A town with a high school of wanton students and a depraved faculty. A school where the best marks were earned during study periods in the back seats of cars and doing sin-homework in the arms of a willing passion-partner. A school where a girl like Janet Tracy could find herself in trouble after an illicit affair and have a faculty member use her shame for his own twisted desires. A town where education was cast aside in favor of sin-knowledge. Where mad passions exploded until there was no way of stopping it. A town where evil ranked above scholarship, where passion went before honor, where every textbook was used as a shameful lesson in lust....
CHAPTER ONE
Even though it was the second week in September, school already well underway, the humid heat of August was still reluctant to give way to autumn. It was odd weather for Wisconsin, where summer usually made its last stand over the Labor Day weekend, then hurriedly swept southward, giving the state over to gray, cloudy days, to slow, steady rains, to the temperature daily inching lower.
But this September.
The kids at St. Clair High complained about the unseasonal heat, about the agony of sitting in hot, stuffy classrooms, their clothing clinging, their hands and arms sticky as they listlessly scribbled out their lessons. The teacher too, the men especially, after a summer in short-sleeved shirts, in walking-shorts even, chafed under the constricting noose of buttoned shirts and neckties, sweated profusely beneath their suit jackets.
Where had this weather been in June? they asked. When it could have been used to good advantage?
At night the house doors and windows remained open until eleven or so. Then a slow chill crept down, and one by one they were slammed shut. Even so, it was uncomfortable sleeping.
But muggy and stifling as the weather was, there were still those who made good use of it. For the lovers lanes and country roads around St. Clair were doing a land office business. A harvest moon definitely waxing, it was ideal necking and petting weather. It was good weather for almost anything that might develop in the amatory line.
As evidence of this was the big, bronze-colored Mercury Monterey belonging to Mr. Karl T. Miller, president of the St. Clair Co-op, which was, at ten o'clock this fifteenth night in September, parked in a tractor lane belonging to an anonymous farmer, well out of sight of the road, hidden by bushes and hedgerows.
In which not Mr. Karl Miller, but his juvenescent son, Dale, sat, at that moment intently engrossed in the long, scorching kiss he was driving into the lips of his lovely blonde playmate, one Janel Tracy. A kiss that went on and on, that engendered further love play, that made the girl's body quiver like a plucked bowstring. More and more, as they embraced and kissed, their bodies locked together, writhing in adolescent passion, the bodies at odd angles on the leather upholstery, they resembled wrestlers more than lovers.
Until finally the pretty girl jerked away, twisted her face from the boy's. "Don't, Dale, honey!" she processed. "I told you before, you can't kiss me like that. That's dirty. Only cheap girls let their boy friends ..
"I'm sorry," Dale Miller said, his arms trembling uncontrollably, his breath coming in stertorous gasps. "I didn't mean to. I know you don't like it. It just happened." His hands reached out for her again. "Oh, baby, I love you so-I do, I do."
She sagged, let him kiss her again, more decorously this time, a steady, pleasurable humming growing in her throat. A humming that little by little became more frantic, more inflaming to the boy, that indicated the girl's peaking passion. And though he'd tried often before and had been rebuffed, he knew he must now try again.
The kiss grew more savage, and he pushed her back against the slippery cushions, his hands beginning to slide agitatedly on the nylon smoothness of her waist They gradually circled her body, moved to her taut, pulsing diaphragm. Where they riled and caressed. But only briefly, for they were on the move again. Up into the uplands of her virginal body.
No-Janel thought, knowing full well what Dale was attempting. Stop that, darling! Please stop. It drives me crazy when you start doing those things to me. Please, baby, stop!
But she made no move to repel him. A primal tingling began deep in her bowels, spread outward into her body, ran hysterically down her legs, searing and tightening her muscles. Simultaneously she felt the arousal deepen, make her breasts ache, make her nipples pucker and go stone hard. Oh, dear, she raged, unable to summon up strength to combat this lazy, willful lethargy that was swamping her, it's never been like this before. What's happening to me? It feels like I'm on fire down there.
And completely lost, the teen-age girl, too far gone to turn back now, delirious to have this mindless rapture go on forever, became tigress herself, became aggressive and yearning. She tore lips from his, loosed a long, throaty sigh. "Oh, Dale, baby," she moaned. "I don't understand it. I know I shouldn't but I can't help myself. We'd better go, you'd better take me home. Or we'll be sorry."
"Not" the boy panicked. "Please, sweetheart. Not yet. Oh, please." He fought to trap her lips again, steadily pushing her back, until she was all but prone on the seat, her dress awry, her skirts pulled high to reveal her shimmering, sensuously thin knees.
Janel shivered, shook her head to dispel the torrid longings mounting within her. It mustn't happen. Not until we're older, until we're married It mustn't!
But still another shudder, product of a deranging need, wracked her. And she knew. If the world blew up in her face at that moment, she couldn't have forestalled this glorious invitability. She clawed Dale closer. "I love you, darling," she called. "Forever and ever. Yes, yes, yes. If we love each other it can't be wrong. It can only be good and beautiful and right."
Then, a liquid, coughing wail erupting from her throat, she said, "I don't care, baby ... how cheap it is. Please...."
"Please what?" the sexually unhinged boy squeaked.
"Kiss me like that ... like before."
"You angel," he gasped, and instantly tightened his body against hers, one knee on the auto's floorboard, bracing him, the other rising, locking over her upper legs, his belly, his body bunting against her thighs.
His lips came down, his tongue speared her waiting lips, found her crouching, wild to pounce. And while her tongue answered his, while her lips tightened into a drawstring purse around it, she allowed his band to unbutton her dress, to snake its way inside her brassiere. She felt electric sparks spit in her brain as his fingers tweaked her nipples, as concurrently, in rhythm with his delicious, darting tongue, he pushed the nipple back into itself.
And Janel Tracy was a goner. She knew there was no retreat now. No retreat at all. She could only go forward, see this ecstasy to its conclusion The whispered act she'd heard the girls in the school washrooms giggle over so often. I want to know. I have to know.
Raging, bubbling in patience welled inside her, bloated her. She felt like she'd explode in a minute. Oh, soon, darling, she urged inwardly, before I get scared.
Limply she fell back against the warm leather, her arms at her sides, as Dale unbuttoned her dress all the way. Docilely she let him raise her, pull the dress off. Momentarily she felt twinges of shame as he worked up her slip, pulled it away, exposed her body, clad in only her white brassiere and panties, the garter-belt and stockings, her party heels. "Don't look," she whispered, the words mere sop to propriety. For she wanted him to look. Very much.
"I have to look," Dale muttered, his voice awed. "You're so beautiful. I've wanted to see you like this for so long. Baby." He fell against her smooth, hot belly, kissed the flesh above her panties. "My gorgeous, lovely baby."
And when his head rose, when his mouth closed on her nipples in alternate turn, his tongue laving, wetting the nylon of her brassiere, his teeth nipping in frenzied agitation, she went quite out of her head. "Take it off, Dale," she sighed. "I want you to take if off."
She started as his moist, greedy mouth descended on her naked breasts, felt a glorious heat spear her, felt an appalling, magnificent sensation, like nothing she'd ever experienced before in her short, happy life. A sensation that made her want to snarl. To scream.
It went on and on, Dale's hands, while his lips attended her distended, pained breasts, caressing her belly, her thighs, her nyloned legs. At the last she was reluctant, her knees locked as he tried to move them. "Please," he groaned, and his lips went crazy on her nipple.
Janel's legs went limp, she let him glide them apart. And she sensed an even greater glory as his hands found her there, as they caressed her. It felt like her legs had turned to molten lead.
"Ohh, ohh...." she moaned, suddenly seized by a spate of trembling. "Darling, darling."
She wanted to scream her frustration when he stopped. She opened her eyes, found him staring down at her. "Jan, honey," he said, his voice blurred. "Should we go in the back seat? Or do you want to go out on the grass? There's a blanket in the trunk."
Janel smiled in the sultry taunt which is woman's most formidable weapon. "Outside, Dale. On the grass. Carry me."
Dale Miller scurried from behind the wheel, found the blanket, spread it on a grassy slope slightly to the rear of the car. Then he went to the passenger's side, opened the door. Again the courtesy light blazed to life. Again Dale was stunned into reverent adoration as he gazed down on the sylph-like, near-naked body. "Don't look, Dale," Janel protested. "Please."
In the muted shadows, the moon granting miserly light, Dale spread the beautiful child on the blanket. In tender, clumsy tremblings, he divested Janel of her remaining lingerie. For a long time he looked down at her. Then abruptly he began to undress.
He fell on his knees beside Janel, she lying with her hands over her breasts, her eyes closed. As an afterthought, Dale went back to his trousers, dug out his wallet, extracted a small, very essential packet. Then he returned to the now-shivering girl.
Janel didn't enjoy his ministrations, as much now, an ominous presentiment flooding her all at once. She was committed. But still she was terrified. There would be pain. That she knew from furtive self-investigations made at infrequent intervals these past months in her bath.
Will I be able to stand it?
But then her frenzied need taunted doubt. As she felt Dale's hands pressuring her inner thighs. He was crouched between her knees now. "Oh, Dale," she quaked, "be careful with me. I'm so afraid."
"I'll be careful," the baby-faced boy said. For this too, was his first time, his only education regarding the sex act having been scrounged in Johns and in bull sessions with his supposedly more knowledgeable boy friends. "Don't be afraid, honey. I'll be good to you."
Gold flecks swam before Janel's eyes as he came down to her, as the ruthless, unrelenting brand was pressed to her. The pain horrible. Still she fought to be brave, she swallowed her moans, chewed back the shrieks that crowded her throat. And then-as the golden confetti spun even more wildly, the pain an intolerable thing-it happened. The sadistic, torturing member broke through, had its way. It was stretching, ripping, drilling her. Filling her completely.
Then Janel screamed, her cries constrained, but nevertheless echoing in the still night. In the distance she heard the shrill crickets, the answering moo of a cow. Then she had time to listen to nothing else, to think of nothing else.
For beyond her muffled sobs, the heavy breathing of her lover as he thrashed and lurched above her, there was only the red glow deep in her brain. A glow that grew and grew, that sent spurts of torrid heat to all parts of her body. A glow that drowned out everything-pain, sound, guilt, fear.
There was only the slow burgeoning hurricane that crashed and thundered inside her. "Darling, darling," she sighed, pain only the remotest of memories. "It's wonderful!"
And that was how it started for Janel Tracy.
Claudine DeGagne sat silently beside Neill Porter. Suddenly, after straining for a vivacity alien to her nature all evening, she was at a loss for words. They'd been to a movie, and now they sat outside her house in Neill's '61 Chevrolet, waiting for their good nights.
"Would you care to come in for coffee?" she asked, her pulse racing for fear he would refuse. "I could make some sandwiches. I have some ham. Fresh baked."
"Thank you, Claudine," the large, gaunt man replied, "but I'd best not. I've got a heavy schedule tomorrow. No free periods at all. And there's some reviewing for my first and third hour English classes."
"Always the pedagogue, Neill? Don't you ever forget that school? I do." She gripped his arm over-familiarly. "Come on. I make good coffee. Don't be a kill-joy. We've had such fun tonight; I hate to have you run off like this." Claudine DeGagne fought to camouflage the longing in her tone.
He can't run off, she thought. Not tonight. Not after all my careful plans. He's getting disinterested. If I don't get him tonight, I never will. And she recalled their half-dozen previous dates. Dates which had resulted in nothing at all as romantic as she secretly yearned. Not once had Neill even touched her, much less attempted to kiss her.
Tonight, she seethed in extreme panic, it has to happen tonight-if I have to throw myself at him like a street-walking tart, if I have to seduce him myself.
"Please, Neill," she coaxed in forced gaiety, "I baked the ham special. What's so sacred about those English classes? School will keep, you know. I'm sure you've bluffed classes before; you can do it again." She brushed her head against his shoulder involuntarily, the motion betrayal, testament to her deepest longings.
He smiled, surprised at the sudden gesture. "All right. Claudine," he agreed abruptly. "Seeing as you went to so much fuss." He let himself out, came around to open her door. "But only for a little while, understand "
The woman who smirked victoriously and let herself be helped from the car, was a tall, slightly stoop-shouldered thing, her skin puffy and pale, her figure pudgy, on the verge of turning matronly. Her hair was raven black, done in a severe, mannish style, drawn tight to her skull, with precisely curled, stiff bangs over her forehead. It was a style which combined with her lack of imagination in clothes and her leathery skin, made her singularly unattractive. Added to the fact that Claudine DeGagne was forty-three, exactly five years older than her escort, it's readily understood why Neill Porter was so reluctant, why he preferred to escape to his musty books rather than to spend more time with her.
But then, on the other hand, Neill Porter was no prize either. A shambling giant of a man, angular and thin, standing at least six-feet-two, he was a bachelor of long standing. This for diverse reasons, chief among them a peculiar idiosyncrasy of character. Secondly he was so unqualifiedly homely that no woman in her right mind would give him a second look. His hair was a nondescript, sandy color, straight as straw and invariably rumpled; his face was horsey, pitted and ruddy from an army illness.
He and Claudine DeGagne deserved each other.
But until tonight, their bizarre relationship had been purely an intellectual one, made up of erudite conversation, attendance of lectures, art films, gallery tours and the like. An impasse which Miss DeGagne definitely disparaged, and which regime she firmly intended to overthrow tonght.
The lamps in the fussy, over-feminized, French Provincial living room were low-keyed, giving the room a cozy, intimate Atmosphere. A Cimarosa concerto played at low volume on Miss DeGagne's unitized hi-fi set. While Neill Porter relaxed on the davenport. Claudine bustled about in the kitchen, the sounds of tinkling glass carrying clearly out to him.
Appreciatively he appraised his surroundings, wondering anew-it was his third visit to Claudine's home-just how much she was worth. That she lived alone in this large, rambling, vintage 1930 house, that she had been left a sizable inheritance by her mother was common knowledge to him. In fact, Claudine had made a point of it, hoping to enhance herself in his eyes because of her independent fortune. After all, more than one man had married a woman for her money.
Not that Porter hadn't thought along those lines himself. Agreed, Claudine was no raving beauty, but in time he might become used to her, perhaps even regard her as attractive. Money did strange things to one's perception. But thus far, Porter had done nothing concrete about these conjectures. For the time being he was content with the status quo. When the teaching rat-race finally became insufferable, then maybe he'd consider the matter further.
In the meantime, he reviewed, when certain sexual urgencies became dominant, there were certain rites he could perform with himself. And in cases of extreme need, he knew of a selective brothel in Westpoint, thirty miles south, where his annonymity was guarded, where the inmates took care of his desire with dispatch and proficiency.
And yet, evaluating the house's costly furnishings, the carpeting and drapes-the latter snugly drawn-he couldn't help wondering how wealthy Claudine was.
His deliberations were summarily interrupted as Claudine swept back into the living room bearing a tray upon which there was not, as he'd expected, coffee and sandwiches, but instead a half-filled cocktail shaker obviously containing manhattans. Also two glasses.
"Claudine," he murmured, "what's this? I thought...."
"I know what you thought," she smiled conspiratorially. "But I decided otherwise." She sat the tray down on an expensive antique coffee table. "A little party, Neill? It's good for the soul to let one's self go now and then, n'est-ce-pas?"
"You're taking advantage of me," Porter smiled. "You know I'm not much of a drinker."
"I know. Neither am I. But one or two won't hurt either of us." She filled two glasses, handed one to Neill. Taking hers, she sat down beside him, her shoulder purposely brushing his. She raised her glass in toast. "Here's to us. And to all of the doomed faculty at St. Clair High."
Neill Porter smiled. "I'll drink to that."
And so was Claudine DeGagne's little "party" enjoined.
At midnight Neill Porter was still at the DeGagne house, still talking with the determined woman, still listening to music (Vivald now) and still drinking manhattans. On an empty stomach, the drinks had gone to work swiftly, just as Claudine had hoped they would. And moment by moment, the conversation and company, the quiet intimacy, became more appealing, became harder for Porter to extricate himself. And strangely enough, halfway through his fourth drink, Claudine became more and more attractive with every passing minute.
The liquor had clouded her otherwise decidedly bad breath, and as she sat close to him, huddled against him, her pumps kicked off, her feet curled under her, it seemed the most natural thing in the world for Neill to put his arm around her shoulder. And continue his discourse about T.S. Eliot.
And still he drank, exulting in the fawning way the woman hung on his every word, the way she seemed to be more and more blatantly surrendering herself to him.
Until finally, laughing kittenishly, Claudine was up on her feet, skittering around the room, extinguishing all but one lamp, hoping that perhaps, in the near-darkness, she would appear even more desirable. As she returned to Neill, she surreptitiously dragged the low neckline of her forest-green gown even further down, the better to expose the cleavage and severe of her still-opulent breasts.
She climbed playfully back into the vacated crook of Neill's arm, made a production of snuggling back into her rightful place. "As I was saying...." the bemused man went on, barely noticing the fact that she was all but propositioning him, that she was wild to be seduced.
The molten fire in her stomach became more maddening, and she was seized by the wildest impulse to face him point blank, tell him what she wanted in the most vulgar, basic language she knew. But she did not. Instead, she crowded even closer, began to stroke his cheek with her hand. "Let's not talk any more," she whispered. "Let's do something else. Please, Neill?"
"Something else?" the priggish man said. "Surely. What do you have in mind, Claudine?"
Then, unable to contain her chaotic desire any longer, the woman squirmed up to her knees, flung herself into his arms. Immediately she was pulling his head to hers. "Like this." she slurred. Then she kissed full on the lips, her hands twining about his neck, refusing to let him go.
"Claudine," he murmured when at last she released him, "I never thought...."
Then the woman was silently weeping, ashamed and fearful, wanting so desperately to have this man love her. It had been so long since a man, any man, had regarded her as anything more than mere furnishing, permanent fixtures at St. Clair High. And afraid she'd ruin everything, she let all her long-suppressed longings and romantic aspirations well up from inside her.
"I'm sorry, Neill," she sighed. "Really I am I didn't mean for that to happen. It just did. Forgive me. I can't help it that I love you so, that I want you to love me. Please, dear Neill, don't hate me. I've needed to be loved for so long. I've loved you so long. Ever since you first came to St. Clair."
She buried her face in his chest, tried to stifle her foolish sobs. "Don't laugh at me, Neill. I couldn't bear that. Be kind to me, notice me, let me show you my love. If you can't return it, that won't matter. Let me love you, that's all I ask. Is that too much, Neill?"
"No, Claudine," he replied, his voice full of awe. "But are you sure? I...."
"Sure?" she snapped, the words exasperated. Could he doubt me? Suddenly she was seized by an incredible frenzy. And she lurched away from him, stood before him in the murky half-light. "This is how sure I am...."
Deliberately she ran the zippers at the waist and at the back of her gown. Then she was pulling it up over her head, ignoring the stunned man's protests. With shaky fingers she lifted her black slip, flung it over her head also. And standing in her girdle and long-line brassiere, in her stockings, she regarded him with a fanatic expression of self-sacrifice on her face. Then these garments too, were viciously torn away.
"Stop, Claudine," Porter gasped, disbelief paralyzing him. "You've had too much to drink. You don't know what you're doing."
"I know what I'm doing," she called, her voice eerily possessed. "I'm doing something I've wanted to do for you for a long, long time."
Now totally naked, her body surprisingly smooth and creamy, her breasts, hips, buttocks and belly overripe, yet somehow provocative and voluptuous, she slowly shook her head, let her hair fall free, the dark, wild mop forming an enshrining background to her tormented face. Bereft of clothing, her hair in disarray, the gloom playing its part, she looked ten years younger.
Neill Porter found himself moved in an unmistakably masculine way. "Claudine...." he breathed. And involuntarily he raised his arms to her.
She glided toward him, stood before him. "Touch me, darling," she chanted. "Touch me. Do anything you want to me." And she reached down, took his hands, placed them about her hips, his touch sparking a sweet delight within her.
Beside himself with sudden need, Neill drew her even closer. And half leaning, her knees resting on the edge of the davenport between his legs, she was caught up in an even more deranged fever. Out of her mind with lust, the woman took her breasts in her own hands, guided them toward Neill Porter's lips. In hypnotic trance, she slid one nipple, then the other, against his parched lips.
"Take them," she urged, her voice hoarse. "Please, my love. Kiss them. Do what you like, but don't reject me.
Before adjurations of this type the man was powerless to resist. Greedily, supercharged with an all consuming desire of his own, he caressed first one nipple, then another.
While the too-long-denied wanton sucked hi her breath with sick joy, squirmed herself closer to him. And as final evidence of her red-hot need, she guided his spasming hands to her belly, her gasps coming loud and fast as the man complied with an alarming fervor.
Then they were sprawled on the davenport, Neill Porter fighting not to have all his pretty playthings taken away from him, Claudine DeGagne tearing at his clothing.
When at last they were both naked, she pulled him from the davenport, led him toward her bedroom, her hands exploring him avidly as they fled. She giggled coarsely as she received the necessary assurance. "All things in proportion," she said. "My big man ... my big, big man."
Then she was jerking back the bedspread savagely, throwing herself onto the bed with a spring-squeaking lunge. "Oh, hurry, darling. Hurry."
There was nothing delicate, nothing subtle about their lovemaking. As Claudine, in full charge, ordained what their love should be, as she explicitly directed and guided him. She moaned animalistically as the man moved himself to the warm vessel of her femininity. A moan that pierced Neill Porter to the depths of his being.
"Take me," she gloated, "all of me. All the way. My beautiful lover, you're all I dreamed you'd be. Oh, that hurts, but hurts so nice. It's good, so good. I love you, Neill. I love what you're doing for me!"
There was no more time for words. Only happy groans and screams. That and the frantic rhythms of their sweat-drenched bodies, the rocking rumbling protest of the bed.
It was two a.m. before she saw fit to dismiss him from his so-masculine labors.
And that was how it started for Claudine DeGagne and Neill Porter.
In a dark, secluded corner of the rambling park the city of St. Clair maintained on the shores of Sumac Lake, among some concealing bushes much favored by fresh air lovers, another sex event was taking place. One of a very frank and basic nature.
For there, lying upon a blanket spread in the middle of the intimate copse, a naked girl was urging her admirers to get on with things in a graphic, candid manner.
"C'mon, you creeps!" she hissed angrily, "did you bring me out here for stuff or not? Or are you just gonna touch the merchandise all night? What are you, queers or something? Get going, damn you! I'm hurting I"
"Keep your shirt on, torchy," the boy named Tom Fallon snarled. "Can't we even look at ya a little while? God, you'd think you'd be proud of what you got, Betty. It ain't the same as if you were some beat-up old pig.
We'd have been all over you ten minutes ago. Lay still, let us get our kicks."
The girl smiled, seemingly pacified by the boy's crude compliment. "So long as you put it that way," she said. "But not much longer. I'll flip my lid." She turned toward the one named Benny Vellici. "Give me some more of that wine." And as she pulled at the quart of cheap port the boys had copped somewhere, she languidly warmed to then erotic attentions. After all, it wasn't every day a girl had six happy hands going over her like a fine toothed comb. Ooh, that felt good. Damn them, they're really getting to me.
The girl's name was Betty Genaro, and like Janel Tracy, she was a senior at St. Clair High School. But so far as she was concerned, Janel Tracy didn't exist; they were poles apart socially. Janel was a "rich witch." And she-well, she was the girl from the wrong side of the tracks. The original "eight-ball" kid.
But even on the wrong side of the tracks they breed pretty female animals, and Betty Genaro was a prime example. Granted, she was amoral, conscienceless, a thrill-hungry misfit. A girl who lived only for the moment, who didn't care who got hurt, just so long as she got hers. And that's what she was getting ready for right now.
But beautiful just the same, her body a veritable symphony of curves and bulges and bursting sensuality.
As she lay on the dark blanket, planes of light meandering into the gloom from far-off cars, it seemed her body was haloed; it glistened with alabaster smoothness, the lush buds of her nipples looking like black eyes against her dusky flesh. And at the base of her belly, when it was not otherwise obscured, another contrast; the dark delta of her most secret self.
Her breasts were over-large for an eighteen-year-old, product of years of manual adoration; her hips flared with an adult taunt; her legs were twinkling, teeth-clenching columns of beauty. Her face, with its large, luminous eyes, its pert nose, its pouty, full lips, was enough in itself to make anyone, man or boy, rattle the bars of his cage.
And yet, this beautiful child sold herself cheaply. In more cases than not, gave herself away.
When she had the itch, she cold-bloodedly went out looking for somebody to scratch it.
But now, suddenly, the beautiful girl lurched, went stiff, brushed the six hands away. She sat erect, listened intently.
"What is it, kiddo?" her third admirer, a lad named Gregg Kelly, completing the triumvirate of senior boys paying homage to her tonight, tough gang kids all, asked.
"I think somebody's over there," she whispered. "I heard something. Somebody moved. There, by those bushes."
"C'mon, guys," Tom Fallon, the trio's leader, snapped. "Let's take a looksee." Immediately the boys fanned out, crept toward the area Betty had indicated.
She sat waiting in tense apprehension. If it's one of those damned park police, she thought. I'll really be in the soup. They catch me one more time and into the slammer I go. The judge's just waiting for me.
Then she strained her eyes to see, held her breath, as she heard the muffled curses and cries of pain, the sound of thrashing bodies. She started to gather her clothes.
Moments later four figures broke from the darkness, the three boys and one other. "Look what we found," Benny crowed. "A dirty Peeping Tom. He was sitting back there as cozy as you please. All ready to take in the whole show." He pushed the small, rat-face man roughly. "I'll bet you're death on parked cars."
The man, in his late twenties, was plainly frightened. His face was bleeding, his clothes were torn. "You kids let me go. Please, I didn't mean no harm. I'll clear out, I won't bother you. I won't squeal. I promise..
"Beg, damn you," Fallon gritted, "all the good it'll do ya. Get over here, where we can see you better." He sniffed. "God, what a mangy lookin' creep. Is this how you get your kicks? Or do you have other tricks too?"
"Please, boys," the man pleaded. "Let me go. I didn't mean nothing. Take it easy on me, will you?"
"You wanted to watch, didn't you?" Fallon sneered. "We'll let ya, won't we, gang? You'll get a whole faceful of it." He looked meaningfully at Betty, who sat stiffly, holding her slip over her breasts. "How about it, honey? Do we give this guy some? Teach him a lesson?"
Betty sat silent for a moment, while her drink-muddled mind interpreted the significance of Tom's words. Then she understood. A lewd leer contorting her face, she looked up at the trembling man. "Sure, Tom. That'd be a real gig. I never tried it that way. There's a first time for everything, I guess. Sure, come ahead."
"What?" the man croaked. "You don't mean...."
Benny Vellici, the brawniest of the boys, twisted the man's arm high behind his back, squeezing a tortured squeal from him. "Yes, we do mean, Pops. Get down, hear? On your knees. Or do I break this wing of yours?"
"Oh, God, no. Please, you guys, I'll..
Fallon slapped the man full force across his face. "Down, mister. Don't you dig English? You wanted some didn't you? Now you'll get a bellyful of it."
And with an agonized groan the man fell beside Betty, let Benny and Gregg twist his head downward. While Betty chuckled thickly, fell back on the blanket, shifted her legs.
Gagging and groaning as Benny applied greater pressure to his arm, the man finally caved in, let his head be pushed down. Did exactly as Tom Fallon told him.
While Betty lay giggling, her body writhing and jerking. "Oh, man," she said, "that feels funny. It tickles and it hurts at the same time. Baby, I dig this trick. Woweel" At the end she brought her hands down, guided the man's head herself. Until finally she began to release low, rasping moans. Three, staccato screams broke from her. Then she angrily pushed the man away from her.
"Get rid of this slug," she spat. "He turns my stomach."
"C'mon, you," Fallon said, dragging the man to his feet. "That'll teach you to be a peeper. Or was it good? Do you dig it that way?"
The three boys were laughing gleefully at their perverted joke as they led the man off into the bushes again. They were gone ten minutes this time, Betty grinningly waiting on the blanket, listening to the sounds of the brutal beating the boys were administering to the man.
Finally they returned. "It's about time," Betty mocked. "I kinda thought you guys had changed brands."
"We put him out of commission!" Tom bragged. "He'll carry lumps for a month."
"How about some straight action here?" Betty said. "You guys want it or not? Hurry up, we only got five minutes. That guy might come around and go yelling for the cops." She fell back, wiggled her hips. "You first, Tom."
"Five minutes?" he rebelled. "Who you kiddin'?"
"Five minutes," she hissed. "Take it or leave it." Her voice became irritated. "Not like that, dope. Just open your pants. We ain't got all night. That's right."
They accepted the girl's terms, Betty laughing and moaning and encouraging them every bit of the way. All but devouring them. And it was as she preordained. The threesome made it easily, came in handily under the five minute deadline.
"Let's blow this creepy place," Betty muttered as she pulled on her panties, let Tom Fallon snap her brassiere. "We'll go out in the country somewhere. Where we can really take our time with the second round. And don't forget that damned wine!"
And that was how it started for Betty Genaro.
CHAPTER TWO
The next day, a Thursday, gave Janel Tracy very little time to ponder the terrible, yet wonderful thing she'd let herself do with Dale Miller in his father's ear the night before.
In the first place she overslept that morning, had to fling herself about the house madly, showering, dressing, eating, gathering her school impedimenta. Then the made dash for St. Clair High, eight blocks away And with it the punishing remembrance as she felt the stinging pain, the new stiffness in her body. It hurt when she walked.
Still she assumed what she thought was her natural stride, hoped that nobody paid very close attention to her this morning. If she walked too awkwardly, it would be a dead giveaway. Janet's been playing naughty-
She reached school, fled to her roll room, beating the bell by the merest hair.
And the busy school day-her class-load was heaviest on Thursday-was begun.
It wasn't until third period, a study hall, that she found a minute to think-to really think-about the awful things she'd done with Dale less than twelve hours before. The dark, ghoulish knowledge had been there all along; it had made her stomach fluttery, it had made her heart heavy. But she'd forced the thoughts into abeyance, waiting for a proper time when-
Now it was time.
And she spread out her thoughts, using her English text as a shield, she relived last night from start to finish. She wallowed in the fear and guilt that grew within her minute by minute. She probed the details of her over in her mind, examined them with agonizing, remorseful completeness.
And no one in that study hall, seeing the angel-faced blonde so intently studying her English, could have even begun to dream the truth about her, imagine the frenzied thoughts that were going on behind those blue, baby-innocent eyes. If someone could produce clear, glossy photos of her and Dale's naked bodies locked together on that blanket, of Janel's face close-up, her mouth gaping as she'd choked her triumph, they still wouldn't believe it. It would have to be trick photography. No, not Janel Tracy.
But yes, Janel Tracy, she thought bitterly, her heart pounding, her small, taut breasts rising and falling swift ly beneath the tight, expensive blouse. That was me out there last night. Letting Dale do those things. At the end going out of my head. From the pain. From the part that wasn't pain.
She glanced about the vast room, sure that everyone must be watching her, that they knew what she'd done, the shameful thing. But nobody was watching her. She breathed a shallow sigh of relief.
And yet, she thought, why doesn't it seem worse to me than it does? Why do I keep remembering the worst parts? The way I went crazy when he kissed me like that? When he ran his hands over me, when he undressed me? And the best-at the end-when I felt like I was going to melt inside?
It happened, she concluded, there was no changing it now. Was she to carry guilt for the long, oppressive months to come? It was something she'd have to learn to live with, something that she'd have to fight to control.
Was it really so awful? Hadn't other girls made the same mistake?
If it had to happen, then she was grateful it had happened with Dale. For she was in love with him she adored him with all her heart. In a way, it had been a sacrificial thing, proof of her love to him. And if he loved her, if he would someday marry her, was it so wrong?
Didn't love make things right?
But again the sudden heat, the evil titillation grew within her body. She felt her legs go tense, ache, she felt her nipples pucker inside her brassiere. And though she fought back the bold thoughts, still they emerged victorious. At the end, when those fires started, wasn't it nice? Wasn't it something to look forward to when they were married? To think married people could have that all the time. With none of the guilt, just the wonderful enjoyment. All day and all night if they chose.
Janel was naive.
Suddenly she felt her forehead turn hot, and she realized she was blushing furiously. You brazen tramp. she castigated. Yow dirty little wanton.
The thoughts became dulled as the day passed, flared in starts and stops, the strangest things triggering them. She'd trembled as Dale had come to her locker just before noon, had asked her about tonight. Unable to look into his eyes, she said in a muffled tone. "Yes, Dale. But only if you promise you'll ... never ... like last night. I don't know what got into me."
When he tried to delve deeper into the forbidden subject, she'd turned him off. "I don't want to talk about it. Dale. Never again. Not until we're married." And she'd hurried away from him, going home for lunch.
"Tonight though," he'd called after her.
"Yes, tonight," she replied. "But remember what I said."
The guilt and resolve were revived anew that afternoon in Mr. Porter's speech class, as she looked up to catch him staring at her with an unsettling intentness. As he smiled in an almost secret confidence. Instantly she colored, averted her eyes. He knows, she foolishly thought, he knows all about last night. About Dale and me.
But as suddenly she assessed her guilty fears as nothing more than that. That and panic. It only helped to reinforce her vow. No matter how much she loved Dale (and the mere thought of him made her go mushy inside), last night's mistake would never be repeated. She'd never ... not until they were married. Then she'd joyfully give herself to him. Anytime he wanted.
But for now. No. It would be eternal no.
Abruptly her reverie was shattered. As Mr. Porter rose to make an announcement. "The Tri-City Forensics meet will be held again this year, the preliminaries to be held in Westport the first week in January. As you know, St. Clair High usually sends a strong delegation. We were beat out last year, but it won't happen again." He smiled directly at Janel Tracy. "I'm sure this year we'll take a high percentage of firsts. Anyone interested in applying for the meet, and I hope there will be many of you, please remain after class. As in the past, I'll be willing to coach anyone who wants my help...."
A brief, pained moan emerged from some anonymous spot in the classroom.
"That will do!" Mr. Porter lashed out. "I won't tolerate this sort of behavior in my classes. I am announcing this meet for those who are interested. For those yahoos not interested, please keep your cretinish grunts and groans to yourselves." He glared about the room, daring a further disturbance. "Now then, turn to page thirty in your text. As you remember, we were discussing the difference between declamations and...."
Why? Janel thought, turning out his introductory remarks why do they hate him so much? He's only trying to help them, to teach them. Was strict order such an intolerable thing? Compared to the anarchy if some of my other classes-Just because he's so homely, because he insists they learn something in his classes. It isn't fair.
Janel knew that she'd see Mr. Porter after class. She'd competed in the forensics meet last year, had taken an honorable mention. She was determined to place this year. Almost hopefully, wishing for Mr. Porter's sake that there'd be other applicants, she glanced around the room, evaluated the possibilities. And discouraged, bent her head to her text book.
There was only one other. The sissified Murray Stratton. Suddenly she felt very sorry for Mr. Porter.
Neill Porter needed no one to be sorry for him. He was a self-sufficient man, caring little for the undisguised animosity his students held for him. Their puny opinions were absolutely worthless, as were those of the St. Clair faculty. That was why he was here, to try to pound some acceptable values and standards into their stupid heads. The faculty could learn-or not learn, as was their imbecilic choice-from his example. At least in his classes, he was in control. Which was more than could be said for ninety per cent of the other classrooms at St. Clair. There the indulged, stone-brained little savages held sway. , More important, despite themselves, he crammed knowledge, superficial though it might be, down their gawpy throats. Strict discipline did have its points. And if he had to be hated to maintain it, then hated he would be, and proud of it.
There was another satisfaction. Though he'd been at St. Clair only one full year, his reputation was growing. Allender, the principal, had complimented him often of late, looked upon Porter as a bulwark before the deluge of stupidity that was flooding the nation. And that wasn't to be sniffed at. He needed allies, all he could get. After what had happened at that school in California-
Standing outside his door, watching the classes pass, he felt some minor exultation in the angry looks the students sent his way. And also in the way they calmed down while they passed his room.
A smile played at the corners of his mouth as he remembered what Janel Tracy had said to him after class. Such a sweet child. "I'm sorry that more kids aren't signing up, Mr. Porter," she'd smiled shyly, "if they'd only try it, they'd find out how much fun it is."
"I'm sure it's all right, Janel," he'd said. "I'll pick up enough entrants from my other sections. And after all, it's quality, not quantity that counts. I'm sure you'll take a first this year, Janel. But it'll take lots of work. I'll be happy to coach you any time I can."
Remembrance of Janel clouded his vision, and the passing swarm of students blurred to a smear of color and motion. Despite himself, he felt his fingers shake, a tremor slid down his back. Such an exquisite girl, he mused, so beautifully groomed and brought up. A stinging wave of bitterness swept him. A shame, a Godawful shame. All that beauty, all that grace and fresh innocence. Wasted on the likes of that idiotic Dale Miller boy. Again he was envisioning Janel's gorgeously smooth complexion, her perfect smile, the inner glow that radiate from her eyes.
He hadn't missed the thing going on between her and Dale. They were going steady, and they let everybody know about it. But that she'd give herself to that witless clod, that she'd let him kiss and embrace her, perhaps even go further-the thought of it made Porter's stomach constrict. That divine child, epitone of all that was pure and fine in women-with that insensitive, callow, pig of a boy-
There were times when he could have bellowed his frustration.
Now suddenly he was drawn from his trance. "Hello, Mr. Porter," the girl called.
He focused his eyes, saw Sue Lanier passing across the hall. "Hello, Sue," he said, pumping reserve into his tone. Then she was down the hall, he was guardedly watching her, his eyes becoming extensions of himself actually caressing that subtly sensuous, budding body, grazing the thin line of her hips, the proud burst of her high, piquant breasts, the tanned curve of her bare legs. Then, as she looked back smiled again, as he saw the flash of even, white teeth, the enchanting lustre of her wide eyes.
It felt like someone was chopping him up with small knives inside. Those girls-
It seemed all at over the rankist, rottenest of injustices. Time out of joint, as Shakespeare had put it.
"Quite a gal, isn't she?" a joking voice intruded on his thoughts. A voice directly at Neill Porter's side. "I don't blame you for watching her. Man, what that kid can crowd into a sweater."
Embarrassed, slightly perturbed at being caught in the act, hoping the sick yearning wasn't reflected on his face, Porter looked up. Saw the young man, roughly twenty-four, almost six-feet-tall, his dark hair cut in a sporty crewcut, his handsome, masculine face curved into a jaunty smile of camaraderie, standing beside him. Page Mallory. One of the new math teachers.
"Oh, Mr. Mallory," Porter said. "That's right, isn't it? I think we met at the opening day mixer. I'm sorry I haven't been in to see you, sort of welcome you in, but I've been busy. But I didn't have to tell you that, Mr. Mallory. What with this being your first year and all."
"Page," the young man smiled. "Only my students get away with that Mr. Mallory stuff. And if I may...."
"Neill," Porter said reluctantly, resenting the sudden bid for intimacy, and especially resentful that Mallory had intruded when he had.
"Couldn't help noticing you watching that Lanier kid," Mallory chuckled. "I don't blame you at all. When I think of how I passed up stuff like that when I was in high school because I was wound up with football and such. Lord, I must've had rocks in my head. She's in my first section, and I don't mind admitting there're times when it's touch and go, and I keep losing the thread of my own lectures. Janel Tracy gets me too. Then there's that Betty Genaro and...."
Porter's indignation grew. It seemed Mallory's words were intrusion on something scared to him, that they dirtied something that was his own, extremely personal property. II he didn't stop his yammering soon-
"I hardly think that's a professional attitude," Porter said coldly, his smile a dead thing. "It's certainly not something one goes about advertising." He turned toward his door. "Nice to see you again, Mr. Mallory. Now if you'll excuse me, it's my free period, and I have a batch of themes to check."
Leaving a definitively put-in-his-place Page Mallory standing in gape-mouthed confusion in the hall. Angrily he wheeled, retraced his steps. The hypocrite, he stormed. The filthy-minded, priggish hypocrite!
It was night. Ten-thirty to be exact. And in her bed, wearing only a sheer nylon nightgown, the covers thrown aside because of the heat, her body silhouetted against the sheets, a much frustrated Claudine DeGagne was attempting to make some sort of peace with herself.
As she remembered how skillfully and coldly Neill had rebuffed her when she'd visited his classroom after school that afternoon, had all but openly begged him to come calling again tonight.
Granted, he'd been charming, and discreet, making no reference whatsoever to the rampaging passion which they'd shared, not once employing that arch condescension certain of her other lovers had been seen fit to taunt her with. He was tired, there were certain items of too-long postponed homework which must be taken care of.
Oh, yes-he'd been very suave. But even so. there was no disguising the fact that she'd been brushed off. And it hurt Claudine, hurt her deeply. She had been counting so much on the evening's erotica, planning for it with expert skill as she'd sleepwalked through her art classes during the day.
And now, where had all her pretty schemes got her? To an early bed. And alone. It was enough to make a girl cry.
Still she didn't despair. Neill hadn't shut her out completely. He'd been vague, but there'd been no door slammed in her face, there'd been no mocking scorn as upon various other occasions in her life She didn't know whether she'd have been able to endure such humiliation another time.
In the darkness she smiled, her eyes narrowed. There was a good chance. Neill was as lonely as she was, there would be other times when he'd need her. And when those times came, she'd make herself available. Granted, she wasn't a beautiful woman, but she had other attributes.
Her body was fat, but still nice, her legs and breasts were good. And as for her libido-it was still in mint condition. She knew how to use her body to its fullest advantage, she was not above humbling herself to give the man status, to make him want to come back to her. There were certain tricks she knew, was not above using. Tricks that would inextricably trap a man like Neill.
She twisted on the bed. Even thought of Neill, and their wonderful love last night, made her feel like she was lying on razors. And slowly, as if to ease the teeming emotion within her, she began to lift and roil her breasts with her hands.
She loved Neill. God, if only she could tell him, show him how much she loved him! There was still time, she told herself, still time to indulge all the romantic dreams she'd held through these hopeless years of spin-sterhood. If she was careful, if she played her cards right, she could still have him.
He was a poor, lost lamb, so alone, so aimless. If he would just trust in her, if he would let her help and guide him. Neill, she thought, I'll be good to you, so good to you. If you'll only give me a chance. Darling I'll love you, even if you don't love me. I'll take care of you.
She became even more restless on the bed, her hands troubling her breasts more determinedly now, as she imagined herself married to Neill, as she imagined how those first months of love would be. It would happen. She'd have him, she'd become Mrs. Neill Porter. She'd kill if need be to have it happen.
And quite naturally her thoughts became more sex oriented, and she fled into fantasy for perhaps the hundredth time that day. She recreated last night's glorious love once more, building it block by block. From the moment when she'd kissed him, when she'd bared herself to him, when finally he'd come to her in this very bed, had locked his body with hers, had filled her with his magnificent male machinery.
Then she was trembling uncontrollably, sharp, fiery stabs pressing all along her body. I'm sorry, darling, she wailed silently, so sorry. I can't help myself. I don't want to do this. But if only you'd have come tonight.
And as Claudine had done on so many other tormented, lonely nights, she let her hands slide down her hips, she began to pull up the silken nightdress. Until now her lush belly was bared to the muted light. Now her knees rose, and she began to caress the insides of her thighs.
Neill-she thought as it began.
While on a lovers' lane road two miles outside of St. Clair, a very disturbed boy of twenty named Larry Vermillion, a thin, tall blond with a pimpled complexion, a lad possessed of bourgeoise ideals about constancy and true love even in this day and age, was giving Betty Genaro a hard time.
A high school drop-out at seventeen, he was now a flunky at one of the downtown garages, was proud of his small security and stability, had puerile dreams that someday he'd go places. And with him, his beloved Betty. They sat in the front seat of his '56 Dodge, a car he was wildly vain about, having bought it with his own earnings, having overhauled and refurbished it with his own hands.
"Don't con me, Betty," he whined. "I want the truth. Where were you last night? I called and I came over twice. Even at eleven-thirty. You still weren't home."
Betty pasted on her "sincere" smile. "Like I told you, honey, I was with Vita and Audrey. We went to a movie. A double feature. We stayed all the way through."
"What movie was it? I saw '"em all. Tell me about it."
"Nuts to you, Larry," she snapped. "I'll be damned if I'm gonna go through this whole bit again. I don't know why you're so damned jealous. It's the truth, you can ask Vita and Audrey."
"They'll just lie for you. Like those other times."
"Well, if that's the way you feel, hon," she mocked, "why don't you just turn this crate around and take me home. You don't trust me. why bother keeping this thing going?"
Larry was instantly frightened. He loved Betty; he go off the deep end if he lost her. His face was wrinkled into a monkey-mask of confusion. If he could only make himself believe her. If just once he could catch her cheating on him. "God, Betty, I'm sorry," he pleaded. "I love you. I can't help getting jealous like this. If I ever thought there was another guy. I ... I don't know what I'd do. I'm nuts about you, baby."
"You're just nuts." she smirked "To be wasting all this time fighting. When we could be doing other more important things. I love you too, Larry," she lied. "I've been thinking about you all day, looking forward to tonight." She shammed modesty.
His voice broke and he pulled her into his arms. "Swear, baby. Please sweat. There was no other guy."
And very truthfully Betty swore: "There was no other guy." It was all she could do to keep from laughing.
He kissed her frantically, his hand immediately closing on her breast, squeezing and tumbling it. "I love you, baby, I love you."
There was a hiss of a zipper being pulled. Then Betty's hands were wandering. "You do love me, doll," she laughed. "Ooh, do you love me!" Her hands went wild, nearly drove the helpless Larry out of his head.
"In the back seat," she rasped. "Let me show you how much I love you." She broke away from him, crawled over the front seat in helter-skelter frenzy.
Her skirt and blouse were off before he got in back with her. She wore no panties tonight, no brassiere. "Come and get it, sweetie," she whispered. "Beiore it goes without you."
On another country road, despite her better judgment, despite all her lofty resolves, Janel Tracy was once again in the Mercury with Dale Miller. They were kissing passionately, and Janel felt the same hot, debilitating tremors working themselves through her body. She felt the delicious lassitude flood her from head to toe. Dale, she thought dizzily, don't. You shouldn't kiss me like that. Please don't.
"Darling, darling," he pleaded hoarsely, his hands sliding along her belly, reconnoitering beneath her skirt, "you have to let me. I love you, you love me. It can't be wrong, can it? Let me, baby, oh let me."
The torridness threatened to melt her bones. And her head swimming, her legs clenching on his hand, she said. "All right, darling. Just this once more. Then never again. Not until we're married. Promise."
"Baby, I promise. Just this once. I swear."
Janel started, then went limp, the delicious hotness swamping her, as he began working down her panties.
CHAPTER THREE
Something was wrong. Janel needed no book to tell her that, to tell her what it was. And still, sure as she was of what tragedy had befallen her, she fought not to believe, she fought to make excuses for her mental depression, for the changes that were taking place within her body.
It can't be, she wailed against the indifferent wall of reality, it can't be. It just can't.
Yet she knew her protests were but mere murmurs in a typhoon. For there was no doubt about it. It was so.
A month had passed, and it was now late October. Indian Summer and its bright blue weather, its heartbreaking beauty, was at full pitch now. But so far as Janel was concerned it might as well have been the deepest, gloomiest of winter. A year-a century-had passed since that first tragic night with Dale. That night she'd first learned the rapture of love.
And now-the consequences of careless love.
But how had it happened? she questioned herself time and time again, each new self interrogation bringing her to the brink of hysteria. Dale had taken precautions; she knew that. Right from the start. And later, as their lovemaking had turned more casual, as her resistance had turned puny, her conscience blunted, she had even watched him prepare. Once, during ah afternoon carnival of lovemaking, three separate events taking place in her own bed while her parents away at a football game, he had even coaxed her to do honors for him. And reluctantly, but with an intense chill of evil going through her, she'd done as he wished.
Had it happened that afternoon? Had she been her own worst enemy? Or was it anticlimactic? Had the seed already been planted even then?
This afternoon, returning home from school early, skipping a forensics rehearsal to do so, unable to face anybody at school, she sat in her bedroom, alone, wondering and remembering. All that joy, the ecstasy, their laughter and play, their kissing and constant avowals of love-had they been worth this!
For happen it had. No matter how, now. It was too late for such concerns. An accident of some sort, and an errant, wriggling spermaozoa-she'd learned the term in biology class-had infected her.
And now Janel was pregnant. She was going to have Dale Miller's baby.
She was only eighteen, not even out of high school. It meant the end of everything. College, her bright future, her community standing. Everything. When her mother and father found out it would break their hearts. They'd had such marvelous dreams for her.
And now. Disgrace.
Each day Janel felt that much more logy, more irritable. She hadn't started to vomit yet, but she knew what to expect. Also there was no visible sign so far as her figure was concerned. But soon, she knew, she'd be unable to keep her secret from anyone. Especially her mother, who'd been complaining of late about Janel's peaked appearance, had even threatened a doctor's check-up.
God, she thought. That's all I need now.
Bleakly she stared out the window at the holocaust of color in the autumn trees, and saw only the sere shadows, the black, gradually denuding limbs. Brightness and gaiety were beyond the ken of her knowledge now. Tired tears gathered behind her eyelids. But they wouldn't come. She had cried herself out, even during those early days when she'd hoped against hope that it was a mistake, that she'd wake one morning to find it had been a grisly trick of nature, that everything would be all right. She was late, that was all.
But such hadn't been the case. There'd been no trick. Only the one Dale Miller had played on her.
Strangely enough she still hadn't told Dale. She didn't know why, she just hadn't. Suddenly he seemed like such a baby-he was a junior, after all-how could he be expected to handle a thing like this? Then again, on the other hand, how could she?
Too late she'd found strength to fight off Dale's sexual advances; those same kisses and caresses that had once driven her out of her mind barely moved her at all now. And she excused herself, telling Dale she was being strong for both of them, that he had to wait until they were married. Did he want to ruin everything?
When all the time she knew it was already too late. The end of the world had already come.
But now she knew it was time. She couldn't go on like this, alone, any longer. It was time Dale bore his share of the blame. He had to help her. Surely there was something he could do. Before it was too late.
She rose from the bed, went to the phone.
They met at the bridge two blocks from school. And together, both only wearing sweaters, it was that warm, they walked along the banks of Collins Creek, going farther and farther from the city. Until finally, as the sun began sinking behind the trees, a sudden chill biting them, Janel turned to face him.
Her face screwed into a confused mask and she fought tears. And at that moment she knew it was so. It would never be the same again. She hated Dale; she didn't care if she never saw him again. This-this agony-was all his fault. If he hadn't been so greedy, if he could have waited.
The words tumbled out: "Dale ... I have to tell you. It can't wait any more. I'm going to have a baby."
She hated him even more as he stood there, stunned to immobility, his eyes popping a trifle, his mouth working, with no words coming out. He looked skinny, his neck was too long, and she was reminded of a scrawny baby bird, not yet able to fly.
"No, Jan," he croaked. "It can't be. You're just kidding me, aren't you? No ... I-I used ... every time. Janel...."
"Something went wrong," she said, feeling like she wanted to slap him, to jar that stupid expression off his goopy face. "It's no he. I'm way overdue. I'm gonna have a baby, your baby." She wanted to hurt him. Her voice rose, became strident. "What are you gonna do about it?"
He sat down hard on the creek bank, drew up his knees, ran his fingers nervously through his hair. All the time staring into space, not at Janel. "I'm sorry, baby, I'm sorry," he said tonelessly.
"Being sorry isn't going to get rid of it," she snapped, sitting beside him. "Unless you intend to marry me." She shook her head slowly. "I don't know, I just don't know what to do. Help me, Dale. You have to help me. It's your fault."
"It's your fault as much as mine," he flared. "If you hadn't been so darned easy ... "
"Dale!" she gasped. "Don't...."
"Be quiet," he groaned. "Let me think, I gotta think. God, Dad's gonna murder me when he finds out. He'll honest to God murder me...."
Janel realized bleakly that she had two babies on her hands.
It was dark before they stumbled back up the incline to the bridge. Where Dale tried to kiss Janel. But she rebuffed him. "No," she said, and that was all.
Then finally, when Dale still failed to come up with anything constructive, not even a single suggestion: "Well?"
"I don't know, Jan," he sighed. "I can't figure it out just like that. I've got to have time to think. I've heard of guys who ... But I haven't the slightest idea of where to find one. Besides, there's the money too."
"A great help you are," Janel said coldly. T can't tell you now, honey," he said. "You just sit tight. It'll be okay, I promise. I'll figure something out. Just keep cool, and don't tell anybody. I'll nose around, see what I can come up with." He touched her hand, but she pulled it away. "I'll see you in school, I'll call you. Just as soon as I come up with an idea. Sit tight, Jan. Everything's gonna be all right."
Which was as much satisfaction as Janel got out of him.
Two more weeks passed. And there was no call from Dale, he nearly broke his neck to avoid her at school. The two times she did corner him, he was evasive, told her he was working on something. But it was going to take a little more time.
A cold desperation palled Janel that second time as she instinctively realized that Dale was totally ineffectual, that he was going to do absolutely nothing. Until his hand was forced. And there was only one person who could do that. She, herself.
It would mean going to her parents, telling all.
They would make her marry Dale Miller. And right now, the last thing on earth she wanted to do was marry Dale. She didn't even want to have to look at him. She hated him as she'd never hated anyone or anything in her entire life.
So Janel sleepwalked through her days, going through the motions at school, her mind busy elsewhere. She purchased a too-small girdle, wore it religiously, she died a thousand deaths each morning for fear L ;r mother would hear her vomiting in her private bathroom. But still she groped in darkness, not knowing what to do, where to turn.
And every day the embryo grew infinitesimally larger.
The change in mood was noted by Janel's mother and, when questioned, Janel made up a story about Dale and the fact they'd broken up. And Mrs. Tracy understood, tactfully avoided the subject, knowing from sad experience how seriously adolescents took their puppy-love infatuations. In time Janel's depression would pass.
Among her teachers, both Mr. Porter and Mr. Mallory were observant enough to note the change taking place in Janel. Porter, his outlook more mordant, sensed it was serious, that it undoubtedly involved the callow Miller boy, but kept his silence, biding his time, knowing it wasn't his place to interfere.
Page Mallory, however, being a much more brash and straightforward type, interpreted her brown study as something minor, and barged right in. She and her boy friend would patch things up soon; then everything would be jolly, jolly again.
Thus it was he saw fit to approach Janel after class one day, she brushing past him at the door, to ask her point blank: "Troubles, Janel? Why so grumpy? Why, first thing you know, Christmas'll be here. Hardly the time of the year for the glooms. You want to tell me about it?"
Janel whirled, felt unreasoning anger. Since when did teachers get off being so snoopy? And acid retort was on the tip of her tongue, but wisely she withheld it. "No, nothing's wrong, Mr. Mallory. What makes you think that?"
Mallory saw the sudden flash of anger, chose to ignore it. "Oh, I don't know," he smiled openly, "you've just seemed different lately. You rarely smile, T get the feeling you've cut yourself off from things. Then your school work. I've seen you do better. Anything I can do to help you, Janel, I will. I hope you know that."
Bitterness choked Janel. Help? she thought. I'll bet you'd be a great help. Briefly she envisioned his face if she were to confess all. I'm having a baby, Mr. Mallory. In June. A graduation present. Isn't that sweet? But I'm worried. I'm having such a hard time deciding what to name him. God, wouldn't he drop his teeth!
"There's nothing wrong," she said instead, forcing a bright smile. "Maybe I've been preoccupied. I'm going through a stage, I guess. That's what Mom says."
"Trouble with the boy friend? I used to see you with Dale Miller quite often. That go on the rocks?"
She smiled teasingly. "You don't miss a thing, do you? Well, maybe that enters into it too." She clutched her books tighter to her chest. "I've gotta run, Mr. Mallory. I'll be late for my next class."
"Bye, Janel. Just remember, any time you need help...."
Janel smiled at Mr. Porter as she passed his door, then hot-footed it for U.S. History. Wondering as she ran, whether, in reality, a man like Mr. Mallory would be able to cope with a problem like hers. Did teachers really know it all? Maybe he'd know of somebody who performed abortions. Or would the mere suggestion of such a thing shock him into a heart attack?
Still she couldn't help but be warm by his offer. It had been an open and generous act. Certainly none of her other teachers had noted any change, had volunteered their aid. Fleetingly she recalled Mr. Mallory's cleancut handsomeness, his frank, bluff manner. He seemed so confident and stable. What would it be like with a man like that? A real man? She flushed briefly. I mean if I could tell him? What kind of a rock would he be? Does he really have sense enough to cope?
Miss Kelinski was standing at her door, wagging her gray head in mild reproof as Janel barely made the bell.
Neill Porter was monitoring the hall outside his door that morning also. Glancing down the hall, awaiting Janel's passage with unsettling expectancy, he was stabbed by enraging irritation as he saw her talking to Mallory, as he saw how easily the attractive man established rapport with his students. With Janel especially.
Instantly he was plunged into an almost psychopathic jealousy, he found himself hating Page Mallory anew. It was always the same, the story of his life. He'd seen it happen again and again. These shallow, pretty-boys were always walking off with the loveliest women, were ushering them into the handiest bed, were marrying them, even keeping them like toys-playing with them when it suited their fancy.
Just because they'd had the good fortune to be born with a handsome face, a flashy smile, an attractive physique.
It had been that way during his high school years, during college. It was so even now. The handsome men took the cream, left the dregs for misfits like himself. It was an injustice he'd never been able to reconcile himself to. And lately, these past three years, this bitterness had begun to manifest itself in an even more strange and twisted way.
He found his hands trembling now as Janel passed, sent him a quick smile, not really seeing him. And his bitterness compounded upon itself. He could tell she was still thinking of Page Mallory.
Even though he didn't believe Mallory capable of taking that kind of advantage of his female pupils, it nevertheless galled him that the math teacher could charm them as he did, be so popular with them, while he....
It was on this note that Neill Porter closed his door, entered his empty room, sat down to outline the next week's teaching plans.
But concentration was impossible. Other more unnerving considerations kept intruding. Considerations like Janel Tracy and his growing fascination with her, considerations like Claudine DeGagne. And finally-that girl in Long Beach. Wendy Shell.
He'd been with Claudine only last night. Certain male pressures had ganged up on him, and remembering her oft-stated plaint, "Call me any time, darling, I'll always be waiting," he'd done just that. It had been ten-thirty when he'd rapped on her back door, having parked his car two blocks off to keep their liason secret from the immediate neighbors and she'd happily let him in.
It had been their fifth or sixth such session since they'd begun their affair. Or was it their seventh? It was hard to recall, each event seeming much like the last, running, in his mind, into one long, nonstop orgy of compulsive, loveless sex. Loveless on his part at any rate. It was obvious Claudine had other ideas, that she was hatching certain plaits concerning him.
She was in for one terrible disappointment. But in the meantime she was a substitute. For something he couldn't have.
They'd hurried their martinis, their talk desultory, the Bach quartet good background for his ennui, both their minds on other things. Then Claudine had turned out the lights-she was much easier to kiss in the darkness-and moments later they were in her bedroom.
He smiled in evil satisfaction now, as he recalled that crucial moment. When he'd brought himself to her. When she'd all but sobbed with delight, as inch by inch, he'd given himself to her.
"Lover," she'd keened, her breath sucking in sharply as his initial assault began, "it's a miracle. Every time it's a miracle all over again. I can't believe it'll be as good ever again, but every time it is." Her arms had held him tightly, her hands had spiraled in the small of his back. Smoothly her legs had wound about his, had urged him forward, crowding him, her belly thrusting and squirmy, into the liquid, warm pool of herself.
"I'm afraid sometime," she purred, "that I can't take it. But I do, don't I, darling? Every time. It's exquisite the way you fill me. No man's ever filled me like you do." She'd locked her ankles tighter, dragged her buttocks from the bed, clung in hot, pulsing union. "I'd die, baby, I'd die, if I ever lost you. I love you with all my soul and body." She constricted herself on him. "Especially my body."
"There've been others then?" he'd asked.
Claudine had sniffed. "Be realistic, Neill. I'm a big girl now. I have no illusions about myself. I've got only two things a man would want. My money, and...." She chuckled. "This. Yes, there've been others. Not too many, but ... Does it make a difference to you, Neill?"
"No, not really. All of us have to make our way the best we can. Certain things have to be taken care of, depending upon how sexual a being we happen to be."
"You're sweet, Neill. Such an understanding man. Have you had many other women?"
"Several."
"Will you tell me about them sometime? I won't be jealous, I promise. It's just that I'm...."
"Curious?"
"Yes, curious."
"Maybe, dear. But not tonight. I think we'd better tend to business. Or one of us is going to be disappointed."
She'd squirmed, emitted a guttural whimper. "You devil, you big, longhorned devil. Yes, tend to business. Tend to Claudine's business. Mmm, it's sweet, so sweet. Such a gorgeous way to rock yourself to sleep."
"But first...."
"Yes, baby," she'd gasped, "first." Her legs had become like steel bars behind his, and she'd groaned, nipped his shoulder painfully. Instantly, she'd begun to pump her body anew. "And second," she'd gritted.
"Third," she'd been gloating thickly when Neill had finally felt the floodgates fall before the intolerable pressure. And still Claudine had wriggled and twisted beneath him.
"Fourth," she'd choked, laughing in carnal self-indulgence. Then she'd fallen back with a guttural sigh.
But now. all at once, in strange turnabout, the vision of the wanton Claudine faded, was replaced by that of Janel, erased immediately by remembrance of that clear, unblemished face, those timid, innocent eyes.
If only-he groaned, suffering actual pain from his suppressed desires.
And as suddenly Janel's face was fading, falling away in blurred shards. And Wendy Shell was back. After all these years. And pushing the heels of his hands into his eyes, he blacked out the here and now. Eagerly fled into the past.
The pretty but plain, simple-minded child, product of a negligent home, love-starved, became achingly real in his mind. And he remembered how, by some fluke of abnormal psychology she'd got a crush on him, of all people. Wendy had an IQ of minus eighty, was the constant butt of countless class jokes. That afternoon, weeping over such a humiliation, crying her heart out iD the back of the now-deserted room, he'd raised her, had held her, had finally kissed her.
She'd crept to his apartment a few nights later, following his drilled security instructions perfectly. Even so, he'd been somewhat disappointed, as her animality, aroused by his insisted kisses and caresses, had flared and he'd let him undress her, let him adore her For poor Wendy was second-hand; at seventeen an older brother had already relieved her of her badge of chastity.
Even so, that firm, smooth, surging body-as compared to the flaccid ripeness of Claudine's-had been a wondrous, mind-stunning thing. And though she'd screamed and fought at the harrowing lovemaking, he'd held her to her course, and it had been finished. Even now, the very act of forcing her, of making her endure it, seemed imminently soul-shattering, and he wanted to scream for recreation of that sublime ravishment.
In time Wendy had become accustomed to him, and little vixen that she was, had initiated love as often as he had.
But then, breath of scandal stirring, they'd been torn apart. It had never become public, the parents had never, thank God, found out. But among some of the faculty, even some of the more sophisticated students-Collyer, his principal, had privately demanded his resignation. And that had been that.
But now, he remembrance of Wendy Shell's sweet, innocent flesh still alive in his brain, Porter was seized by a terrible lust. And his face strained, he bolted from the room, made for the faculty rest room. Praying that one of the stalls would be vacant.
It was a week later, as Janel Tracy remained after school for extra coaching for the declamation she would make at the upcoming forensics meet, that the long simmering stew of fear and lust and tragedy so catastrophically boiled over. After that nothing would ever be the same again.
It was agony for Janel to concentrate on the memorized speech, a carefully written and thought out argument against capital punishment she'd spent endless hours on. And yet she knew she had to go through the motions. At least until she got enough courage to shock her small world, to confront her parents with the ugly admission.
There was not much time. For daily her body was growing heavier, she felt the tiredness like an overpowering pack on her shoulders. But worst of all, the despair, the feeling of facing this alone-
"Concentrate, Janel," Porter said gently, "you've got to put more emphasis on 'When we revert to savagery ourselves ... ' That line has to come out strong."
"I know," she said dispiritedly. "I'll try again." She straightened her shoulders, clutched the edge of the lecturn bravely. Began the speech once more.
Barely listening, Neill Porter looked outside, saw it was already dark Five o'clock, a glance at the clock told him They'd been working almost an hour Out in the deserted halls he heard the rumble of the janitor's cart. Jake Griffin was calling it a day. In a few minutes they'd have the entire building to themselves.
Now he studied Janel, tried to subdue the throbbing of his pulse, tried to untangle her words from his sick thoughts. Fought the most incredible impulse to rush at her, to fight her into his arms, to-
Grimly he shook his head. It wouldn't do at all.
Janel saw the motion, took it as criticism. "I'm sorry Mr. Porter," she said. "I'm doing the best I can. It just won't seem to come, I'm afraid. I...."
He could tell she was on the verge of tears, a panic engendered by more than her oratorical miscues. But what? he thought. Certainly the child hadn't let herself become disastrously involved with that slobby Miller boy. She couldn't be in that kind of trouble.
And then, as if in a dream sequence, the action in graceful, weightless slow motion, he saw the girl stiffen, he saw her fall away from the lecturn. Slowly she crumpled, floated down, her small sigh seeming intrusion on the surrealistic ballet. There was a thump as her shoulders hit the hollow platform, and she skidded, lay half on her side, half on her back, her head hanging over the top step.
Porter broke from his trance, dashed toward her.
His heart swelled, seemed to bloat him, the pressure painful, as he lifted the unconscious girl in his arms, as he stole a quick embrace, her soft, female fragrance and freshness almost intoxicating.
Janel revived quickly, opened her eyes, looked about in surprise as she found herself in the strong, comforting embrace. As she felt the sincere concern, the compassionate rocking. For the briefest moment, she felt like she was a little girl again, snug and safe in her father's arms. Then, abruptly, she realized this wasn't her father, she wasn't a small girl. She was a woman in the arms of a stranger. A woman with a most tragic problem.
Her voice caught. "What happened?"
"You fainted, Janel. What's wrong? Are you ill?"
"I don't know," she lied, fighting to wrench her eyes from his. "I just got faint for a second, and the next thing I knew I was falling. I guess maybe I'm hungry." She attempted to shrug off the man's embrace, but he held her even tighter. "Mr. Porter?"
"Stay, dear," he said gently. "Until you feel better." He paused, his brows furrowing gravely. "Now, Janel, maybe you'd better tell me the truth. There's something seriously wrong, isn't there? I think, Janel," and his voice became so movingly wise and gentle, that Janel shivered the length of her body, "it's about time you told somebody about it. Why not tell me?"
In the days to come Janel was never able to understand the chemistry of that moment, what magic Mr. Porter had used to coax the deeply-buried secret from her. For after only a moment's pause she looked him squarely in the eye, felt a delicious surge of relief as the words spilled out: "I'm pregnant, Mr. Porter. I'm going to have a baby."
For a long time, an eternity it seemed, Mr. Porter said nothing. He only held her, kept staring down into her face. Then reluctantly he rose, helped her to a chair. Going to the door, he pulled down the shade over the glass. Then he sat across from her. "Tell me about it, dear."
Before Janel had finished her account, she was sobbing brokenly. And yet the tears seemed sweet and divine, more soothing and refreshing than anything she could remember in a long, long time. For at last she was purging herself, she was sharing her grief with another human. She wasn't alone any more.
Then finally the narration was over, the last ugly detail was out. And it was better than Porter, even in his wildest fancies, had ever dared to hope. She needed him. Desperately, so desperately. If he was careful now, if he handled her just right-
"There, there," he said, "it'll be all right. Well find a way." He handed her his folded handkerchief. "Blow your nose now. Dry your eyes."
"I've got to do something," she wailed between blowings and wipings. "I've got to get rid of the baby, I just have to."
"That's a very serious thing you're saying. A very dangerous step to take. Are you sure? Perhaps it would be better if you told your parents, faced the music."
"No!" she choked, dropping her head, "I can't, I just can't. It would kill them."
"It's a dangerous thing. But if you're determined, I might be able to help you. I have certain contacts in Westport who might be able to put me in touch with such a person. A legal doctor, understand, but a hungry one.
The pathetic pleading in her eyes was terrible to see. "Oh, could you? Honest? Do you think...."
"A thing like that would be very risky, Janel. And expensive. Perhaps five hundred dollars. You don't have that much money, do you?"
"No...." She was on the verge of fresh tears. "Oh God, I had no idea it would cost that much."
Porter was careful to keep his voice soft, to drop the words, like pebbles, one at a time.
"Suppose, just suppose, I was willing to find this person, for you? Say I was willing to pay for his illegal services. What, Janel ... would you be willing to do for me?"
Grasping at straws, wild to be rid of this gruesome burden, not realizing she was assuming an even worse deft, she blurted: "Oh, Mr. Porter, anything, anything."
His eyes burned into hers, and immediately she read the message written in his gaze. She recoiled at his sibilent reply: "Anything, dear?"
"Oh, Mr. Porter," she quailed, looking away, "you don't mean ... not you too...."
"Perhaps I do, Janel." His voice became silky. "You must know, don't you, that I've been fond of you for a long time. Very fond. Ever since last vear."
"No, Mr. Porter. I...."
"I'm willing to help you, dear. But only if you're willing to...." He didn't finish. "Now, what do you say?"
Despair and confusion crushed Janel. She felt dizzy, it seemed she'd fall. A murderous throbbing erupted in her brain. Then, an even greater terror grinding her, she capitulated. If he can help me, she thought in dumb misery, no matter what his price. I don't want a baby, I'm afraid. I don't want a baby.
There was no other way out, no alternative at all. His was the only concerete offer of help she'd received. Dear God, what else can I do? Her head felt intolerably heavy. Then, not looking up, she nodded. "Yes, Mr. Porter."
He laughed softly, victoriously, reached across, put his hand on hers. "Call me Neill," he said.
"You promise you'll help me. You won't trick me."
"I promise, Janel." He drew out paper and pencil, scribbled an address. "That's where I live. Tonight at eight, Janel. It's an apartment. Here's how you get in without anyone seeing you."
It felt like her brain was shriveling within her skull. As she heard her voice, coming from a far off place:. "Eight o'clock. Yes ... I'll be there."
CHAPTER FOUR
The apartment house In which Neill Porter lived was a small, two-story blockhouse of brick, each floor accommodating seven apartments. It was only a matter of timing. Janel tremblingly hovering in the shadows outside the building, taking her chances that nobody would be coming out when she buzzed Porter's apartment, that kept her from being observed that night.
That night and the so-many nights afterward.
She was lucky on this initiatory date. The dimly fit halls were empty, she found the stairs immediately, and as per Porter's instructions, she knew exactly how many doors down his apartment was.
Neill Porter was watching for her, and as she scurried down the hall, he opened his door, beckoned to her. In extreme agitation, unable to believe that this major miracle had come to pass, his pulse drumming in his head, his legs feeling rubbery, he ushered her into this rooms, locked the door.
"You came, you came," he seethed, all but slathering with anticipation. "I'm glad, so glad." He'd been so nervous, so doubtful, that he'd hardly eaten a thing at dinner. Something will go wrong, he'd thought. She'll back out at the last minute, she won't come. And even worse: She'll run blubbering to her parents, she'll tell them everything, my complicity in the thing as well as Dale Miller's.
Thus his breathless, frenzied rapture as he'd heard her buzz his suite, as he'd opened the door to see her hurrying down the hall. Toward him. Toward the night's final triumph.
"My darling Janel," he sighed. Immediately, he advanced on her, took her in his arms, crushed the limp, frightened body to his bony chest. "I was so worried, I was certain you'd change your mind."
New spasms of delight jangled up his arms as he pressed the small, lovely head closer, as his hand stroked her silky hair. Janel shuddered reflexively, and he hurried to reassure her. "Don't be afraid, Janel, I won't hurt you. I only want to love you. To take care of you the way a lovely, precious flower should be taken care of."
He led her across the drab apartment, stereotype of all the furnished apartments the length and breadth of this nation, sat her on the davenport, unable to keep his fluttering, caressing hands off her. "I'm so glad, so glad," he repeated over and over, beside himself, unable to frame a coherent thought, "I was so afraid you wouldn't come. Janel, my sweet baby...."
She cowered, went stiff beneath his touch. "This isn't a trick, is it? You are going to help me. You know a man who does ... that sort of thing? I have to know."
"Yes, yes," he whispered. "There is a man. And I will get him for you. I'll bring him here, it can be done right here. No one will ever know. I'll pay for it, I'll take care of you-anything." His hands tightened on her shoulders, and he drew her closer to him. "But only if you'll be nice to me. Very nice."
"Mr. Porter, I'm afraid. You won't hurt me ..
"No, Janel. I'll be good to you, very good. I wouldn't dream of hurting you. If you only knew how long I've worshipped you, you wouldn't say such things." He lifted her head. "And please, dear, call me Neill."
"Yes, Neill," she breathed, awed and frightened at the same time, faltering before the glittering stare in his eyes. It was so; he had been attracted to her for a long time. Only now did she fully understand the meaning of all those long, hot stares he'd sent her in class, and a she'd passed him in the halls. This had been building up for a long, long time.
And she fought to blunt her mind to his homeliness, to his rugged, pitted face, his too-large teeth. To what ugliness must happen before she escaped this place tonight. It didn't matter, none of it mattered. So long as he was going to help her, so long as he'd see to it that this accursed baby was gouged from her body.
"I'll be good to you," he continued whispering into her ear, one hand sliding on her shoulder, the other grazing the smooth flesh of her throat. "I'll show you what real love is. Love with a man, not a selfish, gawky, blundering boy. Oh, Janel, if you only knew...."
The repugnance mounted within Janel as she became more aware of his growing frenzy, of his liquid suckings and breathings. There was something wrong-very wrong-with this man, she thought, fighting the feeble twistings in her stomach. But she knew she must tolerate his rotten homage. All the way. Endure, endure-she charged. He's your only hope. Your last stop before total disgrace.
And she knew, no matter how foul his profanation became, she must put up with it, she must please him. For without him she was lost. A sick, galling resolve grew in her mind, assumed the proportions of an irrevocable mandate. Be strong, she adjured, please him. Anything-
It seemed at that moment that whatever morality she still retained slid slowly away, was eclipsed by an opaque, black emptiness, a negation of conscience. And she was able to half close her mind to fear, to doubt and revulsion. Docilely and dully Janel gave herself over to the man, she hardened herself to what must happen now.
"If you only knew what it did to me, darling," he was muttering in her ear, "when I saw you in the halls with that stupid, insensitive Miller boy. To see him touch you, smile at you as though he owned you. When I imagined the things he said to you, the juvenile cliches he must have used, when I imagined him kissing you, even snatching other intimacies in his gluttonish way, cheapening you, I almost went out of my mind."
Janel lurched, then recovered, sat in still, submissive pose as his hand slid down her throat, onto her chest, closed on her right breast, began to feverishly handle it. An unmistakable catch clogged his throat momentarily, as he went deeper into his aberrated trance.
"You're so beautiful, so intelligent and refined. Much too good for a little beast like Dale Miller. And yet, so inexperienced, unable to realize your own worth, you delivered yourself into his clumsy hands. It's like a princess, a queen delivering herself to the lowest, dirtiest swineherd in the kingdom. To a filthy slob unable to even begin to appreciate the rare gift bestowed upon him."
His hand became more crazy on her breast, and he drew her tighter, holding her body at an awkward angle. His voice became shriller, the words came faster, in a flow resembling gibberish, as the man purged himself of all his sick fantasies concerning her and all his other pretty female pupils.
"That pig, that greedy, senseless pig," he said. "Gorging himself on your tender, innocent flesh, thinking nothing of you, only of what physical satisfaction he could achieve from you, boasting and snickering over every conquest, not realizing at all the magnificence of your self-sacrifice."
Again Janel stiffened, then forced herself to relax. This is awful, aw Jul, she thought. He's sick, so sick.
Porter took his arm away from her shoulder, arranged her sloping body over his knees. Now his hands closed on both breasts, began to roil and manipulate them . even more excitedly. Until at last, beside himself with desire, he hastily drew up her sweater, began to play with her through her slip and brassiere.
"You're lovely," he gulped, "so lovely. So clean and fresh and fragrant. My baby, my innocent baby." He leaned over her, buried his hot, wet lips in the concavity of her shoulder and throat. "I love you, I've loved you for so long." His hands went even wilder.
"You can't know," he babbled. "What it's like to be a man, to be like me. To see young, beautiful girls like you in class day after day, to appraise their budding, bursting bodies, to have them near you, to sense their warmth, to breathe in their fragrance. To want them until it feels like you're going to go mad, to know you can't have them. Because they'd rather give themselves to witless animals like Dale Miller and his kind.
"I watched you, Janel; I wanted you. I wanted to know you, to talk to you, to touch and comfort you. I wanted to teach you, not just English and such, but the most important subject matter of all. Would you know what that's like? It's like being a lion in a cage, seeing red, raw meat outside the bars everywhere you looked. And never being able to have any of it, not even a sniff."
His face twisted, his voice, tore from between gutted teeth. "While all the cubs, not really weaned, not realizing what they were getting, gobbled it all up. Girls like you, physically mature, capable of deep love, with nobody to teach them, to lead them to the joys of love. Only greedy little boys ... the Dale Millers ... making a mockery of the sweetness of love."
He was trembling now, his eyes glazed. He looked down on Janel now with a mournful, haggard stare. "I'll show you, my precious. Please, you must let me show you...."
Slowly, reverently, he brought his fleshy lips down, kissed her. Janel fought to quiet the terrible turbulence in her stomach, she fought to freeze her mind even further. I have to go through with it! I have to-
Now, a savage tremor wracking him, the man was slowly disengaging his body from hers, he was kneeling on the floor, pushing her back on the couch, his strong hands irresistible, until she was prone. Now he gathered cushions, placed them beneath her head. Janel shivered, went limp as he arranged her legs on the davenport.
Then he was up, darting about the apartment, extinguishing the lights. Until only one twenty-five watt lamp remained. In the gloom his hulking figure seemed even more frightening.
He came to her again, knelt beside her, his hands immediately closing on her breasts. Again he kissed her, worked his lips fervidly into hers. The murk forming a black panel behind him, his face eerily shadowed, he looked down on her with rolling eyes. "Let me love you, baby. Let me adore you. I'll teach you about love. About real love. Tell me."
"Tell you what?"
"Tell Neill you want him to love you."
Panic swarmed over Janel. Still she maintained control. "Yes, Neill," she forced. "I want you to love me."
"My baby, my adorable baby," he croaked and fell upon her body, letting his massive head drive into her belly, his teeth nipping at her through her clothes. "I love you, I've wanted to love you like this for so long. Anything I want. Say it."
"Yes," she intoned.
"Anything I want."
"Anything you want."
Then began a weird rite of deification and worship, which, in its demonic originality and total effect, Janel would never forget so long as she lived.
As the man slid away from her belly, let his lips meander down the silken surface of her nyloned legs. Where he removed her dully glowing flats, carefully placed them on the floor. Now he began to kiss her feet, her instep, her toes, her ankles. Inch by torturing inch, his lips retraced their path, going to her knees, then above.
Janel's body arched, she sucked in an incredulous breath as Porter slid her skirt up, flicked his lips in pursuit, closed and slid them on the warm flesh if her bare thighs. A deranged fever was suddenly born within her, aborting fear and panic. She had never felt like this before! Not even in her most pagan moments with Dale. This was something devastatingly different!
While his lips swirled and pressured her, his fingers were undoing the garters, were delicately working down her gauzy stockings. Weakly, feeling like butterflies were swarming within her, she abetted him as he raised her legs, removed her stockings. Still his hot, stinging kisses continued, as he ran her skirt zipper, worked the skirt down. Then he was raising her buttocks, pulling-it down her legs.
She sat up while he pulled off her slip, threw it and her sweater, withdrawn simultaneously, aside. She was now left a quaking husky, devoid of strength to resist, as he groped for her brassiere snaps, expertly undid them. Immediately his head pounced upon the shimmering conoids of her breasts, his mouth sweeping them with vacuum cleaner efficiency, paining her. Yet it was a sweet pain, and she surrendered completely to his flicking, spiraling, probing tongue. As it transformed her nipples from hard little nuts to flaring pink blossoms.
In her hysteria, she hardly noticed his hands skillfully divesting her of her tight girdle, then her panties. Now, as his lips went insane on her breasts, as his hands parted her thighs, made frank, yet tender reconnaisance, she was jarred back to reality. II would soon be time.
Porter slowly let his head slide down her body. Until his lips were in her heavy belly, were coursing in maddening circles upon it. "Lovely, lovely," he whispered, letting the spiral become larger and larger. Until-
"No...." she hissed, trying to draw him away. But he was immovable. And after a time, as the exotic tingle became pleasurable beyond anything she'd ever known heretofore in her brief life, she didn't fight him any more. If anything, she moved her body, the better to accommodate him. The stunning homage became more magnificent and it felt like she'd been turned to simmering soup within her belly. The lips, the tongue flicked faster. Until finally:
"Ah, ah...." she lurched, trying to hold the holy peak savoring the impaling release with all her passionate soul. Then as suddenly it was gone.
"I adore you, my princess," the man was muttering, bringing his educated, wet mouth upward in her belly. "This is how you should be adored and loved. Not like a mere receptacle...." Then his lips were sliding and bunting her belly again. Now they were on her breasts. The pain became incredible.
"You're gorgeous, gorgeous," he intoned, "more gorgeous than I've never dared dream." His lips tortured her more. As did the tender hand. Which cupped and massaged her without stop.
Until the searing fever raging through the man went totally out of control. And with a thick, bubbling sigh, he rose. Bending, he picked Janel up in his arms, gathered her into a small ball against his chest. Then they started toward the room that was unmistakably his bedroom.
She closed her eyes in the darkness, fought to quell the so-quickly returned fear and abhorrence. As she heard the man's heavy, stertorous breathing, the rustle of his clothes as he undressed. What happened to me? she raged. How did I let him, welcome him? What kind o) animal am I becoming?
The bed quivered and squeaked as Porter crawled toward her. The last test, she thought, hard, terrified knot forming in her throat. Will I pass it?
The man's body smelled acrid, felt over-warm as he squeezed against her. Her stomach tossed, then settled. As his lips once more descended on her breasts.
She was startled as his hand took hers, guided her. "This is what a man's like," he muttered. "A real man, not a scrawny, half-developed kid.
"No!" she recoiled, feeling her scalp pucker in dismay. "Oh, no, I can't...."
"You can," he said, hint of a preening chuckle in the words. "Any woman can. Try, baby, try."
She fought to escape, but she was far too weak.
"Be good to me, angel," he wheedled, "and I'll be good to you. I need you. Janel. I've needed you so long. Too long." He began babbling his sick paen of adoration, his promise of education in real love anew.
Janel felt his hand come up in the darkness, close on her mouth, almost suffocating her. Then he was between her legs, opening her.
She tried to shrill her eviscerating agony, to beg him to stop, but she could not. Not until later, when she'd gone numb, and didn't scream any more, did he remove his hand. Still she pleaded with him. "No, Neill, no. Oh, please, no more." But to no avail.
For the man was visiting in a distant land, living out a too-long suppressed fantasy. His body brutalizing hers in compulsive, inexorable flow. Now gibberish groans bubbled up from his throat. As he moved faster.
And still faster.
CHAPTER FIVE
Three more times, during the following week, Janel Tracy was summoned to Mr. Porter's apartment. And three more times the same ritual: the slavish adoration of her body, the sick excesses, the final, torturing ravishment. Until at last Janel refused to answer his call, finally gathering courage enough to defy him, to insist that he now keep his part of the bargain.
And on this particular Wednesday night-after a dutiful week spent at home nights to pacify her parents-two weeks later, Janel again furtively entered the building, gave Mr. Porter's buzzer two quick stabs. Gathering strength, drawing on the last of her reserves for she knew what grisly thing would happen tonight, she ran up the stairs as fast as her tired legs would allow, was hurriedly admitted into Neill Porter's apartment.
Where she stood in dumb mortification as she saw the short, venal-eyed man, dressed in a dark business suit, sitting in a chair near the door. She'd never felt quite so dirty as she did when the man wordlessly smiled, appraised her from head to toe.
Porter, also ill-at-ease, stood stiffly to one side, tried to force a reassuring grin.
When the doctor had seemingly looked holes through her, had clucked mockingly several times, he finally spoke. "This is the girl, huh? Too bad. Such a pretty thing."
The words hammered dread, like a spike, into Janel's brain. "I'll ... be all right, won't I, doctor. After, I mean...."
"You'll be fine. I've never had a nasty case yet. And you're not about to be my first," His eyes turned contemptuous, burned into hers. "You school girls. Think you know it all. Never learn to keep your legs crossed. I hope the fun you had with your boy friend was worth all this." He beckoned impatiently. "Go into the kitchen. Get undressed. I'll be in shortly. After I've settled a few things out here." He looked pointed at Porter.
Haltingly, moving like a robot, her face flushed with hatred and shame, Janel did as she was told.
She felt even greater shame when she saw the piggish, lustful stare the man conferred upon her when he entered the kitchen, saw her standing awkwardly, completely naked.
And there, on the kitchen table, upon which a sheet had already been spread, upon which was lined a skimpy array of surgical tools, it took place. The procedure, watched and assisted by Neill Porter, took less than fifteen minutes.
When it was over, the man looked at the pale girl coldly, addressing Porter while he stared. "Let her rest here for perhaps an hour. She'll need to use the bathroom. Go with her in case she faints. There will be blood But don't yet excited, it's natural. There won't be any hemorraging. After that, she's all on her own."
Swiftly he began to gather his tools, replace them in a specially outfitted attache case. "If there are any complications, you know how to contact me. But I'm quite sure there won't be any. Everything went normally. Another month though, and it wouldn't have been so easy "
With a last withering look at the still-prone Janel, he was leaving. "Stay with her," he said to Porter. "I can find my way out. Thanks for the business." Then he was gone.
Porter helped Janel down, took her into the bedroom, covered her. Then, neither of them able to face each other squarely, unable to speak, he sat down to keep a solicitous vigil.
It went exactly as the doctor predicted, and gradually Janel regained her color and her strength. By nine-thirty she was ready to go home. Porter helped her dress, draped her coat over her shoulders. "I'll go down," he murmured. "Get my car around front and take you home. You come down in five minutes. Be careful nobody sees you."
As they drove, Neill Porter tried to gloss over things, tried to put Janel at ease. "Doc says the ill effects won't last. Play sick tomorrow, stay in bed. Otherwise you'll be okay." He laughed lightly. "Of course, you know this means no fun for us for a while. A couple weeks anyway. But then, everything'll be the same again."
The announcement of her indefinite servility to the whims and needs of Neill Porter came as no surprise to Janel. They'd discussed it previously. It was all part of the bargain. And even now, despite the hollowing hatred she felt for Porter, she knew that she'd see her end of the bargain through. First through gratitude that this burden was lifted from her, second because of sheer terror. She firmly believed that the man would stop at nothing to run her in St. Clair if she refused his demand now. Depraved as their sessions might be, she could still grit her teeth, close off her mind, tolerate them.
At the moment, though tired and ashamed, she was still grateful that nothing had gone wrong, that she was forever rid of the baby. The accommodation of Porter's lustful fancies was small enough price to pay.
They said good night, and he dropped her half a block from her home in exclusive Renton Oaks. Briefly as she approached, she felt a spell if faintness. But by pausing, breathing deeply, she was able to forestall it. Her legs felt like they were suddenly made of runny putty.
A moment later her strength was back.
"Home so early?" her mother called from the living room as she entered. "What happened? Did you and June run out of silly gossip?"
"I just got tired," Janel said, going to where her mother sat knitting, brushing her forehead with her lips. "Good night, Mom. I'm going right up to bed. Gym today. You know how beat I get."
Helene Tracy smiled. "I understand, dear. Good night." The excuse was easily accepted, Mrs. Tracy mistakenly believing that it was "that time of the month" for her daughter. "Sleep tight, dear."
But Janel didn't sleep tight at all. Most of the night she was haunted by nightmares of the worst sort. And otherwise she was sick to the depths of her soul.
Neill Porter found himself extremely keyed up as he drove away from Renton Oaks, and couldn't bear the thought of returning to his empty apartment. What he'd really like to do, he decided, was to go somewhere and get good and drunk. It was a night for celebration. The worst part of it with Janel-the ugly part-was over. Without the oppressive cloud of the unwanted baby hanging over her, Janel could now learn to be responsive to his lovemaking; she would let him teach her about real love.
Yes, that was worth celebrating.
Besides, the sight of her naked tonight, her very nearness and helplessness had excited him sexually. And since Janel was out of it, who else could he turn to?
Immediately he thought of Claudine DeGagne.
He made a sharp right, backtracked along Parmentier Drive. It was a highly laudible idea. He could kill two birds with one stone.
Claudine was almost pathetically happy to see him. After all, it had been almost two weeks since he'd stopped by. "You naughty boy," she laughed, hurrying him into the house, "where have you been keeping yourself? The only time I see you any more, it seems, is between classes. Come in dear. I've missed you. More than I should admit."
And then and there, in the vestibule, she drew him close, kissed him hungrily, a kiss which, for some strange reason, Neill was eager to return.
Then they were in the living room, Claudine was hurrying about to draw the drapes, to turn off certain over-bright lamps. Then she came back for seconds.
"Mmm," she sighed as they broke, "you've missed little Claudine too. I can tell. Again, baby."
A little later she went into the kitchen, mixed an extremely generous batch of martinis. And the party was underway.
By midnight they were both on the davenport, huddled in the darkness, their arms wound about each other, kissing and indulging in other loveplay with drunken abandon. Until abruptly she broke away from Porter, rose to her feet.
"What are you doing?" he asked.
"I'm getting these clothes off. This girdle is killing me. Besides, you're too good to waste tonight. I can't remember when you've been so loving. You like me in my skin, don't you?"
"You know I do, darling," he agreed already anxious to take her into the bedroom. Even delightful as Janel was, it would still be fun to relieve himself with a frank, carnal woman, a woman who was wild to be tumbled, who knew how to make the best advantage of his very unique attributes. "Wait, let me help you."
"No," she squealed. "It isn't necessary. I'll take care of it myself. You lay there and rest. You'll need your strength later. You have got something extra special for me tonight, haven't you? After all, two weeks...."
"Keep teasing me," Porter laughed, "and there won't be anything special at all."
"You devil," she giggled. "What your naughty talk does to me! Makes me want to do the wildest things."
"Be my guest," he taunted. "I'm game if you are."
"Oooh," she slurred, her voice sex squirmy, "stop now, before you trigger something you can't stop."
Then she was flinging herself upon him, completely naked, seeking his lips greedily. "Oooh, I just feel all crazy tonight. Indulge me, won't you?"
"Anything you say, sweet," Neill said. "But first, how about another drink?"
Reluctantly she fell away from him. "Coming right up. But make it your last. I don't want you fizzling on me."
"Have I ever fizzled?"
"No, but there's always a first time."
"Not tonight."
They chuckled and kissed and played in erotic fashion, the combination of darkness and drink driving them both to a libertine, madcap frenzy. For endless moments they kissed, Neill permitting Claudine for the first time to deep kiss him the sufference igniting even further wildness within her Until she started dipping her nipples into her drink, bringing them to his mouth, letting him kiss them off.
"Ooh, that stings," she said.
"What stings? My kissing you?"
"No, that gin. I'm getting pickled boobs."
"Vulgar, vulgar...."
"Oh, Neill darling," she gasped as his mouth went crazy on her breasts, "What's got into you? You've never been like this before. You are beginning to like Claudine a little, aren't you?"
"Yes," he muttered, his tone convincing, in his alcoholic torpor almost believing it himself, "I'm filling in love with Claudine."
Her voice turned serious, and she held her cheek to his, her body shuddering. "Don't joke about it, Neill. Not even a little. I can't bear it. I love you so. If I ever really believed you loved me, I'd ... "
"Claudine...."
"Let me finish. I don't care, Neill. If you don't love me, don't say it. Just like me, tilerate me even. I'll be happy with that. But whatever you do don't keep me from loving you. Don't stop coming to me. I love you, that's what matters. I'd do anything for you."
A great shudder swept her. "Oh, darling, I can't wait. Here, let me get those nasty clothes off you." Instantly she was up, tugging at his jacket, his shirt. She knelt at his feet, slid off his shoes, then his socks. Now she fumbled with his trousers, pushing his hands away. "Let me, let me," she pleaded.
When at last he was naked, she sat beside him on the davenport, letting her hands course over his body. "Neill, Neill," she slurred, "you're all man. My man. I love you, I...." Suddenly her voice broke, and her hands froze upon him. "Neill...?"
"Yes, darling?"
"I ... wonder...." Her voice took on an eerie, super-charged impatience. "I was thinking this afternoon about a trip I took to Japan several years ago. One of the places I saw was one of their forbidden temples. A sort of love thing, where the walls were painted with the most marvelous murals. Men and women in the throes of love, doing the most wonderful things to each other. And I was wondering...."
"What, Claudine?" He stiffened as her hands became hurting on him.
"If I could show you my love. If I could sacrifice myself, my dignity. More than I already have, I mean. You'd believe me then, wouldn't you? Please, darling?"
"Anything, baby? Anything I want? You won't hate me if I ... You'll let me?"
"Let you what?"
"This," she intoned, and fell away from him, knelt on the floor beside his prone body. Instantly her lips fled down his chest, found his stomach. "Please?"
He went tense, a hot spear of aboriginal lust scorching his loins. "Claudine, you don't mean...."
"I do, I do," she chanted, lost in an ecstasy of abnormal desire. Then she wasn't kissing his belly any more.
"It's magnificent, so magnificent," she intoned, again fighting away his hands, maintaining her very erotic beachhead. "You're a man, a real man. God, what a man! I can hardly...."
Then she spoke no more. There was only the sound of her happy humming, the whisper and slide of her hands on his legs and stomach.
While Neill Porter quietly and completely went out of his mind.
When the revelatory groans and sighs became too unmistakable, the woman ceased her labors. "No," she giggled, coming upward on him, stopping to wetly kiss and lave the hard extrusions of his chest, "not that way. I'm saving that."
Which left Porter hanging, his breath coming in deep, tortured gasps. "Oh, God Claudine. In the bedroom. Hurry. What you did to me ... I'm...."
Her chuckles were lewdly proud. "Now do you believe I love you? That I'd do anything for you?" She was scrambling up on the davenport, her legs straddling him, the weight of her body on his stomach. "No, not the bedroom. I can't wait. Here, right here! But my way tonight."
Then she was flexing her knees, raising and sliding downward on his body at the same time. "My way," she gritted again, and rose, settled herself with an expert twist. A guttural sigh of delight broke from her lips.
Her arms became supporting pillars. As her knees crowded his hips, trapped him. Then she began to guide her own fulfillment with precise, maddening ebb and flow. "Hold my breasts," she ordered. "The nipples ... pinch them. Oh, baby, it's good. All of it, I'm getting all of it. I never knew it could be so...."
She screamed pumped herself more savagely. "Go, go," she choked. "Do it, do it I"
She used the word. Over and over until it became a droning chant. One orgasm was barely reached, gloatingly announced, when she was already straining toward the next.
Finally it was time for Neill to do some groaning of his own. Time for him to use certain graphic words himself.
It was only one of several variations Claudine tried before that seemingly non-stop love orgy finally came to an end that night
CHAPTER SIX
Janel stayed home from school the rest of that week, not returning to classes until the following Monday. It seemed she was once more her old self. At least on the outside. But to those who really studied her, people like Page Mallory, her calculus instructor, there was some hard-to-define ingredient still missing. If one looked deeply into her eyes, saw the lurking shame and torment there, he knew there was still something grievously wrong with her life.
Somehow, looking forward to the arbitrary two weeks leave Mr. Porter had given her, two weeks in which she could safely refuse to visit his apartment, she was able to reconcile herself to her abnormal existence. After all, it was a breathing space. That, coupled with the fact that the operation had been a hundred per cent successful, that there'd been no complications whatsoever, that she was freed from the shame of bearing a child out of wedlock, made her somewhat philosophic. She could endure Mr. Porter's sick homage, his brute assaults. She could become stoic, each visit to his apartment akin to a mortgage payment on her future. And in time he would tire of her, release her from her debt. And failing that, another out would occur to her. If nothing else she would run away from home, she would go someplace where he, where nobody, not even her parents, would ever find her again.
But the thought if such a drastic move always left her with a burning pain in her heart. She couldn't, she couldn't. Even if it meant perpetual surrender to the man.
Something will turn up, she pacified herself. Something or someone will help me break free. And she repeated the hope religiously. For, after all, it was all she had.
Her only other solace was the stolen two weeks of grace. Twice after school she'd been forced to rebuff Porter as he'd sought to coax her to his apartment. "You say you just want to have me near so you can talk to me," she argued. "It isn't true. I know what your talk will turn into. And I'm not strong enough to Mop you. The doctor said two weeks, remember? And two weeks it'll be."
That was where things stood between Janel and Mr. Neill Porter.
It was a stalemate of the worst kind, and goaded on two sides by the sickest of lusts, the vision of Janel's beautiful, white body, of her innocent, reluctant love-making vying with that of Claudine DeGagne's pagan, dissolute sex extortions, he was beside himself. And more to "lay" the devils of his rampant sexuality than because of affection, or even respect for Claudine, he turned to her with increasing frequency. The mere thought of Janel, of her present inaccessibility, would drive him to nerve-jangling fits, and he would hurry to phone Claudine.
For the insatiable, over-the-hill wanton, it was the best of times. Ignorant if the real reason for her lover's accelerated desire, little dreaming there was another female in his life, she took it as a sign that he was tailing in love with her. And if not quite that, at least he was becoming dependent upon her. Smugly, her thoughts racing ahead, she concluded that of such dependencies and familiarities are marriages made.
Time, she concluded, that's all it will take. Time. That and a stepped up campaign in the bedroom. And if Neill has, of late, become overly greedy for a recently introduced deviation, who am I to be squeamish? Especially when victory is almost in my grasp?
Thus things rocked along at a good clip for both Neill and Claudine.
Claudine had begun visiting Neill at his own apartment. She still didn't presume to the extent of dropping in, but came only when invited. It was chancy business, for St. Clair was, after all, a moderately small city of 25,000 souls. If someone saw her skulking about the halls of his apartment building, there would certainly be talk. If she was observed winging home in the small hours it could easily trigger scandal.
It was this element of risk, this hint of forbidden fruit, that made her visits to Neill's apartment that much more enjoyable. It gave extra fillip to their already exotic love affair to creep to him, to risk all for a frantic tussle in his very own bed. Now, those nights when they didn't see each other, she could imagine Neill in his bed, she could imagine him missing her.
It was another link in the chain that would one day bind him to her. Mrs. Porter-she often lapsed into projected daydreams-Mrs. Neill Porter. Wonderful! How wonderful it would be!
Thus the sexual phantasmagorias went on, Claudine experimenting and improvising, trying all the long suppressed ideas in her bottomless bag of tricks. Neill degenerately going along with it, an eager guinea pig. Each, in fact, a perfect complement to the other.
This particular night, as they sat in Neill's apartment, the lights dimmed, the phonograph playing Prikofiev's mood-evoking Romeo and Juliet Suite, the Scotch they'd drunk cut in with disturbing effect. They were both sprawled on the davenport, their clothing in disarray, both restless, at odds with themselves and with each other.
They had kissed and embraced, made tentative sexual overtures. Still they were bored, each waiting for the other to take the sexual initiative, looking ahead to what would transpire once they went into the bedroom.
But nothing happened. Save for the fact that the whisky was getting to them, the music was making them moodier by the minute.
Abruptly Claudine shuddered, dropped her head in Porter's shoulder. Her lips rose and she kissed the flesh under his chin. Slowly and deliberately her hand slid down his chest, traversed his belly. Until it found and clutched him. Almost reflexively, savoring the fact that it had been Claudine, not he, who had made the first strong advance, he closed his legs, trapped her hand.
Which didn't faze Claudine in the least. She smiled wryly, continued to play. "Do you think I'm an awful woman?" she fished. "A forward, shameless thing?"
"Of course not," he replied. "We're not children any more, dear. Women have needs, men have needs. What could be more moving testament to love than that the woman, from time to time, express her needs in an unmistakable way? How I pity these men who must forever be the aggressor, who never receive any indication from their women that they are eager to have them."
"I'm afraid, Neill. Sometimes I think you'll have no respect for me when I act like this. But I can't help it. I yearn for you, love you so much. Then I find I can't wait, that I must let you know my needs."
"I understand, dear Claudine."
She sighed, snuggled closer, pushed her advantage. "Am I really your dear Claudine? Do you feel any real affection for me? Or am I just your dear trollop? Just someone who'll give you free thrills? I know I'm not pretty, I'm not slim and desirable like some women, but if I lost your respect, I...."
Neill hurried to soothe her. This despite the irritation he felt. The refrain had become overly commonplace if late. He knew what Claudine was getting at, that she was trying to coax a commitment from him. And rather than lose her, lose the "free thrill" as she'd put it, he'd learned to lie, to be vague.
"Please, darling," he said, "you mustn't talk like this. You know how fond of you I am, you know my reticent nature. If I can't bring myself to be as demonstrative as you are, you'll have to forgive me. It's the way I am, can't you see that? It doesn't mean I cherish you any less, that I didn't respect you."
Claudine smiled, pulled herself up to kiss him. "I'm sorry," she breathed. "I hate myself when I get like this. When I nag and beg." She slid her wrinkled cheek against his. "I love you so much I can't help myself."
"I understand, darling. It's all right."
Then all at once, against all better judgment, the effect of the drink, the sadness of the music taking hold, she blurted out the pathetic plea: "You are thinking of marriage, aren't you, darling? You will marry me, won't you? It's the only thing I live for any more, Neill."
Neill was not surprised. He'd expected such an outburst for days now. Ever since that first night she'd so unforgetably sacrificed herself for him. And expert tactician that he was, knowing time was in his favor, he agreed with her. "You know I will, Claudine," he murmured, feigning ardor, pressing his lips to her pasty forehead. "I want to marry you. But I must wait. I have certain personal things to settle first. Some financial things. That's why I've hesitated as long as I have. Until I was capable-"
"Money, darling?" she interrupted. "I have money. Why didn't you ask me? Certainly a thing like that can't stand between us."
Porter's dark glare stopped her. "After all, dear, I do have some pride."
"I know, Neill. But please, let me help you."
"No, Claudine. It can't be. Not right away. It will be some time. Then I'll be free to truly speak my mind."
Claudine DeGagne couldn't believe her ears. She hadn't dreamed it would happen, that it would be this easy. He did want to marry her; only his foolish male stubbornness and pride stood in the way. Dear God, she thought. I'll be able to wear him down. And soon, so soon. She fought to blink back happy tears.
"Darling," she choked, her voice breaking with emotion. "I do love you. If you only knew how much. If only I could truly show you."
"Yes, darling, yes," he soothed, smiling expectantly. Then he was raising her to her feet. "It's getting late. We can show each other now Come. In the bedroom."
There was no foreplay, she didn't allow him to kiss her breasts, her body. Instead she forced him back on the bed, came to pay her grateful homage to his maleness. In a frank, forthright way, wild to humble herself again, she arranged her body on the bed.
And then, a muffled, pleasurable moan breaking from Neill's throat, it began.
Claudine made a prolonged ritual out of it, bringing him to a throbbing, screaming peak, stopping to talk, to inflame, to hear his reactions. Until moments later, his lurchings and hissing sighs told her it was time.
She fought to pull away, to save it. But Porter's hands were ruthless and strong, they would not permit her to stop. She tore her head away, sent a frightened gasp into the darkness. "Neill, what...?"
"Don't ... please don't ... stop," he gasped.
And the woman realized what it was he wanted Awash in the throes of her mad love, she was wildly eager to confer it. But not before she consolidated certain gains.
"Do you love me, Neill?" she breathed. "Tell me you love me."
Caught up in the most devasting of lust paroxyms, Neill capitulated easily. "Yes, baby," she gasped. "I love you, I love you." He'd say anything she asked. II only-"You belong to me," she prompted. "You're mine."
"I'm yours. I belong to you."
"Neill, my precious," she keened. "I love you." Again he sensed the hurting, sweet warmth. As the addled female charged him anew, saw her delightful labors to their cataclysmic conclusion.
But a further, almost as stunning complication was, as yet, to be unfolded in Neill Porter's already very much entangled love life. As, on that Thursday afternoon after school, Betty Genaro made her pitch.
It was four-thirty, and Porter sat alone in his room; poring over a stack of grammar exercises, trying to concentrate, to erase the grinning, triumphant vision of Claudine from his mind. Even the thought of what had happened on Tuesday night at his apartment-He felt suddenly horny. If Claudine would walk in at this very moment-
Right here in the classroom. He knew he couldn't control himself.
He shook his head to shunt the thoughts aside. Glancing up, he saw it was already dark outside. Dusk came early in November. Then he checked the clock again. Where is that blasted girl? Four-fifteen I told her.
Not that he didn't know the reason for the requested appointment. The second six-weeks marking period was impending, and as she had during the first period, Betty Genaro-in both his third hour English and his sixth hour speech class-was drawing a straight F. She wanted to discuss her grades. He knew how the session would develop. He'd tried helping saucy, indifferent students like her before. She'd wail and plead, eventually break into tears, plead for understanding and forgiveness. She'd do better next time, she promised.
But they never did. Betty would be no exception.
He wasn't looking forward to the interview.
At that moment his deliberations were interrupted. As Betty Genaro entered, a shamefaced smile on her dark, heavily lipsticked mouth. Carefully she closed the door behind her. In that instant the total impact of the darkness outside, the deserted halls inside, hit Porter. And for some inexplicable reason the air was suddenly charged with an electric current, he found his pulse racketing.
She was chewing gum, he irritatedly noticed, she still carried a pile of books in her hooked arms, caught them up tight against her pneumatic breasts. She wore a black cardigan, white blouse, black skirt; the darkness if the garments enhancing her olive complexion. Her hair was piled high on her head in the semi-beehive most of the St. Clair girls affected. In the harsh light of the room she looked somewhat dissipated, older than her eighteen years.
She put her books down on a desk, turned, and smoothed her blouse in the process, it seemed to Porter, standing straighter, pouting out her breasts. He saw the ridges of her brassiere clearly, realized she wasn't wearing a slip. Betty Genaro, he scolded inwardly.
"I'm sorry I'm late, Mr. Porter," she said, advancing on his desk. "I couldn't help it. Mrs. Lamont kept me after class in typing. You didn't stay on purpose, did you? I mean-"
"It's quite all right, Betty," he cut her off. "I had some work to catch up on."
"Teachers always do," she said agreeably. She came to his desk, sat in the chair facing him. Carelessly she crossed her leg, let him see a flash of thigh, the fact that she wore stockings. Her one arm was hooked over the back of her chair, and caused her blouse to gape. He caught sight of the bare flesh of her taut belly. Not to mention the proud thrust the pose gave her breasts.
"It seems that way, doesn't it?" he said softening.
"Yes," she replied. "Teachers have to work darn hard."
"You're trying to butter me up."
"No, Mr. Porter. That's the truth."
"Well, I'm glad somebody realizes it." He fixed her with a steady look. "Do you have to chew that gum?"
"Oh. Sorry." With a deft motion she plucked out the wad, arced it unerringly toward the wastebasket. She smiled artlessly. "I forgot."
"Well now, Betty," he settled back locked his hands behind his head, "you wanted to see me about something?"
"Yes, Mr. Porter," she shammed a contriteness that didn't quite come off. "It's my grades in your classes. I'm gonna flunk again, ain't I? I haven't been doin' so hot."
"That's right, Betty, sorry as I am to say it, you aren't doing so hot." He smiled. "It's a sad thing, too. Because you've got the ability. If you'd just apply yourself, at least attempt to turn in a few assignments. But as it stands now, you're just coasting through, going along for the laughs, as it were."
She lowered her eyes. "Yeah, I know. Every time you bawl me out, I promise I'm gonna turn over a now leaf, but I never do."
"What's to be done then, Betty? We both know what your problem is. I can't give you a grade when you make absolutely no attempt to...."
The words died, and he felt his skin prickle at the base of his skull. As he looked up to see the mocking, speculative gleam in Betty's eyes, a frank, tart's invitation. It was almost as if she was measuring him. He did a quick double take, to be sure. It was no mistake. If anything, the look was more brazen, more taunting.
Then, as an unmistakable clincher, her hand went to the throat of her blouse, undid two of the top buttons. The white fabric parted, and he saw the line of her black brassiere. It seemed that suddenly her skirt was even higher on her legs. He could see the webbing if her stocking-tops, the black, silk valley if her thighs.
"Yes, Mr. Porter?" she smirked, her black eyes locking on his, feral and disdainful. "You were saying?"
"What I was saying," he forced, still unable to believe it was actually happening. If he were to misinterpret, it would be disastrous. "Was ... ah ... that you're responsible for your actions. You'll have to work if you want to pass my courses."
"And if I don't want to work?" she breathed, her voice sultry. "If I think there's an easier way?"
"There is no easy way, Betty," he stammered. "You have to work too...."
She plucked open still another button. "Do I?"
"Betty, what are you trying to do?"
"You aren't that stupid, Porter," she said, her eyes darkly menacing. "You know what all this is for." One eyebrow rose impishly. "What d'ya say we trade? Since this damned world insists on a high school diploma nowadays. You got something I want, I got something you want. An even swap, Dad. It's not every day an old boar like you gets something like this shoved in his face."
"Betty, stop that kind of talk! This instant!"
"You don't mean that, Porter. Not at all. You're all but drooling already. You want some, I know you do." She moved her chair, so that anyone looking in from the hall would see only her back. Now she pulled her blouse further open, exposed the shimmering black globes of her breasts. "Wouldn't you like some of that, teach? A big mouthful of those? How about it? Do we swap?"
Porter sat staring, beads of sweat breaking out on his forehead, his mouth agape. "Betty, you...."
"Yes, ain't so, Porter" she jeered. "You're splitting your seams, I can tell." Indolently she pulled the blouse closed. She stood. "Okay, it's a deal."
She swaggered toward the door, flicked off the lights. Then she whirled, leaned against the wall, her pose teasing and sensuous. "You gonna lock the door? Or do you like to live dangerous?"
Dumbly, as if mesmerized, Neill Porter rose, walked toward her. He fished for his keys, stepped into the hall, locked the door. He glanced both ways, saw the corridor was deserted. Then the door was closed, locked, he was pulling down the shade over the small window.
His legs and arms shook with great convulsive twitchings. As he went to where the hardened hot pants stood, her blouse and sweater now pulled off. She arched her back, brought her breasts to a maddening point. Then Porter was hovering over her, his hands closing on those vibrant breasts, his lips hungrily, insanely devouring hers. A savage tremor hit him as she darted her tongue into his mouth. As she passively let him toy with her breasts, her hands, all the while, unfastening her skirt.
It dropped to the floor with a rustle.
Abruptly she jerked away, went running across the room. In the light filtering in from the street lamps, he saw the black, nylon-bound thrust if her buttocks, the line of her garter-belt. Inflamingly contrasted with a body that now seemed ivory in comparison.
He heard a crashing clatter. And was stunned to see Betty at his desk, viciously sweeping all the books, all the papers onto the floor. "Damnit," she gritted, "there's no time for that lovey-dovey crap. You want stuff, don't you? Well, here's stuff."
The air was suddenly charged with violence and animal lust, with primitive, deranged emotions. As Betty savagely ripped at her brassiere, flung it at him, one of the straps slapping his face. Now her panties came down. And finally her stockings and garter-belt. "Cold," she said as she sat on the edge of his desk. Then she hoisted herself, spread herself upon its surface, lying on her back, one slack leg dangling over the edge, the other drawn up, her toes curled around the overhang. "But not for long. C'mon, Porter. You want it or not?"
Porter would never look at that desk again without seeing that wanton recreated there. The young, vibrant body, the crude taunts and encouragements, the way the light reflected on her legs, the way it accented her lush, sharp breasts and framed them in a glorious, sensual shadow. Nor would the smugly smiling nymphette ever let him forget.
"I always wanted to do it on a teacher's desk," she laughed. "That, and in church. This is the greatest. With a teacher to boot. Get undressed, you ninny. You don't get your licks watching."
His hands felt like blocks of wood as he pulled off his clothes. And quakingly, shaking like it was forty below, he advanced on the desk, his bare feet slipping on sheaves of paper, kicking books.
"No," she rasped, when his hands began to roam her body, when his fingers twirled her nipples. "Lay off that stuff. Get your ups and get done with it."
A streak of sadism suddenly stabbed him. And he did not relinquish his hold on her breasts. Instead he pinched the nibs even harder. "You louse she spat, tried to twist free. But he hung on. Until she surrendered, went limp. "Okay," she said. "Have your fun. But hurry up, will you?"
For long minutes he hovered over her, caressing her, kissing and laving her nipples, arranging her body on the desk. "I pass, huh, Porter?" she called. "All ways?"
"Yes, Betty," he intoned. "You pass."
She gripped the edge of the desk as he came up to her "Slippery," she muttered. "You ready now, Dad?"
He was ready. And as he came down to her, her hands came up to guide him. "Man," she breathed appreciatively. "That on a schoolteacher? What have I been missing? Come on strong, you stud. Hell, I should be paying you."
And there, in the semi-darkness, atop a polished oak desk, amidst a hurricane flurry of hushed chokings, sighs, and chuckles, was consummated the weirdest of love sessions. The N.E.A. Journal could have devoted a whole issue to the things that transpired in room 215, St. Clair High, that early evening in November.
Under the title, "Progressive Education in Action," perhaps.
CHAPTER SEVEN
On Saturday night, late, as Mr. Neill Porter sat alone in his living room, one inattentive eye on the TV movie, the other on a three-week-old copy of The Saturday Evening Post, he was suddenly startled upright by the sound of his buzzer. Someone was downstairs.
Puzzledly he glanced at his watch. Ten-forty. Now, who in the hell? He leaped for the intercom. Of all times for Claudine to stop by! She could have at least called in advance.
"Yes," he spoke into the tiny, brass-baffled aperture, "who is it?"
And then was stunned as he heard a totally unexpected voice. "Hi, Porter. It's me, Betty. Let me in, will you?"
"Betty? What are you doing here? Are you out of your mind? Go away, before somebody-"
"Go away hell," she defied him. "I wanna talk to you. Business talk."
"I said, go away."
"Maybe you want me to start ringing some other buzzers, Dad? Asking for you? Letting a few things slip out?"
Instantly Porter's heart constricted. "All right, come up. Apartment three-B. Upstairs." He pushed the lock releasing button.
"I know which apartment," she snickered. "Be right up."
Seconds later she was hurrying down the hall, her eyes drawing to slits as she saw the flustered man, waiting in the half-opened door.
"Hi, lover man," she sneered. "Surprised to see me?"
"Surprise is hardly the word. What are you doing here? You should be home. You know what time it is?"
"Time, schmime," she mocked. "What you think I am, some kind of baby? My folks don't even know I'm out, much less care." She punched him playfully in the arm. "C'mon, act like you're glad to see me."
It was immediately evident, from the look, sound and smell of Betty that she'd been drinking. Some brand of cheap wine, from all appearances. She glanced about her scornfully, said, "What a dump! Looks like something the Salvation Army gave up on. Hey, Porter, you got something to drink around here? Some wine maybe? Or beer?"
He did his best to rein in his temper. "Sit down, Betty. Before you fall down. You're more than loaded already. What's the big idea of coming here?"
"I came to see you," she smiled blearily. "Is that a crime or something? I liked you so much the other night, I just had to see you again. You should be flattered. Not many guys I say that about."
She sat down slowly, flung open her coat, crossed her legs. "Besides," she grinned in a poor imitation of sultry threat, "I need some money. I thought you might give me some."
Neill Porter stiffened, instinctively smelling what would come next. "Money? What makes you think I'm going to give you any money?"
Her head cocked to one side, her smile on crooked. "I think you will." She giggled. "In fact, I know. You will."
"Shh," he cautioned. "Keep your voice down. You want everybody to hear?"
"You think that's loud, lover? You ain't heard a thing yet. Wait until I really start yelling. Then they'll hear. When you refuse to give me any money. I'll tell 'em you lured me up here, got me drunk, 'n tried to rape me. How does that sound?"
"Ridiculous. You'll never get away with a trick like that."
"Won't I? You wanna try it? Like right now?"
"You wouldn't dare."
"Wouldn't I? Don't be too sure. Just think, Porter, who's got the most to lose, you or me. I'll tell them about Thursday night, how I came to talk to you and...." She giggled anew. " ... You took unfair advantage of me, had carnal knowledge, right in your own classroom, on your very own desk."
"Nobody would believe you," he stalled, dread flooding him as he realized, for the first time, the full implications of Betty Genaro's threat. My God, he thought, why was I so weak? What have I let myself in for? The girl was right. He was extremely vulnerable, he had the most to lose if such a scandal ever exploded in St. Clair. While this cheap, sex-happy little tramp had nothing at all to lose. Her reputation was beyond being damaged now.
It was not in Betty Genaro's capacity to think big. As she now announced her terms. "Ten bucks a week, Dad," she gritted. "That's my price. It's small enough, ain't it? I can ruin you, you know." Her voice rose. "You know that, don't you?"
For a long time Neill Porter stood in a frozen, indecisive pose. "Yes," he said finally, his voice dead, "I suppose you're right."
"Damned right, I'm right. Ten bucks, man. Cough it up. Right now." .
Dumbly, wondering how he'd ever got so far astray, Porter reached into his pocket, withdrew his wallet, took out a ten-spot. Too shocked to reason, to plan a counter-scheme, to put one clear thought in front of another, he handed it to her.
"And the next ten dollars?"
"I'll catch you at school, lover. Don't worry, PS be careful. I won't blow the bit."
She tucked the money into her coat pocket. "Thanks, Porter. It ain't gonna hurt you. Not ten bucks a week. I'm being nice to you. Other gals'd hit you harder. Lots harder."
Now she stretched languidly, purposely let her skirt climb up on her knees. "Now, how about that drink? We should maybe celebrate our new business relationship."
"No drinks for you," he said venomously "All I need is for you to go staggering out of here, having someone see you. You've had more than enough to drink."
She pouted briefly, then exchanged the look for a lewd smile. "Maybe you're right, Dad. Maybe I've had too much booze already. But I haven't had enough of something else."
"What are you talking about?"
"Stuff, Porter. Like we had the other night. You dig? I never had anything like that before. I wouldn't mind having a return match right now. That is, if you're of a mind to coax me."
"You little pig!" he shot. "Is that all you think about?"
She rose, shrugged off her coat. Then she sat again, making a dirty sign at him as she did so. "Sure," she slurred. "What do you think about?"
Porter was beside himself with frustrated bitterness. "You cheap little slut."
"Come off it, Porter," she snapped, tiring of the wrangle all at once. "You ain't so much of a much, you know. In fact you're damned homely. You should be glad I'm even offering. I don't have to, you know."
"Then why are you?" he sneered.
"Maybe I feel sorry for you. You and that ape face of yours." She smiled, self-satisfied. "But if I don't have to look at you. How do they say it? In the dark, all cats are the same. Besides, you got some bonus points. One especially. That I crave, Porter."
"You're just like a little animal. A regular little alley cat."
She smiled. "So? It's there, why not use it? It's not cheese. It ain't gonna get better with age. Someday I'll be too old to shag it. Why not live it up now? When it's in prime shape? Some people moralize too much, make a big thing out of it. I dig you, you dig me. So we should be ashamed of it?"
Porter had no retort to her diatribe. It was the most brazen, conscienceless philosophy he'd ever heard. And yet, coming from a sex-oriented tart like Betty, wasn't it also the most truthful? Now, despite the fact that he was embittered by the trap into which she'd lored him, he couldn't help but sense twinges of desire for her. She was youthful, absolutely uninhibited, she was wantonly enamored of physical love. She had all but dismembered him the other night.
Which desire was fanned to higher flame as Betty now worked her skirt up, proudly gave him glimpse of the red panties she wore, of her tawny, lush thighs. "You can say no to stuff like that?" she taunted. "Cmon, pops. Before I put it back in the box."
And completely stunned, provoked by her blatant taunt, Neill Porter took a wobbly step toward her. Then another. "Cmon, you stud," she laughed. "You know you're aching for it I can see it from here. Come to Betty. She'll let you undress her tonight, you can play to your heart's content. Cmon, baby, I'm hurting. I'll make it super for you."
And then, almost as if he was breaking from a prolonged trance, Neill Porter was surprised to find himself kneeling before the beautiful little pagan, to find his hands sliding on her silken legs, to find his lips buried in the hot softness of her thighs above her stockings.
While Betty, eager for excess, let her body slide down further on the davenport, pulled her skirts away from her belly, herself. "When," she sighed, "you do dig it strange, Daddy. But I don't care. Any way you want. Go ahead. That tickles. Wow, I can feel it already. You got fire insurance on this place?"
It seemed a white floodlight shimmered behind Porter's eyes, that it swelled and became more blinding, inducing a mind-robbing fever. Until now, he found himself hovering over the entranced girl, as with Janel, making a sacred rite out of undressing her. Until she lay on the davenport in just her red brassiere and panties. Quaking and writhing beneath his adoring eyes, shuddering and adjusting her position to welcome his exploring hands.
"You dig, Porter, you really dig juvenile type types. Just like that psycho in Lolita. Did you see that one? Jeez, did she have a ring through that sucker's nose."
The brassiere was pulled away, and instantly Betty was wrenching his head down to her breasts. "Oh, you stud," she squirmed," go to it Chew 'em out by the roots if you want. Big Daddy, I've got it for you."
She helped him pull off her panties, shrilled a bubbling protest as he went to extinguish the lights. In the darkness Porter tore off his own clothes. Then she keened her delight as he returned to her, ran his lips along her body. "There too?" she giggled. "You are a weirdo, ain't you? Go ahead. I dig it fifty different ways. I ain't no prude."
And, as he crawled over her body, Betty candidly sought reassurance that she hadn't imagined things. "Wow, it's there all right! Do I want that! Reminds me of that story about the plastic surgeon who hung himself. You get it? The plastic surgeon who hung himself?"
But Neill Porter didn't answer. He was far too preoccupied to pay any attention to bad jokes.
While far off he heard the ecstatic, girlish voice, squealing and choking: "Oh, oh, oh. You're strange, man, But good strange. So damned good. Wow, that sings, Dad! Really sings!"
In another part of St. Clair, perhaps twenty blocks from Porter's apartment, a woman lay in bed, covered and warm. Warm was too puny a word. She was hot.
Also she was very frustrated.
Neill should be here, she thought. Damn him, why can't he be as sex driven as I am? How could he refuse me tonight? After the things I did for him on Tuesday night? Any other man in his right mind would come running.
A sliver of panic imbedded itself in her brain. He can't have another woman on the string, can he? Is that how he manages in between? Swiftly she dismissed the thought. It's impossible. What other woman would have him? She revised the doubt. There were some. Other hard up old maids at school. Pigs like Corine Bercher and Patricia Halley. They'd take Neill on gladly.
She pushed the jealous, frightened introspection away. I" isn't so, it can't be so. Neill's in love with me, he wants to marry me. It's foolish to go on like this. Gradually she managed to calm herself.
And found herself thinking of Neill again, of that glorious love session they'd had together, scant days ago. He'd let her do anything she wanted, he'd wallowed in the libertine tricks she'd pulled. And even after, he'd still repeated his love for her.
She lurched on the bed, her nerve system short-circuited suddenly. Damn! Why isn't he here tonight? I'd do those things again. Anything he asked jor. Special request night. The erotic pictures whirled before her eyes more frenziedly, and Claudine DeGagne felt evil desires being stoked deep in her belly. Neill, darling....
Momentarily her brain slipped a cog, and it was no longer Neill she was thinking about. Instead she had lapsed into a foreign reverie. Once again she was reliving a summer she'd spent in Japan three years ago. A trip she'd taken with another female teacher. God, that Carta! she marveled. The things-the people she turned up.
And she closed her legs tightly together, shivered in mounting excitement, as she recalled a specialty house they'd crept off to, late one night. Where they'd engaged two male prostitutes, had gone their separate ways. Where, in most exotic reversal, it had been the male who had so menially attended her.
Dressed in only a skimpy loin cloth, his muscular, lean body glistening with an aromatic oil, Kimo-Kan had undressed her, had taken her to a sunken bath tub at one end of the sumptuous, candle-lit bedroom. After all, the night had cost her a hundred-dollars. And there, in perfumed, hot water, he'd lathered her, bathed her; his hands maddening on her body, his words hissingly adoring.
After which he'd dried her, dressed her in a loose robe. They'd drunk wine, made small talk. While all the time she'd been going quietly insane with desire for the man. But he was an artiste, a male version of a geisha, and he was not to be hurried.
When they finally went to bed, he disrobed her, began to rub fragrant heavy oils into her body, touching, caressing, massaging the oil into every square inch of her body. She had never in her life felt so regal, so adored. And even though she knew they were mercenary services, she was still elevated to a heretofore totally unknown level of sensation. She was deified, she was a queen.
When Kimo-Kan had finished the massage, it was time for other stunning diversions. As he brought out a tray of artifacts, feathers, brushes, mirrors, sponge rubber impedimenta, photographs. And there, as her body had throbbed and twisted beneath the abnormal homages, he had artfully used them all. Until she had been all but sobbing, all but begging for him to come take her.
Briefly Claudine broke from her sexual torpor, remembered now that she'd bought one of the gadgets from him, that it was, even now, wrapped and waiting in one of her dresser drawers. And impaled upon a spear of the most urgent desire, she rose from her bed, went to get it. II ever she'd needed it....
She found it immediately, drew it from its silk wrapper. It was made of rubber, semi-hard, and had a most cunning conceived handle on it. A breathless excitement possessed her as she flitted back to bed, twisted her body to harbor the article.
Again she was back with Kimo-Kan, she was gasping her ecstasy as he put aside his gadgetry, used the most effective of all, his lips. She groaned thickly She could almost feel him again. Kissing and caressing....
Now he was climbing atop her, he was sweeping away the bunched loin cloth. He was revealing his awesome self. And now-he was penetrating her with magnificent proficiency. His hands were cradling her buttocks.
The bedroom in St. Clair was suddenly alive with pagan heat and excitement. A susurrus rustle and slide cleaved the still air. The bedsprings squeaked incessant, errant, futile protests. The sheets covering her knees, rose, formed into twin peaks.
"Neill, oh, Neill...." The woman moaned deep in her throat.
The commotion intensified, a babble of sighs and words and hoarse chuckles flooding the darkness.
CHAPTER EIGHT
"Janel," he muttered, his lips buried in her throat, the words muffled, "I can't begin to tell you how much I've missed you. It's seemed like years instead of mere weeks." He looked up, a lunatic pleading in his eyes. "Did you miss me, dearest? Did you miss me at all?"
Janel tried to marshal conviction, she tried to look him squarely in the face. But she could not. "Yes," she lied, her resolve hardening by the moment, "I did miss you, Neill. I thought of you often. About how kind you were, how you helped me."
He was crestfallen. "And nothing else? No affection at all?"
"Please, Neill," she breathed, wanting somehow to comfort him, to clothe this ugly travesty of love in some small shred of decency, "you'll have to give me time. I'll have to get used to this ... to you. After all, I'm just a girl, a kid And you're ... an older man." If she could deceive him, then perhaps she could achieve some small dominance over him, she could forestall his demands, find a way to finally escape this perverted trap.
"I understand, dear," he said. "Really I do. I realize I'm a repulsive man, that I'm years older. But if you'll only give me a chance. I'll love you, I'll care for you and teach you. Everything. About literature, about art and music and ... I'll make you my Galatea."
He moved to take off her coat, savoring her cool freshness, her animal healthiness, feeling snowflakes powder from the fur collar, melt on his hands. "You understand me, don't you?" he persisted. "It's not just because I found out about you and Dale, because I helped you with the baby. It's more than that. I love you, truly I do. You stand for something I've been looking for all my life. You're a vision, a dream incarnate.
"I want to help you, to love you. To mold if I can. If you'll only let me, you'll allow me to love you. Perhaps someday you'll learn to respect me, to return some small fragment of my love. Someday ... somehow you'll agree to marry me...."
Slowly, an incredulous blaze in her eyes, Janel raised her head, looked at him squarely. Her stomach constricted in sick dread. She read the maniac expression in his gaze. God, God, she quailed, he means it. He really believes it. This is going to be worse, immeasurably worse, than I thought. He doesn't want me for just a little while; he wants me forever.
The lovesick Porter didn't miss the stricken look on Janel's face, and stricken himself, hurried to soothe her. "I know it seems impossible now," he said, herding her toward the davenport, "but I'm willing to be patient, to wait. You'll learn in time that there's more to life than a handsome face and body, a witty, dilletante personality. That I have more to offer you than all those pimple-faced, empty-headed little brats you might be infatuated with."
He pulled her down, tremblingly gathered her into his arms. "But you'll have to give it time," he murmured, sliding his lips along the side of her face, Janel's stomach going queasy despite all her fine resolutions, "you'll have to be patient with me also. And in the end," his voice took on a hollow, soothsayer tone, "I'll make you a woman without parallel: talented, brilliant, beautiful. But above all, a woman loved as no other woman has ever been loved before. You want that, don't you, Janel?"
Terror gripped her. Stall him, she charged herself, tell him anything. He's crazy, he's raving crazy. How can a man so austers, so brilliant in his classes dissolve to such a blubbering, slobbering lump? What is there about me that makes him like that?
"Yes," she parroted weakly, "I'd like that, Neill."
Then he was hugging her painfully, driving his lips into hers. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry," he groaned in actual anguish. "I don't want to be like this, I don't want to be a greedy animal. But when you're near, when I touch you, when I see how lovely you are, I go crazy inside. Forgive me, darling, for being so base."
He was kissing her again, his large fleshy lips drowning hers, ragged tremors going through his body. Janel fought to be stoic, to tolerate the sickenins? embrace. Her mind wheeled over and she gradually felt herself separating, her mind going away from his contact. An empty body, a mannequin, was left him. He could play with it all he wanted. Just so long as he didn't really reach her. She could stand this. All of it. But only if he didn't commit that final, sickening obeiscance upon her.
Even the thought of it-
While Porter, caught up in a floodtide of passion, delirious with joy at Janel's return, continued to kiss and hug her, to spill his words of endearment into her ears. While all the hellhounds of lust broke their chains, came snarling and snapping to the fore. Soon, soon-
Witheringly he thought of Claudine, of Betty Genaro. How insignificant, how mean and ugly they seemed in comparison to this creature! My sweet, pure Janel. My angel, my beloved. Hatred welled up hotly within him, cauterized his brain. II it hadn't been for Dale Miller, she'd have come to me a virgin. She'd have been totally mine. And yet, he excused her, in the innocence of her love, isn't she almost a virgin?
This was why Claudine, why that cheap, slutty Betty pale in comparison to Janel. So pure, so innocent-
But now, suddenly, his passion boiling over, rendering him helpless he had no more time for temporizing, for mere words. He wanted only one thing.
"Come, my darling," he said, pulling her up from the davenport, "into the bedroom. Forgive me, dear, but I can't wait. It's been so long."
But if Janel had entertained any real hopes that the sick worship at the altar of her body would be bypassed that night, they were ruthlessly shattered. For his slathering beatification was more prolonged, more inventive than ever.
"No, no, Neill," she pleaded as his hands tore at her to prepare her body, "not that again. The other, hurt me if you want, but not this. It makes me sick inside, Neill. Please, oh please. Neill! Don't!"
"I must," he choked, his lips sliding in slippery flow along her waist. Where they now touched the concavity of hip and thigh. "I have to. I need it. So much."
His hands forced hers away. And the awesome torture began. Janel's mind was very much returned to her body now. And sobbing in soft, quiet resignation, she went limp, let him take his way with her.
She realized, for the first time, the immensity and the insane involvement of the cul-de-sac she'd worked herself into. She was crushed, demolished by her monstrous helplessness. She could never escape this evil web alone.
And since she could go to no one for help, how would she ever escape? The words became booming, echoing jeers. Roared in the tunnel of her brain.
How, how, how?
It was ten o'clock. And Janel barely gone, Neill Porter was sitting in his bathrobe, drinking Scotch-on-the rocks, his mouth drawn into a reminiscent smile, his expression smugly self-satisfied. When suddenly he was jerked to alertness by the sound of his buzzer.
Immediately he thought of Janel. Had she forgotten something? What was wrong? He went to the intercom. "Yes?" he said.
"Cleaning lady," the mocking voice answered.
He stiffened in disbelief. "Betty! What are you doing here? What do you want?"
"I want in, daddy. Hurry up," she singsonged, "before I get impatient."
Tiredly, his triumph suddenly drained from him, he pushed the unlocking control. "All right," he shot, "come on up."
Moments later, the girl, dressed in a shorty coat, stadium boots and stretch slacks, was standing in his living room. Looking him up and down with a derisive, knowing smile. "All mussed up, aren't you, dearie t You been having fun?"
"What do you mean?" He was suddenly on guard.
"You know what I mean. Who'd you have up here?"
"Have up here? Don't be stupid. I've been alone all evening. Who would I have up here? Besides you. And I don't recall issuing you any invitation."
"
"Can the high-and-mighty act. I don't buy it." She approached, twirled the satin tie of his robe. "You look like you were alone. What's this lipstick? And that mussed hair? You been balling, Porter."
He fought for composure. Does she know? "You're talking riddles, Betty."
She stepped away, regarded him in hipshot stance, her arms akimbo. "Don't let's con each other, dad. I know who was here. I saw her sneaking out just a few minutes ago. Talk about your campus Casanovas! Who'd have thought ... First you and Miss DeGagne and then me and...."
"Miss DeGagne?" he blundered. "How do you know about her?"
She sniffed. "That's no secret. It's all over the school. You just have to see the way she looks at you to know. And then certain parties have seen you coming out of her place at some pretty queer hours." She smiled. "Don't look so crushed, honey. If you and DeGagne wanna ball, that's your business. After all, teachers gotta have fun once in a while too, don't they?"
She paused. "But it's not DeGagne I'm interested in.
It's the big queen, Janel Tracy. How did you ever con her into...."
"It's a lie," he rasped. "Janel wasn't here. I've been alone all evening."
"You sure howl, don't you? She was here. I can all but smell her. Was she good? As good as me? Cmon, Porter, give me the scoop."
Suddenly her smile faded, and she looked past Porter, her eyes glittering. And before he could recover, she was brushing past him, pouncing in the shiny object on the floor.
Betty held up the expensive compact proudly. "Aha! What have we here? Initials and everything. J.T.-I just wonder what that might stand for?" She broke into delighted giggles.
Neill Porter caved in. His face drawn and white, he looked hatefully at Betty. There was no use in further lying. She had the proof. Once more she held the upper hand, once more he'd blundered into her trap. Instinctively he knew Betty's price for silence would rise And it seemed the most ironic of impasses. The extortionist getting his comeuppance. The blackmailer being blackmailed.
Betty Genaro was enjoying herself immensely. "Man, talk about your breaks. I was at loose ends tonight, and thought I'd ankle over to see if there was any excitement at your pad. And then I run onto this. Luck must be my middle name." She smirked. "Or something like that."
"How much?" Porter croaked. "Don't let's drag this out."
"How much? Maybe nothing." Her eyes narrowed.
"If you tell me how you worked it. How did you get that rich witch, Janel, on your string? It certainly ain't your good looks. What you got on her?"
"No!" the man spat, taking a menacing step toward Betty. "Isn't it enough that you've found out? I won't tell you anything about her. I'm just warning you, if you breathe a word of this to anyone I'll kill you. I'll enjoy strangling you. But not before I beat your cheap, brazen face into a bloody pulp. I swear...."
"Cool it, Dad," she mocked. "Boy, she really rocks you, don't she? Another one of your queer items, huh?" She shrugged. "Okay, secrets. Only it'll cost you twenty a week now. Dirt cheap. By all rights I should come on Janel for some dough too. And I wonder what Miss DeGagne would pay for the real lowdown on you? I hear she's got scads of loot."
Porter's face was a mask of livid hatred and anger. "Don't try it, Betty," he chewed the warning out. "Don't push your luck too far. I'll pay, but once you remove my reasons for paying, you put yourself in jeopardy. I'd like nothing better than to snap your neck, hear you gurgle for mercy."
"Oooh, mean," she chirped flippantly. She hesitated. The deranged light in Porter's eyes was unmistakable warning. He could be pushed only so far. Then, watch out. "Okay, give me the ten, and I'll broom off. Leave you to brood over your deep, dark secrets."
She shoved the money inside her bra. "I'll be the quietest little bird you ever saw. Not a peep out of me. Just so long's you keep the loot coming. I'll be the richest gal in school. I'll be wearing mink panties."
"Get out," he said, his jaw clenched, on the verge of violence. "Get out and don't come back. I'll pay you at school. Otherwise stay away from here."
She laughed lewdly. "Suppose I want a little something on the side? You gonna give me that at school too? On your desk, like before? That's kinda why I stopped by in the first place." The laugh again. "But I guess I got here a little too late."
"Out!" he rasped.
And struggling to stifle her jubilant giggles, Betty Genaro got out.
It was a trick Larry Vermillion had learned at the garage where he worked. It sure beat breaking locks, or trying to jimmy open windows. Now he huddled in the darkness at the back door of the vacant house, carefully inserting the proper-sized fish-hook into the keyhole in the knob. Working with practiced touch, careful not to get the hook in his finger, stroking the tumblers with the haft and eye of the hook, he got them lined up.
And when the knob turned free, he emitted a short, happy laugh. Simple. It worked every time.
Swiftly he let himself into the house, closed the door. Sat back to wait. And then, exactly as they'd prearranged, he saw the rest of the gang coming crosslots, the car parked a full block over, two of the guys bearing cases of beer, the girls carrying the wine. Party, he thought. Suddenly he was very thirsty.
It had taken them an hour to find the right house. Something fancy, something back from the road, isolated enough from the other houses so that if the party got a bit rowdy nobody'd hear them. And then, on the outskirts of St. Clair, the real estate agent's FOR SALE sign on the front lawn, they'd seen the perfect place. They'd circled the block once, made their plans. The next time, they'd dropped Larry off, and he'd got right to work.
He heard their muffled footsteps coming across the frozen ground, he heard the sound of their hushed voices. Immediately he swung the door open, let them in.
Betty threw herself at him, gave him a wet, sloppy kiss. He tasted wine. She'd already been at one of the bottles. "Larry, you're a damned genius," she said. "I don't know how you do it."
"Practice, that's all," he said, pleased at her praise.
"Go ahead, you guys," Tom Fallon husked. "Look the place over before we light." Instantly the two other boys, one of the girls, went on a tour of the large, two-story house. "You, Vita," Tom ordered. "Find the thermostat. Let's get some heat in the dump. It's like an icebox."
A minute later they heard the oil burner rumble to life in the basement.
"We found a home," Betty squealed. "This's gonna be wonderful."
"Not so loud, damn you I" Tom hissed. "We still gotta keep it down." He led the way to the living room. "Okay, let's get this party on the road."
Ten minutes later, as the house began to warm up, they were taking off coats and sweaters, they had formed a large circle in the middle of the expensively carpeted living room. Using one of the beer cases for a table, the two half-gallons of sweet wine, the glasses Vita Polumbo had brought, the various openers and bags of chips and peanuts were quickly spread out. Their eyes already accustomed to the darkness, the dim rays of the street lamps coming through the windows, they had made themselves definitely at ease, "All the comforts of home," Benny Vellici said. "Brother, this beats making it in a car, or out in the park, any day."
Gregg Kelly snuffled. "Or standing up in some damned hallway."
"Or sneaking it while you're baby sitting," Paula Baer added.
"Can it," Betty said. "You wanna work it into the ground?"
"That's the general idea," Vita snickered. Everyone laughed at her quick innuendo.
"Man, this beer's good," Gregg muttered. "I'm getting a buzz on already."
"Try some wine with it," Larry suggested. "Then you'll really go."
"Now if we only had some music." This from Audrey Eklund.
Vita giggled, groped behind her in the pile of coats. Suddenly there was a modulated blast of bossa nova. "How's that?" She had brought her pocket transistor radio along.
"Great," Tom Fallon said. "But keep her down."
"Cmon, you poopers," Betty Genaro encouraged. "Get with the drinking. I want everybody flying by eleven. My party. Everybody gets looped."
"Where'd you get all this money all of a sudden?" Larry asked suspiciously.
"That's for me to know and you to find out," she snapped, polishing off three fingers of wine. She half fell over Larry. "Oh, baby, I feel great. Is it getting to you? That makes everything tingle." She groped for him in the dark, caused him to jerk. "And I mean anything."
Betty Genaro, as always, had her way. For by eleven, everybody was high. Real high. The girls on wine, the boys on a mixture of wine and beer. And once this alcoholic irresponsibility was achieved, it was only natural that the party would get wild. That boys and girls would act like boys and girls should. Which was why the party had been given in the first place.
"Get up," Betty ordered Larry, pulling him away from her breasts. Her blouse was open, her brassiere had been unsnapped, and pulled up. "Hit that thermostat. I want it hot in here. So we can take off all our clothes, run around in our skins."
"You're kidding," Larry said.
"Am I?" Defiantly she pulled off her blouse, shrugged off the twisted bra. In the gloom, an errant lance of light reflected on her wet nipples where Larry had been attending them. "The thermostat, damn you."
Larry got the thermostat.
Shortly the temperature climbed into the eighties.
Whereupon the guys and gals, following Betty's lead, began to peel. Only Larry lagged. Until Betty saw him, attacked his clothing herself. "You damned prude," she scolded. "I should've known better than to have brought you along. Don't you get any boots out of life at all?"
She slurped more wine, lolled lazily at full-length on the carpet, stretching and raising her legs seductively. "Anytime now, Larry," she teased. "Whenever you get up your nerve."
"You mean ... Ain't we even going upstairs?"
"The hell with upstairs. Right here. If I ain't proud, where do you get off acting like a prima donna? You built different or something?" She jerked her elbows, made her breasts quiver. "Hey, Gregg-bring your horse over here an' take over. Larry's chickening out."
"No," Larry bristled, instantly protective. "If that's the way you want it."
"That's the way I want it."
Thus it happened. In full view of everyone, the other couples avidly watching, shouting drunken, vulgar encouragement, mimicking Betty's uninhibited moans when she achieved her release.
Tom Fallon didn't watch. He had other more interesting things to do. As he danced naked with Vita at one end of the room, their bodies plastered together, their feet barely moving, Vita welding their bodies in a very effective manner. Until the slide of chest against chest, belly against belly, tightly locked legs against-
"Hey, gang," Paul squealed, seeing Tom finally give in to overpowering pressures, tumble Vita to the floor, "they're starting the tag match!" And Vita, who was exhorting the bucking, plunging boy to even greater efforts with the crudest of gutter language, thought it one big blast, answered her audience insult for insult.
The lust fever was contagious, and moments later the remaining couples were sprawled on the floor, working at theirs.
The house got hotter and hotter, wine and vigorous exercise being what it is. And so did the watching Betty. Until her rampant degeneracy broke through, and she taunted the boys. "You call yourselves men? Rabbits, that's all you are. You got three more? Tom, you got some for me? And for Paula and Audrey? Let's see you prove what kind of a man you are."
"Betty, no," Larry Vermillion protested. "Don't."
She turned on him scathingly. "Get away, you deadhead. Go handle yourself if you don't wanna play. Take Paula now, hear? Do her good, or I'm cutting you out, you miserable freak."
A downcast, very drunk Larry Vermillion, his mind fuzzy, unable to control the primal drive dominating his beloved Betty, did as he was told. "C'mon, Paula," he said listlessly, "Betty says we gotta...."
"Don't do me no favors," Paula spat. But caught up in the novelty of the impending round robin, she nevertheless rolled on her back, brought up her knees. "Go, sport."
Flushed with a surge of evilness, wild to continue with the debauch, Betty drank still more wine. Then fell to the floor, flopped over. "C'mon, Tom. Or are you chickening out too?"
"I'll chicken ya," he laughed. And came crawling toward her on all fours.
"See how you like this," he snickered. "Maybe it'll feel funny too. Does it?"
Then it began, with everyone taking another partner, each boy killing himself to prove he was a man.
At two, when the party ended, there were four men and four women sprawled on the carpet. Symbolically initiated into maturity. All of them half dead.
CHAPTER NINE
Page Mallory hated himself for what he's becom
Or what he'd thought he'd become. There's a name for guys like me, he mused, but I don't know what it is. A name for guys that take an over active interest in little girls. Girls like Janel Tracy.
He tried to puzzle it out, to make himself understand what it was about the blonde-haired senior that attracted him so strongly. Why was it he couldn't keep his eyes off her when she was in his classes, he followed her with yearning stares when she passed in the halls? It was unnatural. Especially when there were other girls, more his own age, anxious for his company, girls like Melanie Christy who taught Latin down on the first floor. God, I'm getting as bad as that lecher louse, Neill Porter. And, brother, that's bad.
But it wasn't quite the same, he decided when his more optimistic, early-morning reasoning prevailed The gap between his and Janel Tracy's ages actually wasn't that great. A matter of slightly under six years. And while it would be disastrous for him to become romantically involved with her now, he wouldn't be too far off base if, when she graduated, he innaugurated a discreet courtship. He'd certainly heard of worse things happening.
And the confusion mounted. For did he want to push such a relationship? Was he really nursing a low burning flame for the lovely kid? Or was he just racing his motor, letting Old Debil Biology take the wheel?
Or, on the other hand, was his interest sparked by mere concern over the mental depression into which, day by day, she seemed to sink more deeply? It was God's truth. He hadn't seen the kid smile in weeks. She had turned into an absolute loner so far as friends, male and female alike, were concerned. What in hell was the matter with her parents? Were they blind? Or was Janel a much better actress at home than she was at school?
Whatever it was, it was getting progressively worse. She hardly seemed like the same girl he'd known at the start of the school year. (Had it only been three months?) Her face was drawn, her eyes seemingly having grown wise beyond her years. What could have happened to change her like this? Certainly her breakup with Dale Miller couldn't have affected her that tragically.
Asking didn't help. Neither did his most recent attempts to josh her out of her funk, his offer of a shoulder to lean on. The girl had, in no uncertain terms, made it clear she was tired of his interference, that she could get along very well without his help. And even more so without his prying and embarrassing solicitude during class.
And case closed.
But still despite the rebuff, Page Mallory kept his baffled watch, refused to concede defeat. The kid needed help; she was in a serious jam. And someday, somehow, he'd be able to offer that rescuing hand. It was something worth hoping for.
Claudine DeGagne was having problems also. Her doubts, so recently laughed off as being impossible, had gradually, during the past week, become full blown. Her jealousy and fear that it was already too late, that she'd already lost Neill to some other woman, had become an oppressive nagging thing.
In the past week, she'd seen Neill only once. Otherwise he'd begged off, using homework and illness as excuse. The one night he'd called on her had been a fiasco. Wild to go on from where they'd left off, to lure and prompt him into further marriage commitments, she'd got absolutely nowhere with him. It was almost like he was a stranger.
They had made love. But a strange, lethargic sort of love, with Neill seemingly going through the motions, not responding to her inflaming blandishments and urgings at all. When she'd sought to make the ultimate testament to her love, he'd stopped her, taken her in normal, lacklustre fashion, pleading a headache, saying that he had to get home early.
Claudine had been heartbroken, and had been in a frenzy of apprehension ever since. What had happened? Just when everything had apparently been going so well?
She called him repeatedly. At times, he wouldn't answer, and, when he did answer, he'd be either curt or vague with her. And the days without him dragged, each twenty-four hours becoming an eternity. Until, in uttex desperation, taking the only course of action left, she'd decided to do something drastic.
Thus it was, this Friday night at nine-the first Friday in December-that Claudine DeGagne sat shivering inside her '63 Chrysler, parked a half block from her lover's apartment, watching every person entering or leaving the building. If there was another woman, she'd find out. Tonight. Or tomorrow night, or the night after that. She was determined to know.
She'd been at her post since eight o'clock, and now, despite the fact that she ran her engine at intervals, she was getting quite chilled. Add to this her aggravation at having uncovered nothing at all, and her state could be easily appreciated.
It was at nine-ten, just as Claudine was about to abandon her informal stakeout for the night, that she was abruptly startled upright in her seat. She was alert at once, an eerie humming beginning in her ears. As she saw a smirking, sauntering Betty Genaro enter the building.
But surely, her mind revolved sickeningly, this couldn't have anything to do with Neill. Not this little hellcat! Another woman, a pickup, even one of the other spinsters at school, but certainly not a child. Not a thrill-happy child like Betty Genaro.
And she sat back in her seat, switched the engine to idle again, prepared to wait Betty out.
It was ten-thirty before the girl again emerged from the building, her saunter just as arrogant, her smile, if anything, more preeningly smug. And having had almost ninety minutes to fume and stew, to imagine Neill having relations with the trashy tart, Claudine was fit to be tied.
Then, the decision wild and sudden, but immutable just the same, Claudine knew she couldn't pass the night without knowing the truth. Betty had barely turned the corner, when the woman was lurching from her car.
"Neill!" she called into the blank, impersonal panel when he answered her ring. "I have to see you. Don't try to put me off. I'll stay down here ringing your apartment all night. Let me come up."
A dazed, very much panicked Neill Porter let her come up.
Claudine knew instantly that it was so. As she saw the disarray in the room, as she saw Neill's rumpled condition, his guilty expression. There was the lingering scent of cheap perfume, the scent of something else beside. Rage consuming her, she pushed past the stunned man, ran to the bedroom, saw the tangled mess there. More of a mess than a man sleeping alone would make.
She turned on Neill, her face masked with a primordial rage and jealousy. "She was here," she grated, "that dirty little slut. Wasn't she? Say it! Admit it! She was here. You took her to bed, didn't you? Answer me, Neill! Answer me!"
There was no point in bluffing, but Neill tried it just the same. "What are you talking about, Claudine? Calm down, please. Who was here?"
"Don't lie, Neill," she choked, her eyes filming with tears at the certainty of his betrayal. "I saw her come in, I saw her come out. Betty Genaro, that rotten slut, that's who. I can smell her all over the place."
The woman was irrational, Porter realized, there was no telling what she'd do before she was through. Already her cries were rising, on the verge of spilling into the halls, into the adjoining apartments. And thrown into utter panic from the second such confrontation in so brief a time, he was too tired to even attempt fabricating a story.
Thus the lame, unconvincing alibi: "Yes, dear, Betty was here. I was coaching her with some English. She's a failing student you know."
"Coaching?" Claudine spat. "In your bathrobe? In that bedroom? Maybe I should learn English from you."
"Please, Claudine, keep your voice down. You want the whole house tuning in on us? If you don't care about scandal, I do. Calm down."
She advanced on him, her eyes ablaze with violent fury, her mouth chewing, mangling her words. "You tell me, Neill. All about it. Or I'll claw your eyes out. I'll...." Her voice fell into a low, desperate half-whine.
And Porter, realizing that further denials would only generate further hysteria, decided to tell her the truth. But who was to blame him if he shaded the account to his advantage? "Yes, Claudine," he murmured, averting his eyes. "Betty was here, I did have ... we did go to bed together. But it wasn't my fault, you have to understand that. She forced me, she threatened me."
Claudine's smile was contemptuous. "She forced you? That little snip of a girl? Come now, Neill. Just how gullible do you think I am?"
"Please, Claudine ... sit down. Over here, by me. And I'll explain it all to you."
And explain Porter did, coloring his narration outrageously. Betty Genaro had come to his room that night after school. The building had been deserted, they'd been alone. And there, with the lights on and all, she had blatantly propositioned him, opened her blouse, her legs in unmistakable offering. She wanted passing grades, she was giving her body in exchange.
He'd refused, had ordered her from the room. But then she'd threatened to start undressing on the spot, to start screaming. Rape, she vowed to tell whoever responded to her screams. It was a story to which she'd stick with bloodsucker tenacity, she promised. She'd ruin him, but good.
Then she'd risen, had begun to pull off her blouse. Where anyone passing in the hall might see. He'd run to turn out the lights, to wrestle the girl out of the room. And then things had gone from bad to worse.
"Can't you see, Claudine," he pleaded now, the tale almost ended, "how helpless I was? I'm a man, and men have certain basic drives lurking so shallowly beneath that thin veneer we call civilized behavior. When I was fighting her, when she kept stripping, offering herself to me, begging me to take her ... I, well, lost my head. It just happened. I didn't want it to, but it did."
For long moments Claudine sat in shocked silence. As a strange turnabout took place within her. As her bitter anger and hatred was suddenly melted, was suddenly transformed into an all-embracing protectiveness. And, wallowing in her love for Neill, relieve that she was still the woman he really wanted, she instantly sought to soothe and champion him. All vindictiveness was transferred to the corrupt Betty Genaro.
"Then she started coming here," he continued. "Darling, you can't imagine the depravity that exists in that child's mind. She wanted money. The grades weren't enough. If I didn't pay her, she'd spread the story all over school, she'd make a sworn statement to Mr. Al-lender. Then, even money wasn't enough. She wanted something else. She wanted me to...."
"Don't finish, dearest," Claudine sighed, reaching out for him, pulling his head down on her large bosom. "I understand. You poor thing, it must have been dreadful. But why didn't you call her bluff? Why didn't you stand up to her?"
"I was afraid. It was my first encounter with such a thing, with an animal like Betty. I was simply too weak. I'm not a young man any more. A scandal like that would have ruined me. I'd have been all washed up in teaching, even had I been able to vindicate myself. I had no other way out." A tremor wracked him. "I have no way out now."
The almost motherly protectiveness became even stronger within Claudine. The smothering warmth swelled and glowed fiercely, sent hot flames of love and compassion burning through her. He was such a baby about things like this. Such a baby. My baby.
"Oh, darling," she sighed in pity, "why didn't you come to me, why didn't you tell me? I'd have helped you." Her voice turned vitriolic. "I'd have found a way to deal with a little strumpet like Betty Genaro." Her arms tightened about him, her voice hardened to almost psychotic menace. "I still will. I'll get rid of her for you. I'll find a way to reckon with her. She'll be sorry she was ever born."
"No, Claudine," Neill protested. "Don't get yourself involved in this mess also. It's my problem, I have to cope with it. If it ever got you ... your reputation would be ruined as well. I'll come up with something, I know I will."
But Claudine wasn't listening. Her eyes narrowed in deranged hatred, she was thinking about Betty Genaro she was thinking how sweet it would be to attack her, to scar that slutty face, to dig her thumbs into that dusky throat, to hear the girl cough and bark her last as she strangled her.
"Claudine?" Neill shrank before the frozen stare. "What is it?"
Claudine broke the murderous trance. "I was thinking, darling. I was trying to see how I could even up things for you?" She smiled. "It'll come, dear, never fear. Her day is coming."
It is significant to note that not once in his narration had Neill Porter made an allusion whatsoever to Janel Tracy and her phantom role in his involved sex life. Nor did intend to. If that secret came out, it would mean the end of everything.
"I wish," he said, fighting to again firmly insinuate himself into Claudine's good graces, "that you wouldn't have had to find out this way."
"If you'd only told me sooner, darling. I love you, I want to help you. I'll do anything for you."
"I love you, Claudine," he forced himself to say. "It makes me feel so much better to know someone's on my side, someone understands what I'm going through."
"I do, dear Neill, I do. Now that I realize, I forgive you everything." She leaned, kissed him passionately, surprised to find, despite the sordid residue of Betty Genaro in this room, that a carnal desire had suddenly been ignited deep in her psyche. That even if it meant taking seconds, she wanted Neill desperately.
The stresses of danger, she mused. Of danger shared. Recovery, replenishment makes itself known in strange ways.
And her hand snaked inside his robe, found him naked. It was final, irresistible goad. Minor disappointment filled her as she assessed his readiness. But it really didn't matter. There were way of remedying that. Infallible ways.
"Neill?" she breathed. "Could we...?"
Her intent was unmistakable. Neill was thrown into dismay. "But, precious, you mean, even after Betty?"
"Yes, baby. Even that. Couldn't we try?"
She undressed him in the bedroom, laid him on the bed, looking at his hard body adoringly. Then she turned out the lights, retreated to the bathroom. In the darkness Porter quakingly waited, wondering if he'd be able to acquit himself. After Betty's insatiable demands-
The bathroom light clicked off, and Claudine felt her way back into the bedroom. But she did not come directly to Neill. Instead she perched on the edge of the bed, spread out towels and wet, soaped wash clothes. "What...?" Neill said as she began to wash his face.
"I want you clean, beloved," she intoned. "I want the stench of that tramp off you. Lay still," she ordered as she began washing him elsewhere.
She was drying him. The washcloths were wrapped in the towels, thrown aside. Then she was sliding close to him on the bed, her exploring hands preceding her.
She giggled softly. "Still not ready, baby? Well, I'll see about that." The springs squeaked as she shifted her buttocks on the bed.
Neill's body went suddenly tense, he sucked in his breath sharply. "No, Claudine," he hissed, "you shouldn't. I'm not worthy, I...."
"You are, you are," she intoned, refusing to release him. "You're most worthy. Worthy of my love. My complete love." Then she lapsed into silence. All that was heard in the room was the sound of Neill's sibilent sighs, the liquid, lapping stirrings, slow, creeping wavelets of sensation that were growing, growing.
Still it took time. Time which the sex-obsessed woman was wild to devote. Until finally:
"There," she whispered proudly. "There. It's my turn now."
He moved to rise when she slid upward on the bed, but she pushed him back. "Let me take care of it, poor baby," she sighed. "All of it. You're all tired out. I'll do it. I'll be glad to do it."
Then she was on his stomach, sliding herself down. And he felt an even hotter, even more delicious envelopment. Instantly his hands came up, plucked at her hard nipples.
"That's good, baby" she crooned. "Don't be afraid." She used the proud, congratulatory word to goad him on. "Do it, lover. Go. Ohh, you...."
CHAPTER TEN
The snow was gone, as often happens in unpredictable Wisconsin winters, having thawed during the second week in December. Now the ground was bare and yellow, littered with candy wrappers, cigarette butts, bottles, and cans; testament of man's grunting slobbishness which the snow had mercifully obscured. More miserable, it was raining.
This was no winter drizzle. Instead, the product of an unseasonable warm front, it was a steady, driving rain. A rain that had caught the city unaware, and was joyfully wetting each and every pedestrian to the skin.
Among which was a very disconsolate Janel Tracy.
Still, had it not been for the schoolbooks she worried about, it wouldn't have mattered. It was just rain. And it had been raining a long time for Janel. Stoically, ploddingly she drove herself into the slanting stream.
She was dead inside; nothing so inconsequential as a rain could disturb her now. Especially depressing today was the fact that Miss Kelinske had called her aside this morning, had informed her that if she didn't apply herself better in the upcoming term, she'd be forced to give her a D in her course.
Things were really beginning to gang up on her.
Things like the session at Mr. Porter's place last night. A session that would strain the imagination to describe. As he had dissolved to a wallowing, gibberish-spitting monster. As he'd forced her to submit to a drawnout and perverted debasement that left her limp and sick. As he'd evolved variation upon variation, all revolving about his slavish lust to humble himself before her. To grovel and whine. This before he finally forced the now minor agony of his male assault.
The man was insane, absolutely insane.
She'd slept badly all night, haunted by a leering, eye-bulging image of Porter's addled face until long after midnight. As a result she'd been tired, testy all day, had moved in a fog through the school routine.
Small wonder a mere drenching rain made little impression on Janel.
Abruptly she was stirred from her dark thoughts by an auto, honking near at hand. She looked up to see the '58 Plymouth pull over to the curb beside her, she saw Page Mallory grinning out at her from the half rolled-down window.
"Hey," he called, "are you some kind of a duck or something? Cmon, get in here, before you float away."
She felt sudden distaste. If there was anything she didn't need today it was Mr. Mallory's stranged jovality. "No, thanks, Mr. Mallory," she called. "I'd just as soon walk. I've only got five blocks to go."
"Five blocks? You'll be drenched by then. You want to catch pneumonia? Get in here, you hear? That's an order."
"Please, Mr. Mallory, it's all right. I'm-"
"You want me to come out there, Janel?" There was an exasperated edge to his voice. "Get in this car." For emphasis he opened the door.
Janel saw people in passing cars staring. And then, not wishing to cause a further stir, to make herself out a worse oddball than she already was, she gingerly made her way to the car, got in.
"Really," she forced a smile. "It's all right. I..
He shook his head. "Talk about stubborn kids. You'd think I was some kind of ogre or something."
"It isn't that at all, Mr. Mallory. It's just that-"
"It's just that you'd rather be by yourself," he said brusquely. "Just like you've been during these past three weeks. You'd like to brood and feel sorry for yourself for whatever trouble it is you've got into."
"Please, Mr. Mallory, don't start that again. If that's why you picked me up, I'd just as soon walk."
"That isn't why I've picked you up," he snapped. "I picked you up because you were sleepwalking in the rain, and I didn't want you to get sick and miss school. You've got troubles enough as it is."
Janel smiled weakly, feeling a small dart of pleasure pierce her at Mr. Mallory's concern, at the suppressed anger he felt in her behalf. In a way he sounded like her own father, the rare times he tried being strict.
"Your grades aren't anything special, you know," he finished. "You miss some school and you're done."
"You too?"
"What do you mean, 'you too'?"
"Miss Kelinske gave me the word this morning. I suppose I'll be catching it from all sides now."
"Well, can you blame us? You just haven't been the same girl, Janel."
She sewed a smile on her lips. "You said something about taking me home?"
He grinned embarrassedly, put the car into gear. It was getting dark; through the rainy gloom she noted that Mallory's car, all the others, already had their headlights on. "I'm sorry, Janel," he said. "I know I've got no right to pry. But when I see someone with your talent letting things slide, going steadily downhill, I just see red. That performance just now, with you out in the rain, is a good case in point. What is going on, Janel?"
"It's nothing," she bristled. "At any rate, nothing that concerns you."
"Don't pull that, Janel. It works at school, but it won't work here. I want to know, and I'm going to know."
"There's nothing to tell, Mr. Mallory."
He gunned the engine, passed a slow moving car. Then he swerved into a side street, headed toward the city's outskirts. "I've been waiting for a chance like this," he said. "Whether you like it or not, we're going for a ride. A long ride. Until you feel like telling me."
"You're asking for trouble, Mr. Mallory."
He smiled wryly. "Am I? What are you going to do? Tell your parents?"
Janel paled. It was the last thing in the world she could afford to let happen. "No, I...." she said lamely.
"You bet you aren't. Because, unless I miss my guess, they're completely ignorant of what's happened to you. You're keeping the whole mess hush-hush from them." And to further upset her, hoping to crack her stubborn silence, he added, "Maybe we should drive over there right now. I'd like to tell them about the change that's come over you. How you keep it from them, I'll never know."
"They're not home," Janel blurted. "They've gone out of town. I'm supposed to fix my own dinner tonight."
He glanced perceptively at her. "That the truth?"
"Yes. That's the truth."
"Well then. We drive. Any preference?"
Janel grinned sarcastically. She could wait him out. It was her secret, it would stay her secret. "You pick it, it's your party."
They lapsed into a sullen silence, Page Mallory feeling very foolish, not to mention a trifle frightened. He'd been positive she'd scare, that his forceful bluff would work. But instead he'd bought himself a stubborn, headstrong girl. What kind of a mess had he gotten himself into this time? The Good Samaritan bit is outdated, he mused.
His bafflement was no greater than Janel's. Why had she got into the car? She should've known better. But then, how was she to suspect what this madman would do? Why was he bothering? What stake did he have in her unhappiness? And how long would he detain her before giving up?
It had happened so fast, it had been so totally unexpected. But then, she thought acidly, haven't so many things happened to me so fast lately. So many unexpected things? Why should a thing like this throw me?
Until little by little the shock faded, some of her antagonism was leached away. And it seemed almost natural, like a date with Dale, to be out riding in the country with this unpredictable man. And strangely enough, she relaxed, savored the comfortable peace. As Mallory drove steadily, saying nothing, the hum of the engine, the whir of the heater's fan, the only sound in the car. She was getting warm and drowsy. She was so tired, so heartsick. If only she could lay back, go to sleep and never wake up again.
Now Page Mallory leaned forward, turned on the radio, tuned in an easy-listening show, a specialty of KMOX's at this time of the day. The strain of "Moon River" floated on the air. "Enjoying yourself?" he said.
"Immensely," she mocked, disguising her true feelings.
Again she wondered at Mr. Mallory's concern. What is it with him? Is he like Mr. Porter? Does he have a thing for girls too? As quickly she hated herself for even thinking such a thought. There was no comparison, absolutely none at all. Then, almost as if wanting to reinforce her conclusion about Mallory, she stole a covert glance at him, evaluating the differences between him and the abnormal Mr. Porter.
He was quite handsome, if she discounted the tight scowl he wore. She imagined he could be quite forceful, quite dominating, when he wanted. Undoubtedly he could hold his own in a fight, should anyone dare to cross his path. Momentarily she felt twinges of pity. Why is he bothering with me? And why can't I be nicer to him?
His overcoat and jacket had fallen open, and she saw his straight, hard chest, with no trace of fat beneath his ribs. She saw the sprinkling of hair on the back of his slim, smooth, tapered hands. Could he be gentle with a woman? Would those hands hurt her? Or could they confer warmth and kindness, could they kindle real desire? Normal desire?
She shook herself, tried to dispel the thoughts. As the comparison continued Or would he hurt her, would his love be a sick, tainted thing, like Mr. Porter's? Would it be a greedy, stolen thing like Dale Miller's? Would Mr. Mallory have so quickly deserted her had he been the father of her child?
Abruptly she caught herself, shook the weird fantasy away. Good Lord, Janel, she castigated, what's getting into you? You getting to be some kind of a sex nut or something? After last night, how can you even think-
And she was shaken, stunned. How had the thoughts begun? Once more the oppressive tiredness, the drowsy feeling of not caring at all inundated her. She couldn't get over how much this reminded her of another time. With Dale, when there was such a thing as love. When life was so incredibly simple, so uncomplicated.
It was unfortunate that, at that moment, the radio chose to transmit the sad ballad, "I'll remember April." It was one of her sentimental favorites. Often, on hearing it, she thought how aptly it described her own tragic loss. Only it should have been September instead of April.
Then, all at once, Janel could hold back no longer. She slumped down in the seat, put her hands to her face. And piteously, wrackingly began to sob.
"Janel," Mallory breathed, his heart rushing up, lodging in his throat. Immediately he was braking the Plymouth, he was wheeling it off the highway.
Then the engine was dead, only the dims still burning, the radio suddenly overloud. With an involuntary, reflexive action, he was sliding toward her, he was gathering the throbbing, bedraggled body into his arms.
"Janel," he breathed, as the child, the weight of her secret burden suddenly unbearable, buried her face in his chest; burrowed and burrowed, as if finding a safe place to hide at last. "What is it, Janel? Don't cry, please don't cry."
But then, thinking better of it, he said no more, he let her cry it out. And his heart going out to the grief-torn creature, he held her closer, stroked her back. He felt her hair against his lips, he drew its damp, healthy pungence into his nostrils. He was seized by the craziest, most dedicated impulse to protect her. For as long as she might need him. An eternity if need be.
Janel cried for a long time, drawing on the man's rock-sturdy strength and stability, feeling the purgation of tears snap a steel band inside her, give her a guileless, child-like freedom. A freedom from guilt and pain, temporary though it might be. It seemed so right, so perfectly right, to be hiding in the man's arms.
Finally the tears diminished and Janel got control of herself. It was with a feeling akin to sorrow that she drew away from Page Mallory. "I'm sorry," she sniffed. "I didn't mean to do that. Something just set me off. Oh Lord, I'm such a mess."
"Such a beautiful mess," Mallory replied, catching her chin, lifting her head. Then gravely and easily, as though it was the preordained order of things, he brought his lips to hers, kissed her lingeringly.
And Janel melted back into his arms, remembered that blissful feeling of normalcy, that sweet delight of honest affection. Just as it had been with Dale. Before....
"You angel," Page Mallory was breathing, "you beautiful angel. I've wanted to do that for months now, and didn't even know it."
Then a raging, brush-fire fever was ignited within Janel. A devastating, maniac urgency that swept reason and proportion before it. That left her a quaking, empty vessel. Knowing only one thing. That she suddenly and uncontrollably wanted this man.
Could she recapture that lost, swept-away time in her life? Beyond the blissful ecstasy of a kiss? Beyond the glorious warmth of relief and expectancy and simple sharing of love? Was it already too late? Had Neill Porter seen to that? Could she know physical love as she'd once known it, or had it been polluted beyond redemption, never to be reclaimed in the yawning eternity of her life?
She had to know, she had to know.
"Kiss me," she whispered, her lips trembling wildly. "Again. Like that."
Caught up in the same infectious frenzy, Mallory did as he was told. He held her tighter, drove his lips insistently into hers. All at once he wanted to bellow his insane jubilation.
"Take me somewhere," she gasped as he broke the kiss. "I want you. Please, will you? Take me someplace, let me see if it's so. If I can feel it again. Normal, clean love."
Mallory was thunderstruck. "My God, baby," he said, "what have they done to you? Tell me, tell me who they are. I'll kill them with my bare hands."
"No!" She twisted in his arms, arched her head back. "Don't talk about it, don't ask me. Not now. Don't ruin this." She was crying again. "Oh, please. In the back seat, here, any place. But take me. I have to know."
"I couldn't," Mallory murmured, stunned into stupid incoherency by the demented request. "You mean too much to me."
"You have to, you have to," she shrilled, sucking in her breath thickly, flinging herself into his arras anew. "I'll go crazy if I don't find out. Oh, please. Aren't I pretty enough? I'll try to do it right...."
Mallory stared at her in gape-mouthed amazement. "Are you sure? Janel, are you positive you want this?"
"Yes," she wailed. "I'm sure. Right now. In the back seat if you want. But don't put me off."
It was too sacred a moment to be profaned by something as tawdry as a back seat consumation. And his brain spinning madly, his own desire now a mind-shattering pressure, he decided. "Yes, Janel," he said, "if that's what you want. But not here. I know a motel just down the road a half mile or so."
"Yes," she gulped, her eyes rolling. "Take me there. Only hurry."
Page Mallory started the car. And he hurried.
He wanted to smash the motel-manager's face in for the smug, knowing leer he conferred as he signed in as "Mr. and Mrs. Page Mallory." But he knew it was a useless cause. There would always be motel managers. He dropped the ten-dollar-bill on the desk and hurried back to the car.
"No," Janel whispered as they entered the clean, modern room. "Don't turn on the lights. Just get ready."
The door was locked behind them, and even as Page turned, he saw Janel throw the coat aside, he saw her pull her sweater over her head. He went to her, kissed her, feeling the hot, hard points of her breasts against his chest, feeling their impatient rise and fall. Her breath tore from her in deep, quaking sighs. He reached for the dangling sweater. "Let me, baby."
She recoiled viciously. "No!" she hissed. "I'll do it! You take care of yourself." And then and there with a frankness that stunned him, she hastily took off all her clothing.
His heart flip-flopped painfully as he saw her stand beside the bed, fluff her hair with careless regality, her slim, smooth, white body glowing with an almost holy sheen, her blondness eradicated in the gloom. Her stomach spasmed, her breasts swayed, the nipples crinkled and dark, resembling surprised eyes. Then she whirled, began to open the bed. "Hurry, please," she breathed as she fell upon the sheets.
"Again," she keened, in a nervous frenzy, as he came beside her, "kiss me again. Hold me. I'm so afraid."
Her lips were dry and feverish, and they moved fitfully beneath his own. Tentatively she darted her tongue forth, swiped it on his lips. A new spasm hit her, and she withdrew her tongue, concentrated on the kiss alone. "Mr. Mallory...." she said in rote-learned habit.
"For God's sake," he groaned. "Page. Call me Page."
"Yes, Page. It's such a pretty name."
He wanted to sob, himself now, as his hands swept over the firm, silky, quivering body, as she submitted with divine passivity, letting him touch her everywhere. As he slid his lips into her throat he caught the faint scent of her cologne, almost buried in the woman smell of her. His body was shuddering convulsively, speared by a combination of incredulity and downright need. This can't be happening, he raged. I'm dreaming it.
But it was no dream, it was real. As the girl, obviously experienced, he realized with a sense of jarring regret, writhed on the bed, willingly slid her legs apart to accommodate his cupping hand.
"No!" she gasped as he slid his lips down her shoulder, let them begin their delectable climb to the crest of her breasts. Then, "Yes, oh yes. Please, Page."
Long, panting whimpers broke from her throat as his tongue tenderly spiraled each nipple, as it drilled the succulent nib in upon itself. As she registered her delight by closing her legs on his hand, wriggling her hips slowly back and forth. Until Page Mallory was smitten by damning fears. It mustn't happen too fast. Not before he....
"Janel, darling," he choked, the words pouring out unbidden, springing up from some unknown place in his subconscious. "I love you, dear God, I love you!"
"Don't, Page. It's not love, it something else. But no matter. It's good, it's everything I've hoped it would be. I was so afraid I'd lost it...."
"You'd lost it? What are you talking about?"
"Never mind, Page." Her body rocked impatiently, her head turned, her lips sought his. "Now, baby, now. If you wait any longer...."
"I don't have any ... thing," he murmured. "I mean...."
"It's all right," she said softly, embarrassment in her tone. "It's my safe time. Please, Page."
"You're positive?"
"Yes, I'm positive. Now, Page, now!"
She was swamped by an ecstasy, a breathless heart-stopping delight, as the man came to her. It wasn't painful, it wasn't ugly, it wasn't depraved. It was beautiful, beautiful beyond the telling. And she strained to open herself to him still further; to shelter him to the clawing, screaming limits of her ability.
To give herself. To give and give and give. To never stop giving.
"Page!" she whined, her voice breaking. "It's magnificent, so magnificent! It's going to be all right."
Her body swarmed to meet his, to contain him with a greedy, volutuous constriction. Mallory was stunned to feel her legs surrounding him, herding and urging him, to feel her ankles locking behind his knees, to feel her feet sliding and jittering along his calves.
"You angel, you angel," he choked, wanting to hold back to prolong this rapturous lovemaking as long as he could. And known full well it was utterly impossible. For the body, the sinuous, twisting, hot body would not let him. It was demanding its tribute. And soon.
Through her thin sobs of glory Janel felt the heat within her body mount, become intolerable. Before her mind's eye there flashed image of a tall, thin vase. Into which an unseen force was pouring molten lead. She quailed, frozen in terror, as the lead brimmed its container. And then it was overflowing, splashing all over her. Scalding and searing and-
Making her scream a sostenuto of awesome delight and ecstasy. Making her claw and crowd the man, begging that the splashing silver never stop.
I'm a woman, she thought triumphantly, Pm still a woman! It hasn't been stolen from me after all!
And as she'd learned from those last love sessions with Dale, she dung to Page, she bound her legs even tighter to allow him his victory. And perhaps, in the bargain, hoped to achieve another for herself.
"I love you, damnit," he was gritting, "I don't care what you say. I do love you, Janel!"
While within him the awesome pressure grew, the soul-carboniating heat became more incredible. It seemed a spark was arcing somewhere in his head, each gapping driving a sliver of jagged glass into his brain. And the pain became a steadily intensifying torture. Until, all at once, he found that the pain was not in his brain at all.
And he held the small, fine-bodied woman tighter, nearly suffocating her, his lips buried in her throat, he drove his hips in mad ebb and flow, he drove and drove.
Until finally-the pressure was lifted from him, his body was paralyzed, throbbed in reflexive voidance. And it seemed the world was falling in about them. That two pathetically pleading voices were calling against that cave-in. A male and female voice. Which now forgot impending disaster, called out throatily, their cries twining, rising and falling, in a sated duet.
When at last Janel awoke, Page was waiting for her. He kissed her moist eyes, and said, "You'll tell me now, won't you, darling?"
Janel started, stared about her in surprise. Then, remembering, a pained expression fled across her face. "Tell you, Page?" she said hollowly. "No, I won't tell you. I can't. It's too horrible. It would spoil everything.
It would undo all this."
He felt rage grow within him. "For God's sake, Janel. These things-things like this, like you and me-they don't just happen. There has to be a reason. You've got to tell me what in hell's going on."
Her voice snagged. "Please, Page. It was too wonderful. It meant the world to me. But if I told you...."
"My God, my God," he groaned, rolling away from her, sitting on the edge of the bed. "I'm only human. Is it a crime to want to know the truth about the girl you've fallen in love with?"
"It's not love. It's not love at all."
"Then what is it? You tell me."
"It's something that happened, that's all. It just happened."
"And it's not going to happen again?"
"No, Page," she said sadly. "It just can't be."
"You mean that's it? Just like this and pood-bye? Janel, I'm intending that someday you'll marry me."
Her voice rose, echoed in the room. "Stop it, Page! For God's sake, stop! Things are bad enough."
"Then tell met"
"No, Page. That's final. I'm not going to tell you."
He faced her, his face white. "I'll find out, Janel," he vowed. "I don't know how, but I will. Someday, somehow."
It seemed an iron door had clanged down between them. As Janel's face froze, turned blank. "Get dressed, Page," she said, almost impersonally. "It's time for us to go."
CHAPTER ELEVEN
It was on Friday, during noon hour, that Page Mallory first heard the rumor about Neill Porter and Claudine DeGagne. He was in the crowded faculty lounge, tucked away in one corner with his buddy Hal Barth, a phy-ed teacher, moodily picking at the cafeteria lunch on his tray. Perhaps it was this preoccupation-thoughts of Janel and the tempestuous thing that had happened between them last night a nagging burden-that kept him from seeing any relationship between Janel's phantom problems and the juicy tid-bit Barth was so happily divulging.
"Can you imagine?" he chuckled secretively, "Old DeGagne and Porter? They claim he's been seen beau-coup times sneaking out of her place at two, three in the morning. And she's been visiting his digs too. They sure's hell weren't working on a curriculum report."
Any other time Page would have pounced on the interested. "So? Even the old folks have to have fun, don't they?"
"Old folks?" Barth laughed. "Psychos you mean. That DeGagne's a nympho from 'way back. She's taken on everybody but the janitor in the twenty years she's been at St. Clair. She's an institution."
"So why the fuss now?"
"This is the thing. The others were just one-nighters But with Porter, wow! She's gone ape on him. You should see the way she watches him, hangs on him in the halls. Talk about your lovesick school girls."
"Porter deserves her." Mallory felt a subtle nudge of thought deep in his subconscious. But it didn't come through clearly; it was stillborn. "Although I never took him for the type. He always struck me as something quite different."
"How so?"
Mallory was sick if the topic. "I don't know. Just a different kind of bird altogether."
"That babe's sick," Hal continued, missing the hazy overtones himself. "She's gone absolutely bats over that guy. He'd better not cross her. Have you ever really looked at her? The creepy way she wears her hair, those dark eyes. Like a vulture. I sure's hell wouldn't want to be the man to cross her. No telling what she'd do."
"You're exaggerating, Hal. You been reading too many spook stories."
"Have I? You don't know that witch. She's way out"
"Lower the volume," Page warned. "You're drawing an audience."
"Oh," Hal said, glancing about furtively. "So I am. Nosey old bats." He recovered easily. "So? What's new by you?"
"If it's all the same to you," Mallory snapped, "I'll pass. I got things on my mind."
"Grouch," Barth smiled. And immediately forgot Page Mallory, began concentrating on Melanie Christy, who sat across the room eating and chattering, completely oblivious to the fact that her skirt had climbed dangerously and delightfully over her knees.
Claudine DeGagne would have left her car that night, she would have gone after Betty, dragged her back by force if necessary. But such was not necessary. For as Betty emerged from her ramshackle house on Holliman Street (Miss DeGagne had dug the address from the school register), had surveyed the dark, deserted street, had seen the parked, gleaming Chrysler perhaps a hundred feet behind her, she'd made some snap judgments. Judgments which were to seal her doom.
Larry, she thought, irritation ballooning within her. Don't that dope know we're all done? Does he think he's gonna impress me with that car? He's gonna get himself in a jam one of these days, borrowing heaps from the lot like that. Well, it ain't gonna work. Not tonight. We're finished. I've got half a mind to-
She flounced down the walk, anticipating picking up Vita at her house, going on with whatever madcap venture turned up. But then Larry (or so she thought) gave three soft burps on the horn.
Betty Genaro whirled, started back. I'll give that chicken creep a real piece of my mind, she raged. Briefly she thought the person behind the wheel was too large for Larry. But then, certain it could be nobody else, she plunged ahead. After all, who but Larry knows-
In well-planned foresight Claudine DeGagne had unscrewed the bulb from the dome light so that when Betty flung open the door, the car's interior remained dark. It was only one of the countless details she'd evolved for the vengeful caper she premeditated for tonight
"Oh, excuse me," Betty said, half in and half out of the car. "I thought it was somebody else. I...."
"Get in, Betty," Claudine said levelly, her voice icy with menace. "I've been waiting for you."
"Miss DeGagne," Betty blurted. "What are you...?" Then she saw the gun, chrome-plated, glistening in the gloved hand. Reflexively she sought to backtrack, to pull her head and shoulders out of the car. "Miss DeGagne!"
But she was too slow. And heavily overbalanced as she was, it was no trick at all for Claudine to clap her right arm around the girl's head, to slam her down onto the seat. In one rapid, fluid motion, she clawed Betty into the seat beside her, slammed the door. And as Betty still fought and scrambled on the slippery upholstery, she brought the revolver across, caught her squarely on the side of her face with the flat of the weapon. Betty moaned a surprised cry, then crumpled into a still heap.
No one happened to look out of their windows at that moment. It was prime TV time. No one saw the swift, savage interplay. In fact, no one even saw the big, blue Chrysler pull from the curb, thread its way from the narrow, decrepit street.
Miss DeGagne's gamble had paid off handsomely. But in her love-addled mind it had been no gamble at all She'd been determined and positive that it should come off with such competency, every exigency had been expertly foreseen. And Betty had been easier, much easier than she'd dared to dream.
Now the wild-eyed, revenge-obsessed woman chuckled, laid the gun in easy accessibility in her lap. And concentrated on her driving.
They were just leaving the outskirts of St. Clair behind them when Betty Genaro stirred on the seat, emitted a small murmur, struggled to sit up.
"Lay still, dear," Claudine said in thin smugness. "Don't make any fuss. Or I'll slug you again."
Slowly Betty's eye focused. Then, realizing her precarious position, remembering how she'd got into this car, she stiffened. "Miss DeGagne," she murmured, her voice terror-clogged, "what are you doing? Why did...?"
"I'm taking you for a drive in the country, Betty," Claudine mocked. "Isn't that nice? Do you like drives? I thought we'd head for Westport. I know a nice, quiet place where we can talk. Where nobody will bother us."
"I don't understand. I never did anything to you."
"Didn't you, Betty. Think back a little."
Instantly Betty realized what it was. That somehow, Miss DeGagne had found out about her alliance with Neill Porter. And in her crazy, jealous mind, this was how she was going to take care of things. With a gun, in this car, far away from St. Clair. "You don't mean ... you aren't going to kill me?"
Claudine's chuckle was musical. "Not right away, at any rate, Betty."
In that moment any remaining vestiges of the cock-sureness that had keynoted Betty Genaro's entire life were suddenly and definitively swept away from her. Leaving her exposed, vulnerable and raw. Exposing her shallow bravado for what it was, displaying her innate cowardice and meanness to a jury of one. A jury which had already decreed her guilty-as-charged. A jury which would be executioner as well.
And Betty was numbed, paralyzed with fear. Her remaining moments of life were swiftly trickling away. There was no one to turn to for help now. It seemed she couldn't breathe for the enormity of the prospect. She began to cry. "Oh, don't, please don't. I'm only a kid, I didn't know what I was doing."
"You knew what you were doing, you filthy slut," Claudine spat. "You knew very well. You thought you'd take Neill from me, didn't you?"
"Take him? I didn't want him. I only...."
"Shut up!" she stormed. "I don't want to hear about it. Later, but not now. Be still, sit still. Or I'll kill you right now."
Claudine lifted her eyes from the highway briefly, and reading the fanatic glitter there, Betty knew it was no idle threat. The demented woman would stop at nothing, even murder on the open road, to achieve her aims. And she fell into a near-comatose state, accepting the finality of the verdict, it never once occurring to her to fight the woman, to attempt snatching the gun from her lap.
No. Betty was defeated. She had turned into a mute, phlegmatic, sodden lump.
"No one will ever suspect me, Betty," Claudine said in wheezing singsong. "That's the beauty of it. Not a teacher, not one of your very own teachers. Even when they find you, who'll be the first suspect the police will corner? One of those boys, the trash you run with. They won't care. It'll be a case of a notorious tramp who got into a car, who got taken for a ride in the country, once too often. They won't care, do you understand, pig?"
Betty Genaro didn't answer. She only sat huddled in fear, crying in steady, wracking flow.
The rest of the ride was concluded in silence.
The place to which Miss DeGagne brought Betty was a sprawling city dump, a disfigurement on the outskirts of Westport, a place where the city was, day by day, year by year, filling in and reclaiming a vast marsh. So busy by day, with fleets of private and municipal carriers growling along its twisting, labyrinth roads, it was utterly and eerily deserted by night. There were scurrying rats, there was a whistling wind. Nothing else.
The lights were extinguished, and they sat hidden in among hills of dirt, of refuse, of fluttering paper. While Claudine, relentlessly and sadistically made Betty go over the entire story, point by point, ugly detail by ugly detail. Goading her every time she faltered with the unarguable threat: "You want to live, don't you, dear? As long as you keep talking, I won't kill you."
And so Betty talked. At great lengths, painting in every intimate detail with loving care.
Still Claudine refused to believe parts of the tale. Especially those parts varying with Neill's version of their complicity. Her trust in Neill, her pathological loyalty to him was impregnable. At least until the end of Betty's whimpered account. When certain things became too detail-logged, when the repetitions became conclusive proof. And she was badly shaken.
"You lie!" she snapped, grinding the blunt nose of the gun into Betty's side, causing her to twist and cry out. "He wouldn't have done those things. Not willingly. You forced him, you made him. You rotten, blackmailing tart!"
"It's true," Betty groaned, despite her agony and fear. "It was like he had a thing about it. He wanted to do it. It was the best part of it for him."
"Shut up!" Claudine shrieked, her face contorted into a grotesque, dark mask. "It's a lie! It can't be so. Not Neill. Not my Neill I" She jerked Betty's hair viciously, exulting in her pleading shrieks. "Say it's a lie!"
"It's a lie," Betty called, screaming in agony. "I made it up. It's a lie!" When Claudine released her, she dissolved into hysterical tears once more.
"And you say Janel Tracy was going to his apartment also? I don't believe it, but I want to hear your lies about that too. Why did she come to him? Because she loved him? Or was she blackmailing him too"
"I don't know anything else about it. I just caught her leaving there one night, I made him admit it, I made him give me more money. I don't think Janel was blackmailing him; he had to be blackmailing her. He was sweet on her, I could tell that. He only used me because I was handy. Maybe you too."
Claudine slapped her stingingly across the face. "Don't say that!" she gritted. "Don't ever say a thing like that. He loves met Nobody else. He loves met"
"Please," Betty wailed. "Let me go, don't kill me."
A perverted concept slammed Claudine DeGagne at that moment, became integral part of her vengeful trance, became fitting and sublime retribution upon the tawdry girl who cowered on the seat beside her. An aberrated frenzy of the sickest sort took hold, wrung her, turned her to a supremely conscienceless animal.
"Betty, do you want to live. Do you promise you won't tell what I've done to you?" she wheedled visciously. "I might let you go. But only after you've paid, after you've paid for the depraved things you made my Neill do to you." She gripped the girl's hair again, wrenched it brutally. "You'll do it, won't you? If I let you live?"
"Don't, don't," Betty shrilled. "What do you want me to do?"
There was no mistaking what it was the insane voluptuary wanted now. As she shifted on the seat, pulled her skirts back. "Kneel, Betty," she grated. "On the floor. Between my legs. Do you hear? Kneel."
"What...?" the girl recoiled. "You mean . .
"Kneel!" Claudine screamed, slapping her full across the mouth again. Inch by inch she dragged the girl down.
There was a sharp, ripping sound in the car as Claudine tore at her panties. "There," she spat. "Now do it. Grovel and defile yourself. Debase yourself as you made Neill debase himself. Do it, you slut, do it!"
Her hand twisted tighter and tighter in Betty's hair, her strength appalling, superhuman. And Betty chose the lesser of two evils. She let her body go limp. She dropped her head.
Claudine gasped and moaned, torn by the depraved, yet beautiful attention, the sensation almost driving her out of her mind. Again and again she clamped her legs shut, trapped Betty. Waited for strength to go on. Then her legs went slack. "Yes, Betty," she bubbled. "Yes, yes. Oh, yes!"
Now her legs went taut once more, and she fell back against the seat, loosed an unearthly howl of sick delight. But it lasted only briefly, was quickly replaced by galling shame and hatred. Hatred for the evil perpetrator, for the instigator of this tragedy.
Then locking her legs even tighter, she raised the gun, began to batter at the trapped, helpless skull.
A truck driver, bringing his first load to the dump at eight the next morning, came upon a mind-obliterating, ghastly scene. A scene he would never forget as long as he lived. He drew his truck to a jolting stop, jumped out onto the rutted, solidly-frozen, dirt road.
In utter confusion he surveyed the macabre setting. For there, on the bushes, among the dirty, twisted reels-
Her stockings fluttered weakly from a cat-tail, filmy penants in the wind, her high-heeled pumps were impaled on branches standing straight from the ground. Hung on the lower branches of a tree were the shredded remains of a black satin dress. Her bra, pants and slip, bloodstained and ragged, were hanging in a sagging row upon a farther bush. Like so much wash on a clothesline.
Then he saw the body. Totally naked, sprawled in among a hodge-podge of garbage and weather warped boxes. He saw at least a dozen knife slashes, in the most ungodly places on the body, as though a madman had been at play.
Then he saw how the rats had been nibbling at the girl's face.
He whirled, stumbled away. Behind his truck he vomited, clinging to the truck-bed with all his strength.
CHAPTER TWELVE
On the night Claudine DeGagne had wreaked her gruesome vendetta upon Betty Genaro, Page Mallory had also been abroad. He'd also kept a lonely vigil.
But instead of Holliman Street his car had been parked in one of St. Clair's most elite developments. He'd been parked on Dunmore Boulevard in Renton Oaks. Across the street and half a block down from 1124, the large manse in which Janel Tracy lived.
He'd sat in the muffled darkness from six-thirty until ten o'clock, scarcely taking his eyes off the looming, brick-fronted structure. About nine a car had drawn into the driveway, and guests had emerged, had been bosterously admitted into the Tracy residence.
One thing certain. Janel Tracy hadn't gone out. She'd been at home all evening. Shortly after the guests arrived he'd seen an upstairs light go on, and had surmised that Janel had made herself scarce. The light was still burning when Mallory drove away at ten.
He couldn't rightly say where the idea to become Janel's second shadow had come from. Somewhere, during those turmoil-filled hours on Friday, he'd decided. Since Janel was caught up in some sordid web, since she was helpless to extricate herself, since she'd refused to confide in him, there was no other alternative. He'd have to tail her, to find out her secret for himself.
And from there? Things would have to take care of themselves after that.
He fought the impulse to go to her neighborhood on Saturday afternoon, reasoning that whatever mess it was she was entangled in, it was such an ugly thing that it could only be spawned of darkness, carried out in darkness.
And so, again on Saturday night. Again at six-thirty. The 19S8 Plymouth sat as silent sentry, Page Mallory chafed at the nervous tension, at the forced inactivity.
And while he waited, he pondered over the monstrous bombshell that had exploded over St. Clair late that afternoon. As the newspapers had blared forth the news of the ghoulish slaying of "Betty Genaro, 18, of 283 S. Holliman Street, who was identified as late as one o'clock this afternoon by West port police, the crucial clue being a small tattoo upon an undisclosed part of her body. When the victim's parents viewed the-"
Page Mallory shivered violently as he reviewed the story mentally, as he recalled some of the more sickening details of the murder. And still it was not a totally unexpected development. Betty had courted disaster for too long. She'd only got what she'd asked for. And erroneously, as Claudine DeGagne had counted heavily upon, he thought (a? did the Westport and St. Clair Police department) that she'd been killed by one of the many teen-age swains she'll run with, had been promiscuous with.
The squadroom down at the police station was, at this very moment, swarming with boys who were being held for questioning. Mallory himself could tick off at least four such hoodlums he'd expose to rigorous third-degree methods if he were a police officer. Tom Fallon and the half-witted Larry Vermillion headed the list.
Thus Page entertained the same misconception that a hundred per cent of the other St. Clair citizens favored, A juvenile murder, sparked apparently when the scorchy number had teased her boy friend into an uncontrollable fit of rage, had tried turning him off at the last minute. That the Westport police physician had found no evidence of attempted rape, did not enter into it. An adolescent punk, make no mistake about that.
And so, Mallory blindly missed the connecting link between Janel Tracy's deep troubles and the murder. He never in his most fanciful theories connected Claudine DeGagne with the dead, maimed girl. And, certainly, not Claudine with Janel Tracy.
While unknown to him, the final act to this tragic chain of circumstances, like a slow burning fuse, was drawing closer and closer, threatening to involve Janel. And more incredibly, Page Mallory himself.
But he sensed none of this, he felt no clairvoyant terror as he sat in his ear, guarding the Tracy house's front doer. Only wondering impatience. II only something would happen!
And then, abruptly, at eight o'clock, the teetering boulder of fate was pushed off its pedestal, began lumbering downhill, gathering speed. As something did happen.
The something was the appearance of a furtively striding Janel as she broke from a side entrance, hurried down Dunmore Boulevard toward the center of town.
Breathing a heavy sigh of relief, Mallory started his car, waited until Janel was two blocks down before he slowly rolled away from the curb and went in pursuit.
Once, when it seemed she was glancing back too often, he was forced to turn into a side street, circle the block. It was a dangerous maneuver, and he almost lost her.
Until finally, beginning to perspire heavily from the building tension, Page Mallory saw her reach the middle-class section lining Baxter Avenue, saw her anxiously look right and left before she ducked into the vestibule of the rundown apartment building.
Mallory's heart raced. This is it! he thought jubilantly, this is the break I've been waiting for. Now we find out what this rotten mess is all about. And just as soon as he was sure Janel was safely into the building, he drew his Plymouth up closer, until he was about a half block from, and on the same side as the building. Then he killed the engine, sat back to collect himself.
At that same moment, in a house farther across town, an extremely agitated Claudine DeGagne, her face dark with rage, was at the phone, listening to the persistent, buzz-buzz-buzz as her number was rung again and again. He's there, she snarled inwardly. I know he's there. Why doesn't he answer? And in a very disturbed mental state, the sleepless hours since she'd killed Betty Genaro taking their toil, she grew frenzied, suspicioned why it was Neill wasn't answering.
That girl! Betty hadn't lied; she'd told the truth. Neill had her at his apartment with him, he was, at this very moment, jar too busy making love to her to be bothered with such trifles as a ringing phone. Janel Tracy. She was there with him. She was in bed with her Neill!
Abruptly she banged down the telephone receiver. As she turned, rummaged in the drawer for the revolver, as she ran to get her coat, her stare had turned opaque, her face was exact duplicate of the insane frenzy that had masked it less than twenty-four hours ago.
Then she was running from her house, flinging herself into her car.
Page Mallory had left his car, had entered the apartment house foyer. Now he stood studying the name cards on the mail slots, hoping to uncover some clue as to the reason Janel had so stealthily come to this address. It was a bum steer, he was on the verge of concluding, as his eyes scanned the names, recognized none of them. But then, suddenly, he froze, he heard his pulse hammering murderously in his head.
As the name, Mr. Neill C. Porter, leaped out at him.
It seemed his breath had suddenly and savagely been siphoned from his lungs, and he felt actual pain, swayed slightly before the directory. Neill Porter? he thought. What in God's Name does it mean? It can't be. It's too macabre, too weird to even consider. It has to be merest coincidence. It simply has to be.
And he forced himself to scan the names once more. Again his eye was drawn back to Porter's name plate. What did it mean, what could it possibly mean? Seeking to clear his head, to find a less vulnerable place to follow his thoughts to any semblance of logical conclusion, he bolted from the entryway, ran into the night, toward his car.
And there the realization crushed and rolled over him. As he recalled the psychic nudging he'd felt yesterday as he'd talked to Hal Barth in the lounge. What was it he'd said? "He's a different kind of bird altogether?" It had signified something, but in his mood he hadn't followed it through. He wanted to crawl inside his brain and gouge the thought out.
Then, suddenly, it was there. And he recalled the way he'd come up on Porter unobserved during one of those first days of school, had caught him staring at the passing girls, at Janel especially, with a sick yearning.
That's it! he exulted, straightening in his seat. That's the missing piece to the puzzle! The key! Small wonder he'd rejected the rumor about Porter and Miss DeGagne. She wasn't Porter's type. Porter was a nymphette specialist. He'd been using DeGagne for a cover, while he pursued that love closest to his heart.
You louse! he cursed himself. Why didn't you, why couldn't you see this before? Why weren't you able to read through those looks Porter sent Janel in the hall, the way she seemed to cringe when she went past him? It all started about that time. You stupid, stupid louse!
Then, caught up in a titanic rage, wanting to charge the apartment building, to break down the door if need be, to beat die truth out of Porter, to make him reveal what sordid hold he had on her, he moved to break from his car. But better judgment prevailed, and he got control of himself, began considering several different lines of attack. II I'm going to help Janel, I have to do it without making a federal case out of it, without dragging her name in the mud any more than it's already been done.
But at that moment, his deliberations were shattered. As he saw the headlights flash behind him. as he dove for cover. Peering up carefully he saw the big blue Chrysler sweep past him, pull to a lurching stop directly before the apartment building's entance. Instantly the lights were extinguished, he ducked again as he saw the woman driver quickly look around to see if her own arrival had been noted.
Claudine DeGagne! he whistled under his breath. This is getting more complicated by the minute. What in hell's she doing here? Don't tell me she's found out Janel's here, that she's come to protect her interests!
All bafflement compounded upon bafflement.
As, caught up in an indecisive immobility, he sat, watching and waiting, not knowing what to expect, not knowing what his next move should be. If he barged in now, wouldn't he make things inextricably worse? But what to do?
So he sat. Did nothing.
A half hour passed. Then another. Making a total of an hour and a half that he'd been waiting, watching the apartment. And still Janel hadn't re-emerged.
Nevertheless he was prepared to stay all night if need be. If that DeGagne witch could maintain her fiendish watch, certainly he could do no less. He had to be here when Janel came out. Just in case DeGagne tried something.
But as it turned out Page Mallory was little help. For things moved too rapidly for him to cope with them.
The aggressor has the advantage. And Mallory, his mind teeming with a hundred different conjectures, was hardly an aggressor. He was disastrously caught off-guard.
It seemed like some kind of monstrous, surrealistic ballet. Happening slowly, yet with such fluid swiftness that he was mesmerized, bound to his place, horrified by the violence that so suddenly erupted.
He saw no lights go on in Miss DeGagne's car. And with that brief edge, she seeing Janel appearing in the foyer before he did, she stole a strategical march on him. He came awake to the fact that Claudine was circling her car, glancing up and down the street as she did so. Then she was running to meet Janel.
While Janel stood transfixed, an expression of supreme bewilderment on her face. He heard a mumble of voices, a small scream of protest. Then he saw DeGagne's arm rise, he caught a glimpse of silver. Then it slashed Janel across the face. And Janel was sinking sleepily to the ground.
But only halfway. For as suddenly the large woman scooped her up, was hurriedly stuffing her into her car.
"Stop!" Mallory called, finally breaking from his trance, slamming open his door, starting toward the Chrysler.
But he was too late. For already Claudine DeGagne was behind the wheel, was goosing the engine, was screeching away from the curb. Leaving Mallory standing in stunned dismay.
He howled in cursing, guttural frustration as he climbed behind the wheel, turned the key, kicked the accelerator. And found that the car, cranky at being driven at such slow speeds when he'd trailed Janel, wouldn't start. Already the woman was going out of sight, four blocks in the distance.
Still Page gritted curse after curse, put the accelerator to the floor, ground the battery with mulish stubbornness. Kept it grinding and grinding. For ten seconds, twenty seconds, thirty seconds. His rage a towering, monumental thing, he defied the car not to start.
And then, with a coughing, failing rumble, the engine caught, a spark blasted an unfouled plug. Then two and three. Then eight. Half crazy over the lost time, Page raced the motor mercilessly, and the excess gas was burned away.
Now the Plymouth was in gear, hurtling into the night.
He had a suspicion where Claudine DeGagne might be heading. Baxter Avenue, heading north, ran into Highway Thirty at St. Clair's outskirts. It was a little used highway since the new super had gone through south of town. It would be an ideal place to lose one's self, to find a side-road, commit some very private mayhem.
He pushed the speedometer needle to fifty, running two stop lights recklessly, daring some cop to try stopping him. Then he was in open country, he felt his heart leap as he caught sight of the blinking taillights in the far-off distance. It was an elation filled with dread, as he wondered if he might have made a mistake, if perhaps he was trailing the wrong automobile.
The speedometer needle climbed to seventy, now eighty, and he bemoaned the fact that he didn't own a bigger, mere powerful car. He knew the Plymouth's limitations. As well as he knew the reserve power that lay beneath the Chrysler's hood.
As he roared through the dark countryside, saw the white patches of snow blurring past, fighting the wheel savagely on the curves, he became more and more positive that it was Claudine DeGagne ahead. She was outdistancing him gradually, even though he was now doing eighty-five. No one in his right mind would travel Highway Thirty at that speed if he weren't running from something.
It was Claudine, all right. It had to be!
In desperation he cursed, he talked to himself without stop, his voice brittle with emotion. God knows what that madwoman will do to Janel if I don't stop her in time! And he wondered if perhaps, somehow, Claudine hadn't been involved in Betty Genaro's death. Heaven forbid! Not with Janel in her power!
The accelerator was down to the floor now, and little by little the needle crept toward ninety.
Then tragedy struck. For as he came over a steep hill, having lost sight of the Chrysler as he climbed, he saw, to his insane dismay, that the car had disappeared! There was no telltale trace of its tail or headlights anywhere in the stretch of highway ahead of him. Only empty road, hazy reflection on the fallow fields.
Then he saw the smaller hill ahead, providing a pocket in which an auto could be swallowed, and pushed on, hoping against hope.
But when he crested this hill, his heart plummeted like a pail of lead shot. The road ahead was just as barren as the road behind. He was seized by an awesome impulse to pull off, to vent his fury in tears, to ease his failure by kicking and pounding his car.
He did not such thing, however. Instead, taking the only chance left him, realizing Claudine DeGagne's strategy, realizing she'd killed her lights in the last valley, had swerved off onto a county trunk, he U-turned his car viciously, started back.
It was as he came over the top of the bill, that he was blessed by a miraculous stroke of luck. For as he careened down the incline he caught sight of a black, lumbering shape against a hillside, silhouetted against the sere grass. And, almost as if verifying his find, his headlights chipped a sudden scintilla of chromium into the broading darkness.
It was the Chrysler. There was no doubt about it. Dear God, he prayed. Let me get there in time.
He pushed the Plymouth as it had never been pushed before, almost rolling it as he swung off Thirty, sloped up a gravel road the county chose to call Trunk FF. And there, crowded to one shoulder, he saw the car, he saw the two struggling figures beside it.
It seemed his guts turned to mush, his fingers feeling wooden on the wheel, as he saw Janel break away from Claudine, futilely scramble up the hill to the right of the car. As he saw the two fireballs torn into the night, saw Janel lurch and straighten up, then fall, roll like a pathetic rag doll down the incline.
He pushed the accelerator harder, wanting desperately to catch Claudine in the road, to run her down like a mad dog. But she heard him coming, whirled, ran toward the Chrysler, firing two warning shots as she ran.
Mallory ducked reflexively, felt splinters of glass spray his face, slammed the brake" hard The Plymouth spun in the loose gravel, stopped facing opposite line of direction. Wrenching his body around, he saw the Chrysler zooming away, leaving a boiling cloud of dust behind it.
Instinctively dropping the engine into neutral, he was out of his car, running up the road to where the small, still figure lay face down. A dull, oppressive despair clamped his heart. I'm too late. I let her down. I failed her. Janel-
He turned the body carefully, dreading what he would see. His jaw dropped, his blood turned to water as he appraised Claudine's maniac revenge. There were terrible, bloody scratches on Janel's face, evidence of an attempt to disfigure her. The girl's blouse hung in shreds, her brassiere broken, her small breasts bared to the light.
He saw the bloody scratches there the darkened splotched where she'd been sadistically gripped and clawed. The fiend, he raged, hatred etching his brain, wasn't it enough to kill the poor girl?
Furiously he sought a pulse, felt hope soar as he found Janel was still alive. Then he was pulling at her clothes, looking at her everywhere, to determine where she'd been hit. There'd been two shots, where were the wounds? Then he found one, a gaping, bleeding hole in the fleshy part of Janel's thigh. The other bullet had apparently missed. Instantly he was pulling away his scarf, forming a tourniquet.
Janel was out cold, undoubtedly deep in shock, and she never moved throughout. Now Page lifted her light body in his arms, carried her to the car. Arranging her as comfortably as possible in the back seat, he covered her with his overcoat.
Then crowding behind the wheel, he drove as though all the hounds of hell were on his heels.
A police squad car intercepted him as he came into St. Clair. But when the officers saw the white-face girl lying in the back, they hurried to their car. And, with sirens screaming, they preceded him to the hospital.
"We've got to go, Neill," she repeated over and over in dazed shock of her own. "We've got to get away from here. Someone saw me take Janel. It was that Page Mallory. He followed me, he saw me kill Janel. Please, darling, pack some of your things ... we've...."
Porter jerked as though someone had just lashed him across the face, his complexion instantly went white. "Janel? You've killed her? You've really killed her?"
She tried to crowd into his arms, all her cool bravado suddenly gone, desperate to borrow strength and consolation. "Help me, Neill, like I helped you...."
He pushed her away like she was contaminated, his face carved into a stricken, hateful snarl. "Janel?" he said weakly, his loss almost too great to bear. "You don't mean it. You're just playing a game with me." His voice broke. "She can't be dead. She can't be."
He turned on Claudine, his eyes dark with the wildest hatred and contempt. "Why, Claudine? Why did you have to interfere?"
"For you, darling," she wailed, genuinely astonished that Porter was turning on her. "I wanted to help you. You were too weak, too kind and forgiving to deal with the blackmailing little tramp. I...."
His voice lashed in a serpentine hiss. "Don't you dare! Don't call her that. She wasn't a tramp. She was pure, she was...."
"Please, Neill," she tore at his arms, "we can talk later, we can thrash this out some other time. When we're far away from here." Her voice turned hoarse. "Can't I make you understand? That man, Mallory, followed me. He's probably telling the police right now. We've got to pack, get away from here. I've got it all planned. We'll go to Mexico, we'll drive straight through, we'll hide there, live together, be happy together."
"I don't understand," he said softly. "I don't understand what's happened at all. What went wrong?"
"I've got money," she continued, her words tumbling over each other, "enough money to last us a long time. I got it out of the bank this morning. Just in case they found out about Betty."
"Betty?" Porter echoed. "Betty Genaro? Did yon ... kill her too?" The man was gradually, but certainly, sinking into a stupor, the enormity of the crimes he himself had triggered, steam-rollering him.
"Yes, darling. It was the only way out, can't you see that? She would have kept after you, she would have finally succeeded in disgracing you. I planned it so carefully ... no one would have ever been able to trace her murder back to me. We could have gone on here, living happily forever, but then she told me about Janel. That's what ruined it all."
Her features were contorted into an awesome anger. "That little slut, it was all her fault. That rotten dirty."
Neill's hand flashed, caught her across the face, sent her spinning across the room, almost dropped her onto the davenport. "don't, Claudine," he said dreamily. "Don't call her those names. She wasn't like that at all."
For a long time Claudine stood frozen in place, her hand up to her injured face. "I'll forgive you that, darling," she said at last. "I needed it. Now, of all times, we can't let ourselves lose control. Now, please, let's put it all out of our minds. It's over and done with; we'll learn to live with it.
"We've got more important things to think about now. Things like our escape. Oh, Neill, darling, please! Do something! Don't just stand there with that hurt look on your face. Let's get away. Don't take anything. Come the way you are. We'll be gone before the police arrive."
She was exasperated out of all reasonable proportion as the man continued to stand in dumb, motionless indecision. "Please, Neill! I love you, I want to take care of you. I want to be your wife, live with you. Please come with me!"
A steely hardness grew in his eyes, became a lust to hurt and punish. "I'm not going, dear Claudine," he said, a mocking smile forming. "Did you think, did you ever really think I'd go anywhere with you? Did you really believe I could love a grotesque, bloated bag of suet like you?"
"Neill, don't ... Neill, you don't mean that."
"I do mean it, damn you, I do! I loved Janel, I was teaching her to love me. And now you've killed her. Before ... before I'd barely begun."
"You don't mean that, Neill," she gasped, fighting not to believe the stunning words, fighting to make excuses for her beloved Neill. "You don't really."
"I do mean it!" he spat. "She was lovely and fresh and innocent. I loved her. With all my heart. I'd have done anything for her." His tone changed, became anguished. "I loved her, do you understand? And now she's gone."
"Neill," she coaxed, using her last ounce of fore-bearance. "You're upset, you don't know what you're saying. Come with me. We'll be happy, I know we will."
"Happy?" he groaned. "How could I ever be happy with you? After Janel's beauty, her youth. It turns my stomach to even look at you, to compare...."
A glittering frenzy flared in his gaze, a dare and a taunt. Invitation to violence. "Do you want to prove your love to me now?" he smirked. "You twisted slime. Come here, right now. Kneel down. I'll let you." He sliced off the remaining words like he was sawing salami, an insane venom behind each one. "And-when-you-are-through-I'll-spit-in-your-face."
It was the final and intolerable insult. A livid snarl on her lips, Claudine turned, groped in her handbag.
"Shoot," Porter dared her when he saw the gun. His smile was almost beatific, expectant. "Do me a big favor." She hesitated, confusion growing on her face. Until he drove home the intolerable, infuriating barb. " You bag. You frowsy, beat up old bag!"
She brought up the revolver, shot him at point blank range, the bullet making a small hole in the center of his forehead, the impact driving him back like someone had jerked his neck with a hawser rope. Then he was on the floor, staring lifelessly at the ceiling, his body entangled in the legs of the chair his plunging fall had overturned.
The concussive blast of the revolver in the small room closed her ears. It seemed like fluorescent, red flecks were dancing before her eyes. The smell of cordite was pungent and strong in her nostrils.
Then she heard the commotion in the hall, wheeled.
The rubberneck tenants froze before her malevolent stare, they became respectful petrifications at sight of the revolver. And Miss DeGagne walked down the hall, down the stairs to a breathless silence, no one raising a hand to stop her.
But when she came to the apartment house foyer her panic was multiplied a hundred-fold. For she saw the squadron of cars drawing up outside, she heard the blaring, metallic burn-out of police sirens.
And not thinking, moving on instinct alone, she bolted from the door, raced toward her car.
"That's her!" she heard a familiar voice call. She wheeled, took aim, fired her last shot. Then sensed a brain-shriveling terror as she saw a policeman fall.
Instantly ten other service revolvers opened up on her, and her body lurched, slammed hard against the side of her car, slowly slid down. Page Mallory felt an almost sexual satisfaction and joy as he saw her jerk in agony and fall, as he saw the bullets puncture her pretty car, demolish the window.
There was really no need to check her pulse. But it was done as matter of course. "She's gone," the gruff-voiced detective grunted. "She was dead before the third bullet hit her."
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
It was March. And though in Wisconsin the snow was still piled window high, here in Arizona it was hot and dry, the days already in the eighties, signal that the desert summer was drawing closer.
Janel paused in her labors, looked up happily from her school assignments, diverted by the sound of children's voices as they passed outside, on their way home from school. Her heart warmed as she glanced at the clock. Eleven-thirty. Soon Page would be home also.
She closed her social studies text, stretched with delicious luxuriousness. Then she rose. Time to start making house-wife sounds, she mused smilingly. She crossed the kitchen, rummaged about in the shelves. Soup and sangwiches, she decided, lapsing into the baby-talk patois she and Page still indulged themselves in.
Soup and sandwiches, she repeated in idiotic refrain, bustling around the kitchen with gradually growing wifely efficiency. Soup and sangwiches. Her eyes glowed ferally all at once. And maybe something else.
Dessert. Of the most exciting, wonderful sort.
And as she worked in her small kitchen, as she set the table, made things tidy for Page, there was also time for reveries, both pleasant and unpleasant.
II someone had told me six months ago that before my senior year was out I'd be married, living in Phoenix, Arizona, taking my last semester by correspondence courses, I'd have personally signed their committment papers.
And her thoughts flicked back still farther, a small, pained frown formed on her forehead. All the way back. To the gruesome remainder of that December, the horrible nightmare Christmas had been. When, after they brought her home from the hospital, physically healed, able to walk with only a slight limp, she'd almost completely lost her hold on sanity. It had been a near nervous breakdown, her parents and Page told her afterward, when she'd been able to see things clearly once more, when she hadn't leaped and screamed at the least noise.
But that was all gone now, she thought, pouring soup into a sauce pan. Page had seen to that. A lump formed in her throat. My dear Page. If it hadn't been for him-
Under the circumstances there was no question of her remaining in school, or even afterward, when she was well again, going back trying to catch up. The second semester would just have to go down the drain.
And now, under the strangest of all arrangements, they'd fled St. Clair, Page breaking his contract at midterm, they'd gone someplace to start over. To a place completely different from Wisconsin A place where there were no disturbing memories, where they could try their fledgling wings as man and wife.
It was all due to a tenacious campaign Page Mallory had waged and won.
In all Tightness of conscience Mr. and Mrs. Paul Tracy could not forbid the man's visits to their sick daughter, older or not. For after all, when the complete story was out, wasn't it due to the persistent, loyal Mr. Mallory that their daughter was still alive at all? For if he hadn't interceded as he did, wouldn't that deranged DeGagne woman have killed her? Just as she'd killed and mutilated Betty Genaro?
It had been those constant visits, Page's constant avowal of love and promise of marriage that had helped bring Janel through that time of crisis. And in the bargain, it had been the after-visits, in the Tracy living room, that had charmed first Helene, then Paul Tracy, had made them concur on the opinion that Page Mallory would, indeed, make a fine husband for their daughter.
There was more, so much more to it, Janel conceded. But it was not important. What was important was that finally Page had convinced her parents that it was best that she get away from St. Clair and all its forbidding memories, that she escape as Mrs. Page Mallory.
Of course, the wealthy Paul Tracy was able to throw his weight around St. Clair, with both the police and the newspapers. He was able to suppress most of the unsavory details of Janel's predicament. So far as the good townspeople of St. Clair ever found out, Janel had been victim of unexplained coercion by Neill Porter, and had thus become involved in an ugly quadrangle, emerging as the only living member, when Claudine DeGagne had let her jealousy unhinge her.
But even so, it was a repellent story, and it was not something the Tracys wanted their daughter to be daily confronted with, to have cowering in its shadow. Human beings being what they are, letting their imaginations work overtime, he'd decided it would be best if Janel disappeared from St. Clair one dark night, never be seen again. At least not until the ugly rumors had died down.
And more important, somewhere along the line, as they'd fought first for their daughter's life, then her mentality, and finally her reputation, they had come to understand how the frightened, helpless child could have ever become so victimized in the first place. In understanding is forgiveness, and when Janel left St. Clair their love, their sense of family was stronger than it had ever been.
As solid testament to this new relationship and feeling of duty was the fact that Mr. and Mrs. Tracy were not deserting their daughter and her husband. There would be no lack of financial support as they started out, Mr. Tracy even offering to stake Page to a more lucrative career in Arizona if he so wished. But Page hadn't wished; he was happy with teaching, felt that, despite the low salaries paid, he had found his niche.
And, of course, offer within offer, it was clearly understood that the Tracys would also pick up the tab for Janel's college education. If she wanted she could go to Arizona U. at Tempe. she would net, because of the tragic circumstances she'd faced, he cheated of her birthright. Thus the intensive cramming en the correspondence courses so Janel could start at the University this fall. She desperately wanted her degree. So she could be, for a time, helpmate to her husband. And even more vita!
-so she could remain interesting as a woman and wife, be worthy of his love.
Now Janel looked up with a smile, stopped her stirring. As she heard their car rumble into the driveway. Page was home! She smoothed her hair, fussed with her skirt. From all this sadness-all this happiness, she rejoiced. Then she ran to meet him.
Lunch was quickly vanquished. As was Page's report on the morning's scuttlebutt from Madison High. Then he looked up, caught his lovely wife staring at him with tigress concentration, an unmistakable something in her eyes.
"Dessert?" he said.
She rose, stretched languorously, giving him full profile of her maturing body. "Mmmm," she breathed. Then came behind his chair, slowly bent his head back, kissed him softly, lingeringly on his lips. While her pretty fingers played with his ears. "What kind of dessert do you have in mind?" she said in bawdy invitation, raising one eyebrow with gamin provocativeness.
He laughed, pulled her down again, kissed one "but breast, then the other. "Don't tell me. Let me guess."
Janel smiled seductively, drew away. Then she sauntered slowly from the kitchen, wriggling her buttocks exaggeratedly, looking back over her shoulder once, her eyes sultry and come-hither.
"You little sexcat," he chuckled appreciatively as he entered the bedroom, found her already naked, lying in a tempting pose on the bed, her body haloed in golden luminence from the sunlight filtering through the blinds, "you're getting to be quite a woman all of a sudden."
"I've been around," she purred kittenishly. "After all, I'm all of eighteen. Almost nineteen."
"You she devil," he said, pulling off his under-shorts. He came to her completely naked, his readiness undeniable. "No wonder I sleepwalk through all my afternoon classes."
She giggled. "You asked for dessert, didn't you? If you're not hungry, you're free to leave any time you want to."
"I'm free to fly to the moon with a handful of feathers too." Then he was sitting on the edge of the bed, his arms bracing him as he leaned to kiss her already turgid, aching nipples. "Mmmm, nummo," he sighed. "I love you, you little pagan."
She squirmed on the bed, released a happy sigh. "I love you too, baby. Mmm, that feels nice. Real nice."
He raised his head, looked down on her breasts, his eyes darting from one, then to another. It was a trick that never failed to arouse the most erotic tingle within Janel. Almost immediately she felt her nipples puckering, going hard. "Are you having fun?" she smiled.
"Decidedly," he said, affecting an English accent. "Pip, pip and all that rot. In fact, two pips."
"Honey, stop. You're not being very nice."
"No?" He lowered his lips to the pink buttons again. "You want me to stop?"
She twisted her hands in his hair. "Mmm, no. I don't want you to stop."
But he did anyway. Again he raised himself, studied her nipples. Watched them crinkle again. When they were hard, he began to play with them with his fingers, to gently pinch and pull them. "I'll never fail to be amazed," he said reverently, "at how beautiful they are. How firm and velvety they feel. I love to look at them, I love to play with them."
"I love to have you play with them," Janel sighed. Her hips twitched involuntarily. "Whew! You're gonna have to call the fire department in a minute. Either that or buy asbestos sheets."
His hand crept lower on her belly. Still lower. "One, two, three, testing," he laughed.
"Stop that. Don't talk naughty."
"Just do naughty. Is that right?"
Her eyes became sultry. "You said it, I didn't."
He was licking her breasts again. Once more he raised himself, watched the nipples stiffen. "Please, honey?" she sighed, her eyes molten with desire.
"Please what?"
"You're going to be late for school."
He smiled devilishly. "You've got a point there." His fingers grazed her nipples. "In fact, two of them."
"Darling," she prompted, "it's almost one. You'll be late if you don't hurry."
"I've got a good excuse," he said. "I'll just tell old man Nelson I was doing my homework, and lost all track of time."
"Some homework," she said lazily, feeling the sweet wanting slowly filling her, like warm water trickling through her veins, a slow drop at a time.
Then he was crouching over her, she was opening her body to him. Her hands were going forward to meet him. To welcome and guide him. "Yes," he agreed. "Some homework."
"Teacher," she mimed in squeaky falsetto. "Will you make me stay after class today?"
"I might at that. Depends on how well you've learned your lesson."
"That's what I like about being married to a teacher," she said, her breath snagging as he took her. "If I do anything wrong, he always makes me do it over again."
They both began to giggle. And then, as their bodies became as one, as their limbs locked and embraced and wrestled, they forgot to giggle.
The sounds they made were quite different now.
As teacher and pupil worked assiduously to perfect the day's assignment.
"Mmmm," Janel murmured throatily. "Practice does make perfect after all."
