laughed. Then he leaned in front of Greg and kissed Tracy on the tip of her nose. "Party tonight" he said loudly.
"Ooh," Tracy squealed, "whatta you got?"
Greg stood there, his neck tingling from Limerick's wet kiss, his face reddening in embarrassment. His hands were still cupped around Tracy's bosom. He felt himself growing small against her, and backed off from her.
"You always kiss guys, Limerick?" he asked.. He rubbed the back of his neck. Tracy looked quickly to his face. Annoyed? Concerned? Greg couldn't be sure which.
Limerick smiled. "I just kiss people I like." He dumped a brown paper sack on the table. Apples, peaches, several bags of nuts, and assorted candies fell out. "And a brown paper package, tied up with string, this here is one of my favorite things," he laughed. A small package lay on the table, half hidden by the fruit.
"Party tonight," Limerick repeated, "and here's the hash," He ripped the string from the small packet, and Greg watched over his shoulder as Limerick unwrapped the waxed paper around some brown, waxy looking stuff.
He held the lump in his fingers. It was about an inch and a half around. It looked like gum, or perhaps a wad of sap from a pine tree.
"What the hell is that?" Greg stared at the lump, fascinated.
"Hash!" answered Limerick. "Oh, man. We're gonna ball tonight. This stuff cost me thirty-five bucks, and worth every cent!"
"You mean it cost your father thirty-five bucks," Tracy giggled. Her eyes were bright as she examined the hashish.
"Cool it, bitch," Limerick laughed. He swatted her behind playfully with his hand. She bumped her crotch at him. Greg stood back, and watched as Limerick quickly ran his hand between her legs. "Cool it Trace. Or I'll make you with child."
She didn't back off. She acted, Greg thought, as if she couldn't care less about his hand. She began to fiddle with the hashish. "This stuff looks strange. Like bubble gum." All the while, Limerick absently rubbed his hand between her legs. Greg watched. He thought she seemed to like it.
"Tracy," he said. "Let's go into the living room." Greg forced himself to keep his hands at his sides. Suddenly he wanted to smash his fist into Limerick's beared face to make him stop touching Tracy.
Tracy looked at his eyes, and backed off from Limerick's hand. She nodded quietly to Limerick, and grabbed Greg's arm. "Okay," she said brightly, "let's go." She adjusted her panties, and pushed her breasts back into her bra.
Limerick stared after them, puzzled. Greg looked jealous. What the hell of an establishment thing to be, he thought. He shrugged and went back to toying with the lump of hashish. We'll cool him off, he thought. Tonight, we'll bring him all the way in. He began to whistle as he cut the waxy-looking stuff into tiny lumps. "And a real big one for Greg," he giggled.
Tracy dragged Greg's arm. "I'll be damned. You're actually jealous. How wild! You're jealous of me." She began to dance around him, tickling him, jabbing him.
He tried not to smile, but a big grin spread across Iris face. "Okay," he said, "I'm jealous. I can't help it. I want you for myself."
She sidled up to him, one hand toying with his trousers. "You can't be jealous, Greg my love. Jealousy is for the sickies. The 'unfreebies.' The people who roar in the night at unseen, homemade goblins. Bogey-men made out of their own fears. Jealousy is sick." She danced away from him, her breasts and buttocks calling for his hands.
Greg felt like she'd just slapped him. "I'm a sickie? You think I'm a sickie? Living in this madhouse like you do? You call me a sickie? Christ, you're the sickie!" She continued to smile and cavort around him.
'You're a child," he shouted, "a goddamned kid. Damn it to hell, anyway."
Tracy stopped dancing and stood in front of him. She slowly unhooked her bra, and let it fall to the floor. "Kiss me," she said. , Greg kissed her. He forced himself to kiss her softly. He was afraid, suddenly, to let himself go. Afraid to kiss her passionately, for fear he'd drive her away. She kissed softly back. They stood, mouths gently touching, their hands down at their sides.
He felt the tips of her breasts pressing against his chest, and he inhaled the fragrance of her.
"I don't want to be jealous," he whispered into her opened mouth. "I just want to love you. Completely."
"Don't sweat it, Greg Establishment. You'll learn. You'll learn." She pulled his hands to her buttocks, and he used the forward momentum to propel her to the couch.
"Teach me not to be jealous," he said as he slid her panties down her thighs. She moved herself under him on the couch, and he felt her legs part for him.
She pulled his body down onto her, and Greg felt himself being drawn into her as she pressed herself up against him. "I love it when you do that," she said, as he rolled his hips from side to side, tantalizing her.
"I learned something just now," he said into her ear.
"What's that?" she asked, her eyes now closed and her legs up around his waist.
"This sure beats looking at candles!"
She smiled as she felt him grow even larger within her. Out in the kitchen, Limerick was whistling Christmas carols.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Later that night, as Greg looked around the room, the feeling of being caught in a perpetually revolving door hit him. Couples; young, happy-many of them far gone-were either half nude, completely nude, or considering seriously the thought of getting nude.
About twenty people were there. The usual eight from the house on Prospect Street, and several local types who just dropped in. Tracy called them "plastic hippies" because they were only part of the "scene" on weekends. During the week, they worked at their jobs, or went to college. Greg, as usual, was the oldest.
He thought back through the weeks to the party at Christine's apartment. He felt the wine he'd drunk so far this evening dragging him to sleep.
"Greg! You're out of it! Come back baby." Tracy tickled Greg in the ribs and he felt her young fingers cool against his skin. "Huh?" he asked. Tracy, danced off.
"Wahoo!" Limerick shouted as he bounded into the room, his hands above his head clutching a small saucer. "Look," he said, laying the saucer carefully on the cluttered packing case that served as an added table. "Hash," he said, almost religiously.
"Oooh" and "ahhh" from many of the guests. And a look of frightened concern from Greg. The Police, he thought. What if they got word of the party? What if they broke down the door, and marched everybody off to jail?
Greg shuddered at the vision. It was too clear. There's a thin line between dreams and reality, he thought. He shuddered again, forcing the scene away.
He made his way across the room to Tracy. "Hey, Tracy. This party's getting a littleer-wild?" He whispered into her ear, and she smiled and nudged him.
"You're acting like an old man again. And you're probably having a paranoid rush. Be cool. Groove along with it. Stop fighting it." She put her arm in his and he suddenly felt comforted. Comforted by a child, he thought.
An old man, in a dry month, being read to by a child. He sighed deliciously at the stab of self-pity and wondered quickly why some eighth grade poetry he'd been forced to learn so many years back would come to mind at a pot-party.
Limerick began to distribute little lumps of the brownish dough. Smaller than a pinky-nail, a little bigger than a beetle, Greg thought.
Little lumps that would nestle in the bowls of various pipes and, once lighted, hold the mind in a warm, wet grip. A sleepy trip down the corridors of thought, he let himself think.
"Okay, Greg. Light up. This'll kill you." He smiled a warm grin as Greg took the pipe.
"That's what I was afraid of." Greg forced a laugh, more or less. The grin he wore felt plastered on. He held the pipe gingerly. Tracy struck a wooden match on the packing crate and held it to the pipe in Greg's mouth.
"Suck," she said.
Greg glanced at her quickly, then got the message. He inhaled deeply, and the acrid, burning mass of fumes galumphed into his lungs.
He pictured the interior of his lungs as the smoke from the hash was drawn into them. He pictured tens of thousands of little blood vessels constricting, rebelling, and closing. "Arrgh" he said after holding the smoke in his lungs for several seconds. "That stuff tastes like hell."
The others in the room stared at him and smiled. They took his first inhalation as a cue, then began to light up their own pipes. Greg saw he was the only one who seemed to gag at the smoke. "You'll get used to it, Greg," yelled Squirrel.
Tracy accepted the pipe from Greg and sucked a mouthful of smoke into her lungs. She kept the smoke deep inside, and Greg stared at her. He pictured the lungs behind her lovely breasts. He found that by staring at her, and half closing his eyes, he could almost see her lungs, with the resinous smoke filling the millions of tiny caves.
"Here," she said, handing him the pipe again. Greg took another lungful, fought a little better than the first time, and managed to keep the smoke trapped in his chest for the better part of a minute.
He blew the fumes out, saw how little smoke there was, and felt a little dizzy. He figured, correctly, that he was dizzy more from holding his breath from the effect of the hashish.
He closed his eyes for a moment, and saw in clear detail the red veins on his frightened retinas. He saw wet little circles of tears walking slowly across a blinding field of light. Little red circles merged into larger, purple ones.
He kept his eyes closed and let the words come to his mind. He found that by keeping his eyes closed, and listening intently to some, new, strange, inner voice, he could almost see the words written on the burning convolutions of his brain.
Hippies, he thought. Hips. Hippies wigging out. Hips wiggling in. Hips burning pot. Hippies burning. Hippies Verning. Vern! Hippie Vern wiggling his hippo hips, hopping onto Roberta. Robbing rotten Roberta.
He found he couldn't turn off the words as his mind raced under the influence of the narcotic. His brain continued to spew out the words, and he continued to hear them, to see them, written in burning letters in his brain.
"You okay, Greg?" Tracy held his arm, looking with concern at his face. He nodded and tried to answer.
"I'm fain. I mean farm. Er, uh, fine. Real fine. Real fine, dammit!" He sounded the words in his inner ear. Fine. I'm fine. Fine why to die. Fine wine to dine and the moment grinds with the skeleton snap of love bones. Hellup! Love bones clack down the winter alleys of G.B. Gaines, Inc. Dark creatures lurk in the park. Dear creatures lark in the dark park. In a dark pack. The dark poke. The dark pokey. One dark pokey deserves another.
"Hey, Greg. You all right?" Tracy asked again, as she watched his hands begin to shake and his forehead begin to sweat. He tried to nod, but found he couldn't move his head. He wanted to say he was all right, everything was okay. But he couldn't seem to get back into the room His mind reeled with words.
The dark pokey, he thought. The pokey? The jail! The fuzz! "Fuzz," he mumbled, and Tracy narrowed her eyes at him.
Fuzzy men, he thought. Fuzzy oily men. The oily bird gets the worm. The oily fuzz get the worm called Greg. He began to cry, although he didn't know it. Tears were coursing down his cheeks, but the wide grin stayed plastered on.
Fuzzy oily men, he thought. With long, hard sticks. Sticks to beat me with. I did a bad thing. I left Roberta. Poor her, all alone. And poor him. Vern. The son of a bitch!
He screamed. "Vern! You son of a bitch! Roberta, you rotten tramp!" Limerick ran to his side and began to rub his temples gently. "Cool it, Greg. Easy now. Stay loose, man." He turned to Tracy. "Man, this guy's really going off. Look at his eyes."
"Shh," said Tracy. "I'm afraid for him." She continued to hold onto Greg's arm. He turned and looked at her, wanting to tell her not to worry. He found he couldn't speak the thought. Each time he'd try to form the words, only one word would come out. "Roberta!" he screamed for the third time.
Tracy continued to hold him, and she felt his shudders as the hashish rocked his mind. "Man, he's having a freaky thing. She must have really blown his mind." Limerick nodded gravely, watching Greg.
After about ten minutes of standing quite still, and not being able to speak, Greg finally forced his mouth to ay, "I'm going to be sick." He lurched for the bathroom door far across the kitchen and watched as the door receded, instead of growing nearer. He tried to walk toward it, and found he was unsteady.
Tracy said, "Lean on me, Greg. I'll help you." She half carried him, dragged him, to the door. "I'm gonna be sick," he hollered again. As he was about to all down in the bathroom, he hollered the word again.
Roberta!"
Tracy held his head over the bathtub, assisting Greg as he was sick. "Oh, my baby," Tracy said. "What a mess."
Then came sleep. Warm, lovely, and delicious. Greg smiled as he lay in the bathtub, sound asleep. He dreamed he was lying on a cloud.
Tracy held him, watching him sleep.
The party roared on in the rest of the house.
Greg was on a cloud. No, he corrected himself, he was on a haystack. Yes, he thought. A haystack. And here comes Roberta Hey, what's that she's carrying? A question mark? No, it's a scythe. What the hell does she want a scythe for? He shouted, "What the hell are you carrying a scythe for? You're not death." In his dream, Roberta answered, "It's for you, Darling."
She was dressed all in black. Only her midriff was bare, and Greg noticed carefully that she had no navel. "I always knew you hated children," he mumbled.
Tracy, watching him, was forced to smile. Roberta, in his dream, sneered.
The red light-bulb where her mouth should have been glowed red. She smiled again, and swung the scythe at Greg. He screamed as the scythe bit off his genitals. He watched them fall wetly on the floor of the barn. Next to the couch. The goddamn couch we-couldn't afford, but Roberta insisted we buy anyway., And the payments to go, yet. God, there must be fifty of them left.
He screamed again, silently in his dream, and clutched his groin, and woke himself up. He opened his eyes, and saw he was lying on his back in the bathtub.
Tracy saw he was awake. Very quietly she asked, "All right?"
He shook his head once, then twice, and managed to nod yes. His mouth felt dry from the hashish, and he was thirsty. '
"I'm dying of thirst," he mumbled. Tracy smiled down at him, saw he was going to be all right, then very deliberately reached into the tub and turned on the cold water tap.
Greg yelled as the water hit him full force. He started to get up, and Tracy reached in and pushed him back under the spray. "Good for what ails you, mon ami," she giggled. The ice-cold water brought Greg almost fully back to earth, or at least back to the party. He gave up trying to get out of the tub and let the cold water wash away the horror of the nightmare.
Later, after he'd borrowed dry clothes, he sat talking to Tracy in the kitchen. "Whew, that's wild stuff." He shook his head, glad that Tracy had forced him under the water.
"Remind me not to give you too much hash, any more. Or any more at all, in fact. Man, I thought you were going to freak all the way out." Tracy had a soft edge to her voice. Almost, thought Greg, as if she had gotten just a little bit more involved with him than she thought she would have.
He blinked his eyes, and tried to focus on her. Tracy, he thought. Young, million year old Tracy. Beautiful Tracy who's got the key. The key to ever-present happiness.
He smacked his lips together, tasting the dusty taste of the hashish he'd smoked. "Whew, I feel rotten. This is supposed to be fun?" He closed his eyes at the touch of Tracy's hand on his neck as she caressed him.
"Sure, it's fun," she said. "But you have to get used to it. Like sex. It's pretty strange at first, but it gets better. Right?"
Greg smiled as she continued to stroke his neck with her cool fingers. "Then," she said, "after a while, you get to be an expert at it." She laughed and kissed Greg on the cheek. "Come on, get up and walk around. You'll come back to life faster."
She started to get up from the chair, and Greg noticed that the front of her blouse had either opened or had been opened during the course of the party. He stared at her.
"Well, you're coming back to life," she laughed, following the direction of his eyes. He forced a smile, felt his head give a small spin, and reached for her. He had the distinct feeling that if he turned around, there'd be a deep pit. Filled with-what? Snakes? Broken Coke bottles? Sulphur? Empty space? Yes, he thought, black empty space.
Greg was sure there was empty space behind him Not just the absence of something, but total emptiness. He was afraid to turn around. He grabbed again for Tracy, pulling her to him. "There's nothing behind me. Absolutely nothing. A deep, empty space. Weird feeling."
"You and your hangups," she said. "Come on, get up, the grope is starting." She started to walk to the living room.
"What's grope?" He looked confused, and Tracy smiled. "You'll see. Come on." She pulled Greg along, arming him toward the party sounds.
He pressed his hands to his temples, trying to mesh the gears of his brain. He could picture the inside of his head. Sparks. And loud snaps and crackles as the mental energy was dissipated in a frenetic display of electric fireworks. But he found that by concentrating, he could block out the waves of terror he felt at the emptiness behind him, and feel almost calm. He saw that time, again, was bent. The word, "grope" echoed across his mind. "Ahead baby, straight ahead," he mumbled.
The walk to the living room seemed to take four days, the lifting of a foot an hour, the movement of his arm at least half an hour. Then suddenly, the bent time flashed ahead, and his mind flew across the room.
He was standing in the midst of the group. "You've got to undress, Greg," Tracy was saying. She quickly flipped her blouse off, then bent to remove her slacks. They flew from her, landed somewhere off in the corner. Greg stood staring at her.
Others in the room watched with interest as Tracy' began to undress him. He thought to fight her cool hands, then saw that any movement he made was in extreme slow motion, and he gave up trying.
He watched her hands fly around the buttons of his shirt, then move leisurely down to his trousers. He felt himself becoming aroused as her fingers toyed with the zipper.
Then he felt cool air on his bare legs. He stood there, his trousers around his ankles, his shirt hanging from his shoulders. Distantly, he heard the laughter of the group and above it all, the reassuring voice of Tracy. "Feel love, Greg. Let the hash work on you. Feel love." He felt her hands at his belly, then lower. He lifted his feet, and stepped slowly from the mound of his clothing.
"Yay, Greg!" shouted Limerick. "Come on in, the party's fine." Limerick had removed his clothes. Now, naked, he sat cross-legged on a packing case, like a hairy-legged, skinny Buddha.
One of the girls Marion, was sitting on the floor, her head darting between Limerick's legs. Greg stared wide-eyed for a moment, then quickly turned his head.
He shrugged, then turned back to stare at Limerick and Marion. Her hands rested on Limerick's knees. Her head moved from side to side, then back and forth.
Greg felt himself fully aroused, hard and urgent. He laughed out loud. He laughed again. He felt the terror slip from him, to be replaced by an almost impossibly warm, clutching feeling of well-being.
Arms, almost. Almost, he thought, as if a pair of soft, motherly arms were encircling me. Protecting me. Tracy pushed at his chest. "Sit down, Greg," she commanded.
Greg collapsed down toward the rug. He felt like he was drifting down to the floor. No really conscious movement, just a feather. Drifting into a mass of other feathers. Flesh feathers, he thought to himself, then laughed again. He tried to grab Tracy.
She bent quickly down next to him. "Relax, man. Let the stuff work on you." She put out her hand and stopped Greg from sitting completely. She kept him in a kneeling position.
"Greg," shouted Squirrel, "you're on." Greg saw that Tracy had assumed a position on her hands and knees, her back to him. He saw the half-moons of Tracy's buttocks facing him. He looked down her body, saw her young breasts hanging from her chest. He sidled up behind her, aimed himself into her, and sighed with satisfaction as she adjusted herself onto him. She gave a push backward, and he felt the warmth of her as he was forced deep within her. "Hmm" she said softly. Greg balanced his hands on her hips, and pushed into her body. She groaned again, and pushed back. "Oh Greg," she said. "Not too fast, just like that."
She was pushing herself back at him, around him. He bushed her outward, holding her hips, then pulled her roughly back. In the background he heard one of the people playing the drum again. The beat made a rhythm for for his stroke as he felt himself readying to burst. He noticed dimly that his feelings were dull slightly from the hashish, yet sufficiently sensitive keep his thrust whetted.
Limerick got up from the packing case after a while, and walked to Tracy. Glancing quickly at Greg, he dropped to his knees in front of her. He pushed himself to her, and she opened her mouth, welcoming his erect weapon.
Limerick was in front of her, Greg behind her. Greg thought absently, this is insane. But the thought seemed to be somebody's else's. So distant, he thought. Ha pushed deeply into Tracy, and he stared into Limerick's eyes. Limerick smiled warmly, his hands on Tracy's shoulders. "Feel love, yet?" he seemed to ask Greg. "Shh" said Greg.
Greg felt himself about to explode inside Tracy, to gush into her and cause her to burst. He moved himself rapidly back and forth, and Limerick suddenly closed his eyes Greg knew Limerick was exploding Then Greg burst The three of them all groaned loudly together.
"Wahoo!" yelled Squirrel from across the room "Triplesville!" Greg fell to the floor, and Limerick pulled back from Tracy's mouth. Her body slipped languidly to a prone position, and Greg was dimly aware of Squirrel lying down between her legs. As Tracy's legs went around Squirrel's waist, Greg saw Marion hand Tracy a towel.
Marion backed off from Tracy and Squirrel, and walked to the packing case again. She sat down, and clutched one breast, her fingers manipulating her brown nipple. Her other hand was idly working between her legs, massaging her moist sex.
She saw Greg's eyes on her, smiled, got up, and walked over to him. "Hey, elderly gentlemen, you still ready?" He nodded happily and felt himself rising again. This time he took the initiative.
He got quickly to his knees, and pulled Marion down to her knees. She smiled and shot her head forward to groin, welcoming his organ with the same joy Tracy owed Limerick.
Greg saw Squirrel roll exhaustedly from Tracy, and watched as the girl lifted herself to a sitting position. "Cool," she murmured pleasantly.
She watched Greg and Marion for a moment, then got to her feet. She walked behind Marion, being careful not to disturb her, and standing with Marion's head peeking through her legs, she mushed her mons toward Greg's waiting mouth. Creg faced them both, Tracy's cleft against his kiss, and Marion's mouth warm around him The drum kept up a rhythm somewhere in the room.
Thrashing, wiggling, arms and legs and hips and groins and breasts and lips and hands and feet all were in a frenzy. Then, it was another triple explosion as Tracy pushed her belly against Greg's mouth with urgent joy, while Marion, with Greg's hand active between her legs, spread her cleft for his seeking fingers. Her eyes closed as she felt Greg's shudder begin.
The three of them fell exhausted to the floor. "Oh wow!" shouted Marion. "Oh wow!" The drumbeats roared into an insane staccato, then were stilled. The smell of hashish and bodies was heavy in the room. The people were all spent, naked, emptied of every possible sexual tension. Many of them were laughing exhaustedly, their faces happy and sleepy.
Greg forced himself to think. What if the door is suddenly thrown open? And the Police come in? The thought was horrible beyond horrible. Ha shuddered and forced the thought to go away. He leaned down and whispered into Tracy's ear, "So, this is grope" She smiled sleepily and nodded as he kissed her neck. Ha tasted the delicate salt taste of her sweat and loved her for it. She nodded again, her eyes bright and happy. "Yeah," she said "Great, huh?"
Greg rolled onto his back. "You want me to philosophize on the ultimate consequences of this, or should I just lay here and feel love?
Tracy giggled and jammed her finger into his ear. "Sure, go ahead. Say it's sick. I know you've got to think so. That's what happens the very second you put words around it. There are no words for what just happened, except evil words But look at it this way. Think of all the pure animal joy that's here You have to forget words when you play grope. Just remember that it is. It just is."
Greg stared at four dead roaches imprisoned in the white globe of the ceiling light and smiled quietly. Tracy lay with her head on Greg's belly, staring between his legs. Idly, she studied him, with an almost childish curiosity.
Greg watched her. "You taking notes on my thing?" he asked.
"Why do you call it a thing? As if it had no identity? I think it's more than a thing It's you. Or a part of you, anyway, and I love it." She leaned down and kissed it. "You ashamed of your body? Of your parts?" She turned on his stomach and looked into his eyes "Isn't that kind of silly? Considering what we've just done, I mean?"
Greg stared into her eyes He saw his own reflection in the tiny windows that were her pupils Tracy grinned.
"You're almost there, you know" Greg said after a while.
"Where?" she asked, settling herself on his stomach, getting ready for a round of talk, comfortable with her breasts just gently tipping themselves against his chest.
"I set out several weeks back to find, well, to find something. I guess I was looking for freedom. I mean real freedom. The kind I hear about as being the 'sexual revolution'. I don't know if I'll ever find it, but you seem to have. You're almost there. You're not predatory, like most women, or men, too, I guess. Sure, you people are animal-like in your sex habits, but you're not vicious about it. And that's the difference between your generation and mine. We eat each other alive with our genitals. You people kiss each other to life. You do it. You dig it. But you don't dig sex more than, say food, or talking. Or watching a fire. It's kind of great, I guess, and kind of lonesome for somebody outside, looking in." Tracy remained silent. Greg let his words hang in the air. Words, he thought. Little white, soft, creatures. Little helpless beasties in the face of action. Action like he'd just seen, felt, lived.
He stopped talking, and began to let himself drift with the sleepy feeling. After about three minutes, he felt Tracy's head lift from his stomach. He. wondered where she was going. To Limerick? To Squirrel? Jealousy, again, he thought. There's no such thing as jealousy in the presence of love. He wondered why he felt panic at the thought of Tracy walking to one of the others in the room, when just moments ago, he'd felt joy at the thought of Limerick fuelling himself with her.
He found that by analyzing his feelings, he wasn't truly jealous. Just frightened at the thought of losing her. Watching her making love with somebody else-provided she was willing-was all right. Then he could know she was giving love to a friend. But wondering about where she was and wondering if she was with one of the others, without knowing it, now that's only panic, he thought.
He laughed as he pictured his earlier reaction when Limerick had put his hand between Tracy's legs that afternoon. I love Tracy. And I love Limerick, too. And I love-Marion, and I love Squirrel, and the others-so how could I be jealous? After a while, sleep pushed his eyes shut
"She's outside the window," he heard somebody say as he began to wake up. He had to think a minute, this is-this is El Paso. He came awake slowly.
Limerick was talking to somebody. Greg focused his eyes on them.
Was it Robert Limerick was talking to? Yes, it's Robert, he answered himself. Limerick is talking quietly to Robert and Tracy is out on the fire escape. He slammed his eyes open again.
Fire escape? "Tracy!" he cried, jumping to his feet. "Tracy!" Two couples across the floor looked up quickly, then went back to their lovemaking.
Limerick grabbed Greg's arm. "Hey, man. You okay? What's wrong?" Greg's eyes were wide and staring. "Tracy!" he yelled again. Limerick smiled finally, and pointed to the balcony window. "Easy, Greg. She's out there. Easy."
Greg made his way to the window. Tracy was there, sitting on the balcony overlooking the street. "What are you doing out here?" he asked through clenched teeth.
"Oh hi. I'm loving." She was wrapped in a plastic bag arrangement. Greg saw her naked body through the plastic. A hair dryer had been attached to the bottom of the bag, and was plugged into an outlet in the living room wall, the electric cord tailing out the window.
Greg climbed out on the balcony. Visions of her leaping off into the night seared his mind. "I thought," he stumbled, "I thought you were going to-to jump off."
Tracy laughed at him. "What? Jump off? What the hell for? No, man. I'm just out here loving." She giggled at him.
"Loving? Who?" Greg looked around the balcony. There was no one else out there. He pulled his shirt around himself, shivered at the night air, then hunkered down on his shins next to her. "Jesus, it's freezing out here."
"Exactly," Tracy said. "That's what I'm doing. Loving the warmth," she sounded patient, as if she were talking to a slow five-year-old. Greg became slightly annoyed at the tone she used, but he listened. "I'm in this here bag, right?" Greg nodded. "Well," she went on, "it's probably thirty degrees out here. I got this hair dryer warming the inside of the bag, and if I didn't, I'd probably freeze right?"
Greg nodded again, not quite sure if he was hearing her correctly. He shivered as she continued.
"Okay, so I'm digging how warm this bag is. I'm concentrating completely on the warmth inside this bag, which is keeping me from freezing. It's warm," she said, rubbing her breasts through the clear plastic, "so I'm warm. Total concentration, total love. Dig?" She watched Greg's face to see if he understood her.
"You're insane," he said. "But I guess it makes sense." He shivered again. "Room in there for me?"
Tracy laughed, "No. If I let you in here, I'd be thinking of you. I couldn't think totally of the bag. I couldn't totally love the bag. It's sort of an exercise in Yoga. You know Yoga?"
Greg snorted. "Well, I'm freezing to death while you sit out here and love that idiotic bag. I'm going back in and get some clothes." Tracy nodded dreamily and rubbed her breasts through the plastic bag. Greg saw that condensation had begun to form in the bag, clouding her figure before his eyes.
He climbed back into the house, and rummaged around the living room. He located the rest of his clothes, in the assorted pile of dresses, boots, cowboy hats, fringed jackets and levis.
"Now," he said, climbing back onto the balcony, "let me out there." Tracy smiled, her eyes half closed, and nodded to him.
"Come on, thinker."
"Loser" he corrected her. "Huh?" she asked. "Nothing."
They sat there for about five more minutes. Greg watched the plastic bag become completely opaque as her perspiration condensed on its insides. Tracy yawned, blinked twice, then began to unzip the bag. "I'm going in," she said sleepdy.
Greg watched as she stepped, nude, from the bag. Her skin immediately began to form goose bumps.
"Arrgh, I'm freezing. Wheew!" She scampered past Greg and climbed through the window. He patted her rump and she jumped down into the room. Tracy yipped like a puppy and hit the floor on a dead run.
Greg sat back, watching the Southern Pacific train-yard across the street from his vantage point on the balcony. A train, three coaches and a tired diesel, lay waiting for its nightly cargo of fifteen or twenty travellers. It tooted once, then lurched.
The slow noise fell across the street, climbed up the balcony, and tapped Greg's ears. He saw that the hashish was still with him, but only slightly. He felt warm, despite the cold, and he turned his head up to look at the stars.
He lay with his head back, his feet resting comfortably against the wooden railing. Behind him, through the window, the sounds of the party went on. Music, and the insistent drumbeat now and then a giggle, or a laugh. He felt good.
He Only half saw the blinking red light on the dark sedan as it pulled to a stop in front of the building. He looked down, his attention pricked. Then he froze.
Policeman. Policemen were climbing out of the car. They were heading toward the building. He stared down at them, for a moment. He snapped his attention back into the room, and started to climb in. He hollered into the room, "Fuzz!"
He felt his mind go suddenly, absolutely, clear. If I go into the room, he thought, I'm sure to be caught. He swung himself back out the window, and curled himself into a ball on the floor of the balcony. Oh God, he thought. Police!
He waited agonizing seconds. The people in the room were frantically running around. He heard the toilet being flushed, water being run in the sink, and a small package of something flew out the window past his head, thrown by Limerick.
Then, moments later, a loud knock on the door. A three second pause, then another knock. A two second pause, then the door suddenly plunged inward, ripped from its hinges by the force of a policeman's shoulder.
They stood in the room. Policemen. Three of them Greg ducked his head as he crawled the length of the balcony. He got to the far end, and pressed himself against the railing. He peeked through the slats of the railing, and saw that he had nowhere to go.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The moon hid leisurely behind a scudding cloud, and the darkness lay like a flattened palm over the house on Prospect Street. Greg crouched on the balcony, grateful for the extra measure of protection the darkness lent him. He felt his legs ache as his knees were tightly drawn to his body. He felt the hair on his arms and the back of his neck stiffen in fear.
The people, he thought frantically. Most of them were under 21. And there was hashish. And Limerick's amphetamine pills. And the sex. Acres and acres of naked flesh-all quickly seen by interested cops. He thought, what a score. Ten thousand years in jail, at least. Dope, statutory rape. The party laughter that moments before was filtering out to the balcony was now stilled.
Greg crouched in the cold and imagined the officers inside. With the people lined up in front of them. Tracy, Limerick, Robert, and Marion. And the others: Squirrel, Dotty. All of them frightened. Probably a little arrogant, too.
Greg felt his heart skip as one of the policemen walked to the window and peered out. He seemed to look directly at Greg. His eyes were still focused for the lighted kitchen, and he didn't see Greg on the dark balcony. He muttered something to one of his cronies in the kitchen, then ducked his head back in.
Greg let out a small sigh of relief. He hunched his head deeper into his jacket. The dark cold stabbed through him.
He waited. Five minutes. Then an agonizing ten minutes. Then it seemed like a half-hour. Finally, he heard a door slam from the inside of the house. It sounded far away.
Greg felt a pang of conscience as he pictured the young friends walking downstairs, the policemen directly behind them, sneering, and prodding them along.
Greg turned his head and stared down to the street below. He saw that if he remained on the balcony, the police would see him when they got to the street. But he had to make sure they'd all left the house. He saw that he'd have to climb back into the kitchen just before the policemen got to the front door downstairs.
He crept along the balcony. His elbows ached as they carried his weight. Despite the cold, he felt a bead of sweat fall from his forehead onto his lips.
He crept to just below the open kitchen window. He waited a moment, straining to hear if one of the policemen had perhaps waited upstairs just in case. He gulped and slowly lifted his head to peer into the room. Empty. He heard the door down on the street opening.
He lifted himself quickly, then climbed over the window sill. He dropped into the room, then ducked quickly down to the side of the window.
So far so good, he breathed. He sniffed at a strange smell. He was surprised to smell incense in the room. There had been none earlier. He sniffed again, trying to catch the burning autumn leaves smell of hash, and found only the clean smell of pine.
He glanced at the packing crate table, and saw that someone had lit up an ornate, brass incense burner to disguise the hashish smell. A good move, he thought. If you can't see it, and you can't smell it, how can you prove there is any hash? He gave a mental pat on the back to whichever of the people had lighted the incense. Limerick, probably, he thought.
Greg listened intently. He heard only the night sounds of the city. The train leaving the station half a block away. The distant honking of a truck horn on the expressway. The drip-drip of the faucet in the wildly painted room.
Then, down on the street, Greg heard car doors slam. A moment later, two black sedans roared to life. Greg heard the cars drive off. The engine sounds got dimmer as they rounded a corner.
He began to feel the warmth of the fire. The cold air was behind him, the room offered immediate and friendly protection. The weird painting on the living room walls looked pathetic.
Greg sat heavily down on a wooden chair. It creaked, and the loneliness of the sound was magnified by an echo as it bounced around the empty room. He wondered how his young friends would be treated. Parents would be called, he guessed. He imagined the phone conversation. "Look, your dirty little daughter was found stark naked at a dope party. Come bail her out."
Or worse. No parents. No one to come and help. He felt his panic being replaced by worry.
He hung his head and let his arms limply to his sides. The hashish was almost worn off, and the crisp reality of the situation clobbered Greg's mind. He closed his eyes and tried to think.
"Psst! Greg!" Greg jumped. "What the hell?" he shouted. Limerick materialized in the kitchen doorway. "Wow, man. A bust! Christ." He smiled a worried grin and walked into the room.
Greg's mouth hung open. "What'd yon do? Hide?" he asked.
"Sure, man. I got under the goddamned bed. They missed me." He stood there, and Greg suddenly felt like kissing him. He paused a moment, "Now what?"
"Now we get them out." Limerick walked to the win-dow, he stared out into the dark street. "They're gone. Headed for the night desk. Probably a night in the tank before the phone calls start."
Greg marvelled at the youth's easy confidence. "You seem to know what's going on. They going to be all right?"
"Hell, man. They got them for vagrancy. The hash was all gone by the time the fuzz got in. We flushed most of it down the toilet, and I threw what was left out the damned window. No sweat. But vag's a bad charge. Damn it."
"They'll be all right?" Greg felt his voice crack.
"It depends. If we could prove that they live here, with supervision, we could get them out tonight. If not, well, then it's phone calls and a lot of bullshit. And the only one from around here is Squirrel. The rest of us are from-well-all over. That means long distance calls. And the fuzz don't like to spend the money. So, it could mean several days in the tank for them, and maybe even the youth farm. It's a bitch, man." He scratched his beard and stared for a moment at Greg. "You know, you could help them."
"Me? How? What could I do?" Greg asked. "Let me have these dear children, I'll save them," he snorted.
He stared at Limerick. After many seconds, he said, "What can I do?"
"Easy, Greg. Just go down to the station-house and act like a righteous guardian. Tell them you rent this place. Hell, the real landlord's in Tucumcari, New Mexico. That's hundreds of miles from here. They won't know any better. Tell the fuzz you rent this house, that Tracy's your cousin, and that you were at the movies. You didn't know she was giving a party. Tell them you're a deacon in the church, and like that. Hell, they'll slap Tracy's wrist, hit you with a lecture about the evils of modern young people, then let them all go free in your custody. All you have to do is act righteous. Indignant, man. Dig?" He watched Greg's face.
"You think it'd work?" Just walk into a police station? He bit the inside of his lip. Limerick watched his eyes. "Sure, Greg. It'll be easy."
Greg nodded after a while. "I gotta get cleaned up. I can't go in like this."
Limerick smiled in relief. "Great! It's a shame you have to chop off your beard, just when it's getting to look so good. But, it'll be better if you go in without it. Fuzz hate beards. Really hate 'em. Here, I got a razor somewhere." He ran off to find it.
Action, thought Greg. I'm' doing something. I'm scared but I'm doing something. And it's good. "I'll need a clean shirt and jacket. You got clothes?" He took Limerick's razor.
Limerick nodded and ran to a closet. He dumped a bunch of colorful posters, two tennis rackets, a small suitcase, and a battered guitar onto the rug. He rummaged some more, and held up a denim jacket. He searched some more, and found a denim work shirt. More rummaging, and a pair of denim work pants. Greg took them.
After a while, Greg was dressed. "I look like a slob," he said.
"This ain't a fashion show. You look like a roughneck, an oil-field hand. All honest, and all kinds of sober. Man, you sure look funny without your beard." Limerick stared at Greg's clean-shaven face. "Kind of sinister, like a census taker, or somebody."
The clothes were a little small, but the effect was just what Limerick had in mind. Greg Citizen. Good, honest, and hard working. There was one effect missing.
"We got some wine. Drink a couple of slugs of it before you talk to the sergeant."
"Why?" asked Greg.
"Dummy. Listen, if you go in there smelling straight and sober, they'll be suspicious. It's Saturday night, right? A sober, honest, reliable citizen gets drunk on a Saturday night. If you go in there smelling from booze, they'll respect you. Believe me," Limerick sounded as if he'd written the book on sober, honest citizens. "And don't mention dope. If they bring up the subject, look dumb and ask what dope is. When they tell you it's hash or marijuana, look horrified. Let your hp tremble and your hands shake. Be cool."
Greg smiled at his image in the mirror. He looked like any one of ten thousand Texas oil rough-necks on a Saturday night. He swallowed several mouthfuls of the wine Limerick had handed him, and kept the last mouthful in his mouth for several moments, to get the full effect.
"Okay, let's make it," Limerick said, pushing Greg out the door. Greg was surprised to find that Limerick owned a car. "It was my old man's, but he gave it to me. To get rid of me, I guess." Limerick laughed a light laugh.
Greg drove the 1956 Packard to the downtown station house. "Hey, Limerick," he asked as they pulled up in front of the combination station-house, traffic court and jail. "What's Tracy's last name? I have to know it for the sergeant."
"Landis. With one V." Limerick slumped down into the seat of the old car. "Listen, I'll wait here. Hurry."
Greg gulped, fought for control of his shaking hands and opened the car door. "Try to act nervous," Limerick giggled.
"I'll try," Greg answered. The walk to the front door of the station house was long. Almost, thought Greg, as long as the walk to the front door of hell. But even more nerve shattering.
"My cousin, Tracy Landis? You-er-uh-arrested her? I'd like to see her." He stood in front of the desk sergeant.
The heavy-set policeman looked bored at first. Greg made sure he breathed heavily across the desk into the maris face. The wine smell wafted the short distance. The man broke into a smile. He stared at Greg for a minute, cataloguing the clothes, the wine smell, the nervousness of the citizen before him.
"Landis? Landis? Hmm." He suddenly brightened, like a dog finding a forgotten bone. "Oh, the chick with the beads? The beatnik?" The officer's face darkened. "Damn beatnik!"
Greg thought for a moment to correct him. Not beatnik, but flower child. There's a difference. "Tracy Landis. You picked her up at-" he paused a moment, "at my house."
"That little hellcat is your kin, huh?" He narrowed his eyes at Greg. "You'all know what she was doin'?" He paused again. "She was screwin' a houseful of beatniks. Nice, huh? All of them naked as jaybirds. And they probably was smokin' pot, too."
"Pot?" Greg hoped he didn't look too theatrical as he asked the question. "What's pot?"
The officer's face softened just a bit. "You'all don't know 'bout pot? Hell, man. It's marijuana. Dope! They were probably smokin' it right there in the house."
Greg fought for control. He let his voice crack a little as he asked, "May I see her?"
"She five with you? That's your house." The policeman looked through slitted eyes at Greg.
"Damn it," Greg said, fighting to remain honest, sober and reliable. "I got to see her. Her mama asked me to take care of her when she passed on, and-" Greg hung his head, unsure what he'd say if he looked at the officer's face. "I got to get her out of this mess." He waited a moment, got himself back into control, and looked up at the policeman. He watched the man's small eyes glint, as if they were made of steel.
"I done a bad thing. I skipped church tonight. I'm a deacon at the First Covenant you know, and I went drinkin', with the boys. I left her alone. And she got herself in this mess." Greg let his voice go soft, quiet, as he continued. "I got to try to talk to her. Talk some sense into her. Get her back to the church."
The policeman's face softened a bit more. Greg continued to talk. "Hard, ain't it? Trying to care for a kid nowadays? With the television and the movies ruining them. Teaching all the wrong things." Greg watched the policeman's eyes widen in respect as he talked. "I shouldn't have gotten drunk tonight. I should have stayed home with her."
The policeman cleared his throat. "Ain't no crime get-tin' a little drunk now and then. I do it myself. But you got to watch them, these damn kids. Oh, well. I guess you can see her. But you got to talk to the judge. He's pretty mad about it. Damn kids broke up his bridge game, and he hates that." The officer pressed the buzzer, another policeman came into the room, and Greg was brought before the judge.
More talk. The judge was tired. He was angry about his bridge game being interrupted by these "damn commie-pinkos and their crazy dope parties."
"We didn't find any dope, your honor," said the desk sergeant.
"They must of had it, I know they had it. All these crazy kids are on dope. Damn them, anyway." And more talk. Finally, the judge signed an official looking paper, and had the sergeant file it in a gray cabinet.
"All right. You can have her. But keep your eye on her. She's trouble. The other kids, you want to vouch for them?" The judge looked bored. Greg nodded quickly.
"Okay, but damn it, man.' Next time you go out, either bring her with you, or tie her up. She's a lot of trouble, I tell you. Her and her weird friends. Keep your eye on her."
Greg said "I will, your honor."
It worked. He was the responsible guardian. They were going to let him have Tracy back. And because they couldn't think of anything to charge the others with, they were free too. Then, the signing of more papers, and more promises to "watch out for that damned girl."
Then they were on the way home. "Whew, that jail stinks," Tracy said happily. She snuggled next to Greg as he drove them back to the house on Prospect Street. Limerick, Tracy and Greg were in the front seat of the car, the others were jammed happily in the back.
Laughter, giggles, and they all seemed surprised to see the sun peeping over Mount Franklin. "Man, what a night," laughed Marion. She giggled as Squirrel kissed her wetly on her neck.
Then, they were at the house. And Tracy was running for the shower, the others making jokes and laughing about their hours in jail.
Greg sat quietly at the kitchen crate. He poured himself a cup of coffee, and waited for Tracy to finish her shower.
As he sat at the crate, sipping his coffee, he pictured a dark suited man waiting in a shadow across the street. Is this the way of it, he thought, now a paranoid rush?
"Just a minute," Tracy called from the bathroom. Greg imagined her young body standing under the shower.
He wondered suddenly if he was a pervert. Which is more perverted, he wondered. Making it with your wife, when she doesn't want you to make love to her, or making it with an eighteen-year-old woman who wants you totally and completely. And who thinks of sex as healthy, clean, old-fashioned fun.
He stared out the window to the street beyond. The sun was fully up, the city was beginning to stir itself to life. The shower sounds, with Tracy's voice singing counterpoint, came through the bathroom door.
The raid left Greg empty. The house was still the house, but he felt a crushing again. The distant face of Roberta flicked into his mind. But, thought Greg, the face isn't so clear any more. He had to struggle to remember exactly what she looked like.
He wondered if he should call her again. "Hello, Roberta? Listen, I'm living with a hippie tribe in Texas, and we just got arrested for communal sex and dope. Okay?"
He recalled that he was broke. The week with the bunch on Prospect Street had been a free ride. He had needed no money. But, to call Roberta, he'd need money. Even to leave the house, he'd need money.
He sat morosely at the crate in the kitchen. Squirrel hurried through, his arms loaded with freshly chopped and split logs for the fire. The happy squeal of one of the girls, "Ooh, a fire. Yeah, Squirrel, build a fire." Flower people don't need money, thought Greg sadly. Just adults.
He started to drowse, then heard the bathroom door open. Tracy walked out, her body draped carelessly in a towel. Greg saw how he had bruised her earlier that evening with a more than passionate love-bite. The slight mark on her neck added a touch of-what was it? He wondered. Pathos? Sensual reality?
"Greg," she laughed, "that was great! You coming to get us, I mean. Wow! Talk about scared! I thought we were going to be there for years. God!" She skipped across the floor, and threw her arms around his neck. He smelled the soap smell of her cheek and he felt the cool, hard tip of her breast rub against his arm.
"They'll be watching this place for sure, now," he said, laying his head against her chest. "And the next time they pull a raid, we all get busted. Even me, your beloved guardian."
She laughed and held his head gently. "Don't worry, Greg. Anyway, Limerick has an idea. He wants to leave. Go back to New York."
Greg stiffened. He lifted his head. "New York?" he asked.
"Yeah, New York. You're from New York, aren't you?" Limerick's car? To New York? He let his mind work it over. Back to New York? Maybe get a job? Something sly, he thought. On a car lot, maybe. Or as a night watchman. Great! "When?" he asked her.
"Tomorrow, probably. You're right. We can't stay here any more. The fuzz'll be watchin' this place like hawks."
She giggled and tickled Greg on his thigh.
She pulled Greg's head to her bosom again, and closed her eyes as he began to nuzzle her breast He felt the towel fall away from her body. He lifted his head and kissed her lips softly. "This time no group sex, huh? Just us?"
She nodded as he lifted her up, and carried her toward the bedroom. "Just you and me," she said dreamily. "A whole new kick."
As he settled her gently on the bed, she said, "Love me, Greg." Greg gently pressed his hand between her legs, felt them move apart for him.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
"You think it'll make it to New York?" Greg asked. He stared at the old Packard. In the bright El Paso sunlight, it looked obscenely fragile. Sometime before, probably in a gesture of defiance, Limerick had painted it a bright, canary yellow, and on each side, he'd painted huge, blue flowers. The effect was startling.
"Hell yes, it'll get us there. It got me here, didn't it?" Limerick, it turned out, had driven to El Paso from New York the year before.
Last night, or actually early that morning, Greg and Limerick had shared a pot of coffee while Tracy slept peacefully on the rug in front of the fireplace. Greg had stemmed and hawed and finally asked if Limerick would let him go on the trip back to New York. "Christ, yes, man. The more the merrier!"
Greg recalled their conversation. Limerick was at first shy to talk. Embarrassed, almost, about his father's
"He made it in real estate, he says. All he did was buy houses in white neighborhoods, then sell them at twice the price to Negro families. The first house he'd buy, She'd pay a bundle, then, when the neighbors saw him showing the house to a spade family, hell, they'd shit They'd sell their houses to my old man for next to nothing. Just to get away from the spades. My old man used to brag about it. Said he was the nation's first blockbuster. So, I guess I don't feel guilty about taking money, from him. Besides, money's convenient, right?" Limerick snapped his fingers in the air, "Easy come, easy go,. huh?"
Greg nodded. It explained why Limerick could drop thirty-five or forty dollars for "hash," and why he could always manage the bail money he'd needed when he got picked up for his various offenses. And it explained why Limerick could afford to drive a car without working, and why he could afford seventy-five dollar boots.
And, thought Greg, it explained a little about Limerick himself. The inner Limerick. Why he laughed at the future, and sneered at his past. The whole scene-past, present, future-was all meaningless to him.
"Hell, man," he said, "Dad's got the money, and that's all he's got. Now me, I've got life! You, for instance. I got you. And I've got Tracy and the others! Friends, man, are pretty important. You can't buy 'em. You can only make em. Hey, get it? You can make your friends. Give us a kiss!" He smiled broadly and Greg ducked as Limerick aimed another of his wet kisses at his cheek.
Greg mentally filed away the information Limerick had poured out over their coffee cups. Limerick Rosenfeld. Twenty-two years old. High school genius, and college drop-out. From a six-figure income family who had two-figure mentalities. Greg suddenly felt sorry for him.
After they talked, Greg napped for a while. Then later, he and Tracy helped Limerick load the car. Some clothes, lots of books Tracy insisted she couldn't live without, and Marion's set of Swiss bells. "What the hell do we need Swiss bells for?" Tracy demanded to know.
"If you can bring all those books, I can bring my bells," hollered Marion. And Limerick smiled patiently and said, "She can bring the bells."
Finally, Greg closed the trunk on a set of Swiss bells, three cartons of paperback books, sixty-five record albums, and matched pair of water pipes. "Be cool, Greg. It'll make it. I guarantee it," Limerick said.
It was almost five in the afternoon before they were ready to leave. There was lots of kissing as the various people in the house on Prospect Street tried to be casual about the goodbyes.
Squirrel was the first to cry, then Marion. They held each other for a while, then broke apart, only to grab others in the house for tearful goodbyes.
Greg watched as Tracy held Squirrel's face in her hands, gently kissing him on the forehead, saying sad, sweet goodbyes. He was surprised to see that he felt a touch of her sadness. He found he'd grown to like the people, and he'd miss them.
Later, with Greg in the back seat with Tracy, and Marion leaning her head on Limerick's shoulder as he drove out of town, they watched the sun sink slowly down behind Mount Franklin. Greg wondered if he'd ever see the city again.
The brakes screeched. "Oh shit!" shouted Limerick.-, "What?" yelled Greg as he was thrown against the back of the front seat.
"Man, you know what day this is?" They all laughed, "No, what?"
"Well, it's Christmas Eve! Merry Christmas!" And Limerick zoomed the Packard ahead. Car horns blared, and Greg shrunk down into the back seat. "Don't kill us to celebrate, huh?"
Limerick aimed the Packard out onto Highway 80, and both girls sniffled a little as they craned their necks to see the last of El Paso.
Merry Christmas, thought Greg. "Turn on the radio, Limerick," he said. Limerick flipped the button, and a Christmas carol filled the car.
"We're gonna have a ball, man. Twenty-five hundred miles of one hell of a ball!" He tapped the horn ring.
"Shave and a haircut." Another car finished the piece, "two bits." The girls laughed.
"Hey, Greg. How come you're so quiet?" Tracy asked.
"I'm thinking. Just thinking."
"Stop thinking, man. Just groove." She snuggled next to him. Her hand was resting on his trousers. He smiled down at her hair, and kissed the top of her head. He slipped his hand into the top of her dress, and felt the warmth of her breasts cuddled there. Tracy giggled and moved herself closer to him, resting her hand a little more heavily on his lap. Greg pinched the nipple he felt, and delighted as it hardened to his touch. "Hmm," Tracy murmured, and her hand began to play with his zipper.
"Hey, in the back," Limerick yelled. "We're hardly out of town yet. Cool it." But he laughed. Marion glanced into the rear-view mirror, her dark eyes shining. "Yeah, Greg. Save some for me." Then they all laughed. Limerick accelerated the Packard to seventy-five.
The stay at the Hilton Inn in Saint Louis was fun, and all paid for by Limerick's magic credit card. Both Tracy and Marion almost choked with laughter when Greg pointed out the Saint Louis Arch, and Limerick said, "Yeah, man. That's Dame Commerce squatting over the Ghetto. Dig that yellow river!" Even Greg laughed.
But Greg knew that the stay at the Sheraton Motor Inn in Wheeling, West Virginia, would go down as the most insane, wildest evening of his life.
They pulled into Wheeling, tired, hungry and bored. It was about four in the morning. They'd driven from Saint Louis, non-stop. It had been breakfast in truck stops, then drive. Lunch at another truck stop-they all looked the same-and more driving. Supper at still another truck stop then a change of driver as Greg would curl up in the back seat and Limerick would gulp a benny and climb over the seat to begin driving again. And finally, four days from El Paso, they hit Wheeling.
"Listen Greg," Limerick said, "you go in first and register. You look more-er-uh-believable." He'd almost said, "You look older," but he caught himself. Greg was too damn sensitive about age, anyway. Greg nodded. Okay."
He climbed out of the car, and motioned Limerick to lower the window. "Hey, one room?"
"No, man. A suite. A whole goddamned suite this time." The girls squealed as Limerick spoke to Greg. He landed the credit card through the window. "Just sign my old man's name, Greg, and the horn of plenty gushes forth."
"That sounds phallic, Limerick," Marion giggled. Limerick winked and squeezed her leg. "A veritable wonderland of goodies, my child," he laughed. Greg stared at him. Limerick was high already. Benzedrine pills to keep him awake, and frequent sucks on a marijuana pipe to calm him down. His eyes were wild looking, his beard was shaggy. His hair hadn't been combed in three days, and it stuck out like a huge ball of steel wool.
"Wheel A wonderland of freebies. Hurry, Greg, it'll all go up in smoke." He rolled the window up as Greg walked to the registry desk.
Tracy yawned and watched Greg through the glass door as he talked to the desk clerk.
He signed the registration card, "Mr. and Mrs. Steven Rosenfeld," Limerick's father and mother.
The clerk didn't bother to check the card's signature against the registration signature. Greg sighed in relief. He took the keys and listened as the clerk intoned, "Sign out's three-fifteen. After that, it's another day, sir."
"Yes, thank you. Listen, my stuff's in the car." The clerk snapped his finger, and a bellboy materialized. "Take Mister Rosenfeld's things to his suite."
Tracy, Limerick, Marion and Greg had coffee while the stuff was carted up to the suite. Greg wondered what the bellboy's reaction to the weird assortment of items in the car would be. Then, after worrying about it for a moment, he thought out loud, "Who the hell cares what a bellboy thinks, anyway."
"Atta boy, Greg. You're coming along fine." Limerick grinned. Tracy yawned mightily, "Hey, let's go up, huh? I'm going to drop dead soon." They all headed for the lobby.
"Look," Greg said. "I'll go up first. When I'm upstairs, you wait a few minutes, then come on up. Okay?"
Tracy and the others nodded. Greg handed Limerick the check for the coffee, and headed upstairs.
He had ordered a two-room suite. Outside the picture window, several blocks away down on the river, Greg watched a flat, dark looking barge churn slowly down toward the main part of the city. It passed slowly under the steel framework of a black, iron bridge. He felt he could reach out and touch it. Far across the river, small lights glimmered on and off. A 707, its wing lights blinking red and green, spiked across the winter sky.
Then, the three of them slammed into the room. "Hey, man. You got taste," Limerick said. "This is great." He looked around the suite.
"It better look great. It's costing your old man forty-five bucks a night, friend," Greg said.
"So?" Limerick bounced on the bed, and the girls headed straight for the bathroom. "Hey, Greg. Room service! Let's call room service. Champagne, and lobsters. The whole bit."
Limerick grabbed the phone and dialed hurriedly. He spent five minutes ordering meticulously, and Greg grimaced as he tried to turn off his mental adding machine.
The girls came out of the bathroom,' both of them playful. The room, so dignified, so geared for the traveling, middle income American family unit, turned the girls off. They began to rearrange things. Limerick helped them haul most of the furniture off to the second room.
Finally, only two large mattresses, the coffee table, a lamp, and Marion's Swiss bells were left in the larger room. The girls had arranged pillows on the floor, and the overall effect was of an Eastern Sultan's tent. Not a motel room in Wheeling, West Virginia, Greg thought.
"Now," Tracy said, "let's get comfortable." She pulled the suede dress over her head, and stood nude. Marion pulled her sweater off, then quickly dropped her slacks to stand in sheer panties.
Limerick shrugged, nodded to Greg, and stripped quickly. "Come, you must strip, too."
Greg stripped to his shorts, and was just about to drop them, when he heard a knock on the door. He froze.
"No sweat, man. It's just the room service," Limerick said calmly. He walked naked to the door, and threw it wide open. The bellboy's eyes grew round. He stood rooted in the hallway.
"Man," said Limerick, "you gonna come in with the food, or you just gonna stand there? Make up your mind, I'm freezing."
The bellboy swallowed deeply and pushed the wheeled tray into the room. The girls giggled. "Just, er, uh, just sign here, sir," he said.
He turned to look at Tracy, who stood nude by the bed, then at Marion, whose panties hid little if anything. Both girls smiled pleasantly at him. "Evening," said Tracy. The bellboy tried to smile back. Tracy cupped her breasts in her hands.
At first Greg tried to cover himself. Then, watching the changes the bellboy was going through, he decided he was with the nude three. He casually dropped his shorts. "Howdy, friend. Nice little city you got here. Real nice." He managed to drawl it all out into the best Texas fashion. The bellboy tried again to smile.
"You hungry, friend?" asked Tracy. The bellboy stared from Greg to her, gulped, and shook his head, "Er, no ma'am."
Limerick handed the bill for the supper, to Greg. "Here, cous. Sign it."
Greg signed the elder Rosenfeld's name once again, and handed the bill to the bellboy. The bill dropped to the floor through his shaking fingers. He bent to retrieve it quickly, and Tracy walked over to him. As he straightened up, he found himself staring directly into her mons. He almost fell as he stumbled back. "Oop, sorry."
"Why?" Tracy laughed. Greg smiled at the quick happening, and grabbed the bill from the bellboy's hand. He added a ten dollar tip with a flourish of penmanship. "Here. For you."
"Ahem, thank you. Er, will there be anything else?" The bellboy kept glancing at Tracy's sex, at her hips, at her breasts, and trying to pull his glance away. "No," she said. "We'll call you if we need you."
Limerick winked at Greg. He stood next to him, his arm gently resting on Greg's waist. "I'll call you when I want you, dear," he said to the bellboy. The boy gulped again and backed quietly out the door.
"Wow! Oh wow! Did you see his face? I thought I'd split a gut, man!" Tracy held her sides as she laughed hysterically. Her breasts bounced up and down as she fell, backwards, across the mattress. "Oh, God. Did you see that pathetic, frightened creep's face?"
"Well, the ten-dollar tip ought to keep him quiet at least," Greg said. He hoped he was right.
Limerick hovered over the food tray. "Massuh sure been generous tonight. Dig."
Tracy drank too much champagne. She collapsed across the mattress, dizzy. Limerick and Greg drank more slowly, and ate most of the lobster. Marion ate little, but managed to stay relatively sober.
"An orgy, man. A goddamned orgy. Oh, wow!" Limerick's eyes were wide again. He'd taken two more bennies to stay awake.
Marion pushed her hips up at him from the mattress. "Here, take these."
"Huh? Oh." Limerick poured himself another drink of the champagne, and nodded to Greg. "Her panties, Greg. She wants you to take them off."
"Okay," he said. Marion lifted her legs off the mattress, and Greg pulled the panties off and threw them across the room. "Now," Marion said, "let's do it, old timer." She pushed Greg down to the mattress and began to kiss his face, his shoulders and his neck. He grabbed her around the waist, and kissed back.
Limerick sat watching them, sipping his champagne, planning a move. Tracy moaned from her position on the mattress, "Hey, take it easy, huh? I'm spinning enough as it is. Arrggh. You and your champagne."
Greg pulled at Marion's hips, forcing her to sit astride him. He felt himself being drawn into her body. Tracy had risen to her elbows and was watching them. She was smiling.
Marion settled herself onto Greg's waist, then stopped moving, holding him tightly within her. Greg knew her plan, and for the moment, it suited him. He delighted at the warm, clutching sensation as Marion worked out on him.
Greg let himself pulse inside the girl, and glanced again across to Tracy. She blew him a kiss. He smiled.
Limerick slid across the mattress to Tracy. He began to kiss her belly, her thighs. She half closed her eyes and gently put her hands to his head. "Turn around," she said softly. He followed her push, and wound up facing her feet, his head between her legs, her head between his.
Then, as Greg felt himself beginning to throb inside Marion, he was forced to move. The movement triggered a reaction in the dark-haired girl, and she began to move her hips from side to side. Her breasts flattened against Greg's pressing hands. He felt her nipples become hard, taut, urgent. Marion moaned softly and forced herself more deeply onto Greg. He moved his hands to her buttocks, clutching her.
"Ooh" she said. "Ahhh" he said. Then, the explosion.
At the same instant, Limerick and Tracy reached their moments, with Limerick's head bobbing frantically between Tracy's thighs, and her head moving energetically back and forth on his shaft.
"Oh, fantastic. Absolutely fantastic," Tracy sighed. "Whoosh" said Limerick. Greg sighed deeply and lay back, spent. Marion rolled from him, and lay next to him, breathing heavily, happily.
"Love!" yelled Limerick after a while. "Ain't it grand?" Marion smiled and flicked her hand against his belly. "It ain't over, man."
Suddenly, Tracy got up and ran from the mattress, headed for the bathroom. "Damned champagne. I'm going to be sick." Greg started to get up to help her, but Limerick put his hand out. "Let her alone, she'll be all right."
They heard small noises from the bathroom, then silence. After a while, Tracy came out. Her face was white, but she managed a smile. "Pot, at least doesn't make you sick. Ugh. Remind me not to drink any more." She threw herself down next to Greg.
They slept then. The four of them. Tracy with her arm across Greg. Greg with his head on Marion's undulating belly. Limerick curled like a baby with his arm resting gently on Tracy's chest.
Just before he dropped off to sleep, Greg sighed deeply. "That a happy sigh? Or a sad sigh?" Tracy asked.
"Both," he answered.
"What's wrong now, Greg?" Tracy asked softly, her breath warm against his ear. "You inventing more bogeymen?"
"This is too good to last. Something's got to give," he said.
"Greg, for God's sake. Stop it, huh? Just dig. Stop trying to put everyting in compartments. My God. You always think you have to be so careful. Listen, you can live your life so carefully, that you wind up having not lived it at all. Just cool it. Go to sleep. And by the way, I love you."
Greg smiled and pinched her buttock. She giggled and pressed her finger to his mouth as he started to say something. "Don't talk. Just dig my rear end. My pussy. My skin, my bones. Like I dig your body. Remember, Greg, God invented bodies. Men invented words." She smiled sleepily, closing her eyes. Love, Greg. That's all that counts. It just is, and nobody has to define it."
Then they were all asleep. The champagne caused Greg to dream. Roberta again with the scythe. But this time, Greg was ready for her. As he dreamed about her, he watched her smile.
Diamonds sparkled from her mouth. But they weren't diamonds at all. No, he thought, they're laser beams. Greg fought his fear as the beams sparkled from Roberta's dream smile.
"Lissen, I know those teeth aren't diamonds. They're laser rays. And now that I know it, you can't hurt me."
Dream-Roberta closed her mouth, and backed off a little. The scythe she carried seemed somehow to become diminished. "Here," said Greg. "You want these so badly, take them."
He unzipped his scrotum and let his two testicles drop into his hand. He threw them at Roberta's face. She screamed and disappeared in a puff of red smoke.
Greg yelled and woke up. The room was still. He listened quietly and heard the easy breathing of the sleeping trio. He turned his head and felt Tracy's breast brush his cheek as she wiggled comfortably in her sleep.
He kissed her nipple softly and watched as Tracy smiled widely in her sleep. "Greg," she said quietly.
"Yeah, I'm Greg," he said. Then he went back to sleep. This time he dreamed he was laughing along with Marion and Tracy and Limerick as they ran naked through a warm forest.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
It was four o'clock in the afternoon. The grey clouds sat heavily over the road, and the rain drifted in rivers down the windshield as the yellow car sped along the Turnpike?" Greg asked Limerick as they drove.
"How come it's always raining on the Pennsylvania Turnpike? Greg asked Limerick as they drove.
"It ain't rain, man. It's a state of mind. Pennsylvania is a dark, gloomy place. Like caves and smokestacks and soot. So the climate obliges, dig?"
Greg smiled, nodded, and wondered for the hundredth time why he bothered asking questions of Limerick Rosenfeld. Limerick never answered questions. Not the ones asked, anyway, Greg thought.
Limerick was a genius. Muddled deep in his brain was an I.Q. of 175. His I.Q. kept getting in the way of his attempts at communication. And because most questions were simple, Limerick immediately made them complicated. Side roads, tangents and symbolistic intellectualizing made simple questions abstract exercises in reasoning. And because people asked him simple questions, he was incapable of leaving them simple. His answers were usually metaphysical.
"Weatherman's calling for snow in the Harrisburg area, with a build-up to four inches," the announcer said.
"Great," Greg snorted disgustedly. "That's all we need." The Packard had made it so far. With each tank of gas, Greg had to get the oil checked, and it usually took four quarts. A thick, black smoke oozed and plumphed from behind, the ancient yellow Packard as it careened down the Pennsylvania Turnpike.
Limerick hopped across the seat when Greg stopped to change drivers. He smiled as Greg walked around the front of the car and climbed back in on the right side. Limerick still hadn't combed his hair, and his beard was shaggy and unkempt.
"Hey, Limerick?" Greg asked.
"Yeah," answered the youth as he drove with his eyes screwed down into points of concentration against the windshield.
"How come you wear your hair that way? And the beard?"
Limerick smiled mysteriously before answering. He Waited a moment, then said, "Well, it's like this. You walk down a street. You feel groovy. There's a kind of glow to you. I don't know what it is, just the difference you feel between you and everybody else. And, if you're dressed straight, you know, the white shirt and tie routine with the brief case and the umbrella, the people you pass on the street stare at you. They get confused. There's something going on inside you. They can see it from your eyes and face. But they can't define it. And they get more confused, then they get scared. You look like a threat. You look like you got the answer. And, if you happen to look physically like them, they get even more worried.
"And they get bugged at you. They call you a commie, a fag or something like that. They have to put you down, you're different. And this is the impvrtant part, if you look like them, they want to hurt you. Mostly because they can't define the difference. It's too subtle. If you look like you're straight, they get twice as bugged.
"So, I wear this hair, and this beard, and these clothes to give them something to attach their fear to. To give them a definition. They look at me, they stare, and they say "Hmph. Creepy beatnik. Hippie. Damn bum," or something like that. But, with me looking like this, they have a label to pin on me. So they feel secure, dig? If I looked physically like them, but I still glowed differently, they'd stone me, man." He stared ahead, hoping he got through.
"More metaphysics." Greg laughed. But he thought about it as Limerick drove.
Limerick stared straight ahead as he asked, "You going back to your wife?"
Greg looked quickly at him. "What do you mean?"
Limerick squinted his eyes, stared straight down the wet pavement as he drove. "Well, you seem to think about her a lot. I just wondered if you were going to try to, well, patch things up with her." He sounded sad. Distant, suddenly.
Greg considered a moment, then said, "I don't know. Maybe." He lapsed into silence as the tires hummed on. The sound made a lulling counterpoint to his thoughts.
The question echoed in his mind. "Going back to Roberta?" Where is Roberta? he wondered. High up in the apartment, her copy of "The New York Times" crumpled and unread, and "Better Homes and Gardens" crumpled on the unpaid-for cocktail table.
Probably with Vern sitting nearby, Greg thought. Go back to Roberta? What for? To shout hollow things at each other? To feel her sex still dry in the middle of love-making? Dry for me, wet for Vern, he thought.
Go back? To sit with toast and jam on a Saturday morning and count the minutes until the weekend was over?
But, he wondered, is this the answer? Is this all of it? Driving from one chromium jungle to another? With Daddy's credit card. And a yellow 1956 Packard with flowers painted on it. And Swiss bells rung by a bright-eyed maiden while she's sucked dry and spent by a twenty-two-year old genius with a penchant for metaphysics.
Reality, he thought. What the hell is real? Real is happy. And happy is being able to define what you want. Then to get it. Reality is an old man with his fingernails stabbing you in the gut while he yells "Go get it, boy."
Tracy yawned as she awoke in the back seat. "Hmm," she said sleepily. "Greg, come back here. I'm closed in. Lonesome." She reached to the front of the car and ruffled Greg's hair. "Hey, man, you need a haircut." Greg laughed at her hands, then he glanced into the rear-view mirror to her reflection. She smiled and stuck her tongue out at him.
He hadn't shaved since the night he rescued them from the police station in El Paso. His hair was long, past his ears. He was pleased that his beard was beginning to take shape.
"Yeah," he said to her reflection. "I'll get one in New York."
"Come on back here, Greg. You look like you've been thinking again. Lemme fix." Tracy pulled at Greg's neck.
"Better go, Greg. She'll make me crash the car if you don't," Limerick smiled.
Greg twisted around and grabbed Tracy's blouse. He pulled her to him. "Listen, you. Behave yourself." They kissed and Limerick laughed.
Greg got up on the seat, turned fully around, and climbed to the back of the car. Marion was still sleeping soundly, her head lolling side to side on the seat-back. Greg settled himself between Tracy and the sleeping Marion. Marion's head fell on his shoulder. He let it stay there as he put his arm across Tracy's shoulders.
"Wanna join the eighty-five mile an hour club?" Limerick asked their reflections in the small mirror above the dashboard. "You're chicken if you don't."
"Wowee!" yelled Limerick as the big car began to skid, then righted itself. Greg felt the car lurch, and looked quickly to the front. "Hey, klutz. Watch the road, not us." Limerick hollered again and forced his eyes back on the road.
Greg slid his hand into Tracy's blouse. She giggled happily as he felt her breasts. Warm, and inviting. He tugged gently at her nipple and felt its hardness.
"Man, your hands are like ice," she said, but she didn't stop him. Marion's head bounced softly against Greg's shoulder as he tugged at Tracy's blouse. She arched her back, to assist him getting the blouse from her shoulders. That done, he leaned down and brushed his lips against her breasts.
Tracy pushed her chest against his kiss. Suddenly, she smiled archly, and began to lift Marion's skirt up past her hips. Marion smiled in her sleep. "Hey, Tracy. What?" Greg asked, wondering what she had in mind.
"We'll form our own club, Greg. The double 85 club, for experts only, please," she said brightly.
She let Greg's hand pull her dress off, then "she kicked it from her feet. Her panties followed soon after. While Greg undressed her, Tracy slid Marion's panties down. She giggled as Marion, still sleeping, lifted her hips to assist her. "Cooperative, no?" laughed Tracy.
Greg concentrated on kissing Tracy's breasts, but his opened eyes stared at the dark triangle below Marion's navel. Tracy shivered at Greg's mouth on her nipple.
Tracy began to unloosen Greg's trousers. He assisted, and they fell to the floor of the car. The billboards on either side of the turnpike flicked past. Greg gave up trying to guess how fast Limerick was driving.
Tracy maneuvered herself onto her back. She placed one leg on the seat, the other resting on Marion's shoulder. Marion's head fell toward Tracy's open groin.
"Me first," whispered Greg. He hefted Marion's sleeping form, sat her up straight, and somehow managed himself between Tracy's thighs. He felt the delightful warmth surround him as she aimed him. He pushed at her, heard her sigh as he felt himself drawn into her. Her hips moved gently against his.
Greg's face was now only inches from Marion's undulating belly. He delighted in the musky smell of her. She still slept, or seemed to. He pushed his hips against Tracy, and felt himself plunge deeply within her, and at the same time, he began to kiss Marion's stomach.
Lower and lower he brought his kisses, until finally, Marion moaned and opened her legs, admitting his kiss. He enjoyed the insanity of it, as a part of his mind stayed back and watched objectively as he made love simultaneously to the girls. The moans he heard from Tracy as she jammed her hips to him signalled her eagerness.
As Greg kissed her so intimately, Marion finally opened her eyes. She sighed deeply and pushed her warm sex at Greg's mouth. Tracy wrapped her leg around Greg's waist, her signal she was beginning to soar. Greg pushed up and down-into her, his mouth working between Marion's thighs. The triple rhythm brought its own excitement to the moment. The rolling of the car, the rocking of Tracy's hips, and Marion's frantically bobbing sex.
Suddenly, Marion moaned and began to shudder. She grabbed Tracy's hand and slammed it to her breast. Tracy's fingers began to manipulate the brown nipple, causing Marion to moan louder. Tracy by this time was frantically pressing herself against Greg, accepting all of him, eagerly, joyously.
Greg felt himself about to burst. The moment came, roared loudly for the three of them, then danced off, leaving the trio spent, breathless, and laughing hysterically.
"Oh wow!" yelled Limerick, "too much!" His face was contorted in a wide smile and Marion flicked her hand up at his shaggy head as he drove. "You ought to try it, Loudmouth."
"Wait till the Jersey Turnpike, and it's Greg's turn to drive," he laughed. They continued to laugh for the next several miles. Greg rumbled his trousers back on, and casually happened to glance into the rear-view mirror.
"Hey! Fuzz! There's fuzz following us!" His eyes snapped wide in horror. The police car stayed a set distance behind them.
He felt Limerick slow the car slightly. "Cool it, Greg. No sweat. I've been watching him for twenty miles. He's not chasing us. Boy, are you paranoid."
Greg sighed deeply, his eyes riveted to the police car about four hundred feet behind them. Paranoid, he thought. Making love to two girls at once in the back seat of a speeding yellow car with flowers painted on it, with at least five ounces of marijuana in the glove compartment, and driven by a grinning madman with a straggly beard.
"Yeah, I'm paranoid," he said softly to Limerick's face in the rear-view mirror. "I'm just a scared old man. But cool it, anyway, huh?" Greg shivered in relief as the police car pulled off to the right, apparently to let the occupants stop for coffee at the roadside Howard Johnson restaurant. Marion smiled, closed her eyes, and went peacefully back to sleep.
Greg yawned, and Tracy cuddled herself against his arm. He let sleep close his eyelids. Nice, he thought. Scary, but warm and nice. And the knot I carry in my stomach is just birth pains. I'm giving birth to a new philosophy and the world is a yellow Packard driven by a madman. So what.
Greg slept for the remainder of the Pennsylvania Turnpike. The rain had, as predicted, turned to snow, and the wet flakes plopped onto the windshield, gathered into wet lumps, and cascaded down ,the glass to rest on the hood of the car.
Limerick, thanks to the benzedrine, whistled and kept up a steady sixty-five miles an hour. The radio added a sleepy lullaby to the humming of the worn tires as he drove and the trio in the back seat slept.
An hour and a half later, Limerick pulled off to the side of the road and after stopping the car, turned in the seat and tapped Greg's leg. "Hey, your turn to drive."
Greg stretched,-yawned, and carefully extracted his arm from around Tracy. She smiled sleepily and dropped her head into Marion's lap to continue her sleep. "Look at the two kittens," Greg whispered. "I'm hip," said Limerick, as he moved across the seat to let Greg drive.
Greg saw they were at a gasoline station. He ordered the attendant to fill the tank, and check the oil. A few moments later, the attendant returned the credit card. "Sign here, sir."
Greg signed the elder Rosenfeld's name again. With a flourish, he thought. Thanks for your identity, Mr R. Nice way to live. Get sick of yourself, get a new self. And for winter driving, make sure it's a rich self, while you're at it.
Greg drove away from the pumps, and aimed the old car toward the black-topped Jersey Turnpike.
Limerick's head began to roll back and forth, and Greg let the youth fall to a half-prone position with his head resting against his lap. Greg lit up a cigarette, then swallowed one of Limerick's bennies.
"100 MILES TO NEW YORK CITY" the sign usually said. But falling snow had covered some of it, causing it to read 'OO TO NEW YO". Greg played with the symbolism of it. Zero miles to New York. No miles behind, and no miles ahead. No arrival, no parting. Just circles. Neon circles in distant cities. He forced himself to listen to the radio, forced himself to stop trying to remember Roberta's face.
Sadly, he decided that he had no choice. He had to see her. Had to have one last covering ripped off the hide of himself. To get down to the core. The core Greg. The elemental Greg. Under the years, under the convenient plastic guilt feelings. The elemental Greg under the manufactured one.
Hours later, Greg steered the ancient Packard through the George Washington Bridge traffic. New York, he thought. Cars, and people. Sewers. Cops. And little dogs walked in lonely nights by tight-assed Mrs. Protheros.
He smiled as he pictured Mrs. Prothero at the apartment. He wondered why his first thought after reaching New York would be her.
He pictured her, walking the little dog. Chased suddenly by a naked Mister Karbedjian. With him screaming in joy as he clutched a large, white envelope. Blood drips around the edges of the sealed flap, and Mister Karbedjian shouts, "She's a-come! Dis is de letterl" And finally, Mister Karbedjian catching the lovely Mrs. Prothero, knocking her down in full view of thirty-seven open apartment house windows and jamming his letter between her legs as she shouts, "Mister K. I didn't think you cared." And Mrs. Prothero sees she's being watched by the neighbors, so she screams and the little furry dog lifts his leg and pees on Mister Karbedjian's heart. While rockets burst from the seventeenth floor.
Twenty minutes later, Greg pulled the yellow Packard to a halt in front of a phone booth on his street. Limerick had awakened, and was staring morosely at the apartment houses. You home, man?" he asked. Greg shrugged. "Maybe."
"Hey, man. You want my phone number?" Limerick asked sadly as Greg slid quietly out the door of the car. "You might want to call me, or something." Limerick sounded like he was about to cry. Greg felt he was close to tears, too.
"Teah, Lim. Gimme your phone number. And Tracy's too, huh?" he whispered, watching the pretty girl so comfortably sleeping on Marion's lap. "I don't want to wake her. Tell her goodbye for me, huh?" Limerick nodded as they traded pieces of scrawled paper.
Greg had written his home number on one of his water-soaked business cards. "Hmph. I had these printed when I was, well, when I worked at the department store." He paused, reached in and held Limerick's shoulder. "Look, you creep. You'll call me, huh? One of these days?"
"Yeah, man. Real soon," Limerick said softly. "Real soon." He kept his wet eyes straight ahead. Greg Stepped back from the car, and Limerick drove off.
Greg watched the old car turn a corner, then he turned to stare at the huge apartment biulding. He looked straight up, saw dimly the upper floors before the falling snow forced him to lower his eyes.
He started to walk the hundred yards to the lobby, then stopped. What if Vern is up there? he thought. What if his hips are jammed between Roberta's lying thighs?
I'd kill him, he thought. But then, what for? To wind up in jail? No, he'd call first. He fingered a dime in his pocket.
He walked across the street to the phone booth on the corner. The dime clinked into the box, and in a moment the phone rang distantly. Then he heard Roberta's voice. "Hello?"
"Hello?" Greg paused. He said "Roberta?"
"Greg? Oh Greg! Where are you?"
I'm downstairs, he thought. Only ten thousand miles away. "I'm downstairs. Can I come up?"
Pause while she thinks, he mused. About five seconds, maybe six at the most. "Of course you can come up. Hurry."
He hung up the phone and waited a moment in the phone booth. Okay, so I go up. It's decided. Everything is like it was. How nice. He left the phone booth and shivered as the blowing snow fell onto his face.
Greg stood for a while on the street. The cold wind skittered powdered snow up his trouser leg, and he felt a blast of the snow drift icily down his shirt collar. Stand here and get pneumonia, or go upstairs, and enjoy a different kind of sickness.
Greg shuddered once, then walked out into the street.
A cab approached in the snow. The driver was turned to the back of the taxi. "Here's your apartment, ma'am," he said to the woman in the back seat. He jumped when she screamed and pointed her finger ahead. "Look out!"
"Jesus Christ," the driver shouted as he felt the front of the cab slam into Greg. "Oh my God!" His foot hit the brake, stopping the cab.
Greg was thrown about ten feet into the air. He landed on the hood of the cab. His mouth was open, and his eyes stared at the horrified face of the driver. A thin trickle of blood dripped from Greg's mouth onto the yellow hood of the cab.
High up, on the seventeenth floor, Roberta screamed, just seconds after the thump of Greg's body was muffled by the gently falling snow on the yellow steel.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Greg lay quietly, hallucinating. Roberta's teeth flashed the laser beams again. A wad of bloodied flesh hung out from between her lips. In her hand she clutched Greg's genitals.
He noted with interest that Roberta had grown another breast. It hung from her chest, larger than the two on either side of it. Her ears were pierced, and small skulls hung from each lobe. The tops of her ears were pointed, and over her usual make-up, she seemed to have a greenish tint.
As Greg watched her, the nipple of the middle breast glowed red. Then, alternately, the other two nipples glowed blue and white. He thought it an interesting effect.
Greg looked carefully and saw through her belly. Inside, behind the transparent pink flesh, he saw chromed gears meshing, and an escape movement much like that on a watch. He cocked his head to listen more carefully. He wasn't exactly sure, but he thought he could hear her ticking. She was chewing on something. A small foot escaped between herips, but she sucked it greedily back into her mouth. She seemed satisfied for the moment.
Greg looked next to her. There stood Vern. He was naked. His penis was two feet long, and barbed at the end. He was rubbing his huge belly, and he threw his head back to laugh.
"Greg," Roberta said, leaning down over the bed, "Greg?" Greg slitted his eyes, frightened. Roberta! So he thought, now she's put clothes on to hide her gears. And she's turned off the laser teeth. He kept his eyes slitted as Roberta leaned over the bed and he wondered where she had hidden the third breast. "Greg, darling. It's me. Roberta."
If I lie real still, he thought, I can make her go away, I won't move a muscle. "Greg," she said again, "please wake up. We're here to help you."
The doctor nodded as she talked softly. "It's the morphine. He's actually awake, but he's in a semi-dream state. These head injuries take a little time to straighten out. He'll be a little groggy for a while. Just keep talking to him." The Doctor stood quietly at the end of the bed, next to Vern.
So, thought Greg, they are here. They really are here. Where the hell is here? He kept his eyes slitted, and tried to make out the shape, the furnishings, the location of the room.
Mister Armadegli quietly slipped into the room. Greg relaxed his eyes open just a bit more. "Oh, darling," Roberta shouted. He closed his eyes quickly. Damn, he thought. All of them. She even brings Vern. And Armadegli. Who's next?
Greg half expected to see Mister Karbedjian come into the room, holding a seven-foot long envelope. He waited a moment longer for effect, then opened his eyes. "Yeah," he said. "Hello all." He found it hard to talk. It came out "Y'agh, herro awr."
"Oh, Greg. Dear God, how I worried. Days you've been asleep. Absolutely days! Isn't that right, doctor? Hasn't he been asleep for several days?" Roberta shrieked toward the doctor who stood there, half smiling and nodding. She turned her face back to Greg and he caught a whiff of her perfume. He almost gagged.
He blinked his eyes. Roberta leaned down and touched her lips to his cheek. Her lips were cold. Greg wondered if it were her lipstick that felt cold, or her flesh. He felt himself shudder at the kiss. "I'm er, uh, I'm still a little woozy." He reached a hand to his face.
His beard had been shaved off. "Goddamn it! Where is my beard!" he shouted. He rubbed his clean-shaven face for a moment, then sighed and let his hand fall back to the bed. He zeroed his eyes in on Vern. "What the hell is that pig doing here?" he demanded.
Vein's face clouded momentarily, then, fighting for a smile, he said, "Now Greg, of buddy. Don't excite yourself. I'm just here to, heh heh, see that all is well. That's all." Vern shuffled his feet, twiddled his fingers together, and generally looked uncomfortable.
"Now, Greg," Roberta echoed, "don't excite yourself. Vern's been an absolute treasure to me since you-since you left. He's been a good friend." Vern looked at her, smiled a sick smile and nodded. "Yeah, Greg. Boy, were we worried? That phone call a few weeks back. Boy, you really had us worried. But listen, everything's gonna be all right now. You're okay, your wife's okay, and boy, we are glad to have you back among the living."
"Get the hell out of my room, you phony son of a bitch!"
The words fell like machine gun bullets among them. Vern looked quickly from Greg to Roberta, then to the doctor. The doctor nodded as if to say go. Vern stepped back.
"Yeah, sure, Greg. Sure, boy. I'm going. Look, fella, you take care of yourself, hear?" Greg tried to lift his head up, and felt a cannon go off in his brain. He managed only to wave his hand pathetically. "Out! You goddamned hip wiggler!" Vern smiled sheepishly and backed out the door.
"Anything you want, dear." Roberta said. "Anything you want. You want him to leave, and he's left. See?" She reached down and stroked Greg's forehead. He shuddered at her touch. "And I promise he'll not be back, my precious. Ever."
Greg looked at Mr. Armadegli. "What's that creep doing here?"
Roberta started to answer, but Mister Armadegli interrupted. "Greg, I'm here because I want to be here. We miss you, boy, down at the store. And, well, I talked with Roberta here, she's a hell of a good woman you know, and well, we want you back, boy." Mister Armadegli made it sound as if he were handing Greg forty-thousand dollars in gold.
"That's nice, Mister Armadegli," Greg said quietly. "Can I work in the pet department?"
Mister Armadegli looked quickly from Greg to Roberta then back to Greg. "Ahem. Well, sure. I guess so. But why pets?"
Greg smiled through his half-closed eyes. "So I can let them go, you simpleton!"
Mister Armadegli stepped back quickly. "Greg. Ahem. You're still not yourself. The shots and all. Listen, I'll call you during the week. But your job is yours, old man. Just waiting."
He smiled to the room, and walked out.
'You can stay for a few minutes more, Mrs. Williams," the doctor said as he nodded toward Greg. Then he turned and left. The door closed softly on Roberta and Greg. He stared at her quietly.
"We're alone, dear," she said.
"Yes," he answered.
"Where did you go?" She said it softly, almost as if she were afraid he might tell her. Almost, he thought, as if she were really interested. "It's been six weeks. I missed you. And when I saw you get hit by that horrible cab-I thought I'd lost you." Was that a tear on her cheek? Greg wondered. Please, he thought, no tears.
Lost me? Interesting, he thought as he watched her. And Old Vern, now. Did he miss me? How did Old Vern know about that phone call I made to you? Was he there? Roberta watched Greg's face as he lay there. "Won't you tell me where you went?
"I went out West. Different places." How the hell can I tell her? What the hell can I tell her? He wondered, can I tell her I went out to Texas and Mexico, and met a wonderful young person and her crazy friends? And I've been loving that wonderful young person in every conceivable position for the past two weeks at least four times a day? He said softly, "I drove in a big yellow car.
Roberta squinted her eyes at him. "Er, uh. Yes. There, there, darling. The strain and all. You just relax. You'll tell me later. I'm sure it's not that important anyway." She patted his head. My God, he thought. She's patting my head! "And darling," she said, "I forgive you."
The distance between Roberta and Greg seemed, to him, to be increasing geometrically. Her arm seemed to grow longer and longer. She was falling back, but her arm stayed on his forehead. Pushing him down. He had to get up. 'Tour arm is heavy."
She lifted her arm quickly, dropping it in her lap. She was two hundred feet away. And shrinking fast, he thought. A little stone statue with laser ray teeth. He felt himself drifting off to sleep again.
"Greg?", she whispered across the two hundred foot distance from the bed.
"Hmm?" he managed.
"Listen. I'm going down the hall to the visitor's room. If you want me for anything, just press this buzzer." Roberta placed a cold object in Greg's hand. "Just press for me. I'll come immediately." She got up from the bed. Greg smelled her Roberta smell again. "Yes," he mumbled. He closed his eyes.
Roberta let herself out quietly. Greg heard her hit the light switch just before the door closed.
The morphine the doctor had prescribed for the past three days made him feel warm, comfortable. Secure. With the group gone, Greg let himself feel wrapped in the room's comforting arms.
Just before he dropped off to a deep sleep, he mumbled into the darkened room. "Roberta, give me back my self."
He came awake an hour later, as cool hands pressed a thermometer into his mouth.
"Shh. Close your mouth." The nurse hovered over the bed. He smiled lazily and reached a hand to her, and just managed to touch her backside before she walked out of reach. The nurse felt the quick touch, and turned to him.
"Hey, aren't you the tiger? You've been hit by a car, in a concussion state for three days, you're shot full of morphine, and you can still cop a feel, huh?" Her face softened into a smile.
"I love you," he said.
"I told you to shut your mouth," she said, still smiling. Greg felt the thermometer begin to slip, and he closed his mouth around the cool glass rod. He followed the nurse around the room with his eyes.
An image of Tracy, naked, flashed into his mind. He let the image form and then, full formed, he studied it.
The nurse's cool hand snapped the thermometer from his mouth. She read it, saying nothing, then made a note on Greg's chart at the end of the bed. "You're in pretty good shape, all things considered. You'll probably be out of here in a day or so."
She had a heavy voice, but nice, he thought. Sort of like music.
Greg blinked once and tried to sound authoritative. "Ahem, Miss? I'd like my pants, please."
"Huh?" she said, turning to him. "Listen, tiger. I said a few days, not today. Just lie back and relax. You're not going anywhere today." She was still smiling, he saw.
"No. I don't want to go anywhere. I just want to get something from the pocket. Please?"
She stared at him for a moment, then relented. She shrugged and reached into a closet for his trousers. "Here," she said, dropping them onto his chest.
Greg reached into the pocket, found the crumpled slip of paper with Limerick's number on it, and laid his head back on the pillow. "Okay. You can have my pants back," he said.
At first, Greg wondered whether he should call Limerick. The thought changed quickly from whether, to when. Later, he decided. He tenderly put his hand to his head, found the bandage wrapped around the top of it. "What's wrong with my head?" For a moment, Greg got the horrible thought that Roberta had ordered a lobotomy.
"Nothing. Nothing now. Your head was bleeding, a concussion and a slight fracture. We bandaged it. But it's all right now, I should think." The nurse fiddled with some items on the white dresser, then turned to leave.
"By the way," she said, "there was a man here to see you. I think he's from the insurance company. He'll be back later today. I think you'll be able to see him for a bit." She closed the door. The insurance man? Greg thought about it for a minute.
Hell, of course! Dear Roberta watching out for me. And my insurance, he thought. Certainly, my friend. I'd be delighted to see you.
Greg lay there for a few moments, sorting pressures. The pressure of Roberta. The pressure of Armadegli saying he'd take him back to work at the store. And the pressure of Vern. After a while, Greg felt sleep insisting itself into his brain.
He closed his eyes again, and felt the warm sunshine from the window on his cheek. He let himself fall into a delicious embracing torpor. Just before he went off, he pushed the slip of paper with Limerick's number on it under his pillow. "Later," he muttered. "Later."
Greg woke up again at seven-thirty. The morphine was worn off. His head was splitting. "Nurse!" He banged a glass on the table next to the bed. "Nurse?"
After a moment, she walked in. "Yes?"
"I'm dying of a headache. I'm starving to death. I'm also sweating to death."
"Easy enough. For your headache, aspirin. For your stomach, supper. And, if you're sweating to death, have you thought of getting out from under that blanket?"
Greg swallowed the aspirin she handed him, gulped the water down, and at the same time, ripped the covers off the bed. The nightgown the hospital had provided was wide open, and he smiled as the nurse looked down at his exposed erection, then turned quickly away. "Mister Williams!" she blushed.
"Sorry," he said.
"Listen, can I have a phone?" The nurse avoided looking at him as she adjusted the covers around his legs again. "And just who are you getting ready for?" she asked, trying to sound blase.
"Really, can I get a phone in here? I have to make a call-She finished tucking the covers around Greg's legs, then nodded. "You can have a phone. It'll go on your bill."
Supper was good. Greg ate like a starving man. Afterward, he burped, drank three cups of coffee, and sighed deeply. He watched the nurse plug the portable phone cord into a wall receptacle. She set the instrument on the table next to the bed.
Greg waited till she was gone, then dialed Limerick's number. It rang three times, then someone picked it up on the other end. "Limerick?" A pause. "Hey, that you, Limerick?"
"Just a minute." A man's voice. Greg waited. He heard the sounds of a party. There was the quiet murmur of about twelve people talking animatedly. He heard the phone being handed to someone.
"Hello?" Limerick's voice!
"Hey, this is Greg! Your ancient guardian, remember?"
"Wow! Hey, man. Cool. Where are you? Oh this is great!" Stop wagging your tail, Greg thought happily. But he was glad at Limerick's reaction.
"I'm in the hospital." Then, the explanation of the cab, the morphine, the nurse. "Hey man," said Limerick, "what a gas."
And then, from Greg, a request that Limerick was only too glad to follow. Greg hung up the phone, sighed happily, lit a cigarette, and wondered how long it would take Tracy to get there.
He thought about Roberta waiting patiently down the hall for him to ring the buzzer. He decided to let himself feel only a little guilty. There are two kinds of guilt, he thought. The kind you really feel, and the kind you think you should feel. He spent about twenty seconds determining which kind of guilt he felt for Roberta.
"Nurse?" Greg banged the glass on the table again. The nurse came in. "Listen, I want to see that insurance guy. He here yet?"
"Yes, he's been here for half an hour. I'll tell him to come in." Greg smiled up at the ceiling.
The insurance man was officious, with small brown eyes that darted to Greg's bandaged head, to the carefully tucked sheets, to the rest of the room, and back to Greg's head. But never to Greg's eyes.
He settled his brief case on the bed, sat down, and began to fiddle with a stack of official looking papers. He looked again at Greg's bandaged head, then made a notation on one of the documents. Finally, he pushed his glasses up to rest on his forehead, blinked, and said, "Okay. Just sign this release here, and we'll call it square "
"What am I signing?" Greg tried to lock eyes with the man.
"This one here means you are indeed insured by us, and this one here means you are willing to settle out of court. The cab company admits, well, to put it bluntly, they admit it was their driver's fault that you were hit, He was, shall we say, a little careless. If you'll sign this, you can collect the money, and the whole thing will be finished in order." He pushed the forms toward Greg. Greg kept his hands carefully away from the pen the man tried to hand him.
"How much?" Greg asked quietly.
"How much?" The man looked at Greg's forehead. "How much what?"
"How much money am I going to collect, that's what."
"Oh. Well, let's see now!" The man did some figuring on the margin of the release form, then looked up slowly. "Well, I should judge, well, let's see now. Fractured skull, slight scarring of your forehead, major concussion, three days unconscious, and full hospitalization under group plan R-3 with a rider for double indemnity in case of carelessness proven a priori. How about six-thousand dollars?" He pushed his eyeglasses back up onto his forehead and avoided Greg's eyes again. "Yes, I should say six-thousand dollars."
I have a choice, Greg thought as he watched the beady man. He could argue, and probably win. It'd take time, though. If he argued, in several weeks, he could probably get eight-or-nine-thousand. If he didn't argue, he'd get six-thousand dollars now.
"Ahem," the small man said. "You realize of course that I'm prepared to dicker. Only slightly, though. I'm merely an intermediary between you and the cab company. Six-thousand five hundred. And any more than that, you'll have to argue it out in court."
"In cash?" Greg said.
"I'll take it. In cash, only."
"Cash? In a hospital, I mean?" The small man looked confused. As if Greg had asked for it in thimbles, or guava plants. "Highly irregular, you understand."
"It's got to be cash," Greg said evenly. "I want to free somebody." He smiled mysteriously, ending the conversation.
The small man was back in less than half an hour with the cash. Small bills. All twenties, tens and fives. It felt crisp as Greg scattered it across the bed. He made a tent of his knees and let the bills cascade down the walls of it.
"You know, Mister Williams, the reason we're admitting the company's guilt so readily? Seems you have a friend." The small man coughed delicately and wiped his mouth with a white handkerchief. He returned the handkerchief to his jacket pocket and stared at Greg's bandage.
"A friend? What friend?" Greg wished the man would go-
"The woman in the cab. She told the police, and our own investigators, that the cab driver was turned around looking at her when he hit you. She wrapped your case up for you. She said she knew you. Nice looking woman, too." He began to shuffle papers into his brief case.
"What woman?" Greg stared at the small man. "Who is she."
"A certain Mrs. Prothero." The man smiled. So did Greg. So, he thought. Dear Mrs. Prothero came through after all. The small man left.
And Roberta was still out in the waiting room. More than five hours now. Damn it. Where are they? he wondered. After a few moments more, he heard a familiar, happy laugh coming down the hall. He hoped Roberta wouldn't follow the laugh to the room.
'Greg! Christ, what a mess!" Tracy had thrown open the door, and she stood there in the fight from the hospital corridor. She looked beautiful. "C'mere," he smiled.
She ran to the bed, and Limerick sauntered through the door. "Hey, man. Bad scene, this," he said. He smiled broadly and Greg felt a blush start as Limerick bent and kissed him wetly on the forehead.
"Limerick, you gotta stop kissing guys," Greg laughed.
"Just the ones I like, man." He nudged Greg in the ribs. "Ouch. Cool it, Limerick. I still hurt there," he winced.
"Do you still hurt here?" Tracy asked as she ran a hand across Greg's groin. He smiled and shook his head. "Not a chance," he said.
"Watch the door, Lim." Tracy looked quickly around the room, then quickly pulled her dress over her head. "Man, I always wanted to make it in a hospital bed. Oh, wow!" She jumped into the bed, and grabbed at the handle that activated the electrically driven motor underneath it. The bed began to move up and down rapid-
"Tracy, for cryin' out loud. That's for bed sores!" Greg said. "When I get through with you, you won't be able to feel anything, so don't worry," Tracy laughed.
"That's not what I meant," Greg managed to laugh as Tracy kissed him.
Her lips pressed against Greg's, and he shivered as her cool fingers pulled the hospital robe apart. "Tracy, you're crazy," he said quietly. But he didn't stop her.
Limerick stood guard by the door, alternately listening at it, then watching Tracy and Greg. He was grinning wildly. "Wild scene," he said, to no one in particular. The bed motor was turned on to high, and the bed moved up and down frantically as Tracy crawled over and on top of Greg.
Tracy played with Greg until he was more than ready for her, and he lost no time in arousing her. He delighted in the touch of her breasts and her moist cleft. He smiled around her quickly hardening nipple held gently between his teeth.
With one hand Greg clutched the buzzer that was connected to the waiting room. In the other, he clutched the six-thousand five hundred dollars. Tracy maneuvered herself directly above him, then parted her legs to let him sink deeply up and into her. She sighed as her body fromed an eager warmth around him. Greg srruled as he felt the flesh that was Tracy.
Dear Roberta, just yards away. Dear Roberta. Talk is cheap, he thought. Tracy began to move faster above him. And arguments are for fools. Recriminations are the lazy man's way out of thought. But this, he thought as Tracy worked above him, this is real! This is truth, dear ex-ex-wife. "Truth," he mumbled aloud. "Shh, love," said Tracy.
She began to groan as she moved rapidly from side to side above him, around him. The covers fell from the bed. Greg felt himself about to burst within her. He pressed the button on the chromium buzzer.
As Greg felt himself just seconds from bursting, Roberta walked into the room "Yes? Oh. Aggh!" she said. She stopped. Her mouth hung open as she saw Greg so enthusiastically under the frantically moving girl. Greg felt himself go over the top, and heard Tracy sigh, then shudder, as she too went over. He forced his hips up against the girl, and sighted a line down her back and past the twin mounds of Tracy's buttocks to Roberta.
The bed was moving up and down rapidly, Tracy was moving from side to side, and Roberta stood there stock still. She let her thoughts collide for a moment, then turned to leave.
Tracy turned her head, and saw Roberta. "Yipes!" She wiggled down off Greg and fell to her side next to him on the bed. Her eyes were wide, alert. But, strangely, not frightened.
"Roberta," Greg said evenly, "This is for you." He flipped the stack of loose bills toward her. They scattered around Roberta's feet. Roberta's eyes grew hard, then wide as she saw the money. Limerick slipped quietly out the door.
Roberta looked down at the money now spread around her feet. She kept her eyes on Greg and Tracy as she bent to retrieve it.
"All for you, dear. All for you," Greg said. He touched Tracy's thigh. She waited a moment, watching Roberta, then moved just a little closer to him. He gently caressed her leg, then moved his hand up to her breast. He felt the young nipple still hard to his touch. Roberta finished picking up the money from the floor.
She stood up, quietly stuffing the money into her purse. "Oh God," she said. "Oh God, how could you?" Then, Roberta was gone.
Above him, Greg felt Tracy tightening as she began her orgasm, and he felt himself start his own eruption into her. She moaned, her sex clutching him, and he spent himself within her.
Later, when Tracy had slipped down from his waist, to he quietly breathing next to him, he nudged her. "Hey."
Sleepily, she answered. "Hmm?"
"I know I love you," he said matter-of-factly. She nuzzled her face against his shoulder. "You took long enough to say it," she said, forcing sarcasm.
"You need help" he said, tracing a tender path with his finger along her thigh, then up to her sex. She wiggled against his touch, happily. "Help? What do you mean?"
He pulled her body closer to his, and whispered against her cheek, "Security. You need security. You need an older man to watch out for you." He paused, feeling her young body against his. "Permanently."
Tracy shifted a bit, then sat up on the bed. "Permanently? Greg, don't tell me you're talking about marriage? Marriage is for squares. Besides, you're already married. Technically."
He stared up at her, saw her young breasts gently moving on her chest as she breathed. He looked at her firm nipples, then down to her belly, to the light tangle of pubic hairs between her legs. "There's such a thing as divorce. Even for squares."
"You'd get a divorce?" she asked, turning her face away suddenly. Greg guessed what was happening, but didn't mention her coming tears. He knew they were happy tears.
"I love you, Tracy," he said again, but this time, the words came out easily. He knew they were true. "I want you. All the time. Not just for parties, or wild rides. All the time. I'm going to marry you." Softly, Tracy cried her tears of happiness. "Just the two of us-no freaks," he added.
"You going to reform me?" she asked, her voice soft.
"I'm going to love you," he answered simply. "That's all either of us need." She turned to him, young tears at the corners of her eyes. Softly, she leaned toward him. Her lips were warm on his. He pulled her against him tenderly.
"I found something out, Tracy" he said against her cheek. "It's not out 'there'. The search is up here, in your own head. I searched, and I found what I wanted."
