Teen-age Sharon was eager to learn, but not in the classroom, she preferred to learn love behind the lobster pots, from a host of willing schoolmates. With the more timid, she was willing to teach. She moonlighted so eagerly that she almost flunked algebra, but she presented the teacher with a voluptuous figure that could only add up one way. In America as a Civilization, the noted social critic Max Lerner writes: "By comparison with the Restoration Period of sexual license in England and the eighteenth-century sexual revolution in France, the new American sexual orientation is far more pervasive ... The important fact here is that a shift has taken place from the commercial to the private sexual release...." The Torture Club's vile orgies were both private and commercial ... and fatal, for the innocent-and not-so-innocent girls who were sacrificed to sate the warped lusts of its monstrous members. A short slide downhill to the brutal embraces of a gang of motorcycle hoods ... to the lecherous leers of filmless photographers....
CHAPTER ONE
I guess I've always been real keen on sex, starting back a few years ago when I was thirteen or so, but it wasn't until last week, the day after I turned sixteen, that I found out what sex was all about.
That was when I got sexed up for the first time. Like with all my clothes off and going all the way.
And I mean all the way. Several different ways, in fact. Boy, was I dumb a week ago. Back then, when I was just a kid, I thought sex meant just one thing. Conventional, like.
Mr. Enright taught me different. With bells on!
He did more things for me-and I did more things for him-than I'd ever even guessed could happen. Than I'd hoped for plenty, believe me.
Since I mentioned sexing it up with a Mr. Enright, I guess you've figured out by now that I'm a girl or if you thought I was a boy, shame on you.
My name is Sharon Chablis, and I live-or used to live-in a crummy little fishing town in Maine called Denaquid. Honest. They have lots of funny names like that for towns in Maine.
Like I say, I'm a girl-and not badly built for a girl, if I do say so myself. 38-24-38. How's that for a sixteen-year-old girl?
Not bad, I say. And the only reason I say it is that a lot of boys and quite a few men have told me I have pretty terrific dimensions, and even though I know most of them were just trying to flatter me so they could get my panties off, I think they knew the score.
This Mr. Enright, the one who got my panties off and taught me all about sex-well, maybe not all about sex, but the first few chapters anyway-was my algebra teacher.
He went and drowned himself the next day, but that sure wasn't my fault. I only seduced him and did all kinds of things with him to make him happy. And keep me from flunking Algebra II.
I suppose if you're a normal human being with hot, sexy blood in your veins, you're more interested in what Mr. Enright and I did together than why we did it.
So if you're too hot-blooded and healthy to care why, I suggest you just skip the next few paragraphs and join me again when I start describing the sexy things we did in bed-and other places-together.
For other people, people who like to know who they're reading about and stuff like that, I should explain that I was born in Denaquid, Maine (population four thousand) on account of my old man and my mother lived there.
My dad was a lobster fisherman, which isn't too bad a life-like he used to make twelve or fifteen grand a year though he never told that to the tax people-but it isn't too good, either, on account of it's real dangerous fishing alone in winter, and that's what happened to my dad when I was thirteen: they just found his boat empty, so most likely he got his foot caught in a line and went over and drowned, which is real easy to do in March when the water is like close to zero degrees and you fish alone.
My mother brought me up alone after that. And the less said about my mother the better. Like my old man was bad enough, but at least he didn't nag me all the time. I'd a whole lot rather be beaten now and then, even if I didn't deserve being beaten, than be nagged all the time.
My mother was real good at nagging. Especially about sex. And boys. Which she figured meant the same thing. Which they did, more or less.
Like, one time she caught me in my bedroom reading after I was supposed to be asleep. I couldn't ever read with the light on because she'd see the light under the door of her room and yell for me to turn it off. So what I used to do was pull the covers up over my head and read by flashlight.
Well, this night she caught me the first time, I was under the covers reading about this girl-Candy, I think her name was-who had all kinds of exciting adventures with men and similar creatures. And what with being under the covers and getting all excited reading this book, I was naturally kind of perspiring. Also I'd been kind of fooling around with my hands, just rubbing and stroking a little where I itched, and that naturally got me a bit hot and bothered.
So when my mother all of a sudden yanked the covers off me I was kind of flushed and sweaty. Well. You wouldn't believe the things she called me-especially after she thumbed through the book.
After that she used to call me real bad names, like you little mould-be harlot and so forth. Would you believe it? I didn't even know what harlot meant then-I had to look it up, and it took me three months to find the word on account of I didn't know how it was spelled.
That's how innocent I was.
Of course, I used to fool around with boys. Even in Denaquid, Maine, boys know how to make a girl excited. I guess boys all over the world must exchange information, because they sure know a lot more than girls, at least the girls I grew up with.
Not that I did anything bad, really. I just used to sit and talk with boys and then, when they stopped talking, I'd just sit and say nothing while they felt me up.
How can that be bad-doing nothing? I didn't tell them to reach for my breasts and kind of stroke them and tickle them. I didn't tell them to slide their hands up under my skirt and fool with my thighs and my stomach and so forth.
I was always taught, when I was real little that bad girls were girls who did bad things. Me, I didn't do anything. I just sat there. While boys did things to me.
Nice things. Like touching me where it felt good to be touched. I didn't ask them to touch me-they just did. Was I supposed to stop them or something?
I suppose so. At least that's what my mother told me after she caught me sitting talking to Lew Carter back behind where my dad's old lobster pots were stacked.
You'd think I'd been having an orgy or something, the way she carried on. All on account of I'd been sitting on Lew's lap while he fooled around with me.
Just on account of he was kind of tickling me. So what if I didn't have any panties on? It was a real hot night. Why does a girl have to wear panties in August?
Girls who wear panties are frigid, anyhow. At least, that's what Ronnie Snow had told me the night before. So that next night, when I'd told Lew I'd meet him to talk after supper, I didn't wear any panties. I mean, I didn't want all the boys in town to think I was abnormal or something.
But you should have heard what my mother said!
Real bad things.
After that she didn't let me go out alone at all. Except after she was asleep. And my mother used to sleep real hard, on account of she has this heart condition and has to drink wine for her health. After about ten o'clock or maybe eleven you could set off a bomb and she wouldn't hear it!
At least, she never heard me open my window and wriggle out. To meet some boy I wanted to talk over homework with.
Not that I ever let any boy get real fresh with me. Like who wants to get pregnant at fifteen? Not me. And I couldn't find out how not to, so I stayed real virtuous.
Hands only, that was my motto-and you can't get more virtuous or less pregnant than with a motto like that.
That's one thing a girl has over boys. Like, a girl can fool around with a boy all she wants, and he won't stop her or chicken out because he's afraid of consequences. Boys can't get pregnant, which is an argument in favor of being a boy.
On the other hand, like I say, a girl can get a lot more fresh with a boy-have all the fun she wants without any fear of resistance.
Like the time I sneaked out the window to meet Larry Egars. Larry was a year younger than me, just a kid, and ordinarily I wouldn't have even spit at him, only he lived right next door and he was always buying me things, like sodas and candy, and he was kind of big for his age, so finally, after he asked me a dozen hundred times, I said okay, I'd slide out my window and talk to him after my mother was asleep. Which I did.
Right away he started acting romantic, only in a real crude way. He started pawing my boobies and then, a couple minutes later, he let out this funny kind of gasp and said: "Ain't-aren't you wearin' nothing' under...."
Then he stopped talking and slid his hand inside the shirt I was wearing and made this funny grunting sound. I mean, he really figured a girl would be wearing a bra after she agreed to meet a boy in back of her house close to midnight!
You'd think he'd never felt a girl's breasts before the way he kept pawing and squeezing mine! What a yeck he was. Finally I pushed his hands away and unbuttoned my shirt and pulled it wide apart so he could see what a real girl's boobs looked like by moonlight and said, "All right, are those what you want to drool over?"
I never spoke truer words. Right off he started to drool over them. He started kissing me and slobbering all over me and licking me like boobs were going out of style.
No finesse, if you know what I mean.
Sure, a girl likes her breasts to be touched and fondled and kissed and all that-but not by some young creep that acts like a dog slurping up gravy.
So after a while I pushed him away, thinking you can bet that I'd made a big mistake agreeing to meet him when I could be home under the covers reading a purple paperback book.
"What did I do wrong, Sharon?" he asked in a real sad tone.
"Nothing," I told him. "You just aren't doing things right is all."
"Well, what should I do, Sharon?" he asked.
So far as I'm concerned, when a boy has to ask a girl what to do next, that's the limit. I should have told Larry to go stick his head in a lobster pot or something. I didn't, though, on account of it was a hot night and I didn't really feel like reading under the covers.
So I told him to go on enjoying my breasts, but more slowly and sensuously (sensuous being a word I'd learned from reading paperback books).
Larry nodded and started rubbing my breasts again, but real briskly, like he was polishing a couple of doorknobs.
"Slowly," I told him. "Pretend-pretend you're rubbing suntan oil on my skin. Only in slow motion."
That did the trick. He started polishing an stroking just right.
"Yeah," I gasped. "Yeah that's just fine! Now squeeze me a little, like-ouch! I said squeeze, not pinch! Yeah. Yeah, that's better."
And I lay back on the grass and smiled at the moon and enjoyed the feel of Larry's hands kneading and fondlin' my breasts. A couple minutes later Larry kind of gasped.
"What's wrong?" I asked softly.
"Your-your things. They fed-different.
I laughed. "Silly boy. Didn't you know a girl's nipples swell and stick out when she gets excited? It's a known bilogical fact that certain parts of the human anatomy get all swollen with passion if they're sexually stimulated."
"Girls too, huh?" said Larry. "Gosh, you sure know a lot, Sharon.
"Shut up," I said quietly. "Shut up and start kissing me. Here." I touched my nipples. "Uh-huh. That's it. Just-ouch! I said kiss, not bite!"
"Sorry," said Larry. "Did T hurt you?"
"No," I said. "And it's even okay to bite a girl where you bit me-only start with lots of kissing. And then bite gently. Pretend-pretend you're a beagle carrying a bird in your mouth."
"Huh?" said Larry.
"Never mind," I said, realizing that poetic images were wasted on a yeck like Larry. "Just don't bite too hard."
Larry muttered something in reply, but I couldn't make out what he said, mainly because his mouth was back on my left breast. He was improving fast, technique-wise I had to admit.
Now he was kissing me with more suction, just about inhaling the whole front end of my boob. Also he'd started using his tongue, circling my aching nipple with its tip, teasing and sliding against both the soft and the hard flesh of my breast.
Oh yes, I thought, it may be true that old beagles can't learn new tricks, but young boys sure can. And then some!
Meanwhile Larry was making happy grunting sounds through his nose (I did wish he sounded a little less like a pig), and had clamped the vacuum cleaner of his lips to my other breast.
"You're doing fine," I encouraged, still staring at the moon and wondering if it really looked like the pictures I'd seen on TV or had they faked the whole thing in Hollywood to make the Russians feel small.
(That's a bad habit of mine-thinking of other things when a boy is making love to me. Though ii only happens when I'm just starting to be made love to. When the going gets really exciting, I don't think about astronomy or things like that at all.)
Larry went on pulling at my flesh with his kisses, and his tongue went on stroking and poking me in pleasant places.
"That-that's very good," I complimented him, hardly looking at the moon at all now. "But it's more fun if you use your hands and your mouth. At the same time."
The reason I said this was that Larry, like lots of inexperienced boys playing games with a girl, had the bad habit of feeling me up just with his hands first, and then with his mouth while his hands did nothing, and then with just his hands again.
Larry relaxed the iron grip his hands had taken on my shoulders. At the same time his tongue stopped tickling my nipple.
"No, Larry," I said patiently, staring at the moon again and feeling some kind of insect crawling up my bare leg, "don't stop kissing me. Or using your tongue. Use your hands and fingers as well."
Larry gurgled and began kissing and tongue-stroking my breast and nipple again while his hand-his right hand at least, and one hand was better than none, I decided-reached for my other breast and began to knead and fondle it.
"That's more like it," I gasped. "Keep it up. Yeah! Now just slide your other hand down here-I guided his hand down to my stomach. I'd already pulled my skirt up to my waist to make things easy.
Larry began to pat me on the belly.
"Don't pat-stroke," I urged him and pretty soon he was stroking me with a gentle, circular motion that made my flesh tingle all over.
First he began stroking me in a small, shy circle centered on my navel. Finally he began to widen the circle, his hand sliding up to my waist, over to my hips, then down-but not far enough down. He avoided my most torrid zone like it was out of bounds or something. Finally I just grabbed his hand and placed it where I wanted it. He let it just lie there, and everything else stopped too. He was sure a shy one!
"You paralyzed or something?" I asked, kind of annoyed, as any red-blooded girl would have been in my place.
"Gosh, Sharon," he said, "I-I never got so so fresh with a girl before!"
"You call it fresh?" I said. "I call it being friendly. I kind of itch there, Larry. Won't you scratch my itch?"
He did just that. "Ouch!" I snarled. "Not with your fingernails! Use the ends of your fingers. Be gentle. Forceful but gentle. Yeah, that's better.
But it wasn't much better, to be honest. Larry really lacked finesse. Finesse being a French word meaning delicacy of manipulation, at least according to the Oxford Universal Dictionary.
I thought about asking him to kiss me instead South of the Border, that is. But if he was so shy he could hardly get his hand going, I didn't figure he'd show any finesse in that kind of kissing.
That's the trouble with a lot of boys-young boys. They come on like the U.S. Cavalry, but when the chippies are down (joke!) and the skirt is up they get cold feet. Or fingers.
Not that it wasn't pleasant feeling Larry's hand kind of touch me-like I might explode-and feeling his lips and tongue fool with my breasts. But I pretty soon reached what they call a plateau, which means I wasn't getting any more excited.
So I sat up. Larry kind of scrambled away, figuring he'd hurt me or insulted me, I suppose.
"You ... you mad or something?" he whispered.
"No", I told him, "just bored."
Poor Larry. The yeck sat there in the moonlight with his eyes looking as sad as a kicked spaniel. I noticed his hands were kind of trembling, too. He'd sure got nervous. Most likely I was the first girl he'd ever played with in the moonlight without any bra or panties.
All of a sudden, instead of being mad at him I felt sorry for him.
"Lie down," I told him. "On your back."
He stretched out really stiff, like I was preparing to operate on him or something.
"Relax," I told him. "I won't hurt you. Just want to see what you have in your pocket. This pocket, for instance." I grabbed a zipper tab, pulled.
Larry kind of gurgled. "That-that isn't a pocket," he gasped.
"Sure it is," I told him. "What you got in your pocket?"
Larry just gasped some more while I fumbled around. And then, "Hey," he said weakly.
"Doesn't look like hay to me," I said.
"Uh-look!" replied Larry as I began to fondle and caress him. I let my fingers grip him, tease him, squeeze him, tap him-where I figured he'd most like to be touched.
And he responded. Right away he responded! He began to kind of squirm and writhe around on the grass, moaning low-but happy.
I went on tickling and touching him.
I got hold of his right thumb, and first I gripped the base of his thumb, kind of shaking it around. Then I began to slide my fingers up his thumb, slowly, squeezing and teasing as I slid.
Pretty soon I reached the tip of his thumb, and I squeezed and tickled there. I licked the ends of my fingertips, so they'd be easy sliding, and I slid them around and around the tip of his right thumb.
Larry began to grunt like a little pig again.
I slid my fingers back and forth, then around and around, keeping one hand around the shaft of his thumb while the fingers of the other slid back and forth, around and around at the tip.
Larry began to gasp and gurgle up a storm.
"Like that, huh?" I said. "How come you boys all know what you like done for you, but you get all bashful about doing the same favor for a girl?"
He didn't answer me. He was too busy writhing and gurgling.
Me, I kept on fondling, squeezing, tickling.
Not for long, though. Pretty soon he made this funny kind of real strangled gasp, and then began to kind of jump and twitch like he was being jabbed in the rear with a gaff hook.
"Oh!" he gasped. "Ah!"
I sat back and grinned. "Thought you'd appreciate that. Now, how'd you like to make me happy-the same way?"
Larry didn't say anything for a while. He just lay on his back gasping. His face was real flushed. I couldn't see any colors by moonlight, of course, but I could tell his face was flushed on account of it looked so much darker than it had been.
"Well?" I whispered.
Larry sat up and kind of wriggled until he was facing away from me, then began adjusting his clothes and zipping his zipper.
"I-I got to go now, Sharon," he said at last, getting to his feet none too steadily. "It-it's late."
"Hey!" I blurted. "You aren't going to just go off and-and leave me here? Didn't you like what I did?"
"Sure," he said in this real low, real funny voice. "Yeah, I guess I liked it okay. Only...."
"Only what?" I demanded.
"Only, well, I don't think it's the kind of thing a nice girl would do. And I promised my folks that as long as I lived I wouldn't have anything to do with girls that weren't nice."
And with that he lurched off into the night, leaving me-well, unrequited, you might say.
Well.
It was a good thing for Larry Egars that I was so surprised I didn't know what to do for a few minutes. Otherwise I'd have like killed him.
As it was I opened my mouth to yell just what I thought of him, only I remembered just in time that I was right behind my house and my mother would hear me for sure if I yelled.
So I shut my mouth.
But you can bet I was mad enough to kill inside. I wanted to kill Larry Egars in all kinds of horrible ways.
Right then and there I swore to myself that never, ever again would I waste my time on boys. Young boys. From now on when I fooled around, I'd fool around with men. Grown men. Grown men like a girl to play around with them-they appreciate a girl who goes out of her way to make them happy. Sexually speaking, that is. At least, all the grown men in the paperbacks I've read felt that way, or anyhow acted that way.
So after calling Larry Egars every filthy name I could think of-though quietly, so as not to wake anybody up-I went back to bed.
And thought about grown men and sex.
CHAPTER TWO
It wasn't eight then that I decided to seduce Mr. Enright, though. That idea came to me about a week later, after I saw Dr. Physche (pronounced fish). He really started me off, sex-wise.
What happened was that the morning after Larry Egars had proved himself such a yeck, I was naturally kind of sullen and annoyed. Then I caught my mother looking at me thoughtfully.
"Sharon," she said, "have you been doing something wicked and shameful again?"
"Of course not, mother," I said, chewing up a piece of toast.
"Then you're sick," said my mother, pouring a little more brandy into her black coffee-my mother always puts brandy in her coffee in the morning. On account of her health, she says. To get looped early, I always figured.
"Yes," she went on, "you do look sick. Very sick I'd better make an appointment with Dr. Physche. Have him give you a thorough examination."
Well, I knew I wasn't the least bit sick, and there had been a time I'd have given my mother an argument. But not any more. I'd long ago figured out it was easier to go along with most of what she wanted. It saved being yelled at so much, anyhow.
My mother was always thinking I was sick-or else being wicked. After I left home I had this affair with a doctor who'd studied psychiatry, and he told me the reason she always thought T was wicked or sick or both was because she was what the head-shrinkers call projecting. That meant, he said, that my mother had always wanted to be real wicked herself, but hadn't had the nerve, so she figured I was wicked on account of she subconsciously thought everybody felt like she did-if that makes sense. And the reason she always thought I was sick, the guy told me, was that deep down she didn't like me, and deep down hoped I was sick. Well, I can tell you, I would have punched that doctor right in the nose-notwithstanding he'd just made love to me and we were lying in bed naked only I all at once realized he was right. My mother never had liked me, any more than I'd liked her!
But like I was saying, she told me she was going to make an appointment with Dr. Physche, and she did.
So I got examined-all over. "Well, you're not," said Dr. Physche cheerfully while I was putting my clothes back on.
"Not what?" I asked.
"Not pregnant," said Dr. Physche cheerfully. "Your mother seemed to think you might be. But you're not only not pregnant, you obviously, her, heh, haven't even come close. Kind of refreshing, finding a sixteen-year-old girl who's still a virgin."
"I'm not quite sixteen yet," I said coldly. "Oh. Well! Maybe that explains it. Well, you can tell your mother you're not the least bit gravid, and have the constitution of a-well, of a healthy young girl. Only one little thing wrong with you: Nothing to worry about, understand. A simple operation will fix you up. I'll see about booking you into the hospital some time this year."
"For what?" I shrieked. "What's wrong with me?"
"Nothing, dear girl, nothing. Nothing unusual, that is. It's just that I expect that some day you'll find, uh, Mr. Right, and tie the nuptial knot." I looked at him.
"You'll get married," he explained. "And naturally you'll want to raise a family; contribute your bit to the population explosion. You see, Sharon, you have a very common, very minor condition that...." and he launched into this long discussion of what was wrong with me.
Only I didn't think of it that way. Boiled down, what he said was that until I had this minor operation, I couldn't get pregnant.
And he called that something wrong! All this time I'd been going around being real virtuous, and all on account of I didn't know what to do to keep from getting pregnant.
Oh, I knew the theories, all right. I knew the different things mature girls could do. But I didn't know where I could find out what I should do, Maine being the backward state it is, and Danaquid being the creepy little town it is.
And all along I couldn't have made a baby if I'd tried. Only I hadn't tried.
I had just discovered my built-in safety factor and Dr. Physche wanted to remove it! For my own good! Wow!
I walked home feeling kind of light-headed. But happy.
"Well," said my mother when I got home, "when may we expect this woods colt that will shame me and my entire family?"
"I'm not pregnant," I told her. "I'm still a virgin. Call Dr. Physche if you don't believe me."
She didn't, so she called him. He convinced her.
After that she was almost polite to me-that evening, anyway. Me, I didn't care; I was thinking of other things. Like all the good times I'd missed already.
One thing was sure: If I didn't have to worry at all about getting pregnant, there was no reason I shouldn't start having fun right away.
But with whom? Who first, that is? I thought about it all evening, and then all night until I fell asleep, and most of the time in school the next day.
Then Mr. Enright made up my mind for me. My last class was Algebra II, and just before school let out Mr. Enright called me up to his desk and asked me to stay a minute after class. Which I did.
"Miss Chablis," he said, frowning at his pencil, "I know how much your mother struggles to send you to school, and how much good grades mean to her. But, considering the execrable exam paper you turned in, I very much fear that I have no choice but to fail you this semester. You just don't seem to grasp algebra."
He went on talking, but I didn't listen. I was busy thinking. I thought all the way home, too, and all during supper. What I was thinking of was this paperback book I'd read: Dutchess Dunhill's Darling.
The heroine had been a girl with exactly my dimensions (38-24-38), and whenever she wanted something she offered some man the cloying, passionate drink that was her body. (That being a phrase from the book.)
And she always got it, too. Just by offering-and giving-some guy a cloying, passionate guzzle or two. I wondered if Mr. Enright was in need of a cloying, passionate drink. Most likely he was, I decided. Mr. Enright, who teaches ancient history and geometry as well as algebra at Denaquid High School, is elderly-about forty-five-real skinny, and a widower.
His wife had been dead almost ten years, which appeared to mean he'd been without drink for a long time. With any luck, I decided, he ought to be real thirsty.
I went to bed right after supper. My mother asked if I was sick and I said yes, to make her happy. For a while I could hear her wine bottle clinking against her glass. Then I heard her bedroom door close, and a while later I heard her start to snore.
I got out of bed, showered, sprayed My Undoing all over me, even under my arms, put a lot of lipstick on my mouth and a little on my nipples, slipped on a thin summer dress with no bra or panties underneath, climbed out my window and went to call on Mr. Enright.
His house was around the point, about a quarter-mile from the bay. It was near midnight, and most people in Denaquid go to bed real early, so I got there without meeting anybody.
There was a light burning in the front window of his house. I walked across his lawn quietly, which wasn't hard since I was barefoot. His shades were down, but one wasn't pulled all the way, so I crouched down and peeked under it.
His living room was real untidy-which figured, since men living alone are kind of sloppy. Then I saw Mr. Enright. He was sitting sprawled in an easy chair, wearing old pants and no shirt. He was sipping beer from a can and reading a copy of Zowie Magazine.
Which meant he wasn't too old to care about sex, seeing as how Zowie! is ninety-five per cent pictures of naked girls-the other five per cent being ads for sexy books and sexy home movies.
While I watched, Mr. Enright took a long sip of beer and unfolded the middle part of the magazine. He looked at the centerfold picture a long time, then sucked in his breath and let out a long sigh. I knew then just what he was looking at, too, since I'd sneaked a look at the current Zowie! in the town drugstore: the bonus baby this month was a big, stupid-looking blonde with her mouth open and her boobs hanging out like watermelons.
Well, so far so good. What next? What would Mr. Enright say when I knocked at his door? Come in, you cloying drink of passion...? Or, Miss Chablis, go straight home. I intend to telephone your mother at once...?
A problem. But then I had a bright idea. I walked along by the side of the house until I found his garden hose. I turned it on low, let the water dribble all over me, even over my hair. It was cold, but not all that cold, on account of the hose must have been lying in the sun all day.
When I was wet all over I went to the front door, knocked once, then opened the door and marched in. Lurched in, rather. Mr. Enright glanced up at me over the top of his magazine. His jaw fell open just like in the movies, and he shot to his feet, his beer can flying in one direction, Zowie! Magazine in another.
"Sharon!" he gasped. "Miss Chablis! What are you doing here? And all wet!"
"I was drowning myself," I told him. "In the Bay.
Only I swam back to tell you not to blame yourself. I-I have only myself to blame. For not doing better in Algebra.II."
"Oh no!" moaned Mr. Enright. "Sharon, you're out of your head-I mean, you're unduly distraught. I'll telephone your mother at once."
"She wouldn't hear the phone," I said. "She's in a drunken stupor." I bit my tongue real hard to make my eyes water, pretended to sob. "Goodbye, Mr. Enright. I'm going back to-to my watery grave."
"Wait!" screeched Mr. Enright. "Don't do anything rash! Sit down. We'll-we'll work something out. About your grade in Algebra II, that is. Suicidal ... I had no idea...."
I wiped my eyes, looked around his living room. "I-I hate to sit on your furniture all wet, Mr. Enright," I said. "Should I sit on the floor?"
"Of course ... I mean, no! That is, you'd better get into some dry clothes."
Peachy, I thought. That was just what the elderly Count had said to the heroine of Duchess Dunkill's Darlings-and ten minutes later he ripped the bath towel from her lush body and they started rolling around on his polar bear rug.
Mr. Enright didn't have a polar bear rug, of course. But I figured his couch would do as well.
"Do you have a large-or any size-towel?" I asked, pretending to stifle another sob.
"Yes, yes, of course. In the bathroom." He showed me the way, closed the door behind me.
I slipped out of my wet dress and looked around. He had plenty of towels all right, but they were a bit too small. I mean, walking out with just a towel around my waist might look too obvious. When you seduce a man you have to be real subtle-at least at the start.
I tried tying one towel around my waist and another around my breasts, but it looked funny. So finally I just dried myself off and put on the top of a pair of Mr. Enright's pajamas-they were lying by the tub. I didn't button it, but kind of wrapped it around me and held it in place. Then I went back to the front room.
Mr. Enright was at the phone, dialing. "I'm calling Dr. Physche," he explained. "You may have caught a bad cold and...."
"Not Dr. Physche!" I screamed it so loud that Mr. Enright dropped the phone like it was hot. "He I couldn't bear to see him! Not-not after what he did to me yesterday."
"What in heaven's name did he do?" gasped Mr. Enright.
"He-he made me take off my clothes. All my clothes! Then he ... Oh, I can't bear to think about it! He made me lie on my back, and he pushed my knees apart and-oh, it was awful!"
"That monster!" hissed Mr. Enright. "Dr. Physche, of all people. To think that he would harm a child, would...."
"Oh," I sobbed, "he said everything would be all right. That I-I wouldn't have a baby. I asked was he sure, and-and then he started telling me how easy it would be for him to perform a minor operation on me in a few months, and then he-oh! I just don't want to talk about it!"
I sat down on Mr. Enright's couch, making sure the pajama top slid up so that most of my thighs was visible, and pretended to sob some more.
Mr. Enright sat beside me and began patting me on the back. "There, there, child-uh, young lady. It's all right now. You've had a monstrous experience-I mean, a traumatic incident. But it's all over now. You don't want to die; you must live. Live to see that scoundrel Dr. Physche sent to prison I"
"I do so want to die," I sobbed, clinging to Mr. Enright, wriggling a bit so my breasts-one of them at least-kind of pressed against his chest. "I'm going to flunk Algebra II."
"Child ... Sharon," murmured Mr. Enright, patting me some more, "you don't know it, of course, but you are what is called transferring your emotions. Dr. Physche made you uh, that is, made you miserable, and the experience was so shocking, so traumatic that you have pushed it from your mind. Being, uh, violated was so horrible you cannot dwell on it, so horrible you wish to destroy yourself.
"But, because you cannot focus your mind on the truly horrible experience in your recent past, you have focused on a lesser, uh, mishap: flunking Algebra II. Do you understand, child ... Sharon? It's because of Dr. Physche, the swine, that you wish to, uh, end it all. Not because I'm going to flunk-fail you."
I sniffed. "I understand you in my mind," I told him "but my heart has agonizing doubts." That's a line from Dutchess Dunhill's Darlings. A good line, I thought. "If I flunk Algebra II," I added, "life isn't worth the effort of inhaling." That was another line from the book. In part at least.
"There, there, Sharon," said Mr. Enright soothingly. "If it means so much in your young life, well
... I guarantee you'll pass Algebra II."
Well, so far so good. At least I wasn't going to flunk. On the other hand, I wasn't guaranteed anything better than a D-minus, so far. So I set to work.
"You're wonderful!" I sobbed, flinging my arms around Mr. Enright. "How may I ever repay you, kind sir?" Another line borrowed from the Dutchess.
"Nonsense, nonsense child," said Mr. Enright, struggling to free himself. And not getting anywhere, on account of the only way a man can push a girl away from him easily is to cup his hands over her breasts and shove, and Mr. Enright seemed very shy about cupping his hands over my boobs.
"Do you know...." I gasped. "Do you know what I've dreamed about all semester-while my so called friends sneered and jeered at me? I dreamed about getting an A-plus in Algebra II."
"Well...." said Mr. Enright, still struggling to pull himself from my embrace.
"Oh, Mr. Enright.'" I screamed. "An A plus? Take me! I'm yours to trifle with as you will!" (Thanks again , Dutchess.)
"Sharon!" bleated Mr. Enright, wriggling frantically to free himself. "Sharon, control yourself!"
"Oh, Mr. Enright!" I cried. "Can't you see how starved I am for affection-genuine affection?"
"But-but you've just been through a traumatic experience," wailed Mr. Enright, still struggling in my embrace. "Dr. Psyche...."
"Can't you understand?" I murmured. "I need the clean, wholesome fervor of your embrace to wipe out the memory of my degradation and shame!" (The Dutchess said that to the diplomat after she'd been ravished by a traveling circus-the whole circus: lion tamers, acrobats, freaks, fat and tattooed ladies, lions, tigers and ostritches.)
"Sharon!" moaned Mr. Enright, his struggles weakening a little. "You don't know what you're saying!"
I could smell beer on his breath. Also I could count seven empty beer cans in the wastebasket behind him. Good. Men slightly drunk are extremely susceptible to temptation. Or so I'd read.
I pushed myself free from him, flung open the pajama top, pulled back my shoulders so my breasts jutted out, quivering.
"Can't you see I'm a grown woman?" I cried. "A woman hungry for your kisses-your love?"
"Awk!" said Mr. Enright, gaping at my chest like he'd never seen a pair of young, full, firm, scarlet-tipped boobs before.
"Mr. Enright!" I cried. "I will destroy myself unless you renew my body with the aching potency that lies within you!" (Same book.)
That did it-that or the sight of my bare body trembling so close to him. All at once Mr. Enright's eyes got kind of glazed-and he grabbed me.
At first he didn't show any more finesse than Larry Egars: he just took hold of my breasts and squeezed, then darted his head forward like a snapping turtle and began to kiss and slobber all over my nipples.
Then all at once he pulled back, looking dazed. "This is madness!" he moaned.
"Yeah," I whispered, in a real sexy voice. "Someone might peek under the blind. Let's go to your bedroom."
And I led him toward his bedroom. He followed like a man in a trance-not trying to pull free from my hands, but making me tug him along quite a bit.
Then we were in his bedroom, and all at once it was darker, more private, more intimate, and Mr. Enright sort of grunted and then grabbed me and kissed me on the mouth.
I opened my lips right away, and kind of fluttered my tongue, as an invitation to his tongue to push into my mouth-which it did-and at the same time I thrust my belly hard against him, wriggling and twisting like a movie of a Turkish dancer I saw once.
That did the trick. I could just about feel him get excited.
He slid one hand around to cup my bare buttocks and pull me tighter against him, slid his other hand inside the open pajama top to grab and squeeze and knead my breasts, meanwhile kissing up a storm, his tongue sliding all over the inside of my mouth.
Meanwhile, I wasn't idle, of course. I slid my hands over and around his bare back-he wasn't wearing a shirt, remember?-and then I let my left hand slide around by itself while my right unbuckled his belt and found his zipper.
He grunted and broke the kiss then, half pulled back-as if he'd changed his mind about making love to me. But not for long, because a moment later I had my right hand sliding on his belly, had my fingers curling warmly over his eager flesh.
I guess from what I've read-and experienced since-men just can't resist a girl once she gets a soft but firm grip on them. It seems to just about flip them-maybe because so many girls are priggish about squeezing a man as he most appreciates being squeezed.
With my left hand around his back and my right hand holding him tight I kind of tugged him toward the bed. I turned at the last moment and pushed him down, and he sprawled on the bed, moaning things like: "No-we shouldn't-this is wrong-go away-you aren't even sixteen, are you?"
"I will be in a few days," I whispered soothingly, meanwhile getting his shoes and socks off, and then his pants and shorts both at the same time.
I shrugged off the pajama top I was still half wearing. Now we were both naked. And I, at least, was raring for action. Mr. Enright looked kind of enthusiastic, too. He didn't sound enthusiastic, what with groaning that I should go away, that I was too young and the whole thing was all wrong.
"Shut your mouth, Mr. Enright," I told him in a real sexy voice. "Everything looks just fine to me. Relax. Maybe you're just tired. Want me to rub your muscles for you? How about this?"
I started rubbing and massaging.
"Oh! Oh, no!" wailed Mr. Enright, exhaling beer fumes my way. He was half stoned, all right. But only half, I figured. On account of I'd read that men who were dead drunk can't get up their enthusiasms. And Mr. Enright sure felt enthusiastic.
"Oh!" he gasped again.
"I hurt you?" I whispered. "Let me kiss you and make you well."
And I wriggled around until I was pinning his ankles, and bent forward and kissed him.
I can tell you, I was plenty excited.
Like, I'd never even kissed a grown man before.
Not this way. Not in any passionate, sexy way.
I mean, I felt so inadequate. Most likely Mr. Enright, being an old man of forty-five or so, had been kissed as I was kissing him by hundreds of girls, and plenty of them grown women who were real experts, no doubt.
Could I, a young maiden, make him happy with my inexperienced lips?
I guess I did all right, judging by the gurgles and gasps and little squeaks of delight he made. I guess I did just fine, considering how little time it took me to make his body throb and pulse and get real wild.
I stopped kissing him after a bit-stopped long enough for him to cool off a little. Then I started again, trying to remember the ritual technique advised by this Oriental love manual I'd leafed through in the town drug store.
That was a real interesting manual. I would have bought it, only Mr. Quince, who owns the drug store, wouldn't sell it to me. I don't know why-it was right there on sale. But he wouldn't, so I had to just glance at it whenever he wasn't looking, until all ten copies had been sold.
Anyhow, this paperback Oriental manual said that a girl should first kiss a man lightly with her lips kind of churning around real gentle. Then she should kiss him-all around the area she's kissing-first with just a bit, then with a lot of pull. After that she kind of nibbles at him, just teasing with her teeth. Then she kissed him-say the tip of his thumb-again, only more thoroughly, with her tongue stroking and circling. Then the manual-which I understand is a highly respected Classic-the manual says a girl should lick the man's thumb all over, slowly and passionately.
After which she kisses the end of the thumb again, only with more pull this time, and getting more of his thumb into her mouth.
All of which I did, and all of which Mr. Enright seemed to really appreciate. Funny how sensitive men's thumbs are.
After you slurp and kiss and tongue tease the thumb awhile, the manual said, the man in question will begin to enter a higher phase of physical awareness. Something like yogurt, I guess.
And then the girl-just before the guy reaches a new phase of awareness, is supposed to sorta swallow his whole thumb, right up to and including his whole fist, if she's expert enough-which I wasn't, lacking practical experience.
All the same, I was sufficiently skillful to make Mr. Enright real happy. Supremely happy, you might say.
After I got through practicing the tricks I'd read about in Mr. Quincy's drugstore, Mr. Enright couldn't do anything for a while but lie there and gasp.
I lay alongside of him, snuggling up close.
"Sharon," he gasped after a bit, "I had no idea that ... no conception that you ... Sharon! Why did you tell me those lies about Dr. Physche?"
"To seduce you," I told him. I crossed my fingers. "I've loved you passionately-from afar-all semester, Mr. Enright."
"Is it possible?" gasped Mr. Enright. "Yes-yes, now I see why you failed to grasp binomial equations! You were distracted. Distracted by ... "
He broke off. "By my passionate love for you," I finished.
He shook his head feebly. "How is it possible?" he mused. "How is it possible that such a young girl should be so-so expert in the, uh, language of love?"
"I read a book," I said modestly. "You got any more beer in the refrigerator?"
He said he had. I went and got two cans, opened them, brought them back to the bedroom. Mr. Enright was still lying as I'd left him, and still gasping, only not so fast now. We drank.
"My, uh, child," he said after he finished choking on his first gulp of beer, "what we just did-what you just did-was, uh, fine and uh, spritually uplifting except in the minds of the prudish. But-but for practical reasons if nothing else, after this we must see no more of each other."
"What," I said, "do you mean by after this? You mean after we finish these cans of beer, or after I leave here tonight-or early in the morning?"
Mr. Enright was silent for a while, except for the sound he made gulping beer.
"You should go," he said at last. "Go right now. Unless, that is, you really want to stay. For a while, I mean."
"You bet I want to stay," I said, grabbing his left hand and placing it on my right breast, then grabbing his right hand and sliding it down my belly. "I'm still plenty warm, remember?"
"Yes," murmured Mr. Enright. "No doubt. While I ... "
"You'll feel more excited soon," I told him, sliding both my hands to his belly and squeezing and shaking a little.
And I was right. In almost no time I felt his interest heighten, heard his gasps become pants.
I teased and tickled him awhile, then rolled onto my back and stretched my legs. "Make me," I said, "happy."
I said it real cool, like I was accustomed to havins.; men make me happy all the time, not a bit like it was my first time, just about. First time in a proper fashion, that is.
Mr. Enright gasped, wheezed, then rolled more or less on top of me.
Being half drunk and kind of pooped, I guess he wasn't what you'd call an expert lover, but he sure excited me.
But then, I'm the kind of girl that gets excited easy. Which is a great way to be, if you ask me, because there can't be too many expert lovers in the world, so a girl who's easily excited is a girl who's more likely to be satisfied.
Anyhow, he started kissing me, first on the lips, then all over my face: my eyes, my cheekbones, cheeks, ears, throat. At the same time he was kneading and squeezing my breasts-hard, maybe because he was a bit drunk; hard enough to make me yelp, if I hadn't been feeling too happy to complain about anything.
A while later he kissed his way down my shoulders to my breasts. Then he really started kissing me. Kissing me the way Larry Egars had been trying to learn a while before. But much more expertly.
I just about died, feeling his lips and tongue work over my breasts. I could feel my nipples quiver and then stiffen and fill out with passion as his lips moved on them. My nipples ached and pulsed and throbbed with excitement as they pushed fully erect in the hot circle of his lips.
It was like I was being sucked dry or something, the way he seemed to draw passion up to the tips of my breasts.
Then he began to chew and nibble on my breasts not all that gently, either. At times he hurt me, he bit so hard. But only at times. Mostly he just nibbled nicely.
Next he nibbled and kissed his way down my body, sometimes rubbing his cheek against my flesh, and letting his fingers probe and explore me-all of me. And everywhere his lips and tongue and fingers moved, my flesh kind of glowed and tingled-and they moved I mean everywhere!
I felt my thighs quiver with ecstasy, and I slid my legs on the bed-And then all at once he was crouched over me, breathing real heavy, and I felt his chest brush against my breasts, felt the scrape of his body against the sensitive surfaces of my thighs And then he kind of surged forward, and I felt a brief spark of pain and then a rushing sense of warmth, of wild sensation.
I knew I'd passed a kind of threshold then I would no longer be a delight to Dr. Physche. Mr. Enright didn't seem to know or care that he'd just deflowered me (a pretty stupid phrase, if you ask me, on account of from all I've read-and experienced since-nothing makes a young girl really blossom like a good loving).
For a moment I was too busy thinking how wonderful it was that I was no longer a virgin to think of anything else-then I became conscious of the driving movement of his body, and an instant later I felt a pulse of warmth, good warmth, like I'd never felt before.
Every time he surged forward I felt the same pulse-only it got stronger, more wonderful by the moment.
He had his mouth pressed against mine now, and every time he surged forward his tongue shot deep into my mouth, and each thrust was smooth and hard, hot and wild, lusty and passionate.
Great, golden waves of ecstasy seemed to ripple through me, and I heard myself whimper with delight. I slid my arms around him and raked his back with my nails--while he worked faster and faster, jarring me through and through, seeming to impale me, split me in two....
And then it was as if I was a bubbling cauldron a cauldron he was stirring faster and faster; he was moving like a jackrabbit now, and each time he lunged it was like a hand grenade went off.
I thought, this is it! This is what all the books and movies and plays and poems are all about!
Only it wasn't "it". It was just the prelude to "it", as I found out a moment later when Mr. Enright began to gasp and growl and-just at that instant I felt my whole body kind of shudder as if I'd been hit with a white-hot sledge hammer, and then it was like lightning flashed through me, a long, slow bolt of fire, and it flashed again and again and again until I felt like I was lit up like a neon sign.
I sort of went insane for a while, it was so great. When the passion pressure let up a bit, started to ebb real slow, I found that my fingernails were sunk into Mr. Enright's back, and my teeth were clamped on his shoulder.
He didn't seem to mind; he just lay sprawled on top of me, still gasping and grunting and writhing a little.
Well! I thought. If that's what sex is like, here's hoping I live a long time. And make love every day. And heaps of times every night.
After a while Mr. Enright kind of slid away from me, then staggered off to get more beer. "Madness," I heard him mutter as he reeled out of the room. "This is madness!"
He was muttering the same thing when he came back, and only stopped saying "madness-sheer madness" when he was gulping beer.
"Hush," I said. "Why is what we're doing madness? It's a lot of fun, isn't it?"
"Life," gasped Mr. Enright sadly, "is not merely a quest for fun. It-it's a quest for fulfillment."
"Well," I said, sipping beer too, "don't you feel fulfilled?"
"Yes," he said after a bit, "but I shouldn't. Your youth-the difference in our ages-"
"You're a teacher, aren't you?" I said. "You're supposed to teach young people things. What's more important: sex or algebra?"
"Algebra," he moaned. "At least I always thought so until now."
He was silent awhile, then he said, "Tahiti. Perhaps that's the answer. They have different mores there. It's accepted that a young girl and a middle-aged man should find, uh, happiness together. Only there's the problem of visas, and money for the tickets...."
Well, I certainly didn't want to elope to Tahiti with Mr. Enright. I wouldn't mind visiting Tahiti, on account of I figure if Tahitian girls are so hot in the hay, Tahitian boys ought to be pretty good too. But I sure didn't want to go there with Mr. Enright and settle down and have kids and all that. But I didn't say anything. The best thing was to kid him along until he'd given me an A-plus in Algebra II. Then I could give him the brush.
So to change the subject I said, "Do you think I'm pretty? Pretty enough to pose in a magazine like Zowie!?
"Of course, of course," he said. "Only a nice uh, that is, a young girl like you wouldn't want to pose for a magazine like that."
I thought: If it's such a nasty magazine, how come you buy it and drool over the pictures? But I didn't say that either. What I said was, "Why don't we go in the front room and look at your copy of Zowie!? You can tell me which girls you think are prettiest, and why."
So we went into his front room, both still naked as new-hatched birds, and after I'd pulled down his shades all the way we sat side by side and leafed through Zowie!
Me, I like to look at pictures of naked girls in the mens' magazines. It gives me sort of a standard of comparison. Also, it's a good way to learn the kinds of poses men like girls to get into. Of course, the girls in the mens' magazines are kind of limited, on account of they have to have their lower middles covered. But you can still get a good idea.
Pretty soon one of the poses gave me an idea. "Hey," I said, "there's something I'd like to try, if you're in the mood. How about you lying on your back on the floor, and then I sorta sit on you?"
Mr. Enright muttered, "Madness-madness," gulped more beer, then stretched out on the floor.
I got astride his legs, wriggled up a ways, then lifted my haunches in the air, took a tight grip on Mr. Enright and settled myself slowly down.
That felt just fine. Mr. Enright must have thought so too, judging by the way his face kind of oozed into a smile. I began to bounce up and down-slowly at first-and his smile got broader and broader.
And then-at three a.m., I kid you not-the door burst open and all of a sudden the room was full of teachers from Denaquid High School.
"Surprise, surprise!" they called out. "It's a surprise party, Mr. Enright-in honor of your twenty-five years of dedicated service to youth! Where are you, Mr. Enright?"
Then they looked down.
And saw me bouncing around on top of Mr. Enright.
And after that....
Well, you can just imagine!
CHAPTER THREE
The next day was just about the most horrible in my life.
The rest of the night had been bad enough-so bad I forgot to be happy about being educated at last. But the next day....
The less said the better, I guess. Suffice it to say I got expelled, Mr. Enright got beaten up by two of my uncles-and then went and drowned himself, of all things-and my mother just looked at me.
She didn't scream and shout; that was going to come later, I figured. I think right then she was too, well, happy. Happy to know that her worst fears had been realized-that I really was a harlot and a disgrace to the family and all that.
I don't mean I supposed she wasn't upset at all, but for years she'd been calling me bad names for no reason, and now she had a reason, a real good reason.
I guess she felt the way one of those men with long beards who carry signs saying
THE END OF THE WORLD IS COMING would feel if the world did start to come to an end. I mean, right at first they'd be too happy gloating about how they'd been right all along to get upset personally.
Along about noon, once all the shouting had subsided and Mr. Enright's body had been fished out of the bay, she shoved me into my room and slammed the door and locked it.
I knew what was coming later on, all right. And I didn't wait for it. I scribbled a note-Have fled to Montreal to live a life of sin and make big money Regards Sharon-and hopped out the rear window.
All I had was the summer dress I was wearing retrieved from Mr. Enright's bathroom by one of the teachers-and thirty dollars I'd saved. But I went. Not to Montreal, though. I'd just written that to pat my mother off the scent.
I hitched a ride to Leachville and then took a bus to New York.
Which is where my real adventures began.
I'd been hoping things would start getting interesting on the bus, but no luck-the bus was full of old ladies, and soldiers with their wives and babies and children.
So I slept.
I got off at a place they call the Port of New York Bus Terminal. It looked just like movies I'd seen of it-lots of people rushing around, bright lights and so forth. Real exciting.
Pretty soon I noticed two young men, both with their hair slicked down, giving me the eye and whispering to each other. I pretended not to see them, fished a pack of cigarettes out of my purse and lit one.
About then they walked over and smiled at me politely. What they wanted to do was leer, I could tell, but they tried hard to just smile.
"Excuse me, Miss," said the taller of the two, "We're agents of the International Travelers Assistance Society. Our job is to be friendly and helpful to travelers. My credentials."
And he whipped out a card. The card read: This m to certify that John Smith is a bona fide agent of the International Travelers Assistance Society and can be trusted completely. The shorter one had a card just like it, only it said his name was Tom Jones.
Well! I mean, I might have been young and from a small town, but I wasn't stupid. I knew right off that these fellows had just paid a dollar to have some printer run off a couple cards-they weren't out to help travelers but to pick up girls. Like me.
I'd read an article once that told how some men the article called them jaded hipsters--liked to hang around bus stations in big cities and pick up young corn-fed girls right off the bus from Kansas and such places.
I didn't say any of this, of course. I just said, "Gee, if you only help international travelers, I guess I'm out of luck. I didn't come from overseas."
"That's all right," said the one who called himself John Smith. "We help national, state and local travelers too. Uh, traveling alone? Being met?"
"Yes," I said. "And no, I'm not being met. I'm running away from home, in fact. I suppose you'll call a policeman and have him telephone my mother, huh?"
"Oh, no!" said the one called Tom Jones. "Our job is to help girls run away from-I mean, we never ask people why they're traveling. You got a place to stay-a hotel reservation or something?"
I shook my head. "Maybe I should go to the YWCA, huh?"
"No, no!" said John Smith. "I mean, they're full up. So are most of the hotels, in fact-World's Fair, you know. Tom, do you have the list of available hotel rooms?"
"Sure," said Tom, whipping a notebook out of his pocket. "The Gotham Gothic Grand has a penthouse suite at a hundred and fifty a night...." He turned a page. "And the Bowery Brabizon has a five-room apartment for two hundred, bath included. That's it, I'm afraid. No other vacancies in town."
"Gee," I said. "I don't have that much money. Guess I'll have to sleep in the subway."
"Too dangerous," said Tom.
"Illegal, too," added John. He nudged his buddy. "Say, what about old Mr. Carter's generous offer?"
"That's right!" gasped Tom. "Just the place for this chi-young lady. Mr. Carter," he went on, talking to me now, "is an elderly philanthropist currently traveling in Europe. When he's away he lets financially embarrassed girl travelers use his spacious apartment Free. We'll take you there."
"How nice," I said, offering him my arm.
And off we went. To my first Adventure, I figured.
And I was so right.
Mr. Carter's "spacious apartment" was way down in what they call the Lower East Side, a real ratty neighborhood, and it was more like a big loft than an apartment. Three flights up, too.
Walking up the stairs I could hear voices-male and female-laughing and swearing, and somebody picking at a guitar.
"I thought Mr. Carter's accommodations were just for girl travelers," I said innocently.
"Oh, no," said Tom. "Mr. Carter doesn't practice any form of discrimination-racial, social or sexual."
"A real swinger, old Mr. Carter," John snickered, placing his hands on my buttocks and kind of shoving me upstairs faster.
Tom opened a door and in we went. It was a huge, untidy room as big as five single-car garages put together, and full of smoke and boys and girls.
Kind of rough-looking boys and girls, too. A lot of the boys were wearing sideburns and black leather jackets. Some of the girls were wearing black leather jackets, too. In fact one girl was wearing just a black leather jacket. A couple other girls didn't have anything on above the waist, and another one was naked entirely. She was sitting on the saddle of a motorcycle which was standing in the middle of the room drinking beer. The girl, that is, not the motorcycle, of course.
Everybody stopped drinking and talking when we walked in, and when they saw me between Tom and John they started hooting and cheering and growling.
"Well whadya know," jeered the girl who was naked on the motorcycle drinking beer, "Tom finally caught himself a sheep."
Well!
Right off I realized I'd outsmarted myself. I'd figured Tom and John were jaded hipsters, and that all they wanted to do was lure me to their pad and seduce me, which I'd been looking forward to. Also I'd figured they might keep me for a couple weeks at least, so I wouldn't have to pay rent.
Boy, had I been wrong! As soon as the naked blonde called me a sheep I knew what was up. All the kids in the room belonged to a motorcycle club, that was what. A bad club. I'd read all about that kind of cycle club in a magazine article. When they took in a new member, the guy had to bring a girl for all the male members to gang; the girl was called a sheep. If she was willing to sex it up with all the members, okay-but she didn't have to be willing.
Instead of a jaded hipster, Tom was obviously a new member, and John was his buddy, who'd gone along to help him snag a girl.
Me.
Poor little Sharon Chablis from Denaquid, Maine, was going to get jumped by thirty male motorcyclists-and maybe some girl motorcyclists too.
Don't get me wrong-I'm not against orgies in principle. Only these kids looked rough. Even Tom and John all at once looked less like city slickers and more like hoodlums.
So I did a dumb thing: I let out a yell and dived for the door. I didn't get even close. Tom just laughed and reached out and grabbed me by the hair. My hair, I should mention, is naturally red and real long, like it falls below my waist, so it wasn't hard for him to grab a handful and yank.
I went backward and landed with a thump on my backside, and a moment later there were hands all over me.
I started to struggle, but then I remembered the motto for girls in my predicament: When being ravished is unavoidable, relax and enjoy it.
So I tried to relax and smile.
"She's grinning," said some girl. "She's looking forward to it. Boy, is she dumb!"
All at once I felt less relaxed.
By this time four husky guys had hold of me, one for each wrist and ankle. They held me a couple of feet off the floor, facing the ceiling, while everybody else crowded around.
I smiled, still, but it was a real effort.
"Unwrap the package, Spike-I mean Tom," said the blonde girl who had been on the motorcycle, and Tom-whose real name was evidently Spike-nodded and grinned, and then grabbed the front of my summer dress and ripped it right off me.
A cheer went up. "No bra, no panties!" chuckled some creep. "This sheep is like ready!"
The guys holding my ankles moved further apart, so my legs were stretched out like I was doing the splits or something.
Boy did I feel helpless!
"Okay, fellows," said the blonde-who must have been the current president of the club, I decided "step right up and enjoy her. No waiting."
I craned my head up and peered between my breasts. Sure enough, several of the guys, grinning like hungry wolves, already had all their clothes off-all their clothes below the waist, at least.
One of them sauntered toward me, walking between the guys holding my legs. I felt like I was about to be torn apart. He paused about six or eight inches from touching me, and sneered.
"Still smiling, eh sheep?" he asked, real nasty like. And then-for no reason I could see except to be mean-he took the lighted cigarette out of his mouth, flicked off a bit of ash, and then stubbed it out on my stomach.
I let out a yelp of agony and my eyes filled with tears of pain. So I didn't see him push forward against me. But I sure felt him. He was a big guy, and when he got to me I felt like I'd been bit with a tree trunk.
Cheers went up as the guy started slamming himself against me. Hard and fast and real brutal. It was just awfull I saw this TV show once where a bunch of men picked up a telegraph pole and used it as a battering ram to bash down a door. Well, I felt just like that door.
Fortunately, he didn't have much stamina, or else he was too excited, because after he'd slammed away at me about a dozen times he grunted and grabbed my hips and whammed against me real fast, and then it was all over.
For him, at least.
Me, I got the second guy in line five seconds later. He wasn't as big, but what he lacked in size he made up for in endurance. He kept working me like he was trying to inflate a tractor tire with a bicycle pump. I thought he'd never stop! So did the creeps standing around watching and cheering; they kept telling him to hurry it up.
"Yeah, Stud," yelled a moron with buck teeth, "your bird's anxious to get some herself."
The third guy got shy, if you know what I mean, which slowed things down for a while. Not for long, though. The kids jeered at him and yelled that if he couldn't get his courage up he should back off and not hold up the party. Which he did.
The fourth guy wasn't a bit shy, just big and fast. And rough. Too fast and too rough. I felt just like a punching bag, he was pummeling me so hard and so quick.
I don't remember the fifth, sixth and seventh ones too well. I was too busy trying to tell myself to relax and enjoy it. But truth to tell, it was only partly enjoyable.
I mean, I'm not a fanatic about privacy, but there was something real humiliating about being used like that with a whole lot of boys and girls standing around jeering at me. Also jabbing my naked breasts and belly and buttocks with lighted cigarettes every now and then just to make me yelp.
I mean, I felt like an object.
Then a funny thing happened. All of a sudden I began to almost enjoy myself! Good grief, I thought. Am I what they call a masochist? I knew from reading adult paperbacks that some girls liked being ravished and tormented and humiliated. I'd even read in this sexy spy book that after some people had been tortured long enough they got to enjoy torture.
But I'd never figured I was like that.
I decided later that I was just being subconsciously clever--forcing myself to enjoy what I really didn't like.
And then, just when the eighth or ninth guy was getting himself situated, and I was trying to smile at him and tell myself it wasn't so bad and anyway it couldn't go on forever, just then some lousy chick a sharp-faced little beast with black hair and dead white skin and nothing on but a big black motorcylists belt around her waist-had to get her rotten oar in.
"This is going too slow!" she bleated, tossing her long black hair and wriggling her shoulders so as to make her breasts dance around. "I know how to speed things up," she added, and right away she dropped to the floor and crawled underneath me, grabbed my hair Srith both hand's and yanked my head down. Hard.
"Okay boys!" she yelled. "Form two lines, huh?"
Everybody cheered. Everybody but me, that is; I groaned.
I mean, what a dreadful position for a nice girl to be in-suspended horizontal and naked three feet off the floor while boy after boy has at her more or less conventionally-and sometimes jabs her with lighted cigarettes-and then to have your head yanked down so you don't have any choice but to stare at a second line of boys forming!
I did the only thing I could. I shut my eyes. But not before I saw a husky-looking creep with no clothes on start toward me. A moment later I felt the warmth of his flesh against my face.
The girl holding my hair twisted her grip, and the creep who was pressed against my face must have reached down and pinched my nipples between his fingers. Hard!
Naturally, I yelled.
"You'll yell harder, sheep," snarled the guy pinching me, "if you don't start kissing me pronto. And make it good, sheep, if you don't want me to use a knife on you."
So what could I do? I kissed him, as well as I could. Sure, I thought about biting him real hard, but I didn't reckon I'd live to know how bad I'd hurt him if I did.
Of course I wasn't sure I was going to live very long anyway, but there was no sense in committing suicide!
I sure didn't enjoy kissing him, though. He did, of course. And kept urging me to work harder, use my tongue, et cetera. Which I did, for the sake of self-preservation.
I kissed him so good it wasn't long before another guy was pinching my nipples and urging me to kiss him the same way. I tell you, I was almost sick I was so mad-and scared.
What a way to spend my first night in New York, I thought, as a third guy swung a leg over me and kind of straddled my lower chest while he pushed my breasts close together and began sliding his thumb back and forth between my breasts.
It sure was true, I reflected while three guys at the same time were playing sex games with me-and while other boys and girls kept jabbing me with lighted cigarettes-it sure was true that a small-town girl ran a certain amount of risk in coming to the big city.
Meanwhile boy after boy was holding my hips and slamming himself against me, while boy after boy twisted my nipples and made me kiss him where he wanted to be kissed, and creep after creep played sexy games with my breasts.
And so it went. Real nasty. Monotonous, too, after a while.
Finally-a zillion years later-it ended. The guys holding me had each given some satisfied guy the ankle or wrist he'd been holding and had his fun, and at last every rotten boy in the place had used me for kicks.
Me, I was just about unconscious. I felt myself dropped on the floor like a sack of cement, and I just lay there. Not for long, though. Pretty soon I heard laughing and jeering, and felt my arms and legs being grabbed again, felt myself being carried along and then-splash!
I'd been dropped into a bathtub full of ice-cold water.
"That'll liven her up," cackled some girl. And she was sure right. I wallowed around for a minute or two and then I climbed out real fast, before some clown thought of pushing my head under.
I stood there all dripping and spluttering and feeling sore for a moment, and then some sadist kicked me hard on my backside and I went sprawling through the bathroom door and landed on my face and breasts in the main room again.
I struggled up on all fours. That was a mistake, because right away some guy landed on me like I was a horse, and whacked me on the rump and told me to gallop.
Well, I didn't gallop, but I did crawl painfully across the floor, with the guy up there whooping and laughing and the other creeps making crude remarks.
The rest of the motorcycle kids were sitting or standing or lying around guzzling beer and cheering me on while I crawled around and around the loft. For hours! They took turns riding me, girls as well as boys. And who says girls are the gentle sex? The girls were much worse than the boys: worse at making nasty remarks, worse at yanking my hair like it was reins. One girl-a chubby brunette-even got a couple of beer can openers and used them like spurs, jabbing them into my buttocks when I didn't crawl fast enough. They treated me like I was an animalt Worse, in fact.
Then-as I should have guessed-things got sexy again. Like the boys who'd first played sex games with me began to feel frisky again. And had at me again.
In just about every way possible!
Some of them made me stay on all fours while they had their fun.
One guy-who kept calling himself the Leader of the Pack though the others didn't pay him much mind-told me to stand up. I groaned and shook my head. I couldn't.
He took out a switchblade knife and-snick! the thing was open and pressed against my left breast. All at once I had the strength to stand up, and did.
"Feet wide apart," he barked, "and touch the floor."
I groaned and did as he said.
Naturally, he came up behind me and grabbed my hips and started rocking me back and forth against him. Slow at first, then faster and faster until at last he gasped and grunted and sighed ... and finally shoved me away. So hard I turned a somersault.
"I'm dying, I thought. I'm really and truly dying! I wasn't, though, worse luck. And a few minutes later some other yeck was pushing his big ego at me, ordering me to fondle him and stroke him and kiss him and heaven knows what all else!
After that I kind of lost track. I was like delirious.
The next thing I remember is lying sprawled on my back, and a group of them were standing around talking about what to do with me.
It would have been a real nightmare if I hadn't been so beat up. I mean, I just didn't care, I felt so bad. I just lay there and listened, like it was some TV horror movie I didn't care much about.
What they were trying to decide was first whether to kill me or not, and then, if they killed me, how they should kill me.
One girl-it was the chubby brunette-was real drunk and waving a knife. I remember how the blade glittered under the bare bulb. She wanted to cut me up. Personally. First she wanted to carve the club name on my belly, then she wanted to cut off my ... Well, you wouldn't believe the horrible things she wanted to do!
A little shrimp of a guy with a mustache wanted to hang me. He said he'd never seen a hanging, and now was his big chance.
Another couple, a boy and girl who kept nuzzling each other and kissing, wanted to string me up by the ankles and whip me to death with their belts.
And so on.
But' then some guy who'd gone out to get some more beer came in and said a cop car was cruising around and around the block, and the blonde witch who was president of the club said it'd be a dumb thing to kill me, 'cause look at the trouble they'd almost got into when they'd killed that sheep in New Jersey.
So they let me live.
Just before they all left, wheeling their motorcycle with them, the blonde bent over me and said, "Listen, sheep, you're getting off easy. Real easy. Now make things nice for yourself: Don't go running to the fuzz. Like this isn't our loft, we just borrowed it for the night. And you don't know our names. And even if you saw one of us on the street and had him busted, it'd be your word against forty. Understand?"
I nodded my head-or tried to.
"Okay. You couldn't make trouble for us if you tried. But if you do try, we'll get you. Us or friends of ours. Get you and burn you. Alive. Real slow. And it'll hurt, believe me. It'll hurt. Open your mouth, sheep."
I opened my mouth. And she dropped a lighted cigarette into it. Just to give me a taste of what it would feel like to be burned alive, I guess.
Nice people!
After which they left, and I passed out.
When I came to it was late afternoon the next day. I could hardly move, I was so stiff! I crawled and staggered into the bathroom, took a hot bath, which made me feel a bit better, then flopped onto a filthy old mattress and went to sleep again.
Next day things were much better: I got a swell job, posing in the nude.
CHAPTER FOUR
How I got this job posing in my skin is sort of interesting, but I suppose I should tell first how I got out of the mess the motorcycle creeps left me in.
What happened was, when I woke up that morning-my second in New York City-I felt pretty good again. Sore and bruised and ravished, of course, but pretty good.
I took another hot bath, looked around the loft for food-which I didn't find-then sat down to think. The summer dress I'd worn to New York was all torn to shreds-little shreds-so I couldn't wear that. On the other hand, I couldn't very well go out on the street naked!
The creeps had left my handbag-minus what was left of my thirty dollars, of course-but that was all.
No matter. I was alive, which was what counted most. Also I had my health. Thank heavens I was unimpregnable, physiologically speaking. I mean, being ravished by thirty boys is bad enough, but if I'd had to file a paternity suit against thirty John Does well....
Well, I still had shoes. And, after about five hours of hard work, I made a kind of shift-type dress out of some old monk's cloth crutains I found in the loft. It was a pretty lousy dress, and since I didn't have needle and thread it was just a wrap-around, but with some cord I cut from a Venetian blind and threaded through it I got it to stay up.
I tied my hair into a pony tail, put on my shoes, and made tracks.
I thought about staying in the loft, at least to sleep, but I didn't know who they'd "borrowed" it from, and I didn't fancy being arrested as a burglar or something. Also, the door had the kind of lock that has to be opened with a key, which I didn't have.
So I just got the heck out. Out on the street people kind of looked at me and my monk's cloth dress in a funny way, but I didn't let that bother me. I just asked the first person I met which way was Greenwich Village, and then started walking that way.
And in about ten blocks there I was-in Sheridan Square, the Heart of the Village. Or so I'd read.
On the way I'd remembered something. Today was the tenth of August-which meant it was my sixteenth birthday. Well, I thought, if something nice doesn't happen to me today, nothing ever will.
Thus cheered I walked into the first bar I saw and ordered a bottle of beer. The bartender gave me a sorta fishy look, like he didn't figure I was eighteen-which is the drinking age in New York State-but after glancing around the place he slid a glass and a bottle of beer across the bar.
I pretended to look in my handbag, which was empty, of course.
"My goodness," I said. "I seem to have left my pad in the Village without any money."
"That's okay, girlie," said the bartender, pulling the bottle of beer back. "You just trot home and get some bread. I'll keep your beer cold for you."
Well! I gave him a Look. First a dirty look, to make him feel small. Then a friendly look, to make him feel generous.
"No use shoving your boobs at me," said the bartender, flicking a thumb at my breasts, which were kind of oozing out of the top of the dress I'd made, "I don't go for that kind of stuff. I'm gay."
I looked at him with interest. I'd never met a real pansy before. He looked just like a normal man; and I told him so.
He smiled. "Thanks, little girl. I guess. That straight goods about you forgetting the bread?"
I shook my head. "I don't have any money at all. I-I'm looking for a job. I ran away from home with thirty dollars but some-some people took it all."
The bartender looked at me again, nodded slowly, shrugged, then slid the bottle of beer back across the bar. He turned to the cash register, rang it up, turned back. "Here's the change from your five," he said loudly, and slapped four dollars and fifty cents in front of me.
Which taught me my first lesson in the big city second lesson, I should say. Namely, that gay boys can be very nice to girls if they want to be.
I thanked him and put the four-fifty in my handbag and took a sip of beer. Then I looked around the bar. It was early in the day, about noonish, and there weren't many people. A couple guys with beards playing chess at a table, a pair of girls in tight black pants and black sweaters drinking beer and mooning at each other like they were in love or something, and a sad looking guy with a handlebar mustache frowning at his beer glass.
If this is Greenwich Village, I thought, it's sure tame. Only maybe it gets livelier at night. Which is true, I learned later.
I sipped more of my beer. Pretty soon the bartender strolled back and said, "What kind of job you lookin' for?"
"Any kind," I said.
"Ever wait tables?" he asked.
"Huh?" I said.
"Ever wait on tables. Like in a coffee house." I shook my head.
"Too bad. The San Demo is short a chick, I hear. But they want experience."
"Well," I said, thinking of the gang job I'd been through, "I've had a lot of experiences. Only not waiting on tables."
The bartender frowned, looking thoughtful. "Ever model?"
I shook my head.
The guy polished the top of the bar, frowning at my breasts which-like I said-were kind of sneaking out the top of my homemade dress. "Willing?" he asked.
I swallowed hard. "You mean ... nude modeling?" Even while I said it I wondered why I was acting so shy and all. I mean thirty guys had not only seen me nude but had ravished me just a while ago. So I said quickly, "I'm willing to try, yeah."
The bartender nodded, like he'd figured I'd be willing, and then he moved down the bar and started whispering to the fellow with the handlebars.
Pretty soon they both came over to me, and the one with the mustache took a stool next to me. "This is Joe Janaro, the famous painter," the bartender said.
"Pleased to meet you, I'm sure," I said. "My name is Sharon Chablis."
The famous painter didn't even both looking up. He just kept studying my boobs, which, truth to tell, were almost all the way out the top of my dress. I thought about trying to pull the thing up, but I decided that would appear too prudish.
"Joe," the bartender went on, "uses a lot of models."
I opened my mouth to ask how he used them, but then I shut it again. Like, who cared how he used them, just so he paid?
"For himself," the bartender went on, "and for the classes he teaches. Right now he's having trouble. The models have organized unions, you know, and Joe can't afford union rates. You aren't union, are you?"
"Me?" I gasped. "I'm from Maine. Where I come from they taught us all about unions in high school. Like, all the unions want to do is exploit the poor capitalists. I've been taught to hate unions."
The fellow with the mustache raised his eyes to mine then, and smiled faintly. "Speaking as a former radical, I deplore your statements. Speaking as an exploiter of the masses, your words are music to my ears. Dollar an hour?"
The bartender cleared his throat.
"All right!" snarled Joe Janaro. "Dollar seventy-five."
"Deal!" I said.
Joe took out a piece of paper, scribbled an address, handed it to me. "Tonight. Seven sharp."
He looked me in the eye again, winked, slid his right hand quickly down inside my homemade dress, found my right nipple, squeezed it affectionately, then got up and went out.
"Gosh," I said. "Me an artist's model!"
"Don't let it throw you," said the bartender. "Joe's an okay guy, but what he's paying you is murder. Still, if you need the bread bad, it's the price of a meal. Don't make a habit of working for one-seventy-five, though."
I nodded. "Right. And how can I ever repay you?"
"With money," said the bartender. "See you around." And he went down the bar to talk to a young man with curly blond hair and long eyelashes who'd just come in.
Me, I finished my beer, left a quarter tip, and went out to wander around the Village.
It was sure interesting. Heaps of young men with beards and dirty, paint-streaked trousers, and girls in tight pants and so on. Artistic, you know. I walked around and around the Village, after stopping at a newspaper office-The Village Vice, it was called-to get a free map. Before I knew it I'd spent most of my four fifty on beer and hamburgers, and it was almost seven o'clock.
I headed toward the address Janaro had given me. It was on Horatio Charles Street, and I found it without any trouble. A sign on the door said, Life Classes-Voluptuous Female Nudes, Yours For the Painting.
And in I went. Voluptuously.
Inside was a big bare room with maybe twenty men and girls sitting around with sketch pads. A thin young man walked up to me.
"Two dollars for the first hour," he said, "and a dollar an hour after that. Class ends at eleven."
"I'm the mode!" I said.
"Oh," he said, looking me up and down with interest. "This way." And he led me through a door to a tiny room with a mirror and a chair and a hook to hang clothes on.
"I'm the monitor," he explained. "When I call, model! you come out. Hang your dress there." He pointed at the hook. Then he went out, closing the door behind him.
Well! Was I every excited! My first job-and a modeling job at that! What a sophisticated way to start my career in the big city!
I took off my homemade dress and hung it on the hook. Then I looked at myself in the mirror. I looked pretty good, I had to admit. True, I was still a bit pink in places where the motorcycle creeps had whacked me with their belts, but all in all I looked pretty voluptuous.
I put on some lipstick, added a touch to my nipples, then settled back to wait. Pretty soon I heard the monitor guy call "Model!" And out I went.
I felt a bit funny, to tell the truth. I mean, sure, boys had seen me without any clothes on-lots of them, if you included the motorcycle club but this was the first time I'd posed professionally in the nude.
Everybody in the room was staring at me. Admiringly, I presumed. I walked up to the monitor and smiled.
"It's customary," he muttered, "for the model to wear a robe-her own or the one hanging on the back of the door-until she mounts the stand.
However ... This way."
And he led me to a raised wooden stand.
"Let's try a standing pose," he said, "like this." And he struck a pose, standing with all his weight on one foot and his shoulders kind of slanted. I took the same pose. "Fine," he said. "Now just hold that for half an hour."
Which I did. And believe me, it wasn't easy! I'd read paperback books about models who posed nude, the model just kind of lounged on a couch for a few minutes and then some lusty male artist would lunge at her.
The real thing is much different, believe me. Like your muscles start to ache. And you itch and want to scratch. And hours and hours go by. By the time you've stood in one pose for ten minutes it feels like ten days!
After a while-when I'd got my balance good-I began to let my eyes slide around the class. I'd expected to find lots of young, handsome artists leering at me with passion in their eyes. But no. For one thing, half the students were girls. For another, all the students were busy sketching. They just glanced up at me from time to time, and then like I was an object. They might have been sketching a hunk of stone, for all the lust in the glances they gave me.
After half an hour the monitor tossed a robe at me and yelled, "Okay. Break."
I put the robe around me and climbed down from the stand. Joe Janaro showed up about then, and began wandering around the room making sarcastic comments about the drawings. To hear him talk they were all lousy. I sneaked a look at some of the sketches, and I had to admit he had a point.
What a letdown! I mean, here I was posing in the nude, and nobody cared a hoot about how sexy I looked. All they cared about was half-tones and shadings and lines and stuff.
After a few minutes the monitor called me back on the stand and I posed some more. Quick poses this time, just five minutes for each one-standing or sitting or kneeling or reclining on a couch.
The class sketched like mad. Me, I felt like yawning.
So this was the wild life nude models led. Some wild life! All that happened was your muscles started aching, or you itched where you couldn't scratch.
And so it went until eleven o'clock. Then Janaro stifled a yawn, called, "That's all. Wrap up for the night, kids." And my first nude posing session was over.
Big deal!
I'd always dreamed about posing in the nude for bona fide artists, but in my dreams I'd been blushing and feeling nervous while some burning-eyed hero dabbed at a canvas with his brush, and then lunged at me for some bona fide fun.
I went back to the little dressing room and started combing my hair. A moment later the monitor came in-without knocking. I glared at him.
"Don't you have any knuckles?" I asked.
"Relax," he said. "I've had plenty of chance to see what you look like naked. Here's your pay." He handed me an envelope. I opened it. Seven dollars.
"What's the matter," said the monitor, smiling at me in a nasty kind of way. "Not enough dough?"
"I'll say not," I said. "That was work."
He nodded, took out a cigarette, lit it. "Right. A girl ought to make more than a buck seventy-five for posing naked, right?"
I just nodded, still combing my hair. I hadn't bothered putting on my dress, since like he said, he'd already seen me nude plenty.
"Don't be so high-hat, Sharon," said the monitor. "My name's Wilbur. My friends call me Will."
"I'd just as soon call you Wilbur," I said.
"Don't be that way," said Wilbur. "Those lousy painters bug you? Don't blame you. They don't care a damn about feminine beauty. They'd just as soon sketch a wart hog as a gorgeous dish like you. Lines, planes, compound curves: that's all they care about. The creeps."
Well, I had to smile. Like at least he appreciated the fact that I was voluptuous.
"That's the spirit," said Wilbur. He lowered his voice. "I could tell right off you weren't like most of the models we get here-snobs and snooty dames. Willing to do anything for an artist-for a couple bucks an hour-but too stuck-up to pose for photographers. What's the matter with photography? Ain't that an art?"
"Sure," I said. "Do photography models make more money?"
Wilbur winked. "I'll say they do. Even the real prudes can make five bucks an hour. Swingers can make maybe ten, fifteen, even twenty."
"An hour?" I gasped.
Wilbur glanced behind him, nodded. "You bet. Don't let these doodlers snow you. They'll tell you photographers are a bunch of creeps. Hell! Photographers are swell guys. Swingers, you know what I mean? I didn't, but I nodded my head. Twenty dollars an hour....
Wilbur lowered his voice even more. "I know a photo studio that's hummin' right now. Care to trot over there with me? You can maybe make fifty, a hundred bucks yet tonight. Clean, easy money. Okay?"
'You bet," I said, climbing into my homemade dress. "Lead the way."
And he did.
The photo studio wasn't more than a block away. But what a difference! Like, there were hardly any women at all-just a couple beefy-looking females looked a lot like men. All the rest of the customers were real men.
Lusty-eyed, wet-lipped men. With sweat popping out on their foreheads.
They were all clustered around this wooden stand where a blonde chick with big hips and droopy boobs was posing. She was posing flat on her back, and the guys around the stand were taking flash pictures from every angle. And I mean every angle!
Wilbur disappeared for a minute, and came back with a fat, greasy-looking guy wearing glasses and smoking a cigar.
"This is the dish," Wilbur said. "Fresh from Maine and never been photographed nude. Real eager for a quick buck, too."
I opened my mouth to make an angry reply, then stopped. What the heck? He was right. I smiled sexily at the fat man with the cigar. He was the boss, I figured.
He looked me up and down. "You got the shape," he grunted, chewing on his cigar. "You ain't some kind of nut, are you?"
"Certainly not," I said.
He leered at me. "I mean, you ain't no fanatic about showing guys what you got? You don't mind a few guys taking pictures of this and that-or maybe some other things?"
"Oh, no!" I said, getting kind of excited and tingly inside. This is it, I thought. This is the kind of posing I've dreamed about.
"Okay," said the fat man. "Soon as droopy-boobs gets off the stand, on you go. And don't go gettin' shy on me. You get paid for how you perform, remember that. The customers like you, they tip big. They don't like you, you get the minimum: buck an hour. It's up to you. This way."
I followed him into a dingy dressing room. Another girl, a bleary-eyed brunette, was hooking up her bra when we walked in. She looked me up and down. "Welcome, sucker," she sneered.
The fat guy reached out and smacked her across the face.
"Get lost, Betty," he said in a real cold voice. "Go buy a quick fix. Beat it."
Betty gave him a sullen look, buttoned up her blouse and flounced out.
"Here," said the boss. "Try this costume on for a start. And if the customers want it off, take it off. You got only one rule to remember here: the customers are always right. Also, they tip-or don't tip."
The costume was a bikini-a real small bikini, all covered with spangles. It looked keen!
I pulled my dress over my head and started to pull on the sparkly panties. Wilbur and the man with the cigar just stood there kind of leering.
"She's got a shape, huh boss?" said Wilbur.
"Stop sweatin'," snarled the boss, mopping some sweat off his brow. "You'll get your cut. You're okay, Sharon," he said to me. "You're great, in fact-for a rank amateur. Maybe you and me'll have a little ... talk-after closing, huh? Like that?"
"Oh yes," I said, figuring right off he meant to jump me; and deciding I'd better let him, since he was the boss.
I fastened the bra of the spangled bikini and smiled at him. A real sultry smile, the way those French girls smile in the sexy foreign movies.
"Yeah," said the fat man. "Just the way I-I mean my clients-like 'em. How old are you, kid? Never mind, I'd as leave not know. But if you've got more years than a pound has ounces, I'll eat-well, I'll eat somethin'." He licked his fat lips and studied the lower portion of my jazzy costume.
At that moment a gong sounded, and a moment later the fat girl who'd been posing slouched into the room." Goons!" she snarled. "Real goons out there tonight. One slob got his thumb all the way...." She noticed me for the first time, looked me up and down.
"Well, Sam," she said to the man with the cigar, "what cradle did you rob her from?"
"You got a complaint?" asked Sam, chewing on his cigar. "You want a fat lip, maybe?"
The fat girl shrugged. "No complaints, Sam." She shot me a quick look. A real complex look. Like, I'm no psychologist or anything, but if a girl every looked amused and contemptuous and jealous and a bit sad all at once, that was how the fat girl-not that she was really fat-looked at me.
"You're on," said Sam. "Go out there, climb on the stand, and do what they ask. Got that?"
I nodded and trotted into the studio. A big chorus of catcalls and whistles greeted me. "That's more like it," yelled one guy with sweat all over his face. "Come on, girlie, we won't bite you. Not right off, that is."
I smiled and kind of wriggled my way through to the posing stand. I had to admit Sam's customers appreciated my femininity. They pawrd me and pinched me and patted me like mad all the way to the stand.
On the stand I kind of hesitated. "Kneel down," yelled somebody. "Do a kneeling pose first."
I knelt down, sat on my heels, threw my chest out and smiled-just like the girls in the pin-up magazines I'd studied. Thank heaven I'd studied lots of men's magazines back in Denaquid. I knew heaps of sexy poses to get into.
The guys clustered around leered and grinned and started snapping pictures. A few flash bulbs went off, but not many. I decided the rest were using real fast films. (Later on I realized most of them didn't even have film in their cameras, but right then I didn't appreciate this fact.)
I posed for a while sitting on my heels with my breasts jutting out and my arms folded behind my back, then some guy said, "Lean back a little, baby like this...." And he cupped a hand under one of my breasts and pushed back.
Well! I knew right off photographers aren't sup posed to ever touch a model. On the other hand, I figured this wasn't the kind of studio where photographers followed the rules.
So I just grinned and put my arms behind me and leaned back. The men moved around me, clicking cameras and drooling.
"Spread the gams a little, huh?" said a guy.
I wriggled my legs wider apart.
"Take off that bra, huh kid?" said a man with drops of sweat in his eyebrows.
I winked at him. "You want it off, take it off yourself."
That got me a cheer-and some jeers directed at the guy who'd asked. He blushed and backed off, but after the guys around him kept jeering and telling him not to be so chicken, he reached his hands under my back and fumbled loose the bra strings.
He yanked the bra loose, and another cheer went up. Sort of a cheer, that is; in all truth it sounded like a lot of hungry animals sighting their dinner. Kind of a lusty growl, you know.
The guys snapped more pictures-or went through the motions. After a bit another guy called out, "Lie on your back, huh?" I did so. "Look at that!" gasped another guy. "They don't sag a bit."
Well, I had to feel a bit proud. I mean, I knew from personal experience that when I lay on my back my breasts just jutted up toward the ceiling without lolling to one side the way most girls' do. But knowing something all by myself and having a lot of men comment admiringly on same were two different things. Believe me!
Pretty soon-as I'd been expecting-some guy said, "How about those panties, baby? You wanna take 'em off?"
I grinned at him, remembering what Sam had said about tips. "No," I said. Moans. "But if you want to take them off, go ahead." Cheers.
The guy who'd spoken wasn't as shy as the first fellow. He just leered and reached for my hips. I lifted them clear of the stand so he could pull the panties down easily. It sure took him long enough! He was all thumbs and fingers-'not by accident, either. He just about seduced me pulling those bikini pants off.
He got a big cheer when he got 'em off, though. Or maybe the cheer was for me, on account of they were glad to know I was a bona fide redhead.
I put my legs together real prim-until some guy said, "Spread 'em a little, baby, huh?"
So I spread 'em, and the cameras clicked like popcorn.
A guy asked me to roll on my back. I did so, and still the cameras clicked. Another guy asked me to turn on my side, and I did that; more camera clicks.
Then they asked me to stand, legs together, then legs apart; they asked me to kneel; then crouch; then sit; then lie on my back again with my legs in the air ... And so on.
In a way it was exhausting, shifting poses so often. But in another way it was fun. Like, the men really appreciated everything I was doing. Not like the painters I'd posed for earlier. These guys got a sexual kick out of having me pose in different positions, and listening to them gasp and grunt and sigh kind of turned me on. Like, I'm not made of stone or anything. ATI girls like to be appreciated, physically speaking. And me more than most.
Finally they had me pose on my back again, with my legs even wider apart than before. But not wide enough to suit them. A man with red hair-who'd been sipping from a pint bottle on the sly, I'd noticed yelled, "Wider, baby. Like this!" And he grabbed my thighs and pushed.
"Easy, friend," said Sam, coming over and tapping the red-haired guy on the shoulder. "Don't rough up the body."
"Aw, relax," said the guy. "She ain't complainin', are you baby?"
I shook my head. What the heck, I was enjoying myself!
Sam shrugged. "So have fun."
More cameras clicked. You'd think they'd never seen a young girl with a voluptuous figure lying on her back with her legs like that, the way they kept snapping pictures-or pretending to.
Me, I closed my eyes and relaxed. Just then I felt something short, cold and steely prod me where a girl's sensitive to being prodded.
"Hey, Gus," somebody yelled, "you don't need a light meter there!"
But he swore he did, and then a few others did too. Some of 'em didn't even have meters! So, I thought to myself, it must be true what they say about photographers: that nine out of ten are more interested in sex than photography. What a swinging profession! Or hobby. Non of this art-for-art's-sake bilge like with painters; these guys are hip. Or else perverts. Either way though, they were like alive. And appreci ative of my charms.
Finally-and about time!-the session ended. Sam came out and yelled, "That's it, guys. Pack up for the night."
He leaned over and whispered in my ear, "You want 'em to tip you, baby, say you want tips."
I nodded. I might be from a small town, but I didn't want anybody to think I wasn't quick to pick up big city ways.
I wiggled into a sort of sitting position, my legs crossed and my arms kind of holding my breasts close together.
"You want to tip me," I said real loud, "go ahead. I need the money. Five-dollar bills up here...." I nodded down at my breasts, "and ten dollar-bills there."
They laughed, and one or two clapped, kind of sarcastic like. But pretty soon a couple guys shoved a five-dollar bill between my boobs, and then the fellow with red hair came up with a ten and slid it right where I'd suggested. After that they all started crowding around and shoving money at me.
Inside of a minute I had money sticking out of my mouth and heaven knows where else.
And then Sam yelled, "That's it fellows. Beat it! We're closing!"
And everybody-except Sam-left.
Me, I counted my money. Eighty-five dollars!
Sam leered at me. "Make out okay, kid?"
"I'll say," I said. "Can I have my salary now?"
Sam swore. "Money hungry," he snarled. "All you chicks are money hungry."
Nevertheless he counted out some money and shoved it at me. Four dollars.
"Hey," I said. "This is only four dollars!"
"Buck an hour, I pay," said Sam. "You started at midnight, it's four a.m. now. What you kickin' about You must have made sixty bucks easy."
I nodded. I didn't have anything to complain about. Heck I'd made eighty-nine dollars, counting my salary. Just for four hours of fun.
"Kid," said Sam, unbuttoning his shirt, "you're wasting your time in a racket-I mean profession like this." He took off the shirt, started undoing his trousers. "You like a little action, you can make a lot more." He started tugging down his trousers. It didn't take long. He wasn't wearing any shorts, either.
"Yep," he said, stubbing out his cigar, "Sam's the man who can steer you to the big money-if you're not a prude, that is." All the way naked now-and kind of fat and repulsive-he reached for me. "If you cooperate with me, that is."
So I cooperated. Why not? He was my boss, and this paperback book, I'd read. Advanced Personnel Practices, said a girl who's anxious to get ahead should be willing to play ball with her boss.
So I played ball with Sam.
Of course, I didn't know then all the kinds of ballgames Sam had in mind.
CHAPTER FIVE
Later, Sam," I gasped some hours later, rolling nakedly away on his big bed in the back room. "I'm willing all right, but later, huh?"
"I can't wait," panted Sam, pawing me with his fat, pudgy fingers. "Do it for me again, huh?"
So I did it again.
It seemed to please him. Like, he yelled and squealed like a stuck pig, for Pete's sake!
I fell asleep right after. Like, I was tired!
I didn't sleep long, though. Sam woke me. "Touch me," he panted. "Touch me with the tips of your fingers."
I opened my eyes. Daylight. I looked at the clock on the wall. Eight a.m. I'd hardly had any sleep at all. Still, Sam was my new boss. And according to Chapter Four of Advanced Personnel Practices, I was supposed to be willing to give sexual first aid and comfort to my boss at any hour-if I sexed with him at all, that is.
And Chapter Three had detailed twenty-two good reasons why a young unmarried chick should sex it up with her boss, the most important being that it should be financially profitable. The most important reason I could see, at least.
So I rolled over and reached for Sam and began to touch him. Where he dug being touched the most.
Right at first he just lay there limp. But I kept on touching him and stroking and fondling him, since I figured he should know if he was in the mood. Like, if he'd been drunk or something, I'd have figured he had more ambition than ability. But seeing as how he was sober, I figured he was just exhausted and needed resuscitation. Which I gave him.
And sure enough, after a while I got him to respond. I began to tickle and tease him, scratch and flick him with the tips of my fingers. Then to sort of stroke and massage him.
"Yeah," he gasped. "That's just great. Keep it up."
So I kept it up. After a while, though, I said, "You sure you don't have anything else in mind? You just want me to keep on fondling you this way?"
"Yeah," he gasped. "Please."
Well! I mean, even in Denaquid, Maine, we have public libraries. With books about sex. And I'd read them all. So even without pretending to be an expert, I could guess what Sam's problem was. One of his problems, that is. Namely, he'd been alone too long.
I mean, according to books I'd read, it's normal and natural for a young boy to play around by himself, if you know what I mean. The books said one hundred per cent-not ninety-nine point nine but one hundred per cent-of normal young boys play by themselves.
Even after they got to be adolescents and young men, all the books said, many or most like to have fun by themselves, in addition to having fun in the company of females, if possible. And all the books said this was just fine, that all the old superstitions about ruining their mental or physical health was so much nonsense. But the books also said that after a while-a long or a short while, depending-boys should start having fun with girls.
Which heaven knows makes sense. Like, girls like to have fun too, no matter how much they protest when some boy first shoves his hand into their blouse or under their skirt.
So after a while, the books said, a guy starts having fun with girls as well as by himself. And then, for the most part, he gets all of his fun in cooperation with girls. Which is how things should be, it seems to me.
I mean, why should a boy play by himself when the world is full of millions of girls who'd like to play with him?
But Sam, I figured, was one of the minority group, statistically speaking, who played alone so long that they got so they preferred playing alone. And even if they were with a girl, they preferred having her just touch and stroke them, the way they might touch and stroke themselves if they were alone. The way Sam had had me do since four a.m.
Poor men, I thought. Poor Sam. Don't they realize there are heaps of things a boy and girl can do together that are lots more fun than a boy can have alone? Or than a girl can have alone, for that matter. Because plenty of girls-all girls, in fact think about boys doing sexy things with them. And when there's no boy around to touch or stroke them, girls just naturally touch and stroke themselves.
What a waste, I thought. What a waste of time, when life is so short! Boys lying in bed thinking about stroking girls, and girls lying in bed thinking about being stroked by boys, and all in separate beds. Sad.
Meanwhile, I kept on fondling Sam, and Sam began to gasp in appreciation.
"Sam," I said coyly. "Suppose I roll over on my back and you roll over on top of me and...."
"No!" gasped Sam. "Keep on stroking."
So I did. For a while. Then I stopped. "Sam," I said, "why don't we...."
"No!" cried Sam. "Touch me just a little more!"
"I won't," I said, and I pulled back my hands.
"Please!" bleated Sam.
"I won't touch you," I said. "Heck, you can touch yourself as well as I can."
"It's not the same," gasped Sam. "Having a girl touch me is-well, different. More exciting."
I threw back the sheet. "Okay, Sam. If you think all a girl can do is touch you where you want to be touched-where you can touch yourself, for Pete's sake-I'll show you something a girl can do that you can't."
And I moved until I was sitting on his legs. One of his legs, that is. I wriggled until I was comfortable, real comfortable, with his leg pressed against me where I liked being pressed. Then I leaned forward and kissed him. On the stomach.
"There," I said a moment later. "You can't kiss yourself on the stomach, can you?"
"No," gasped Sam. "Oh, no!"
I kissed him some more. A long, lingering kiss. Then I stopped and drew back. Waited a moment, then bent and kissed him again. This time I kind of nuzzled him, biting real gentle, nibbling all around his stomach. And then, when I could feel him begin to renct too strongly, I drew back.
I waited a moment or two, then bent and kissed him again. With open-mouthed, pulling kisses now. I kept on kissing him until once again I felt him start to throb a bit too fast.
Then I drew back again. "Like that?" I asked.
"Oh, yes!" gasped Sam.
"Could anybody but a girl thrill you as much?" I queried.
"No," moaned Sam. "Kiss me more, huh?"
I bent my head, but I didn't kiss him. This time I just grazed his stomach with my tongue. North side, South side, West side and East side. And then the middle.
I stopped just in time-just before Sam's gasps turned into shouts.
"Want more?" I asked teasingly. "Yes!" pleaded Sam.
"Okay." I said. "I'll count to ten, to give you time to cool off a little. One, two...." And I counted through ten, all the time with Sam pleading for me to kiss him right away.
At the stroke of ten I bent my head, lips formed smoke-ring fashion-though I don't think it looks nice for girls to smoke-and pulled at him deeply with a kiss, my tongue sliding in a circle on his flesh.
I kept on kissing him that way, rocking my head, my lips holding firmly, my tongue tantalizing.
Sam began to grunt and gasp in earnest.
I thought about pulling back, but decided against it. Sam was too excited-truth to tell, so was I; the sliding pressure of his leg had stirred me up pretty good.
So instead of pulling back I went forward, my lips sliding on his hot flesh. All the way I pressed, choked with emotion, and yet further, and still further.
And then just a bit more, until I was in a position where if I'd decided to clamp my teeth together I could have hurt Sam as he'd never been hurt before. But I didn't, I just pressed my lips against his body and worked my own body like mad against the hardness of his leg.
And Sam reacted. Like I knew he was going to. Gasping, writhing, jerking spasmodically and moaning.
For a long, long while. After an even longer while, I drew back. "How was that?" I asked, gasping a bit myself.
"Good," he said. Real good." Then he sighed and fell asleep.
Me, I slept too.
Until an hour later, when Sam awoke and wanted to play another round-of the same game, believe it or not!
I obliged him.
After that we both slept until noon.
At which time Sam awoke and began to talk.
And what an interesting if shocking discussion it was!
"Chick," said Sam, when we'd both awakened around noon and kind of slithered together nakedly to be friendly and companionable. "Chick," he said, "you have a great future ahead of you in the big city, if you play your cards right."
I asked him what he meant.
"Chick, a few years ago I was a stranger to New York. Yes, hard though it may be for you to believe, I was once a rube and a hick in the big city. And only a few years ago."
"Imagine that," I said, thinking he was still pretty much of a rube and a hick so far as I could see, but keeping quiet about it.
"Yep. Time was I thought I could take the big town by storm. Me and my Speed Graphic. I was am-a photographer, you know."
"Do tell," I said, not a bit interested in Sam's career but pretending I was for business reasons.
"Correct. I figured all I had to do was snap pix of fires, floods, riots and other disasters, and right off the big papers would fight for my services. Fate decreed otherwise. Wherever I went, peace and tranquillity reigned. I was like a walking disaster-in reverse."
"How awful," I said.
"Correct. Fires broke out just after I and my camera had left the scene. Westchester had a flood an hour after I drove back to Manhattan. A riot broke out in Sheridan Square ten minutes after I'd packed up my camera and gone home."
"Tsk, tsk," I said, stifling a yawn.
"Correct again. As a photographer, I was accident prone-in reverse. It's a knack, kid, a knack. You're born to be on scene when something worth photographing happens, or else you aren't. It's as simple as that."
"I see," I said, wondering how soon I could politely fall asleep again.
"So I said to myself, 'Sam ... Sam,' I said, "why fight it? You ain't destined to be a great news photographer. So make a buck another way. Pin down your subjects. Shoot pin-up girls.' So I did."
"And?" I said.
"Same story. The models were in great shape, my camera was on the fritz. My camera was working fine, the models had a bad day. In the flesh they looked fine, on film they looked like leftovers from Klein's basement. Bags, you know? In three months I had the biggest collection of bad pictures of sexy chicks in Manhattan. One photo spread I sold: How Not To Photograph Nudes.
"'Sam,' I told myself, 'this ain't for you. If you can't shoot 'em yourself, let others shoot 'em for you. So I opened a studio uptown, West Side. It made money. I opened another studio East Side. It cleaned up. I opened this joint in the Village. Cash just poured in!"
"How nice," I said, feeling my eyes begin to close with sleep.
"Correct. What I couldn't do for myself, I could do for other people. Namely, give them something good to photograph. And what's more good than naked girls, I ask you?"
"Naked boys?" I said-but to myself.
"Nothin'. Give the public naked girls and they flock in. I don't make it hard for them. They got a camera, it costs 'em five bucks to get in, five bucks an hour. They ain't got a camera, I rent 'em one: three bucks an hour more. Film extra. And what've I got today? A goin' business, that's what. Know why?"
"Men like to look at naked girls," I said.
"No. I mean yes, partly. But mostly it proves I got good business sense. You catch?"
"Right," I said, fighting to keep my eyes open.
"I see a demand-for naked girls-I supply that demand, and the money rolls in. Clean, legit money. I make money, my girls make money. Could anything be more fair?"
"No," I said. "I'm real happy. I made eighty-ni....
I mean, I made a few dollars myself last night."
"Kid," said Sam, "I was meaning to talk to you about that. You got youth, vitality. Me, I got bills to pay, rent to meet, old age starin' me in the face. Kid, how about you keepin' ten bucks?"
I went cold all of a sudden.
"Hey!" I said. "I worked for that money. That's my money. I'm going to keep it. That is, if ... "
"If is right, kid. Your bread is now in my safe. Couple of hours ago when you were sacked out I put it there so it'd be safe. But kid, because I like you, I'm gonna give you ten bucks all for yourself."
I thought about that.
"I'll scream," I said.
"So scream, kid. The neighbors I got they enjoy hearing a broad scream."
"I'll go to the cops," I said.
'So go." I pay off; you don't. I just hope they don't kick you too hard in the boobs once they get to workin' you over."
"You're-you're a monster!" I gasped. "And a crook!"
Sam smiled. "Those words are music to my ears. All my life I've wanted to be a monster and a crook. Now I am one. I can't tell you how happy it makes me!"
I just lay there. And seethed. Here I'd thought I'd finally started making big money, and all the time I was being victimized!
"I'll never pose in your rotten photo studio again!" I told him.
"Kid," said Sam, yawning, "that'd be a mistake. Next session I'll let you keep half the tips you make.
Fair enough? And listen, kid, I can put you wise to makin' big money during the day. All I get is ten per cent. And you-you get in the movies I"
"What kind of movies?" I asked, knowing the answer already, I thought.
"Exciting movies, kid. And you don't have to invest money in costumes."
"On account of I won't be wearing anything in the scenes I make?"
"Correct. Oh, maybe a fig leaf here, a pastie or two there," he said, poking me in the appropriate places with his fat finger. "But that stuff the producer supplies. And these are legit movies, kid: art for art's sake. Not stag movies, kid: just legit nudies."
"Why not stag movies?" I asked.
"'Cause the town's a bit hot right now, kid. Week or two, things'll straighten out. Or the boys will set up shop in Jersey. Meanwhile, you'll be makin' just nudies. Not as much dough, but it's art. You'll be famous. Few months time guys all over the country will be leerin' at your boobs on the silver screen. Your nipples will be known from Key West to San Diego."
I gasped. What a wonderful prospect! Only a few days in the big city, and already I was a movie star. Almost, anyway.
Sam made some phone calls while I made breakfast-he had a whole studio apartment set up back of the photo studio, I guess I forgot to mention. Then he gave me my ten dollars, plus a ten-dollar advance on my earnings that night, and T went out and bought a tight-fitting dress at Klein's, which is a big department store near the Village. I just left my home made dress in the fitting room.
Then, following instructions Sam had written down for me, I took a subway to the Bronx. I was real excited the whole trip. I mean, I'd read so much about crime on New York subways, I thought maybe I'd be ravished en route. Nothing happened, though. Except I got to the Bronx.
All I knew about the Bronx was that it was where they'd invented the Bronx cheer. And I could see why. I mean, you can have the Bronx! It's a dump!
I found the address Sam had given me without any trouble, and a short while later I was talking to Louis Lynx, the famous nudie movie producer. At least Sam had told me he was famous; I wouldn't know. They don't show nudie movies in Denaquid.
Mr. Lynx was a tiny, thin shrimp of a guy, with watery eyes and a bald head. He had a deep voice, though, and I've read that men with deep voices are very virile.
"Sharon," he said, shaking my hand and peering down at my breasts while he licked his lips, "Sam has told me quite a bit about your talents. I expect great things from you."
"On the silver screen?" I asked, my heart fluttering.
"On my casting couch," he said, unfastening his belt.
So for the next couple of hours we didn't talk much about movies. We just sexed it up on Mr. Lynx's casting couch. He was a lot more virile than Sam, I must say, but still in a passive sort of way.
I mean, what he liked best was to just lie on his back while I did all the work. All the kissing, and all the bouncing up and down, and most of the fondling and stroking.
Maybe he's just tired, I thought. Being a movie producer is supposed to be an exhausting business.
Finally we took a shower-together, which was a lot of fun-and then we dried ourselves and put our clothes on, and Mr. Lynx talked about my career.
"I just put a pic in the can," he said, lighting up a little cigar. "I'm between pix right now. But I'm itching to start on a new one; once I get the right story.
My heart just sank, I can tell you! I mean, I'd read a lot about movie making, and I knew how long it takes to get a production started even after a producer has the story. He has it rewritten and rewritten, and then he has a treatment made, and then a screenplay from the treatment, and then he has that rewritten, and then he signs his stars and rents studio space and gets a director and cameraman and a bank to finance the production and so on. It takes months!
"So," said Mr. Lynx, relighting his cigar. "I'll give Dagobert-my writer-a ring this afternoon, tell him to get right to work."
Well! Mr. Lynx had sure stream-lined the moviemaking process.
"Uh, who's going to direct my movie?" I asked.
"I am. I'm also the cameraman. The unions hate me."
"Well, I hate unions," I said, to ingratiate myself.
"Good for you," said Mr. Lynx. "See you here tomorrow morning. Get here at seven-thirty, so you can memorize your lines before we start shooting."
And he showed me out. The rest of the day passed in a whirl, I can tell you! I spent the afternoon sexing up Sam, and the evening posing for his shutter nuts. But I hardly paid attention, I was so excited about my new career.
CHAPTER SIX
Next morning at seven-thirty, I showed up again at Louis Lynx' studio in the Bronx, Mr. Lynx was up and ready. And how he was ready! He wasn't wearing anything but a towel when he let me in, and from the way that towel hung I could tell he was ready for me.
"Get stripped kid," he told me, whipping off his towel.
"But Mr. Lynx," I said, "my lines!"
"Your lines are just great, kid," he said, reaching for me and unzipping my dress. And the next thing I knew he was swarming all over my naked body.
Well!
Well, he was the producer, so I let him swarm. And I swarmed back. For twenty minutes we swarmed together on the casting couch.
Then, while he lay gasping and smiling, I said: "Shouldn't I be learning my lines?"
"Right," he gasped. "Absolutely right. Here: this is the polished script Dagobert left with me last night. Skim through it."
I skimmed through it, real fast. They teach speed reading at Denaquid High School, and I'd gotten a C-plus in the course.
What a strange script! The title was JUNGLE JEZABEL, and it was set in a tropical forest. This man from Brooklyn tromps into the jungle looking for the Queen of Sheba's gold mine. With six shapely native girls as porters.
Only he comes down with a fever, and gets chills.
So the shapely native girls do their best to warm him up. The script didn't make it clear just how; it just said: Shots 25 through 40, the native girls get busy all over him in different ways.
This helps him a bit, but not much. After he's tromped a few more miles through the jungle he gets feverish again, and this time he begins to imagine things. Like lions and monkeys and hyenas and pythons and zebras and such. Only all the lions and monkeys and hyenas and pythons and zebras he sees have sexy, girl-type shapes.
"How d'ya like that bit, kid?" said Mr. Lynx, peering over my shoulder while I read. "A dream sequence, you dig? Is that Art or is that Art? Cinematic dreams in living color. Eerie music, ripple dissolves, superimposures-the works."
"Gosh," I said, "movie making is sure technical."
"Naw," said Mr. Lynx, "it's easy-for a genius like me. Ripple dissolves? I make a print shooting through a little glass tank with a couple inches of water in it. Get the water sloshing around, and wham, you got ripples. Looks great on film. Eeerie music? I got a tape of eerie music. From old horror movies on TV, phonograph albums played extra slow, stuff like that. Dream sequences are easy, for a cinematic genius."
"Who plays the Queen of Sheba?" I asked, reading on in the script.
"You, baby," said Mr. Lynx. "You, sprayed with gold make-up. On the screen we use subtitles-get that: subtitles; is that Art or is that Art?-to explain you're two thousand years old, and keep yourself young by drinking a secret exlixir."
"I play a girl two thousand years old?" I said, not feeling too happy.
"Right. But you look real young. And act pretty frisky-also experienced. Naturally you're experienced: you've been playing sex games for twenty centuries. A real challenge to a top-notch actress, kid. You feel equal to the challenge?"
"Oh, yes!"
"Fine. Reach me that spray can, baby. I'll spray you gold."
And he did.
While he sprayed, people began arriving, and right away we started shooting scenes. It was wild, believe me!
The guy who played the hero was a real young, real dumb guy-but built. He looked like a professional weight-lifter, which was what he'd been before he became a famous movie actor, he told me. In the movie he was naked except for a loincloth, and the loincloth was small and close-fitting. He was a pretty muscular guy all over.
Me, I wore a silver fig leaf-which Mr. Lynx said would contrast nicely with the gold tint my flesh had been colored-when Mr. Lynx was shooting me from the front. When he was shooting from the rear I didn't wear anything. The fig leaf was scratchy, so I didn't wear it any more than I had to.
The scenes we shot that morning were of me, the Queen of Sheba, doing my best to excite and influence the hero. And what fun scenes they were! I got to wriggle and squirm and do a sexy dance, and then slither all over the ex-weight-lifter!
What we did wasn't very exciting, on account of the hero had that loincloth on and I usually my silver fig leaf, but it was fun.
The whole movie was shot in this big loft Mr. Lynx called his studio. One end of it was draped with green plastic vines and fake tree branches, and he had artificial turf on the floor. Also some papier mache stones which were supposed to represent the ruins of the Queen of Sheba's Temple.
It looked real cheap and phony to me, but Mr. Lynx said it would photograph just great.
At noon we broke for lunch and Mr. Lynx sent out for sandwiches, which we all had to pay for, and we rested for half an hour and ate.
In the afternoon he shot the rest of the movie, during the first part of which I just stood around and watched--and itched, under my gold spray-job.
It sure was a fast way of making a movie, and I said so to Mr. Lynx.
"Right, kid," he said. "I am fast. But that don't mean I sacrifice quality, not a bit. All this guff about movies taking a long time to make-bull! I want an hour of edited film in the can. Okay, I got all day to shoot film, evening for retakes. So I can make a movie in a day."
He went on to explain that movies which weren't Artistic-by which I guess he meant movies where the girls wore clothes-had extra problems, like dialogue to memorize. But in nudie movies, he said, dialogue wasn't important. Like, the audience didn't come to hear the girls on the screen. And I guess he had a point.
Anyway, he was sure casual about dialogue. Like, in one scene I was supposed to crawl out of this cave and look around for a man. Then I see the hero and exclaim and all.
After I'd wriggled backward into the papeir mache cave, I said, "What do I say, Mr. Lynx?"
He scratched his chin. "Dagobert, what should she say?"
Dagobert, his famous screen writer, was a thin, sad-looking man with bad teeth. Dagobert scratched his chin--what there was of it.
"Let's see," he mused. "Queen of Sheba. Hmm. I guess she should say something like, "A man! I have waited eons for a man! When will a man find me in my lonely jungle retreat, and awaken my slumbering sensuality with a kiss?"
"Yeah," said Mr. Lynx. "Say something like that, kid."
So I said something like that, while crawling out of the cave, standing up, stretching so as to make my breasts stand out, and then peering around for a man.
Mr. Lynx yelled cut, and said I'd done just fine.
I wasn't so sure. "I know I have the instincts of a great actress, Mr. Lynx," I said. "But I haven't had any practice-or training. I don't think I sounded too good."
"Kid," said Mr. Lynx, "you sounded like chalk scraping on a blackboard. But don't worry. I'll club in a good sexy voice later. The important thing is, you said the right lines, so your lip movements will sync."
And he explained that most of the girls he gave speaking roles to had lousy voices, but it was okay because he knew an old radio actress.
"She's a drunk," he explained, "and an old hag. But her voice is just great-sexy as you could ask for. And she can do all kinds of voices. I give her five bucks an hour for dubbing. Keeps her happy and in booze. A satisfactory arrangement for all parties."
I nodded. Mr. Lynx was sure smart. I suppose you might think my feelings were hurt because he said my voice was bad, but I didn't let it worry me. The important thing was, I was now a movie star. Once I got rich I could take voice lessons.
That was before lunch, that scene. But like I started to tell you, in the afternoon eight more girls arrived, took off their clothes and got sprayed with brown paint. They were the sexy native porters. After they put on tiny loincloths, Mr. Lynx had them march back and forth through his fake jungle. He was sure a perfectionist: he made them walk around for hours, until their hips swayed just right and their breasts bounced as much as possible with each step.
He had them holding boxes and bales over their heads like they were real porters, which helped their breasts a lot, of course. All of them had big bosoms, I noticed.
"That's a trademark of my films," Mr. Lynx explained to me. "Lots of nudie movies have a jew girls with big boobs, but in my movies every girl has a colossal chest."
After he'd shot all the scenes that included the girl porters, he paid them and they took showers and went home. Then he shot a lot of close-ups: of me, of the hero, and of me and the hero together-but mostly of me. Real close close-ups, too! He had me so close to the camera it was almost touching me!
"It makes for Art, kid," he explained. "And it's legal, too. If a girl's bare breasts are legal at all, they're legal when they fill the whole screen."
I went all tingly inside, thinking that my breasts would soon fill the screens of movie houses all over the nation.
After we'd spent about an hour shooting close-ups of my breasts and thighs and buttocks, Mr. Lynx said it was time to shoot the animal scenes: where the hero has fever and imagines the jungle full of sexy animals.
I asked Mr. Lynx who was going to play the parts of the animals.
"You are, kid," he said. "All of 'em."
Well, naturally I was thrilled. I mean, what a challenge to my acting ability, playing the parts of a lot of different beasts of the jungle-and in my very first movie! All the same, I wondered why he hadn't used some of the busty girls who'd been native porters.
"Money, kid," he said. "Those broads work by the hour, and even though they ain't union, the dough they ask is murder. Also," he added real quick, "you got a better shape than any of them."
"Thank you," I said, pleased to hear that he agreed with my private opinion. "But don't I get paid by the hour?"
"Uh-no, kid. You being the star and all, you work for a generous lump sum: fifty bucks. Plus-get this-a percentage of the profits!"
I gasped. Only big stars got percentages of the movies they made. Sometimes they made millions, I'd heard.
"Yeah, kid," Mr. Lynx continued, "it's right in the contract I'm gonna have you sign. You get twenty-five per cent of the net profits. That is, after production and distribution costs have been deducted, plus salaries and, uh, other expenses. I ask you, is that a great deal or is that a great deal?"
"Yeah," I said, but privately I wasn't so sure all of a sudden. I had a nasty feeling that I was going to end up with fifty dollars-period. Still, since Mr. Lynx had given me my Big Break, I couldn't complain. Lots of big stars made peanuts from their first film. And how many girls got to be stars right away, the way I had? Very few, according to the fan magazines I'd read.
The animal scenes were fun. First Mr. Lynx had me put on a cloth leopard's head. It had ears and whiskers and looked just keen. Then he had me take off my silver fig leaf and put on a tiny black satin G-string, and he got a can of white paint and sprayed me all over.
"Are you sure," I asked, "that I won't get poisoned from having paint sprayed all over me?"
"Sure I'm sure," he said. "The chances of you suffering a toxic allergic attack are one in, uh-well, very slight. How do you feel, kid? Any nausea, dizziness or symptoms of toxic reaction?"
"I feel great," I said.
"Right." He reached out a pudgy finger, poked me in the breast. "Ah! The paint's dry already. Now to make a leopard out of you." And he did. With a can of black spray paint. What he did was spray spots and strips on me, and real expertly, too. Inside of five minutes I was all painted, and when I looked in a mirror I just gasped, I looked so great.
Just exactly like a leopard-only with a girl's shape, of course. At least below the neck.
Even Mr. Lynx seemed pleased, and he was a real perfectionist. "Dagobert," he said, addressing his famous screen writer, "some time next week knock me out a script called uh, Cult of the Sex-Starved Leopard Girl."
"Roger," said Dagobert.
Me, I just shivered with happiness. Already Mr. Lynx was planning to star me in a new epic.
Meanwhile, Mr. Lynx was putting the finishing touches on my costume-or make-up, rather. What he did was take a bottle of nail polish and paint my nipples and aureoles bright red.
"Nothing like a little crimson on the nipples to make a naked girl look erotic," he said while painting me. Looking in the mirror, I couldn't help but agree: I did look erotic. I mean, if I'd been a boy looking at me as a girl, I'd have sure turned myself on, if you know what I mean. Dagobert sure looked turned on. I mean he was like drooling!
I shot a glance at the hero of the film, my costar. He was yawning. Strange.
Then Mr. Lynx put on a record called Music to Strip By, and told me to do a sexy leopard dance, which I did. I sort of improvised-slithering and swaying my hips and wriggling so my breasts jiggled all over-while Mr. Lynx circled me with his camera, which he had on a little platform on wheels.
He kept making useful suggestions, like, "Shake those boobs again, baby; now stamp those feet hard so's your fanny will shake; now throw me a big bump; now a few grinds...." and so on.
He had me dancing for what seemed hours, but it was fun. I kept sneaking looks at the hero, to see if I was tuning him on. I haven't said much about my co-star so far, other than that he was big and muscular, mainly on account of until then I'd been too excited and nervous about my acting to pay him much attention. Now, though, I could study him especially as I was doing most of my sexy dancing right in front of him.
When he was being photographed with me he sure looked excited-panting and rolling his eyes and licking his lips a lot. But when Mr. Lynx was taking very close close-ups of my leopard-spotted backside or breasts, and the hero wasn't in the picture, he just looked bored. Maybe even a little disgusted, of all things.
Well. I mean something like that would make any girl wonder! I began to doubt that he was as virile as I'd assumed from his build. It wasn't just his looking bored and a bit disgusted while I did an erotic dance right in front of him-there'd been other things, too. Like the way he giggled instead of laughing. And the trouble Mr. Lynx had had with his walk-he'd had kind of a tendency to mince and swing his hips.
Could it be he was just a bit effeminate?
Meanwhile, I went on doing my sexy leopard dance, and then slithered around and all over the hero (whose name was Tony Jeeves, by the way). After ten minutes or so Mr. Lynx said he had enough leopard footage and it was time for me to be an erotic dream hyena.
So I stood still while he took off my leopard-head covering and put on a hyena head. Then he began to spray brown paint on me. I asked him if it wouldn't be better to take the leopard paint off first, but he said no: taking off the paint would take too long.
When he had me painted and I'd dried he had me do a sexy hyena dance-which was pretty much like the leopard dance, to tell the truth.
Then I did a sexy lion dance, with yellow-brown paint, and then a sexy python dance, with mottled paint. Finally he had me do a sexy monkey dance. Know how he made me look like a sexy monkey? He sprayed some kind of glue all over me, and then dumped on a whole carton of black fox fur-just the fur, not the hides. I guess he must have shaved a bunch of old coats. The fur stuck to me, of course, and after he'd put a monkey mask on me and painted my hippies red again (he hadn't put any glue on my nipples, so there was no fur there,) I did the monkey dance.
Truth to tell, it wasn't one of my more erotic dances. For one thing, I had so much paint and glue on me by that time I could hardly wriggle. For another, all that paint and glue and fur made me awfully hot, like I had a fever of a hundred and five or something!
Mr. Lynx kept circling me with his camera, yelling for me to dance faster and sexier. "It's for the sake of Art, kid!" he yelled. "The show must go on! Dance, baby, dance! This is your Big Chance! Shake those boobs; roll that fanny; stamp them feet; now wriggle all over" And so forth.
I did as good as I could, then I just collapsed.
"Okay," said Mr. Lynx, wiping sweat from his brow. "Good enough." He glanced at his watch, frowned, then turned to Dagobert and Tony Jeeves. "One last shot, boys. Give a hand, huh? We tie her between four posts-I mean trees."
Dagobert frowned. "But there's no scene like that in the screen play. I don't see...."
"Don't argue" said Mr. Lynx, stepping on Dagobert's toe-by accident, I thought at the time. Meanwhile Mr. Lynx was tying lengths of rope to my wrists and my ankles. If I hadn't been so hot and exhausted, I'd have stopped to wonder what kind of scene he was going to shoot and what it had to do with the picture. But I was too bushed to care.
Pretty soon Mr. Lynx had the ropes from my wrists tied to two posts about three feet off the ground. Then he gave one of the ankle ropes to Tony while he and Dagobert took the other.
"All together boys, pull!" he yelled. And they jerked on the ropes. Me, I had my feet jerked out from under me, and landed with an awful thud on my backside.
"Gently!" yelled Mr. Lynx. "Now pull harder!" And before I could say "Put me down!" they had my legs tied to two other posts. And there I was, suspended from four posts three feet off the ground-and completely helpless.
"Hey!" I gasped. "This hurts!"
"Kid," said Mr. Lynx, shaking his head sadly, "I'm afraid you ain't felt nothin' yet. But it's for your own good. That paint is real tough to remove. There's only one way to do it fast." And as I watched, he sloshed turpentine into three pails, handed Dagobert and Tony each a pail and a big scrubbing brush.
"Scrub hearty, boys," he said cheerfully. "Otherwise she'll croak for sure. That paint's been on half an hour too long as it is."
"Right," said Tony, licking his lips. He grinned, kind of sadistically, sloshed some turpentine over my breasts, and began to scrub them as hard as he could with the stiff brush.
Me, I let out an awful yell. "Stop!" I screamed, "You're killing me! I can't stand it. I-glubf"
The reason I said glub-as you've no doubt guessed--was that Mr. Lynx had shoved a rag in my mouth. It tasted of turpentine. "Kid," he said cheerfully, while he scrubbed my stomach and Dagobert scrubbed my thighs and Tony scrubbed my breasts (harder than he needed to), "don't think I don't appreciate what you are undergoing-with a smile-the tortures of the damned. But it's for your own good, kid. That paint is dangerous, and we got to get it off real quick or we'll have the bother of disposing of your corpse. If we didn't have you hog-tied, you'd wriggle and struggle in horrible agony, making our task impossibly difficult. Scrub faster, boys. She doesn't look so good."
I didn't feel so good, either. I'd never felt such pain in my whole life! I felt like I was being rubbed raw all over, which I just about was. And Tony wasn't even trying to be gentle. In fact-though I don't like to speak ill of anybody-I think he was more interested in giving me a hard time than in getting the paint, glue and fur off me. At least, even after he'd gotten the stuff off my breasts he kept on scrubbing at them like he was trying to scrub them right off me. Finally Mr. Lynx noticed, and told him to scrub another part of me.
Me, I struggled and wriggled as much as I could, which wasn't much, and thought about how it sure is true that girls have to suffer a lot to gain fame on the silver screen.
Finally, what seemed like days later, they had all the paint and glue and fur off me. I raised my head it took real effort-and looked down at myself. I wasn't bleeding, but I was sure bright pink all over.
"Shall we let her down now?" asked Dagobert.
"In just a moment," said Mr. Lynx, reaching for his camera. "I'll just take a few hundred feet of film first. Never can tell when I might be able to use a few scenes of a naked girl all pink and all trussed up as if for sacrificial purposes."
And he began to take shots of me from different angles, meanwhile talking cheerfully about how he made his films so quick ahd on such low budgets. According to him, he always used lots of dream sequences in his pictures-scenes where the hero dreamed about girls he'd made it with or would like to make it with. And for these sequences he used footage he'd shot for previous films but hadn't used.
"No-waste Lynx, they call me," he said proudly, pushing his camera in for a close shot of my pink left breast. "Any footage on my cutting room floor gets used in my next picture, or the one after that."
"Ub glub!" I said, not really interested in the secrets of low-cost nudie film making-not right then, at least.
Finally he decided he had enough footage of me all pink and naked and stretched out off the ground, so after first thoughtfully placing a cushion under my backside, he and Dagobert cut the rops. And I landed with a thud on the floor.
I bad completed my first starring role.
CHAPTER SEVEN
For a while I just lay there moaning. Then I pulled the rag out of my mouth, sat up and asked for a drink. Mr. Lynx found a bottle of whiskey and poured me a generous shot.
"You've earned it, kid," he said. "But cheer up: from now on fame and fortune lie before you; a New Star has been born. How do you feel?"
"Awful," I said, choking on the whiskey. And I did, as you can well imagine, seeing as how I'd been scrubbed violently all over. I was sore everywhere but happy, too.
"Is the movie really all made?" I asked between gulps.
"It is," said Mr. Lynx. "At least, I have all the new footage I need. Of course, I'll flesh out the final product artfully. Stock shots of the African jungle, stock shots of bare-bosomed native girls doing tribal dances. Plus dream shots. Tony here will not only dream about the sexy animals you played, but I'll have him dream about other girls. Use shots from my last three pix: Secrets of the Sultan's Harem, Nude Interlude, and Return of the Swamp Nudists."
I shook my head admiringly. Mr. Lynx really was a genius when it came to low-cost movie making. It looked like I'd hitched my wagon to a rising star in the movie business. No doubt Mr. Lynx would go on making bigger and better movies-and I'd be his star in all of them. Or most of them, at least.
Mr. Lynx told me to go take a shower, using plenty of soap to get the turpentine and the last of the paint off me, and I did. When I came out he'd gone off with his famous screen writer, Dagobert. Only Tony Jeeves was left, sitting on a chair and glaring.
I gave him a friendly smile. He scowled at me. "You have to stick around for an hour," he told me. "Mr. Lynx' orders. And I have to stick around to watch you."
"Watch me?" I said, wondering if Tony was implying that I looked so ravishing, all pink and naked, that he couldn't keep his eyes off me.
"Yeah," said Tony, spitting inelegantly on the floor. "Lynx says the paint he used is plenty dangerous. He doesn't want you going into a coma and dying; he might need you for retakes. But if you're feeling okay an hour from now, you probably won't have to be hospitalized."
"And you're staying to keep an eye on me," I said. "How nice of you," I added, thinking I must have been wrong in thinking he'd scrubbed my breasts with sadistic relish.
"Bah!" said Tony. "I'm obeying orders is all." He combed his curly hair back with a graceful gesture. He sure was a handsome hunk of man, I reflected. He was still wearing just the tiny loincloth, and his body just gleamed-all muscles and knots of muscles.
I sat down seductively at his feet. "Do-do you like the way I look?" I asked, kind of coy-like.
He stared at me. "Frankly, no," he said. "Your hair's rather nice, though. I would love to have long hair like yours. It isn't practical, though.
"I guess you're what they call gay, huh?" I queried. Tony just shrugged. "Don't you like girls at all?" Tony yawned. "Do you ever wish you were a girl?
Tony looked carefully around, then leaned forward confidentially. "Often," he said. "What heaven to be able to wear high heels all the time; to dress in satin and lace; to have boys flock around me!"
"But," I said, "why is that? Tell me why you dislike real girls?"
"Because they are real girls, I suppose," said Tony, tossing his curly hair.
"Well," I said, "I don't want to tell you how to live your life and all, but it seems to me you're making a real mistake, being gay and all. Maybe you'd get to like making love to girls if you tried."
Tony gave me a scornful look. "You don't like girls-sexually, I mean-do you?"
"Oh, no," I said. "I like boys-men."
"Well," said Tony, "just imagine if you woke up tomorrow as a man-but with the same inclinations you have now. Would you go on chasing men, or would you switch to women?"
I thought about this. It would be tough to be built like one sex but feel like the other inside. I didn't say this, however. What I said was, "If I had to live my life as a man, I'd make a real effort to be a man. Just as you should."
"I'd rather die," said Tony scornfully. Then he got to his feet, picked up a pair of Indian clubs and began juggling them. For exercise, I guess. Most likely he had to exercise all the time to keep his muscles from getting saggy.
Pretty soon he was twirling the clubs high over his head and catching them real deftly-behind his back and stuff like that. Me, I sat on my heels and watched his muscles rippling, and I got to feeling pretty sexy. What a hunk of man he was! What fun it would be to make love with him, I mused. If only ... Then I had a clever idea.
I waited until he had both clubs up in the air, and then I screamed and pointed behind him. "Look!" I yelled.
He jerked his head around to look. Clunk, clunk. Both Indian clubs came down on his head. His eyes rolled wildly, and then he toppled over with a thud, out cold. I scrambled to my feet real quick, rolled him over, checked his skull to see if it was broken-it wasn't-and then I ran to get the ropes Mr. Lynx-had tied me with.
A couple minutes later Tony groaned and came to. "Ub glub!" he said when he found he had a gag in his mouth and his arms and legs were tied to posts so he was lying helpless on his back.
I stood over him and smiled. "I decided," I told him, "that you're going to make love to a girl--me-whether you want to or not. It'll be good for you, I think. And if it isn't, well, it'll be plenty of fun for me."
His eyes rolled in horror, and he began to tug at the ropes, but without getting anywhere. I'd tied him real tight. I stood over him, almost drooling. Maybe I should have felt sorry for him, but I didn't. What the heck! I'd been ravished, over and over-why shouldn't I get to ravish somebody myself?
I leaned down, grabbed his loincloth, ripped it off. He moaned and closed his eyes. I looked his naked body up and down carefully, licking my lips with anticipation. He was sure manly in the right places. Only he didn't look exactly eager, if you know what I mean. Well, I was willing to bet I could change that. And I set to work.
I began by kissing him. I couldn't kiss him on the lips, of course, on account of he had the gag in his mouth. But I kissed him just about every other place.
He writhed and twisted like he was being murdered or something! I just went on kissing him, light butterfly kisses and long, deep kisses, teasing kisses and passionate ones. I kissed his eyes, his ears, his cheekbones and his neck.
I kissed my way down his chest and back, and up his arms-which were stretched out back of his head. I kissed my way down again to his belly, then kissed both of his legs, tops and sides.
He was groaning by this time. With dismay, I guess. Then I straddled one leg and bent my head to let my hair sweep across his belly and upper thighs and so forth.
He stopped groaning then. I bent way forward and pressed my breasts against him, then lifted my body a bit and kind of rocked back and forth, so my breasts slapped against his flesh.
He began to get interested; I could tell. Not because of anything he said-he couldn't talk anyway, with the gag in his mouth-but by the way he, well, reacted.
I raised my head to leer at him, then bent and kissed him dead center. Only he didn't feel dead, believe me.
"Ungk gunk!" poor Tony moaned through his nose, which I interpreted to mean that he was getting excited but didn't want to get excited. I went on kissing him.
I used my lips and I used my tongue, and sometimes I used both. It wasn't long before I was rigid with excitement. And so was he. I went on kissing him, and tonguing him, and mouthing him.
I'd sure been right about figuring he was a muscle man, I reflected while I worked away at him. I'd never seen-let alone kissed-such a man as he was. I wondered how much he weighed.
About that time his whole body began to tremble and pulse, some parts more than others, and he began to breathe real fast through his nose.
I figured he was about as excited as a man can get. Well, almost. But I was sure that if I kissed him for even another few seconds, I'd find out just how excited he could get.
So I stopped. He moaned-through his nose. He wanted me to keep right on kissing him.
Well, the heck with that! I wanted some fun, too. And with that gag in his mouth he wouldn't be able to kiss me while I kissed him.
Just to bug him, the way he'd bugged me, I said: "I think maybe I'll go get some paint and glue and paint you good." And while I said it I was smiling right at the place I was thinking of painting. "Yes," I said, "and after I get you painted good, I'll scrub all the paint off you with a hard brush. A wire brush, maybe."
He made a kind of bleating sound. He didn't like the idea one bit, that was for sure.
For just a moment I felt real wicked and sadistic, and I thought maybe I should give him a real hard time, now that I had him trussed and helpless. But no. I might get a few sadistic kicks that way, but I prefer sexual kicks.
So I bent and kissed him a bit more, to revive his flagging spirits, and then I wriggled forward, still kneeling, and raised my body about ten inches in the air-and then lowered myself right on top of him.
He made a kind of happy squeal through his nose, and I felt a bit like squealing myself. Instead, I just shoved and wriggled and pushed until my buttocks, finally, were resting on his hip bones.
Talk about a man being big! I'd never dreamed what a really huge man could be like.
I began to try and bounce up and down. It was hard work, believe me. But fun. The best kind of fun. Also I began to jerk and sway my hips, and twist and roll. Did I ever feel stirred up! I felt just great!
It was sorta like being burned at the stake, a huge stake that glowed and tingled electrically. Every time I bounced or wriggled I felt sparks of deep sexual joy crackle.
I began to bounce and churn my hips faster and faster, and it was like a great, pulsing eel or a python was thrashing around! It was wild!
And sexy, and erotic, and passionate, and lusty, and crazy....
And then the throbbing began to get faster and faster, and I felt myself respond in anticipation, and then it was as if a volcano had exploded with sweet, searing lava, all bubbling and boiling and feeling great. And Tony grunted like he was being hit in the stomach again and again, and I screamed and bounced like crazy with jolt after jolt of joy-And it was over.
I rested a while, sweating and panting, then I kind of worked myself loose, like pulling a tight-fitting boot off a foot, and then I rested some more. Then I untied Tony.
He pulled the gag out of his mouth, panted a bit, and then he turned to me and said: "You vicious girl! You vicious girl!"
"What's the matter?" I gasped. "Didn't you have fun?"
"Of course," he gasped. "But it wasn't ... well, proper. You're a girl!"
So what can you do with a man like that? I stuck my tongue out at him. Then I put on my dress and went back to the Village, to Sam's studio.
Only, when I got there, what did I find but a sign on the door. This Is A Raided Premise, said the sign.
Well! I didn't know what to do.
And while I was standing outside Sam's studio which was also my home, if you counted his apartment in back, which I'd sure been counting on, the door opened and a whole slew of policemen came out.
Two of them were leading Sam, two were leading a girl in a dressing gown with big boobs, and the rest were shoving along a bunch of male photographers who were looking real sheepish and holding their hands over their faces and all.
"Sam!" I said. "What's happened?"
A policeman grabbed my arm. "Sam's been busted, that's what. For running an indecent exhibition-namely, making whoopee with his model while of bunch of guys took pictures."
I gasped. Would Sam do a thing like that-.even for big money? Yes, I decided. He would.
"You one of his models?" asked the cop, shifting his grip from my arm to my left breast.
"Oh, no" I said, thinking quickly. "I'm just a lady photographer come to take pictures of naked-I mean of life models."
"Shame on you, lady," said the cop, letting go of my breast. "Now beat it before we run you in."
Which I did, thankful that Sam had been enough of a gentleman not to implicate me. I took the subway right back to the Bronx and Mr. Lynx' studio.
I might have lost my apartment and my protector (Sam) and my cushy job posing nude for photographers, but I still had my career on the silver screen. Or so I thought.
Because when I got to Mr. Lynx' studio, whom should I encounter but another army of cops, leading out Mr. Lynx, his famous screenwriter Dagobert, and Tony Jeeves-who'd put his loincloth back on. Another cop-a lady cop-was nailing up a sign: This Is A Raided Premise.
"Mr. Lynx!" I cried. "What happened?"
"Slippery Louis's bein' busted, that's what," said a cop, making a grab for my right breast and getting a good hold. "You're one of his, heh-heh, actresses, huh?"
"I'm the star of his latest legitimate nudie movie," I said, standing as tall as I could considering the grip the cop had on my breast. "And Mr. Lynx is a legitimate nudie movie producer. You can't arrest him for making legitimate nudie movies, can you?"
"For his legitimate nudie movies we ain't arresting him, girlie," said the cop, shifting his grip on my breast slightly. "But for his stag movies, like What the Butler Did, and The Girl Who Couldn't Get Enough, we're booking him."
"But I made those movies weeks ago!" moaned Mr. Lynx. "You can't hold me responsible for indiscretions committed early in my career, can you?"
"Let go my bosom!" I said to the cop who was holding me-real tight, too. "I didn't act in any stag movies!"
"She did so," snarled Tony, wriggling close to the cops who were holding him. "And I should know. You wouldn't believe what she and a-a donkey did in front of a camera. She's an erotic beast!"
"Why you rotten pansy!" I screamed, understandably upset. "The only dumb beast I ever got sexy with was you, you creep!" I turned to the cop who had hold of my boob. "Let go, you sex maniac!"
"Tell it to the judge," snickered the cop.
Well!
I knew there was only one thing to do-the thing any decent girl would do in a situation like that. I wriggled and bent my head and bit the cop hard on his wrist.
He yelled and let go of my breast, and I turned and ran. And ran and ran! I expected a volley of shots to come after me, and sure enough, a few moments later I heard shots, and bullets began to whiz all around me. I guess it's true what they say about cops being trigger-happy.
I suppose I should have thrown myself to the ground, but I was too scared to think-or stop running-so I ran. All around me innocent bystanders-old men, old ladies and little kids-were falling to the ground. Whether they'd been shot down or were just dropping to escape the bullets I couldn't tell.
I got to the nearest subway entrance and went down five steps at a time, holding my skirt at my waist which got me plenty of whistles, believe me, seeing as how I had no underwear on.
But the punks whistling at me stopped leering quick enough when cops started pouring down the entrance pumping slugs at me.
I was lucky. I jumped into a train just as the doors were closing, and lay flat. A few bullets whizzed through the metal doors, but none of them hit me. And boy, that subway car sure emptied fast!
I got out at the next station and changed to an express. And at the first stop the express made, I got out and sprinted upstairs and took a cab. Back to the Village. It was the only home I knew.
Once in the Village I paid off the cab driver (who'd been making suggestions all the way downtown) and began to walk. Where should I go? Sam had been busted, and so had Mr. Lynx, along with his famous screen writer and Tony Jeeves.
Pretty soon I found myself on Sheridan Square, and I walked-kind of unsteadily-into the first bar I came to, which was also the first bar I'd visited in New York.
The same gay bartender was there. He smiled at me. "Making out okay?" he asked.
"Just fine," I said. "And I owe you five dollars. Also interest." I slid a ten-dollar bill across the bar, which he took. Then I slid two ones across. "Give me a shot of something very strong," I said. "I need it." And I really did.
I was sure in an awful jam. Losing Sam and his apartment and my job posing nude for photographers was bad enough, and losing my chance to become a big star of the silver screen with Mr. Lynx was even worse. But also I'd bitten a cop-even if only on the wrist. I'd read enough paperback books about life in New York to know what that meant. It meant my life wasn't worth a plugged nickel, that was what.
What would happen when the cops looked for my fingerprints in Mr. Lynx' studio? They'd find them. And then, sooner or later, they'd find me. And beat me up. Or kill me. Or both.
"Give me another shot," I told the bartender. He gave me another, and I drank it down.
"Got troubles?" said a friendly female voice. I turned around. A quietly dressed woman in her thirties was sitting on the bar stool beside me. She hadn't been there when I came in. She'd been sitting at the end of the bar talking to the bartender.
The bartender leaned forward. "What was your name again, sugar?"
"Sharon," I said without thinking.
"Sharon," said the bartender, "this is Mrs. Smith. You can trust Mrs. Smith."
CHAPTER EIGHT
I looked at Mrs. Smith. she sure looked trustworthy. She was pretty, in a dark, exotic kind of way, but she also looked, well, motherly. I mean, I never belonged to a college sorority on account of I never went to college, but she looked like I'd imagine a sorority housemother would look.
She smiled at me. "I understand you've had difficulties, Sharon. You worked for Sam, and Sam's in jail. You worked for Louis Lynx, and he's in jail. And you're out of a job, right?"
"Right," I said, wondering how she'd heard about all my troubles so soon.
"The, uh, jungle telegraph in the Village is very efficient," said Mrs. Smith. "I understand you bit a cop on the leg a half-hour ago."
"On the wrist," I said. "But yes, I guess I bit him."
"Very bad," said Mrs. Smith. "A terrible mistake. The police in this town frown on civilian brutality. What are your plans, Sharon? Looking for a job-out of town?"
"I'll say," I said. "You know of one?"
Mrs. Smith smiled. A real motherly smile. "It just so happens I do." She jerked her head. "Join me in a booth, where we can talk privately."
I slid off my bar stool, as did Mrs. Smith. She slid a ten-dollar bill across the bar before she left, I noticed. I wondered what favor the bartender had done her to rate a ten-dollar tip.
In the booth, with each of us holding a fresh drink, Mrs. Smith gave me a big smile. "Sharon," she said, "I wonder if you're aware of the wonderful, uh, stimulus family life has had in recent years?"
"Huh?" I said.
"Couples-young married couples-that in other times would soon have broken up and divorced, today stay together. Because they have found a new interest in life; an interest they can share. I'm proud to say that I'm part of this great new movement."
I thought about this. "You work for a sex club, huh?" I said.
Mrs. Smith frowned. "That's a crude way of putting it. Look at it this way: After a few years many married couples find themselves-bored. Disinterested in, uh, normal family relationships."
"You mean they get tired of sleeping together?" I said.
"Crudely, yes. But the basic, uh, problem is more complex. Suffice it to say that all over the nation, young couples find themselves, well, jaded. A few years ago this would have led to fights, arguments, and eventually divorce. And divorce is a terrible thing, don't you agree?"
"I guess so," I said. "I hadn't given it much thought."
"You should," said Mrs. Smith, signaling for a new round of drinks. "But today, thanks to the phenomenal rise of, uh, social clubs, a solution has been found. For some jaded couples, at least. Take the case of two dear friends of mine-I'll call them Jane and John, because those are their names."
A waiter came over with two new drinks. I swigged half of mine.
"Jane and John," continued Mrs. Smith, "married some four years ago. For a while all went merrily as a-a marriage bell. Then, alas, Jane began to become bored with John's lovemaking, and John in turn found himself overly familiar with Janes' physical charms. A typical problem."
"They got divorced, huh?" I said, drinking the second half of my drink.
"No, fortunately," said Mrs. Smith, signaling for more drinks. "They were lucky. By accident, they discovered that their next-door neighbors, Sally and Robert, were also rather bored with each other. A few neighborly drinks led to a frank discussion. And after a few more drinks...."
"The husbands swapped wives for the night?" I suggested.
"Well, yes," said Mrs. Smith, waving the waiter away. "But you mustn't think of it that way. You must think of it as something, uh, beautiful. Jane and John had learned to share. Each other. New Life, new happiness entered their otherwise drab existence. On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, John made love to his lovely wife. And on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, he made love to Sally-while Jane made love with Robert."
"And on Sundays?" I asked.
"A perceptive question. On Sundays the four of them enjoyed themselves jointly. Soon they entertained another couple, Betty and Frank. Betty and Frank were a little older, in their mid-thirties. They too, while still tremendously fond of one another, had become sated with each other's physical charms.
"Betty and Frank had both tried the obvious solution-cheating on each other-and both had regretted it. Each had suffered terrible pangs of remorse, confessed to the other, been forgiven, and so on.
"You can guess what happened. After hearing Betty and Frank tell of their troubled love life, John, Jane, Sally and Robert told them of their new and stimulating design for living. Betty and Frank were entranced, and quickly became extremely active members of what had now become a wonderful social club."
"I don't get it," I said. "If sleeping with other peoples husbands and wives isn't cheating, what is?"
"Tsk, tsk," said Mrs. Smith. "It isn't cheating because all parties agree to the cheating-I mean to the need for variety. Instead of slinking off alone, on the sly, both husband and wife ch-I mean enjoy healthy physical recreation with others. Together."
I nodded my head. But privately I still thought it was kind of funny. Kind of moral, too, in a middleclass way. I mean moral in a stuffy, conventional sense. I mean, if I was married to a guy and felt like some new thrills, I'd prefer to cheat on him-get a lover on the side and keep cool about it. I mean, I wouldn't go to my husband and say, Darling, I feel like some new kicks tonight-mind if I invite a boy friend over for dinner and sex this evening? And if I did say something like that I wouldn't want my husband to say, of course-ask him to bring a girl friend for me. It would take all the fun out of cheating, in my opinion at least.
Not that I have anything against orgies. But if I threw an orgy I'd call it an orgy, not a social gathering. Still, I was just a sixteen-year-old girl from a small town, and maybe I was old-fashioned in my thinking.
"And this happy pattern-of friends and neighbors playing together-is springing up all over the nation," continued Mrs. Smith, ordering a new round of drinks and smiling at me. "I find it a thrilling thing. A new horizon in togetherness."
"Yeah," I said. "Excuse me, Mrs. Smith, but why are you telling me this? I couldn't join a-a social club; I'm not married."
Mrs. Smith lit a cigarette, blew smoke in sophisticated patterns in my face. "Let me tell my story my way, sugar," she suggested. "To resume: Innumberable, uh, social clubs have sprung up more or less spontaneously across the nation. Also in Mexico and Canada. Others have been formed through correspondence in certain magazines and newspapers-box-numbered ads inviting modern-minded couples to exchange ideas. And photos and addresses. Social clubs have become big business. And I, dear girl, am a businesswoman."
"You're a social secretary for a social club?" I asked.
"In a way. I call myself an Assignation Coordinator. And I work with many social clubs-of various types. For, to return to your statement regarding your marital status, you should know that many social clubs, after frank and modern discussion, have decided that it's prudish and old-fashioned to discriminate against unmarried persons. In short, they frequently invite single men and girls to join their org-social exchanges."
"And I've been invited to an orgy-I mean a club meeting?"
"In a way," said Mrs. Smith, smiling a bit funnily at me and finishing her drink with a gulp. She was getting, I decided, just a teeny bit drunk. She leaned over and took my hand. "Child, you've got what these suburban live-it-ups go for. Youth, beauty, body and ... No morals?" She frowned. "You don't have any morals, do you?"
"Oh, no!" I said, afraid to have Mrs. Smith think ill of me. It was obvious she didn't think much of people with morals.
"I didn't think so, child," she said patting my hand. "So I'll give it to you straight. These suburban sex-club birds are mostly weirdos. Small-town weirdos. They start out just shacking up with the couple next door. But pretty soon that's too tame. So they rope in more couples, and more, and still more."
"I can see how a club like that would grow," I said, pulling my hand from hers and reaching for one of the fresh drinks the waiter had brought. I figured I'd better reach for it soon, before Mrs. Smith drank it by mistake. She'd already drunk most of my last one as well as her own.
"Yeah," said Mrs. Smith. "Those hicks may think they've solved their problems by switching bedmates with the rest of the block, but the problems those creeps have don't get solved that easy." She lowered her voice still more. "Take the guy John I was telling you about."
"The one who, with his wife Jane, started a social club with Sally and Robert and Betty and Frank?"
"The same. This John-and this is a factual actual case, sugar-this John gets his kicks from Sally and Betty for a while, and even with his wife Jane.
But only for a while. Pretty soon he wants fresh flesh to fondle. Inside of two months he's making it with twelve married women on a rotating basis. Then all twelve couples start having balls together. And still this John finds himself getting bored."
"Golly," I said. "I guess he did have problems. Why didn't he go to an analyst? Or maybe he didn't think he needed one."
"Correct," said Mrs. Smith, ordering a new round of drinks. "John figured all he needed was more variety, more spice. Soon he was getting his kicks watching his wife make it with different men-or having his wife watch him while three or four women worked on him. Or sometimes by slipping off with some husband instead of his wife-the other husband's wife, I mean. I'm just a little high, sugar; you gotta forgive me. I've had a hard day."
"I'm sure you have," I said, wondering if I'd said the right thing.
"But to continue the, uh, saga of John and Jane: Before long John was dreaming up 'specials', as he called them. Talks and exhibitions by noted deviates and sex criminals. Or he'd invite special guests to the meetings-a young Balinese temple dancer (she charged three hundred dollars)-a seven-foot Chinese seaman (he came for kicks)-and so on."
"Wow!" I said.
"Right. One time he held an outdoor meeting. Kind of a convention of five local clubs. It was held in an abandoned nudist camp, and went on for two days. Two days and nights of sex in the fields and woods. Like a real picnic, that was. Some of the girls even brought their pets along-two St Bernard dogs and a Shetland pony."
"That was nice," I said "Animals like a romp in the open air."
"Yeah," said Mrs. Smith, smiling at me oddly. "They sure do! But you get the drift of my tale, sugar, don't you? This John kept reaching for new kicks, each more depraved than the last."
"And what about his wife?" I asked. "Did Jane get more and more depraved too?"
"Yes," said Mrs. Smith," she did. Only she knew she was living an empty, depraved life. She started walking around looking like that Monica Vitti in those Italian movies about neurotic women. Only not as pretty." She sighed.
"Mrs. Smith," I said, "am I correct in assuming that your first name is Jane, and your husband's name is John?"
She patted me on the hand again, almost spilling both our drinks. "Sharon, you're very perceptive. Yes, I'm Jane." She sighed again. "It was less than a year ago that John and I invited Sally and Bob over to play bridge. Little did I dream that that innocent card game and a few drinks would lead to a real modern discussion, and my going to bed with Bob while John made love with Sally. Little did I foresee that within a year our whole way of life would change completely.
"Tsk, tsk," I said, signaling the waiter for more drinks. "How did your whole way of life change?" I asked.
"Simple," said Mrs. Smith-Jane. "Like I said, our little club soon grew to twelve couples. Plus special guests. We kept the membership at that; too big a club is unwieldy. You can't have hundreds of people swarming into a suburban house without the neighbors getting suspicious."
"I see what you mean," I said.
"You don't see half of it," she sighed. "Although John and I are charter members of only one social club, with only twenty-four members not counting guests, we soon gained associate membership in five other clubs-which meant we had to attend their special meetings. And then John joined an auxiliary men-only club, and I joined a girls-only club. Besides which there were local, regional, state and county meetings and ... Oh, it's a mad, mad, mad, mad, whirl!"
"Golly," I said. "Keeping up with so many sex I mean social clubs must take up most of your time."
"It does," said Jane. "Both John and I had to quit our jobs-we'd both been child guidance counselors. We didn't have time to work!"
"Gosh," I said. "How do you live?"
"Frantically. And erotically. To make ends meet, I became a sex-club organizer and Assignation Coordinator. The pay is great, but the work is incredibly debilitating."
"No doubt," I said. "And part of your job is getting single girls like me to come to meetings?"
"Right," said Jane. "And there's a meeting tonight-a joint session of our local club with the Songbird Valley Suburban Sex Club. About fifty or sixty people all told. Want to come-for kicks and a hundred dollars minimum?"
"Oh, yes!" I said. "What do you mean, though, a hundred dollars minimum? What do I have to do to earn the minimum?"
"Just come, in a manner of speaking. And co operate."
"With every man present?"
"With everybody, male or female, who feels like having at you. Money not enough? Okay, a hundred fifty. But not a penny more."
"I'll come!" I said, feeling all excited about the prospect of attending a meeting of a real sex club-two sex clubs! "But if a hundred fifty dollars is the minimum, how do I go about earning more?"
"You'll find out," said Jane enigmatically, "once you're there. Today's Friday, right? The meeting gets under way tonight, at eight p.m. sharp, and breaks up late Sunday night."
I thought about this. What a keen way to make money! A hundred fifty dollars for just two days and three nights of submitting to sexual whimsies. What a lot I'd learn, no doubt-and get paid for learning!
"I'll come," I said again.
"Fine," said Jane, squeezing me on the leg. "And who knows what this may lead to for you?"
I smiled. Because right then I never suspected what it was going to lead to.
CHAPTER NINE
At eight that evening I was somewhere on long Island. I say somewhere because I didn't-and don't-know exactly where I was. To this day I don't know where I first became a sex toy, the naked plaything of a bunch of suburban sex nuts.
Mrs. Smith-Jane-kept lapping up booze until the bartender eighty-sixed her-that being a term for not serving a person any more liquor. Then she escorted me to her station wagon. Just to be on the safe side, I memorized the license number.
"If you wasted time memorizing the license," said Jane, "forget it. I have fake plates on the car. Made up special by one of our members."
"Oh," I said. Then, while we were driving toward Long Island, I said, "Mrs. Smith-Jane-there's one thing I'm curious about. You said that while your husband John is continually searching for new kicks, you yourself find your new way of life empty and depraved."
"That I do," said Jane. "Bestial and revolting, too."
"Well then," I said, "why do you live this way?"
"A good question. And the answer is, I'm hooked on suburban sex practices, that's why. To be frank, I enjoy the bestial performances I watch, the erotic orgies I participate in. The difference between John and I-or is it John and me?-is that John enjoys enjoying himself, whereas I hate enjoying myself."
"I see," I said doubtfully.
"It's very simple, really," said Jane. "I've become a slave to my lowest impulses. But that doesn't mean I like being hooked. Many alcoholics hate being alcoholics, and most drug addicts wish they weren't. But they're hooked, the way I'm hooked."
"But," I said, "isn't everybody sort of hooked on sex?"
Jane nodded glumly. "True, kid," she said. "But there's sex, and sex. And the kind of sex you're going to be wallowing in for the next forty-eight hours ... "
Suddenly she jammed on the brakes, and I almost went through the windshield.
"Child," she said, "if you think you may want out, get out now, while I'm feeling soft-hearted."
I didn't have the chance to tell her I didn't want out, because before I could open my mouth she'd jammed her foot on the gas pedal again and we shot forward at high speed.
"No," she muttered, talking more to herself than to me, I figured. "No, I don't have the right to deprive the gang of their fun. What's the ruin and degradation of one sixteen-year-old girl compared to the erotic titillation of fifty or sixty modern-minded men and women? "
I didn't say anything. I was too busy being scared. Not of the idea of being ruined and degraded-I mean, I'd already been ruined and degraded: by Mr. Enright, a motorcycle club, Sam, and Mr. Lynx. What scared me was the wild way she was driving, her being half drunk and all. It's a wonder we didn't have a wreck or something!
After a few hectic miles Jane jammed on the brakes again, and pulled off the road. I thought maybe she was going to urge me to get out and run again, but no; all she wanted me to do was get in the back seat, where she pulled a black silk bag over my head and knotted it around my neck and handcuffed my hands behind me so I couldn't get the bag off.
"A necessary precaution," she told me. "Even though I trust you, it wouldn't be fair to jeopardize the security of fifty or sixty other people."
I agreed she had a point, so I traveled the rest of the way in the dark, so to speak.
About ten or fifteen minutes later Jane pulled into a long driveway (I could hear gravel crunching under the station wagon's tires,) and parked. She opened the rear door and helped me out, then led me along more driveway.
"You're about to enter one of the most elegant beach mansions on Long Island," she told me. "It was almost demolished by a group of fabulously rich teenagers a while back-not the group you've read about, but another group-but has since been completely restored."
Then she opened a door, and right away I was surrounded by the sound of people talking and laughing. A cheer went up as she closed the door behind us-at the sight of me, I guess-and just for a moment I felt a bit nervous being blindfolded and handcuffed and all.
But it was all right. Jane right away took the bag off my head and removed the handcuffs.
And I gasped with delight. Because I was obviously surrounded by important people.
I couldn't tell by their clothes-because they weren't wearing any-but by their underclothes. All the men were wearing just underpants, and the women panties and bras. But very fancy, expensive panties and bras; and most of the men had silk shorts. Also I could tell the people were socially prominent because the woman all had the latest hair styles, plus lots of diamond and emerald rings and bracelets. Also they all had the kind of bored, sophisticated expressions that the socially elite always wear, like in Vogue or Harper's Bazaar.
They gathered around me, not drooling and slobbering the way the motorcycle gang had, but looking kind of tiredly amused.
"Very good," drawled a tall, dark girl who was holding a cocktail glass in one hand and a very long cigarette holder in the other. "She should prove most entertaining."
"Yes," murmured a lanky young man, "a most interesting new toy."
"Members," said Jane, "this is Sharon. She's sixteen, ripe-as you can see-and, although quite inexperienced, eager to be initiated and enjoyed to the, uh, hilt."
"Pleased to meet you, I'm sure," I said, smiling around at everybody. They smiled back. One very elegant man with a beard stroked same and licked his lips, and a chubby man with rimless glasses giggled in a funny way.
I was about to make some pleasant remark about the weather or something, but just then the door opened and in walked a man in a business suit. Behind him was a teen-age boy with his hands handcuffed behind his back and a black bag over his head. The people around me turned and started strolling over toward him.
"What an elegant gathering," I said to Jane, who'd just taken off her dress and handed it to a butler
(who was the only fully dressed person in the room). "When you said you belonged lo a suburban sex club, I guess I expected a lot of dumpy housewives and such."
"The suburbs on Long Island," said Jane, smoothing back her hair and adjusting her black lace bra, "are quite chic."
She had a funny glint in her eye, and it was a glint I recognized. Gladys Green, back in Denaquid, Maine, got that same glint at times. Gladys was born on the wrong side of the lobster wharf, but she'd been trying to be very important ever since. No doubt Jane Smith was a social climber too.
"Your garments, Mademoiselle?" said the butler, all stony-faced.
"I don't have anything on but my dress," I whispered to Jane, mortified at the thought of not being properly dressed at such a sophisticated gathering.
"That," murmured Jane, "is quite all right." And while I wriggled out of my dress she explained: "These meetings follow rigid rules. Members remove their outer garments as soon as they arrive. Meanwhile cocktails and caviar are served. Members mingle and drink for a couple of hours, keeping on their undergarments. Removing them prematurely is grounds for explusion. Then, after the opening entertainment, all garments are removed, and the party starts to swing. But you're not a member, so you start nude."
I nodded. Naturally, a bunch of sophisticated suburbanites wouldn't start right off pawing each other and playing naked games. No doubt only lower-class orgies were conducted that way.
Meanwhile I was looking around. The room we were in was huge-like the old English baronial halls you see in history books. It looked, in fact, a lot like pictures I'd seen of a big house a lot of sophisticated debutantes and Ivy League college boys had wrecked a while back. There was even a big brick fireplace which you could climb up on and swing on a fancy chandelier, if you felt like it. The room was a lot bigger than the basketball court at Denaquid High School.
And the people were very elegant. A few couples were older, but most of the men and women were in their twenties or thirties. They looked just like the actors in that foreign movie La Douche Vita or whatever it was.
Meanwhile, the teen-age boy had had his handcuffs and head bag removed, and. blushing a bit, had taken off all his clothes. A lot of the sophisticated women were clustered around him making admiring remarks.
"A husky specimen," murmured Jane. "I wonder where John captured him."
Just then a short man with a mustache and yellow silk shorts hustled up, looked me up and down, then drew Jane aside. They began to whisper, but I have very sharp ears, and I heard what they said.
What Jane whispered was that I'd asked five hundred, but would be worth it, and not to forget her hundred-dollar fee. What he whispered was okay, but next week she should try to get a girl for four hundred. Then he counted out a bunch of fifty-dollar bills and waddled away. Jane turned back to me, stuffing most of the bills into her bra and holding three out to me.
"Sharon," she said, "here's your hundred fifty.
Better stick it-no, better not. I'll hold it for you until the party breaks up Sunday night."
"Jane," I said, "Mrs. Smith. You're trying to cheat me. How come you charge five hundred for me but I only get a hundred fifty?"
Jane blinked, then tears came to her eyes and she clasped my shoulders. "Child," she said, "I won't try to lie. I am cheating you. But I have no choice. The treasurer of our club is a banker, so I can't cheat the club; I can only cheat the girls I procure-I mean invite. And child, John and I depend on our commissions and graft for our whole livelihood. You wouldn't want us to starve, would you? You wouldn't want our boat to go without a new jib, would you?
"Sharon, child, look at it this way: You're going to meet a lot of prominent if sexually depraved people. Who knows what contacts, what profitable deals you may make? This is your big chance to break into elite sex-club circles. Now, you wanna play ball, or you want I should kick you out on your shapely backside?"
I pondered. "I'll play ball," I said. But I was fuming inside. It seemed like everybody wanted to exploit me! And my body. First Sam, then Mr. Lynx, and now Jane Smith-or whatever her real name was.
Still, she had a point. I was mingling with the socially elite, even though I was naked and they all had on silk underwear, which indicated I was a hired hand while they were upper class, or near to it.
Just then a gong sounded, and everybody including me turned around. A tall, willowy, and very blas'-looking girl with ash blonde hair was standing on a table.
"Attention, everybody," she said in a real cultured voice. "Tonight we have a real treat. Suzy-I mean Member Forty-four-is going to do a dance she's been rehearsing all week. Take it away, Forty-four!"
The lights went out, and then a couple colored spotlights came on and picked up a girl standing on a low, wide platform. She was wearing real tiny black lace pants and a black lace bra. She was built pretty good for a tall girl, T had to admit, and she had long, taffy-colored hair She smiled around in a circle, lurched a bit like she was drunk, and then began to dance to a sexy tune which started up over a loudspeaker.
And what a dance! This chick had obviously watched lots of strip-teasers, and had learned plenty from every one she'd watched. She began to twist and shimmy and shake like she was made of jelly and foam rubber.
"She's a very socially prominent girl," Jane whispered in my ear. "And her husband is a Harvard graduate worth millions."
I watched while the socially prominent chick named Suzy-also known as Member Forty-four-went on with her sexy dance. Soon she'd removed the bra and panties, and was gyrating and throwing herself around like she'd fallen into a patch of nettles and was hopping on a hot tin roof, both. Wow, did her breasts and buttocks and thighs ever shake and bounce!
Pretty soon the record stopped, and while a new one was being put on, a smiling, handsome young man-her husband, I learned later-yelled, "More action, Suzy!" And tossed her a banana. A huge banana, which she caught.
I wondered what she was going to do with that.
I found out. She did just about everything with that big banana. She slid it between her breasts, over her buttocks, across her belly, and then in and out of her mouth. And all to music.
I was fascinated, needless to say. What a talented chick this Suzy was, even if she was socially prominent. I mean, I always figured people who were socially prominent and had money didn't need talent. But this chick was real talented, erotically speaking. Even I started getting turned on, and I'm a girl, of course.
The sexy music kept on playing, and the girl with taffy hair did wilder and wilder dances, and more and more clever things with the huge banana. And then the music ended with a crash of drums and cymbals, and Suzy bowed, rolled her hips, and finally dropped on all fours to pant and smile flirtatiously at the audience.
"Good work, Suzy-I mean Forty-four," yelled her handsome young husband. "Now let's see what lucky members get to sample my wife's charms and start the party rolling." He reached into an elegant vase the butler was holding, pulled out four slips of paper. "Here're the lucky numbers!" he yelled. "Members 8, 14, 37 and 12!"
A cheer went up, and four men dashed toward the low platform-and Suzy. They were all nude, I noticed. In fact, when I looked around, I saw that everybody was now naked. The party had started to swing.
The four men mounted the platform and three of them lay flat on their backs with their feet toward Suzy. The fourth got on all fours behind her.
"How do they know what positions to take?" I whispered to Jane.
"The sequence in which the numbers were called out determines that," she whispered back. "The early stages of these parties are highly organized."
Meanwhile Suzy, smiling erotically and tossing her long hair while her breasts swayed back and forth, had crawled forward until her head was over the middle man's navel, then she wriggled back a little, bent and began to kiss him, fervently and deeply. At the same time her hands slid out to grasp and fondle the two men on either side of him, while the fourth man had crawled up until he was snuggled against Suzy's wriggling rump.
It was most educational. What talent that girl had! Bringing four men to the boiling point simultaneously! The man in back of her had to do most of the work himself, of course, but from the smile on his face you could tell it was work he enjoyed.
While this was going on, the rest of the sophisticated young suburbanites were clustered around cheering and making humorous remarks. And Suzy's husband was cheering most of all.
Finally the fellow who was pushing himself against Suzy's rump began to gasp spasmodically as he clutched her hips and slammed against her, and at the same time the guy she was kissing began to groan and pound the floor with his fists, faster and faster, and the two men she was fondling both began to spew out exclamations of delight-and the floor show was over.
And the orgy began.
Right off, three men grabbed me. They were very polite, though-to each other, at least. Each one kept saying things like, "No( you were first, Frank-I mean Member Thirty-three," and "After you, old man," and so forth.
Finally they got things worked out among them, and the first guy who'd grabbed me steered me over to a big pile of cushions, cupped his hands over my breasts and shoved me over backward. I landed with a soft thud, and he landed right on top of me.
He kind of frog-kicked his legs, pushing mine wide, and then with one quick lunge he threw himself into my embrace.
Meanwhile his hands had moved up to grab my breasts, hard, and away he went, pumping his body frantically while his hands squeezed my breasts harder and harder.
"Hey," I gasped, "don't squeeze so hard! You're hurting me!"
"Shut up, tart," he snarled, squeezing me harder. I was kind of hurt-emotionally as well as physically, I mean. He'd been so polite to his friends. But my feelings obviously didn't matter a bit to him. I decided it must be true that some high-class people don't think much of working girls from lower economic backgrounds, like me.
But even though he was hurting my breasts, I had to admit he was doing me a lot of good elsewhere. He was big and he was powerful, and he sure had stamina. After a while I forgot the way he was bruising my bosom and just concentrated on the waves of sexual excitement he sent pulsing through my body.
Golden spasms of erotic delight throbbed through me faster and stronger, until at last I knew he was finishing, and I was right with him. Wow!
I screamed, partly with rapture and partly because he was squeezing my breasts so hard-and then it ended and he was rolling away. He grunted, slapped me affectionately but hard on the belly, and crawled off toward a low table loaded with drinks.
I started to crawl toward the drinks too, but before I'd crawled five feet another man crawled up behind me and slid his hands around my body to cup my breasts while he twisted and pushed the lower front of his body against the lower rear of mine-and away I went again.
After that I kind of lost track of events. And men. All kinds of men-big men, little men, husky men, flabby men, fat men, virile men, creepy men. With all kinds of tastes.
Some of them were conventional minded, position wise. Others made me use my lips and tongue to make them happy. Some liked to lie on their backs while I did all the work, some liked to make love side by side, or with me on my belly or standing up and bending over, or with them sitting on a hard chair and me straddling them. Others had even more ingenious and original ideas-all of which I was willing and eager to try, of course.
But after seven or eight hours of nonstop sex, I got kind of groggy with exhaustion. Also, it being a real hot night in all respects, I'd been slugging down cold drinks whenever I could grab one. So after a while I more or less passed out, from exhaustion and being drunk both.
Not that that stopped the fun, though. Just before I passed out, a man with an elegant mustache asked me to make love to him while he stood on his head, and I said I'd be glad to later but right then I was passing out, and he said fine, he and several of his friends liked to sex up unconscious girls, and the last thing I remember was him and three guys and two girls standing over me licking their lips and waiting for me to black out, which I promptly did.
I don't know what they did while I was unconscious, of course, but they must have had a ball, since I had a lot of aches and bruises in un-likely places when I woke up.
I woke up some time the next morning, to find myself sprawled on a mattress. Jane was snapping a wet towel at my buttocks-with painful effect, too.
"Get up," she snapped. "You've gold-bricked long enough. The party's moved to the beach. Join it."
So I joined. For a frantic day of sex in the sun. and sand, and sea.
It was kind of fun for a while. Sex outdoors is so wholesome, I mean, even though the group I was with had some pretty unwholesome ideas. Still, I got to make love while mostly underwater-which I'd never done before except in my imagination-and in a hammock, and so forth.
Also, I got to play a game of beach volleyball, sort of: They chose six men for each side, big husky men, and six girls. Only the girls were on the other side of the net, sort of wrapped around the opposing team's men.
My personal opponent was a big, strong-looking guy with sandy hair and a lot of teeth. He was kind of wilted when Jane first led me up to him, but after I'd fondled and kissed him a bit, he straightened up a lot.
"Now," said Jane, who was teaching me the rules of the game, "you slide your hands around Walter's I mean Fifty-two's neck. Fine, now lock your arms and sort of hop up."
Walter put his hands under my buttocks and pulled while I hopped, and a moment later I had my legs wrapped around his hips. A little wriggling and adjusting, and I was firmly fastened to him-in the nicest way.
I looked around. All the other players had girls wrapped around them too.
"Since you're on the opposing team," Jane told me, "your object is to distract Walter as much as you can."
"She'd given up on the number stuff, I guess."
"How?" I asked, tilting my head back to smile at Walter, who scowled back. "I mean, if I try to wriggle and bounce I'll lose my grip and fall."
"Don't fall," snapped Jane, "or you'll get ten lashes on your bottom and five across your breasts. However, you can wriggle a little, can't you? And use your muscles?"
"You bet," I said, and a moment later a whistle blew and the game began.
And what a swinging game!
It was regular volleyball, in that the guys on each side of the net had to slap the ball back to the other team, only seeing as how each player had a girl wrapped around him, it went more slowly of course; none of the guys could move quite as fast, even though they all had their legs free to move and their arms free to punch the ball.
All the same, the game got lively, which was when it got really fun. I mean, every time Walter took a few steps, I got kind of bounced up and down. And I was clinging to him as close as could be, so even when he just reached up his arms toward the ball, I got kind of shaken. And when I shook, he shook.
Also I was hard at work the whole time squeezing him as best I could with my muscles and writhing against him and rubbing my breasts against his chest and tickling his back with one hand, trying to get him excited.
And succeeding.
In fact it wasn't long before all the guys playing began to get pretty excited, even though they were trying hard not to. They began lurching about unsteadily, which was not surprising, seeing as how, from all I've heard and read, a guy can least concentrate on something else when he's sexually involved, and the more involved he gets the less he can concentrate. Pretty soon one of the guys on my side of the net kind of strumbled back to reach a high ball-and kept on stumbling, his body sort of jerking as if he were being poked with a cattle prod. He missed the ball by miles, and kept stumbling back until finally he fell with a thud on his back.
A cheer went up from the spectators, and I redoubled my squirming and squeezing, meanwhile nuzzling my cheek against Walter's shoulder and jamming my breasts harder against his chest. I was getting Walter pretty shook up, I could tell. And not just from the way he was stumbling and staggering around.
Then another man a few feet away stretched up both arms to bat the ball, which he did, only then he kept his arms up, kind of flailing the air while he made gasping and choking sounds. He tried real hard to stay on his feet, even though he was obviously not able to control other parts of his body, but he couldn't manage it, and dropped to his knees, swayed, then toppled forward onto the girl wrapped around him Who was shrieking with triumph at having taken him out of the game.
In almost no time there were only three guys left on their feet on each side of the net, and one of those-Walter-was lurching like a drunk and muttering all the time under his breath.
Then I figured out what he was muttering. It was the multiplication table. Which made me laugh, on account of I'd heard that men often did things like that in order to keep their minds off sex and so keep themselves from finishing too quick.
"Sugar," I yelled in Walter's ear, "you might as well drop now. I'm going to explode you whether you want to go off or not." And I began to use my muscles with renewed vigor, pulsing against and around him while I said in his ear, "Don't worry about that silly ball; concentrate on my soft thighs against you, my belly sliding on your stomach, my breasts pushing against your chest...."
Walter swore, stumbled forward to swipe at the beach ball, and then his body, part of his body, began to pulse and throb frantically and he moaned, lurched, clenched his fists, lost his balance and fell to the sand.
With me underneath. Which knocked the breath out of me, of course, but as soon as I could I yelled in triumph. I'd squeezed Walter right out of the game. (Which ended a minute later when only one guy, on the other side of the net, was still on his feet. Which meant my team had won. What a thrill to be participating in sports with socially prominent people! And to be on the winning side!)
They played a second game a little later, with me just watching this time, and it was almost as much fun to watch as to play. It's really a riot watching a dozen men stumble around trying to concentrate on playing ball while a dozen girls wrapped around them try to get them feeling sexy fast.
Later on I got to play another keen game, namely erotic ping-pong. This time I was the one the opposing team was trying to defeat.
How the game worked, they had this ping-pong table set up on a flat stretch of sand, with two heavy chairs at each end. I sat in one chair and a girl with red hair and big breasts-though not as big as mine-sat in the chair across from me.
The chairs were pushed right up to the edge of the table, so the table edge was pressing against the top of my stomach, and then somebody put ropes around my knees and pulled on them and tied the ends to hooks attached to the legs of the table. So my knees were wide apart and I couldn't pull them together if I wanted to.
They did the same thing to the redheaded girl whose hair wasn't as pretty a shade of red as mine, nor as long-and then they gave us each a ping-pong paddle and tossed a ball onto the table and we started playing.
Only after we'd played less than half a minute two guys crawled under the table and started trying to distract us. The man doing his best to distract me was Walter, who was out for revenge in a manner of speaking, and the man on my team, trying to distract the redheaded girl, was the fellow she'd knocked out of the ballgame.
Walter didn't waste any time starting to get me excited, I can tell you. Two seconds after he'd crawled under the table his hands were stroking my thighs and hips-and his lips and tongue were busy kissing and probing where a girl most appreciates having attention paid to her.
Even though I tried hard to concentrate on pingpong. I couldn't disregard the pull of his kisses and the expert teasing of his tongue and the stroking of his hands. I could feel my pulse start to speed up, and I began swinging kind of wild-as did the girl.
I'd like to say I won the game, but the truth is I got so excited after a bit I could hardly see the ball, much less swing at it, and finally I couldn't see it at all, only a kind of glowing haze while giant jolts of joy rocked my body and I heard myself scream with ecstasy. Then Jane said, "You lose," and smacked me on top of my head.
Well, if I lost every game that way, I wouldn't mind being a loser.
Heaps of other games got played that day, too and I got to be in most of them. Some of them, like sexing-or trying to-with a guy while we were both being tossed on a blanket, didn't require much skill. Others, like erotic water skiing, were pretty tricky. How they played erotic water skiing, this motor boat towed me and a handsome guy (it was the husband of the taffy-haired girl who'd done the sexy dance) behind it, going in big circles in front of the beach.
We started water skiing side by side, but then they pulled in his tow rope until he was a few yards in front of me. Then, in a real agile manner, he reversed himself until he was being towed backward which is real hard, as I know, because I used to waterski some in Denaquid bay.
Then, facing me and with his back to the boat, he maneuvered himself until he could duck under one of the two tow ropes I was holding. Now he was skiing backward just a few yards in front of me.
I slid my skis wide apart, while he kept his together and half crouched. Then the people in the boat began to let out slowly on his tow rope.
Pretty soon our four skis formed a sorta solid board. Which was when it got tricky. Like, touching tummies was easy, but the rest was real tough.
Finally we made it, and what a wild ride we had from there on! Every ripple in the water made us jiggle and bounce together, and what with the speed of the boat and the spray flying and all, it was crazy!
So crazy it took us a while to start feeling really sexy. But once we started, we couldn't stop-not until I felt a whole series of wonderful, deep explosions, and the sky and sea started to spin around-and we both ended up in the water with a huge splash.
But happy.
Then I played body surfing-with me as the body, of course-and then I got to put on a little Aqua-lung, and a bunch of us had sexy fun completely under water in a huge outdoor pool, and then-well, then we played a whole lot of less strenuous games, but all with the same gimmick.
And so the day passed, and then most of the night. After which I and everybody else had a six-hour compulsory sleep, and next morning the party began again.
Only that day things got kind of ugly.
CHAPTER TEN
Sunday morning started well enough, with a big, naked breakfast-that is, the breakfast was big and we were all naked. And believe me, we all needed plenty of grub, what with all the calories we'd burned up Friday night and Saturday and Sunday night.
After breakfast we all had a compulsary rest period of one hour, on account of it isn't good to exert yourself on a full stomach, I guess, and while we were resting the butler-who still had all his clothes on and who still looked real sedate, kind of like Arthur Treacher-came around and gave us each a sealed envelope which we weren't supposed to open until Jane blew a whistle.
Meanwhile, I'd gotten to talk to the teen-age boy that John, Jane's husband, had brought in right after I'd arrived. I told him my name was Sharon-I didn't tell him my last name, for security reasons-and he said his name was Clarence, only people usually called him Cal. I told him how I'd happened to come to the party, and he told me his story.
"I was standing outside this movie house near Times Square," he said. "They was playin' this movie, Girls Who Bare All For Dollars, along with a co-feature, The Shame Dame Meets the Lust Lass, and I was just about to go in when this man comes up and says his name is John Smith and do I like girls. You know the creep-think his name's really John Smith?"
"No," I said. "He's the second John Smith I've met in New York, and he's a phony, I'll bet."
"Me too. Well, right off I figure he's some kind of nut, but he starts peeling off ten-dollar bills and telling me how a bunch of high-class dames would flip over me sex-wise, and how would I like to play stud for fun and profit? So I said deal me in, and here I am. Wow! A hundred fifty smackers-and all the sex I can handle. Pretty good for a junior high school drop-out, huh?"
I said yes, but I walked away as soon as I could. I mean, high school drop-outs like me naturally look down on junior high school drop-outs.
And then Jane blew her whistle, and everybody opened their envelopes while Jane yelled, "All right gang, the party's under way again. Sing out your numbers and find your partners for the opening bash!"
Everybody, including me, looked at the numbers they'd drawn and yelled out same. Me, I'd drawn 44. Somehow the number seemed familiar. I found out why when I saw the tall girl with taffy hair sauntering toward me.
"Well, Sharon," she said, smiling, "guess you and I are paired for a frantic few minutes, eh?"
"There must be a mistake," I said. "I mean, we're both girls."
"No mistake," chuckled Forty-four-who's real name was Suzy, I remembered. "This is Hollywood roulette. You sex with the partner you draw: male, female, animal or vegetable. What's the trouble, never tried DC, just AC?"
I swallowed hard. "That's right. Maybe we can swap numbers with two guys, huh?"
"Against the rules," said Suzy.
"I want to change the rules," I said. "Nothing personal, of course."
"That's allowed," said Suzy, smiling in a funny way. "If you're willing to pay the penalty. The penalty is simple. All members are gathered, each lights a cigarette, draws on it, then stubs it out on your flesh. There are sixty present right now-and a glowing cigarette coal reaches a temperature of twelve hundred degrees. Still want to change the game?"
Well! "No," I mumbled. "I'll play. But how?"
"I'll show you," said Suzy, sticking out her tongue and licking her lips.
And she did. It wasn't much fun. Not for me at least. Suzy seemed to have a ball. She kept telling me where to touch her or stroke her or kiss her and where to use my tongue. Me, I didn't like the whole thing. She had a nice enough body, but it was a female body, and I just don't go for girls. Suzy, though, told me she was double-gaited, which I guess must be society talk for swinging both ways.
After that was over, I played around awhile with some of the men, and then a gong sounded and we all went to the big room, to find rows of pillows on the floor. It was time for movies.
I must say they were real elegant movies, too with sound and all in color and up-to-date and all. I'd always figured such movies were all out of focus and in black and white and real crude.
These were crude all right, but only in what the actors did. The first was all about the adventures of a hotel maid, and a real pretty girl played the title role. She went to work for a big hotel chain, first in New York, and the first bed she tried to make, there was a guy in it, and he chased her around the room and then caught her and tore off her uniform and ravished her.
So she asked for a transfer, and after the hotel manager had made her sex him up in different ways, she got one. To a hotel in Istanbul, where she got ravished by a bunch of Turks. It went on like that, through Paris and Hong Kong and Rio and other towns, with the maid getting sexed up in various clever ways in every hotel the chain owned.
It was real sexy, with lots of close-ups of the maid making men happy in the different ways, with everything shown, and I mean everything.
It ended with the maid back in New York, where they were holding a convention for the World's biggest man, and boy were some of those men big! The last scene-the climax, you might say-was of the maid all naked crouched on a circular table while about a dozen of these big men stood naked in a close circle around her and pointed their thumbs at her. The scene was shot from overhead, and the table began to revolve, while the maid stuck her tongue out at all the men around her, and her tongue kept flicking over their thumbs as she turned faster and faster until, one by one, each man showed his appreciation in an outpouring of emotion.
After that came a movie about a girl who liked girls (which I found real dull), and then one about a girl who trained wild stallions but finally switched to dolphins on account of they were more intelligent. And then one about a girl who kept a whole zoo, for Pete's sake-and what she didn't do to make her animals happy!
After that came a short movie about female impersonators, which I also found dull, and then one supposed to be funny as well as sexy, but was more sexy than funny.
Then-after some previews of coming attractions-the lights went up. Jane stood in front of the screen and waved for silence.
"All right, gang," she called. "That's all for our regular showing. Now, as you know, we show a few more films-horror films, as we call them. All who don't wish to view our horror films-and everybody who hasn't paid the extra two-hundred-dollar fee please leave now."
I looked around. Most-but not all-of the girls got up and began to stroll out, laughing and talking and fooling with the guys they were with. Some of the men left, too, but about thirty people stayed, a lot of them giggling real nervously.
I stayed, on account of I wasn't going to leave until someone threw me out. What could be coming next?
A little man who looked like a ferret was what. He was fully dressed and carrying a big can of film. Also a pistol strapped to his right leg. He looked around the room carefully, then nodded to himself and walked toward the projector, where he began to fuss with the film can.
Jane sat down beside me, and the audience began to talk and whisper excitedly.
"Can I stay?" I asked. "Even though I haven't paid two hundred dollars?"
"Why not?" said Jane, laughing in a real brittle fashion. "If you dig horror, that is. For myself, I find these films despicable and depraved."
"Why do you stay, then?" I whispered.
"Because I'm hooked on horror," she sighed. "Worse luck. See that little man at the projector-the one who looks like a weasel? Well, he works for the syndicate that distributes these horror films. That can he's carrying has a kind of bomb in it. If he scents trouble, he pulles a string-and foofl-the films burn to a crisp inside the can. It's printed on old-fashioned, highly inflammable celluloid. And while the film's running, he keeps a cigarette lighter in his hand. If the cops should break in-flam!-the whole film would burn up fast."
"Golly," I said. "That film must be hot."
And then the film started. And it was hot. Also horrible.
There was no real action. I mean, the camera hardly moved for the whole movie. But in another sense, there was too much action! It opened with a young and voluptuous-looking Chinese girl walking into a bare room. She walked toward the camera, bowed, and then began to take off her dress, then her panties and bra.
"Probably filmed in Macao," Jane whispered. "You can buy a young, voluptuous Chinese refugee girl outright for a thousand dollars there, I understand. No questions asked--as long as you sink her remains deep in the bay."
"Golly," I said.
Meanwhile, on the screen, the young but very voluptuous Chinese girl had taken off all her clothes and was turning slowly in front of the camera, showing off her figure and smiling.
"Poor doll," murmured Jane. "She doesn't suspect what she's in for, obviously. Probably thinks she's just making a sexy movie."
"Isn't she?" I asked. But Jane didn't answer. On the screen the voluptuous young Chinese girl continued to preen herself in front of the camera, in glowing color. She stroked her full thighs, her ripe breasts, her wide hips, her not-quite-flat belly, and smiled provocatively.
Then a door opened behind her and four burly Chinese men entered. Each was naked except for a black belt around his waist and a wide black mask over his face. The girl heard them, turned, squealed in horror-the movie had sound, too-and backed away.
Not fast enough. They grabbed her, laughing nastily, and threw her to the floor, where they tied her wrists and ankles. Then they hoisted her up and tied her, stretched and writhing, between two hooks set in the wall. The girl was obviously trying to scream, but a gag in her mouth prevented her from doing anything but moan through her nose. When they had he tied tight, horizontally at camera height, like a pig on a roasting spit, the four burly Chinese bowed to the camera and left.
Two shapely Chinese girls stalked into camera range next. Each was really built, and each was also wearing a black belt and a black mask. Also black high-heeled boots. They too bowed toward the camera, then toward each other, and then toward the helpless naked girl.
Jane put a hand on my knee. "Don't get too upset, she murmured. "Remember, that girl is long dead now-you're only watching film."
And so I was. But what film! The girls with masks finished bowing and smiling at the camera, and then each picked up what looked tike a meat skewer. I looked again. They were meat skewers! All of a sudden I felt sick. I suppose I should have looked away, but she was jdead. I wouldn't help her by looking away. And I might miss something educational.
The masked girls sauntered with swaying hips over to their helpless victim, brandished their meat skewers ... And then thrust them into their voluptuous victim's naked flesh. One skewer got thrust into the victim's buttock, the other into her left breast.
The naked girl twisted-as much as she could in agony, and the girls with masks thrust two more skewers into her flesh. Then she writhed even more, and made horrible agonized sounds through her nose.
"You must remember," Jane hissed into my ear, "that human life is cheap in the Orient. A film like this-at a minimum of five thousand dollars a showing-will bring in hundreds of thousands of dollars. Whereas Chinese refugee girls bring only a thousand, and then only for the most voluptuous specimens."
"You mean," I gasped, as the writhing victim on the screen got two more meat skewers thrust through her breasts, "that this film is benefiting the Chinese Communist Government?"
"Good gracious no!" said Jane. "This is strictly a capitalist enterprise. The Communists are very square about torture for the fun of it. None of the money from this film will ever reach left-wing circles."
"Thank goodness," I gasped. Though at the same time I began to wonder if free enterprise might not be stretched too far, the need for the curbing of the population boom in Asia notwithstanding.
Meanwhile, on the screen, the camera had begun to trundle slowly in for a close-up of the voluptuous chick's face. It was contorted in agony, naturally. And while the camera focused on it, it kept contorting more and more-obviously, more skewers were being stuck in.
Then the camera moved, wobbling a bit, until it was focused on the girl's breasts. Four or five skewers were already thrust right through them. While the camera held the close-up, half-a-dozen more were pushed slowly into them. The Chinese girl's breasts, huge on the screen-and pretty big anyway-jerked and shook as the metal skewers sank into them.
Then the camera moved, jerkily, down her body, and gracefully thrust more meat skewers into the victim's plump belly, her shapely buttocks, her ripe thighs.
Then the camera pulled unsteadily back, until the girl's entire body was visible again, in full color on the wide screen. She looked like a giant pin-cushion.
Then another Chinese girl-a real young one, also wearing a black mask-pushed an iron brazier into camera view. Thrust into the glowing coals were a couple dozen more skewers-all white-hot. The new girl bowed and backed off-camera, while the two torturers, slipped on gloves-asbestos, no doubt-and then each reached for a white-hot skewer.
The helpless and horizontal victim writhed in horrified anticipation, her eyes wide with terror. And rightly so. Because a moment later the white-hot skewers were thrust slowly and sadistically into her breasts, right through the fully erect nipples. It was awful, believe me! It was all I could do not to shut my eyes as the white-hot daggers of metal hissed and steamer! as they sank into her breasts.
After that, more and more white-hot skewers got stuck into her breasts, and thighs, and buttocks, and belly. Each hissing as it sank.
Finally the film neared its end. One of the masked girls took a long, white-hot knife from the coals. While I watched, horrified but fascinated, she held the blade over where the naked chick would have been wearing a G-string if she'd been wearing one-and then slid it deep into her belly.
The audience gasped. The knife hissed. The gagged victim screamed through her nose, and the knife was thrust through her belly to the breastbone.
And still she writhed, not yet dead. The second torturer now appeared holding a white-hot rapier, and slowly sank it through the victim's left breast, all the way, until suddenly the tortured girl jerked and twisted and then went limp, as the hot blade slid through her ribs into her heart.
The masked Chinese girls grinned and bowed toward the camera, and the film ended.
The audience let out its breath in a long gasp. Me included.
"How," I gasped to Jane, "could such a film ever be made?"
"For money," chuckled Jane. "But don't worry, child. The girl you saw on the screen has been dead for weeks or months."
"But," I said, "if people are spending big money to see films like that now, won't more films like that be made in the future?"
Jane lit a cigarette, puffed on it heavily. "Perhaps. But I don't know they're being made. Anyhow, what's that to me? I simply contract for films already made. A few months from now I'll be contracting for films being made right now, may be, but by then they'll be several months old-and the girls long dead. You can't hold me to blame for a crime committed thousands of miles away and far in the past, can you?"
"Of course not," I said, feeling real ashamed. "You're only trying to make an honest dollar."
"True, very true," murmured Jane.
Meanwhile, another film had started. This one was made in Mexico, I surmised. It took place in a deserted bull ring. Only instead of a bull, a voluptuous naked Mexican girl with wide hips and incredibly full breasts ran into the ring. Her hands were tied behind her back and she was gagged and blindfolded, so she didn't run too fast.
Once in the ring, she was surrounded by half a dozen handsome young men wearing bullfighter costumes and black masks. Instead of a sword, each was holding a short black whip.
"Ah," sighed Jane. "The romance of old Spain! Men pitting their skill against a dumb beast destined to die for men's pleasure."
"But," I whispered back, "that isn't a bull. It's a naked girl. And she doesn't look as if she wanted to die."
"Neither does a bull," snapped Jane. "What's the difference? Both are helpless animals, aren't they?"
"No," I said. "A bull can fight back. And maybe even kill a matador."
"The bull-or the cow, in this case-is going to die anyhow," said Jane. "Why are you so blood thirsty as to want the matador to take a mortal risk too?"
"You're right," I said. "I was being bloodthirsty. But isn't it different-killing a dumb beast-from killing a naked girl?"
"If she wasn't dumb," chuckled Jane, "do you think she'd have gotten herself into such a fix in the first place? Rest assured that that chick is some nameless prostitute who volunteered to perform for big money. She was just too dumb to realize how she'd have to perform."
I nodded. Jane was no doubt right.
On the screen in full color, the big-breasted, wide-hipped naked girl had stumbled forward a few steps. Music blared.
"Ah, the pageantry, the romance of Death in the Afternoon!" murmured Jane. "What is the death of one bull compared to the delight of thousands-or the death of one cow compared to the sensual entertainment of others, more sophisticated thousands?"
I was about to say that even dumb human beings were more important than animals, but I didn't. Maybe Jane was right and I was wrong. But I didn't think so, privately.
Meanwhile, English subtitles had flashed on the screen. The brave cow, the subtitles said, prepares to meet her fate-at a fete. She has been told that if she drops to the ground within ten minutes, she will be dispatched with a sword. Hence the determination with which she keeps her feet will determine her courage as-a brave cow!
A flourish of trumpets sounded, and then one of the matadors drew back his whip and flicked the tip toward the naked, blindfolded, gagged and hand-tied girl.
The tip of the whip struck her belly, and bright red blood showed in a welt below her navel. The audience around me cheered. The girl on the screen doubled half over, only to straighten up again fast as a whip cracked against her rump, sending blood and a small chunk of flesh flying.
The girl began to run slowly across the ring, while whip after whip licked out and drew blood and sometimes bits of flesh from her naked body. Blindfolded as she was, she didn't realize she was ringed by six matadors, so each time she was struck by a whip she turned away-only to be sadistically flicked by a whip from another direction.
"What science, what art!" gasped Jane. "Note with what consummate skill the matadors strike at her buttocks, her belly, the tips of her breasts."
"You're right," I said, trying to forget the ghastliness of what I was watching and concentrate on its skill and artistry. "Those matadors sure know how to handle a whip with artistry and skill."
Which they did. Around and around in frenzied circles the naked girl ran, and the six matadors around her flicked their whips with deadly accuracy. Inside of five minutes she was flayed horribly-but artistically.
And still she ran, and kept her feet.
Five minutes later-ten minutes after the sport had begun-she was staggering and swaying in an effort to stay on her feet. At the bottom of the screen, the minutes she'd endured were flashed on one by one. As minute eleven was flashed on, I turned to Jane and whispered, "I thought they told her that she'd be dispatched with a sword if she couldn't keep on her feet for ten minutes?"
"Right," chuckled Jan. "But what they obviously didn't tell her was that she'd be finished off no matter how long she stayed on her feet. Be reasonable, Sharon. Could they let her go at all-with safety?"
"I guess not," I said, after thinking about it. "But it still seems kind of mean, leading her on like that."
"Nonsense," said Jane. "It merely gives her a chance to prove her courage as a brave cow-to show how long she can keep her feet in the face of horrible torment. Ah, the romance of old Spain and Spanish blood-sports!"
Well, maybe she had a point. Or maybe not. At any rate, the voluptuous Mexican girl managed to stay on her feet for another five minutes-sixteen minutes in all. Then she sagged at the knees, tried to rise, and fell on her back.
The matadors raised their hands in triumph, then clustered in a circle and began to flip coins. The winner emerged from the huddle smiling under his mask and brandishing a pointed stick-a banderilla, I guess they call it.
He stalked over to the fallen girl, brandished his stick proudly, then plunged it into the helpless girl's belly. She writhed more wildly.
Another matador handed him a second pointed stick and, after a flourish of trumpets and a bow toward the camera, he buried that in the girl's right breast. She writhed some more, naturally.
Finally the matador accepted a third pointed stick-this one all bedecked with ribbons-and after various artistic flourishes, rammed it through her left breast into her heart. That stopped her flopping around-permanently.
All six matadors turned and faced the camera, bowed, and, with an artistic blare of trumpets, the movie ended.
The people around me cheered enthusiastically.
"They like this kind of stuff, huh?" I said.
"Sadism," murmured Jane, "is buried within us all. Some people attend stock car races, hoping secretly to witness a fatal crash. Other people dig bullfights-or prize-fights. We of the sophisticated suburban sexclub set prefer our sadism straight."
While she was saying this, the third horror movie flashed onto the screen. I don't know where it was set; it could have been made anywhere, I guess. The action was real simple. It opened with a young, fullbodied blonde teen-age girl tied to a long metal stake stretched over a blazing charcoal fire-the movie was in full color, naturally. It began with the girl writhing in horrible agony as the flames licked at her naked flesh, and ended ten minutes later when, charcoal broiled, she stopped writhing.
"Amazing," said Jane when the movie halted. "I'd have sworn she'd last only five minutes. Just goes to show how tough teen-age girls are these days."
"Ulp, yes," I said. "Did you really enjoy that movie?"
Jane smiled. A cruel though sophisticated smile. "You eat meat, don't you?"
"Why, sure."
"Well, all right. Let's say you started eating meat as a tiny child, and that you continue eating it until you die, presumably in your late seventies or early eighties. Ever total up how many sheep and pigs and cows died, painfully, to provide you with a lifetime supply of meat? Thousands, believe me. I happen to be a vegetarian. When I die, thousands of animals will owe their long lives to me. Surely, in exchange, I can ask the deaths of a few dozen teen-age boys and girls. I just get my kicks in a different way."
"But that's different!" I protested. "And besides, if you watch two or three teen-age girls get put to death every week, that adds up to thousands of girls in a lifetime."
"True," said Jane. "II I were watching the movies all alone. But the movies I watch are watched by thousands of equally modern-minded people. So, spread among the total audience, my share of the guilt is very small. If ten thousand people watch-and drool over-a movie depicting one teen-age girl being executed in a slow and amusing fashion, then my guilt is for only one-ten-thousandth of a human life. Right? If I watched ten thousand movies of a like nature, I would be guilty of taking only one human life, correct?"
I stared at her. What a horrible attitude to take. Obviously, Jane was a bit twisted upstairs.
And obviously, I should get far away from her fast.
Alas, my sound resolve came too late. As I was to discover all too soon, in horrible fashion.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
After the horror movies had ended, I joined the stream of men and girls making for the fresh, healthy outdoors.
Where I was promptly jumped by a pair of lusty males. I was naturally a bit nervous at first, having just watched three girls murdered for kicks on the silver screen, but it was okay. All they wanted was sex, which I was happy to supply.
After that I drifted over to a big beach bonfire, where I had a few hot dogs-and got sexed a few more times, very pleasantly-and swigged a few drinks.
Meanwhile, I thought a bit about the mental attitudes of people who get a charge from watching sexy-looking girls get killed, even if only in movies. People like that were sick, T decided. Sick in their approach to sex. I mean, everybody thinks at times about chopping up a member of the opposite sex, but just for mental exercise, more or less. Actually doing so-or watching people do so on the screen-was something else again. I mean you can daydream about winning a war singlehanded, but that doesn't mean you open fire on your neighbors with a machine gun for laughs.
While I was thinking this-and being used in various clever ways by lusty males-I noticed Jane and her husband strolling nearby. They seemed to be arguing. After a bit Jane shrugged her shoulders and nodded.
I didn't think much about it at the time. Not, in fact, until I was lying on a dark stretch of sand being loved up by a virile young man who was too drunk to know when to quit. While he was working away, and I was enjoying his efforts (which went on and on) I noticed two shadowy figures.
One, I realized, was Jane. The other was the ferret-like man who'd delivered the horror movies.
I heard Jane say, "But it isn't right, I tell you! She doesn't deserve such a fate!"
The ferret-faced man chuckled. "Don't be a sentimentalist. So my employers wreck her. So what? There are plenty more like her, right?"
And I heard Jane say, "True, but I've grown quite fond of her. She's almost like a-a person to me. I'd hate to think of her being ripped apart."
I smiled. Jane had mentioned that she and her husband owned a sloop. Obviously she was about to sell it to a wrecking yard, and felt bad about it. I felt warm toward her all of a sudden. Anybody who feels strongly about a boat can't be all bad, or so I'd been taught in Denaquid, Maine.
I heard Jane say, "Well, if you insist. But I won't take less than two thousand."
"Fifteen hundred is the most I can offer," I heard the ferret-faced man reply.
They settled on seventeen hundred.
About then the guy I was with got his kicks-I was too bushed to be really in the game-and he rolled away and crawled off in search of a drink. A moment after I heard Jane call, "Sharon? Where are you, Sharon, child?"
"Here," I said, waving an arm-which held a beer can.
Jane and the little man walked over and stared down at me. "A bit drunk, eh?" said Jane, sadly.
"Not at all," I said drunkenly. "Too bad about your sloop, Jane. But don't get sentimental. If you can sell her for a good price, sell her. Who cares what becomes of her? Get the cash, is my motto."
In the moonlight I could see Jane and her friend exchange glances.
"You heard me ... talking prices?" she said.
"Right," I said. "Going to sell your boat, eh? Well sell her, Jane; get some dough. What do you care what happens to her? Let them smash her to pieces. So what? Most likely she'd sink anyhow, if she's rotten-and you wouldn't get a penny, unless you had her insured."
"How true," murmured Jane. "Only we weren't discussing our boat but a-a person."
Well! I may not be incredibly clever, but even half drunk I can catch the drift of a conversation. If Jane hadn't been talking about selling a boat, then she was fixing to sell me!
I wriggled, in a frantic attempt to turn over and make tracks, but before I could even get off my back, the ferret-faced guy-whose cruel eyes I could see gleaming in the moonlight-thrust out a foot and stomped on my belly.
I said oof; and writhed a bit in agony while he stomped on me a few more times, which left me in kind of a daze.
"Don't kill her!" said Jane.
"I won't," laughed the ferret-faced man. "I just quieted her down a bit. Convinced now? She advised you to sell. Like she said, what should you care? Seventeen hundred?"
"Done," said Jane. And the next thing T knew, the guy stooped low over me, inventoried me quickly with his eyes, and then, with a sadistic smile, clipped me under the chin. And I blacked out.
When I came to, I was lying in a kind of coffin, inside a big truck, I guessed. My hands and feet were tied and there was a gag in my mouth. I struggled real hard, but all that happened, I passed out again.
The next thing I knew I was coming awake, slowly, in a big shed. Again I was on my back, and again-or still-my hands and feet were tied. But this time I didn't pass put, and I could look around.
I was in this huge, barn-like building. In fact it was a barn. And on either side of me lay other girls, naked like I was. Four on my right, five on my left. Ten in all, including me.
I heard a noise and twisted my head around. A girl was stalking toward me. And what a strange girl! She was mostly nude, except for shiny black leather boots that came halfway up her calves, a wide, shiny black leather belt, black leather gloves and a black leather choker around her neck.
Her hair was long and blonde, and she wore it in a pony-tail tied with shiny black ribbons.
When she saw me looking at her she smiled-a twisted sort of smile-and reached behind her back. She must have had a sheath strapped to the belt, because when her hand reappeared it was holding a black-handled knife. The blade was long, and looked razor-sharp.
Gulp, I thought.
But it was all right. All she did was cut the ropes that were holding my ankles and wrists. ""Better get the circulation flowing again," she told me while she cut the ropes binding the other girls, all of whom were still unconscious. "No sense in getting gangrene."
"Who-who are you?" I said while I rubbed my hands, which were just about numb. "Where am I?"
She sighed, slid her black-handled knife back into the sheath behind her back, slung one naked hip onto a big table nearby, lit a cigarette, and blew smoke at me thoughtfully.
"Always the same questions," she said. " 'Who are you-where am I?' Just once I'd like some chick to come to and say 'What did you think of Fellini's last film?' or 'You think ontogeny really recapitulates phylogeny?' But no. It's always 'Who are you-where am I?' But then, life is just a succession of predictable events, isn't it?"
"I haven't found it so," I said, rubbing my ankles and feet. "And if you told people who you were and where they were right off, they wouldn't have to ask."
"Very true," she said, puffing more smoke at me. "Me, they call me Leopard Shark-but that's kind of a stage name, of course. As to where we are, why, way out West, that's where. Wyoming, perhaps, or Utah or Nevada. Some place like that."
She wriggled her neck, then unfastened her black leather choker collar and laid it aside. "Damn thing bugs me," she said. "Where were we? Oh, yes. It's nice country outside-this is a ranch, in case you haven't guessed. But dry. Awful dry. Used to be good cattle country way back, but then they brought in sheep, and the sheep stripped the ground cover and the land never came back. That's why they were able to buy a huge ranch like this so cheap."
"They," I said, "must be the people you work for, huh? The people that had me and these other girls brought here, right?" Leopard Shark nodded, lit another cigarette.
In case you wonder how come I was acting so cool and making small talk and all, I'll tell you. I had A Plan. Right near the blonde girl who called herself Leopard Shark was a big brown beer bottle. What I figured on doing, once the pins and needles left my legs, was waiting until she looked away, and then grabbing that bottle and bashing her over the head. After which I would make tracks.
"These people," I said. "They're a bunch of rich sex nuts who bought this remote ranch so they could do horrible things to young girls like me, huh?"
Leopard Shark smiled. "I see you read lurid popular fiction. But yes, your surmise is substantially correct. Lurid popular fiction is usually based-more or less-upon possible, probable or actual events. They call this the C-B-C Ranch. The nearest neighbor-a rancher fifty miles away-thinks that stands for the Circle-Bar-C. It doesn't. It stands for the Countess of Bergina Club. Ever read about the infamous Countess?"
I shook my head, measuring the distance to the beer bottle.
"She lived in Hungary or some such place, back in the fifteenth century. Back then, if you lived in a castle you could do pretty much what you felt like to the peasants. What the Countess liked was to torture girls. A scream of agony was music to her ears, they say. Before they brought her to trial, she did away with over four hundred girls."
"And that's her picture?" I said, pointing.
"Huh?" said Leopard Shark, turning her head.
Whooshl I was off the floor and leaping toward the beer bottle. Leopard Shark whirled, slid off the table while reaching for her knife-too late. I broke the bottle right over her blonde head. What a satisfaction!
But right then I heard something that made my blood run cold: her amused laugh. And at the same instant I felt something that made my blood positively congeal: the point of her razor-sharp knife prodding me low in the belly.
There we stood, me holding the neck of the broken beer bottle, she standing sideways so I couldn't knee her, and smiling at me while she pressed the knife against my belly.
"Relax," she said. "Move a few feet away."
I did as she suggested. "Forgive my little pranks," she said, sheathing the knife again. "Things get so dull around here at night. The ranch gets poor TV reception, and all you can get on radio is rock and roll, which I detest."
I gaped at her. Why wasn't she dead-or unconscious, anyway?
"That bottle," she said with a laugh, "was made of hard sugar. It's the kind they use for movie fight scenes. I thought you showed spunk, and I was curious to see how you'd make your play. You did well. Very fast."
"Thank you," I said, sitting down on the table a few feet from her. "That was the straight dope about this ranch being owned by a bunch of rich sex maniacs?"
"Yes," she said, "although maniac is perhaps too strong a word. Lots of people have sado-masochistic tendencies. Only the fabulously rich, however, can afford to indulge them. Not, of course, that any real harm will come to you-or these other pigs," she gestured to the nine other girls, who were still unconscious.
"I don't believe you," I said. "I've seen movies of what horrible sadists do to helpless girls. I think you and the maniacs you work for are going to kill us all. Horribly."
Leopard Shark sighed, lit two cigarettes and passed me one. I thought about grabbing her wrist and all, but I didn't. Most likely she knew judo and karate and so forth. And she had that knife.
"Since you're a smart girl," she said, "I won't try to lie to you. Yes, most of these chickens are destined to end up fertilizing the rose garden. Nine out of ten, in fact."
"And the tenth?" I said.
"The tenth girl-the one who shows the most courage and endurance-will be given first aid, drugged, shipped to a remote city and released. She'll wake up in some motel room-safe, and with ten thousand dollars in small bits as recompense for her ordeal. Theoretically, the club members decide which girl gets the nod," she added, lowering her voice and glancing at the other naked girls, all still out cold. "But off the record, I-as chief, heh, heh, ringmaster of this novel circus-can stage things my way.
"And, since I've taken rather a fancy to you, I can tell you right now that you are likely to be the lucky girl.
Well! Well, I didn't believe her, of course.
"Doubtless you don't believe me-now," she continued. "But I can assure you I speak the truth. After all, the idea makes sense, at least according to the twisted psychology of my employers. If you girls thought you were all doomed, you wouldn't struggle frantically to stay alive. And it's the frantic struggle, as much as the pain inflicted, that gives the members their kicks.
"Tell a girl she has a chance-even one chance in ten-of staying alive and earning ten thousand dollars, and she will retain her will to live. And provide more amusing sport for the club members."
No doubt. But promising a girl something and making good on the promise were two quite different things, I knew. The only thing that would save me, I decided, was to get out as quick as I could.
To stall for time, I said, "How come a well-educated girl like you is working in a place like this?"
Leopard Shark laughed. "For money, of course. A job's a job. And this job pays five thousand dollars a week. I've been here less than a year, and I have over two hundred thousand dollars in the bank. I know: you're going to ask me if I don't hate myself, doing the things I do once a month every month. Well, yes; but lots of people hate the things they have to do to earn big money.
"Why, I know a girl who works for an ad agency writing hard-sell copy for cigarette companies. She's good at her job, which means she's sold billions of cigarettes to former non-smokers. Perhaps a hundred, perhaps a thousand people will eventually die of lung cancer or heart disease thanks to her labors; Does it worry her? Sure. But as she once told me, if she didn't do the job someone else would. I feel the same way."
What a bestial if all-too-common attitude, I thought. Obviously an appeal to Leopard Shark's better nature would be wasted; she didn't have a better nature. I'd have to use psychology.
"Your job is setting up girls as clay pigeons for a bunch of rich sex nuts, huh?" I said. "Well, what makes you think they'll ever let you quit-alive? They'll kill you too, to protect themselves."
"A remote hazard," scoffed the blonde. "In the first place, I'd be hard to replace. Girls like me young, beautiful, amoral and skilled in the use of knives, guns, crossbows and whips and willing to use such knowledge on human targets-are hard to come by. Not very hard, but hard.
"And why should they kill me? Could I send them to the gas chamber without going with them? And what could I prove? They cover their tracks well. This ranch has been open almost a year, and nobody even suspects what goes on here. At the end of the year, just to be on the safe side, the place will be closed and sold, and a new sporting ground will be opened. Perhaps on some remote island in the West Indies, perhaps deep in the Canadian wilds."
"And you'll help open the new place?" I asked.
"Maybe. If I sign up for another year, which I probably will, after a few months' vacation. No, my job and my life are both safe. And in many ways it's a fine job. The club only meets once a month; I arrive here a few days early, to get things ready, and stay a few days afterward to tidy up. A week's work a month, at twenty grand a month plus. Wouldn't you like a job like that?"
"I decline to answer," I said, "until I've thought about it a bit. Uh, how do you get your victims?"
She shrugged. "That's not my line. All I know is that a syndicate delivers ten girls a month, at ten thousand dollars a girl. The girls are young, shapely, and guaranteed impossible to trace."
"But wouldn't they be missed?" I asked, still stalling for time
"Pooh. In a country of two hundred million, who'll miss ten teen-age girls a month? Will you be missed?"
She was right. I wouldn't be missed. That is, I was already listed as missing. Nobody would ever think to look for me in a barn on a remote ranch way out West. There was only one thing to do, and I did it. I jumped off the table and began running like crazy toward the nearest door, about a hundred feet away. Maybe Leopard Shark would throw her knife at me or something, but it was a chance I'd have to take.
She didn't throw her knife. But before I'd gone thirty feet I heard her chuckle, and then I heard a pjui sound, like someone had fired an air pistol, and at the same instant I felt something sting my left buttock.
"Might as well stop right now, little girl," I heard the blonde fiend say. "That was a tranquilizing dart you just felt. You won't get five paces."
But she was wrong. I ran six paces before everything went black and I fell forward.
I came to-partially and briefly-some time later. I was too groggy to move or even open ray eyes, but I could hear. And what I heard was Leopard Shark talking, to another girl, no doubt. She was saying "And, because I admire your spunk, you will be the girl to escape alive and get the ten thousand dollar?" I opened my mouth to yell, "Don't believe her; she told me the same thing!" But the mere effort of trying to open my mouth made me pass out again.
When I came to the next time, I was chained to a heavy wooden chair. On either side of me were the other girls, also still naked, also chained to heavy wooden chairs. I had a nasty feeling that the horrible part of my latest adventure was about to begin.
And I was right.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Leopard Shark was standing in front of us naked, chained girls, smiling. "Now that you're all awake," she said cheerfully, "I can commence my briefing. For the benefit of those girls who are coming to for the first time since their, heh, heh, acquisition, I will introduce myself. I'm known as Leopard Shark. This young lady...." she gestured toward a voluptuous Oriental girl who was also naked except for black leather boots, belt, gloves and choker "is known as the Dragon Maiden."
The Dragon Maiden gave us a cruel smile and bowed.
"And this girl," Leopard Shark continued, "is known as the Latin Lash."
A tall, wide-hipped, full-breasted girl with long black hair and olive skin-and almost no clothes bowed toward us.
"Not to mince words," Leopard Shark went on, "you girls are destined to provide a day and night of sport for some of the wealthiest, most socially prominent sado-masochists-in the nation."
A chorus of whispers broke out.
Leopard Shark chuckled. "Those of you who just attempted to scream, and failed, shouldn't know that you have all been expertly injected in the neck with a local anesthetic. Your vocal cords will not function for twenty-four hours. Hence you can gasp, whisper and wheeze, but not scream. Some sado-masochistic sex cults like to hear their victims scream. Not this club. Screaming distracts them."
I tried real hard to scream. No use. I just made a gasping sound.
"Quite frankly," said Leopard Shark, "nine of you are as good as dead. But one of you will live-and be given ten thousand dollars. So chins up, girls. Fight on for dear life itself, plus ten grand."
I looked left and right. The other girls, in addition to their looks of terror, now looked grimly determined. Each was going to make sure that she remained alive. I shuddered. How diabolical! Instead of trying to work together for the common good, each of the nine girls the ten, in fact, since I didn't exclude myself-was now the sworn enemy of all the others.
From now on, a fellow victim dead was a fellow victim out of competition. Or so the other nine thought. Me, I had no illusions. But I did want to stay alive as long as possible, since there might be a chance of escape.
Just then a tall, familiar-looking man strolled in front of us-and leered.
"Hi, Dag," said Leopard Shark. "Girls, this is Dagobert-who makes ten thousand a week, and earns every penny. He's the Idea Man for the club."
I gasped. The man leering at us was none other than Mr. Lynx' famous screen writer, Dagobert. Moonlighting.
"Believe me," continued the blonde sadist known as Leopard Shark, "Dagobert earns his money. Most of the members of this ultra-sophisticated, fantastically wealthy Club have already viewed the cream of the horror movies on the market-and off the market. And for several years they've been entertaining themselves by butchering ten young, naked girls a month.
"Naturally, they're a bit bored, a bit jaded by the ordinary ways of slaughtering innocent naked maidens. They demand variety, imagination. Which is where Dagobert excells. His job is dreaming up clever new ways of tormenting the club's victims. Take a bow, Dagobert."
Dagobert bowed, smiling cynically all the while.
"Greetings, victims," he said. "All-I mean nine-of you are about to die. Which naturally distresses you. But put smiles on your lovely innocent faces. All of us must die, but how many of us have the satisfaction of knowing that our deaths will provide amusement and entertainment for a group of socially prominent people? So smile! Meet your doom gamely. Let's put on a good show for the paying customers, eh?"
A chorus of horrified wheezes greeted his pep talk. But some of the girls, I noted with horror, had already fixed smiles to their faces and pulled their shoulders back gamely. How vain most girls are, I mused; eager to be thought well of, even if their last performance is for a totally bestial audience.
About then I heard the sound of airplane engines. So did Leopard Shark. "Hark," she said, lifting her head. "The first of our fabulously wealthy club members are about to arrive aboard their private plane."
An hour later, and many airplane engines later, the 'show' got under way.
But first Leopard Shark numbered us. For this purpose she had a gadget that looked like a branding iron. The tip, however, was made of felt, and when she pushed it against our cringing bellies and buttocks, the sole result was that we had numbers stenciled on our flesh. I was 03.
Then a gong sounded and, after consulting a penciled program, Leopard Shark, assisted by the Dragon Maiden, unchained girl 01 and led her toward a metal door. Naturally, the girl kicked and struggled, but she didn't kick and struggle much, on account of both Leopard Shark and the Dragon Maiden were carrying short, sharp cattle prods-souped-up cattle prods, judging by the violent way their first victim reacted each time they prodded her.
They shoved her through the metal door, slammed it. Then Leopard Shark and the Dragon Maiden sauntered back toward the rest of us.
"Victim 01," the blonde said with a laugh, "is now enclosed in a metal cubicle the size of a phone booth. When the gong strikes again, she will be propelled violently into the arena, and the fun will begin."
She pressed a button, and instantly a huge, full-color TV screen came to life before us. It showed a dim-lit, horseshoe-shaped arena, with about thirty people lounging and laughing in cushioned seats.
I stared at them with interest. Having read lots of lurid popular fiction, I knew-or thought I knew what to expect: a lot of jaded-looking old women in black evening gowns and masks. But no. The audience consisted of men and women in their twenties and thirties, wearing casual clothes and no masks. They looked like a bunch of jet setters on a holiday, which in a sense I guess they were.
The fact that they didn't have on masks confirmed my suspicions. Let one of us go? Not likely. Not since we could identify them. No, we were all doomed.
Me included, unless I thought of something clever and escaped.
Meanwhile a gong sounded, and into the arena victim 01-a busty young blonde-was violently propelled. She scrambled to her feet, looked around wildly. A moment later a bright spotlight was flashed into her eyes, obviously blinding her.
"Victim 01," said a voice over. a loudspeaker, "your first task is simple. Merely remain on your feet for two minutes. If you fall before then, you will be dispatched with a sword."
I and the eight naked girls on either side of me watched open-mouthed. Victim 01, blinking her eyes, began to walk in a circle. Whenever she walked away from the circle, however, the girl known as the Latin Lash stepped smiling in front of her and prodded her with a supercharged cattle prod. Which made Victim 01 jump back, squealing soundlessly.
Meanwhile, the audience, laughing and smiling, were fingering what looked like air pistols.
"The weapons the club members are caressing," Leopard Shark cheerfully informed us, "fire quarter-inch hard rubber balls. The muzzle velocity has been carefully calculated so that the balls will almost, but not quite, puncture the flesh of the victim."
And while we watched, horrified another gong sounded, and the members of the wealthy sado-masochistic club began firing at Victim 01's naked body.
It was awful, if sort of interesting. The rubber balls smacked into her naked flesh from all directions, and each time one struck, you could see the bare flesh of her breasts or buttocks or belly or thighs bounce from the blow. Tiny spots of pink began to appear all over Victim O1's flesh, and she started to dance and hop around as if poisoned mosquitoes were biting her.
The busty blonde victim danced and jumped wildly, clutching now her breasts, now her buttocks, now her belly. And each time she clutched one part of her, another part began to jump and quiver as the merciless rubber balls whacked into her flesh.
It must have been awful for her-but truth to tell, it was kind of interesting to watch. Amusing, too, in a bestial sort of way.
Then another gong sounded, the one-minute gong, Leopard Shark told us, and after a ten-second rest the 'sport' began again. Only this time the sadistic, laughing members of the audience were firing more slowly, and each time they fired, the big-breasted teenage girl leaped even more.
The muzzle velocity of the guns has been increased," Leopard Shark girl told us casually. "Now the balls are striking her with just enough impact to break the flesh. And each tiny rubber ball has been, soaked in a mild acid. Hence the victim's amusing reaction to each shot."
She was sure reacting, I thought, watching her jump and dance on the giant full-color TV screen. And now, each time a rubber ball whacked into her flesh, a bright red spot was left. The victim wasn't even trying to run now, she was too busy clutching each new impact spot. Only she couldn't cover more than a tiny fraction of her body, and every time she clutched her breasts protectively, the fast-moving rubber balls whacked into her unprotected buttocks and belly. And when she clutched her belly and buttocks, her breasts began to dance, as more rubber balls smacked into them at high speed.
She stayed on her feet almost fifty seconds, judging by the big clock next to the TV screen. Then she sagged to her knees, shuddered, and clopped down on her back.
Instantly the Latin Lash was standing over her, a thin, lethal-looking rapier in her hand.
"You have five seconds to rise," boomed a voice over a loudspeaker, "or get speared. One, two, three...." The blonde continued to writhe around on her back. At the count of five, the Latin Lash-clad in her black leather boots, belt, gloves, choker, and a shiny black mask-raised her rapier and then thrust it deep into the blonde's plump belly.
The blonde thrashed about more frantically, and then still more, as the rapier stabbed deep into her right breast. But a moment later the rapier sank deep into her left breast, over her heart, and she shuddered, and went limp.
A cheer went up from the socially prominent audience. Then the Dragon Maiden stalked into the arena, leading a harnessed mule. The mule's harness was attached to the dead blonde's ankles and the corpse was dragged feet first out of the arena.
"One down," chortled Leopard Shark. Nine-that is, eight-to go."
And a moment later she and Dragon Maiden dragged another chained, naked teen-age girl toward the arena. This one was Victim 07. And a few minutes later, via the closed-circuit, giant-screen television, we witnessed her fate.
And a really horrible fate it was, too. She was put into a long, plate glass-enclosed box, with a treadmill under her feet. At the front end of the box, which was about ten feet long, was a wall studded with needle-like spikes. At the back end was a row of metal bars, which began to glow red, then white-hot.
The voluptuous victim, feeling the red-hot bars searing her naked rear, naturally ran toward the front of the box. And then the treadmill began to move, pulling her back toward the heated bars.
She began to run, faster and faster as the treadmill speeded up. And then-wham!-some sadist in the audience stopped the treadmill, and, unable to stop herself in time, the girl ran smack into the needle-studded wall.
She reeled back, began running again as the treadmill started once more. Running faster and faster to keep pace with the treadmill. And once again the treadmill stopped abruptly, and she ran into the needle-studded wall in front.
That poor, stupid girl, I thought. Doesn't she realize she doesn't stand a chance-that those sadists are just getting their kicks watching her run for her life?
But then I thought, if I were to be in her position, I'd run too. I certainly wouldn't stand still and let my backside get broiled by a bunch of white-hot iron bars. I'd run like crazy. And if there was a needle-studded wall ten feet in front of me, I'd take my chances on being able to stop in time if and when the treadmill stopped.
Which was what the voluptuous victim did. Only they had her running so fast she usually couldn't stop in time, and slammed into the board full of needles to the tune of jeers and cheers from the sadists watching.
On and on the poor girl ran, racing to stay in front of the glowing metal bars which threatened to roast her from the rear. And the treadmill kept going faster and faster, until she was dashing along like a fifty-yard sprinter, her breasts bouncing as she ran.
And then, wham! The treadmill would be stopped abruptly, and she'd slam into the needle-studded boards.
It was horrible, though instructive. I mean I'd never realized that a plump teen-age girl could run so fast or so long! She kept running long after I'd have sworn she'd collapse. I guess the certain prospect of having her rear fried kept her going. But she sure ran a long time. She didn't stick out her arms to keep herself from hitting the needle-studded board, on account of her arms were still chained behind her back. All she could do was run, alternately getting her rear seared by white-hot bars and her breasts and belly punctured by the forest of needles in the front wall.
On she ran, and on and on. Pretty soon she was so exhausted she got glassy-eyed-and the sadist manipulating the treadmill began to vary the speed. One moment the thing was going fast, and her rear was near the searing bars, and the next moment it was slowing down and she had to slow herself quickly to avoid getting punctured again.
She didn't, I decided, have a chance. And I was right. Because five minutes later, with an ominous click, three foot-long metal daggers clicked out of the needleinfested boards in front of her. One dagger was aimed at her lower belly, the other two at the nipples of her bobbing breasts.
She saw the swords, all right. But she didn't stop running, because the bars behind her were still glowing white-hot. On she ran, sweat pouring down her shapely body, while the treadmill alternately slowed and speeded up, forcing her to instantly quicken and slow her pace.
By this time, I must confess, I'd lost interest in the mental and physical torment she must be feeling, and was more interested in seeing how long she'd last. It wasn't long.
The treadmill kept speeding up abruptly, bringing her rear into searing proximity with the white-hot bars, then slowing quickly, which caused her to shoot forward almost up to the menacing steel spears which reached for her naked belly and breasts. It was just a matter of time.
A long, gradual speed-up came, and she began to run more and more frantically. Then the treadmill stopped abruptly. Unable to stop her frantic forward dash, the victim slammed at full speed into the foot-long daggers. Thump! One moment she was still alive and running, the next she was flattened against the boards, daggers protruding through her lower back and at both her shoulder blades.
The screen went blank, but via the still-functioning sound system, we heard delighted laughs and applause from the depraved audience.
"Next," said Leopard Shark, stifling a yawn. And another naked teen-age girl-Victim OS this time was dragged off, screaming silently, to be slaughtered in the arena.
On the TV screen we watched her go. Rather quickly, too. She was shut into a steel-barred cage with a starved black panther. The panther knew what he wanted-ripe, raw meat-and the girl who was tossed into his cage was plenty, ripe. She fought him off for a short while with her feet and fists, but before long he was eating hearty. Not that I blamed him, if he was that hungry. Still, I couldn't help wishing he'd taken the trouble to kill her before he began munching on her. But I guess it's unfair to expect dumb animals to show such sensitivity.
The next thing I knew, I was being dragged toward the arena. Along with another girl. I fought and struggled a bit, but not too much, on account of the Dragon Maiden and the Latin Lash were leading me, and both of them were carrying supercharged cattle prods. Which they jabbed into me a couple of times, just to cool me off.
In which they succeeded, on account of those cattle prods hurt plenty, believe me!
And almost before I could whisper help more than three times, I was shut inside a metal box just big enough to stand in. In the door leading to the arena was a tiny porthole at breast level, and I naturally bent over to peer out. Instantly the door whipped open, and some kind of mechanical boot hit me in the rear, sending me flying into the arena.
How mortifying! It was bad enough to die horribly for the amusement of a bunch of sophisticated, socially prominent, ultra-rich sex nuts. But to be booted in the rear just before my possible last performance was too much!
I picked myself up from the sawdust floor of the arena and glared around. A few yards away was the other girl-Victim 04-a chubby brunette. She was also scrambling to her feet.
I blinked into the bright lights, trying to glare at the audience. No use. The lights were so bright I couldn't see their faces. But I could hear their amused, sophisticated chuckles. The monsters!
All at once the she-sadist called the Latin Lash appeared in front of me. "You girls," she said with a cynical sneer, "have two minutes in which to kill one another. If you don't want to fight-and kill-then don't. We have a red-hot barbecue pit waiting for you."
And with that she tossed a long, wicked-looking knife in front of me. Meanwhile, I noted out of the comer of my eye, the Dragon Maiden tossed a similar knife in front of the chubby brunette.
Each of us dived for her knife. Then, alone in the arena, we began to circle each other at a discreet distance.
"Don't," said a voice over a loudspeaker, "feel obliged to hurry. But if this contest isn't over inside two minutes, both of you will roast over the barbecue pit. If it is, the winner may be spared."
Well! I continued to circle the chubby brunette, knife in hand.
"Hi," I whispered to her. "My name is Sharon Chablis. I'm from Maine."
"Rhonda Tompkins," she whispered back. "San Francisco. How did you get into this awful situation?"
"Through a sex club." I whispered back, still circling her with my knife raised. "And you?"
"I accepted the invitation of a strange man to have a drink in a bar. The next thing I knew, I was here."
Tough, I thought, for you. Aloud I said, "Let's not really fight. Let's just pretend to fight."
"Right," said Rhonda. The lying witch, I could tell she wasn't to be trusted. She was scared of being roasted alive-as was I-and she was more than willing to kill me to keep alive, for a while.
Well, two could play that game. I circled her, smiling. "Don't worry," I whispered. "We're about to be rescued. An FBI man is on our trail-and there he is!" I gasped as loud as I could, looking over her shoulder.
"Think I'd fall for a trick like that?" she hissed-and lashed out at me with her knife.
Almost got me, too, I was so sure she'd look over her shoulder so I could cut her up when she was off guard. As it was, I jumped back just in time, brought up my own long knife. Sparks flashed, and we fell back, continued circling.
The rotten witch! All of a sudden I hated her. True, I'd just met her. True, I had nothing against her-except the fact that if I didn't kill her she'd kill me, or we'd both die. But that was enough. Whether or not the sophisticated audience got their kicks, the fact was I had to cut her down, or we'd both die over hot coals. So naturally I hated her. It was like war, I mean.
Meanwhile, the audience was jeering and clapping and urging us on. Urging us to cut each other up. The monsters!
I circled closer to the chubby brunette, smiled at her affectionately, and then kicked sawdust in her face. She reeled back, pawing at her eyes, and I lashed out with my knife.
Hot dog! My knife had slashed right across both her over-extended breasts, slicing them neatly. She screamed, dropped her knife and clutched her butchered bosom. I jumped in close, thrust my knife low into her belly and ripped upward.
It worked just great. I mean, I'd read lots of lurid books about people ripping each other up with knives, but I'd always assumed it was hard work. It wasn't. The knife slid right up her middle like I was cutting a bowl of vanilla pudding.
A moment later she was on her knees, gasping and trying to hold her ripped belly together. I stepped in fast again, thrust my knife all the way into her left breast. It slid in real easy until I hit her ribs, then it stopped. I remembered just in time that you're suppose to hold the knife sideways so it will go between your victim's ribs.
So I pulled the knife out, turned it, and thrust it into her breast again. This time it went all the way, and her eyes rolled wildly and she jerked a couple of times, and then flopped on her back.
Well! Notwithstanding the awful circumstances I was in, I naturally felt a bit proud. I mean, I'd killed my first opponent right off, real fast. And thereby stayed alive. The audience was cheering, too. And despite the hatred I felt for them, I couldn't help turning and bowing.
Then I was being hustled out of the arena by Leopard Shark, who kept jabbing me in the rear with her cattle prod, and the next thing I knew I was back in the barn again.
"Not bad," sneered Leopard Shark. "But, heh, heh, the worst is yet to come."
And so it was.
The next item on the agenda was a fist fight between 02 and 08, which the remaining four of us witnessed, shuddering, on the giant TV screen. The girls who fought were both kind of plump. In fact both-even though they were teen-agers-had big bellies, from over-eating, no doubt, and extra-large breasts. Notwithstanding, they began to slug each other like crazy. Naturally, since they'd been warned that the loser would be roasted over red-hot coals.
Poor girls! Most likely, under other circumstances, they'd have become good friends. Exchanged records and fan pictures and small talk and so forth. But as it was, they tried to beat each other to death. And just about succeeded. You wouldn't believe the horrible damage one girl's fists can do to the body of another ripe-breasted, plump bellied teen-age chick--and vice versa.
Finally Victim 02 dropped to the ground, gasping. And 08 started jumping up and down on her stomach until she was dragged away.
I was sure she'd killed her. But she hadn't. As we found out when they started roasting 02 over hot coals. Poor girl! It took her ages to die. Mainly because Leopard Shark kept injecting her with stimulants to keep her alive and conscious.
After that, things got real hideous. The audience kept shouting for blood. And blood was what they got.
Two ripe young blondes, 09 and 10, who'd been whispering together real friendly-like in the barn, got tossed into the arena with a pair of whips. And once they'd been informed that the loser would be sprayed with acid, they began lashing at each other with real malice. Short, vicious licks that didn't so much bruise as cut right into the flesh.
Inside of two minutes both girls looked like raw hamburger. And a half minute later the loser-Victim 10-was so badly chopped up she hardly writhed at all when the acid was sprayed on her.
And then-then came the outdoor sport. On account of dawn had come.
Some sport! Victim 06-a real shapely brunette-got dragged out, her wrists tied in front of her, her feet free to run. She was tied to a frisky stallion, and the stallion was made to run around a big circular track. The naked, hysterical girl ran behind him for four laps. Then she tripped, and got dragged around on her breasts and belly. She lasted four laps, over sharp gravel, before she stopped squirming. By that time she wasn't shapely any more.
And then the fisticuffs champ, 08 was dragged out again and told to make the stallion happy. Which she did, to avoid the penalty, which was too horrible to even mention. Unfortunately for her, she made the stallion so happy he kicked her in the belly-which finished her soon enough.
And after that-I escaped.
It wasn't easy. I'd just been unchained, and the blonde Leopard Shark was smiling and telling me that my next assignment was to outrun an airplane.
I knew what kind of airplane she had in mind. Victim 09, the whip-fight survivor, with her hands tied behind her back, had tried to outrun an airplane. Know what kind? Right! The creeps who belonged to the club had a bunch of little radio-controlled models. With little gasoline engines. And sticking out of the propeller shaft of each was a foot-long meat skewer.
The girl had run frantically into an open field, while two radio-controlled model planes buzzed her. Plans with wicked, long meat skewers sticking out in front of them.
The planes, guided by laughing club members, had made pass after pass at her, and she'd dodged them all. For a while. Then one of the models zoomed down toward her and she dodged"-and the other one, coming from the other side, plunged right into her belly, foot-long meat skewer, razor-tipped propeller and all.
Naturally, she flopped to the ground, writhing. Whereupon the other plane was zoomed right into her left breast-and she stopped kicking.
Well! None of that stuff for me! I waited, pretending to shiver, until Leopard Shark had unfastened my chains-and then I knead her good, right between her legs. She yelped in agony, and before she could straighten up, I grabbed the knife out of her sheath and used it. Right up her front, from the torrid zone to the rib cage I used it. And my what an awful sound she made as she felt her intestines spill out onto the ground-where I stomped on them.
After that I ran-and ran! At first I thought of running toward some of the private planes parked nearby, but then I realized I didn't know how to run a plane. So I ran toward the ranch house.
There should, I thought to myself, be some kind of weapon there. So I kept running, while people shouted and screamed, and a couple of guns cracked, and a few arrows whizzed by me, and a model plane buried its meat skewer in the ground a few feet away.
But a moment later I was inside the ranch house, with the angry club members only a few yards behind. I slid through the open door, slammed and bolted it, looked around, found what looked like a submachine gun on a whole rack of guns. I grabbed it, pointed it, and started pushing and pulling all the knobs it had on it.
After thirty seconds of pushing and pulling I hit the right knob, and the gun went bang. Then the door burst open. As the enraged and no longer sophisticated club members dashed in, I pointed the gun and pulled the trigger.
My but the result was heart-warming! Bullets sprayed all over them, and they started flopping around in death agonies right off. I emptied the whole gun at them, and when the gun stopped, I grabbed another gun, pushed the same knob, and emptied that gun at them.
The thing jumped lot, but I knew what to expect by then, so I was able to aim it instead of just spraying with it. And I sure finished them off!
Just to be sure, I took a third submachine gun from the rack and sprayed the bodies with bullets. There was one more submachine gun left and, just for safety's sake, I took it off the rack and walked outside with it.
Outside, everybody looked dead. Including the four remaining, naked girl captives. I'd shot them down too. Well, tough break for them. They should have ducked.
Really annoyed now, I stalked to the barn where I'd been held captive, looking for somebody more to shoot. I found the Latin Lash and the Dragon Maiden.
"Mercy!" they cried, cringing in a comer. "We were just trying to earn a few dollars!"
I sneered-and shot them to pieces.
I prowled some more, and found a terrified young man with buck teeth and no chin. He was hiding behind some packing crates. I'd seen him before-on the TV screen. He'd been one of the monsters guiding the model planes with the daggers.
I snickered at him while he groveled on the ground sobbing for mercy, and then I pulled the trigger. Nothing. The gun was empty.
"Mercy!" he sobbed. "Don't kill me! I only joined this club because my friends belonged. Even though I come from a good family and have had money all my life, I've always felt out of things. I was-well, touched and flattered when they asked me to join. Don't kill me, please?"
While he was sobbing all this I was looking around for some kind of weapon. But then I stopped. Because I'd just had an idea. Would it be that this, at last, was my Big Break?
"What's your name?" I snarled, waving the gun-which he obviously thought was still loaded.
"Al-Algernon Percy Montmorency Carstairs Denton, the Fifth."
Hmmm, I thought. Aloud I said: "Can you fly a plane? Are you married? How much money do you have?"
"Yes. No. About twenty million, I guess."
"Good," I said, and then I started telling him just what he should do, while he nodded his head frantically.
You can guess what I had him do, I'm sure. First I had him drag all the bodies inside the ranch house, and then, after I'd found some slacks and a blouse and shoes that fit me, I made him set fire to the house and barn both.
No sense in leaving fingerprints-his or mine.
Then I had him start the engine of one of the private planes-not his-taxi the plane toward the ranch house. He jumped out just in time, and the plane plowed right into the burning house, where it too started to burn.
I figured that when the cops finally came to investigate, they'd figure one of the planes had crashed into the building, accidentally burning up everybody inside. And that's exactly the story that came out in the papers later. Whether the cops suspected there was more to it than that, I'll never know. Most likely they did, but didn't want to blacken the good name of the state-and antagonize a lot of wealthy families.
Then, after Algernon had stopped shaking so much, I had him fly both of us to Reno, Nevada. I'd gotten rid of the submachine gun, and was just holding a little pistol inside my stolen handbag by this time. But I didn't really need it. Algernon was too scared to put up a fight.
In Reno we were married by a chubby, red-faced justice of the peace, in a little white cottage surrounded by rose bushes. It was real romantic, except for Algernon shaking so much.
Then we hired an air-taxi-Algernon wasn't up to doing any more flying himself-and flew to his huge estate in California, where I cooked him a wedding breakfast. Or at least, had some of the fifty servants cook one.
After he'd eaten, and drunk half a bottle of imported brandy, I said: "Friend husband, I told you a teeny-weeny fib yesterday. You married me because I said a wife couldn't testify against her husband. But that isn't what the law says. I know, on account of I've read lots of popular fiction in paperback form."
"What-what is the law?" he gasped, gulping more brandy.
"The law is," I said, smiling, "that a wife can't be forced to testify against her husband. Any time the whim strikes me, though, I can voluntarily testify against you-and send you to the gas chamber. More brandy, Algy?"
Poor Algy! Who'd have thought those few words would send him all the way around the bend?
I had him placed in one of the best private asylums in California, where I understand he babbled a lot. But who pays any attention to the babbling of a madman? Poor Algy. I was almost sorry when they telephoned to say he'd wriggled out of his strait jacket and swallowed three bottles of rat poison.
And that's how I became one of the richest sixteen-year-old widows in California. Even though he was a weakling and a murderer and a sado-masochistic pervert, poor Algy really was Mr. Right-for me.
I guess there's a moral to my story, and I guess the moral is that even though things are bad all over, this is still the Land of Opportunity for a girl who knows what she wants.
