... she looked so good that he wanted to make it last. He reached out and placed one hand gently on her belly, feeling the muscles of her abdomen tighten at his touch.
He ran his hand upward to her breasts, then slid over so that he was near and kissed her neck, her ear, her shoulder. His hand cupped her breast, and he moved his lips to it. Her nipple rose between his fingers, and he ran his tongue over it, feeling it tighten into a hard ball of desire. His free hand moved down to her thighs and squeezed.
"You don't have to wait," she whispered in his ear. "I'm ready, Richey, so ready!"
But he still wasn't ready to hurry. It wasn't that urgent yet. He moved down, leaving her breasts and kissing her stomach, her thighs. His hand moved gently, parting her thighs.
She saw what he intended to do, and a moan of anticipation escaped from her parted lips.
"Oh, hurry! Do it."
"This?"
"Oh, yes. Yes!"
She began to tremble uncontrollably. Her hands twisted in his hair, and she panted and twisted against him. As she watched, he buried his face in her, tonguing her clitoris delectably. Flinging her legs over his shoulders, she moaned in ecstasy. The dampness of her passion washed against Richey's face.
Then Richey slid along the length of her body. She kept her thighs around him and urged him with her hands to hurry. And he was ready now. He came to her and there was no resistance, no hesitation, only warmth and softness and the thrill of the first entrance to love.
And the second. The third.
She clung to Richey, her arms around his back and her legs wrapped around his hips, and wouldn't let him leave her. And he had no desire to leave her....
CHAPTER ONE
"We're going to use the bedroom, okay?" Richey Davis asked, standing up.
Robin remained seated and may have blushed slightly.
"Of course," Sharon said.
Her face showed no expression at all. She was not surprised, and she wasn't even angry. After all, that was the thing to do-free love, no ties of fidelity. How could she be angry with Davis for being the way she wanted life to be? But still, it would have been nice to be the girl who was going into the bedroom with him. She didn't understand why he would want to make it with this square-looking chick, when he could have her with no effort and no phoniness about the reasons for wanting to make love.
"Of course," she said again.
Robin got up and Davis led her over to the bedroom. They went in and shut the door behind them, and Sharon wondered if she would be able to hear the sounds that they made and if she would get frustrated listening to them making love on the bed, while she waited alone. She moved her cushion closer to the door to find out, arranging herself so that if her body started responding she could help her passion along with a well-placed fingering.
"Remember, we're just going to neck," Robin said.
Not so loud, Davis thought. I'd be disgraced if Sharon were to hear that. Aloud he said:
"We're only going to do what you want to do."
"It's not what I want. I want to go all the way, because I'm very human, you know. And because I like you very much. But I just don't intend to, and you promised ... "
"Oh, shut up!" Davis said sharply.
They were sitting on the bed. With the door shut, the room was very dark; and they could barely see one another. He took her in his arms and they kissed and fell back on the bed in a fiery, passionate embrace.
When their lips parted, Robin said:
"I know that I'm being foolish about it. I can't shake off my small-town morality, and it's worse because I realize how silly it all is."
"Nothing is silly if it's what you want."
"But it's not what ... "
"Let's not talk," Davis said, then again kissed her.
Her lips were parted this time, and his tongue slid between them and into her mouth, touching the tip of her own. Both tongues slid together slowly for a second and then were passionately lashing at each other.
Davis slid one hand down to the bottom of her sweater and tugged it up. His hand rested on the smooth, bare flesh of her stomach for a moment and then slid down, working under the band of her slacks.
"No!"
"What's the matter?"
"You said we were just going to neck."
"Yeah, that's right. But I want to touch you. That's part of necking ... part of being in love. It's only natural to want to be as close as possible to the one you love, closer than you can get with clothing between you. I told you we wouldn't go all the way. I mean that, but you have to let me feel you."
"Kiss me," she said.
He did, and his hand continued to slide down under her slacks. She was wearing a girdle, and he slid beneath it; but the stretchy material made motion difficult, and he stopped moving down.
"Will you take your girdle off?"
"Uh uh."
"Please? Don't you trust me?"
"I don't know."
"Do you want to trust me?"
"Yes."
"Well, you have to start somewhere. If you're ever going to take a chance on me you'll have to make a start. What's the difference whether you have it on or not? My hand's under it, anyway. I can't do any more touching when it's off. It'll just be more comfortable for both of us."
She didn't answer. She was looking up at his face, but it was too dark to tell what he looked like-she could just see the outline of his head. Everything that he told her always sounded so logical, but....
Oh, what the hell, she told herself. Why must I always try to figure out everything I do ahead of time?
"Can I take it off?" he whispered, caressing her breast with his free hand.
"All right," she said softly, afraid that her voice would be too loud, too eager.
But now coursing through her were waves of fire, filling her lower body with delicious sensations. She craved his hands on her, exciting her, sending scalding shocks through her-but she did not want him to know.
Richey Davis grinned; but, of course, she didn't know it, because it was too dark for her to see him.
He unfastened the zipper at the side of her slacks and pulled them down to her ankles. Then he tugged at the girdle, working it down over her hips and buttocks. Robin raised herself slightly to help him. Then it had passed over her hips and slid down her thighs, and Davis took both slacks and girdle off over her feet together. She felt very exposed, wearing only panties.
"Your sweater too," he said.
There was little sense in keeping her sweater on, when her bottom was undressed, she realized, and raised up so he could undo the buttons at the back. He unfastened the clasp of her brassiere at the same time. She felt it loosen, but said nothing, and then he had taken off both and she lay back again, wearing only her panties now.
She felt rather cold and nervous, but good too, in a way, to be exposed to him in this manner. He was sitting beside her, and she could imagine that he was looking down, trying to see her in the dark, and she liked the idea of having him look at her, getting excited by the sight of her nude body. Suddenly, inexplicably, she wanted him to kiss her ... all over.
Then he stood up and she could hear him undressing beside the bed. "Richey ... "
"Shhh, don't say anything, honey."
He tossed his clothes aside. His naked outline was very broad and exciting.
"I want both of us to be naked," he said. "I want to feel every inch of our flesh pressed together, warm and tingling and comfortable, I want to touch you all over with my hands, kiss you all over ... look at you all over too."
He moved toward the wall and snapped on the light, and the room was no longer dark. The lighting was indirect-tinted red, not glaring-and it didn't make Robin at all uncomfortable as she lay there. She made no effort to cover herself, for she felt a delicious wetness flow in her cunt, as his eyes swept over her body, lingering at the soft brown loveliness of her womanhood.
Richey moved back to the bed, big and brawny, hair disheveled, breathing hard, his manhood firm, erect and fascinating to her. He sat beside her.
"Satisfied?" she asked.
She was smiling, and it was not a sarcastic question. She wanted him to get hot when he looked at her.
"Almost," he told her.
He stretched out beside her, and she moved into his arms. For a while he caressed only her back and the slope of her side. Then his hands moved down to stroke her hips and buttocks, his fingers digging into the firm flesh and around to her inner thighs. Robin clung to him and began to tremble a bit. But she didn't want him to stop, not now. It felt so warm and nice in his arms, so nice to have his hands moving over her. She was no longer thinking very much about his promise of not screwing her.
His head slid down and he kissed her heavy, globular breasts, first one and then the other, then back to the first one, his mouth moving in a circular motion, working its way up to the nipples. They stiffened and grew taut beneath his lips, and he ran his tongue gently over the hardened flesh, nipping with his teeth, pulling them until he had her writhing in an ecstasy of passion.
Then he slid down to her stomach, kissing her all the way, until he encountered the elastic of her panties. His hands caught at them and he began to pull them slowly down. He kissed her tenderly.
"No," she whispered, but they both knew that it was going to do no good for her to protest.
"I want you naked," he said, his tongue tracing a fiery path down her body.
He paused only a moment at the deep cleft of her navel, then his tongue plunged lower ... lower ... until suddenly he made the final, intimate contact. He felt her gasp in surprise at his unexpected kiss, but after a moment she opened herself fully to him, to receive the sincere adulation of his tongue. Then, as the waves of pleasure began to erupt through her, she locked her legs around his head and pressed him tightly to her, in a frantic effort now to increase the pleasure he was giving her.
Then it was there-that moment of release that surged through her in throbbing, weakening waves. She shuddered from the intensity of the climax that was stronger than any she'd ever known-the years of self-stimulation had never provided anything so gratifying. She shuddered once again, then reached down and pushed his head away.
"No more," she whispered. "I ... I can't take it right now."
Richey stood up, holding her panties balled in one hand, and admired her.
She smiled rather shyly. Her legs moved a bit, and there was nothing he couldn't see and nothing she wanted to hide from this man who had offered her the ultimate in the love kiss. Her body glistened from her recent love bout.
Richey grinned. He brought the panties to his lips and kissed them. Minutes later his free hand ran along her leg, slowly, tinglingly, and then it was there, where he wanted to be, where she wanted him to be. He caressed her gently, feeling the warmth of her need against his hand. Her fiery young body, so new to sexual fulfillment, now needed it more than ever.
"That feels so good," she whispered. She could not help it. She wanted him to know how it felt. "I like it when you make love to me."
Richey tossed the panties aside and kissed his fingers. He was grinning, and it sent a thrill of warmth through her to watch him kiss the fingers that had caressed her so intimately.
And then he fell on her, his lips seeking hers, his body pressed against hers. Her legs moved, and she could feel his manhood hot and firm against her. His fingers dug into her buttocks and lifted her to him, and for a moment they were poised there on the threshold of love. A long moment and Robin wondered if he was thinking about his promise not to screw her. She knew, at that point, that there was nothing she could do if he chose to break it. There was nothing she wanted to do but receive his love fully within her, to surround his maleness with her protecting warmth, to rub nerve against nerve, until their loves mingled in the throbbing aftermath of satisfied passion.
And then Richey struck, driving his cock into her. She was ready for love, open to him, craving the filling of her body with his. She froze for an instant, shuddered, and then she was in the rhythm with him, and they were coupled together, moving against one another, equal in their urgency. She ground her hips against him in an agony of desire, as his body crashed against her, straining her to receive him fully, delighting in the resurgent fire that burned within her.
"Ohhh, God!" she moaned as she felt it start, the thrill that coursed through her and blinded her to everything else.
There was no place in her mind for thoughts of broken promises then, no place for any thoughts; she was filled by her completion. She thrust her hand beneath their bodies and helped her climax along with a well-placed finger-just to add an extra fillip to receiving a male into the hidden recesses of her body for the second time in her life.
Together they met in their pent-up release, and together they sank exhausted to the bed, their spent love warm and flowing between them.
Sharon, listening at the door, heard Robin moan at the height of her coming. She felt jealous as hell and ashamed of herself for such a plebeian emotion. Sometimes a woman can't help these things ... just as she couldn't help leaning back and, closing her eyes and picturing Richey loving her, stimulating herself with the aid of a hairbrush handle she'd kept close by for just such a purpose. She hated to masturbate-she'd much rather be screwed by a man-but she couldn't stand the sound of such frantic lovemaking in the next room without doing something.
She clamped her legs together and made the grade; but afterwards, when she lighted a cigarette, she felt frustrated. It just never was any good, doing it to yourself, she decided.
Greenwich Village.
Friday night is brilliant with neon, raucous with noise, teeming with tourists. The streets are jammed with automobiles, and every parking place is taken; the sidewalks are crowded with people so that it's difficult to move, a milling and meaningless crowd. They flow like one giant amoeba, swelling out in pseudopods of people that glide around comers and through doors, every person losing identity and adding his own little spark of existence and awareness to the whole, helping to create the mood and spirit of the place at the expense of his own unrealized identity.
There are the tourists. On Friday and Saturday they are the most numerous of the non-individuals. People from Peekskill, Maitland and Abbeville looking around in amazement, ready and eager to be amazed, looking for real live Bohemians, beatniks and hippies. Whole families of tourists ready to spend their hard-earned money on novel experiences and thrills, but only voyeuristic thrills, of course, for they didn't really want to do anything. This group includes sailors, probably the most abominable group of all tourists. Always in three's, also. One sailor alone might be all right, for he might know a little something. And two sailors-well, perhaps they are good friends and are looking for a lay together. But three sailors-what can be said? There is nothing on earth that is as abominable as three drunken sailors staggering through Greenwich Village, whistling at chicks, talking loudly and lewdly, their ridiculous hats tipped far forward and their necks strained backward so that they can still see despite the hats; pretending they are worldly men of the sea, pretending they know what they are looking for and what to do with it when they find it.
O sailors! The days of Melville and Conrad are gone-the important seamen now hide beneath the polar caps; harpooners are no more. But they don't realize how they look, and they swagger on, in three's for safety and companionship. These are the most hateful things about them, these reasons for traveling in three's. Hateful! And then too, it is impossible to conceive of three sailors on the same ship having more than moronic minds. Chance may make one intelligent man a sailor. Extreme coincidence might place two together on the same vessel. But three-never! And, since the intelligent be all of equal minds, average sailor minds. Hence, three white-suited abominations swagger through the streets. Something, somewhere, must be wrong with the Navy.
And then there are the Villagers. They are far more diverse in appearance, many are strange and unique, and they seem like extreme individualists-to the tourists, anyway. It takes a bit of understanding to realize that they are as much alike within their own group as the tourists are within theirs. Perhaps even more so-they are closer in ideals and far, far closer in their phoniness.
A bearded man wearing a burlap robe and a chain around his neck shuffles past a neat little faggot with tight pants and pointed shoes. These two are much alike, and the vast difference in appearance must be put from the mind in order to realize this. A girl with straight, stringy hair and no makeup still wants, desperately, to be desirable. Perhaps for her mind? Yeah! Hell, yeah!
It was a focal point, though-this Greenwich Village-and there may be a need it fulfills. Like garbage collectors. Or more like prostitutes. But it is not so bad, if one will and can realize what it is all about and why, and take it for what it is worth without the superstructures and justifications. It can be fun.
Richey Davis was one who realized.
On this particular Friday night he drove down the Avenue of the Americas and into the heart of the Village. He had just arrived in New York, driving from Expo 67 in Montreal with only one coffee stop, and the heavy weekend traffic was making him swear savagely to himself. He didn't blow his horn, however angry he got, because that is for idiots and tourists and not for one who had realization.
Richey didn't really live in New York, but then he didn't really live anywhere in particular-or he lived everywhere, if one prefers the positive approach. He was a true nomad and spent as much time in New York as anywhere-and had many friends there, quite a few friends, especially since he was really unfriendly. Something about an unfriendly man draws friends to him, perhaps. The hard-to-get approach? People feel proud of being friends with a man who is unfriendly.
How did he live? Well. But how? A vague question. If he lived well, then it mattered little how he earned his living-or at least that was the point of view he took on the subject. He was an open-minded and self-centered man who did whatever he chose and always managed to get by, and morals and laws were not important. We can let it go at that. It might be mentioned that on this particular Friday night he drove through the heavy and exasperating traffic in a new Cadillac convertible, bright red, with the top down and the radio playing. This car belonged to him, legally, and that says a great deal in relation to his ability and prosperity.
Richey Davis was a big man, over six feet tall and broad shouldered. His features were square, with a prominent jaw and heavy brow. His hair was long and a bit wild, which was due to driving in the open car. He wore a full beard, sculptured around the mouth, a multi-colored and thick beard that gave him more the look of a pirate than a hippie, more a lumberjack than an artist. This was a particularly valuable thing in Greenwich Village, although it wasn't quite so desirable in culture-naive Montreal.
His nose had been broken more than once, but it had not shifted from the center of his face, simply bent in the middle and arched outward, and added to his hard features. His lips were very thin and his teeth large and white. In his left ear he wore a large golden ring, dangling, very phony and very fine. He would also have worn an eye patch, but that made it too hard to see. To sacrifice one's abilities to phoniness was just not sufficient justification.
It was nine o'clock. There was no place to park the car, and he drove around the block, fighting traffic and pedestrians, and came down Third Street, heading back toward the Avenue of the Americas. Finally he saw a place being vacated by a Chewy with New Hampshire plates. Richey always had consistently good luck that way. He waited a moment, then pulled into the space with one sweep of his long, tail-finned automobile. He got out, not bothering to put the top up.
Standing beside the car, he stretched and yawned, arms up in the air, while smaller men flowed by on either side and glanced enviously up at him. But he was right at home almost anywhere. Except jails, where he felt nervous; and in churches, where he felt ridiculous and a bit outraged by the phoniness of the scene he observed there.
And so Richey Davis arrived in New York City on this particular visit. He expected that it would be the same as any other visit and any other time. Days in New York were much the same; the fun was the same and the boredom was the same. Most of the women were the same. He liked New York, but only for so long at one stretch, because he was not deceived by it and made a fool by the spirit of the city.
But this trip was going to be quite different.
He walked to MacDougal Street and then down half a block to a friend's apartment.
Several tourists stared at him and told one another that this was a genuine hippie who really lived here and who probably smoked marijuana, read poetry and had love-ins. It is not quite sure which of these vices was most frowned on by their fine minds. He jangled his golden earring at them, expressionless, his teeth showing in a fierce grin. It was funny.
At the right house he entered, went up four flights of stairs and knocked on the door. In a moment it was opened by a woman who looked, then recognized him and smiled sweetly. She stepped aside and held the door open for him, and Richey entered the apartment.
"When did you get in?" she asked.
"Just now," he said.
He kissed her lightly on the cheek.
"Who's there?" called someone from the other room.
"It's Richey Davis," she answered.
"Great!" exclaimed the voice.
A small, bald man with gigantic eyes and a nervous manner of blinking his eyes scurried in.
"Hello, Robby," Richey said.
"Great to see you," Robby said. "You picked a fine time to come. There's a party later."
"Good," Richey said and nodded.
"Fix drinks, Sharon," Robby told the woman.
She had been looking at Davis. She smiled now and went off to the kitchen to bring drinks. Robby shook hands with Richey and said again that it was great he had come.
At first Robby looked ridiculous, completely hairless and big eyed. But after a while (this may have been partially because of his personality and not his appearance) he didn't look so silly, and one noticed a certain intensity about him. He was one of Richey's best friends. "How long are you in for?"
"Who knows?"
"Rich?"
"Very."
"Driving?"
"Of course. A Caddy."
"Nice. New?"
"Would I buy a used car?" Richey said, with an amused expression, as though Robby should know better.
Robby grinned.
"What about you?" Davis asked. Robby shrugged.
"Still working in the bookstore."
Davis probably would've laughed at this and ridiculed Robby, but Sharon returned with the drinks and interrupted him. She gave them each a glass and then sat on the floor between them, knees folded in proper hippie fashion.
Sharon was a tall girl with a pretty, although mask-like face. Perhaps this was because she rarely changed her expression-or if she did, it didn't register on her features. Her gray eyes, always made up with gray eye shadow, were cold and somewhat calculating beneath her finely drawn brows. Her lips were rather thin and seemed perfectly formed for smirking. She smirked a good deal, usually at other people's shortcomings or misfortunes, both of which she considered herself devoid. It is said that the two sides of a person's face are different from each other, that no face is perfectly symmetrical. This is true of most faces, but not of Sharon's. Perhaps this was another reason for her mask-like appearance.
The hair that framed her symmetrical face was of an indistinct brown shade, rather dark with bluish highlights. She usually wore it in some bizarre bouffant style that required frequent attention and nightly bouts with rollers, curlers, and bobby pins. The result was attractive, almost chic.
"Are you here for any particular reason, or just to nose around?" Robby asked.
"Well, as much as I hate to admit to a purpose in life, I do have a reason," Davis said. "And it concerns itself with nosing around, so that's all right."
"Certainly."
"This chick I was making it with a while ago just sent me a card with her new address. She moved to the city to make her fortune or something of the sort. A real small-town innocent type-when I met her, at least-and I got tired of her because she wouldn't screw. But, you know, the same broad in a new atmosphere is almost as good as a new chick. So I came down to see her, and variations thereon."
Robby laughed.
"Perhaps she has a friend for you. Shall I ask?" Sharon scowled blackly.
"I wish I could. But you know how faithful I am to my love." Sharon frowned.
And Richey Davis laughed in derision.
"I have to work for a couple of hours tonight, dammit," Robby said after a while, blinking nervously as he spoke. "I get off at two, and that's when we're going to have the party."
"Here?"
"No-Marty's pad."
"Marty? Marty Sparrow?"
"The one and only."
"Great! It'll be fine to see Marty again. Where's he living now?"
"Brooklyn, of all places."
"Working?"
"Painting."
"Canvas, or barns?"
"Canvas."
"My God! I didn't know he could paint."
"He can't," Robby said. "Not a stroke can he paint."
"Is he fooling himself about it?"
"Marty? Don't be silly. It's better than working, isn't it, Davis?"
"How fine he is. It'll be great to see him again. The last time I saw him he was hassled by some job. I forget what it was."
"He was a hippie mailman."
They laughed.
Sharon took the glasses and refilled them.
They were drinking some marvelously bad rye. This posed a great problem to Davis, who wanted to show his finely developed taste by ridiculing the whiskey, but he was afraid it might reflect upon his manliness if he admitted that he didn't like the raw, kerosene-like stuff.
He decided on a compromise, holding his glass up to the light and looking carefully at it for a few seconds, then saying:
"This stuff is terrible."
Then he poured the glassful down with neither cough nor grimace.
"I'll put anything in my mouth!" he bellowed loudly.
"Yeah," said Robby, blinking. "The Davis is in town, and there's not a cunt in sight that's safe from your rapacious tongue."
"It's the wart, lad, that does it every time," Davis said, grinning. "It sends them into veritable ecstasies."
Robby shook his head. There was no one quite like his friend Richey Davis. The only thing he usually talked about was eating pussy-or something equally ecstatic.
"I'd better call my love," Davis decided.
He took out his address book and found the number, then handed it to Sharon, open and folded back at the proper place.
"Get this woman on the phone," he commanded, as though he were a corporation executive used to having his orders obeyed immediately.
Sharon, knowing how much Richey hated to use mechanical things such as telephones, dialed for him and waited while the number rang. It was a dormitory-type rooming house for young ladies. When the switchboard operator answered she asked for Robin Leslie, squinting near-sightedly as she read the name from the book. Then she handed the phone to Davis.
"Hello," said the girl.
"Robin?"
"Yes. Who's this?"
"Who is this! Are you getting calls from other men, you tramp?" Davis roared. "Richey! Where are you?"
"In the city. I rushed right the hell down to see you, because I love you so much."
"It's good to hear from you."
"Better yet, to see me. How soon can you be ready?"
"Well, I was just going to take a shower and then...."
"Never mind the shower. You can shower after we screw, but never before. Love is colder than hell when you're all clean."
"Oh, Richey...."
"Can you be ready in an hour?"
"Yes."
"Want to see me?" Pause.
Long enough so that her pride wasn't ruined.
"Yes," she said hesitantly, "I guess so."
"All right. Look-I don't want to fight the traffic, so you take a subway downtown and meet me at the comer of Third Street and Sixth Avenue. Exactly one hour." He looked at his watch (with a gold case enclosing the very thin works), then said, "Be there at eleven on the dot."
"I'll try."
"You'll make it. And I love you, by the way."
"Sure, you do. I'm sure of that."
"No-I do."
His voice was softer now, and he spoke as though it was very important for her to understand.
"I missed you and I'm anxious to see you," he said. "I've always liked you very much, believe that. It's the truth."
He sounded very convincing, and Robin might've believed him-especially since she couldn't see him grinning at Robby and pulling on his earring in delight.
"I'll see you soon," he said and hung up. To Robby he said: "I'm so irresistible."
Robby had to go to the bookstore at ten, and he would be working there until they closed at two. The store was just around the comer.
"I might as well wait here for you," Richey said, sipping a new drink and looking out the window at the gray, ugly city that flowed past outside.
"Sure, if you want to. You going to meet the broad?"
"Yeah. I'll bring her back here. Better than spending money on her."
Robby pulled on his coat and kissed Sharon.
"Don't fall for him in the next hour," he said, grinning. "I don't trust him at all."
"Don't worry," Sharon said. "I've been alone with Mr. Davis before. He may be charming, but he's not my type. I like bald little fat men."
Robby grinned.
"I'll try my best to make out with her, though," Richey said.
"I'm sure you will," Robby replied. "But if you can storm the gates of hell, you're a better man than I was for months and months."
Robby lit a cigarette for his walk around the comer, then left. Richey lit a cigarette and went out onto the fire escape and waited, sipping the drink until he saw Robby's shining top appear in the crowded street below. Then he finished the drink, took a last drag on the cigarette and flipped it out so that it arched down into the street in a shower of sparks.
He went back into the apartment through the window and Sharon flung herself into his arms and kissed him wildly.
"It's been so long," she said, when their lips finally parted. Her hips were grinding against him in an agony of desire. "I haven't been really screwed good since you were here the last time."
Davis shrugged, one eyebrow rising questioningly.
"Did you miss me?" she asked.
"Sure," he said, covering his amusement at her anxious, eager approach.
"I missed you," she said desperately, the power of her lust filling her voice.
"Have you been faithful to me?" he demanded.
"Yes," she cried. "Oh, yes. I've never cheated on Robby with anyone but you."
She didn't see the humor of her remark and offered it up to him as an offering to her god.
"That speaks well of you," he said sardonically. "Not every man can have a mistress who only bangs with her husband."
"Do you have to meet that other girl?"
"Yeah. I'd rather be with you, of course; but since you'll be with Robby at the party, I've got to have somebody to play stink finger with."
"Oh, Richey, I wish you wouldn't talk that way."
"It's my way," he said, shrugging.
"But Robby won't be there until two."
"But I want to spend the night with somebody."
She pouted for a moment. Then she smiled brightly as an idea occurred to her.
"You don't have to meet her for an hour," she said.
"That's right."
"That gives us an hour."
"For what?"
"Don't be cruel."
"Tell me."
"To do it."
"To do what?"
"To ... to make love."
"To do what?"
She blushed, for now that her passion had expressed itself slightly to him, she couldn't bring herself readily to utter the word he wanted to hear.
"To ... fuck."
"Well, maybe. If you ask me nicely."
"Don't you want to ... to fuck me?"
"Sure, if you ask me."
"Well, I won't."
He shrugged and turned away.
"You bastard!" she snarled.
"You'll have to ask."
She was furious for a moment, but her passion got the upper hand after a brief struggle.
"All right, all right! Will you make love to me?"
"Will I what?"
She took a deep breath.
"Will you ... fuck me?"
"Say please."
"Please ... fuck me."
"With ice cream and cherries on top."
"For God's sake, Richey."
He shrugged.
"With ice cream and cherries on top," she said exasperatedly.
He grinned, and she knew it meant it was all right. She melted into his arms again. They kissed more passionately than before.
"Let me lock the door," she said, ever the practical, cheating female. "Then we can go into the bedroom."
Richey waited while she fastened the chain across the door. Then she took his hand and led him into the bedroom.
She was tingling with excitement. It always thrilled her terribly to cheat on Robby, who trusted her completely and was completely faithful to her. And she was one of those women who found her only real sexual pleasure in being screwed by someone other than her husband, and there is nothing that can be done for them.
In a small town, when they are discovered, their husbands can beat them, divorce them, or send them away; but in a hip city like New York the glaze of pseudo-sophistication requires that she be treated simply as a woman with a problem and be packed off to an analyst in a vain effort to work out her difficulty. As often as not, it merely makes it possible for her to fuck more promiscuously than ever, and the only positive effect the analysis has had is that she can now screw without feeling guilty about it. Which, of course, means that nothing much has been done about it-unless one happens to believe in psychiatry.
Richey sat on the edge of the bed and watched while Sharon took off her clothes. She wore slacks and a bulky sweater, and these were hurriedly tossed aside. Her bra followed, and she stood revealed before him, dressed only in her panties-red nylon bikinis that concealed so little she might as well have been wearing nothing.
Richey'd always been fascinated by a girl's panties. He'd collected them from girls that he'd screwed while in high school, and for a time he'd had them mounted on a wall in his bedroom as a sort of trophy collection; but he'd had to take them down when he discovered his sister was bringing her girl friends in when he was gone to display the prowess of her brother.
He watched Sharon closely, examining her panties with great care. When she moved closely enough, he reached out and ran his fingers in under the smooth material to caress the hair that decorated her cunt.
She began unbuttoning his shirt, and after a minute he helped her. His clothing joined hers on the heap in the center of the floor, and they were both ready for the act of love.
Richey stood up, and Sharon pressed herself to him, his prick pressed hotly and tightly against her smooth, warm belly. She was tall, and he didn't have to bend over too much. Her breasts pressed warmly against his chest, too small and without much cleavage, but nicely formed. The nipples were firm and erect, burning against him in silent signal of her lust. He bent from her lips and did not have to bend too far to reach her nipples.
He moved his lips on the stiffening tips, one after the other, and she began to tremble. Her body pressed forward against him. Richey's hands grasped her buttocks and pulled her even tighter, his fingers gripping into the soft flesh. Her thighs were heavy and strong, her hips wide, her buttocks fleshy. She began to rotate in the driving force of her passion, and her hands held his face against her breasts.
Richey swung around and lowered her to the bed. She brought her knees up immediately, instinctively, and his hands moved along the soft inner surfaces of her thighs. Sharon's head was back, her eyes closed, her breath coming shortly. She was ready and waiting to be fucked by Richey.
He stripped her red bikinis slowly down her hips, over her thighs and off her feet, and balled the silky material up in one fist. It felt cool, and he liked to hold it as he pressed his body down against hers. She wanted only to hold him, and she did, her hand stroking and urging and guiding his prick straight to her cunt.
Then for a moment he was poised right over her, the head of his throbbing organ right outside the pouting lips of her cunt. With one long, smooth motion they were joined.
"Ohhh, that's good, Richey! Good, Richey. Oh, God, fuck me, baby ... fuck me good, baby ... fuck me hard...." Sharon moaned and whispered, her nails raking his back as his prick plunged deeply into her, filling her cunt with the warm and satisfying feeling of being filled completely.
Richey worked on her, the tempo of their screwing increasing slowly and the depth of his strokes increasing with each thrust, the thrill of impending climaxes coming upon them more and more rapidly, each ripple of sensation closer to the next, working up to the final moment when the many thrills would flow together in a fiery, throb release that would cause his love to spill deeply into her, and her body to throb its thrilling and satisfying response.
Richey pressed her panties down between their bodies, where the hair intermingled, and he liked the sensation of the material against his body, as he fucked her faster and faster.
Then they were at the peak, poised for a moment, and his love spilled over in gushes of warm stickiness, and she answered him with a climax that caused her to scream as it swept over her, bursting her mounting tension and flinging her into the abyss of satisfaction. Slowly, slowly as the horses of the night, she drifted down from the peak in easy, lazy fulfillment.
"It's so good with you," Sharon said after a while. They lay with their bodies coupled, Richey lightly stroking her breasts now and then. "I can never do it at the same time as Robby. You and I always seem to make the grade together. We must be made for one another."
"Yeah," Richey said absently.
"Can we do it again?"
"Not now, doll. There's a limit to all things, including my loving ability. But there'll be other chances before I leave town."
He gently separated himself from her and stood up. He hoped he hadn't shot his wad and would be unable to make it with Robin later. He looked at his red, shrunken prick and hoped he'd be able to pump some life into it later. If not, he'd've wasted his whole purpose in calling little Robin Red-breast.
He began to dress, and after a moment Sharon did the same. She pawed through the tangled clothing, then looked up at Richey.
"You have my panties," she said.
He looked at them, surprised he was still holding them.
"I'm queer for panties," he said, grinning down at her.
"Can I have them back?"
"Nope. They're a souvenir. I'll never part with them."
She thought that was a compliment, failing to realize that Richey was hung up on panties and not because of the memories they recalled for him. She got another pair from her drawer and put them on, and they finished dressing and went back into the living room.
It was eleven o'clock, but Richey had another drink before he went to meet Robin. He sat on the windowsill and sipped the whiskey and smoked a cigarette.
"I wish you loved me," Sharon said.
"I do," he said absently.
"I mean really loved me."
"Robby loves you."
"But he's not you."
Richey shrugged.
"No one is me," he said.
"He has to work tomorrow night too," Sharon said.
"Yeah?"
"Will you come over then?"
"Maybe."
"Please?"
"Maybe."
"All right," she said, resigned that she wasn't going to get a commitment from him.
God, Richey thought, how boring she is after she's been screwed.
He was almost too tired to meet Robin. He hated the thought of talking to her after not having seen her in a long time, but he knew he would be sorry later if he didn't, so he finished the drink and got up from the window.
"I'm going now," he said.
"Do you have to?"
"I want to."
Richey frowned down at her.
"You going to tell Robby about us?" she asked.
"Maybe ... maybe not."
"Are you coming back, Richey?"
"Maybe."
"Please come back."
"Maybe."
"Want me to walk over with you?"
"Nope. I'm going to meet a broad, remember?"
She didn't answer.
Richey went to the door, and she followed him and kissed him good-bye. It was a long kiss with her mouth open, a sensual kiss urging him to remain and take her again. Richey felt the beginning of new passion begin within him, and it made him feel better, because he knew he'd be able to perform with Robin when he got her alone.
It would be fun, he thought, to screw Robin on the same bed where he'd just had Robby's wife a short time before.
"Okay, baby," he said, breaking the kiss and gently disengaging himself from her embrace, "I'll be back later."
"All right," she said.
He could see that she was sad and jealous.
Women were like that, he thought as he walked away, getting jealous over silly things like other women. Hell, he didn't get jealous because she was married to Robby, did he? But women couldn't understand things like that. Give a woman equal rights and she begins to cause trouble, and that was a fact.
Richey went out, and she stood and watched while he hurried down the stairs. He didn't look back up at her. When he disappeared at the first landing she went in and shut the door.
Richey still had her panties in his hand. Eventually they would join the collection crowding his glove compartment, but for now his pocket would have to do. It wouldn't be wise to let Robin see them in his hand-at first. Robin wouldn't understand a thing like that. She was a nice girl. Not like Sharon....
What a tramp Sharon is, Richey thought, shaking his head sadly. Robby was such a nice guy, faithful like a puppy, and Sharon was no good at all.
Fucking Robby's best friend! A wanton trick!
Then he laughed at his thoughts and went into the crowded street, wearing the red panties pulled over his head like a skullcap, his ears sticking out of the leg holes, feeling quite ridiculous and fine.
CHAPTER TWO
Marty Sparrow was a strange and beautiful person, in his own special way.
He was probably the thinnest man who still looked muscular and strong in the world. He was about five feet eight and didn't weigh over one hundred fifteen pounds; there was no taper at all to his body, a perfect tube from hips to shoulders-a perfect thirty-six, being twelve-twelvetwelve. But he was long muscled and rock hard and strong, and although he'd never fought a man as small as himself he won his share of fights during his New York City youth.
He was fearless, and, equally important, he knew how to fight. Not classically, for he was too light for that. It wouldn't have done him much good to get his weight behind his punches; there just wasn't that much weight. So he fought in his own style-lightning fast and throwing long shots so that speed and distance traveled would make up for lack of weight behind the blow. He threw a punch so hard and so viciously that when he missed-as he seldom did-both feet often left the ground, and his body twisted completely around in the air.
But this fighting ability may be too much stressed at this point, for Marty was a lovable guy who didn't really fight too often and was quite well liked and highly respected. It is only mentioned in relation to his size so it can be realized how powerful he was.
His last name was prophetic in a delightful way, for he was bird-like to an extreme. He was adept at perching, seemingly on the edge of anything from a coffee cup to an ash tray, and remaining in a perched position indefinitely. He was the perching champion of the human race, without doubt.
He had a thin, pointed face with a goatee at the chin and straight, black hair on top; a hooked, beak-like nose; and a chuckle somewhat like a sparrow's cheep, but not quite. He usually dressed, paradoxically, in Levis and starched white dress shirts for all occasions.
Like Davis, he knew that man had a far more noble ambition and destiny than to work, and if he hadn't managed quite so well it wasn't important. It's the thought that counts.
At the moment Marty was working on a painting, in keeping with his new ambition. But his mind was not on it. This didn't affect the results any-he "couldn't paint a stroke, anyway-but it made his efforts less entertaining.
He was having woman trouble.
Marty was neither inexperienced nor naive, not at all the type to be having these problems. But he was. Woman problems are the most indiscriminate tools of fate and are able to strike in strange places and trouble all kinds of minds and emotions.
He was currently in love with a nymphomaniac. That, admittedly, is quite a problem.
He didn't know why he loved her. He knew that there was nothing in it about understanding her or sympathizing with her, and he didn't think of it as her "problem" in the hackneyed New York sense. He simply loved her. That was the simplest and best way to think of how he felt; love has no need of self-analysis.
In fact, it is usually ridiculous if it is understood why one loves, and it makes one feel a fool while still as helpless as before. So he didn't think about why he was in love. He couldn't keep from thinking about her nymphomania and wondering what could be done about it, why it was so, and whether she would ever change, whether she loved him, and all related thoughts.
These things made him very unhappy, and there were times when he'd say the hell with it all and determine never to see her again. Then she would show up at his apartment and tell him that she was sorry and that she loved him very much-she was honest; she never promised to change-and he would take her back. And then it would begin all over again. This had been going on for several months now.
Her name was Lynn. She was very well known in New York, especially in the Village, and had been very well loved by just about everyone. Even in a place that boasts most of its open-mindedness and free thinking she had become something of a joke. Marty called her Lynn, and sometimes darling. Everyone else called her Roundheels Lynn, although not when Marty was with her.
They sympathized with him and, in precise and clipped language and with knowing glances, said to one another:
"Poor Marty has a problem."
In this case it didn't seem to be quite such a phony thing to say.
Marty threw his brush down, disgusted with his ineptness and with life in general and went to the telephone. He dialed Lynn's number for the fifth time and waited while the phone rang twelve times, but there was no answer.
Whenever she wasn't at home-and sometimes when she was-it was a pretty good bet that she was fucking in some strange or familiar bed with some new or old face leering down at her and some new body pounding away above her. Or beside her. Or behind her. Or any variation thereof.
Well, there was nothing he could do. He just had to hope she remembered the party later on and arrived there by herself. Or should he hope that she didn't arrive? He thought that if he were never to see her again he might be able to get over her, after a while. It was seeing her that made it bad. And thinking about her too, thinking about her with men. That was very bad.
"A hell of a sophisticate I am," he told himself, managing to smile at it.
Since he was at the phone he wanted to call someone. He pondered for a moment, then called Robby.
Sharon answered.
He thought her voice sounded different somehow. More contented, perhaps? More relaxed? It didn't matter. Probably just the connection.
"Hi. Marty here. I wanted to make sure you people remembered the party tonight."
"Yes, Marty. Guess who else is coming?"
"Who?"
All he could think of was Lynn, and he knew that Sharon wouldn't bother to mention that. "Richey Davis."
"Really? Where is he?"
"He's here in the city. He just left here to pick up his girl, and he's coming over with us."
"Good," Marty said.
He liked Davis, liked him especially when he was contrasted to the mincing intellectuals that always seemed to pop up at New York parties and talked about Proust. Who the hell was Proust? Liked him even more especially when Davis was drunk and uninhibited and belligerent.
Marty and Sharon chatted for a few seconds and then hung up.
Marty tried to paint once more.
He wondered, as he painted, what Davis would think about Lynn and what he would say. It would probably be funny; certainly it wouldn't be in the form of advice. He might simply laugh, and that would be all right as long as it was Davis; Marty understood him and would know that the laugh was not phony and concealed nothing. An honest laugh at anything is all right and far, far better than sympathy in any form.
And then he wondered whether or not Davis knew Lynn. There was a good chance that he did, and if so there was a great chance that he had fucked her. This reflected both on Davis and on Lynn, equally.
And he wondered too whether or not Davis would fuck her in the future, knowing she was his girl. That would be like Davis, but so openly like Davis that it would bring no malice. Could it? She would be sleeping with other guys, anyway, letting them screw her until they could screw no more, so a friend might as well have the pleasure too. Logically, at least. For some reason, however, Marty didn't feel that way about it.
He forced the thought of Lynn from his mind, from the surface at least, and slung paint on the canvas for a few more minutes. Then he knocked off and began to clean up the place for the party. He left the easel and canvas where it was, however, so that his friends could see how diligent and creative he was.
Marty felt very much like having a party that evening and having a great deal of fun. Even sadness can be lessened by having fun, a fact that more people should know. And, contrary to popular opinion-opinion, not practice, and widespread puritan ancestry-troubles can be drowned. That is not to say that, in the hangover morning, they will not rise again to the surface, a bloated corpse with staring accusing eyes. But the morning after must be ignored in the floods of forgetfulness on the night before. This is what must be understood in the successful drowning of one's torment, and Marty knew it well.
Robby was working among the back shelves of the bookstore at midnight. He preferred working here to working at the cash register. There was something oppressive about having to meet people, even to take their money, and especially when they bought arty-type books and asked for esoteric volumes in clipped and knowledgeable accents. Poetry was worst, especially by contemporary New York poets like J.T. Shelman. Occasionally someone might buy a work of Housman, and that was fine and refreshing; he didn't mind meeting these people.
God, he hated the others. Women with dyed hair he hated most of all, but Cubans who spoke perfect English ran a close second.
But now he was hidden away in the back of the store, arranging paperbacks, and this was the best part of his job. He liked books. Only fools loved them.
Robby was twenty-five years old. He looked older because of his bald head and the fact that he slumped. He wasn't really completely bald, but most of his hair had deserted at an early age-to his anguish and despite all his efforts at saving it, mainly having it cropped very short. An Italian barber had explained that "Poots lessa pressure ona roots."
When it was two-thirds gone and still going, he shrugged, cursed his ancestry, blamed them for defective genes, and shaved the rest of his head bare. It was much better, he knew, to give the Yul Brynner effect than to comb the last strands across the top and give the Jewish shopkeeper effect.
He had always slumped.
He had met Sharon at college, and they'd been living together ever since. He graduated; she didn't. They had moved to the Village with the intention of getting married soon, but she'd become so enchanted with the free thinking that surrounded them there that she had determined never to marry. She thought that marriage would be a form of going over to the other side, to the clods, something akin to two-dollar prostitution. There was something to be said for that, although it was common knowledge that Sharon was not too bright.
Robby was indifferent about marriage. He felt nothing about the morality involved and was content to let Sharon derive what pleasures she could from her tiny little flaunting of standard social procedure. But he did love her, and so long as they were together he was satisfied. So far she had never given him cause to suppose that it would ever be any different, and she herself had never imagined a different state. Except, possibly, once or twice, when she'd been alone with Richey Davis. Fleetingly. Her span of attention was none too great, and her imagination worse.
Robby, with a degree, could've had a much better job than he had. But he wasn't sure he wanted one. Life had always seemed to flow nonchalantly past him, and he was content to let it. He didn't have any particular drive for success. So time passed for Sharon and him, and there was nothing that ruffled the tranquility of their lives.
Robby had also met Davis at college, two years before he had met Sharon. Davis hadn't been there long. He had soon decided that college life was not for him, and he'd gone out into the world to seek and subsequently find his fortune. But before he left he had become rather good friends with Robby, and this friendship had continued and increased after his excursion into college had failed. It would be hard to imagine two more widely separated personalities, but they had one thing in common-a realization of reality, taken with humor, and that was enough to seal their friendship.
Whenever Richey was in New York he visited Robby. Robby had never visited Davis, but that was mainly because he never had any idea where Davis was. Davis never wrote letters and was always on the move.
Robby understood that Davis was not bothered by problems of right and wrong, and he didn't doubt that, given a chance, Davis would fuck Sharon. But he didn't hesitate to leave them alone. That was partly because friends cannot really hesitate about such things and partly because he had complete trust in Sharon. She'd never given him cause not to trust her.
And it was true that Sharon had never cheated on Robby with any other man but Davis. It had happened once before, perhaps a year ago. It was more Davis' effort than Sharon's, if that says anything important in regard to the seduction.
Davis had seen through her easily, and he'd used the easiest line. He'd played upon the phony aspects of her desire to be just like the other free thinkers in the Village, smirking at the concept of a faithful woman. Sharon had gone along with him more through a desire not to be laughed at than any great desire to be fucked-the first time, at least.
Robby had been the first man to fuck her, and by comparison Davis was a much finer lover. After it had happened her motives shifted so that she wanted to have Davis again, not so much now to be in fashion as to enjoy him.
Davis' motives remained the same-he thought it was much more fun to fuck another man's woman than an unattached girl. If the other man was a friend, so much the better; it lent more to the imagination behind the act. That might be a singular way of thinking, but it was Richey's.
Robby had met Marty Sparrow in New York, just after leaving school. Marty was the type of person who looked interesting and was therefore always meeting people. Robby turned out to be one of the authentic people, and they'd become friends at once. Davis had met Marty through Robby. and they too had been immediate friends.
It was not quite the same thing, however. Between Robby and Sparrow the friendship was based on appreciation and humor; and with Davis and Sparrow it was a form of mutual respect for one another and for the same ideals, or lack of ideals. The latter was probably the firmer friendship of the two-not necessarily the best but the strongest, because there was that understanding.
They could expect anything from one another and therefore could not get angry at anything. There was no way that this friendship could ever be broken, and since they saw each other infrequently there was little chance that it would taper off. Besides, if it is boredom that makes freindship taper, then these two were not likely ever to be bored with each other. There was too much hell to raise.
Robby was facing the bookshelves on this particular Friday night and didn't hear anyone come up behind him, until her voice came directly over his shoulder, making him jump a bit. He was a nervous type, which is strange in that he never did anything illegal and had no possessions worth worrying about. It must've had something to do with those damned defective genes of his ancestors.
"Hello, Robby," she said.
He turned and saw Roundheels Lynn standing very close behind him.
"Hello," he said, turning back to his books. "Going to the party?"
"I guess so. Later."
She was a slender, pretty girl. Quite typical looking for the Village, with long, straight hair and no makeup but eye shadow. Her hair was jetblack and her eyes flashing, dark, moist. But she didn't dress in a fashion to go along with her hair and makeup-no bulky sweaters for her, no concealing clothing.
She wore a tight skirt and a very tight sweater, so tight it sank deeply into the cleavage between her pear-shaped breasts and was stretched nearly transparent at the tips. Her waist was small, but her hips swelled beneath it. Her buttocks were nicely rounded beneath the clinging skirt, making her look like she wanted nothing more than to be fucked.
Fashion was all right, but not when it concealed her body, for Lynn wanted every man who saw her to want to fuck her immediately. And a great percentage of them had.
"The girl on the desk said you might be able to help me," Lynn said.
She smiled with very even teeth, a provocative smile, and added:
"She wasn't able to."
"What do you want?" Robby asked.
He knew the legend of Roundheels Lynn, although he'd never slept with her himself. He really was true to Sharon. He also knew she was Marty's girl, and even without Sharon that would've been enough to keep him away from her. Robby wasn't the type to fuck a friend's girl. It was this kind of thing, paradoxically, that made Davis a closer friend to Marty. That is the way friendship often works.
And now she stood there-close to him, with that meaningful smile-and Robby determined that he wouldn't let himself do anything he would regret later, in a more fulfilled moment.
But she was very attractive ... and very screwable.
"I'm looking for a book," she said.
"What book?"
"'Sex in the Classroom.' "
He thought for a moment, then said:
"That will be under 'L' for Leslie."
He moved down the shelves a couple of yards, ran his eyes along the rows of books, took the one she wanted from the shelf, then told her:
"Here it is."
Lynn took it and slipped it into her pocketbook. Robby, not much caring, wondered whether or not she was going to steal it.
"I want something else too."
He waited.
When she didn't continue, he asked: "What is it?"
"Something really ... sexy. You know-something that'll be fun to read."
"Any particular ... ah ... sexy book?"
What the hell was a sexy book? Was "Ulysses"? "Lolita"? "Lady Chatterley's Lover"? Wasn't
"Sex in the Classroom" sexy enough for her?
He felt a little disappointed that Marty's girl should use that word. And yet, what could be more descriptive of what she meant, if she wasn't talking about literature but merely some kind of stimulation? Maybe she wanted the book to use while she finger-fucked herself when she couldn't get a man.
But hell, give her the benefit of the doubt, he told himself. There's nothing wrong with thinking of sex as dirty if you want to, and less phony than calling it natural. To think of love as natural was to forget that man has an imagination. Perhaps animals too, for that matter, he thought, recalling a panting dog storming after a bitch in heat. Yeah, dirty sex was a lovely word, and stimulating in itself. He felt his body react to the thought.
"Oh, I didn't mean a book," she said.
"Oh?"
"Let's not be naive, Robby."
"What do you want, then?"
"You. I decided I wanted you to fuck me earlier this evening. While I was taking a shower, in fact. I was rubbing soap on my legs and ... there ... and I suddenly realized I was imagining it was you rubbing me, that the soapsuds were your come, and I decided I'd get you to fuck me tonight. I don't believe in playing coy, you know. Or haven't you heard?"
Robby didn't answer.
"I'm a nymphomaniac, of course," she said.
She sounded proud of it. That was her problem, her thing in life, the twist that dominated her mind and controlled her life and set her aside from the normal person. Everyone had to have this difference. Her nymphomania was to her what intellectualism is to an impotent man; it was the toga that some Brooklyn-born phony wears in the Village. Everyone must have a problem in this age of psychoanalysis.
Damn New York! Robby thought.
"You're Marty's girl," he told her.
"I'm no one's girl," she said.
"Sure, we all know that women have been emancipated," Robby said sarcastically.
He hated women who stressed their equality, although he really believed they were.
She grinned.
"Well, shall we say that I'm everybody's girl, then?"
It was better, he had to admit.
"But not mine," he said flatly.
"Don't you want to fuck me?"
"Yeah," he replied truthfully, "but Marty loves you, and that makes all kinds of difference to me."
"It won't take anything away from Marty. There will always be plenty for him."
Robby shrugged.
"It'll be taking something away from me. Something I value."
"Your white plume?" she said, not quite sarcastically.
It was not quite chic to ridicule ideals. One could never tell when they'd be popular again. Robby shrugged again.
"You'll be getting something that I value in return," she said, and she ran her hands over her cunt, on the outside of her skirt.
It did, indeed, look valuable. Robby felt his plume start to wilt as his prick began to rise.
"No good," he said with an effort of will.
"If it isn't you, it'll be somebody else. I'm not about to go much longer without getting fucked, so you might as well have the fun. And, Robby, it'll be fun. I'm very good to a man when he fucks me good."
Robby didn't answer.
"We can go to my place when you get off work. Then when we're finished, we can go over to the party together. Don't worry-I won't tell Marty we screwed."
"That's the least of my worries."
"Dammit, don't be so hard to get! You're worse than a cherry girl!"
"Some girls." She smiled again.
"Some girls. I'm easy to love, myself. But good. Don't let easy things fool you. I've had lots of practice, and there's not anything I won't try. There've been a lot of guys up me."
She touched her cunt once more, caressingly, as if her only pleasure in life came from having her cunt filled with hot meat.
They were all alone. The sounds of the street seemed far away. From the front there was a slight murmur of voices, as the girl on the cash register talked with a customer.
Bobby knew that he was sweating, and he could not look away from where Lynn's hand was rubbing herself. And, strangely enough, the predominate thought that he had right then was how much the place smelled of books. Sexy books.
Lynn reached down to the hem of her skirt and pulled it up slowly, so that it bunched at her waist, above her brief panties. Robby could see through the nylon material, and he couldn't look away. The soft brown hair surrounding her cunt was there for him to see and, he knew, for him to touch, to kiss, to fuck.
"Tempting?" she asked.
He didn't answer.
Holding the skirt up with one hand, she took the elastic band of her panties in the other hand and slowly stretched them down. The panties slid to her thighs, exposing her from knees to waist, naked and desirable as hell.
Robby didn't want her to stop now. Ideals are one thing, but men are human. His prick pressed tightly against his pants, and he knew she noticed.
"Nice?" she asked. She arched her back and slightly bent her legs, so that her body was pressed forward. "Do you like the way I look when I'm naked?"
"Someone might come back," he whispered hoarsely.
She ignored him.
"Touch my cunt," she said softly, moving her hips a little, thrusting her passion closer to him.
Robby stepped closer, but didn't reach out for her. Lynn pressed against him, and he felt her hands move against his clothing and then her fingers were on his hot, hard prick, warm and tingling. He felt hypnotized by her caress, as her hands moved skillfully over his erect flesh, finding all the secret, sensitive spots that increased his passion even more.
"We could do it right here," she said. "We could do it standing up. I've done it that way lots of times."
And for a long moment Robby tottered, his hand halfway to her, his fingers trembling to touch the soft warm cunt that was exposed before him. Then he suddenly pulled away from her, shaking his head and closing his eyes. He concentrated on the sound of an automobile horn in the street, making that noise his world, and fastening his clothes unconsciously as he did so. He was so close to coming that it would have been easy to take her or even let her jack him off there among the sex books. But he'd decided that he didn't want to join the hordes that had trooped through the cunt of Roundheels Lynn.
Lynn waited for a moment, surprised. She'd thought she had him.
But then she saw it was over, and she pulled her panties up and her skirt down, disappointed. She had let herself be carried to the very height of need; and now her lust, instead of being exploded in thrills, was dissipating and seeping irritatingly through her body. She had to have somebody to fuck ... and soon!
"I'm sorry," Robby said. "It's no good. You're beautiful, and I want you, but I won't do this to Marty. If you go out and take a sailor in some allev-well, that's nothing to me. But I won't do it."
She shrugged. Then she laughed. It didn't sound like a forced laugh, but Robby imagined it must have been. It's not easy for a woman to be turned down, when she offers her cunt as openly as Roundheels Lynn just had.
Nor was it easy to turn one down. She'd caused them a great deal of discomfort.
"All right," she said. "I'll see you at the party, Robby."
He nodded.
"And sooner or later, we're going to fuck."
He didn't answer. She turned and left, laughing gaily, and the sound hung on the quiet bookstore air even after she was gone.
And Robby, after he recovered enough from his unreleased tension, felt proud of himself that he and Sharon were so faithful to each other.
CHAPTER THREE
Richey Davis was half an hour late, and he found Robin on the comer, looking anxiously around for him.
"You're late," she said obviously. "Deliberately," he replied. What could she say?
Robin was short but extremely well padded. Roundness was the keynote of her body-her breasts were large and globular, and her buttocks were perfect circles, tight and firm, moving like two ball bearings when she walked. She was wearing slacks and a sweater.
Her face was square, in contrast to her body. A very geometrically interesting woman. Dyed blonde hair worn in a French roll, a few freckles, lips a bit too thin, but nice eyes. All in all she was quite pretty. Davis, who hadn't fucked her for some time, thought that it was going to be fun. Almost like a brand-new conquest, after so long a time and in a completely different place. Almost a new notch for his gun ... which, if he'd really been notching it, would've been carved in two by now and totally unable to satisfy anyone.
"It's good to see you," he told her, tipping her face up but not kissing her. "I've missed you."
"Is that why I haven't seen you in so long?"
"I'm a busy man. Love is fine, but it has to take its place in the order of things."
"I see," she replied, but she didn't really see at all.
"But I love you, and I'll stay with you for a long time now," he said.
At least until tomorrow, he thought.
"Well, I'm glad to see you too, Richey, although I hate to say it. You're conceited enough as it is, without my complimenting you."
"That's better. Now what do you want to do?"
"Whatever you want."
He grinned and she nearly blushed. Not quite. She knew how he was.
"There's a party later. At two. We're free until then. Hungry? Thirsty?"
"Thirsty. Can we have a beer somewhere?"
She didn't want to be alone with Davis, not just yet. It would take a while to get used to him all over again, and he had always frightened her a bit.
Robin had met Davis while she was in college, upstate. He had picked her up in a bar. She was not a pickup. It had never happened before. But Davis had seemed so interesting that she'd gotten carried away and gone out with him, something she'd regretted many times and felt gladly about a lesser but more intense number of times when she was with him.
They had made a night of it and then, when he'd taken her home, he had insisted on coming in. This was another thing she didn't make a practice of, but he was insistent; she finally said that he could come in for coffee, but that was all.
An hour later she was no longer a virgin.
Robin had thought about it a great deal, but she couldn't remember just why she'd yielded so easily to his persuasion. She could remember many other things that happened that night, but she often asked herself the soul searching why. The answer never came, for the waves of sensual delight washed over her at the memory and blotted out completely the philosophic mood.
She tried to convince herself later that she'd been afraid of him, but remembering how it was made fear the least likely excuse in the world. She remembered how he'd literally forced her back against the wall of the kitchen, while she was making coffee, his hands clutching her buttocks and pulling her hips forward. She'd been aware of the tight bulge in his pants, as he had pressed his body against hers, and she'd tried to fight him off, but to no avail.
"Look, baby," he'd said huskily, looking down at her. "I want to make love to you."
"You ... you promised ... to be good," she'd said ineffectually. "Now behave."
At that moment the tea kettle began to whistle shrilly, and she was able to move away from him to turn the burner off. Then, when she had poured the scalding water into the drip coffee-maker, he was at her again.
This time he circled her with his arms from behind, pressing her tightly. Once again she was desperately aware of his fierce manliness rubbing against her, and she tried to get away. But Richey Davis was not to be denied.
"I want to make love to you," he whispered, blowing softly in her ear. "I love you, and I always will."
The intensity of his desire soon communicated itself to her. When he led her to the couch and pulled her down beside him, she didn't resist at all. Neither did she resist when he began undressing her, though she'd never been nude in front of a male in her whole life. She felt terribly unprotected when he forced her to stand nude in front of him, while he admired her fiery body. He nodded satisfaction, then stood up and began removing his own clothing.
"You-you're not...." she said, half-strangling on the words.
He looked at her with amusement in his eyes. "Never seen a prick before, eh?" he said. Then he shrugged.
He took her by the hand and led her into the bedroom, where he closed the door and pulled the curtains, making the room as dark as possible. Then he undressed and groped in the darkness for her naked body.
"I-I've never...." she whispered, unable to voice the subject completely.
"I know," he said. "Don't worry. I'll tell you anything you need to know."
And, curiously enough, he had been an adept, thoughtful lover that first time. He hadn't hurried things but carefully worked her up to a peak of desire through skilfull caresses, until she was on the verge of breaking over the peak of fulfillment and coming with rockets incorporated in the throbbing of her body. Then slowly, carefully, he placed himself in position above her, and he felt her tense as his erect prick lay hotly across her belly.
"Oh, Richey," she whispered, and he could hear the fear in her voice. "Will it hurt?"
"Not if I can help it," he whispered back.
Then he began moving himself over her slowly, not making total contact, pausing on the verge of it so that she could accustom herself to the sensation of male flesh against her cunt. Again and again he moved the head to the entrance but without entering, always keeping his body in contact with hers, until finally, almost weeping, she begged him to take her.
Even then he didn't force her, but placed himself gently against her and pressed forward. At his first motion she winced and backed away slightly, but he stayed right there, caressing her breasts with his hands, holding her firmly in contact with him.
Then suddenly she moved sharply up to meet him, and the job was done as his prick pierced her maidenhead and plunged all the way into her cunt. He'd actually-done little to take her virginity-he was merely there and ready for her. And once they were joined together, she became a regular two-barrelled fucking machine, clawing at his back and locking her ankles together, the better to hold him within her.
She felt his prick fill her, throbbing through its release a moment ahead of her, but before he relaxed and lay heavily atop her, her own body erupted into an orgasm that sent wave after wave of delight coursing through her. She bit his shoulder fiercely as the sensations began receding, leaving in their wake only the consciousness of pleasure and of having lost something she cherished.
For a week after that he had stayed at her apartment and she had supposed she loved him. He never gave her any reason to believe that it was mutual; he had been honest about that. But he had made himself completely at home, even using her toothbrush, staying in bed most of the time. He hadn't told her a thing about himself.
Then one day he had kissed her good-bye and left, and that had been that. She had been sad for a while but figured she would never see him again, and soon she stopped being sad and forgot about him. To a degree, at least. He was still the only man who had ever fucked her, and that was something she tended to remember.
One day, however, she had received a card from him, from Montreal. Just a note asking where she was going to be living after she graduated. She had the distinct impression it was a form letter, that he sent hundreds of them out so he could keep his files up to date. Very formal and brief and cold, and she had determined not to answer it. Determined in her conscious mind, anyway, but for some reason she had not thrown the letter away.
So, after moving to New York, she wrote to him one night. She was able to justify the letter to herself. She was lonely in a strange and unfriendly city, and, after all, a girl can write just so often to her mother. She saved her pride by keeping the letter on a friendly basis and very nearly didn't put an address on it.
But it would be nice to get mail ... another rationalization. She added the address to the envelope and mailed it, forgetting about it immediately. She didn't really expect to hear from him.
And then he arrived.
Robin didn't know if she was happy to see him or not. She felt it was a mistake, definitely, that he was no good for her or anyone else-except maybe himself, and even that wasn't too sure. But being good for one and being happy about something have no correlation. She didn't want to be hurt, but she saw that it was silly to avoid all forms of pleasure for fear they would someday be taken away from her. Better to be happy for a while and then sad for a while than to be always indifferent. And she'd managed to get over him without too much trouble the last time; he was not the kind of guy one thought about when he wasn't around. He did too many rotten things, was too self-centered for that. He was charming, but his charm required his presence.
And she was lonely and knew few people in New York. That was a big deciding factor-the thought of seeing a familiar face, talking to someone interesting and intelligent enough to converse.
So she met him.
All this soul searching took place after his call, after she'd already told him that she would meet him, of course. She told herself that it wouldn't hurt him a bit to be stood up, might do him good, and she felt rather pleased about deciding the issue after telling him that it was already decided. And if she knew it really had been decided, and that the justifications were strictly for her pride and had nothing to do with whether or not she would see him, would fuck him later, she didn't tell herself.
Richey took her hand and led her across the street and to a small bar. It was quite crowded and noisy, and that was topped off by the fact that television-that abomination of all bars everywhere-was on.
They drank one beer, unable to talk, and then he shook his head, got up, and led her out to the street.
"Bars in New York are so awful," he said. "I think of New York City as a bottle state, a place where one must have private parties."
She nodded, not knowing what a bottle state was but getting the general idea.
"Let's walk. That'll be fun-young lovers and all that nonsense. We'll go for a walk in the park and pretend you're still a virgin," he said, then laughed.
"I am," she replied, "except for one lousy bastard who fucked me when I was drunk and helpless."
"Oh, shut up!" he said. "You're telling all kinds of lies."
But she wasn't angry. It was better to joke about it than to pretend it was something evil that must not be talked about. Anything that can be joked about can't be all wrong.
They walked over to the park and strolled around, still holding hands.
Davis told her it was fun to hold hands and play at young love for a change, that he got so sick of the sordid and the passionate. He said that maybe they could have a platonic love affair for a while. He sounded quite serious, and Robin didn't know whether or not she should believe him. He lied well.
"Are you going to be my girl?" he asked.
"No."
"No?"
"I don't think so."
"Why not?"
"I don't want to have to go through all that again, Richey. I don't want to be anyone's girl."
"Yes, you do. The truth is that I'm sick of running around; it's time to settle down for a while. I won't lie. I'm not thinking about marriage or anything like that, but I am thinking for a long time-and I'd like it to be with you."
"Why me?"
"I like you."
"You like lots of girls."
"You're different."
"How?"
He tipped her chin up, holding it between his index finger and thumb, and looked intensely at her, one eyebrow cocked. A strand of hair had fallen across his forehead, and he was frowning slightly. Something about him looked serious and honest.
"I don't know how," he said. "I don't reason these things out. I just know I like you. I like to be with you. I'm comfortable around you. That's an important thing if two people are going to make it for a long time. More than a few weeks."
"I ... guess so," Robin said.
He had never spoken to her this way before. He had always been so glib and light and not really caring about anything.
"And there are so many things two people in love can do together. It's a terrible thing to be alone, Robin. You must know that."
She did, having been very lonely, but said nothing. She knew that Davis was dangerous, and she knew that he could hurt her. But he was being so different from the way she remembered him. Perhaps....
"Be my girl?"
"I don't know. We'd just start all that arguing again, all that hassle over sex ... "
"The hell with that. You don't have to sleep with me if you don't want to. I'm serious now. I want a girl and I'd like that girl to be you. It can be as platonic as you want. I won't lie. I want to make love to you, to sleep with you, live with you; but if I can't have you that way I'd rather have you without the sex than not at all."
"Really?"
"Really."
"I-I don't ... I don't believe you, Richey. You may think you mean it, but later you'll change your mind about that. You'll decide that ... "
"Robin?"
She looked up at him.
"I know all about the boy who cried wolf. That's me, and this is the first time I've been serious with you. I really mean it now-please believe me. I know that you have no reason to, except that I'm asking, but please...."
"I-I don't know," she said.
But she did.
Richey bent over and kissed her, very lightly, just brushing his lips against hers. It was by no means a passionate kiss, but Robin thought it was an honest kiss.
When he moved back she continued to look up at him.
"Give me a chance to prove it?" he asked.
"All right, Richey," she told him.
But they both knew she was already convinced, because she wanted to be.
She stepped close to him, and he took her in his arms and held her to him, pressing her closely against his body. Her face was buried against his chest, and she was hoping desperately that she was not making a mistake. It was too late for her to change her mind.
And Richey, looking over her shoulder, had no expression at all on his face.
There was a slight wind, and it stirred the trees above and came down softly to move his hair across his forehead. And then he smiled, showing his white teeth to the wind.
He almost laughed.
They strolled through the park, stopping by the fountain for a few minutes and then taking a seat on one of the nearby benches.
But it was crowded, and crowds annoyed Richey Davis; they made him restless. That was strange, considering that he much preferred cities to the country and felt disdain for nature. But this was a particularly annoying crowd, passing groups of pretty young men in skinny pants, talking precisely about art and philosophy. And what could be worse?
After a few minutes he stood up.
"Let's go," he said.
Robin got up too, ready to do whatever Richey wanted, now that she was his girl.
He checked his watch. It was one o'clock. There was still an hour before Robby got off work.
Davis hadn't wanted to return to their apartment with Robin, not with Sharon there. He knew it was a good policy to keep his various loves from getting to know one another. There was no end of damage that could be done by two of a man's women getting to know each other well enough to talk when he wasn't around, especially if he had told them both the same thing.
Women seemed to resent it when they were told the same thing another woman had been told. They didn't realize that even an intelligent man can think of just so many things to say to a woman, and it is fine to have just one line that will suffice for all. It is a form of art that women just don't seem to appreciate, at least not when they were personally involved.
But he decided that this was one time when he would have to take the chance. There was nothing to do and nowhere else to wait, without fighting the weekend crowds. And he could manage to keep the two women from getting to know one another too well.
He was also starting to feel like making love again. The thought of making it with both Robin and Sharon at the same time was delicious, but he realized it wouldn't be at all practical, even were it possible. At least not yet, not until Robin was more firmly convinced that he loved only her.
Sharon was no problem; she would do anything if he convinced her it was the chic thing to do. But not yet. He would have to put that off for a while.
"We'll go over to Robby's apartment and wait for him," Richey said to Robin. "Will there be anyone there?"
"Yeah. His girl's there."
That reassured her. She had supposed that he might try to get her alone, and then where would all his promises of not wanting to fuck her go? He may really have meant them, when he promised, but she knew him well enough to doubt that he could keep them if they were alone together in someplace with a nearby and accessible bed.
"Whatever you like," she said.
Still holding hands, they walked out of the park and over to Robby's apartment.
"I wish I lived in the Village," Robin said, as they entered the downstairs door.
She was looking around the building like a tourist.
Davis snorted but said nothing, as they went up the stairs.
Sharon answered the door. She saw Davis first, not noticing Robin standing slightly behind him. A smile turned her mouth, as she imagined that he'd come back for another session with her. There was still an hour before Robby would be home.
But then she saw Robin and stepped back. She continued to smile, a face-saving gesture, so that Davis wouldn't know what she'd been thinking.
He did, of course, but he understood her.
They went in and Davis introduced them. It was very cordial-Sharon was overly polite to show that she wasn't jealous, and Robin was polite because she was a little nervous about meeting a girl who really lived in the Village-in sin, no less-and because she was naturally polite.
"Want a drink?" Sharon asked. "There's a lit tie left, I think. It was a full fifth, but we drank quite a bit of it earlier."
"I'll buy you another," Davis said.
"Oh, I didn't mean that ... "
"Okay. We need a drink."
"None for me," Robin said.
"Drink. Be gay ... if you're not completely straight."
"Well, just a little one."
Sharon went into the kitchen to get the drinks.
Richey turned Robin around and kissed her, then led her to the couch where they both sat down. He kissed her again, sitting there, a longer and more passionate kiss.
"You don't mind that, do you?" he asked.
"No, I like it."
"I don't want to do anything that you don't want me to do, Robin. Don't let me get carried away."
"I don't mind necking. I want to do that, just so we don't go too far."
Sharon brought the glasses in, and Richey took a sip. Robin took a smaller sip and coughed from the rawness of the whiskey.
Sharon sat on the floor nearby and held her glass but didn't drink any.
The two girls exchanged a few meaningless remarks, the way women will upon first meeting each other. How long have you been in New York? Do you like it here? Do you have a job? Where are you from?
Then Sharon got up to put some records on, and Davis kissed Robin's ear. He was feeling bored. A little passionate, but mostly bored. But release of passion can be as good a way as any to fight boredom.
"Let's make love," he whispered. She shook her head. "Just neck, I mean."
"That's all right."
"We'll have to go in the other room." She looked quizzically at him. "Well, we can't just sit her and neck in front of her, can we?"
"I-I guess not. I suppose you mean the bedroom," Robin said, suspicious again.
"Sure. Don't worry, though. We won't do anything. I just want to be alone with you. That's why I wanted to leave the park. Two people can't be properly in love unless they're alone. I want to talk to you and kiss you and tell you how much I feel for you. Hell, since you're my girl we're going to be alone sometimes, anyway-lots of times. You'll have to trust me eventually, so don't be silly about it."
"I guess it is pretty silly."
"Let's go into the bedroom."
"You'd better ask if it's all right."
Richey shrugged. He seldom thought of things like that.
Whatever he did was all right with him. And it would be a little ridiculous to ask Sharon if he could use her bedroom to fuck someone else, the same bedroom in which they had fucked two hours before.
Sharon came back to her cushion on the floor. Peanuts Lowery was playing. This said nothing about her musical taste, however, for Robby was the one who selected all the records they owned.
And what they did once they were in the bedroom is history. Robin received his fucking gladly-only the second time she'd ever let a man penetrate her-and she was glad it happened. She didn't realize how much she'd missed his fucking since he'd had her the last time, and it made her feel good all over to feel his hot flesh deep within her.
She was beginning to grow up.
CHAPTER FOUR
Roundheels Lynn was the first person to arrive at Marty Sparrow's pad. He was happy and surprised when he answered the door and found it was she,, for he hadn't expected her to show up. He always hoped that she would, but he had learned better than to depend on her.
It was too disappointing to anticipate her arrival and to have the night slip away without seeing her. He had formed a standard pattern of thought whereby he pretended that she wasn't going to come, convincing himself, which was easy, since she as often didn't show up as she did.
Then, on the lucky nights when she came, it was almost a surprise and made him feel that this was a bonus pleasure instead of something that he deserved and expected. Bonus surprise pleasures are always so much better, at least to a man who is not orientated toward security and the doubtful advantages of a well-ordered life.
"I'm glad you came early," he said, after he had kissed her at the door.
"I wanted to see you," she said, without any real emotion.
Lynn was very definite about the fact that she loved Marty. She made no pretense about it, and she was the exact opposite of a girl who plays hard to get. She was the girl who wanted to be gotten and was suffering because she was unable to let herself belong to Marty completely. Because she had a problem she couldn't control ... she almost seemed to blame Marty for not being able to keep her satisfied and faithful to him.
After leaving the bookstore where she had failed in her attempt to get Robby to fuck her among the musty bookshelves, Lynn had wandered about the Village for a while, contemplating letting her self be picked up. She felt frustrated as hell and very ready to be screwed after her unsuccessful encounter with Robby. But all the prospects were so ridiculous. It was better to be fucked by people one knew; it saved having to make small talk and getting acquainted.
With strangers there was always that initial effort, a social effort, and the only effort Lynn wanted to make was a physical one. In bed. She was of the "Slam, bam, thank you, ma'am" school. With everyone but Marty Sparrow, whom she really loved, or at least really thought she loved.
But she never had any great urge to fuck with Marty. It was as though she couldn't love the same man both personally and physically. She loved Marty and wanted to talk with him. She despised the average strange man she met, but she wanted him to fuck her.
She saw that this was a ridiculous way to be, but she felt that she was helpless to do anything about it, because she was caught by a problem that was seated too deeply within the dark unknown areas of her mind to be reasoned out and away. At least, that was what she had once read in. some book that provided most of her rationalizations.
But tonight the thought of meeting a stranger was too disgusting, and her need was too urgent. And she knew that Marty would welcome her to his bed and that the screwing she would get would be good. It never seemed to be, but she knew that someday it could be.
Marty was attractive, she thought, lean and hard and masculine, if somewhat small. Why on earth she should ever contemplate fucking a slumping little Panda like Robby when she could have Marty was a confusing question, and she saw the folly of her desires at the same time her mind reaffirmed the choice she would have made if Robby had been willing.
She wanted Robby to fuck her only once, she knew. She thought that really he was a ridiculous looking creature, and after it was over she would want to get away from him as soon as possible. And still, for all that she had been frustrated by Robby's refusal, she was using Marty only as a substitute. And when she saw him at the door and kissed him, she felt less passionate than at any moment since leaving the bookstore. These were inconsistent qualities in the afore mentioned dark and unknown areas of the female mind which must be reckoned with.
Lynn came in and stood facing the easel, looking at Marty's artistic efforts. It was a painting of a man, in some twisted and inhuman position, stretched out along a rectangular canvas. The man's veins and muscles showed, as though he had been flayed of his skin. It was a colorful painting, with red arteries and blue veins.
"I'm not sure I like it," Lynn said.
She was standing back from it, one hand to her chin and supporting her head on the edges of her thumb and forefinger.
Marty shrugged.
"I don't think I understand it. That's the problem," she said. "What's the symbolism behind it, Marty? I see it's very intense, but I don't understand what it's trying to say."
"It's a skinned man," he said simply.
"Well, yes, but I mean what's the symbolic meaning of this figure stripped of his skin? Is it something like a man's loss of individuality in conforming to society, or the willing surrender of the soul to society and the torment that this puts one through?"
"For God's sake!" he said.
"What?"
"It's just a guy without his skin," he said. "It's a medical painting for a textbook. Maybe I can sell it for love symbolism as well. Get rich on my talent."
She looked at him, puzzled.
"You're impossible," she said, smiling.
She still thought there was more to the painting than met the eye. Why else would Marty paint?
"Remember, I only live in Brooklyn, not the Village. I haven't learned to be symbolic yet."
"All right, be ridiculous," she said.
She turned away from the painting and went over to the couch, beneath the window, and sat down.
She was firmly convinced that Marty had a hidden meaning behind the painting. Probably it was a self-portrait, showing the anguish that she was putting him to by her infidelity. She had gotten under his skin, she thought. A bit trite, but logical symbolically.
She was disappointed at the lack of depth in the meaning behind the picture, but she was flattered to think that this was the way Marty thought of his torment due to her. Even nymphomaniacs appreciate flattery. Or should that be especially nymphomaniacs? At any rate, she was firmly convinced she had found the meaning of the painting.
It was, of course, only a picture of a man who had been skinned.
"Want a drink?" Marty asked.
"I'd love a drink," she said.
What she really would have loved was to be fucked, but she didn't tell him that. Marty was the only man in the world whom she wouldn't ask to fuck her when she wanted it. She felt something akin to shyness with him, when it came to screwing.
He didn't know this and took her seeming indifference toward sex with him as not caring. She wasn't the type that anyone could think of as capable of shyness.
This mutual non-understanding may have had a great deal to do with the fact that she didn't feel passion for him the way she did for everyone else. Or it may not have.
"Scotch or beer?"
"Scotch."
"Water?"
"No ... a little ice."
Marty went into the kitchen and poured a tumbler halfway full of Scotch, then got the ice cube tray out and worked for a couple of minutes until he managed to free the divider and dump the ice into a bowl. He put two cubes in her drink and took it to her.
"Thank you," she said.
She was always so formal with Marty when she felt like being fucked by him, to cover her embarrassment. But she was feeling less passionate all the time, the longer she was with him. His prick interested her less now than it had during the long subway ride over from the Village.
Marty went back to the kitchen and opened a can of beer for himself. It squirted white foam on the front of his shirt. He took the beer, then went and sat next to Lynn on the couch.
"Have you been faithful to me today?" he asked.
It was a standard question between them. Marty asked it in a half-joking manner-only half, because her answer was often too painful to be considered a joke-but Lynn always took it seriously and answered truthfully.
She thought seriously about her answer, to make sure she hadn't overlooked anything-or anybody-and told the exact truth about it, being precise and intense about who had fucked her and when and how good it had been with them. That was only right, since it dealt with her big personal problem, and one's big personal problem is hardly something to be dealt with flippantly.
Jokes about nymphomaniacs are for people who consider them tramps, not girls with personal problems. Not people in New York. People who do not understand these things. There are no nymphomaniacs in Peekskill ... only tramps.
"Yes, I've been faithful," she said.
"Good."
"I saw Robby in the bookstore, but we didn't do anything much."
"Robby? I didn't know you were seeing him."
"I haven't been. I just saw him tonight."
"I suppose that means you want him?"
"Isn't it ridiculous?"
"How long has this been your goal?"
"Oh, it's hardly a goal. I can't understand what I can possibly want him for. He's certainly not a physically magnetic brute."
"But you do want him?"
"A little. Not too much, really. It's one of those things I can't understand."
"Yeah. Are you going to fuck him?"
"Oh, I suppose I shall. There's no hurry."
Marty wet his lips but said nothing.
"As a matter-of-fact, he refused to screw me tonight. Of course, we were right in the store."
Good old Robby, thought Marty.
"I imagine it would've been different if we'd been alone somewhere."
"I imagine," Marty agreed. "He'll be at the party later this evening."
"So?"
"Richey Davis is in town too. I don't know if you've ever met him."
"No, but I've heard you and Robby talk about him. He's a wild sort of person, isn't he?"
"Wild? Well, yeah. I imagine you'll want him too. He's more interesting than Robby."
"I suppose I shall. What a nuisance. I wish I could be cured of this damn promiscuity."
Marty said nothing.
"It really is a damn nuisance, you know," she said.
"It must be, Lynn."
"Yes, it is."
"Lynn?"
"What, Marty?"
"I wish you'd be decent tonight. I mean, please don't make it too hard on me right here in my own pad. If you must fuck somebody, take him out of here. Okay?"
"Marty ... I never try to hurt you-you know that. I can't help how I am. And I do love you. I never have loved anyone else, but it's just the way I am. I have to screw when I have to screw."
"Yeah, but not here. Not tonight. Okay?"
"I'll try, Marty. You know how I am when I'm drinking. I lose control of myself-what little control I ever have. But I'll try."
He nodded.
"And scenes like in the bookstore, honey ... they're bad news. It's one thing to fuck a guy in private, but the way you carry on in public-well, you're becoming a laughing stock. Can't you limit it to the bedrooms, at least?"
She dropped her eyes.
It wasn't so good to be laughed at, but it was rather nice to be so well known. The best-known problem in the Village-that was her. Problems aren't so good if they're secret. Still, if people were starting to laugh at her....
She had heard the name Roundheels Lynn. It was more joke than recognition. Maybe Marty was right about that.
"I'll try, Marty," she told him earnestly. "For you."
"Thanks," he said, rather dryly.
Lynn sipped the Scotch and gazed out the window at the brownstone apartment buildings across the street. This section of Brooklyn was like another world, a world of the last century, and she rather liked it, in small doses, as a contrast to the neon today.
She wondered, vaguely, whether or not there were nymphomaniacs in the nineteenth century, then decided there weren't. Like most problems of the mind, nymphomania had to wait for society to advance to it. Advance?
She was smiling, although for no particular reason, and the amber liquid was very good. It was a heavy Scotch that was able to handle the melting ice and still retain its flavor. She decided she would get rather drunk before the night was over.
Marty sat on an angle, one leg bent on the couch, looking at her profile. She looked very beautiful and somehow quite innocent at this particular moment. Innocent but interesting. Her black hair was pulled tightly back from her face and fastened in a ponytail, and she had one of the regular-featured faces that's able to carry this hairdo well.
Looking at her like this, framed by the window and the New York night, Marty found that he was able to forget how many men had kissed those gently smiling lips; how many men had caressed that soft curving body; how many men had trooped between her dripping thighs, clutching her in so many dreary hotel rooms and so many back seats, new cars and old, so many apartments and so many alleys. So many men, puzzled by her willing submission and unable to believe their good fortune in finding such a good screw for free, eager and rigid and ready, pawing at her, wondering if they were going too fast at the same moment she wished that they would hurry, would get to fucking-damn the preliminaries! Get it over with so she could leave the man who meant nothing to her when he had come, leave him panting and sweaty and unbelieving and probably a bit sleepy in his satisfaction.
Looking at her like this, he found that he saw only someone whom he loved and wanted to love, and the moments when he was able to forget were blessed relief for him. He wanted to preserve those moments and linger over them, but in loving her he wanted more than looking at her-he wanted what the others had from her. It was only a human and natural hunger he felt, and if it was able to overshadow the moments of tranquility, then that is just the way things were, and what could a man do about it?
"Lynn?"
"Umm?" she said, still looking out the window.
"The others won't be here for a while yet. We're alone now. I'd like to make love to you."
She turned to look at him, seriously. This was what she had come for, she thought. Why did it seem as though she should resist now? She knew they were going to make love, but she didn't want to appear to be anxious. Indifference was what she wanted to affect.
She had no idea why this should be so, but it was always that way with Marty. She had come to expect it and to think of it as natural, as opposed to the complete lack of resistance toward an advance by anyone whom she didn't love.
"If you like," she said.
"If I like? What about you?"
She shrugged indifferently.
"I don't want to screw you unless you want to do it. Don't do me any favors, baby."
"Don't be angry, Marty."
He lit a cigarette, then regarded her through the smoke.
"I just don't feel right about screwing you," Lynn continued. "It's because I love you, you know. But I don't mind fucking you, really, if it's what you want."
"I want you to want me to fuck you, not just let me work out in your cunt to satisfy me."
"I enjoy it with you, Mart!". Really. I don't know why I act indifferent. Once we're screwing I enjoy the hell out of it. And I do love you."
What I should do is forget the whole damn thing, Marty told himself. I should say the hell with it and not fuck her. But what is pride when faced with a pulsating passion? I know what's going to happen now, and I can't help it. All I can do is resent it and make it worse.
He was feeling silly, in a rather bitter way. Silly bitterness is a strange and exceedingly frustrating emotion to have.
"Let's go in the bedroom, Marty."
"But wouldn't you rather have a discussion on nymphomania in the modern world first?" he asked bitingly.
"Please, Marty-don't. Don't make things worse than they are for me."
"For you? What about me?"
"For both of us."
"How much worse can they get?"
"I-I don't know, Marty, but I know we love each other."
"Would it be worse if we didn't love each other? Or would it be better?"
"Please ... "
"I'm sorry."
"I don't want to be like I am, Marty."
"I know that. Although it's an easy thing to forget, at times. You seem to make such a big thing out of it, to stress it so much. It's your favorite topic of conversation. And damn psychology to hell and back again!"
Lynn didn't say anything and looked sadly at him.
He ground the cigarette out, finished the can of beer, and stood up in front of the couch, putting his hand out to her. His face was angry, bitter.
Not silly now. That was too bad-silliness can save a great deal of anguish.
"All right, let's go into the bedroom and fuck," he said. "I have no willpower, either."
She took his hand and got up, and he led her into the bedroom. The light was on. Marty swung the door closed behind them, but it didn't latch and swung back partly open. He let it stay that way. Those were things that didn't count.
Lynn stood by the bed and waited for him.
"We might as well just get undressed," Marty said. "I'd feel silly if we necked first or if I had to strip your clothes off. I'd feel like I was seducing you. Wouldn't that be a hell of a joke?"
"What's the matter with you tonight, Marty? I've never seen you like this before. You're so-so bitter."
"Yeah. It's getting to me, Lynn. I don't mean to be angry and sarcastic about it, but it hurts. You know? And what can I do?"
She dropped her head. There was nothing more to say. Even an "I'm sorry" wouldn't help now, for she wasn't a child, to have everything made right by the magic words.
"Let's get undressed," Marty said.
He began unbuttoning his shirt.
Lynn undressed, not looking at him, showing no embarrassment and no desire.
He was thinking that it was still not too late to back out, that he could let her strip naked, then look at her and shake his head and walk out of the room. It might be the best thing to do, everything considered. It was certainly the proud thing to do.
Lynn was finished first. Naked, she sprawled on the bed and waited for him to come to her.
She was slender, but smooth and well curved. Her breasts were firm, even as she lay on her back, and her belly was rounded and tight. Her body had not suffered as a result of so many invasions of her cunt. At least not visibly.
Marty looked at her and loved her, hated her and wanted to fuck her, and called himself a fool with all his brains in his balls.
He kicked his pants and shorts off and came naked to the bed and got on it beside her. He was hairy and very lean and hard, with long sinews and tendons.
He stretched out beside her, and she turned to him so that they lay on their sides, facing one another, and their lips touched lightly, not really kissing but just lying there with their mouths open and together. Lynn's tongue moved gently over his lower lip.
Marty rested one hand on her flank. He was hoping that she would not pretend that he was someone else while he fucked her ... particularly not Robby.
They remained that way for quite a while, their mouths opening more, slowly, their tongues beginning to seek one another, passionately.
Marty let his hand slide down her hip and touch the soft flesh of her thigh. She touched his prick and his blood leaped and strained, his organ erect and quivering.
The length of their bodies moved closer, seeming to draw each other like magnets. It was not a wilful action, but like the mysterious movement of a ouija planchette, guided by human power but seemingly acting of its own accord.
Then they were together, her breasts branding his chest, moving against him. All the easiness was gone from their contact; it was suddenly taut and urgent.
Marty dug his fingers into her tight buttocks and pulled her tightly to him. Their mouths ground together.
Lynn's thighs opened, slowly, her top leg moving over Marty's hip, and he came between them. She was still caressing his prick, and she guided it into her now, while at the same time she brought herself to him with a forward thrust of her experienced body. She was ready to be lucked. She had been in a state of readiness for hours.
He pressed closely to her and the contact was warm and soft. And then it was long and complete, and the thrill of their union began to pace itself across their joined bodies, as his prick filled her cunt and sent shuddering thrills throughout her badly used body.
They rolled back, so that Lynn was on the bottom, and Marty drove his hard prick more deeply into her quivering cunt.
She moaned and sighed and swore. Her nails flashed at his back. Her eyes were closed.
Marty watched her face as he worked his body, watched her expression.
She was in animal-like bliss. There was no love for him; there was just the pleasure of his long, driving thrusts, the physical thrill of being fucked.
For that moment it was enough.
Marty's need built through him, flowing up from his thighs, swelling in his belly and straining, then bursting free in release, and he drove into her as deeply as possible. Then he came violently, and his thrusts were slower and softer and tapered off. He withdrew and left her alone.
Lynn was still moaning and her eyes were shut tightly. Her fists clenched in the sheets. It was all over, but she wasn't finished. She hadn't come, even though Marty was limp and exhausted.
Suddenly her hands found her erect clitoris, and she began massaging it frantically, her eyes still closed, as she thrust her hips rhythmically up and down in exact imitation of someone being fucked.
Moments later she made it, thrusting a finger as deeply into her cunt as she could, while at the same time caressing her clitoris even more rapidly than before. With a deep moan she collapsed on the bed and opened her eyes, her body still throbbing from the force of the climax she'd just experienced.
"I love you," he said, for lack of anything else to say.
What can a man say when he's just been told he isn't sufficient for his woman by having her masturbate in front of him, right after he's done his best to fuck her?
"I love you too," she replied breathlessly.
"That was good," he said.
She didn't answer. She held one hand against her own smooth belly.
"I wish you had lasted longer," she said.
"We can do it again."
"No."
"I'd like to. I want you to enjoy it with me. I want you to come with me, not after me. Is there anything else you want me to do for you? I want to satisfy you completely, Lynn."
"No, I'm satisfied. Completely."
He knew she wasn't.
"I'd like a cigarette," she said.
Marty got up and found his pack, rummaging through the pile of clothes on the floor. He lit two cigarettes and came back to bed, lying beside her and placing one of them in her mouth.
She inhaled deeply and let the smoke out in a long sigh, and he knew it was over for then.
He wanted her to come to him, wanted to hold her naked body in his arms in the relaxation of his spent lust. But she didn't move and stayed on her back, looking up at the smoke as it curled to the ceiling.
"It wasn't very good for you, was it?" he asked her.
"It was good."
"No, it was no good."
She didn't answer.
Marty wanted to tell her that they could do it again, that he was willing to do anything she wanted him to in order to make her happy.
But that was no good-it would've been too crude at the time, he thought.
She hadn't been able to satisfy herself with him. Perhaps she never did and never would.
Why me, of all the men in the world? Why can't she be happy with the only man who loves her? Marty thought. Or was that the reason, as well as the question?
After a while she said:
"We'd better get dressed before the others get here. You wouldn't want them to get the wrong impression of me."
"No, I wouldn't want that," he said sarcastically.
They were neither one of them sure of what he meant by that.
They got up and dressed. Marty hurried while Lynn dressed very carefully, keeping the cigarette in her mouth and using both hands.
For some reason a cigarette in her mouth was attractive. She was one of the few women in the world about whom that could be said. Or perhaps that was only Marty's viewpoint. It has been said that love is blind, among other things.
When they were dressed, Lynn started to leave the room. Marty stopped her, held her to him and kissed her on the lips.
"I'm sorry," he said.
"There's nothing to be sorry for."
"Or everything to be sorry for," he said.
"It's the same thing," said Roundheels Lynn, then went out into the other room.
How could she explain to him this need of hers, this desire to be fulfilled completely and wholly? How could she explain that she was being driven from man to man because none of them ever satisfied her at all?
Maybe, just maybe, the road to satisfaction lay with Marty-if only he would be patient, love her as she wanted to be loved, without making any demands on her that she couldn't fulfill. Maybe then she could overcome her insatiable craving for a man within her, spending his love in humble obeisance to her cunt, yet leaving her totally unsatisfied in the end.
This need of hers for Marty to be something other than a firm tool momentarily filling her accounted for her hesitancy with him in the act of fucking. Someday she hoped to be able to relinquish herself to him completely-not just her body, but her spirit as well.
When that day came, she would be cured of her nymphomania. She was sure of it.
CHAPTER FIVE
When Robby returned to his apartment he was feeling a mixture of opposite emotions. He was partially ashamed because of how close he had come to submitting to Roundheels Lynn, and in counterpoint to that, he was proud of the fact that he had resisted her in the end. He entered the apartment with a rather sheepish and unintentional grin on his face.
Sharon, of course, looked very normal and faithful, and he was more glad than ever that he had resisted and gave her a long kiss as he came in.
Richey Davis was there, seated in the comfortable chair. He was wearing Robin's panties over his head. Sharon's panties were still in his pocket, but he figured that it was just as well if Robby didn't see them. There are men in the world who just might recognize their wife's panties, although to most men panties are panties, and if you've seen one you've seen them all.
That wasn't true of Davis. He thought of panties as a status symbol. Any man with panties pulled over his head had to hold them in special regard. And it probably wasn't true of Robby, who was the type to notice the small things of life.
Robin was curled up on the floor by Davis' feet. She was looking content and didn't seem to be suffering any discomfort from the fact that she had nothing between her cunt and her slacks. Her girdle was in her purse, at Davis' request.
There was nothing more abominable to him than a girdle.
And Robin then was ready to do anything he asked of her. She was smiling and feeling very confident.
It is true of some women that after they have been made love to, they have a more secure feeling and gain confidence. Especially while they are with the man who fucked them, and most especially if he is a man whom they can feel proud to have as their own. That is true of girls who are still not too many men away from surrendering their maidenheads.
In Robin's case there was only Davis between her and her cherry, and she was flushed with the thrill of fucking and not anxious to keep it quiet. A girl may cling doggedly to her virginity, but once it is gone she can hardly wait to have people know about it-subtly, of courseand is as proud of her new state of being among the fucked women of the world as she was of preserving that useless hunk of flesh called a maidenhead.
Davis introduced Robby and Robin. Robby, being gallant, kissed her hand.
"I've just done very nasty things to her lilywhite body-like fucking it," Davis said.
Robby raised an eyebrow.
Robin blushed, but smiled at hearing Davis speak openly of screwing her.
She was enchanted with this new society into which she was being introduced. Bohemia! Almost as enchanted as she was with Richey Davis and the world he represented to her.
But not quite.
Richey was already beginning to tire of her. He felt no qualms about it and wasn't worried about what she felt, just so long as she loved him enough to fuck him until he saw her for the last time. That was necessary for the egotistical part. If she got hurt by it, it didn't matter at all. She was just a broad-a body to be fucked for pleasure and then forgotten when the next one came along.
After all, why should he care about her? It wasn't as though she was still cherry.
"Maybe we'll swap girls tonight," Davis said to her.
"I don't want anyone but you," she said tenderly.
He hoped Robby had heard her, and he smiled in his confidence and arrogance.
Robby caught it, then said to Sharon:
"Well, do you want to screw anybody but me?"
"No," she replied woodenly. "I only want you."
Now Robby smiled with confidence.
And Davis laughed and laughed, with Robin's panties over his head and Sharon's panties in his pocket.
It was time to leave for Marty's. They went out and headed for Davis' Cadillac. Sharon and Robby held hands as they walked a bit ahead of Robin and Davis.
There was also a passing man who stood out somewhat, mainly because of the bewildered expression on his face. He looked as if he were lost. He also looked like a foreigner, in the vague but definite way foreigners do. Richey stopped to look at him.
"New York is a bewildering place," the man said.
He spoke perfect, although accented, English.
"It's that, all right. Where are you from?"
"France," the man said. He was short and stocky, with a square face and swept-back hair. "I'm only here for a month, and it's so bewildering to decide where to go. I've been wandering about for days."
"Oh, you're in luck!" Richey said. "We're typical Americans, and we'll take you with us. What's your name, citizen of France?"
"Jacques," said the citizen.
"Come with us."
"Well, all right. Yes, certainly."
Jacques fell into step with them, beside Davis, who began telling him how America could whip any country on earth and most likely all the rest of the world put together.
Jacques listened carefully to find out what the thoughts of a typical young American were. He tried twice to make a comment on these international issues, but Davis talked him down by classing everyone as foreigners and therefore not worthy of mention.
Robby was laughing behind them. Sharon maintained her studied blaseness, and Robin listened carefully, not really sure but what Davis was speaking seriously. She didn't want to make a mistake where Richey was concerned. She was entirely certain now that she loved him.
He still had her panties on his head. Jacques was eyeing them subtly, but didn't ask the obvious question. Who could question the head wear of a young man in his own country?
But Davis noticed his interest and seized him by the arm, halting him in mid-stride.
"What berets are to a Frenchman, panties are to an American!" he shouted. "We shall not be questioned in this respect. It is part of our heritage on our head, the panties of the last woman we have fucked."
"Oh, yes, yes," said Jacques.
"When in Rome, shoot Roman candles."
Jacques started to reply, but didn't as Richey whipped Sharon's panties from his pocket and pulled them firmly over Jacques' head so that his ears stood out through the leg holes.
Robby burst into hilarious laughter, and didn't seem to realize whose panties they were.
Jacques made a tentative motion toward his head, but Davis stopped his arm.
"Uh huh. The panties must stay, or you'll be taken as an enemy of our traditions. Even though you haven't fucked their owner-yet."
Jacques dropped his hands, undoubtedly more confused now than ever about New York. But at least he was getting a chance to meet the people of America and see what they were really like.
On they marched, panties on high!
They arrived at the Cadillac, just as a Rolls Royce was pulling into a parking space behind it. Davis resented this, and stopped to glare at it. It might have seemed as though he was admiring the car, however. At least, that is how the owner took it.
The owner had a chin beard and was overweight. He got out and came around to open the door for his woman. Seeing Davis watching the automobile, he said in a precise and stilted tone:
"I sold a painting. I bought a car."
He capped his remark with a casual shrug.
Davis reached out and chucked the man's bearded chin, his voice thundering:
"You mean you gave up some face and got a ride!"
The man and his woman melted into the crowd, properly subdued.
Bobby and Davis rolled with laughter and delight. Even the girls giggled. And Jacques wondered at what a strange creature the average American was.
Richey drove down Sixth to Canal and then over to the bridge, weaving the big car expertly in and out of the traffic. Robin sat close to him. Jacques was on the outside and Robby and Sharon sat in back.
During the ride Davis explained to Jacques that it was the white man who was being discriminated against in the South, and that all foreign countries had been given false perspective in order to confuse the Pope. Jacques listened carefully, wondering if Davis was using idioms which he failed to understand.
They arrived at Marty's.
Marty met them at the door and shook hands with Davis, warmly. Marty was already a bit drunk, having consumed a great deal of Scotch after his unsatisfactory moments with Lynn. He met Jacques and Robin, kissed Jacques and shook hands with Robin, commented on how stylish the panties were, and led them up to the party.
Lynn was drunker than Marty. This may have been because the fucking had been even more unsatisfactory to her than to Marty. She looked carefully at Davis, her eyebrows raised quizzically, an expression he didn't miss and hoped he hadn't misconstrued. She hardly glanced at Robby. A bald man doesn't deserve a second chance, she had decided. But Davis-he was something else.
If Robby saw the way she was looking, he gave no notice. And, after all, what notice was there to give? He knew the game they played.
Another couple had already arrived and was seated on the floor. The man was rather handsome, with black hair falling over his forehead and dark, thick eyebrows. His name was Rex Myerson. Richey had known him before.
His girl was a red-haired Negress whom he introduced as Iula Humps.
Marty brought beer and Scotch, according to their individual tastes. Robby drank Scotch, Robin drank beer, Sharon asked if there was any iced tea, and Davis drank both indiscriminately and rapidly. Jacques found a seat in the comer and observed the proceedings with wide, French eyes.
The hi-fi was playing loudly, jazz records. "Blues and Boots" was on as they entered. Everyone sat on the floor and talked and drank, and after a while some other people showed up and the party got into full swing.
One of the newcomers, a tall, thin man named Alexander from Boston, arrived with two ounces of marijuana and a tinfoil-wrapped pipe. He was greeted enthusiastically, especially by Marty, who leaped into his arms and perched there, kissing his ear.
"Guess who his sister is!" Marty said to Davis, when he was once more on the floor.
Davis shrugged.
"Awful Annie!" Marty shouted.
Alexander blushed, and Davis and Robby giggled and pointed to him and insulted his sister, who was very well known in this circle.
The pipe was lit and passed around. Everyone smoked but Robm and Jacques, and after a while Jacques was persuaded to join in also.
No one tried to persuade Robin, since she was only a somewhat boring girl who wouldn't enjoy it anyhow, and she watched and wondered what she should look for, what reaction this infamous drug would bring to these people.
She saw nothing but an increase in the silliness that was prevalent anyway, and felt sure that she must be naively overlooking some significant change. After all, why should a drug that only made people feel silly and happy be illegal?
Davis was sitting by Myerson and stroking Iula Hump's knee, telling her he wanted to take her away from all this and run off to Mississippi, where a white man and a colored woman could live in peace and tranquillity, their civil rights carefully protected by the KKK.
"Hey, I've got a great new kick!" Myerson cried.
"What's that?"
"Hypnotism."
"Yeah," said Marty, who was sitting near and had just passed on the pipe. "It's great!"
"You hypnotize people?"
"Yeah. I'm getting good at it. It's amazing how easy it is to hypnotize anyone."
"Let me see you do it."
"Later. When we're all high enough to really break up behind it. It's great behind a reefer."
Davis took the pipe as it came around and drew on it. The smoke curled into his belly. As he took it from his lips, Lynn knelt beside him and asked for it with a gesture. She was looking carefully at him. Behind her, sitting with his knees up in a semi-perched position, Marty watched them.
"Thank you," Lynn said.
She drew on the pipe but continued to watch Davis. Her expression had been known to fluster lesser men, but Davis regarded her coolly. He liked Marty and could see that Marty was watching.
"I've heard a lot about you," Lynn said.
"There's a lot to hear."
"I've been anxious to meet you."
"I don't doubt it."
"Don't be so damned arrogant, Richey Davis! I've got a lot to offer a man."
"Aren't you Marty's girl?" he asked.
He said this just loud enough so that Marty could hear, but not so loud that it was obvious that he meant for Marty to overhear it.
She shrugged.
"When I see something I like, I take it. Whether or not I'm Marty's girl has nothing to do with whom I fuck."
"It does to me," Richey said.
This too was loud enough to be overheard. But Marty didn't really care. Lynn had started in; what was the difference now whether Richey accepted or not? That had nothing to do with it. If Davis refused her, then it would just mean someone else would fuck her before the night was over.
He appreciated the manifestation of friendship from Richey, but it didn't make him feel any better about the scene.
He tipped his glass and let the Scotch run down and hoped that Lynn would get herself fucked quickly and get it over with for the evening. Once it was over he could lump it with all her past infidelities, and it wouldn't seem any worse than them all, except for the natural heightened feelings by its nearness.
Richey thought Lynn was an extremely desirable girl. But he had already fucked two women in the past few hours, and he wasn't passionate enough to act unreasonably.
Marty's friendship might not have been enough to stop a horny Davis, but a satisfied Davis had more discretion. And besides, there was plenty of time.
He half-turned away from Lynn, and she stared at him for a moment, then got up and walked away.
It was the second time she had been refused that night. It didn't matter that the refusals reflected more on Marty as a friend than on her desirability as a fucking partner; they were still refusals.
Being refused made her feel much more dirty and soiled than being screwed, and it wasn't really so strange. She was determined that she wouldn't be refused a third time, as she looked about the room and poured herself another glass of Scotch.
And then she saw the Frenchman.
Jacques was still more confused when Lynn sat on the arm of his chair and asked him if he was enjoying himself. He began to speak, with some intention of explaining how amazed he was at these Americans, but she didn't let him get very far in his efforts, interrupting him and leaning over him as she spoke, so that he began to fidget.
"Have you met any American girls?"
"No," he said nervously.
"I hear that Frenchwomen are very good in bed. Is that true, Jacques?"
"Well, yes, I...."
"I think American women are better. I'm sure I'm better than any Frenchwoman you have ever fucked."
He blushed. Could this all be his failure to comprehend the idiom?
"Of course, I have no way of knowing. Unless I were to let a Frenchman fuck me."
He said nothing.
Lynn tipped her glass and drank, the ice tinkling merrily in her Scotch, and looked at him over the rim.
"Well?"
"I don't-I'm not sure...."
"Would you like fucking with me, Jacques?"
"Yes," he blurted out.
"Then why not?" she said. "No one cares."
"Oh?"
"I don't want to wait. I'm anxious to prove that I'm better than a Frenchwoman. And then too, I've heard that Frenchmen are very good lovers too. Is that true, Jacques? Do you know how to screw a woman and make her very happy?"
"I-I alway try to," he said.
He knew now that there was no mistake, that he understood what she wanted. She might be pulling his leg, of course, but that was not a serious mistake, and there could be no danger from not understanding her, like there could be from misinterpreting her.
He was less nervous now, and he was a man who had known his share of women, in his own time and place. He was nearing middle age, but still handsome and capable.
"Let's go into the bedroom, Jacques. Prove to me you can fuck well enough to make me happy."
"No one will mind? You belong to no one here?"
"Of course not. Free love is the thing in America. And that means free fucking with whoever's available. We're in an advanced social state."
He nodded gravely, his mind almost starting back to the political and social observance. But not quite. Lynn was too close, her breath too warm against the side of his face, and his thoughts remained on her.
Lynn stood up and pulled him to his feet. They were near the bedroom door, and she guided him through it. He disappeared into the other room, still looking bewildered and walking uncertainly.
Amercians were strange people, but he much preferred the American girls. There were many things they could do to help strengthen relations between the United States and other countries. And their kind of relations were important to the world.
Marty was aware that Lynn and Jacques had gone into the bedroom, although he acted as though he had not noticed.
Richey Davis had also noticed, and was watching Marty to see what his reaction might be. Marty stood by the window, drinking, and Richey wandered over to see how he was taking it.
"Everything okay?" he asked.
He felt responsible for bringing the Frenchman. Not too responsible-he hated all forms of responsibility.
"Sure."
"You tight with Lynn?"
"Yeah. I love her." Richey didn't say anything.
"It's all right. It happens all the time. She's sick that way."
"Want me to break it up? I love to punch foreigners, you know?"
Marty grinned.
"No, it's okay."
Richey shrugged.
"But poor Frenchy will get one hell of an impression of the United States."
They both laughed, without any great deal of mirth, and Marty clapped Davis on the back and said:
"Let's get another bottle and get very drunk and ridiculous. Later on, when I'm drunk enough, I'll perch on you."
"I'm for that," Richey said.
They went into the kitchen and poured full glasses of Scotch with a little ice and opened beers while they were there, then came back into the front room.
A Miles Davis record was loud on the machine. They sat on the floor, near Alexander who was lighting another pipe, and waited for it to come around to them. The chair in which Jacques had been sitting was conspicuously empty, but then Sharon, who had no idea that anything was happening, wandered over and sat in it and looked typical. Marty was looking at the closed bedroom door and was grateful for the loud music, so he wouldn't have to hear the sounds of the Frenchman fucking his girl.
CHAPTER SIX
At four Awful Annie arrived.
She burst into the apartment, wearing a ridiculous hat and smoking an Italian cigar, accompanied by a small girl with big eyes whom she referred to as her roommate.
"What the hell is happening, you pricks?" she roared, and burst into a string of obscenities seldom heard from the lips of women.
It was partially because of her foul mouth that Annie was so named. Partially. In a great many respects she was the foulest woman ever to walk the earth.
She was a big woman, well-built and handsome, with an enormous bottom and watermelon breasts. Everyone knew her, and greeted her with the same kind of obscenities.
"Fuck you, Annie," someone called.
"Up yours," she replied.
"Screw you," someone else called.
"Go take a flying fuck at a rolling blowtorch, honey," Awful Annie said good-naturedly.
Annie came from a wealthy Boston family, had been given the best advantages, the best schooling, money, clothes and automobiles. The result of this coddling stood by the door, her cigar in her teeth, and bellowed:
"Well, I'll be rolled in camel shit! My rotten-ass brother is here. Hello, you clapped up sod. Come here and incest the hell out of me."
Alexander sank into himself and began to whistle self-consciously.
"And Richey! Goddamn Richey Davis, whose brains come spurting out of the end of his prick when he gets near a cunt!" she screamed at the top of her voice.
"Hello, Awful," Richey said. "Are you still cherry?"
"Nowhere but here," she said, and pulled her skirt up to show her cunt. "Ain't nobody toolin' on me there."
Awful Annie wore no underwear. Everyone knew what she was like but Robin, who watched her with mouth open in awe. Everyone else merely watched, smiling, except for Sharon, who yawned and looked blandly away from this everyday occurrence. She was above it all.
The remarkable thing about Annie was that, as she had told Davis, she was a virgin. There was little, if anything, else she had not done, to others, with others, to herself, to things, organic and inorganic. But through it all she had clung to one thing, untarnished in the worldlier cherry.
The physical aspects of virginity had been wiped out long ago by a multitude of objects, but in truth she had never had intercourse with a man. She was proud of it, and vowed to die without ever being fucked. Except for that one quirk, everything went with Awful Annie.
"Someday I'll seduce you," Richey told her.
"Balls," said Annie.
She flopped to the floor and demanded that she be brought:
"Whiskey to drink, pot to smoke, and a prick to play with."
The first two were supplied.
She sat with her knees up so that the absence of panties was very conspicuous, virgin cunt though she had, and guzzled straight Scotch. It ran from the comers of her mouth and dribbled down her chin, and she wiped it away with the back of her hand. Her fingers were dirty and nicotine-stained.
Her roommate sat beside her, said nothing and acted like an attending slave.
"She's disgusting," Robin whispered to Richey.
He nodded in agreement and smiled.
He resented the fact she wore no panties to add to his collection.
Shortly after the arrival of Awful Annie, Roundheels Lynn and the Frenchman emerged from the bedroom.
Lynn looked contented and was walking with assurance. Jacques looked exhausted and seemed to be weak in the knees.
There was no doubt that she had received a good, satisfying fucking, though no one in the room knew precisely what had transpired behind the closed bedroom door.
But every male in the room, with the exception of Richey Davis and Robby Lester, had had an opportunity to writhe in erotic abandon with Roundheels Lynn. What they didn't know was that this time Roundheels had exceeded even her extensive skill and had loved the Frenchman so well he was exhausted.
When the bedroom door closed behind them, Lynn took the initiative and quickly undressed Jacques. True to his Gallic nature, Jacques was already aroused, ready for the act of love. He gave a startled gasp as Lynn grasped his prick firmly, stimulating him quickly with masturbational movements up and down.
"I like," she said throatily. "Undress me quick!"
Jacques hurried to obey. He'd had plenty of experience with women in France, but never with any like this typical American girl who kept her hand busy on his hot flesh, while he stripped her clothing from her.
"I want you, Frenchy," she said, thrusting her cunt forward at him, as he stooped to roll her bikini panties over her hips. "I want you to love me the way Frenchmen are supposed to love a woman. I want you to suck me off, honey. Now!"
"But, mademoiselle," he protested, "not all Frenchmen ... "
"Bullshit," she interrupted. "In France, you are the artiste, but in America you are the cunt lapper."
She stopped as she saw him shrug resignedly. They moved to the bed, where she lay back with her feet still on the floor. But he lifted her legs and placed them on the bed, and for a moment Lynn was puzzled as to why he wanted her that way when it would be more convenient if he knelt on the floor before her.
She knew, though, when he covered her, kissing her as she wanted but offering his prick for her to suck in turn. She turned her face away, but kept her hand busy jacking him off.
Jacques' skill was great, and in a few moments fiery sensations began to course through her, spreading out in weakening waves, filling her with sensations she'd never before enjoyed. And the higher her passion went, the more tempted she was to give him the same in return-until she could resist no longer!
She felt him gasp as she made, for her, a kind of virginal contact-tentative and exploring, as she closed her lips over the erect shaft of his cock. Warming to her task, she bent to it with a will until they were rolling in the height of their erotic abandon.
She made the grade twice almost immediately, and Jacques didn't let up on her at all, as his tongue sought the deepest penetration of her cunt he could manage.
She was breathing hard and covered with sweat, when his climax surprised her. She didn't hesitate to accept his offering, and even as his prick went soft she didn't want to give up her plaything.
"Oh, oh, oh," he cried, as though in pain, but still she wouldn't stop sucking.
Only when he twisted from her violently did she stop, and she whimpered for more, but Jacques was a one-time-Charlie kind of lover, and all he wanted now was sleep.
So they returned to the party.
When Lynn saw that Annie had arrived she went over and sat by her, presumably to discuss their mutual problems.
Annie, it must be said, was not so phony as to think her peculiarities as a problem at all. But the two girls got along together well, and often had long conversations, sprinkled with introspection from Lynn and filth from Annie.
Marty thought that it was as nearly as bad to have Lynn talking to Annie as to have her fucking a Frenchman, but he knew that everyone's problems were open topics in this group, and that Lynn was enlightened in this respect.
Jacques, finding Sharon in his chair, sat on the couch and wiped his mouth with a handkerchief and sighed. It was all too much for him.
Marijuana made some of them hungry. Marty had nothing to feed such a large group but minestrone soup, which he made in a huge cauldron.
Awful Annie was served first, as she was bellowing the loudest, and she promptly spilled her bowl all over the rug. Much to the delight and disgust of everyone else, she licked it up from the filthy floor. Robin nearly vomited, but Davis cheered Annie on.
"I'll put anything in my mouth!" Annie roared wickedly, and glared from person to person to see if there were any challenges.
And at this point Jacques the Frenchman succumbed to fatigue and shock and slumped down in a deep sleep on the couch. He began snoring.
"Are all your friends like this, Richey?" Robin asked, motioning around the room with her can of beer.
"Sure," he said.
"And do you always live like this? So wildand different? I've never known people who lived like this and did things like this."
"I hope you aren't thinking of reforming me. Little cottage in the suburbs, and crap like that."
"No. I know better than that."
"Good. I must be taken as I am."
"I'm not trying to change you. But to be your girl, do I have to change and be like these others?"
"No. They're all phonies themselves. Funny phonies, though. Anything is all right if it's good for a laugh."
"Before-in the park-you said that you were thinking of settling down, that you were sick of running around and leading a wild life."
"I lied," he said simply.
It was the story of his life.
"Hypnotize!" cried Marty. "Great!" Robby said.
He had become bored and was ready for something new to happen.
"All right," Rex Myerson said, taking the center of attention in the middle of the room. "Who shall I hypnotize?"
"Awful Annie!" Davis suggested.
"Oh, no!" Annie protested. "I don't trust you pricky bastards. You'd screw me."
"Well, who?"
"Use my roommate," Annie said.
The thin girl with the enormous eyes looked vaguely at Annie.
"I don't care if she gets raped. She's not a virgin, anyway, the tramp," bellowed Annie.
"Want to?" Myerson asked.
"Whatever Annie wants," said the girl.
It was the first time she had spoken, and she had a strange voice, very soft and melting.
"What's your name?"
"Little Carol."
"All right, Little Carol, come sit over here. You have to cooperate, or else I won't be able to do it. You have to want to be hypnotized."
"If Annie says I should."
"Hell, yes!" roared Annie.
Little Carol sat in a chair and Myerson stood before her. He used a St. Christopher medal on a chain to twirl before her and told her to watch it carefully.
She looked like a very easy subject, almost in a trance to begin with. She wasn't too bright. He spoke softly and firmly, and before anyone realized this wasn't a lot of nonsense the girl seemed to be in a trance.
"She's faking," Alexander said.
"She ain't smart enough to fake it," Annie said, coming closer so that she could look at the girl's eyes.
"Really?" Davis asked.
He had never seen a person hypnotized before, and was naturally rather skeptical about it. But Myerson looked very serious about it, and nodded affirmatively at him.
"Yeah, I've seen him do it before," Marty said.
"What shall we have her do?" Myerson asked. "Make her bark like a dog or something," Robin said.
This bourgeois comment went unrecognized, and she was sorry she had spoken. This wasn't her type of crowd, and she knew she could be nothing but wrong by speaking.
She was out of place enough as it was, and Richey was no longer paying the slightest bit of attention to her. She felt badly about that and watched him and hoped that everything would be all right after the party broke up and he was away from his strange friends.
"Shall we make her go down on all the guys?" Myerson suggested.
There was a certain masculine appeal in his suggestion.
"No, that's no fun for us," Annie said. "Make her think she's a dyke."
"It's an idea," Myerson said. "Who shall I make her fall in love with?"
"You want her, Sharon?" Robby asked, but was obviously joking.
Sharon didn't bother to answer. She just looked at him with an annoyed expression.
"Well, she's my roommate. I'll volunteer," Awful Annie said, squinting at Robby, who sat stiffly in the chair and looked vacantly ahead.
"Can she cop?" Marty asked.
"Hell, yes! I ain't had a dyke in months."
"All right. A dyke she shall be," Myerson said.
Everyone crowded around now, waiting for the show to begin. The whole scene was beginning to get interesting to them. Even Robin was close, watching with eager eyes. Only Jacques, who was still asleep on the couch, failed to move into the circle around Little Carol and Myerson. Jacques had never removed the panties from his head.
"Can you hear me, Little Carol?" Myerson asked.
She nodded absently.
Myerson motioned the others to be silent and spoke softly to Little Carol.
"Do you know what a Lesbian is, Little Carol?" he asked.
She nodded.
"You are a Lesbian. Do you understand?" She nodded.
"You are desperately in love with Awful Annie. You want to go down on her. You are willing to suck her off anywhere, no matter where. Do you understand that?"
"Yes," she said in her peculiar, soft voice.
Her eyes were flickering vaguely now.
"Do you see Annie?"
"Yes."
"You will get up and go to Annie and take her to the bedroom."
Little Carol got up stiffly and moved to Annie. Annie giggled obscenely and let herself be led to the bedroom. The rest of the crowd filed in behind them, silently.
The bedclothes were wrinkled and the sheets were twisted and stained. Marty winced involuntarily as he saw it, but he was too drunk to feel it deeply now.
He was standing slightly behind Lynn, and he could smell her perfume and also a faint odor of perspiration. From exertion. He tried to ignore it.
Annie got willingly on the bed, sitting on the edge and letting her legs remain on the floor. Little Carol dropped to her knees on the floor in front of her.
"She knows just what to do," Marty whispered.
"Must have read a dirty book sometime," Myerson said. "Hypnotism can make a person recall anything."
Little Carol tugged at Annie's skirt, working it up her legs and baring her creamy white thighs.
Annie, who didn't know the meaning of embarrassment, raised her hips and tugged until the skirt was bunched at her waist, her cunt hair a dark, stark triangle in contrast to her flesh. She moved her legs apart, baring the pink slit, and leaned back. She watched Little Carol's movements with interest.
Everyone in the room was breathing heavily now.
Little Carol began to kiss Annie's thighs.
Myerson knelt beside her, perhaps to give instructions, but more likely to get a better view of Annie's virgin cunt.
"You love her madly," he whispered. "You want to suck her off until she comes so violently she'll scream."
"Yeah, have her do everything," snorted Awful Annie, hunching her hips upward.
Little Carol kissed her way up Annie's heavy thighs, and then she buried her face in the dark cunt hair. She ground herself passionately against Annie's cunt.
Annie looked surprised at first, then interested, as she glanced from Robby to the others. Then, after a moment, she began to look less interested and more passionate. Her hips roiled and twitched, and she leaned back on the bed and closed her eyes.
Little Carol followed her, seeming to force her along the bed, and Annie moved away from the excruciating contact, not wanting to leave it but being driven by it. She was at the head of the bed, leaning against the wall and Little Carol was sliding on her belly, amid the twisted bedclothes, her face still with Annie's cunt. Little Carol moved mechanically, as though in a daze.
The room was still. The only sounds were those made by Little Carol, little whimperings, little wet noises, little moans. And then Annie began to moan too, and reached down to hold Little Carol's head tightly against her cunt. Her body tightened and relaxed in rhythm with the lashings of Little Carol's caress, and her breath was heavy.
Annie began to move her body faster. Faster and faster. Little Carol's face was buried in her cunt. The intensity reached the top, the highest point of human tension. Someone gasped in the room. And then Annie moaned and twisted and finally sank down in the exhaustion of complete climax.
"God, stop her," Annie said breathlessly. "I can't take any more."
"All right, Little Carol, it's over now," Myerson said gently.
Little Carol pulled away slowly and curled up at the comer of the bed.
Everyone was hot and bothered. Even Sharon had forgotten her affected, blase air and was open-mouthed. Every man there felt like fucking. Perhaps every woman was interested in having done to them what they'd just witnessed, but they didn't make their desires to have a woman go down on them so obvious.
"Damn!" Annie said. "Don't wake her up, Myerson. Let her stay in the mood until I take her home."
He grinned. But he sat next to Little Carol and snapped his fingers and told her she was going to awaken and not remember what had happened. He was afraid he might have gone a bit too far and the shock of remembering might trouble the mousy little girl. If they told her later it wouldn't matter so much. It was the remembering that was dangerous.
She snapped out of it and looked a little confused. Her eyes seemed to show she was still in a trance.
Annie still had her skirt up around her waist and her legs apart. Her thighs glistened with sweat and her cunt with saliva.
"What happened?" Little Carol asked faintly, looking at Annie and then around at the group.
"Nothing," Myerson said.
"You just sucked me off," Annie said, motioning toward her cunt.
Myerson frowned at her, but Little Carol didn't seem to be shocked. A little embarrassed, perhaps, as she looked at the crowd again.
"Everyone watched," Annie said.
"Oh, Annie...."
"It was good, though. You did a good job."
"That's enough," Myerson said. "Let's go back to the living room."
"But I want to tell Little Carol all about what she did," Annie protested.
"Do it later," Myerson said.
He didn't know very much about how a person might react after hypnosis and was a little worried. He had never carried a person that far before, always sticking to less serious things.
"Don't worry about Little Carol," Annie said.
She laughed heartily, pulled her skirt down, and slid off the bed.
"Annie, please," Little Carol said.
"Hell, why do you think she's my roommate?" Annie asked Myerson.
He frowned, puzzled.
"Because she's been doing the same thing every night," Annie continued. "I make her suck me off before she can go to sleep." She laughed gustily.
Little Carol looked embarrassed and dropped her eyes to the bed. Everyone was looking at her. A lot of the new-found amazement at the powers of hypnosis was dispeled at the disclosure that the girl was adept at sucking women off, and some of the vicarious passion evaporated.
The room was quiet, and the only sound came from the hi-fi in the front room, and beyond that, softly, the snoring of the Frenchman.
CHAPTER SEVEN
By six, all the whiskey had been drunk and everyone was about to call it a night-or morning. They were sitting sleepily on the floor.
Awful Annie and Little Carol had both fallen asleep in the comer, Little Carol's head resting in Annie's ample lap.
Richey Davis and Marty Sparrow were the only two who had any desire to keep carousing. They were downing the last couple of cans of beer.
"It's too bad no one else is manly enough to stay with us," Davis said.
"Yeah," Marty mumbled.
Lynn was resting against his shoulder, dozing. She'd told him she loved him and was sorry about what had happened. She didn't tell him she'd sucked the Frenchman off-that was too intimate a confession even for her. But she did confess that they'd made love.
He said nothing about it. There was nothing he could say that would mean a damn thing, anyway. When people are too enlightened and modern to argue, their conversations are extremely limited.
"Let's roll the Frog," Marty suggested. "You wanta?"
"I don't care."
"Think he's got any money."
"Probably."
Marty considered, then said: "The hell with rolling him. Let's piss in his ear."
Davis chuckled. "Shall we?"
"Sure," Davis said. "He's only a damn foreigner. We might as well."
"Who goes first?"
"You. Go ahead."
Marty got up, disturbing Lynn, who opened her eyes and watched as he went over to the sleeping Frenchman. He unfastened his pants and pissed a golden stream into the Frenchman's ear. Lynn looked annoyed, but Davis grinned.
"I don't want him now," Davis said. "He's nothing but a damned tramp after you pissed on him."
Marty didn't care whether Davis followed suit or not. He was wondering why he felt better now that he had humiliated the sleeping foreigner. The one who had fucked Lynn. He came back and sat down again.
"I think we'll go back home," Robby said.
Sharon was sleeping in the chair.
"Why don't you sack out here?" Marty said. "I've got plenty of extra mattresses. We'll put them down on the floor and everyone can sleep. It'll be better than taking the subway home at this hour."
"Well, all right. Where are the mattresses? I'll help you get them out."
They were stored in the hall. Robby and Marty and Richey lugged three of them in and spaced them on the floor.
Myerson and Iula Humps fell drunkenly on the first one and were immediately asleep. Robby awoke Sharon and took her to the second mattress, while Marty brought some blankets from the bedroom. Sharon stretched out and Marty tossed a blanket over her.
"Let's swap girls for the night," Davis said to Bobby.
Robin was still awake, looking out the window and wondering why Davis had become so different after he'd fucked her.
"Naw."
"Why not? My broad's as good looking as yours."
Robby shrugged, then said:
"Anyway, Sharon wouldn't go for it, so it doesn't matter what I say. Sharon isn't the type to screw anybody but me."
"Oh, hell," Davis said.
He was annoyed that Robby should think that Sharon was faithful to him. He resented what he considered Robby's smugness about the fact, especially since it wasn't true. And he hated to see the way Robby let Sharon's wishes dominate what he did, because Robby was his friend and Sharon was a tramp, anyway.
Of course, Davis was very drunk and tired and his judgement wasn't at its best-and he was at no time the model of discretion, anyway. But right then he decided it was high time Bobby was made aware of his mistaken judgement in regard to Sharon's fuckability.
"She'll go for it," Richey said. "No wench passes up a chance to sleep with Richey Davis."
"Not Sharon," Robby said with placid conviction.
He thought that Davis was drunkenly boasting. "Oh?" Davis said.
He went over to the fallen Frenchman and whipped the panties from his head. The Frenchman stirred and grunted but didn't awaken. Davis brought the panties over to Robby and held them out.
"Guess whose loins these sprang from?" he asked, his lips pursed. Robby looked at them. "Well?"
"I wouldn't know. After all, it's the bottom within them that counts. I can't recognize unfilled panties."
"They're Sharon's."
"No."
"Truth."
"Then you stole them from her drawer or something. Sharon wouldn't cheat on me."
"Are you sure?"
Robby didn't answer and looked closely at Davis.
"It's just as well you know."
"No," Robby said again, but he didn't seem so sure this time, and he looked again at the panties.
Robin watched without a word. She was hurt to think it might be true. It was bad enough to hear Davis trying to swap her off for the night, after what he had told her about really liking her and settling down. She called herself a blind fool for believing him.
But the worst thing, strangely enough, seemed to be the fact that her panties were only one pair of a collection. There had been something rather warming to see her panties, so recently covering her cunt and ass, now stretched over Davis' head. But that was gone now, and she saw it as a perverted thing to do.
One thing she knew definitely. She didn't want to fuck Robby. His shiny bald head was disgusting. And she no longer wanted to sleep with Richey, either. All she wanted to do was get home and forget what a fool she had made of herself by letting him fuck her and believing what he had told her.
No one noticed as she left quietly and went down the stairs and out into the first light of the New York dawn.
"If she agrees, can I fuck her?" Davis asked Robby.
He sounded very confident and Robby hesitated in his answer. But he felt he had to show his faith in Sharon, had to back it up with a bet.
"She's a grown woman," he said. "I can't stop her if she wants to let you screw her. But she won't. I know that."
"We'll see. You just watch how much she doesn't want me to fuck her, baby."
Davis went over to where she was stretched out on the mattress.
Robby followed but stood back a little. He watched as Davis crawled under the blanket next to her. She was asleep and didn't move.
"C'mere, honey," Davis said, snuggling close to her.
She moved into his arms, still asleep. That was understandable; she had to awaken before there could be any contest. Davis kissed her cheek and said:
"Hey, wake up," Sharon sleepily opened her eyes. She was still in the daze of sleep and looked foggily at him.
"Oh-Richey-what are you doing in bed with me?" she asked, confused.
"I'm going to fuck you, baby."
"No-where's Robby?" she asked.
Robby smiled with premature confidence.
"Don't worry. He left already. He's gone home. I'll take care of you."
"Left?" she said.
Her eyes swept the room, and she looked directly at Robby for an instant, but she was too sleepy to recognize him.
"Are you glad?" Richey whispered.
Sharon let him Mss her, and she moved closer to him.
"Are you sure he's gone?" she asked. "Yep."
"Ummmm," she sighed. "I'm glad."
She rested her face against his shoulder and was still for a moment, and both Richey and Robby thought she had fallen back to sleep again. But her eyes flicked open a moment later.
"Are we alone?" she asked.
"Yes," he replied.
"Are you going to fuck me, Richey?"
"Would you like me to?"
"I'd love it. Please fuck me, Richey. Fuck me good like you did last night."
"Soon. We'll rest first, and screw after we're not so tired. Okay?"
"Whatever you say. We will fuck, though? You'll really screw me later?"
"We'll do it, baby."
"Ummm," she said.
And this time when she shut her eyes and rested her face on his chest she did sink into sleep. Her arms were around him and there was a smile of anticipation on her lips.
Davis looked over at Robby and raised his eyebrows. Robby shrugged. It wasn't what he felt like doing, but it was the only thing he could think of to do that wasn't violent.
Davis moved gently away from Sharon and got out from under the blanket. She continued to smile and hug the woolen material. He came over to Robby and raised his hands in a gesture of not caring.
"All right, I was wrong," Robby said. "I didn't think she was the kind to screw around. But I guess a man can't ever tell about his woman."
"Yeah. Hell, it could be worse. Look at Marty's chick. You haven't got it so bad."
Robby nodded, thinking that if this was an attempt to cheer him up it was certainly an ineffective effort. He wasn't angry with Richey, and he wasn't really too angry with Sharon, but he was coldly furious with himself for being such a fool. And he was hurt.
"Where's my chick?" Davis asked suddenly, looking around.
They looked for Robin. Robby wanted very much to find her. It was a necessary thing that he cheat on Sharon that morning. It was the only thing he could do to make things easier. But Robin was not to be found.
After a brief search of possible places where she might have passed out, they gave up.
"Well, I guess I don't get your girl, after all," Davis said. "I've lost my bartering power."
He chuckled to show how little he really cared.
"No, she's yours. It wasn't really a swap, anyway. I said she could do what she wanted, and apparently she wants you to fuck her."
"Yeah, but I don't want to take your chick if you don't have somebody to screw."
Bobby was looking around. He remembered his brief encounter with Roundheels Lynn in the bookstore and cursed himself for refusing. Then he saw her, sleeping with Marty on the third mattress, and he remembered he had refused because she was Marty's girl as much as because he belonged to Sharon.
He called himself a fool for that too, in the light of these later revelations, and determined that nothing was going to keep him from fucking a chick again except possibly some kind of latter-day impotence, which was a bridge to be crossed when he reached it.
Friendship had not stopped Davis. It probably wouldn't have stopped Marty, either. Fool, he thought, screaming at himself in his mind. Outwardly he remained calm.
It was at that moment that Awful Annie awoke with a loud belch and stood up. Little Carol's head fell from her lap to the floor with a loud thump, but the thin girl didn't awaken. Annie looked around with red eyes, wondering what had become of all the noise and people.
Robby looked at her. There was a lot of body there, not fat, either, but solid and eminently fuckable. It might be nice to be the first man who ever fucked Awful Annie. If she would only keep her foul mouth shut. Then he thought of what she had said earlier, "I'll put anything in my mouth!" He wasn't so sure he wanted her to keep her mouth shut. If he couldn't fuck her, he was sure he could talk her into sucking him off, and that would repay Sharon for her infidelity.
"Where are all the people?" she asked, and then, remembering she had a reputation to maintain, she added, "Goddamn all those pricks, any way!"
"The party's over, Annie," Robby said. "Time to go home or to bed."
"I'm not going to bed here. I don't trust you pricks with ears. First thing you know I'd wake up with a prick in me."
"Want me to take you home?" Robby asked.
"Huh? Yeah. Yeah, I ain't worried about one prick. It's when you bastards get together and plot raping a broad that I get worried."
"Let me borrow your car, Richey. In exchange for my woman, okay?"
"Sure. But you're getting the best of the deal."
"Yeah, but having to fuck Annie nullifies any advantage of a Cadilliac. Christ, Annie would nullify a Sherman tank. But I'm gallant."
"What are you saying, you stupid, pig-faced, bald-balled mother-fucker?"
"I said I love you," Robby grunted.
Awful Annie snorted her disbelief.
Davis gave Robby the keys to the car and Robby thanked him and took Annie by the arm. She was two inches taller than he. They had forgotten about Little Carol, still sleeping on the floor, and they went out and left her there.
Davis watched them leave and admired the fortitude of any man who dared take on Awful Annie. Or was it merely a strength born of desperation?
Davis felt much more rational, suddenly, and wondered what effect finding out the truth about Sharon had had on Robby. Had that affected him enough to drive him to Annie? Davis found it hard to think of a man like Robby being in love with an obviously superficial woman like Sharon and being seriously bothered by her fucking around.
But, he thought vainly, all men aren't like me, all men don't have such an easy time in getting a new woman to replace the old one. I have to learn to be tolerant of lesser men.
He felt very condescending as he went back to where Sharon was curled beneath a blanket. He was the last person left awake. He took his clothes off, piled them next to the mattress and crawled in. Sharon, in her sleep, immediately enclosed him in her arms.
Davis was too tired and drunk to be passionate. Even if he had been, it was doubtful he would be able to do anything about it. The best part of this would be in the morning, when the others awoke and found him sleeping with Robby's woman. A stroke for his pride, another block to build an ego. Those things mattered more than most people realized.
Better if she were naked, he realized, and fought off sleep long enough to struggle with her clothing. In a second she opened her eyes.
"Ummm? Oh, Richey. Is Robby really gone?"
"Yes," he said.
This time he was telling the truth.
Sharon helped him to strip the rest of her clothes off. They piled them alongside his. Then she snuggled into his arms again and pressed tightly against him.
Passion and fatigue waged a war within him, and the outcome was in doubt until Sharon reached down and caressed his prick with skilful hands. Reinforcements rushed in the form of a thrill to help the sagging forces of passion, and fatigue was routed for a moment.
"Screw me," she whispered, blowing hotly in his ear.
He nodded, nibbling on her earlobe. It would be pleasant to fuck in this exhausted condition. Slow and easy they would do it, letting sleep overtax them. It didn't matter whether they came or not; it would be warm and comfortable and tingling and pleasant.
He slid to her and they pressed together, and her body welcomed the intrusion of his hard prick. She was much more fully awake now, and she guided him to her. And it was her initial forward thrust of her hips that joined their aching bodies.
They slid together and apart, back and forth, slowly, lying on their sides. It was good to fuck this way, as Richey had known it would be, and he let fatigue begin a counterattack and dull his senses, all his senses but for the one, big thrill that came from his contact with her.
Sharon was willing to take it this way. At first, at least. But then the ripples began moving through her and she wanted it to be faster and stronger and deeper. Her fingers gripped at him and urged him on.
But Richey moved slower and slower, almost asleep as he fucked, maintaining a hard-on through some mysterious body chemistry he didn't even try to understand.
Sharon rolled him, not taking her body from him, but rolling him over with her so that she sat astride him, on top. From there she could control the movement and fuck faster if she chose. Her back was bowed over him and her hips began to churn, rising and falling, her buttocks lifting high in the air and then plunging down to impale herself on him. Shoulders back, then hunched forward, thighs straining and relaxing, and sweat covered her naked flesh.
The covers had fallen off, but there was no one awake to see her, and the way she felt at that moment it wouldn't have mattered. She was striving for the heights, and she could feel them coming and knew she was going to make the one long climb up and then take the spiralling fall back down, and she moved her body furiously in search of this gigantic come her desire drove her toward.
Richey felt his own body tremble in his half-sleeping state, and he moved beneath her. Fatigue fell back once more, and lust took the field, crashing in loud attack, flowing out in victory, as his come spurted deep within her, gushing forth in throbbing waves, as she responded in kind and throbbed with him, taking his cream gratefully deep within her cunt.
They fell together from those heights and patient sleep conquered them both in the end. Sharon remained where she was, atop Richey, straddling him with her spent body. Her head rested on his broad shoulder. Neither cared that they were naked and uncovered, bound to be observed with wry amusement by anyone who awoke before them.
The first sun of the day arrived quietly and stealthily at the window, peering in at these night people spent with their orgy.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Robin went out into the street and stood on the sidewalk in front of Marty's apartment building, feeling very forlorn and lost.
The sun was coming up and she blinked at the brightness, after hours spent in the darkness of the apartment. When one has been up all night, has become sleepy and dirty and tired, and has also made passionate love, all these things seem magnified by sunlight.
While in the dark interiors of old buildings one doesn't realize the feelings of tiredness and dirt, but the sun seems to increase them or, at least, show them fully to you. Standing alone on the morning sidewalk, Robin felt very dirty and tired and disgusted, lonely and sad.
She had never been in Brooklyn before, and had no idea of where to get a subway. She didn't even know where she was. She walked down the street in what seemed to be the most likely direction, finally asked directions from a gas station attendent who was just opening up for the day and was very grumpy. After considerable walking and worrying she got a train back to Manhattan and walked to her residence on West Thirteenth Street.
It was nearing eight o'clock when she arrived home. Home being a dormitory-type residence for young ladies, just off Sixth Avenue.
It wasn't as good as an apartment, but it was much cheaper, and she hadn't figured on doing any entertaining, anyway, since she hadn't expected to meet Richey Davis or anyone like him. Men were only allowed in the rooms during open house, and then the doors had to be left open. It was cheap enough-fifteen dollars a week including breakfast and dinner-but it involved living with a roommate, and the food was ridiculously bad.
When Robin entered her room she found her roommate, a singularly ugly girl with a wart on her nose, just leaving to go to work.
"Gee, I was worried about you, Robin. When you didn't come back last night I didn't know what to do. Where have you been all this time?"
"Out," Robin said.
She crossed the room and flopped on the bed.
"Gee, I didn't know whether I should notify the police or tell the house mother or what."
"I hope you did neither," Robin said tiredly, not bothering to look up.
At most times this prying into her private affairs would have seemed very annoying, but right then she didn't care much about anything.
"No, I didn't. I was worried, though, you can be sure of that."
Robin made no reply. It felt good to be resting on her own bed, lumpy as it was.
"You'd better hurry and get ready for work. It's almost eight already."
"I'm not going to work."
"You going to miss the whole day?"
"Maybe the whole week."
"Gee, you'll get fired."
Robin shrugged, still lying on her stomach. She worked for a publishing firm, doing the simplest things such as filing. Not quite sixty dollars a week, after taxes had been taken out. It was no big thing, and she didn't care much if she ever went back.
She was almost asleep and thought that the wartnose had left, when the girl spoke once more.
"What did you do all night?" she asked.
Bob in thought that this was an impolite question, to say the least. She still didn't care much, however. She rolled over and looked at the wartnose for a second, and said:
"I spent it with a handsome man who made love to me passionately and then turned me out."
She watched carefully to see what reaction this would have on the wart-nose, whom she supposed to be puritanical, and whom she had intended to shock.
The wart-nose, however, said:
"Gee whiz! That must've been exciting."
And Robin, realizing that the girl was actually envious of such an occurrence, thought that life hadn't really treated her so badly, after all.
She felt sorry for the wart-nose and therefore, since a person can contain just so much sorrow at any one time, less sorry for herself. She rolled over and went to sleep.
Wart-nose went out quietly and took the time to call the office where Robin worked and tell them that she was sick and wouldn't be able to make it to work that morning. Then she went on to her own humdrum job and thought all day about how exciting life was for her pretty blonde roommate.
Robin awoke shortly before noon. She got up, took her wrinkled clothes off and got back into bed, under the covers this time.
She felt very chilly, but it was a sort of coldness that began within her. The room was warm enough. She pulled the blanket up around her chin and curled up into a ball and went back to sleep.
During the few minutes that she was awake she didn't think at all about Richey Davis-or the night before, didn't even think of who she was.
She awoke again at four feeling completely refreshed and wide awake. She took a long shower in the communal shower room and dressed in clean slacks and sweater. Then she lit a cigarette and sat down by the window to think.
The window was on the inside of the L-shaped building, and therefore the view was nothing more than the brick wall of the other wing. Although this had its limitations as far as the scenic aspect went, it made a very good place to think, since there was nothing to see that might prove distracting. This proved that there is always something good that can be said about everything.
She felt that she had come to a crossroad in her life, a major turning point. It was a stronger feeling than the one she had felt after losing her virginity even, and that was the only other time that she had felt anything even remotely like it.
A great deal of the intensity of this feeling came from the fact that the events had occurred in New York, a still strange and magical and forbidding place to her. She hadn't lived there very long, and she was a small-town girl who didn't make changes very fast.
But, although she felt that a decision had to be made, she didn't know what she had to decide upon. This was rather frustrating.
She thought about Richey Davis. She still felt enchanted by him, and wondered whether he would call her when he got over his drunk. He might not ever realize that she had left. Then she wondered whether she wanted him to call, and decided that she did.
Yes, she thought, I would like him to call, but only for pride's sake. I'd like him to call and apologize and make excuses and tell me that he is going to change and settle down, and ask me to forgive him. And then I would tell him that I didn't ever care to see him again, keeping my voice very calm and matter-of-fact about it.
That would make me feel better, I think. Or would it? If I know Richey Davis he would laugh in amazement, and his laughing at me would only make it worse. There's no way that I could hurt him, and he could hurt me again. He's too dangerous. I don't even want to speak to him on the phone. Fool that I am, he just might talk me into meeting him again and then we would have the whole thing to go through again.
He cares for nothing and stands for nothing, except himself. That may be the best way to be, after all. At least it keeps one from being hurt. I can't imagine anyone ever managing to hurt Richey Davis. I wish I were that way. But it's better to stop thinking about him.
She thought that she was in love with Davis, thought it right up until the time when she finally fell asleep on her bed. But now she was sure that it was nothing even close to love, just infatuation that an inexperienced girl feels for a worldly man. The same thing that she had felt when she first met him and he had moved into her apartment.
It was better to realize that she didn't have a broken heart, after all, and she began to think that maybe it was possible for her to become more like Davis, after all, caring for no one but herself.
If she were to think that way it would even be possible to see Davis again and keep from being hurt. But why take the chance? She still didn't want to see him and hoped that he wouldn't call. She was determined to let the phone go unanswered if it were to ring. But it didn't.
For a while she thought that it was the city that was making her unhappy. She thought that she hated New York. This feeling was strong enough to determine her to go home and forget all about seeking her fortune in the Big Town, and she even got her suitcases out and began to pack her clothes.
Halfway through the packing, however, she paused and took an objective look at what she was doing and told herself that she was being silly and childish.
Hell, can't I take anything without running home to Mother? she asked herself. So I had a guy lie to me. It's all the better; life with that louse would be a miserable state, anyway. And I'm already just about over any sadness that I felt.
Look at my roommate. How much harder life must be for her, poor wart-nosed thing. The main trouble with me is that I let small-town morals ruin me, and Richey was the only one who was persuasive enough to break the rules, and I haven't realized that I liked him for what he made me do and not for himself. It could be just as good with any man, now that I realize this.
I'm good looking and have a nice body and men like me. I can have lots of fun and do lots of things and begin to enjoy life. I've waited too long as it is, and here I was almost ready to go back to my home and live the rest of my life in ignorance.
This was a big realization and an even bigger determination for Robin.
She unpacked her clothes and hung them back in the closet, thinking that as soon as possible she would move into an apartment of her own. This dormitory life was for children and students, and she was a woman who was going to lead her own life and do what she cared to without any restrictions made by anyone but herself.
If there were any restrictions at all. And why should there be? She was intelligent enough to know better than to accept the blind reasonings of small-town morality which served only to make one unhappy and lonely and frustrated. It was time to change, and she felt sure that the change would be for the better.
Then Robin realized a strange thing. Strange, at least, in relation to her past. Something that, if she had felt it before, she had not admitted to herself. She felt that she wanted to make love.
It had been good, making love with Richey Davis. Much better than when she had known him before. That must have been because she was more mature now, and more open minded, and more of a woman. But whatever the reason, the important thing was that it had been good, and that she no longer had any qualms about doing it. In fact, she intended to do it, and she accepted this realization calmly and determinedly, and felt very adult about it.
She didn't want to make love with Richey, however. He had too much ability to hurt her, and didn't give a damn if he did. Sex, before, had always been a direct association with him, but now she thought of it as a thing related to men in general, any man who was attractive to her.
What a lot of years I've wasted, she told herself, and smiled at the thought. There'd be no more wasted time; she would meet a man that evening. It shouldn't be very hard. She knew she was attractive-and now that she was willing, why, what more could any man want?
She almost wished that she had agreed to the girl-swapping that Davis had suggested with Robby, but not quite. She felt sure that she could find a better man. She had not yet become enough indoctrinated with Village life to appreciate the singular aspects of such a man.
It was five o'clock. Wart-nose would be home shortly and expect to go down to the wretched evening meal with her. But Robin had no intention of eating at the dining room downstairs. She would eat later, and well. After all, if a man was going to have her body he could at least feed her.
She selected her tightest sheath dress from the meager supply in the closet. Most of her clothes were the tweedy, bulky, college variety, and she determined that any new additions would have to be sexy. She was going to go all out in this new world.
It was too early to dress, of course, but now that the decision had been made she was impatient. She wanted to see how she looked in the dress. She took her slacks and sweater off and was getting into the dress, when Wart-nose came home from her labors.
"Gee, going out again?"
"Yes."
"The same man?"
"No, a new man."
"Golly," said Wart-nose.
Robin observed herself in the mirror, wondering how she should wear her hair, sophisticated or Villagey. Wart-nose watched from the bed.
"I never saw you get dressed up like that before," she said. "This must be something special."
To Wart-nose, who had never even reached the level of bulky college-type sweaters, a tight dress was the epitome of fashion and glamour and worldliness.
"Yeah, this is special."
"Gee."
After a few minutes, she asked:
"Are you ready to go down to dinner?"
"No, I'm not eating here."
"No? After it's all paid for? That seems like a terrible waste."
Yeah, think of all the starving Chinese who would be glad to get it, Robin thought, reminded of an example of the most universal parental stupidity.
"I'm going out to dinner," she explained.
Stunned and awed, Wart-nose went out alone and down to her lonely meal.
Robin took the dress off, to keep from getting it wrinkled, and began to select the other articles of clothing that she intended to wear. She even had a pair of black bikini panties in her drawer which she had never worn.
She gathered these things together and piled them neatly on the bed and wondered how she could kill a few hours. She was a bit hungry, having eaten noting all day, but she would just have to ignore that until later. She was determined to get something in return for her charms, and it speaks well for her innocence that the only thing that came to her mind was a steak dinner and a few compliments.
She was wearing only panties and bra now. She crossed to the closet to get a robe, but passing by the mirror behind the dressing table she stopped to admire herself.
After all, it was just as important to be attractive with nothing on too. That was an exciting thought, and standing before the mirror she reached behind to unclasp her brassiere and then pulled her panties down over her thighs and off her feet.
She stood, completely naked, and looked at herself and thought that this was a body that any man should be glad to have. Large round hemispheres of breasts, wide hips, firm buttocks.
Little areas of white where her two-piece bathing suit had kept the sun from her, very attractive in contrast to the tanned areas on either side. Tan legs, white hips, tan stomach, white breasts. She reached up and touched the tip of one breast, taking the pink nipple between her thumb and index finger. It stiffened and hardened at her touch, and it felt good.
She moved her other hand across her belly and down her thighs and then reached up and cupped her palm against herself. Gently squeezing and opening her hand, she could feel the sensation tingle through her.
She hadn't touched herself in this way for a long while. It was the release of her childhood, a release that was no longer going to be necessary for her. There were many who would be more than willing to bring that release to her. Starting that evening. But at the moment....
Robin went over to the door and drew the lock, then returned to the mirror. She wondered if Wart-nose ever did this to herself, and decided that she must. Everyone had to have release in some way.
Then she forgot Wart-nose. It was Richey Davis who was in her mind, as her hand squeezed and caressed her, it was his hand that she imagined there, then his lips, and then....
Then it was no longer Richey Davis. She saw mankind, faceless mankind, no one person but all the men that were to come into her life. It was better that way. She was making love to a generation as her hand worked lovingly on the warm, tingling apex of her need.
Her other hand caressed her breasts. Her eyes were shut at first, but then, as the thrill increased, she opened her eyes and watched in the mirror. She wanted to watch herself when it happened, wanted to know how she would look to the man who would be above her later, when it happened again.
If she expected some physical transformation, she was disappointed, of course. But there was no disappointment in the thrill that rippled downward to her hand, focused, and then burst free. It was good. Not as good as it had been with Richey, not as good as it would be with the faceless man that she would meet later on, but good. It was a good feeling, one that she wanted to have often.
She continued to caress herself for a few moments, legs, thighs straining. Then, exhausted, she went to the door, unlocked it, and went to the bed where she fell on top of the covers, naked.
It was a good way to relax, in this lazy feeling that came after release. She felt like lying here for a long time. Until it was time to get dressed and go out into the New York City evening.
It might distress her roommate to see her spread naked on the bed, but she couldn't have cared less right then. More important things were on her mind, thoughts that were new to her. But pleasant thoughts. Interesting thoughts. Exciting thoughts.
Richey Davis had worked a great change on the mind of this young girl, without even trying. It was a thing that he had a talent for doing, especially with innocent girls, such as Robin was no more.
Wart-nose returned in a short while, stuffed with the already-paid-for food. She made no comment on Robin's nakedness, but this was to be expected from a shy and timid girl. She did look slyly at her, when Robin wasn't looking, and felt envious and even a bit excited.
"Dinner wasn't too bad tonight," she said.
Robin couldn't have cared less.
"We had strawberry shortcake for dessert."
"Yeah," Robin said, more of a grunt than a question.
"Are you going out soon?"
Instantly, if you don't stop dribbling on about these meaningless things of life, Robin thought. "Soon," she said aloud.
"I'll bet he's handsome, isn't he? You seem to be in a dreamy state."
Robin smiled, but her face was against the mattress and Wart-nose didn't see. She said:
"Yes, he's handsome. He looks like all the handsome men of the world."
"Oh?"
Wart-nose didn't understand, of course, but she didn't feel she should question a girl about the love of her life.
Of course, it should have been plural.
Loves.
And it should have been new life.
But these were private things.
Wart-nose settled down by the window, with a book that she couldn't get interested in but kept doggedly at, because what was there to do after coming home from work but to read a book?
Robin dozed briefly. It was strange that she didn't dream.
At eight o'clock she got up, still naked, and began to dress. She wore the black panties and made a mental note that she should get a matching garter belt and brassiere. Perhaps some admirer might make her a gift of those articles, she thought.
From a dinner to a garter belt may be no great jump, but it shows something about the shifting state of Robin's innocence.
For that night she would have to wear the other ones. It wouldn't matter after they were off, and it wouldn't matter when they were beneath her dress, and the time between was going to be a brief transitional state anyhow.
She finished dressing and looked in the mirror for a long while, did her hair up and looked for a long while again. She was very satisfied. From what she knew about promiscuous women, she was correctly attired and coiffured. She didn't know much, but she was very willing to learn. Anxious, even. More about the promiscuous part than the fashion angle, it must be said.
"Have a good time," Wart-nose said.
"Thank you," said Robin, and went out to get made.
Out in search of something that she didn't really understand, thinking that she had found something that didn't really exist. Out into a new life.
CHAPTER NINE
Shortly after Robin left Marty Sparrow's apartment on the morning of her fateful decision and the formulation of her new life, Robby and Awful Annie came out the front door together.
These were two people who would never form a new life. Robby was too stable, Annie was too firmly entrenched in her self-created depths. They were an extremely un-likely couple.
Robby was choked up, and he felt a twisting sensation in his stomach. The truth that he had just discovered about Sharon had a profound effect on his emotions and his feelings. It wouldn't have anything more than a brief effect on his action and no effect on his life in the long run. He had too much of the afore mentioned stability for that. But the fact that it was influencing his immediate actions was proof enough of how much affected he was. A man like Bobby would have to feel very different from the normal to go home with Awful Annie.
He had the keys to Davis' Cadillac and he opened the door for Annie, who was unaccustomed to such courtesy and cursed vilely at him. He ignored her, knowing how she was, and went around to the driver's side and got in.
"I forgot my roommate," Annie said.
"She was asleep."
"I'll bet those pigs will rape her if we let her stay there!"
Bobby shrugged. "We better get her."
"The hell with that. If I'm going home with you I don't want her there too."
"Jealous of her?"
"No."
"You should be. She's pretty good." Annie smiled and her tongue showed wickedly. "So I noticed." Annie laughed, then asked: "Do you think those pigs will rape her?"
"I don't know. Don't care, either."
"You're just like all men. Pigs, that's all men are."
"Look, if you're really worried about her we'll go back and get her."
"The hell with her. Let her get raped. She's not even a virgin. The slut!"
"Does she really live with you?"
"Hell, no! Would I live with a dyke? What the hell do you think I am?"
"I thought...."
"I just call her my roommate because she comes over once in a while and does it for me. When I feel ready. What a filthy mind you must have, asking me if I live with a damned Lesbian."
"Sorry."
Bobby put the keys in the ignition and started the quiet-running engine. Annie watched him, frowning.
"Hey, before we go ... you'd better not get any ideas about what's gonna happen when we get to my place."
Robby shrugged. He wasn't in the mood to talk, let alone argue.
"Okay?"
"Yeah," he said.
She grinned.
"It might be fun at that," she said. "I'll bet your bald head would look cute down there. Hah! It would look like I was laying a damned egg!"
She burst into coarse laughter.
Robby pulled the car away from the curb and drove down the quiet street. He didn't say anything to her, and she continued to laugh. Awful Annie was overwhelming.
It was early enough to beat the morning traffic rush, and it didn't take long to get to Manhattan and then up to the Village.
Awful Annie lived on MacDougal Street, near Robby's apartment. There were no parking places, but Robby pulled in by a hydrant and parked. If Davis got a ticket, so what? Hell, he was fucking Sharon, wasn't he? Robby would throw the ticket away and let them mail a summons to Davis.
Besides, he knew for a fact that Davis had a great many unpaid parking tickets. In a small and petty way, Robby felt good about this and hoped that there would be a ticket on the car.
They got out and walked up seven flights of stairs, which seemed like one hundred flights at this hour of the morning after a sleepless night, and into Awful Annie's flat.
It was a small place, one room which had been divided in two by a bamboo curtain. The first room thus made formed the kitchen-and the one into which the door opened.
There was no table, but .the shelf beside the sink served this need. Garbage had accumulated in paper bags in one comer, and the sink was piled with dishes. A tube of toothpaste lay on the floor, without a cap, and it had obviously been stepped on. The white paste had coiled out halfway across the room and was dry. It had been there for weeks.
Annie had no time to clean her apartment; she was much too busy overwhelming life-as she saw it.
They went through the kitchen and into the other room. This served as living room and bedroom. There was a daybed along one wall and a chair in the comer next to an expensive hi-fi with a dirty coffee cup sitting on it.
The room was strewn with clothing of all sorts-dresses, coats, shoes-but no underwear; Awful Annie owned none. This abundance gave the room, strangely, a rather comfortable atmosphere, like tapestries. And they were good clothes, expensive with the accompanying exclusive labels. Annie received all the money that she wanted from her parents, who were ever hopeful of bringing her back to normalcy and subsequently back to the fold. She squandered it recklessly.
As long as she had all the money she needed, Annie reasoned, why should she care what her parents wanted or hoped for?
But they kept sending and hoping.
The window in this room looked out through the fire escape and to a forlorn alley scene behind the building. When too many bags of garbage accumulated in the kitchen, Annie threw them out here and listened until they thwacked and burst in the alley below. She'd always wondered whether or not a human body would sound the same.
When the time came to commit suicide-and she had always felt sure that this time would come-Annie was determined to leap from here. The only thing was that she wouldn't be able to hear the noise she made, splattering in the alley.
But one can't have everything.
"You want a drink?" she asked.
Bobby was seated on the daybed which was never made into a couch and always remained opened into a bed. The sheets were seldom changed and were always twisted and tangled and half on the floor.
"No. I've had all I want to drink."
"I know what you want."
"Oh?"
"You're just like all men. You can't think about anything but getting your hands on my cunt. Well, you'd better keep your prick down while you're with me. Understand? I'll cut the damn thing off if you so much as point it at me."
Robby shut his eyes in fatigue and disgust.
Why, he asked himself, did I come here? Anything would be better than being here with Annie. Even watching Davis making love to Sharon. Well, maybe. But hell, all I had to do was say no and he wouldn't've taken her, since his chick had cut out. But I couldn't do it. I had to pretend that I didn't care, had to act more angry and surprised than hurt. Why does a man have to hide his honest feelings? What a phony world this is. Women can at least be honest and cry when they feel like it, and they can tell people how they really feel.
And then he looked at Annie, standing by the window and biting the end of a cigarillo, spitting the tobacco out in the air and watching it fallshe had never been able to hear the noise that a bit of tobacco made when it struck the ground.
"Annie?" he asked.
"Huh?"
"Why do you act the way you do?"
"What?" she said, almost roaring, frowning at him over the glowing tip of the cigarillo.
"Why are you a freak?" he asked, tired of being diplomatic with anyone.
"A freak? What do you mean?"
"You know exactly what I mean. Hell, you're no idiot. I know you realize what the image is that you put forth, and you try your damnedest to maintain it. But why? Surely you aren't happier this way?"
"Forget it," she snapped. "You can talk to me."
"Ah, who cares? Who wants to talk to anyone? You can never get out of yourself enough to talk with anyone else, so why try?"
"It can help."
"Help what? Who the hell wants to be helped? If something went haywire in my judgement a long time ago, then it's nobody's business but my own. Bight? Who knows and who cares what happens when one girl's rebellion against her parents and against the less-intelligent people of the world gets out of hand and begins to control her?"
She paused and threw the cigarillo out the window. She didn't listen for it to hit this time-she just threw it to be rid of it.
"Do you think I could stop being the way I am just because I decided to? Do you think everything is a superficial act I can play or not play as the spirit moves me? Can I be the well-brought up rich girl from Boston and go home to my parents whenever I decide that I've had enough fun playing the freak? Fun? Hah! You don't understand me, Bobby, but that's all right-no one understands anyone else, anyway, and no one can escape from the prison of their body and the worse solitary confinement of their minds. Our whole lives are spent in prison, so why not be the prison clown?"
Bobby didn't speak for a moment. He was amazed, although he had known she was not the complete idiot she made herself out to be.
"I'd like to talk to you. I'd like to help you. Perhaps a psychiatrist ... "
"Nuts! The only thing you want to help is to help yourself get between my legs! You're just like all men-a damn dirty pig!"
She turned back to the window and snorted loudly, and Bobby stopped with his mouth open to speak and yet could say nothing in reply to her outburst.
He had thought he had it, for a second, thought that he had penetrated through her shell for some reason. Perhaps it was because it was ready to be penetrated, broken apart, destroyed.
But then the shell had sealed the crack and it was lost and there was no use trying again. Not then. The shell would have to break of its own accord, or else she would live all her life without being hatched.
"We might as well get at it," she said, and came away from the window and sat next to him on the bed. "I suppose you want all you can get, huh? The usual things a girl has to give up if she expects to keep her honor!"
Right then Robby didn't care much one way or the other. He would much rather have talked.
But she was through talking.
He couldn't very well refuse her, either. Not after having come here with her, not without hurting her feelings, although she most certainly would not have admitted it. And he didn't really feel like refusing, either. The image of Sharon clinging to Richey Davis was still fresh in his mind, and it gave him a vicarious passion. A passion that should be spent somehow-and Annie was here, sitting on the bed next to him, volunteering to spend it in one way or the other.
He said nothing to her; but she moved closer and placed her hand on his leg and began to move it slowly upward, walking on the fingers, toward his prick.
"I love to get you men warm," she said. "I love to see you squirm and beg and then refuse to fuck you. It makes me feel good to have power over men, the dirty pigs! Are you beginning to get hot, Robby? Hmm? Feel like you need a nice warm pussy to put it in?"
"Hey, Annie," he said calmly, "I've always treated you squarely. If you don't want to carry this to a climax, then let's forget the whole thing. If you do want to, fine. But don't play games with me, huh?"
"Yeah. Sorry, Baldy," she said.
It was perhaps the first time in her life that Annie had ever said she was sorry.
Robby realized this too, and his brow wrinkled in question.
But she wasn't looking at him; she was staring down at her hand as it rubbed along the inner part of his thigh, toward the bulge his rising prick made in his pants.
"Yeah, I'll make it all right for you," she said. "Shall we get undressed?"
He nodded.
"Will you stay after you've come?"
"If you like."
"Will you sleep with me? All night? I want someone to sleep with tonight-or this morning, whatever the fuck it is."
"All right."
"I'll make it all right for you," she repeated.
Robby knew that something was happening to Annie. If it weren't such an improbable thought, he might've decided she was falling in love with him.
But that was too ridiculous even for his vanity to rationalize. Perhaps the vanity of Richey Davis could handle it, but not him.
They undressed. Annie was much larger than Robby, and she looked considerably stronger and healthier. She was, however, very definitely a woman.
Her breasts were large, With big nipples. Her hips were wide; her thighs huge. But she was solid and hard, and, looking at her, Bobby thought that fucking her would be good.
He wondered how far she would let him go. He didn't flatter himself that she would go all the way. She had fought off better men than he.
They lay together on the twisted gray sheets, and Bobby put his arms around her and began to caress her ample flesh, squeezing handfuls of buttocks and thighs, moving up to her jutting, hard nipples. Her hands ran over him the same way, expertly. She had vast experience in these preliminaries of love. She had never gone beyond them, but she lingered over them until the preliminaries became so urgent that they became the climax.
And practice makes perfect.
Robby was heaving in his need as she caressed him. She slid down suddenly, her breasts rubbing along the length of his stomach, and her breath was warm against him. He squirmed in readiness.
"You want me to suck you off?" she said, looking up at him.
"Yes, yes! Oh, yes!"
She lowered her face to him, enclosing his prick in her full, red lips, and she felt the fire of her kiss as she sucked gently on his large, throbbing organ.
He twisted and lunged against her, wanting to be as deep as possible, feeling the trembling work from his knees to his thighs and up, ripples of feeling which increased in intensity and frequency until he seemed to be one flowing thrill.
She continued to stimulate his cock with her lips and tongue, pausing only when he seemed too close to the final moment, letting him slide down from the peaks of passion only to renew her efforts a moment later.
Then finally he could resist no longer, and with a loud moan he thrust himself upward against her, fiercely.
She started to pause once again, to prolong the pleasure she was bringing him, but he cried:
"No! No! Don't stop!"
Once, twice more she sucked, and then he collapsed, his come surging forth to her, leaving him gasping, empty and breathless. Then Awful Annie climbed up beside him on the bed and wrapped her arms around him as though he were a beloved baby.
Robby slept there, wrapped in Annie's arms, completely exhausted.
Annie found herself unable to sleep, although she was very tired. Her mind wandered strangely, in much the same way it once had when she had been delirious with fever and pneumonia.
Sometime after noon she managed to fall asleep, but she tossed and turned and broke out in a cold sweat and clung to Bobby's naked, slender body.
Bobby awoke at four in the afternoon.
At first he couldn't remember where he was and lay staring at the ceiling.
Then he turned and saw that it wasn't Sharon in his arms, and it took a moment to remember who it was, her face buried in his armpit. When he remembered, he felt degraded, as one often does after awakening in a dirty bed in a grubby room with a damp, unknown body there.
And then he remembered that Sharon was sleeping with Richey Davis, that she had probably fucked him once or twice by now, and he had no room left in him for feelings of degradation. He was filled with far more powerful emotions.
He felt anxious to see her, to talk with her, to get things straightened out, and yet he felt reluctant to go to her. Not through pride, just through hurt.
The thought of her making love to Davis burned in his mind. His stomach felt as though it were being wrung out. He was physically sick.
He got out of bed quietly.
But he awakened Annie, who had not been soundly asleep at any time that day. She looked over at him, as he was searching for his clothes among the rug-like collection of garments.
"Good morning, you lousy prick," she said, sneering at him.
The Annie of old. Somewhere she had disappeared during the day, but now she was back in full force. Externally, at least. Her mind may have been changed, or decided on a change; but no one, not even Annie, could be sure of the workings of her mind.
"Make the coffee," she said.
"I'll put it on. I'm not having any. I have to be going, Annie. I have to get Davis' car back. It's almost night again. We slept all day."
"Yeah. You're cute when you sleep. You look just like a bald baby. You don't look real, Robby. You look more like a comic-book villain."
Robby didn't reply.
"Hey, have coffee with me."
"I can't."
Robby felt annoyed that she was trying to delay him from seeing Sharon and getting everything straightened out and getting rid of the burning sensation that was twisting him up inside.
"Please?"
It was another first for Awful Annie.
"All right," Robby said. "I'll stay for coffee. But then I have to go."
How could he refuse Awful Annie when she said please? Or even imagine it? It was a thing a man like Richey Davis would boast of.
"All right," she said, then got up and began to search for her own clothes.
She finally found a dressing robe beneath the chair and slipped it over her large body. Annie certainly didn't look like a rich girl in the morning. Of course, she hadn't slept well.
Robby finished dressing and Annie made coffee.
Having no kitchen table, she brought the cups in and put them on top of the hi-fi, which she pushed to the edge of the bed with her foot.
They sat on the bed and waited for the coffee to cool, and Robby noticed that Annie's robe was open in front and her heavy breasts were hanging out. He noticed without much interest. After having slept he didn't care to fuck her.
She didn't seem to care, either, and her exposed tits were accidental.
"Do you really have to go?"
"Yeah," he said.
"I'm going to be lonely."
He said nothing.
"Look ... if you can ... will you come back?"
"I-I don't imagine that will happen. But I'll come back if I can." , "Was I good to you last night?"
"Yes, very good."
"And I wasn't too sarcastic, was I? And not too foul-mouthed-at least, not with words?"
"No, not too foul."
"Do you think I'm terrible?"
"Not for last night."
"For everything I do? I mean, the way I look and act and talk?"
"We started to talk about that last night. Do you want to talk about it now?"
She thought about it, then said:
"No, let it go."
He shrugged and drank the hot coffee and burned the roof of his mouth.
The first cup of coffee made him less anxious to be going, and he stayed for a second cup.
His nervousness about seeing Sharon was increasing now, as the time grew nearer, and he wanted to put it off as long as possible.
Suppose she is still in bed with Richey, he thought. I'd hate that. I'd better wait until I'm sure they're up and dressed.
And then:
But suppose they get tired of waiting and go out together, and she isn't there and I don't know where to find her? I'd better get over there before they have a chance to leave.
But he drank a third cup of coffee.
"I'll be here all day," Annie said, interrupting his thoughts.
"All right."
"I hope you'll come back."
"Maybe."
He knew better.
"Bobby?"
"What?"
"I know men are-I mean, I know what you think of me. I can't blame you. But please, don't send anyone else over. Don't think I want you to come back just because I'm ready for sex and want to do things to any guy you might send over."
"I won't."
That thought had never entered his mind. "All right. Thank you, and I hope you will come back later. Being alone is no good at times."
"All right. We'll see."
Annie walked him to the door. She stood there, and he had no choice but to kiss her good-bye. But she didn't respond with any passion, and it was a rather tender kiss.
Then Robby went out and down the seven flights of stairs and out to the Cadillac, for the use of which he had traded his girl and also a great deal of his happiness and peace of mind. It was a poor bargain; and the fifteen-dollar ticket he pulled from under the windshield wiper, tore in half and tossed into the gutter didn't make it any better.
He drove off, bitterness in his heart.
While he was there, Annie had thought there was a chance that Robby might return later. But once he had disappeared down the stairs her mind was not influenced by his presence and she knew that he would not.
Why should he? she asked herself. I'm nothing but a freak.
Foul-mouthed as she was, Annie never cursed in her thoughts.
She wasn't sure of why she wanted Robby to return. It had nothing to do with love or anything of the sort. She guessed it was just loneliness, as she had told him. Strange to tell someone the truth....
But he wouldn't be back, and she had nothing to look forward to but loneliness. She hated so much to be alone with herself, because she was so foul.
And so sad.
She made more coffee and sat on the bed in her gaping robe and drank four cups, making her stomach feel crawly.
She thought about her life and wondered where the years had gone since she had realized first that she didn't believe in conformity and that she didn't want to be like everyone else. She had let the idea carry her too far, but she hadn't realized it until it was too late.
Robby had made her very sad, although she couldn't say why.
It had begun that morning, when he had asked her why she acted the way she did. She had almost talked seriously about herself-had started to, in fact, almost without realizing it-and then had relapsed into her shell and her pretense, because she had suddenly realized how ridiculous it was to talk truthfully to someone who had only known the external her.
It had extended through the long feverish and restless day, while Robby slept.
And now that he had gone, the feeling had intensified.
Sad. Sadder. Saddest. She had never been this sad. She had always managed to hide even from herself, behind her false identity. Now she found herself unable to hide any longer, and she realized how few happy moments her life had given her in contrast to all the unhappiness that she had not admitted at the time.
Although she had never felt this way before, she seemed to have known that she would someday. Subconsciously she had known, so now her feelings came to her as though she had known them before.
She felt that everything that was happening and everything that she was feeling had happened to her before. It was almost as though she were an observer with the ability to see her whole life at once, in relation to the scheme of the universe. As though she were gifted with racial memory on a personal level.
And then she understood why everything was familiar to her, and she knew what was going to happen next and understood why this was so. It had to be, in the same way that all her preceding life had passed, in the only way that was possible.
Annie felt much better after she had made this discovery and knew that there was nothing she could do, that she had done nothing that could not have been done, and had only moved throughout the tapestry of life, weaving her own bizarre, preordained pattern.
All this was clear in her mind.
Of course she was insane.
Annie brushed her hair carefully, a thing that she hadn't done in a long while. When it looked as good as possible, she took her robe off and walked naked to the window.
The fire escape was just below, and she crawled out and onto the iron landing.
She stood, holding the railing and looking down at the alley below. It was slightly windy, and the breeze blew through her hair. It felt good to have her hair brushed and unsnarled, and she felt a momentary regret that fate had not allowed her to have brushed her hair a few more times during her life.
But it was a little thing. All things were little things, when you saw them in relation to the whole of creation and in their proper niche in the universe.
She stood, large and naked, her hair blowing about her face, smiling out into the empty air, a tragic-comic figure. She looked as though she might be a martyr of some strange religion, somewhat unbalanced but with a very firm belief in transcendental powers. That may have been the reason for the smile upon her lips.
Across the alley the lights were beginning to go on in the opposite building. The windows all opened into flats similar to Annie's, and in one or two she could see people going about the motions of everyday existence in a preordained life. People who had not yet discovered the facts that she had today, and perhaps they never would.
It couldn't be explained, piece by piece. Dissection kills religion as well as anything else, and Annie's thoughts on this fire escape were essentially religious. She knew what she had to do.
Why she had to do it was a meaningless question. If one knows what he must do, it is enough. Why is for philosophers and doubters; how is enough for one who has grasped it.
Annie leaned far over the edge and felt gravity begin to tug at her, and knew that gravity was part of the overall pattern and did not resist it. She took her hands from the railing and leaned and kept her eyes open.
At that instant a young woman in the building directly across happened to look out her window.
It was a strange sight-a huge woman, stark naked, tottering on the edge of the fire escape not ten yards from her kitchen window.
The young woman watched in silence for a moment. Then she screamed. She couldn't move from the window.
Her scream interrupted Annie's thoughts, snapped her back from her musings.
But not far enough back. It would have been too late, anyway. She was starting to fall. She couldn't have regained her balance if she had tried.
She did not try.
She felt one split second of annoyance that the woman's scream should mar this moment. But this was too good to be spoiled by a petty annoyance like a scream. It was too good to be spoiled by anything mortal.
She smiled again, in rapture.
She was free-falling flying, free of the world she had hated and had not understood.
There was no fear. She was in a religious ecstasy, bliss.
But even her bliss could not keep a part of her mind from wondering, in those last seconds of life, what sort of sound she would make at the end of her journey, at the end of her allotted time.
CHAPTER TEN
Robby drove back to Marty Sparrow's Brooklyn apartment, still anxious to see Sharon and straighten things out, and still feeling anxiety about seeing her. Perhaps he sensed that things were not going to work out right.
He parked in front of the building and fought against his impatience, while he smoked a cigarette, sitting in the car.
He was wishing that Sharon would look out the window, see him, and come hurrying down. He would've preferred that she come to him. Then things might work out.
But with him returning to her it was going to be wrong; she had done the wrong thing, and now he had to forgive her. One should not have to go to the one that was going to be granted forgiveness.
Robby didn't feel any humiliation about it, at least not enough to worry him. It was Sharon's reaction that he was worried about. When a person of her limited intelligence began to feel guilty, it was a natural defense to act wronged or misunderstood or even angry. Robby was afraid that she might resort to this reaction, and then things would not work out the way he wanted them to.
The best thing would be for them to make absolutely no mention of what had happened the night before; but Robby knew that he would be unable to do that, because then the gnawing feeling of not knowing where he stood would not leave him. It would be a constant dread, living with Sharon and never being sure of when she might go away to see Davis or even someone else. That dread of losing her, even for one night, was worse than not having her at all. The situation had to be resolved.
But he was in no hurry to-rather, he was in a hurry but was sufficiently afraid of the outcome, so he didn't rush it.
He sat in the car and smoked two cigarettes and hoped that she would come down. It would be easier if they were alone. It was hard to talk in front of others.
But she didn't come down, and he knew that sooner or later he would have to go up and get her and resolve the situation, get a definite understanding between them. He knew what he wanted, and he knew what he feared.
He felt miserable.
Upstairs, the apartment was a shambles.
The party had destroyed, soiled, misplaced, spilled, upended and lost things. The rug was stained with spilled beer and whatever soup Awful Annie had not succeeded in licking up. Empty beer cans with ashes and cigarette butts in them were everywhere. Glasses with melted ice and perhaps a little Scotch littered the room. Cigarettes that had been halfway smoked and forgotten had burned into the wood of the furniture and ground into the filth of the rug.
The air was heavy with smoke and musty with the smell of too many drunken people in one place. All in all, the results were typical and the damage was not inordinate for this type of party.
Richey Davis and Sharon were sleeping under the blanket on one of the mattresses. She had crawled off him in the night and curled up beside him, her head snuggled against his broad chest.
She had thought, as she had fallen asleep again, that it was nice to be able to sleep against a broad chest for a change, and she might have imagined that she was going to be able to from then on.
Marty and Roundheels Lynn had gone into the bedroom, too tired to fuck, and had fallen asleep there, with their clothes on. Roundheels Lynn had to be an extremely tired girl to go to sleep with out fucking.
The Frenchman Jacques was still on the couch. He was snoring and perhaps dreaming. He might have been dreaming of the nice, quiet, comparatively rational life in his native France, having become acquainted now with a few of the typical young Americans.
Little Carol slept on the floor.
Alexander was sleeping in a chair.
Myerson and Iula Humps were on another mattress. Myerson had been the only one with enough endurance left to awaken in the middle of the night and fuck his woman. She had slept through it, but that hadn't bothered him at all. He had liked it, in fact. It brought to mind the twisted delights of necrophilia-which he had never tried, but which interested him no end-and also of hypnotic trances.
At the time that Robby had been having coffee with Annie, the people in Marty's apartment began to rise. It is a funny thing about sleeping crowds. They usually seem to awaken at approximately the same time. Perhaps it is only because the first to awaken makes enough slight noises to disturb the others.
In this case it was the Frenchman who awoke first. He looked around in disbelief for a moment, not remembering where he was. Then the events of the night before came back to him.
He looked around for Lynn, feeling morning passion and wanting her to go down on him again, but she was in the bedroom with Marty and he didn't see her. It was just as well; he had better be going.
It had been interesting to observe these people, and even more interesting to be with Lynn. But now it was morning, and he saw clearly that this was not his element, and that he had better leave.
He checked his wallet to make sure he had not been robbed; perhaps his sleeping mind had taken notice of Marty's suggestion. He found that his money was all there.
Then he got up, brushed off his clothes as well as he could with his hands, combed his hair without a mirror, hoped that he looked respectable enough to be seen on the streets, and went out, trying not to disturb anyone else, because he was basically a polite fellow, and these people had treated him well and generously.
He didn't know that Marty had pissed in his ear. His sleeping mind had probably rejected that impression. Too ridiculous for a sleeping mind to comprehend.
He paused at the door to look back, his morning passion a lot stronger, as he saw that Iula Humps had nothing on and that the blanket had slipped off her breasts, one of which Myerson was cupping in his sleep. But he shrugged it off and smiled, then shook his head and left.
He didn't realize that Brooklyn was not Manhattan, and he became lost and he wandered. Finally he had to take a taxi to find his hotel.
Jacques' departure, quiet as it was, was the beginning of a new day; and the others began to stir and awaken, one by one, within minutes of each other.
"God, I'm dying of thirst," Richey Davis said, before he had opened his eyes.
Sharon stirred, remembered who she was sleeping with and snuggled closer to him.
"Get your ass out of bed and find me a beer, broad," Richey said.
"Ummm," Sharon said, then snuggled even tighter to him.
Richey slapped her resoundingly on the buttocks, and she sat up. The slap fully awakened her, and she looked around, wide eyed, remembering.
Alexander was sitting in a chair and looking at her, and she realized that she was naked. She pulled the covers up around her neck.
"Find beer," Davis ordered.
"Richey ... everybody will know what we did last night," she said in a worried voice. "So what? We did it."
"But ... somebody will tell Robby. Everybody here knows I'm his girl."
"Hell, he already knows."
"You told me he'd left."
"I lied."
"Lied? Is he here?"
"Not now. Find me a beer, dammit, before I have to beat you into submission."
"Please ... tell me."
"Oh, for Christ's sake. Robby was here when we went to bed together. I bet him you'd sleep with me, but he thought you were too faithful to fuck anybody else. When he saw you weren't he left with Awful Annie."
She bit her lip.
"Ain't no big thing, sweetie," he continued. "Now get up and find me a beer."
"Was ... was Robby here when you ... you made me?"
"I don't know. Probably."
"Damn you! Why did you do it?" Davis shrugged indifferently. "I was drunk, I guess."
"But ... you know how Robby feels about me ... and he's your friend. How could you?"
"Hell, I was willing to go to sleep. You were the one who insisted on screwing. You even crawled on top of me and pounded away. I was innocent, kid. You trapped me when I was half asleep, so don't blame me."
Sharon looked at him and blinked. She would've blushed, except that it was not the enlightened thing to do, and she'd learned how to control it.
Her clothes were near, and she reached out with one hand while holding the blanket up with the other, and gathered them. Then she began to dress, under the covers.
Richey had still not opened his eyes.
Marty Sparrow came from the bedroom, wearing boxer shorts that gaped open in front, revealing his flaccid prick. He stood by Davis, then stretched, yawned, and scratched himself.
"Is there anything to drink?" Richey asked.
"I think we drank it all. That must've been why we stopped drinking."
"That was logical," Davis answered.
"Damn! I need a drink," Marty said.
"Who can we send out to buy some beer?"
"I'll go. You got any bread?"
"Yeah. If there's anything I do have, it's bread. But no sense in you going. I'll send this chick," Richey said, motioning to where Sharon was hidden beneath the covers.
"That your blonde?"
Davis chuckled and pulled the covers back.
Sharon, in the process of fastening her bra, looked up with wide eyes at Marty and didn't blush.
"Well, I'm damned-Robby's woman. Richey Davis, you're no good at all."
"Ain't it a scream?" said Richey.
Marty laughed. Seeing Robby's girl unfaithful made him feel a little better about Lynn's fucking around. Misery loves company, as somebody had said so long ago that it was a truism now.
"She wouldn't know the way," Marty said. "I can go faster, and will I hurry! My mouth feels like it's got hair growing in it."
"Yeah. You know why?"
"Why?"
"The Frenchman pissed in your mouth after you went to sleep!" Richey told him seriously. Marty laughed and called Davis a bastard. "Where is the Frog?"
"I guess he left."
"I'll bet we really screwed up the picture of America for him."
"He'll probably catch the next jet back."
Richey found his pants and searched for the pocket. He took out some folded bills and gave them to Marty.
"Here, get as much as you want. I for one am the most thirsty man alive."
"I'll be back in fifteen minutes-unless you want me to take the shortcut. Then I'll make it in five or so. The store's about four blocks from here."
"Yeah, sure ... no, wait. I let Robby take the car so he could go home with Awful Annie."
"Oh, my God!"
They laughed, and Marty waved as he went out to buy beer.
"Did Robby really go with Annie?" Sharon asked.
She was dressed now. "Yep."
She bit her lip. "Jealous?"
"No," she answered shortly.
It was impossible for her to be jealous of Awful Annie, but she was worried.
Myerson was searching the refrigerator, saying that he was starved. He wanted Martha Washington Jones to make him pancakes, but she got angry about it.
Davis told him only fags ate; men drank.
Little Carol woke up and sat shyly in one comer, wondering where Annie had gone. She was a very indefinite and vague-minded girl.
Davis found half a glass of Scotch with a cigarette butt in it, cursed wastefulness, and drank it. He took the butt out first, though.
Alexander, who was very athletic and a health nut-he who usually did twenty push-ups every morning-pushed up the windows to let some of the smoke out and some perhaps fresher air in. The shades were drawn, however, to keep the bright sunlight out. Today sunlight was too much even for him, at least before he had a beer.
Davis, in thirsty search of more Scotch and wearing only his shorts, wandered into the bedroom. And then he was quite suddenly less thirsty, although his mouth was no less dry.
Lynn was lying on the bed looking at him, making no attempt to hide her naked and lovely body.
Davis leaned against the doorjamb enjoying the view.
"Good morning," she said, yawning. "Yeah," he said. "Where's Marty?"
"Out buying beer."
"Oh? He didn't wake me. He must've been very thirsty. He's usually so eager in the morning."
Davis said nothing, but he knew....
"Are you eager in the morning?" Lynn asked, then smiled.
"Yeah, especially when I see a friend's girl bare. Why? Is there anything I can do for you, Lynn?"
She smiled again.
"How long will he be gone?"
"Long enough."
"I hate to cheat on him when he's around," she explained.
"You did last night."
"I did? Oh-the Frenchman. I was drunk last night. That makes a difference." Davis appreciated her logic. "Come here," she said.
Davis pushed the door shut and went over to the bed. Standing beside it, he removed his shorts.
"You're very nice looking, Richey. And I've heard a lot about you. I suppose you've heard a lot about me too, haven't you?"
He shrugged.
"Whatever you've heard is probably true. I'm such a tramp. Come here." Richey did.
He knew that they should hurry, should do it before Marty returned, but she looked so good that he wanted to make it last. He reached out and placed one hand gently on her belly, feeling the muscles of her abdomen tighten at his touch.
He ran his hand upward to her breasts, then slid over so that he was near and kissed her neck, her ear, her shoulder. His hand cupped her breast, and he moved his lips to it. Her nipple rose between his fingers, and he ran his tongue over it, feeling it tighten into a hard ball of desire. His free hand moved down to her thighs and squeezed.
"You don't have to wait," she whispered in his ear. "I'm ready, Richey. I'm so ready!"
But he still wasn't ready to hurry. It wasn't that urgent yet.
He moved down, leaving her breasts and kissing her stomach, her thighs. His hand moved gently, parting her thighs. She saw what he intended to do, and a moan of anticipation escaped from her parted lips.
"Oh, hurry. Do it!"
"This?"
"Oh, yes. Yes!"
She began to tremble uncontrollably. Her hands twisted in his hair, and she panted and twisted against him. As she watched, he buried his face in her, tonguing her clitoris delectably. Flinging her legs over his shoulders, she moaned in ecstasy. The dampness of her passion washed against Richey's face.
Richey left her then, only to return, sliding along the length of her body.
She kept her thighs around him and urged him with her hands to hurry. And he was ready now. He came to her and there was no resistance, no hesitation, only warmth and softness and the thrill of the first entrance to love.
And the second.
The third.
She clung to Richey, her arms around his back, her legs wrapped around his hips, her body raised from the bed as far as she could, and moved with him, in counter rhythm, forward and upward, as he went down and in, then back and down and withdrew. She pulled him in with the suction of her body, wouldn't let him leave her.
And he had no desire to leave her. The only desire that he had then was to feel the thrill and to fill her with his love.
"Oh, beautiful," she whispered. "I love it!"
And Richey drove his love to her.
They rolled on the bed, blind in their passion, and the shadow of a thrill came to them, then the thrill itself, moving through them, seeming to join their two bodies together, melting them into one being, one thing of love and desire.
Faster, closer together, more intense each time, until it was one long sensation sweeping across them, and then it exploded throughout their separate beings, and for the one lingering instant of completion they were joined more firmly, as though they could never part, exploded together into one throbbing creature.
And then, in exhaustion, they sank down, holding each other closely. They were melted in their fulfillment.
"You're wonderful," Lynn said.
Richey grunted.
Their eyes were closed, shutting them from reality to better savor the moment.
Therefore they didn't see Marty. He stood by the door and looked at them, wrapped in the afterglow of love.
He had never seen Lynn with another man before-not like this, naked and relaxed. It was different to see her than simply to know that she was unfaithful, and it made him feel very different about it.
He was to feel different for quite a while, in one way or another.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
When Richey Davis and Roundheels Lynn came out of the bedroom, Marty was opening beers in the kitchen. He said nothing to them, and they didn't know whether he suspected they had been fucking or not.
They didn't know he had seen them. They were not worried about whether or not he knew. It wasn't as though it had been the first time she'd cheated on him.
Richey went out and got a beer for himself, and Marty gave him the change that had been left and everything was apparently all right.
Sharon was dressed now and sat in the comer.
Davis made a point of not sitting by her. He didn't want her to get the wrong idea, just because he had fucked her. Women tend to do things like that.
She sat alone and looked rather sad and unsure of herself.
Little Carol, who also didn't know what to do, went over and sat by her, and the two girls began to chat in typically phony Village-like conversation.
They did have something in common. Sharon's man had left with Little Carol's woman, and they were both waiting for them to return.
"Do you suppose they'll be back soon?" Little Carol asked.
When she spoke she looked directly at Sharon's face. Remembering what this girl had done with Annie the night before, Sharon found herself feeling excited. It was something that she had never thought much about, let alone observed, and she would have supposed it to be disgusting. It hadn't been, however. She had felt very interested and curious, and more ... she had even imagined how it must feel to have a woman suck her off.
Now, sitting next to the girl, she thought about it again and wondered once more.
"I imagine so," she said. "I don't know. Robby's never done anything like this before."
"Annie'll do anything," Little Carol said.
"I suppose so. Do you really live with her?"
Little Carol blushed.
"No. I have my own place. I stay at her apartment sometimes. I suppose you saw what happened last night, didn't you?"
She paused, then added:
"When I was hypnotized."
Sharon nodded. For some reason she felt glad that the conversation had taken this turn.
"It didn't disgust you? I mean, you don't mind sitting here with me after what you saw me do?" Carol asked.
"Of course not. After all, we're not children."
"I don't suppose you've ever had that done to you?" Little Carol asked, almost shyly.
"Not by a woman, but Bobby's sucked me off often enough."
"I've had both men and women. I like women so much better. They're so much softer and more gentle."
"I can understand that," Sharon answered.
Little Carol looked as though she were choosing her words carefully for her next statement.
Sharon waited, curious, wondering ... and excited.
And it was then that Bobby came in.
He saw Sharon on the couch and went over to her, thankful that she was sitting with a girl and not with Richey Davis.
Davis called from the kitchen, saying:
"She's all in one piece and good as new."
Bobby waved vaguely in his direction, but he didn't speak.
Although Sharon had been waiting for him, she felt a little disappointed that he had arrived right then. The conversation with Little Carol was getting interesting.
"Is Annie with you?" Little Carol asked.
Robby shook his head.
"No, she stayed at her place. I guess she forgot about you."
"Well, it doesn't matter," Little Carol said. Robby sat next to Sharon.
Little Carol looked wistfully at the girl and got up, then said:
"I suppose I might as well go, then."
"Good-bye, Little Carol," Sharon said.
"Good-bye," the little dyke replied.
She started for the door. Richey Davis had come from the kitchen and stopped her before she left.
"Hey, stick around," he said. "We'll have some more hypnotism after we're drunk."
"No, thanks."
"No good? I thought you enjoyed it."
"No good."
"Well, have a beer, anyway."
Richey Davis thought it would be great fun to fuck a Lesbian.
"No, I have to go."
"Just one. There's no hurry."
Little Carol wasn't the least bit interested in Davis. However, looking over at where Sharon and Robby were in earnest conversation, she let her tongue lick across her lips and considered. There was always a chance that the two would not get together again, after the switch earlier in the morning.
"Well, just one," Little Carol said to Davis.
Davis went to get her a can of beer. He was smirking.
Even Lesbians can't resist me, he thought as he pushed the key through the can. I'm the most desirable fucker on earth.
He brought the can to Little Carol, smiling at her in his most charming manner, white teeth showing to good advantage.
She took it and smiled back, thinking that he was the stupidest clown she'd ever seen.
"Let's sit down and get acquainted," Davis said.
She shrugged. She might as well, while she waited. It might be laughs, even.
They sat on one of the mattresses, and Davis began to use his most charming line, sure that he would make Little Carol with no great effort.
Little Carol smiled at him and watched Sharon from the comer of her eye.
"It wasn't the first time, was it?" Robby was saying.
He knew that this was the wrong approach; it wasn't what he wanted to say, but he was a fool.
"Oh, Robby, don't be that way," Sharon said, acting quite bored, as though she were ignoring the accusations of a small child.
And, after all, what was a man who didn't believe in the principals of free thinking but a child? A child in emotional development, anyway. At least she convinced herself of this, perhaps in building her own emotional defenses and rationalization.
"Well, was it? He seemed pretty damn sure you'd want him." She shrugged.
"So it wasn't the first time," she said. "So what? I don't love him, so what does it matter?"
"What matters is whether or not you love me."
"Of course I do."
"Then why did you let him fuck you?"
"It was nothing. Physical, just physical. Don't be so childish."
"It hurt me, Sharon."
"You fucked Annie, didn't you?"
"Afterward, yes. What else should I have done? Sit here and watch you screw Davis?"
She shrugged.
"Did he fuck you?"
Sharon looked at him, thinking that he was asking a pretty damned stupid question.
"Did he fuck you, or did you just sleep together?"
It was time to lie. Robby would have known, really, that it was a lie; but it wouldn't have mattered. The fact that she cared enough to lie would have made things all right with them.
But she didn't understand this; she just heard a stupid question and thought how silly Robby was. How small-townish in his moral code. How unhip.
"Of course we fucked," she said.
She really thought this would make Robby passionate. She understood enough about men to realize that they reacted that way to admissions of infidelity. But she didn't see that there could also be other reactions, ones strong enough to nullify the passion and the jealous desire to keep the girl who had fucked around on him. She never for a moment thought there was a chance of losing him.
"Why, Sharon? Honey, why?"
"Oh, Robby, for heaven's sake! You're acting like a child about this."
"A child?"
"After all, it's no big thing. We're both grownup people who realize that the American morality is for squares. We live in New York City, you know-not Smalltown, U.S.A. So why make a big issue out of it?"
It was the wrong thing to say. The one thing about Sharon that Robby had never liked was the way she adopted the most phony aspects of Village life. And here it was, coming up at this time, when he was in no mood to smile at her innocent acceptance.
In theory it was all right, a bit stupid but harmless. But it was no longer theory. This was his girl. And he saw it happening again and again, now that it had happened this first time.
Or was it the first time? Perhaps he had been the fool, blind enough to think that her reality was all theory.
"You should say that you're sorry, Sharon. Please say that. Tell me that you were wrong and that it'll never happen again. Please...."
It was almost pleading. Hell, it was pleading. It was the one last effort. But even as he asked, Robby saw that it was no good. The indoctrination of the Big City had been too thorough.
"How can I be sorry?" she asked. "I didn't do anything wrong. If I say I'm sorry it would be like admitting that the squares are right!"
"Then admit it!"
She frowned. This was the first inkling she had that this had gotten out of hand. She could still, possibly, have saved it. But she didn't know how, even if she had been sure she wanted to.
"Don't be a child," she said.
She even said it with sarcasm.
And that was the end.
Bobby stood up. Sharon frowned at him and started to get up too. She thought that they were going to leave.
Just then Marty came over with two beers for them, but Bobby shook his head.
"I'm leaving," he said. "Thanks, anyway."
"Oh. Well, we'll see you people."
"Sharon's staying. Maybe she'd like one."
"Oh?"
Sharon looked from one to the other, keeping surprise from showing on her face.
"Hey, Marty?" Bobby spoke in a questioning tone.
"Urn?"
"De Sade is more logical than St. Paul." Marty blinked. He didn't have the context. "Well, sure," he replied, wondering what in hell he'd agreed to now.
"See you. So long, Sharon...."
She wanted to ask when she should come home, when she would see him.
But she was stunned. She didn't understand his behavior, and she couldn't act as though it mattered. Not in front of Marty. Could she?
Could she?
Bobby smiled at her. It was a tender smile. After all, they had lived together a long time.
Then he turned and left without looking back.
She heard his footsteps, rapid and heavy on the stairs. It wouldn't've done any good to chase him. She didn't. It would have been a square thing to do.
"Beer?" Marty asked, again holding a can out to her.
She took it and held it without drinking it.
Marty pursed his lips and then moved away. He had troubles of his own, and heartaches of his own, and to hell with anyone else.
"Excuse me," Little Carol said, interrupting Richey Davis in the middle of one of his most charming lines.
She stood up and went over to Sharon.
Richey watched her, his mouth open. He couldn't believe it. But then, because he had a sense of humor and a sense of the ludicrous that overrode even his vanity, he laughed and went into the kitchen for another beer.
On the way he stopped to tell Marty that his heart had been broken by a fickle woman, then laughed some more.
But Marty Sparrow understood about broken hearts and only smiled with his mouth.
"Have an argument?" Little Carol asked.
Sharon didn't want to talk about it. She was afraid that her feelings might show.
She shrugged, then said:
"He's a square. He doesn't buy free love and all that. Hell, if he wants a bungalow in the suburbs, he'll have to find another girl."
"You love him?"
"Don't be ridiculous," Sharon said. Little Carol smiled and sat down. "Do you have a place to stay?" Sharon hadn't thought of that. "No," she said. "And I don't have any money, either."
"Well, look, honey, I've got a big enough place for two, if you'd like to move in with me for a while. Just until you can get a place of your own. It wouldn't be any trouble. In fact, I'd welcome the company."
"Thank you, but...."
"Don't worry."
"What?"
"You're worried because I'm a Lesbian."
Sharon said nothing. She wasn't really worried about that. But she didn't know what the accepted hip procedure was, and without knowing the right thing to say she preferred to keep quiet.
Did hip people frown on homosexuality or not? She thought that they probably did not. It was a form of free thinking, after all, and she knew that there was nothing that was wrong and that morals didn't exist except in the stupid laws and stupid minds.
"Well, don't worry. It's not that, honey. I just don't want to see you hung up without a place to stay. I won't try anything with you. Unless...."
"I'm not worried about that," Sharon replied. "After all, we're both adults, and we both know what it's all about. I'm certainly not a prude."
"But you've never tried to make it with a woman, have you?"
"No."
"Perhaps because you were never in that situation, right? I mean, a hip gal like you would probably be game to try anything once. Anything for kicks."
Little Carol had sized Sharon up very well.
"Sure, I'll try anything once," Sharon answered. "After all, how can one tell if one likes it if one hasn't tried it?"
"Look, let's get out of here," Carol said, trying not to show her eagerness. "We can go over to my place and you can see how you like it. The place, I mean."
Then she grinned.
There was no reason to stay there. Except maybe Richey Davis, and he was ignoring her.
She thought of the rapture that had showed on Annie's face when Little Carol had been making love to her, and the excitement that she herself had felt watching one woman bring another to climax. It had made her hotter than watching any man make it with a woman.
She wondered what it felt like, whether or not it would be different from being tongued by a man.
Did tongues have sex, after all? Would the peak be as intense? She wondered what it would be like to enjoy and be enjoyed by a woman. That thought shocked her. She was really curious. She knew then that she wanted Little Carol to touch, to explore, to stimulate, to tongue her.
For a moment she was worried. All her background, her early training condemned homosexual love. It was wrong, sinful, she had always been taught. It was sick.
But now her new mind conquered her old inhibitions, and she thought:
I'm a big girl now. I have to shake off these moralities. Nothing is wrong if one enjoys it. And I think that I'll enjoy it. At least I can try it. It certainly won't hurt to try.
"All right," she said. "Let's go see if I like it."
"The place?"
"Of course," she answered, but she smiled archly at Little Carol.
Little Carol had been afraid Sharon had not been listening to her.
Actually Sharon had been thinking:
About how it might be with Little Carol.
About how Annie had looked.
Happy.
Contented.
Sated.
Writhing in the arms of this girl on the bed. And she had made up her mind to try it, just once.
Sharon smiled and stood up.
Little Carol looked up at her and let her glance slide down from Sharon's face to her breasts and then farther down, to the fullness of her buttocks beneath her skirt, enjoying the way her thighs rounded out the material. She was very glad that she had decided to wait.
Little Carol got up and they moved to the door together.
Everyone seemed to be watching them. But Sharon didn't care. Everyone would realize how hip she was. After all, this was a very open-minded group.
"Have a gay time," Richey Davis said.
Sharon said good-bye from the doorway to the room in general, then followed Little Carol out.
Walking behind her down the stairs, she looked at the girl's slender body and remembered how she had looked as she had made love to Annie. Suddenly she was very anxious to get to little Carol's and see if she liked it.
It would be more than a kick; it would be a new kick. It would tie her even more to the new life that she wanted to lead, the life that she imagined for herself.
Probably the best thing that had ever happened to her was to have Robby leave her. And when she went to Robby's to get her clothes she'd tell him about it. If she liked it better with a woman than she did with a man, she would tell him that too. Wouldn't that shock him, with his stupid smalltown morals?
Downstairs in the hall Carol hesitated. They were standing back from the door.
Sharon stood close to her and waited, while the girl seemed to think about something. What she wanted to say, perhaps.
"I lied to you," Little Carol said.
She could say this now that she knew Sharon was going with her.
"Lied?"
"You know why it was that I wanted you to come home with me."
"Yes, I know."
"You don't mind?"
"No. You know I don't mind. I'm coming with you, aren't I?"
Sharon tried to look nonchalant. But her heart was pounding. She thought that she wanted it as much as Little Carol did, right then.
"Sharon...." Little Carol whispered, then stepped closer.
She stood on tiptoes and kissed Sharon on the lips. After a moment Sharon kissed her back, mouth open, feeling the hot fire of Little Carol's tongue, as it moved within her mouth.
Little Carol's hand moved down between her thighs, cupping against her, squeezing ever so gently, just once. Sharon would have done it right there.
"Let's hurry," Little Carol said.
"Yes," Sharon whispered, and they went out into the street, Little Carol first and Sharon following close behind, burning with desire, damp with passion.
Hurry, Sharon! There are things to be proved.
Oh, hurry, Little Carol, the answering thought came, there are so many new things for both of us to find.
The ride on the train from Brooklyn back to the Village was excruciating, for there was no way they could indulge their passions on the earlymorning train. There were too many sleepy-eyed passengers, who, though they might be wrapped up in their own thoughts, would certainly snap wide awake at the sight of two girls openly making love.
When finally they reached Little Carol's pad, both were torrents of passion.
Once inside the dark, foul-smelling hallway, Little Carol once again pulled the now-eager Sharon to her and kissed her fiercely. Sharon moaned with pleasure, as the mousy girl pulled her skirt high and sought the soft inner recesses of her womanhood.
"Oh, Little Carol!" she cried. "So good! So good!"
"Then let's get upstairs so we can do it right," Little Carol said huskily. "It's been so long since I've had a virgin."
Little Carol practically ripped Sharon's clothes from her, once the door had been closed behind them, and forced her to the bed.
Sharon, inexperienced as she was in the acts of Lesbian love, instinctively knew her role and played it well. She opened herself to receive Little Carol's intimate kiss, and after only a moment she throbbed through the most satisfying release she had ever known.
But Little Carol did not stop there. She kept her attention focused on this new lover and refused to let her relax even for a moment. Then she twisted around so they were in a position to love each other mutually, and Sharon, after only a moment's hesitation, grasped her lover around the buttocks and pulled her down for loving.
Again and again they loved each other thusly, with scarcely a pause for breath, until finally they both sank into an exhausted slumber.
Hours later they awakened, renewed their loving for a time, and then got up to shower together before going out for food.
Both were secure and happy in their new-found love, for the Lesbian pattern of jealousy and insecurity had not yet had a chance to intrude into their relationship.
CHAPTER TWELVE
"I never thought Sharon was that way," Marty said.
"Never trust a woman," Davis said.
Marty looked at Davis to see if he was being sarcastic. No, not sarcastic, funny in his way. He was too brutally frank to be sarcastic. Marty knew that he could never blame Davis for anything, even for making love to Lynn. Davis just did what he wanted and never tried to justify it, and it is hard to blame a man for that.
But Davis wasn't even thinking of Lynn then. He was concentrating on getting drunk. That was the ideal state-drunk with panties on one's ears.
Where were his panties? That damned Frenchman had stolen a pair-Sharon's. There were Robin's wrinkled in a little patch on the floor, by the mattress. Why hadn't he taken Lynn's? Oh, that's right-she hadn't been wearing any. Wearing nothing, as a matter-of-fact. But very good in bed. Very good. Davis could think of no one that he had ever enjoyed more.
He felt like complimenting Marty on the quality of his woman, but it wasn't the diplomatic thing to do.
He was already rather drunk.
Everyone was, in fact. It doesn't take much to get drunk after awakening from another drunk. Marty had brought a case and a half of beer, and they were steadily working their way through the supply.
Marty wanted to be drunk, because he thought it might help him forget his troubles with Lynn. Richey Davis wanted to be drunk, because it was the best way to be. Between them they put away nearly a case.
Lynn had done her share too. She always had the excuse that she was drinking to forget her problem. Of course, when she was drunk her problem was worse ... but then it's doubtful whether or not she wanted to forget it. Without a problem she would have been just another girl.
"Let's hypnotize someone," Davis suggested.
"Yeah," Marty agreed.
Diversion! That's what he needed. Maybe he should let them hypnotize him.
No-if he were in a trance, Lynn would probably ball everyone there. There was no stopping her when she was drunk. Mechanical as a witch, a real piston.
But what was the difference? She would eventually sleep with everyone that she knew, anyway. Why not all at once? It might even purge her, get it out of her system. An overdose of balling. Naw, nothing would cure her....
But thinking about it, Marty grew excited. He could anticipate the hurt that he would feel while watching Lynn do it with everyone, one after the other. But along with the hurt was passion. It is one of the perversities of mankind that it is much more exciting to think of your girl with another man than it is to think of her with you. Man's natural masochism?
And suddenly he wanted to see it, wanted to be hurt and to feel this greatest passion and the anguish that would go with it, that would be part of it.
He looked at her, sitting cross-legged on the floor, very pretty and belonging to him and yet sleeping with every other man that she met, and he wanted to hurt her and he wanted to be hurt. And then he wanted to make love to her.
"Hypnotize Lynn," he said.
Myerson looked at Lynn.
"Sure," she said. "Why not? But I won't be responsible for what I do in a trance."
"People aren't responsible, anyway; they're guided by the twists of their minds," Marty said, looking at the label on his beer can and speaking in precise although obviously drunken tones.
"Don't be sarcastic, dear," Lynn said, then giggled.
She was wondering what they would do to a nymphomaniac who was in a trance. She could imagine. It would probably be fun, if Marty let them do what they wanted. For once in her life she would have a good excuse for doing what she always did, anyway. Even Marty couldn't blame her if she was hypnotized.
That was an idea-get hypnotized and balled once a day so that she could still get it but would not be responsible. She would have to suggest that to Marty.
"Well, let's go," Marty said, sounding impatient.
Myerson took Lynn over to the couch and got out his St. Christopher medal. She was a good subject, very willing. Anxious to be absolved of what she was anxious to do.
She hoped that she would still be able to feel it while they were doing it to her. It wouldn't be any good if she couldn't feel it. And she hoped that Richey Davis would be the first. He had been very good earlier.
She heard Myerson's voice, soothing, saw the shiny medal swing, convinced herself that she was under hypnosis, and was. Or thought she was. It's a strange thing and hard to tell if it is really working or if the person is trying so hard to make it work that they fake it, subconsciously. It doesn't matter; the results are the same.
Marty looked closely at Lynn, and she stared through him, her eyes blank.
"Is she under?" he asked.
"Yeah," Myerson said, grinning. "What shall we have her do?"
"Convince her that she's a bitch in heat and that we're all male dogs," Marty said.
Myerson looked at him to see if he was serious.
"Really?"
"Sure. Why not?"
"Well, she's your girl."
"Ah! She's been sleeping with everyone, anyway, and it never bothered me. Why should this?"
"Well, I don't know. I wouldn't want my girl to ball a whole cluster of guys. Even in a trance."
"I don't care. It'll be fun. Go ahead."
"Yeah, why not?" Davis said, stepping closer.
He was glad that Marty felt this way about it. It made him feel better about having balled her earlier.
Myerson shrugged, then turned to Lynn. He told her to undress, mentioning each article of clothing as she came to it.
There was a blank look on her face, but there was just a faint hint of a smile at the comer of her lips. As though she were faking it and trying hard not to laugh. No one noticed this, and it may have been nothing, anyway.
Lynn was naked. She sat and looked blankly at Myerson, awaiting instructions.
"Tell her she's a dog," Marty said.
He was breathing hard. He wanted this to be as degrading as possible, like animals, not people.
Myerson told her. Lynn's eyelids flickered and then she obeyed, moving stiffly, woodenly, like one would imagine one would move in a trance. She got down on all fours on the floor and waited.
"Who's first?" Myerson asked.
"Go ahead," Marty told him. "But take all your clothes off. Let's do this animal bit up right."
Myerson shrugged, then started undressing.
Everyone was excited, seeing Lynn crouched in that position. There was nothing hidden from view, and it was obvious that she was ready for love. But then she always was.
Richey undressed too, to be ready. He knew that he was going to be ready to burst after he had watched Myerson do it.
Martha Washington Jones stepped closer, to watch her man in action, smiling with one comer of her mouth. She also sneaked a sideward glance downward at Davis' naked passion, then smiled a bit more.
"Go ahead," Marty said.
Myerson moved behind Lynn. He was not quite ready, a little nervous in front of everyone. He moved his body forward and against her, and he grew taut at the contact. Taut, then rigid, then throbbing, and he shuffled an inch nearer on his knees and took her.
Lynn let her head drop and raised her buttocks, and Myerson heaved himself to her. His arms encircled her middle, and he clung to her body. Lynn followed his rhythm, her thighs straining as her body lifted, then fell. She was moaning, but they were very human sounds, little whimpers of delight.
Myerson moved faster, harder, leaning over her. Then he threw back his shoulders, so that the only contact was where they were joined, and with one long motion he let his desire burst.
Lynn remained on the floor, still whimpering.
Alexander and Davis were both naked.
Marty nodded to Davis, who stepped up smiling and placed himself behind her, guided himself into her and plunged.
"Ooooh," Lynn cried, a sound that no dog ever made.
Davis beat himself to her, hammering against her buttocks, sweat covering his large body. His hands wrapped around her thighs and caressed her as he drove her forward and they moved together across the floor, a few feet, then suddenly they were in frozen completion.
Lynn made it with him, together, crying out her ecstasy.
As he left her, Richey Davis barked. Anything for a laugh.
Marty was watching Lynn, with Richey still crouched behind her. Marty had a broom in his hand, and he stepped forward, then hit Richey across the rump, with the straw end.
"Git, dog!" he said.
Richey yelped and scampered away on all fours. It was very funny and everyone laughed as Marty chased the sinful dog.
Richey collapsed, exhausted, and tried to look up with dog-like eyes, but he was laughing too hard.
Then Marty turned back to Lynn. She was still crouched, awaiting the next one. No one noticed whether or not she had laughed at the dog shooing. Marty knelt and placed a hand on the small of her back, and she raised her hips upward, obligingly, to let him enter. Her body shook in expectation and moved up in an urging motion.
Marty placed the end of the broom against her and pushed gently. A few inches. Lynn frowned, not realizing what it was.
Myerson laughed. He thought it was funny to fool a dog. Like tying a can to her tail.
And then Marty stood up and shoved with all his lean strength and rammed the broom handle into her, in until it ruptured the tender tissue!
Lynn screamed in agony and rolled on the floor, clutching herself, trying to hold herself together. Marty stood, stunned, holding the broom and looking from it to her. No one spoke. Only Lynn's screams filled the room.
"Jesus, call an ambulance!" Myerson shouted.
Alexander was at the phone.
Martha Washington Jones knelt by Lynn, wanting to help, but there was nothing any of them could do.
Richey Davis stood back and watched ... very, very sober. He was the only one who understood at all. Including Marty.
Marty fell to his knees, taking Lynn in his arms. She was still screaming. He kissed her face, her neck, her breasts, her lips.
"Lynn," he whispered, "oh, dear God! Lynn!"
Numbness seemed to set in now, and she stopped screaming. She looked at Marty, her mouth working soundlessly. Was it a question on her lips?
"Oh, God, I love you," Marty whispered.
He buried his face against her and they sank to the rug, lying together in the pool of her blood. Her fingers dug into his back and she was still trying to speak.
No one else knew what to do, and they stood helplessly by feeling sick, nervous, embarrassed and not a little frightened.
"Marty...." she said, her voice dying.
She could say no more.
Marty clung to her and the tears racked his slender body, as he whispered her name over and over again.
Richey Davis turned and left. He walked very slowly down the stairs and out the front door. The Cadillac was sitting there, keys in the ignition. He got in and started the motor and the only thing he could think of was that Robby hadn't even thanked him for the use of it.
It was dark now. The lights were winking, civilized little lights that showed this was a city. Overhead a few stars. Richey sat behind the wheel for a moment, until he heard the siren screaming in the distance. The convertible top was down, and the air was cold and still.
Richey lit a cigarette and drove away. After a while he played the radio. He was headed south. He had friends to visit in New Orleans.
