It is a cold and windy day in early winter. A slight snow is falling and everything seems very calm along a deserted road that winds upward into the Adirondack mountains, a thin and lonely road at this time of day and in this season. There is only one car on the road, an old car doggedly climbing up the steep hills, overheating and skidding but determinedly putting the miles behind.
The road is bordered by wooded areas and a few guard rails, stark winter trees and many evergreens. Snow blankets the ground, very white and unmarred by the filth that ruins the beauty of snow in industrial and urban areas. It is a beautiful scene, one that could be very nostalgic to a man who felt such sentiments. But the driver of the car gave no thought to such, staring straight ahead and driving well, both hands on the wheel, elbows slightly bent, expertly maneuvering the slippery road.
The automobile is a 1940 Buick convertible, finished in a primer coat, with a makeshift piece of canvas serving for a top in place of the one that had long since deteriorated and ripped off. The canvas is slightly better than having no top at all, but just slightly, for it flaps in the wind and lets the cold air under it and through it Its main function is to keep the snow out, however, and it does that reasonably well.
There is no muffler on the car and it roars and belches loudly, and leaves a cloud of white smoke whenever the driver takes his foot from the gas. One window, the passenger side, is cracked, and three of the tires are bald. The fourth tire had good tread but also has a blow out patch on it The spare in the trunk is worse, bat that doesn't matter because there is no jack anyway.
First gear has been ripped from the transmission, and to start from a standstill it is necessary to put it in second and ride the clutch while giving it a great deal of gas. This is especially hard while starting uphill, but the old car manages to make it with many lurches and buckings, seeming to jump instead of roll. Occasionally it stalls, and then it is hard to start because the starter is weak and the fuel pump is not very good. But eventually and invariably it will start, with proper coaxing and cursing from the driver, and perhaps an occasional kick in the fender, for that is the kind of automobile that it is, a car with a personality and a mind of its own. Considering its age and the abuse it has been put to, it is a very good car indeed.
The driver is as unique as the automobile. He is very tall and very lean, but well muscled and strong. Standing up he is six feet and six inches tall and weighs one hundred and ninety pounds. Sitting down it appears that he is even taller than that, for his torso is completely out of proportion to his legs, being much longer than the average. If a man six feet tall stood next to him their belt buckles would be at the same height from the floor, despite the fact that this man would be half a foot taller. That is the kind of a body that this man has.
His face is just as unusual, perhaps more so. He has a huge head with remarkable features and skin that has been weather beaten until it looks like old leather. In fact, it looks exactly like the old and ripped leather upholstery in the car. His nostrils flaring and wide. He wears a gigantic, bristling moustache over sensually full lips. The overall appearance of his face is rather fierce.
His hair is golden blond in streaks, and it is worn very long, swept back and curling over his collar, hiding the tops of his ears and the back of his neck. Combined with his face it gives the air of a cavalier.
He is dressed in a black and red striped jersey and tight black pants, the bottoms of which are tucked into the tops of his Wellington boots. Over these clothes he wears a huge, bright red coat, the collar up to shield him from the wind that whips in under the homemade tops. He has sheepskin gloves on his hands. All of these clothes are rather shabby and wrinkled except for the boots which are shined and of very good leather. Much better leather than either the upholstery or his face.
Taken as a whole, one gets the impression that this man should wear an eyepatch, or perhaps a golden earring in one ear. And, as a matter-of-fact, he has worn both on occasion. He has also worn a bandana on his bead, like a pirate, and a cape like Dracula. But at the moment he is not concerned with such things, and is concentrating on getting to his destination before he freezes and before the car runs out of gas. He looks straight ahead and fights the slippery road with short jerks of the wheel whenever the bald tires threaten to lose traction. The leather covered pipe in his mouth has long since gone out, but he grips it in his teeth and drives on, determinedly.
This man's name is Earl Wormwood. He is twenty-six years old. He has been a skin diver, a lifeguard, a lumberjack, a guide and a ski instructor. He has been to college, but failed to graduate, having been expelled when he was caught stealing baloney in a super market. This did not bother him very much, in fact he considered it rather funny. Wormwood was not a man to let things bother him, especially things that had a serious or permanent bearing on his future. There was something in his makeup that gave him the ability, whether beneficial or harmful, to laugh at the things which are usually considered important in life. It was the little things that seemed to bother him more, perhaps because there was no reason to have to ignore them.
At the moment he is on his way to try to get a job. He has four dollars and sixty-seven cents in his pocket, along with a comb and a harmonica. In the back seat he has thrown several articles of clothing, his skis, boots, poles, etc., a guitar with a hole in it where a bear stepped on it once upon a time, but that is a different story, and several books. This is the sum total of his worldly possessions. He thinks there is a toothbrush as well, but it was dropped and lost while loading the car. He will find this out in time.
The titles of the books may give a small insight into die character of Earl Wormwood. One is a biography of Aleister Crowley, entitled The Beast. Another is Huysman's La Bas, a bit warped from being read while working as a life guard but still impressive in its red jacket. There are also copies of Man, Woman and Nature, Witchcraft Through the Ages, Compulsion, and The Burl Ives Book of Folk Songs. The latter is tucked in the hole in the guitar.
Presently Earl applies the brakes and the Buick slows at a turnoff. A sign says Eagle Mountain Ski Resort, and an arrow points to the right, up a narrow and rutted road. Earl turns the wheel and steps hard on the gas, shifting into second gear for the climb and the car roars up the mountain road, bumping and jolting. It won't be long now, he thinks, stretching his Stiffened torso as well as he can behind the wheel. Of course, there was no reason to be sure that he would get the job, perhaps he would have to turn around and make the long drive back. Back as far as his four dollars would carry him, at least. It certainly wasn't about to get him to New York City, which he had left early that morning, but this was a thing that could be considered fairly serious, and so Earl did not think about it. He had a great deal of confidence in himself, and in his ability to make out all right no matter where he was.
Three months earlier he had pulled into New York with ten dollars and he had no trouble there. Of course, he had known a person there, and had been forced to except the reluctantly proposed offer that he stay there. Had been delighted to except, in, fact, and had found the arrangement quite satisfactory. Free room and board and tobacco, what more could a man ask? He would have stayed indefinitely, as far as that goes, had the friend not tired of the situation and suggested that he leave. Even so it had taken several suggestions, each one more direct than the others, before he appeared to realize what the hints meant. Then he had left, angrily, asking himself what the hell friendship was for if his friend woald kick him out But he was not really angry, for he was in full awareness of his life, and he had managed to put three months more behind him without any effort or labor. Things like that mattered to Earl. It was in those ways that he measured success.
And he knew no one in this area. It could prove more difficult, to say the least. But he was confident, and gave no part of his thought to worrying. He even whistled an off key tune, the pipe bouncing between his teeth, as he drove up the road.
Every day, he told himself, is a new day, and there's no telling what delights await me at Eagle Mountain. The whole world is here for the taking, and Fil take all I can get, without having to work for it, of course. And this about summed up the philosophy of Earl Wormwood.
Eagle Mountain was a middle class, middle priced type of resort. It drew most of its clientele from the bigger northern New York cities, and they were not as affluent as the people from the city who went no farther north that the Catskills. But Eagle Mountain had a lot to offer that the more expensive and exclusive resorts did not. Not necessarily in relation to skiing.
Eagle Mountain was owned by a woman named Virginia Tucker. She was thirty-five years old, and a widow, whose husband had left her a considerable amount of money and the resort. At first she had contemplated selling the resort and moving away, but then she changed her mind. This change was brought about by a man named Bill Rowley, whom Virginia had hired as manager. Rowley had never managed a ski resort before, but he was blue eyed and blond and baby-faced, and these things are often more important. He still did not know much about skiing, but he took care of business as far as Virginia was concerned, and that was what she was paying him for, with no pretense about it. Virginia Tucker was a very direct and foreward woman.
She was sitting in her office on the day that Earl Wormwood was driving up from New York, looking over the week's receipts and chain smoking filter tip cigarettes. She was a blonde, well preserved, with only a few slight wrinkles in her still sun tanned face. It was sun tanned all winter, due to a sunlamp, and she explained her off season color to wind burn on the slopes, which fooled no one and which she realized tooled no one. She didn't particularly care, for there was no one that she had to fool. Especially men, for when she wanted a man, she bought him.
Her body was good, full breasted and wide hipped and soft, and she looked very sensual in the stretch pants that she habitually wore. Of course, it is hard not to look sensual in stretch pants. That is one of the beauties of a ski resort, whether one skis or not.
After a while she got up from her chair and stretched, then crossed the room and opened the door. Her office adjoined the bar which in turn was adjoined to the lounge. She looked around the room and then went over to the bar and spoke to the bartender.
"Louie, is Bill around?" she asked.
"He was, Mrs. Tucker. I think he's in the lounge, maybe," Louie told her.
"Thank you," she said, and walked to the door leading into the other room. Rowley was there, sitting by the fireplace and talking with several of the guests. He may not have been much of a business man, but he was good for business. Very charming and friendly. She was sure that he was the reason why several of the women guests were there. Those who had come without their husbands. This made her a little jealous, but she told herself that business was business, and besides it was she who was paying Rowley's wages. She would not let him forget that
"Bill, may I see you for a moment?" she called.
He looked up, smiled, and excused himself. Virginia waited for him by the door and smiled at the people who glanced her way.
"What is it?" he asked.
"Let's go into my office," she told him, and turned back toward the bar. He followed her through and into the private room, and she said, "Shut the door, please," after he had entered.
"I've been going over these receipts," she told him. "They don't balance out right."
Rowley smiled. "I can never keep those things straight," he said without seeming to worry about it.
"Well, you'll have to. I can't pay you for managing this place if you can't do it."
"Can't I do it?"
"Pardon?"
He didn't reply, but grinned to show what he had meant by his question. Virginia understood, but she was not the type to become flustered.
"You do very well. But I imagine that there are men who do as well, and for a whole lot less. I pay you a good wage, Bill. Too much to pay a man simply as stud fees. I expect full value from every cent that I spend, you know that."
He shrugged.
"Don't be so goddamn indifferent. You're not indispensable, neither to the lodge nor to me. In fact, all you do all day is sit around in the lounge and tell skiing stories and impress the lonely girls."
"It's what I do all night that counts," he said.
She smiled slightly. It was true, although she didn't like to admit it. She said, "But you enjoy it too, don't you?"
"Of course."
"And you'd do it whether I was paying you or not, wouldn't you, Bill?"
"Sure. But I wouldn't stay. It's the money that keeps me here, Ginny. A man can't live on love, you know, especially the purely physical variety."
It was purely physical between them, of course. Virginia didn't even like him very well. He was too damn smug and self confident.
"Well, we shan't argue about it. But will you please try a little harder from now on?"
"Sure," he said, in a very unconvincing voice. "Sure, I'll try."
"Fine," she said. "Is that all?"
"Are you anxious to get back to your admirers?"
"I just thought that you might be busy."
"No, I'm not busy," she said. She didn't want him to return to the group in the lounge, although she didn't know why she should feel that way. It wasn't jealously, exactly. Or maybe it was....
Virginia was sitting behind her desk, and Rowley went over and sat on the edge, smiling. Looking up at him she realized how baby-faced he was, and how handsome. His eyes were the only part that weren't young and innocent looking, despite their blue color; they were deep and cold, dangerous and hard eyes. The contrast with the rest of his features was interesting.
He was a big man, strong and heavy, and he carried himself well, even swaggering a bit. But he was desirable. In fact, she realized, she desired him now. It had crept up on her and surprised her. Bill seemed to have known it before she did, because he was smiling down at her with his knowing grin. Or perhaps it was his knowing grin that has caused it It wasn't important, cause and effort does not matter much in physical love. "Bill-" she started, and paused. "Yes?"
Damn him, she thought, sitting over me with that grin and looking so casual. He knows what I want, but he won't let on that he knows. He wants me to ask him. And it leaves me no choice, I ask or I don't get it. What I should do is to tell him to get out, even fire him. I don't need him, damnit. There are plenty of men who would welcome a chance to sleep with me. Plenty of them here right now, in fact. I can think of several that would be available in minutes....
But that wouldn't have been the same, she realized. Virginia was the type of woman was wanted to possess a man, to own him and give orders to him. This was possible with Rowley, because she was paying him. With any of the other males around the place it would be a case, more or less, of giving herself instead of taking them. So, unpleasant as it might be, she was stuck with Rowley for the time being. And he was very good as a love-partner, she couldn't deny that, he was the best man she had even known in that respect. And at the moment she needed him.
Perhaps, she thought, looking up at his insolent blue eyes, perhaps next year there will be a new manager at Eagle Mountain. I have had about enough of this man. But now I need a little more of him....
"You know what I want," she said.
"Oh?"
"Yes, you know, damn you!"
"I guess maybe I do," he said, m a slow and affected drawl. "I guess maybe you want me to do a little managing, is that it?"
She pushed her chair away from the desk, arching her back as she did so, and forcing her large breasts upward, toward him. His grin became a little less insolent, and she knew that he didn't mind doing what she wanted. If only he would admit it. But still he waited, perched on the edge of the desk.
"Yes, Bill," she said, That's what I would like you to do. A little managing."
He came off the desk then and around to her, standing over the chair while she looked up at him. He asked. "Shall we do it here or shall we go to your room?"
"Don't be so goddamn matter-of-fact about it," Virginia told him, flushing angrily.
Bill sensed that he was pressing a bit too hard, reading the coloring of her tanned face accurately. He bent down and kissed her on the lips, a lingering kiss to which she was at first unresponsive because of her anger but which held and warmed until her lips parted and her neck arched backward as she ground her mouth upward against his. Rowley's tongue slid slowly between her parted lips, retracting and then moving in again, and Virginia answered with her own tongue, setting up a seesawing, sliding sensation that warmed them both, and prepared them for the other motions that were to follow this preliminary.
When he finally withdrew he held one large hand in her hair, twisting gently, and ran the fingers of his other hand down the line of her neck.
"You want me, don't you?" he asked.
"Of course I want you. I want you now, and I want you to keep your mouth shut and just do it. Just make love to me, "That's fine," he said and his lips returned to hers in another long and passionate kiss, while his arms encircled her back and pulled her upward. Her breasts pushed against his chest and her thigh strained, showing the effort in little ripples beneath the skin tight stretch pants. He pulled her upward from the chair and then let her gently down on the carpeted floor, his hands unbelievably strong as they supported her back.
"Undress me," she commanded.
He did so, slowly and carefully. He removed her sweater first, and then fumbled for a few moments with the clasp of her brassiere, working blindly from the front. It fell away and he tossed it aside, looking at the rounded breasts that were thereby revealed, rolling like twin basketballs under him. He touched one softly, at the very tip, and felt the tremor run through the pale globe.
"Go slowly, Bill," she whispered.
"Yes," he said, touching one and then the other with just his fingertips at first, then growing more rough, rolling their weight in his palms and working upward to squeeze the nipples between his thumb and forefinger.
As her breasts grew stiff with desire, Virginia reached up to unfasten Bill's clothing, expertly undoing buttons and zippers, touching at the flesh as It was exposed. He was kneeling beside her, half over her, working her to a frenzy of readiness by manipulating her breasts with his hands and fingers. Then he bent lower and took one nipple into his mouth, pulling it upward and sending a greater thrill through her body.
"Ummm," she whispered, "Do that for a long time."
He moved from nipple to nipple, keeping his hands copped around the rest of her breast and pulling it up to meet him. She wanted him to do it for a long while but she knew that she would not be able to stand it, the need was becoming too strong to contain. She felt that in a few more moments of his touch she would reach the peak, and that was not the way she wanted to complete herself. Her hands moved faster and in seconds he was naked above her.
"I'm ready," she told him, relaxing against the soft, warm carpet. She raised her hips slightly, to show him what she wanted, and he left her breasts to place his hands at the tops of her pants. He stretched them away from her belly and pulled them down, slowly, the elastic clinging to her smooth flesh, and she squirmed to aid him in releasing her from the confining clothes.
Virginia wore no panties. She didn't like the line of her underwear to show, and it did show under the tight stretch pants. So she never wore them. As the pants slid down she became completely exposed, her slightly full belly, the vee of her thighs, the mound of wispy hair. As the pants slid down her thighs she opened them as much as the pants permitted, anxious for Rowley to see her there, and then to be there. She was already burning with passion.
Then the pants were at her feet, and she kicked them off savagely and pulled Bill to her. He came, sliding the length of their nakedness together, and fitting perfectly above her. His hands grasped her buttocks and lifted her hips upward to meet him, and she helped by arching her thighs and straining, her back pressed firmly to the floor, her head back and her eyes closed.
Bill was against her then, she could feel his pressing, testing, and then he lunged and they were together. All thoughts of his insolence, all plans to replace him were forgotten then, as though they had never existed, as she lost herself around his passion. She brought her knees up and locked them about his driving waist, squeezing him with all her might, as though to crush the passion from his body instead of waiting for it to flow. Perhaps she succeeded. He drove himself faster, and harder, panting and straining, building to the very heights of sensation as she kept pace, moved with him and let her own body sway at that moment. Then together they came crashing down from the top, from the highest point of the mountain they came together in a fast and savage plunge. Like skiing, she thought, when she was able to think.
Later, when he had caught his breath, Rowley said, "Did I manage?"
There was no insolence now, no smugness. Virginia thought, I am still good for a man. Despite his actions I can still show him how a woman should be in bed. Or on the floor. Or even on skis, perhaps. Yes, someday I may even show him on skis.
"You managed," she said.
"Good. You're quite a woman, Virginia. I really enjoy making love to you, you know."
"And I enjoy having you admit it."
"I'm not the type to admit such things generally. I've had too many women, too often, in too many ways, to still be honest about it. But I enjoy you as much as anyone that I have ever had."
"Maybe you would like to come to my room tonight?" she asked, certain that he would.
But he turned away, picking his pants from the tangle of his clothing and starting to pull them on. He said, "Well see, baby. Well see."
"I-all right," she said. She realized that she could order him to come, but she didn't want to. It would only bring about the insolence and the anger again. She wanted him to come of his own accord, as he sometimes did, for at those times, it was always so much better for her. For both of them. That was the way that she wanted him to come to her.
Bill dressed hurriedly. Virginia remained on the floor, enjoying the prickly, warm feeling of the rug beneath her bare back. She felt it would be pleasant to remain there for the rest of the day, thinking about Rowley and waiting for her desires to build again, then having him return, of his own volition, and tell her that he wanted her. But after a while she got up and dressed.
Rowley said, "I'd better return to the lounge, Virginia. I told the people there that I'd be back, and they may be waiting. That is, after all, part of my job. The part that I can handle best."
"Next to this part," she said, making a motion to show what she meant. She was sitting on the floor, pulling her pants on.
"Yes," he said, "next to that part."
He grinned at her, kissed her forehead, and went out the door, opening it only as much as necessary so she would not be exposed to view from anyone who happened to be at the bar.
The only one there, however, was Louie, the bartender. He looked at Bill with no expression at all, which was the way he always looked at everything and everyone, and Bill wondered whether the man ever had any thoughts behind that blank face. He rather doubted it, but then again it is hard to tell with such a man He wouldn't have cared to play poker with Louie, he decided.
Bill stopped at the bar and said, "Give me a brandy, will you."
"Sure thing, Mr. Rowley," Louie said, turning his blank face away long enough to select the proper bottle and pour a brandy glass full. He sat it in front of Bill and stood there, awaiting further orders, perhaps, or simply because there was nothing else to do.
"Have one yourself?" Rowley asked.
"No thanks, sir."
"You don't drink?"
"No sir."
Bill shrugged and sipped the brandy, enjoying the flavor and bouquet. He could see the lounge from where he sat, and the group that he had left was still seated by the fireplace. There was three women there, and one man. Bill hoped that they would notice him drinking brandy, it was a good image for the manager of a ski lodge to project. Both for business and for his private affairs.
I would be so much wiser, he thought, if I were to concentrate on Virginia. She is all that a man would need. But somehow I can't resist others. The variety, I guess. It makes it different every time, and better. But I must be careful that I pay enough attention to Virginia, and keep her satisfied, or else I'm liable to lose a damn good thing here. Hell, in a couple years I could own half of this place, if I wanted to make the effort. I might even marry her, that shouldn't be too hard. But then I see a new face, like those in the lounge, and I can't concentrate on Virginia. There must be something wrong with me....
Then, thinking of the pleasures that he could image awaited him with these new women, he thought, or perhaps there is nothing wrong with me, at all Except that I have the ability. Perhaps any man who had as much ability as I do would act the same way. This was a comforting rationalization, and he smiled and finished the brandy and crossed into the lounge to attend to business.
CHAPTER TWO
Eagle Mountain was quite inaccessible. Compared to the other, typical, ski resorts in the area, at least. But this lent a certain air that appealed to many people, and a great deal of the steady guests came there because it gave this feeling of seclusion and privacy and loss of contact with the rest of the world That meant that many of the guests wanted to escape from one thing or another, and this added to the rather different and unusual clientele, and also climate, of the place.
There was only one road leading up to the resort.
It was narrow and rutted, and the two signs along the way were both weathered and ancient looking. Many people, on the way there, had wondered whether Eagle Mountain might not have been closed, so desolate and deserted did the way seem.
The road ended at the lodge, a structure made from wood and painted red, quite picturesque. Smoke poured constantly from the large chimney on the side of the building, and there were usually people and equipment on the porch. This building housed the lounge, the bar, and Virginia's private office on the first floor. The other floors were the rooms which the guests rented, along with those in which the employees, including Virginia and Rowley, lived.
The front door opened into the lounge. It was a large room with the fireplace at one end and many comfortable chairs scattered about. It was finished, as were all the rooms, in knotty pine. The sunlight entered the lounge in the mornings, making it a very cheery place to go upon arising and before the first skiing of the day. It was here that most of the guests ate their meals, met one another, and discussed the sport of skiing.
Two rooms led off the lounge. The smaller door led into the bar, a well stocked and long room. There were no tables in the bar, and one either drank at a stool or took the drink into the lounge. Louie was the only bartender, and it seemed that he was always there, never tired, never changed, never showing emotion or expression.
The other door was really a counter, and behind it was the kitchen. Excellent food was served here, at outrageous prices, to be eaten in the lounge. A young and pretty girl took the orders here. Her name was Susan, and she was working for a year in order to save enough money to finish college and become a teacher She was young enough and pretty enough to make out quite well on tips, and she could have made out better on other things had she cared to. She was not, however, that kind of girl.
The cook was bald and fat, and leered at Susan as she bent over the counter in her white nylon dress. Except for the fact that he admired the outline ol her legs and buttocks, however, he was not worth mentioning.
The rooms upstairs were identical, except for Virginia's, which was larger and more plush. There is no need to describe them, for everyone knows how a single room in a lodge or resort invariably looks. The big difference in Virginia's room was the bed, a huge, soft affair with ornately carved tops on the posts There were times when Virginia liked to be very comfortable.
Behind the lodge could be seen the ski runs and the tows. There were three tows, a rope tow, a poma lift, and the double chair lift, situated at the appropriate slopes. A small wooden building had been erected at the base of the slopes, and this housed a snack bar, coffee shop, and a place to rent equipment. It was also used as a place to get warm between runs.
The slopes themselves numbered seven. Two were short and straight, for beginners. Two others were a bit more difficult, and were for the novice-intermediate. The remaining three were for the experienced, and included a dangerous and narrow trail called Skid Row and a treacherously hooking trail which had been named Hell-gate. Few of the guests had graduated to this stage of skiing, and many had no desires to advance that far. All in all there was over a ten miles network of expertly designed trails and open slopes, for every stage of skier, from beginner to expert.
Earl Wormwood, driving up the road, looked at the white trails before him and thought that this would be a very good place to ski, or to work. As much work as it was possible for something that he enjoyed doing to be.
He pulled the ancient car up in front of the lodge and revved the motor, then shut it off. It was very hot from the climb, and steam was hissing from under the hood. He got out and slapped the fender affectionately, saying, "Good old car. One more trip behind us."
He combed his hair in the side mirror, making it look as respectable as its length would allow, and ran the comb quickly through his bushy moustache. Satisfied, he left the car and strode onto the porch and to the door.
Earl walked arrogantly, head held slightly back and taking long strides. It was the walk that he imagined a haughty nobleman of past days would have affected, and he was probably right. At any rate it was impressive. He was, a friend had once told him, the only man able to draw stares on 42nd Street in New York, without really trying. Without trying any harder than usual, at least.
He entered the lounge and looked about. Rowley was seated by the fireplace surrounded by three women, and Earl walked over to them.
"I'm looking for the owner," he announced, in a deep, resonate tone.
"I'm the manager," Bill said. "Is there anything I can do for you?" He studied the newcomer, wondering what such a strange looking man wanted. Earl did not look prosperous enough to be a guest. Perhaps a ski bum, Rowley thought, not much caring.
"I'm looking for a job," Earl said. "Are you the fellow to see?"
Rowley had the right to hire people. At the moment, however, he was happily occupied with charming the three women sitting around him, and he didn't want to bother. But to brush the man off would be rather crude, in front of his admirers, and so he said, "Perhaps you had better see Mrs. Tucker. Go through the bar there."
"Thank you," Earl said, and turned to stride across the room. The people seated by the fire watched him, everyone thinking how unusual looking he was, and Bill laughed shortly and shrugged.
"Where can I find Mrs. Tucker?" Earl asked, at the bar.
Louis pointed at the door, and Earl went to it and knocked. After a moment she called, "Come in," and he opened the door and entered.
"Yes?" she said, rather surprised that it was a stranger who had entered.
Earl crossed the room and stood before her desk before he spoke. "Mrs. Tucker?" he asked.
"Yes."
"I'm Earl Wormwood," he told her, and extended one large, weathered, hard hand. She hesitated a moment, and then extended her own hand to shake with him.
"What can I do for you?"
"I'm looking for a job," he said.
"I'm sorry, but I'm not doing any hiring at the moment, Mr. Wormwood," she said.
"I have several letters of recommendation," he continued, as though he had not heard her, and he withdrew some papers from his hip pocket. He handed them to her and she put them on the desk without looking at them. She was admiring his stature and build, with the admiration of a woman who appreciates such things.
"What type of work?" she asked.
"I'm a qualified instructor."
She nodded. "I already have an instructor, however," she said. "There is really no need of having more than one, he manages very well."
"I see. But if you will check the letters there, perhaps you might decide to hire me. I've had a great deal of experience, both in the East and out West."
Virginia glanced at the letters. They seemed to be good recommendations, one from Hunter Mountain and one from McCauley, along with several others where he had been on the ski patrol instead of instructing.
"Would you consider patrolling?" she asked.
"Well, I'd rather teach, of course. The pay is no hinderance to me, I'm not particularly interested in getting rich. I just like to ski and earn enough to eat and drink. Moderately."
"I'm sure that you will have no trouble finding a position at one of the other areas around here," Virginia told him.
Earl shook his head in agreement, but then he said, "Well, you see, I'm in a rather difficult position at the moment, and I'd rather stay here . , "Difficult?"
"Yes. I'm broke."
"Oh, I see," she said, and smiled.
"So, if possible, I'd like to get a job here. I'm surd that I could come in handy"
"I'm sure you could," she said.
Earl didn't miss the look in her eyes, nor the way that she was examining him. He grinned at her, showing white teeth beneath the flowing moustache, and thought, well, well, what have I found here?
"Well," she said, "Perhaps I could use you. The pay won't be high...."
"That's fine with me."
"Room and board included."
He nodded, thinking how easy it was to Ret a job, and how many possibilities this job might hold. Mrs. Tucker was not at all bad looking.
"All right," she said, and handed him a square of white cardboard. "Fill out this form and you're hired. Sixty dollars a week, plus whatever tips you may make."
"Fine," he said, writing the necessary information on the form.
"You can start in the morning. I'll show you your room now, and introduce you to the other employees."
When Earl was finished she put the card in a drawer and got up, preceding him to the door Walking behind her he looked carefully at the rolling flesh under the clinging pants and hoped he hadn't misinterpreted the meaning of the look she had given him before.
She introduced him to Louie, who nodded and didn't say anything. Then she motioned for Rowley, who excused himself from the group and came over. He was scowling just a slight bit.
"Bill, I've hired this man to help Sam with the instructing," she explained.
"We don't need him," Rowley said. "That's up to me to decide, I should say."
"Of course, Virginia. But we really don't have room for him. Sam might resent it."
"If you were about to help Sam a bit yourself," Virginia said, "we wouldn't need him. I don't believe you've been on skis all week."
Bill flushed a bit at this. He didn't want to have the women in the other room hear him getting called down by the boss. And he resented it in front of this stranger, also. He shrugged and said, "Whatever you say."
"That's right. Now where is Sam?"
"Working."
"When he comes in tell him I want to see him, and that I've hired an assistant for him. I'm sure you'll be here until he does come in?"
Rowley ignored the last remark, turned and returned to his seat. Earl watched him, thinking, something is going on here. There is something between this woman and that man, and I'm just liable to land in the middle of it. Well, I'd better play it easy until I see how the situation lies, but for now I think I'm on her side. And he smiled at Virginia, with his eyebrows raised.
"Let's go up to your room," she said, and led the way to the stairs.
The employees were housed on the top floor. It was a large building, with long halls and many rooms. Virginia led Earl to the last room on the end and opened file door They both entered, and she said, "This it is."
"Very adequate," he said, looking around.
"My room is across the hall. These end rooms are the nicest, they get more sunlight."
"Yes, I can see that."
He was wondering whether he should attach any significance to the fact that she had told him that her room was right across from his, and decided that he had no reason to do so, and was jumping to conclusions without proper inducement. But she said, "You've had a long drive. Perhaps you would like a drink?"
"Yes, I would."
"I have a bottle in my room," she said, and he changed his mind about conclusions and followed her across the hall and into her room, noting that her door was not locked. The first thing that he saw in the room was the gigantic bed, and he smiled slightly.
Virginia got the bottle and two glasses from a cabinet, and motioned for Earl to have a seat. He took a chair near the bed and she sat on the edge of the bed and poured them each a glass. It was a good Scotch.
"Water?"
"No, that's fine," he said.
She handed him the glass and their fingers touched for a second. Then she raised her glass in toast and they drank together.
"Are you from this area, Earl?" she asked.
"Originally. I was born in Old Forge, as a matter-of-fact."
"That must be where you learned to sk!"
"I started there. I've been all over the country, though. I even taught the troops to ski when I was in the army. I was stationed in Alaska, near Fairbanks. So even while I put my military service in I managed to keep my hand in my profession. I'm quite good, by the way."
Virginia smiled. "I bet you are," she told him.
She held out the bottle and poured him another half glass, then one for herself.
"This is excellent," he said.
"I don't drink often, but when I do I like the best. In all things, I like the best."
"That's fine, if you can afford them. I've rather learned to make second and third best do."
"I may change your taste."
"That would ruin me for when I leave here."
"Perhaps," she said. She seemed to be thinking deeply, then she said, "I don't suppose it really matters much about whether one has the best or not. Not when you are speaking of external things, such as whiskey and food and clothing. I know that a person isn't any happier wearing expensive clothing, or eating caviar. And often they are a lot more unhappy, and worried."
"That's true," Earl said, thinking that he rather liked his new employer.
"I try not to worry too much," she continued. "It's sometimes hard not too, owning a business and all. And I worry about other things. Like growing old...."
"Not yet, you shouldn't," Earl said.
"Thank you. But I do. Anyway, that's not the point that I was trying to make. The thing is, when one speaks of wanting the best it shouldn't mean the best possessions. It should mean the best that they can give and the best that they are able to get from another person. Do you understand?"
"I've always tried to do that," he said, and that was true.
"That is the big reason for the animosity which you may have sensed between Mr. Rowley and I."
"Well, I guess that's none of my business," Earl said, sipping the Scotch.
"Not really. But I hope I shall never have that same trouble with you."
"You won't."
They didn't talk for a while, and Virginia filled the glasses once more. Earl was still wearing his great red coat, and she said, "Wouldn't you rather take that off? It's warm in here."
He stood up and slipped the coat off. Virginia looked at him, unashamedly, already feeling the effects of the Scotch. He was very lean, but hard and well muscled. His muscles showed nicely under the too tight jersey, and she could see that he had a washboard stomach and a long taper from his chest to his small waist. He had scarcely any hips at all. Comparing him to Rowley she decided that Bill was getting a little too heavy. Lack of exercise, she knew. But there wasn't an ounce of fat anywhere on Earl, and he looked like he could work all day without breathing hard.
"You are very nicely built," she told him.
"Thank you," he said, putting the coat over the back of the chair and sitting again.
Virginia extended one hand and touched his arm at the bicep. "Flex," she said, and he tightened his arm into a knot of muscle. Not as large an arm as Rowley's, but the muscle was longer and harder. How nice it would be, she thought, to have those two men fighting over her. Physically fighting. Then she thought, what nonsense for a woman my age to be thinking about. I should much rather have them sharing me instead of fighting over me. I imagine that between them they could keep me very happy.
She touched his chest then, and ran her hand down his side to his rib cage. Earl sat very still, keeping himself tense.
"Do you mind me touching you?" she asked.
"Of course not."
"You seem so stiff about it."
"I don't want to press things. You're the boss, and I'm game for whatever you want. More than game, in fact, I'm very willing. But you're still the boss, and you'll have to call the shots. The first time, at least."
"Do you think that I'm attractive?"
"You know you are."
"And would you like to have me?"
"Very much."
"Would you want to even if I hadn't hired you? Just as a woman?"
"More."
"More?"
"Yes. I'd be more relaxed then. I don't want to think about making it with a woman who is paying me. It makes me feel too much like a stud."
Earl, actually, had nothing at all against being a stud. It made a man rather proud to be good enough, or desirable enough, to be paid for his services, in fact. But he knew enough about people to figure that he should play Virginia this way, and so he did.
"You can have me, you know," she said, smiling and running her fingers over his ribs.
"Now?"
"Would you like me now?"
"I'd like a woman like you anytime, Mrs.-What shall I call you?"
"Virginia. Virginia when we are alone. Mrs. Tucker when there are others around. That will be the best way to do it."
"Virginia," he said.
"Not right now," she said, although she knew that if he pressed just a bit she would be unable to resist. She wanted him to press, in fact. Not insolently, like Rowley, but with genuine passion and desire. Not confidently and smilingly, but panting and needing her.
"Whatever you say," he told her.
Her fingers were on his leg now, running along the inner part of his tense thigh, and she let her tongue flick across her lips.
"Tonight," she said.
"When?"
"As soon as I retire. Soon. I don't want to wait too long. You feel too nice, and I know that you're going to be good."
"I hope so. I'll do my best, Virginia."
"Tell me more about yourself," she said, letting her fingers wander higher on his leg.
"If you want to talk you'll nave to stop touching me," he said.
"But you feel good," Virginia told him.
"I can talk or make love, but not both."
She waited for a moment, thinking that this was her chance to let him have her, but then she thought about how much nicer it would be to have the whole night for the first time that they were together. Her fingers moved up and touched him for a second, squeezing him in her hand and knowing the extent of his passion. Then she released him and fell back on the bed.
"Well wait," she said. "Tell me about yourself, Earl. I want to know all about you."
He talked for a while, telling her the main points of his life, and touching upon his various, semi-formed ideas and philosophies. Earl was an interesting man, childish in ways and very adult in others. Virginia recognized this, and liked him for it.
He was a purist, not much interested in the opinions of other people and wanting to be left to lead his own life. But, paradoxically, he wanted to make an impression on those others. He realized that this was an inconsistancy, but didn't care to change either his beliefs or his actions, satisfied with both. And he thought that both the physical and intellectual sides of a man bad to be subjugated by the spirit, using the term in no religious sense, but rather in the manner of a person's personality and ideals. He talked of this for a while, while Virginia stretched out on the bed and kept pouring more Scotch into their glasses.
"You're interesting," she said, after a while.
"Yes, I'm that, I guess," he said. "I hope that you'll enjoy being here."
"I will."
"I'm going to make you enjoy it."
"Starting with tonight?"
"Yes. Sooner, if I have much more of this." She held her glass up. "Scotch always makes me so horney," she told him laughing.
"Perhaps we'd better stop drinking then."
"Shall we?"
"You're the one who wanted to wait until tonight, Virginia," he said, leaning forward.
"Isn't it a woman's right to change her mind?"
"That depends. If you want to change the time, yes. But only to make it sooner. You've no right to put it off, after getting me ready."
"I was thinking of not waiting at all," she said, with an amused expression, watching him carefully.
Earl moved from the chair to the bed, sitting beside her. She was still stretched out, and he placed one hand on her stomach. "Just say so," he said.
She laughed. "You knew I didn't want to wait, didn't you?"
"You're drunk."
"I'm just as good when I'm drunk. Better. You'll see, baby, you'll see."
Earl started to work on her buttons, but she said, "No, go lock the door first."
He went over and put the latch on the door. Virginia got up and went into the bathroom, and Earl came back and sat on the bed, waiting. He wondered whether he should undress, but decided not to yet. He wasn't as passionate as he had been before, when she had noticed him. He was never as passionate when he was slightly drunk. But he was not too drunk, and he knew that he would be able to satisfy her. He pulled his boots off and curled his legs under him on the soft white bed and waited.
When Virginia returned she was naked. She had undressed in the bathroom and walked slowly toward him, moving her lips sensually.
"I didn't want you to have to fumble around the first time," she said. "I wanted it to be easy for you."
"You're very considerate."
She laughed, and came to the edge of the bed. Earl reached out to touch her, but she shook her head and said, "Let me be more considerate. I enjoyed touching you before, let me do it again. Let me be sure you are ready to love me."
Earl leaned back, resting his hands behind him for support, while Virginia touched him. She touched him all over, sliding her hands inside his shirt, along his chest and back, down his stomach. He was glistening with sweat by the time she removed his shirt. Then she opened his clothing and slowly removed them, letting her fingers trail along his legs, leaving little trails against his wet flesh. She knelt beside the bed to pull the pants from his feet, and her large boobs were against his legs, flattened against them, rubbing as she moved her body.
She returned to the bed, touching him again, both hands converging. One hand stroked easily on him, while the other cupped and worked beneath. Earl was taut to the point of bursting.
"You're so nice," she told him.
Earl grunted.
"Are you ready?"
"God, yes," he said.
"Do you want to touch me?"
"I want to tear you apart," he said. "I want to fill you completely up, drown you."
"Ummm," she said, "That will be nice."
Earl started to rise, but Virginia moved over him.
"Just relax, baby," she told him. "I'll take care of this. Just relax. Except here," and she pulled him to show where she didn't want him to relax. There was no danger of that....
Virginia lowered herself, her back arched. Earl rose to meet her, lifting as high as he could. She guided him with one hand, showing him the path and placing him there, poised at the door of desire. Then she let her body sink and they experienced the first long, slow stroke of love.
They fit perfectly together, the right contours and the right sizes. She lowered herself until she could go no further, and it was just right, their loins just came together. Then apart. Then together.
Virginia set the pace, flow and sliding, working her hips up and down and her thighs from side to side, first straight against him, then moving circularly, up and down, back and forth, side to side.
"It's nice this way," she said.
It will be nice every way, Earl thought, very happy with his first afternoon's work at Eagle Mountain. The work took a while, due to the Scotch, perhaps, or due to the fact that Virginia was timing it. But it was very pleasant work. And when the climax came Virginia felt it, and squirmed wildly on top of him, her back bent nearly double and her thighs bulging and straining. Then she was drowning with his bursting fulfillment, and relaxed and sighed, lying against him and on top of him.
"It feels so good now," she said. "I'm completely filled with your love." And she kissed him on the mouth, in gratitude.
It was, Earl realized, the first time they had ever kissed. The thought made him smile, and he held her close on the soft bed.
CHAPTER THREE
What can be taking so long up there? Bill Rowley asked himself, afraid that he knew what the answer would be.
He was still sitting by the fireplace, but he no longer was dominating the conversation. His thoughts were elsewhere, upstairs to be specific, and he was a little worried. Virginia had been up there for an hour, with the new instructor, and he didn't like that at all.
Bill was not jealous of Virginia, nor did he love her. He enjoyed sleeping with her, of course, as he would have enjoyed sleeping with any good looking woman, but that was no reason why he wouldn't want to share her with another man. She was, however, his bread and butter, and he didn't want to see anyone else try to cut him out. It was much more secure to be the only man sleeping with her.
He was not too worried, for he had the utmost confidence in his abilities as a love partner. The thought that this tall, thin stranger could make Virginia forget him did not occur to him. It was just that she might realize that she didn't need him, Rowley, even though he was the best of her lovers. It was one thing to be the only lover, and quite another to be only the best lover.
And she had been interested in the new man. After all, they had not really needed another instructor, and yet she had hired him. What else could that mean but that she was interested in how well he worked inside as well as on the slopes?
It's my own damned fault, he told himself. If I paid just a little more attention to her she wouldn't be thinking about other men. I'm just not trying hard enough or often enough to keep her happy. And that's silly, because she's a damn good piece. I wonder why I'm this way, and can never manage to concentrate on one woman? What I really need is seven women, one for each day of the week. Then I'd have all the variety I want, and could avoid the pitfalls of new women. Yes, that would be nice....
He became aware, suddenly, that he was being addressed, and turned his eyes away from the stairs, where they had been glued while he thought, and looked at the speaker.
"I'm sorry," he said, "I guess my mind had wandered for a moment."
"I asked what you thought of the Austrian method," Elaine Jenkins repeated.
"Oh. Oh, it's fine. I like it," he said, thinking that he couldn't care less what anyone thought about any method of getting cold and wet on skis. He didn't think that Elaine really cared much about it, either. He was sure of that, in fact. But it was the accepted conversation at a ski resort, whether people really cared or not. People are so phony, he thought, and I'm as bad as any. But at least I know what I want, and when it is necessary to be phony I do it to gain something other than pretense.
He looked at Elaine Jenkins now, for she was the immediate something that he wanted to gain. And she looked back, aware of the look in his eyes and confident of her own beauty and desirability. Bill had not quite figured out how willing she would be, but she wasn't shy about it. He had learned that much during the afternoon.
She had long, black hair, worn long and half covering one side of her face. It was too long to be fashionable, but she was beautiful enough to be able to neglect the trends and let her own charms speak for themselves. Her features were classic and straight, set off by very dark eyes above her thin nose and full, perpetually glistening lips. Her tongue had a habit of flicking over those lips, keeping them damp at all times.
Her body was perfection, and she dressed to let the fact become obvious, although it would have been hard to hide this perfection even if she were to wear an eskimo parka over it. But she wore the usual stretch pants and a sweater too thin to be usual, and too tight to be worn by anyone whose body was not beautiful. The pants were white and the sweater black. Every line of her could be seen outlined by the pants, from the rim of her panties (Rowley imagined that they were black silk) to the inviting vee at the point where her thighs met. Her legs were full and rounded at the thighs, her calves tapered delicately downward so that her ankles, hidden now in her boots, had to be thin and fine. She sat with her legs slightly apart, facing Rowley. It was hard for him to avoid staring too low as he talked to her, and he didn't think that she would mind anyway.
Her boobs filled the sweater, upright and very pointed, each tapering from a large base to a slender tip. She wore no brassiere, and the nipples were visible under the sweater, straining against the material. All in all she was the most desirable woman that Bill Rowley had ever seen, and he could almost feel his mouth watering for her.
He knew that the wisest course for him to follow would be to spend the night with Virginia. To do his best with her and make her forget this new man. But looking at Elaine, he realized that the chance of sleeping with her was so desirable that he would even risk his security.
"You seem quiet all of a sudden," she remarked. "Yes, I was thinking. I'm sorry if I've ignored you, w Bill said.
"Not at all," said Jake Cohen, the other man in the group. He was short and fat and starting to grow bald, and he had the look of a true lecher.
The other two members of this group in front of the fire were girls. They were young, college types on a short vacation. They had arrived the day before, sharing a room to cut expenses. Bill had looked them over, but decided that they were too young. Pretty enough, and if it had not been for Elaine he might have made a play for one or both, but with Elaine beside them there could be no doubts of his choice. Elaine was worth a whole army of women, let alone two young college girls.
These girl's names were Beverly and Patricia. Beverly was a redhead and Patricia had brown hair. Beverly was taller. That was about the total of the differences between them, they looked and acted pretty much alike. Bill smiled at them charmingly and that was as far as his efforts went in that direction. Although he was a little surprised that neither of the girls had made an effort to get him, for he knew how charming his face was to women. Especially those young, innocent types. Probably virgins, he thought.
"I think I should like a drink," Rowley said, looking directly at Elaine. "Would anyone care to join me?"
"I would love to," she said, and got up gracefully from her chair.
Bill got up and smiled at the others, a good-bye type smile, in case they might have decided to join the movement to the bar. But the girls, apparenlly, didn't drink, and Cohen was glad to have Bill leave. He was self-conscious about his appearance, and the contrast between him and Bill had pained him. Alone with the two young girls he might be able to work something out. Jake Cohen didn't mind spending a little money for something of value.
Bill and Elaine went into the bar and took stools. Louie came over and Bill said, "Brantly, I think. The Remy Martin."
"I'll have the same," Elaine said.
Louie poured the drinks and discreetly moved down the bar. Rowley decided the man was not so stupid after all, and was grateful for that. He touched glasses with Elaine and they sipped the brandy.
"Very good," she said.
"Yes, it is. It makes one rather warm inside, too, on cold days."
"Oh, I'm always warm inside," Elaine said, smiling and flickering her eyelashes at him. Bill was not sure at first just what she meant, and looked at her blankly. But her eyes were more specific than her words had been, and he understood soon enough.
"You're very beautiful," he said.
"I realize that."
He pursed his lips, wondering how to play the game from there on.
But Elaine was making the rules. She said, "You're a very attractive man, yourself. And quite charming. Perhaps we can get together."
"I'd like that."
"Perhaps. I have rather unique tastes in some respects. You could satisfy me, but you might not be willing to do so." She looked wide eyed, almost innocent, sipping the brandy and watching him over the rim of the glass.
"I could satisfy you," he told her.
She rested her free hand easily on his arm. She said, "I'm married, you know."
"That doesn't bother me."
"My husband is very jealous. We must keep whatever happens between us a secret."
"That's always the best way."
"My husband comes up on weekends. We could get together during the week. Every night, if we like each other well enough."
Rowley thought that that would certainly screw things up with Virginia, but looking at the rise of Elaine's breasts so close to him he didn't much care.
"I'm sure we will like each other," he told her, placing his own hand over hers on his arm, and squeezing it gently.
Their glasses were empty. Bill signalled to Louie, and the man brought the bottle and filled them up again, then retreated.
"Will you come to my room this evening?" she asked, but there was really no question in her tone of voice. Her hand moved a little on his arm.
"Yes."
"Say, around eleven?"
"Fine. Shall I bring anything? A bottle of Brantly, maybe?"
"Yes, do that. Better yet, a bottle of wine. Some nice, pleasant wine."
"All right."
"I'd better leave now. I don't want it to seem too obvious."
"As you like. I thought we could spend the afternoon together...."
"That would be nice. But...."
"Why, I hardly know you."
"I'm too direct for that. When I see something I like I see no point in fooling around with the usual silly preliminaries. You can get to know all you need to about me tonight."
"I'm sure of it," he said.
"I think that I'll leave you now."
He squeezed her hand and released it quickly. He felt very good about the ensuing events. Elaine got off the stool and started to walk away. Then she turned back to him and said, "Bill, you will do what I want tonight?"
"Of course."
"Anything?"
He nodded.
"I can hardly wait," she said. "I know that you'll be good."
Bill grinned at her and she turned and walked back to the lounge. He finished the brandy, then drank hers, feeling a small delight in placing his lips where hers had been. He called to Louie and had one more poured, using Elaine's glass this time.
"A nice looking woman, hey?" he said, to see if Louie would register any emotion.
"Un," said Louie, pouring the brandy. Then he went back down the bar, and Bill shrugged at his back. It was hard to dislike a man who said absolutely nothing, he decided, even when they ignored your questions. It was not nearly as bad as talking too much, especially for a bartender.
He had several more drinks, sipping them slowly and enjoying them, with nothing else to do for the duration of the afternoon. He could watch the group remaining in the lounge, and presently the college girls got up and left, going upstairs. Cohen watched them, grinning at their backs as they walked, then he got up and waddled into the bar.
"Buy you a drink?" he asked BID.
"Sure," Bill told him.
Cohen drank blended whiskey and soda. Bill had another brandy. After a few sips, Cohen said, "That Mrs. Jenkins is quite a woman, isn't she?"
"Quite," said Bill, noncommitally.
"I've been watching her," Cohen confessed, with a smile that was somehow greasy. How ridiculous for a man like this to even look at a woman like Elaine, Rowley thought. It was almost disgusting.
"Do you know her very well?"
"No," Bill said.
"Oh. I was wondering-that is, I thought you might know something about her. May I speak bluntly with you, Mr. Rowley?"
"I'd rather you were blunt than to hem and haw," Bill told him.
"Yes. Well, you don't suppose she would be willing to-shall we say, come to my room? If I were to offer her a sum of-perhaps one hundred dollars?"
"I doubt that she would. More likely she would slap your face. But," Bill shrugged, "One can never tell about those things." Rowley had no moral qualms about such things, and if money were to change hands he wanted to get a percentage of it, if possible. The thought of Elaine and Cohen was very disgusting, but not so much so as if she were to do it without taking money. Money justified such things to Bill, as it did all things. The only thing that interested him more than money was sex.
"I don't suppose you would approach her for me?" Cohen asked.
"I'm no panderer."
"Of course not. Merely as a friend, as a favor to me. Just sort of sound her out."
"Well see," Bill said, looking away.
"I might even be willing to go to a hundred and a half. Of course," Cohen said, winking, "She needn't know exactly what her services are worth. I wouldn't mention the price to her, and if you could persuade her to come for less, well-you understand?"
"Perfectly."
"And you'll help?"
"We'll see, as I said."
"Yes."
Virginia appeared at the door just then. Cohen excused himself and left the bar, swaying from side to side on his too-small feet.
"Bill," Virginia said, crossing the room.
"Yes?"
"It won't be necessary to come to my room tonight," she told him. She was smiling sweetly. What pleasure it gives her to tell me that, he thought. To let me know that there is someone else to take my place for the evening. Well, the hell with that. It provides the excuse I would need anyway, because I certainly won't miss seeing Elaine tonight, not for anything. So, Virginia old girl, you've played right into my hand.
And there's nothing to worry about. Your tall scarecrow won't make you forget me, you can count on that.
And when the time comes to get you back I'll be able to do it. I'll always be able to do it.
Aloud, he said nothing. Virginia waited for a moment then started to go to her office.
"Virginia-" he said.
"Yes?"
"I'll be lonely tonight." His expression was very serious, and she wasn't sure if he was being sarcastic or not. She paused a while before answering, and he looked at her levelly and didn't smile.
"I'll bet," she said, at length, and went into her office. The door closed rather loudly, and then Bill grinned and drank his brandy.
The first thing that Patricia did, when she and Beverly had gone to their room, was to take all her clothes off. She sat on the bed, crosslegged, and talked to Beverly, who was sitting at the window.
"Isn't that Mr. Cohen disgusting?" she asked.
"Awfully."
"I think he was about to proposition us when we left," Patricia said.
"Yes. Wouldn't that have been funny? I might have let him have you, for a price."
"Don't be mean," Patricia said, and then both girls giggled about it.
"Why haven't you any clothes on?" Bevery asked, as if she had just noticed for the first time.
"Does it bother you?"
"A bit," Beverly told her.
"You're being mean again," Patricia said, making a pouting face.
"Well, I can't see why you must go around naked the minute we're alone."
"You know perfectly well why I do."
"Ummmm. You know, if you were built like Mrs. Jenkins I wouldn't mind so much."
"Damn you! I always take you seriously, Bev. You know how hurt I get over things like that."
Beverly shrugged and looked out the window, where the last rays of the sun were making everything very bright and red.
"You don't really want her, do you?"
"Who?"
"Mrs. Jenkins."
Beverly shrugged. "I wouldn't mind. She's beautiful, and she has the best body I've ever seen."
"Look at my body. Why won't you ever look at me?" Patricia asked.
"Oh, stop it I've seen you too many times to take any interest in you."
"You're cruel."
"I suppose so."
Patricia started to cry. She cried very easily, almost at will. Beverly waited a while, watching the sunset, then she came over to the bed and sat beside Patricia.
"Stop it," she said.
"You don't love me."
"Of course I love you. For God's sake, Pat, don't be so emotional."
"Do you really love mo?"
"Of course."
"And you're not tired of me?"
"No."
"Then kiss me."
Beverly kissed her, quickly, thinking that Patricia was becoming a nuisance. Patricia put her arms around Beverely and clung to her, still sobbing a little.
"You'll catch cold," Beverly said.
"I don't care. What do I care?"
"Well, I do. Now put some clothes on."
"I want to make love," Patricia said. She was still clinging to Beverly. "Then I'll put my clothes on. Can't we make love?"
Beverly looked at the other girl's naked body. Smooth and thin, with young, pink nippled breasts. She touched one nipple with her hand, but she had no real desire, and pulled away after a moment.
"You don't want to," Patricia accused her.
"Not now. After dinner. Tonight we can make love, for a long time."
"All right," Patricia said. "Will you help me get dressed?"
Beverly shook her head, thinking that the other girl was getting worse and worse. She almost wished that they had never started.
Both girls were nineteen years old, and were roommates at college. It had been Beverly that had made the initial advances in the relationship. She had been the experienced partner. Patricia had never had any sex experience before in any form, and she fell almost instantly in love with her roommate. What had been merely an amusing and sometimes passionate affair to Beverly had become a tragic love affair to Patricia. Too tragic, and too intense, too many arguments and scenes for Beverly. She was determined to never let anyone know about her perverted love, and with Patricia it was too difficult. The other girl would look at her in public with obvious devotion, would touch her at every possible chance, it was too dangerous. And, then too, Beverly didn't want to be making love constantly, and it appeared that was all Patricia thought of.
This vacation was going to end it, Beverly had decided. She had promised Patricia that she would spend a week with her in the mountains, and that was what she was doing. But it was to be the last week. As soon as she returned to school she had plans to switch roommates and to avoid Patricia from then on. She hadn't told the other girl about this, yet, and rather dreaded the reaction. But she was determined to do it, she had to protect herself.
Patricia dressed, slowly and looking injured. Beverly returned to her seat at the window. It was getting grey out now, and the sun had disappeared.
"I don't see how any woman could go with Cohen," Beverly said, to get Patricia's mind of the subject of their own affairs.
"I don't see how a woman can go with any man, for that matter," Patricia said.
"You should try it sometime."
"Don't say that. You know I'll never have anyone but you."
"Pat-"
"What, honey?"
"Oh, nothing. Nothing." There was no hurry. She might as well let the other girl enjoy the rest of the vacation. And she dreaded what would happen, especially U there was a loud scene. Why, Patricia might even tell about them, she thought. There was no telling what that girl might do if she became angry. And she didn't seem to care in the least what others thought about them. Yes, it was going to be stick for a while. But, as a last resort, Beverly had a plan. When she requested to transfer rooms she could hint that Patricia was a lesbian. Then, if the other girl started any trouble she would certainly be expelled. That would, at least, get her off the campus.
Patricia was dressed by then, and came over to stand beside Beverly.
"Don't forget you promised we could make love after dinner," she said.
"I won't."
"You want to, don't you?"
"Sure."
"Why is it always I that has to ask? Why don't you ever suggest it any more?" Beverly shrugged. "Do you love me?"
"Urn hum."
"And we can do it later?"
"I said so, didn't I. How many times must I repeat it, for God's sake?"
"I'm sorry. Don't be angry, Bev."
"Then just be quiet about it."
"All right." she said. Then she said, "Can we do it the way I like to?"
"Yes. Sure."
"Okay. I won't say any more about it, okay. Just don't forget."
Beverly didn't answer, looking out the window. She was telling herself that she must never, even, get mixed up with an innocent and inexperienced girl again. She was also thinking about Elaine Jenkins, wishing that there were some subtle way to find out what she thought about unusual sex relationships. After all, the woman wouldn't have to do anything herself. Just relax and enjoy Beverly's efforts. It was hard to understand how any woman could turn down an offer like that, or find it disgusting. But then again she found men rather disgusting. It was all in the point of view, she thought, neither way was right and neither way was wrong. It was up to the individual to decide which way was best for her, and then to go about it without feeling any qualms of conscious. Of course, some things had to be kept secret. But that was because all of society was not as open-minded as she was about these things.
"What are you thinking about?" Patricia asked, stroking her hair.
"Us," Beverly lied. "About how good it used to be, before you became so possessive."
"Darling, I'm sorry. I never meant to ruin things. But it's only because I love you so very much, you know. I can't help it."
"No, I suppose not."
"I'll try to be better."
"All right. Let's get cleaned up for dinner now, okay?" Beverly said-
Patricia nodded. Beverly washed her face and hands and applied fresh makeup. Patricia washed but did not wear any makeup at all.
"Why must you try so hard to broadcast what you are?" Beverly asked her, in relation to this.
"Because that's what I am, and I can see no reason for hiding it."
"You're a little fool, and much too naive," Beverly told her. Patricia grinned shyly at her, and the two girls left their room and went down the stairs. Patricia walked close to her, so their hips brushed as they stepped, and looked at Beverly from the corner of her eye But Beverly kept her eyes straight ahead, and she was wondering whether Mrs. Jenkins would be eating then. It would be nice to watch Mrs. Jenkins eat. Even if she could never touch her, it would be nice just to watch her.
Later, perhaps, in their dark room, she could pretend that Patricia was Mrs. Jenkins. That would make it better.
CHAPTER FOUR
Bill Rowley was very anxious for eleven o'clock to arrive. He had a few misgivings about letting Earl spend too much time with Virginia, but they seemed slight when he compared the possibilities of losing her with the too obvious charms of Elaine's magnificent body, and her complete willingness. Yes, that evening should prove to be one of the best of his life. She was certainly the most desirable woman he had ever known, by far. If there was any correlation between desire for a woman and resulting pleasure, as he felt there was, then that evening should prove to be much better than any other time. Twice as good, perhaps three times. He wanted her that badly.
He had drank brandy at the bar until dinner, then eaten in the lounge. Elaine had appeared shortly, but hadn't paid any obvious attention to him. He knew that it was for the sake of appearance and secrecy, but it was rather depressing. As she returned to her room, however, she had winked at him, and given her bottom a little extra motion when she climbed the stairs.
He had talked with Beverly and Patricia for a short while, then gone into the bar for one more brandy. He drank it leisurely, then selected a bottle of wine from the wine shelf, a good Burgundy.
"I'm taking this with me,"
"he told Louie.
"Yes sir," said Louie.
"Good night, then."
"Good night."
He went up to his room, intending to rest for a while. It would be good to be refreshed for Elaine, she would probably tire him out as it was, and he also wanted to sleep off the effect of the brandy he had consumed. He didn't want anything to spoil their first night.
Bill set his alarm for ten thirty and lay on the bed. He fell asleep right away, and slept through until the ringing bell awoke him. He was groggy at first, wondering where he was, and then he remembered and got up quickly, fully awake and impatient.
He showered and changed his clothes. He shaved quickly with an electric razor, although he didn't really need to, and put on after shave lotion liberally. He looked in the mirror and was satisfied with his appearance, he smiled at his reflection. You, he told the image, are going to have one hell of a good time this night.
It was not quite eleven. He didn't want to be early, so he sat at his window, smoking, feeling impatience welling up in his stomach. Why, he thought, I feel just like a kid on his first date. That broad has really affected me. I hope she's feeling the same way, anxiously awaiting my knock. She seemed anxious enough this afternoon, she's most likely watching the door right now, in some nice filmy nightgown, with nothing on under it. How nicely the thin material will cling to the rise of her breasts and fall down her slender torso.
Thinking about this he became too impatient to wait longer. He put the bottle of wine in his jacket pocket and went out and down the hall. It was five minutes to eleven when he knocked on her door.
"Come in," she called, and he opened the door and entered her room. She was not there, and then he heard water running in the bathroom and knew that she must be taking a shower. Getting clean for him. That was nice. He took a seat and waited.
"I'll only be a second," she called, from the other room, over the sound of the shower.
"Okay," he said, lighting a cigarette and watching the door through the smoke.
After a few moments she came into the room, smiling at him. She had dried herself and put on a brassiere and a pair of very brief nylon panties. Bill looked at her body and thought that it was even better than he had known it would be. Her waist was unbelievably tiny, flaring to a hip span that excited his imagination on one side, and rising in a long taper to her upright breasts on the other. Her hair was down, and she tossed it about with a graceful motion of her head, which tossed her breasts slightly. Bill took a sharp intake of breath, he could feel his blood begin to pound.
"I was going to come in naked," she said, with a smile. "But then I thought that perhaps you might want to undress me. A little."
"A very little," he said, looking at the scant coverage that was afforded by her clothes.
"Do you like me?"
"Do you need to ask?"
Elaine laughed. "Did you bring the wine?" she asked him, and he held up the bottle. "Let's open it, then," she suggested, finding a corkscrew on her dresser and bringing it over to him. She sat on his lap, arms about his neck; kissing his ear for a second, nibbling at him with quick little bits of her white teeth.
Bills hands started to caress her, but she said, "Not yet. Let's drink the wine first."
"Whatever you want," he said, fighting to control his voice and hands at the same time.
"Whatever I want?"
"Anything."
"Good. You'll have a chance to prove that."
"There's nothing I'd like better," Rowley told her, wondering how he would prove it and sure it was going to be fun, no matter how.
He opened the wine, and asked, "Do you have glasses, Elaine?"
"Let's drink from the bottle," she said.
Bill offered it to her, she took a small sip and gave it back. He did the same. She was still in his lap and the touch of her fleshy, firm buttocks fired him. Her breasts were poised just under his face.
"I don't know how long I can wait," he told her.
"Then start," she said.
"How?"
"Start here," she said, thrusting her breasts closer. She was holding the bottle of wine. Bill unfastened the bra and pulled it away; the full, rounded, tapering globes came free directly under his mouth.
Elaine breathed warmly at his ear, as he touched first one breasts, then the other; almost reverently, gently, taking the nipples in his hands and fondling them until they stiffened and stood upright. They were large nipples; jutting upward from the circles surrounding them, standing of their own accord.
"Kiss them, darling," she whispered in his ear, her breath very hot.
He bent slightly and licked at her with the tip of his tongue, then enclosed the hardened tips with his mouth, rolling and sucking at them. Waves of pleasure spread throughout her body, like the ripples created by an object falling into the water, spreading in ever widening circles away from the tips of her breasts. She squirmed on his lap, and he knew she could feel his passion growing beneath her, growing more enormous than ever before, because his desire was greater than ever before.
"Darling...." she murmured.
He continued to work on her breasts, determined to wait until she was satisfied there before moving on.
He was determined to give her the most enjoyment possible in return for his own pleasure.
"Drink, darling," she whispered, pouring a little trickle of wine on herself, just below the collarbone. It ran down her chest, down the deep crevice between her breasts, and down her stomach.
Bill obeyed, in blind lust. He moved his lips from her nipples to the cleavage between and sucked the red liquid from her. It mingled with her sweat and the natural taste of her clean body, and it seemed to taste good to him as he lapped if from her.
"Is that good?" she asked. Her voice was throaty, very deep and trembled slightly.
"Ummmm," he said, speaking with his mouth still pressed to her.
She put the bottle down and with both hands pressed her breasts against him, burying his face between them for a moment. Then she pulled him gently away.
"Move down," she whispered.
Bill slid down her body. She pulled his face back to her so that he was kissing her stomach, her belly, the thin line of hair down the center, from her navel down. Some of the wine had stained her that far down, and he licked it off, then sucked at the swell of her lower belly. He was thinking how delicious she was.
She arched her hips slightly, and Bill realized what she wanted and tugged the panties down and off her legs. She was completely naked then. He caressed her thighs, moving back toward her belly.
Elaines hands guided his head.
"That's what I want," she gasped.
That was all right with Bill.
"Ohhhh, so good," she whispered. Bill grasped her body, sinking into the flesh and forcing her hips away from the chair, wanting to bury himself there.
Elaine found the bottle again, groping blindly with her eyes fastened on the top of Bill's head. She lifted it above her and poured slowly, just at the navel. The wine ran down in two little rivulets, on either side of her belly, emerging below, dripping slowly into the very portals of desire. He kissed the wine from her, and they both were trembling. The wine had mingled with her love, her flesh. It had become one of the pleasures of her body, and Bill, crouched on the floor, caressed her, blindly, almost as if it were a religious thing. Perhaps it was, in its own strange way....
Elaine dropped the bottle suddenly, and it rolled on the floor, spilling the remaining wine. She grasped his head with both hands and rolled against him, crying out, jerking, and moaning. His lips were like a flame, burning her.
And then she extinguished the flame with the flood of her pulsating release, and collapsed limply back into (he chair, empty and complete.
Bill waited for a moment, still against her, and then he slid away, looking up at her with the wine still glistening on his chin.
"That was beautiful," she said, when she was able to speak.
He stood and began to unbutton his clothing. He had enjoyed her very much in that way, but his own need had been built to the breaking point while he had pleased her.
"No," she said. "What?"
"No, don't take off your clothes. I don't want you to, Bill. Please."
"I don't understand...."
"I told you that I had strange ideas of love."
"But what about me?"
"I'm sorry. I can't help it if I've frustrated you. I can't do anything else."
"But-you've got to do something...."
"I'm sorry, Bill. I can't"
"Damn you!"
She got out of the chair and crossed the room to the closet, where she put a robe on. For one wild moment Bill thought of raping her, but he dismissed that idea. Rape would not be any good; he needed submission.
"Please, anything. We don't have to go all the way, anything will do. Any part of you. What are you afraid of?"
"I've done all I will ever do," she said. "I'm sorry it wasn't enough to satisfy you, I was hoping we could do it like that every night. But I guess it won't work out that way...."
Bill sat on the floor, not quite believing what had happened, and feeling the throb of pain in his body. "Please...." he said again, hopelessly.
"You can do it for yourself, if it's that bad," she told him. "I'll watch, if you like, or kiss you while you do. But that's all."
He got up then, crossing the room to her.
"You witch!" he snarled, and brought one hand savagely across her face. Elaine fell to the bed, holding her face but not saying a word. She did not seem surprised. Perhaps she was used to such things. She looked up at him with a level gaze.
BUI turned and left the room. He was burning with rage, and shame, and unfulfilled torment. His eyes seemed to be consumed with a dry heat, affecting his vision. He went up the next flight of stairs and down to Virginia's room, thinking what a fool he had been and determined to have only her from then on.
But the door was locked. He tried it silently, then pressed his ear to the wood and listened. He could make out two voices, whispering and laughing. One was Virginia's, the other was a man's voice, deep and resonant. Bill cursed silently, and contemplated breaking the door down. It might be some form of release to break in and savagely beat the man with Virginia. But not the right release, the release of rage was still secondary in his mind, and passion was still hard and ready.
But who? He thought of Susan, who worked on the lunch counter, but dismissed her. She seemed too innocent, a seduction like that would take time. Who then? The two college girls who shared a room? Almost impossible, with them both together, but still a chance. If he could think of some ruse to account for calling on them at this hour....
He stopped at the door and was about to knock. Then, on impluse, he knelt and looked in the keyhole. From that point of view he could see very little of the room. Only the bed, but that was enough.
Both girls were on the bed. They were naked. As he watched they went into each other's arms in a long, passionate embrace that held his eyes glued to the keyhole-shaped scene.
The girls giggled at first, then their sounds became gasps of passion, and finally moans. Bill watched until they were finished, and stretched out side by side on the bed.
"Let's do it again," one girl said. He wasn't sure which was which. "Let's rest first"
"Yes, then we can do it the way I like to again?"
"Yes. Sure."
"Do you like it that way to?"
"Sure. Rest now. I'll turn out the light"
"I'd rather you left it on. I like to look at you while we lie together."
"Okay, but rest"
"All right"
Then the two girls were motionless and silent. Bill stood up and looked at the wood of the closed door. This was an interesting thing to know, he thought. It might come in very handy in the future, and he wasn't above using such knowledge to his own ends. But right then he couldn't concentrate on the future or make any plans or decisions; he was too filled with need.
It had been exciting, too, watching the two girls together on the bed. It wasn't as if it was bad enough to start with, when he had first stopped at their door and looked through the keyhole. The need that had been so great with Elaine had increased even more as he watched the two girls in their love-making.
Bill walked away from their door.
He went down the hall as far as the open door of the corridor bathroom and went in, locking the door behind him. He felt almost dizzy. It was a shame, he thought, to waste such emotion in this porcelain and tile bathroom....
CHAPTER FIVE
Earl Wormwood had a habit of always rising early. He was the first person in the lounge the next morning. He had left Virginia peacefully sleeping with a contented smile on her face, the bedclothes twisted around one leg, and the first ray of sunshine lighting the corner of her pillow. He felt tired from the night's activities, but not sleepy. He dressed quietly, sitting on the bed to pull on his pants and boots. He left the room and went downstairs without stopping at his own room.
He had been sitting for a while, wondering why people slept so late, when Susan came down to open the snack bar. She smiled at Earl and he returned the smile, thinking that she was a very pretty girl.
"You're up early," Susan said. "I don't think I've seen you around before. Are you a new guest?"
"New instructor," he told her. "I just arrived yesterday, and I've been busy upstairs. Getting my things together, and such."
"Sure. Well, I'd better get things ready before the hungry paying customers come down," she said, walking into the kitchen.
Earl, having mentioned them to Susan, remembered that he hadn't brought his possessions in from the car. He went out and loaded everything into his arms for one trip and brought them up to his room. After he had tossed everything in the rough general direction in which it would be kept he went out and stopped across the hall, knocking on the door.
"Yes?"
He went in. Virginia was getting dressed, and was just in the process of pulling her stretch pants up. She smiled when she saw who it was and came across the room to kiss him, the pants halfway over her hips and nothing on underneath them, as was her habit.
"Where did you run off to?" she asked, when their lips had separated. She kept her body pressed against him at the hip level.
"I never sleep late," he explained. "Oh? Did we really sleep?"
"Not much."
"It was nice. Much better than a good nights sleep. More tiring, but more relaxing, too. I feel very relaxed this morning."
"And I'm ready to start work."
She laughed. "You already started," she said. "I may decided that the only work you do is on me."
"No," he said. "That's not work. I want to earn my wages, the other is a delightful bonus. Hell, I'd even forego the wages for the bonus."
It was the right thing to say, and Virginia kissed him again before she pulled her pants up.
"Go get yourself some coffee," she said. "I'll be down in a while and introduce you to Sam."
"Right," said Earl. He went downstairs to the lounge. He took a seat in the window, where the sun was bright now, and thought about the deal he had walked into at Eagle Mountain.
Virginia Tucker was nice. He wouldn't mind sleeping with her regularly, but he wanted it to be on his own terms. He sensed that she was a woman who could be very demanding of her lovers. And employees.
Well, he thought, she can be as demanding as she likes in regard to my work. But I'm damned if any woman, for love or money or any other reason, can be demanding of my services in bed. That is something I would never sell on a permanent basis. Once maybe, to achieve something, like this job, but never as a steady arrangement. Besides, he added, smiling, it's worth more when it can't be bought. He had a habit of tempering his naive ideals with the justification of some practical thought in relation to them. And he knew that he did this, and often laughed at himself.
This is a good arrangement, he thought. A good job, doing what I like to do, and enough money for me to live comfortably. What the hell else can I expect from life beyond that? I'm not the type to think about castles in the sky, or even villas in Rome. They aren't worth the necessary effort, even if they were possible. Hell, I wouldn't be any happier if I was living in a mansion right now, the sunlight wouldn't be any brighter as it came in the window.
What a philosopher I am, he thought.
He lit his pipe, tapped it down and relit it, watching the smoke hang in the yellow sunlight. He felt very good this morning, and knew that nothing was quite as desirable as peace of mind. That may be all he possessed, but that was fine with Earl. It would be nice if I could meet a girl who appreciated these things someday. One who didn't demand security and conformity, he told himself, but knew he didn't think it worth the effort to seek one out. Perhaps someday one would happen by; if not he could still smoke a pipe in the early morning sun.
"Coffee?" she called.
Earl turned and saw that Susan was talking to him. He got up and crossed the room with his long strides, standing at the counter before the girl.
"Yes, I'd love some coffee," he told her.
She poured a cup and handed it to him. "Cream and sugar?" she asked, reaching for those containers.
"Black, of course," he said.
"You looked lost in thought sitting over there," Susan said. "Worried about something?"
"No, I never worry."
"A good way to be."
"A logical way. No one starves in the good old United States, yon know, and what is worth worrying about except starvation?"
"Love? she suggested.
"To women, perhaps, if they're foolish."
"Aren't all women?"
"Probably."
He sipped the coffee, then said, "Will you join me for a cup? There's no one here yet."
"All right."
They took their coffee cups back to the seat by the window. Earl never felt quite at ease with a woman, but he never let that be known; he usually pulled it off rather well. At the moment he felt interested in Susan, and studied her face with open interest and honesty.
She was pretty in an up-turned nose type of way. Her auburn hair was twisted into a pony tail. Her body was well developed, and pressed enticingly against her white uniform as she moved. There was a wholesome air about her; it made her curves seem less sensual somehow, without losing their attractiveness. And she had a frank and innocent looking face to go with this. She could see that Earl was appraising her, but made no efforts to impress him one way or the other. She was content to be evaluated as she was.
"How late must you work?" Earl asked, "I get off right after dinner."
"Maybe you would like to take a ride with me some evening. Or got into town for a movie and a beer," Earl suggested.
"That would be nice."
"Do you have any commitments? Fiance, boy friend, lover, anything of that sort?"
"No. Nothing serious." Then after a while she said, "You're interesting."
"How is that?"
"Oh, I don't know. You're strange looking, for one thing. But you seem nice, like someone who would be fun to know and be with. I sound awfully forward, don't I?"
"Not at all. To be honest is never to be forward. Or if it is, then it is desirable."
"Are you honest?"
"Completely."
Virginia came down the stairs then and joined them. Susan went to get coffee for her and brought it over, but several others came down then and she had to return to the kitchen.
"A pleasant young lady," Virginia said.
"Yes, she's nice."
"But remember who you work for," she told him, half-smiling but serious in the eyes. Earl regarded her for a long moment, his lips pursed and his brow wrinkled in a leathery frown, "Remember who I ski for," he said
"Yes, of course. But you don't mind if I am rather possessive, do you? It's a compliment, you know, for a woman to be jealous of you."
"It's a compliment I can do without I told you what I thought of selling myself."
"Oh, I'm not buying you. But aren't I woman enough to keep you all to myself anyway?"
"Perhaps. You were last night."
"And I can be better. I have a lot to offer a man, Earl, a great deal. And not only in bed, although that's the part I'd most rather offer."
Earl looked out the window. He was thinking that this woman couldn't get her values straight. She obviously wanted someone to love her for love's sake, even the physical form of love. She was so used to buying love that she got the two mixed up; she couldn't keep the different relationships straight in her mind. But it didn't matter, as long as he stuck to his own ideals Earl wasn't about to be hurt or bothered.
Presently Bill Rowley came down and joined them, first getting coffee at the counter. He looked drawn and tired, as though he hadn't slept well. He was chain-smoking cigarettes down to the last quarter inch.
"Good morning," Virginia said, cheerfully. "Did you sleep well?"
Bill grunted. "As well as you, I hope," he told her, looking at Earl.
Earl returned the man's stare, not because he felt any animosity but because he made it a point to never be stared down by a man. Rowley's eyes were very cold and hard; Earl knew he had gotten in the middle of something that might worry a man who let things worry him. As it was he merely returned the stare with his own deep set eyes and felt curiosity about the relationship between Virginia, Bill, and himself.
When Sam came in Virginia went over to speak with him, and Bill and Earl were left alone at the table. Neither spoke for a while, then Bill said, "I don't know you, and I don't know if you have any ideas on the subject, but let me tell you something...."
His tone of voice angered Earl. He interrupted, "No man tells me anything!"
"I do," Bill replied. They were two confident men facing one another over the table, and both of them realized it. "What you do is your business, until I make it mine. I might. But what I want to say now is just a friendly tip. I don't care how often you sleep with her, as long as that's as far as it goes. But anything that you think it might be worth to you, just remember I've claimed it."
"You must be quite a man."
"That's right"
Earl shrugged. "All I came here for was a job. That's all I want. When the season's over I'll be leaving and I probably won't be back in this area. Maybe that satisfies you, and I'll tell you that because it's true. But don't push me Rowley, never."
"That satisfies me. As long as you stick to it. But, man, you don't know what pushing means until you get pushed by me."
Rowley stood up and left the table as Sam and Virginia came over. He went into the bar, which hadn't opened yet, and poured himself a glass of brandy.
"What were you two talking about?" Virginia asked Earl. "You didn't seem too friendly about it"
"It's nothing."
"Uh huh. Well, I don't like hassles between my employees. Remember that." 'Tell him."
"I intend to. But let's forget that for now. This is Sam White, our instructor. Sam, this is Earl Wormwood, your new assistant."
The two men shook hands. Virginia said, "You can get acquainted. I'll be around later to see how Earl is working out. And I'll see you later." The last remark was directed to Earl.
"Right," he said, in the tone with which one answers an employer instead of a lover.
"Virginia says your references are good," Sam said. "You won't have any trouble here. Not skiing and not with me, at least."
"That's all I ask."
"You teach Austrian?"
"I have."
"Good. We'll go out after I finish this coffee. I'm giving private lessons at ten and two. Public classes are at nine and four. Any private lessons you can pick up are all yours, and don't worry about me. I don't mind sharing the wealth as long as I'm sharing the effort."
Sam was a small man, rather dark, with a clipped moustache and short hair. Earl liked him immediately, and Sam seemed to like Earl also. Earl felt relieved that there was to be no jealousy between them.
The class assembled at the bottom of the chair lift. While they were waiting Sam and Earl chatted about past skiing experiences, places where they had worked, off season employment and the like.
Suddenly, changing the subject, Sam said, "I wouldn't get too mixed up between Rowley and Virginia, if I were you, Earl. If you don't mind a little advice."
"I don't intend to."
"Yeah. I don't like Rowley myself, and I don't think you hit it off very well either." Earl smiled.
"He's sort of staked a claim on Virginia, and I imagine he resents you as a possible competitor. Or nlaybe you already are, I don't care about that. But I do know Virginia, and nothing surprises me about her. She tried to get me in her big bed, too, but I don't want any part of it. I'm a skier, not a stud. But what you do is your own business, just a friendly tip to watch out for Rowley. He could be dangerous if he got mad."
Earl nodded, lighting a cigarette and considering what Sam had said.
"Hell," Sam continued, "Rowley can't even ski, so it's pretty obvious what his function is around here. And he's a specialist at it."
"Thanks, Sam," Earl said.
The class was assembled then, and they went up the lift. At the top Earl waited while Sam ran through a verbal discussion of the maneuvers that they were going to try that day. It was a fairly advanced class of serious skiers. Most of them were men, but Elaine Jenkins was also there. And while the others were looking at and listening to Sam she had her eyes glued on Earl.
A small mark showed on her cheekbone where Rowley had hit her, but it was hard to notice against her red cheeks. And it wasn't about to deter her from future conquests. She had been beaten much worse than that in her day, and she knew that she would be beaten worse again. If that were necessary then she would just have to grow used to it. As long as it didn't damage her beauty; that was necessary to her plans and conquests.
She had to attract many men. After one frustrating night with her they seldom returned for an encore. Some did, but always with the thought that perhaps the next time she would yield more of herself. And she never did. There was only one thing that she wanted.
Her husband refused her that pleasure. She refused him the more usual marriage rights. They hadn't slept together for a year, and most of her time was spent in seeking a man who would do what she wanted. At the moment she was looking at Earl, deep eyes and bristling moustache; wondering if he would beat her, later, "Do you give private lessons?" she asked. I can.
"Would you give me lessons?"
"Certainly." Earl said. She looked very beautiful with her dark hair and red cheeks. She was wearing a black parka and white stretch pants.
"Maybe we could get together this noon? Are you going to be busy?"
"No. I can take you at ten, if you'd rather."
"Fine," she said. She smiled at him, flashing white teeth, whiter than the snow. And for the rest of the class lesson she watched him and imagined how it would be, and grew very impatient.
At ten they met at the bottom of the slope. "I'm ready," she told him. "Shall we have a cup of coffee first?"
"All right."
They went into the shack and had coffee, sitting by the wood burning stove. It felt good to get warm, Earl thought. It was a golden day, but cold, and the snow had stung as it whipped into his face. It was the first time he had skied that year; his ankles were sore and as his legs and back. But it had been good to get back on skies. It would also be good to give lessons to this very beautiful woman, he thought, although he had no ulterior motives and didn't see any in her. Earl was often quite naive when it came to direct and forward women.
"What are you working on?" he asked her.
"You'll see. You can watch me and then you'll be able to tell how far advanced I am and what we should concentrate on. All right?"
"Sure," he said.
"I want to start at the top of Hellgate," she said, adding, "It's so beautiful up there."
"I haven't been there yet."
"You'll enjoy it, I'm sure."
Why is she looking at me that way? he wondered. She was far too beautiful to be interested in a man at first sight. Maybe she's just interested in ski instructors. That would be nice.
They rode the lift to the top and got off. There was no one there at that hour, as Elaine had planned. She stood next to Earl and put her arm through his, saying, "Let's just look at the view for a while."
"It's your money," he said.
They stood at 3,600 feet and looked at the surrounding country. The lodge looked very small below, and when they moved a few feet to one side it was hidden by the pines. To the left, very clear and white they could see Vermont; to the right the land dropped away into the forest. Hellgate looked very treacherous in front of them.
"I wish we had a bottle of wine," Elaine said, looking off into the distance.
"That would be nice. I'd appreciate some wine right Warm us up."
"Lift your glasses," she said.
Earl pulled the goggles to his forehead and looked questioningly at her.
"You have lovely eyes," she told him.
"What do you want?"
"Not skiing lessons."
"Then let's go back down. We can go to your room, or mine if you'd rather."
"No. I want you up here, up on top of the world with this magnificent view and this clean white snow. It'll be better here, less sordid."
"Love is never sordid. But it can be cold. We can't undress up here, we'll freeze."
"I'd rather. I'll keep you as warm as you like. I'm very warm."
Earl, who found this whole thing quite unbelievable, swung his skis from his shoulder and rested them on the ground, leaning lightly on them. "Why do you want me? You don't even know me."
"Because I'm a tramp," she said, showing neither pride nor embarrassment.
Earl shrugged. He liked women, and he had never had a woman as beautiful as Elaine before. He said, "All right, if that's what you want it's fine with me. But I think it would be better in our rooms."
Elaine smiled, a quick plan forming in her mind. She hadn't thought of it before, but it would work out perfectly. She said, "Let's make love just a little up here. We can just make each other want it, then we will ski down and go to my room. We can spend the whole night there, later, but right now I want to make love a little."
"All right," Earl said.
Elaine turned and walked a little farther up, away from the top of the lift and into the pine trees. It was very secluded there, and the snow was not so deep, having been hindered by the trees. The ground was bare in many spots, and large, grey rocks were nestled in the spongy earth. It seemed very silent, too, as if leaving the site of the lift had plunged them into a deep forest. A wind that they hadn't noticed before was blowing the snow from the branches of the trees.
Elaine looked about, happily, smiling. She really felt that there would be something more pure about making love in this wild and white place. She was completely unaware of the cold.
"You do want me?" she asked.
"Yes, I want you."
"Let's stop here."
She sat on a low, flat rock. It had a thin covering of snow on it. Earl stood beside her, waiting to see what she would suggest, but she was silent for a while. He sat beside her and kissed her. Perhaps it would not be so bad in the cold after all, he thought, as long as their contact points were those warm places of the body.
"Touch me first," she said.
Earl did, feeling and squeezing through the heavy parka and the skin-tight pants. They clung together for a long while and kissed and he ran his hands over her body, feeling his excitement grow. Their clothes were too bulky. His hands moved up under the parka, his mouth ground against hers; he could feel her begin to squirm with excitement.
Then he heard the zzzzt of a zipper, and she was pulling her pants down. Earl helped, clumsily, his hands cold on her flesh, and she kicked the pants off. Wearing only her sheer nylon panties below the waist she leaned back on the rock, not seeming to feel the wet snow beneath her.
"You'll freeze," he said.
"I don't care. You can keep me warm."
He touched her, then becoming carried away himself he pulled the panties down and off her willing legs. He began to stroke upward with his hands.
"Not your hands," she said. "Your hands are too cold, darling."
Earl began to unfasten his own pants, but she stopped him, kissing him first with open mouth and sliding tongue, and said, "Leave your clothes on. We can save that for later, in the room."
"What do you want, then?" he asked.
"Kiss me-all over. Please do that for me."
"I'd love to," he said, and lowered his face to begin caressing her thighs. Elaine leaned back, pulling her parka as highs as she could, watching him. Earl slowly worked upward, and finally she couldn't wait and pulled him to her with hands and legs.
She was oblivious to snow and cold and wind, her conscious centered at that one point of warm, moist contact. It seemed even warmer in contrast, clean and pure in the smokeless, cold air and the scent of pines.
Earl moved, shuffling on the ground, getting as close to her as he could. He was different from Rowley; he was not so driven by his own desires and needs, and he could appreciate what he was doing without feeling anxious to pass on to his own pleasures. His was not the nature that becomes enraged over such things, and he didn't at all mind waiting for his own release. And if it never happened, he would still enjoy giving pleasure to this woman, and enjoying it vicariously, as the cause of it.
"Don't stop," she moaned.
Earl had no intention of stopping. It was too warm and pleasant between those sculptured thighs, and he buried himself as deeply as he could and pretended that they were in love, which made it even better.
"Oh," she gasped, and relaxed against the cold stone.
Earl straightened up and sat beside her. He said, "You'd better get some clothes on. You're too nice to die from pneumonia."
"That was beautiful. Did you mind?"
"If I'd minded I wouldn't have done it."
"But don't you think you should have some release for yourself?"
"Sure. But why rush things?"
Elaine kissed him, holding him to her, and said, "I love you." Then she asked, "Will you do that for me again, later? In the room?"
"If you like," Earl said, feeling rather amused by her pet desire.
"I love you," she repeated, while the wind sprayed snow from the branches of the trees, and sprinkled their faces and hands and her bare, trembling thighs.
CHAPTER SIX
On the same evening Earl Wormwood dated Susan, and subsequently fell in love.
Elaine had asked him to come to her room for the night, but he had not given a definite answer, saying that he would stop by if he felt like it. She was so pleased with his previous efforts in the snow that she was satisfied with this, and thought that he would come eventually. He was the type of easy going person who was perfect for her, the complete opposite of the Rowleys of the world. She had great plans for how they would spend their nights together. She had no intentions of giving more of herself than her own gratification demanded. It seemed to her that this arrangement would be possible with Earl, for a while at least; if she kept stringing him along with promises of more normal relations in the future. Elaine was, with good reason, very confident in the power of her beauty and charm. No man, in fact, had ever resisted her the first time. This record naturally give rise to a feeling of security in dealing with members of the opposite sex.
It was an unfortunate thing, for her at least, that her appearance and personality attracted the very type of man to whom her ideas of love were either disgusting or, at best, not satisfying. She had failed to make this distinction, and with good reason. She had never encountered the other type of man.
Earl was this other type. He had too much pride and love of freedom and ideals to let himself be bothered by too strong a sex drive. He enjoyed sex as much as any one, more than most, and was always ready to try a new variation. But when it wasn't available, or when it ended before he was finished, he didn't suffer the agonies of incompletion that tormented a man like Rowley. He was able to merely shrug it off and walk away.
He was, therefore, as she imagined, the perfect potential mate for Elaine. He would rather have performed the act that she wanted and stopped there, than to have done nothing at all. And there would have been no hard feelings about it, no suffering on his part. That was where the paradox caused by her own personality ruined this potential for her. The man who would be satisfied with the arrangement she wanted was the man who would not be sufficiently charmed by her to pursue the matter. Earl had this basic indifference.
He had enjoyed himself with her, but that was as far as it went. He had no great desire to see her again, and no desire not to. He would have gladly gone to her room, if there had not been something else to do, but at that time he was much more interested in Susan.
The fact that Elaine was married played a large part in this indifference. Anything that occurred between them was only a temporary thing, and temporary things were never worth hassles. He was more charmed by Susan's innocence and youth. She was a girl with whom he could spend considerable happy hours; unlike Elaine with whom the only hours would be spent in bed, and the only happiness that derived from sex. Sex, especially with the same woman, and more especially with a blase and jade type such as Elaine, could be a boring thing.
Earl did not bother to reason these things out; he didn't much care for reasons anyway, prefering to act as he felt without trying to rationalize the act. He had discovered long ago that when he looked into the rational reasons for what he wanted to do he was always finding reasons why he should not, or why he should do the opposite. When he followed this rational course things never worked out as well as when he acted on impulse.
Earl had, at one time, tried to figure out why this was so. Then he realized that trying to infer about reasoning was as bad as trying to conclude about anything else. And he decided to always act before he thought; making a sort of maxim of the sentence, and accepting it as a prior knowledge.
So he told Elaine that he might be up and he might not, and she thought he was playing it subtly. The truth was that he didn't really know whether he would go to her room or not.
She had spent the rest of her day alone, reading and daydreaming, and planning for the evening; figuring how best to keep Earl satisfied with progressing no further than they had that morning. Earl had finished his work, eaten his dinner alone, and waited until the kitchen closed.
He sat at a table near the counter and watched Susan, smiling at her whenever she looked his way. Several of the people whom he had met that day stopped to exchange a few words, but for the most part he was alone; this was fine with Earl. It seemed an awful waste of time to talk about typically unimportant things.
From where he sat he could see one corner of the bar. Rowley was there for a long time, drinking steadily. At one point he went into Virginia's office, but came back out shortly and continued drinking brandy and chain-smoking cigarettes. Earl wondered, vaguely, whether the man always drank this much, or whether he was bothered by something. Possibly, he was still bothered by the affair between Earl and Virginia. If so, Earl thought, the man was worried in vain. I may be irresponsible, unstable, and content to live off my friends as long as they permit it; but I am definitely not a gold digger. Well, hell find that out in time.
Shortly after Rowley returned from her office, Virginia came out. She passed Rowley without speaking.
He had turned to face her, and followed her as she left the bar. A black scowl twisted his face; strangely incongruous with his youthful features, but in perfect harmony with his small, hard eyes.
She came over to Earl and stood beside his chair. ; He looked up and waited to see what she wanted.
"How did things go today?" she asked.
"Fine."
"Sam said you worked out all right and that he was pleased with you."
"Good."
"Earl...?"
"Yeah?"
"Will you be stopping by tonight?"
"Your room, you mean?"
"Of course."
"I don't know. Do you want me to?"
"Well, if you don't want to...."
"It isn't that."
"Then I'd like for you to."
Earl nodded.. He didn't want to say anything definite either way.
"I'll see you later then."
Earl still didn't verify it, although she seemed to be waiting for an answer. After a moment she smiled and went to the stairway and up to her room.
Earl saw that Rowley was still staring, still looking very black and vicious. Earl returned the stare for a second, keeping his own gaze level and inscrutable. He felt no animosity toward Rowley and did not want to antagonize him further, yet reluctant to drop his eyes as though timid or frightened or in the wrong. Aiter a while Rowley turned back to the bar and continued drinking. Earl wondered what strange twist of fate had suddenly made him so desirable to women.
He was a very arrogant and conceited man, but he also recognized his limitations. He had never been a ladies' man, and had never put forth any effort in that vein. He had had women, of course, most likely his share; but never beautiful or rich women. And now, suddenly, he was very much in demand of more than one. He knew that it could be due to no change in Hm, since he had not changed in the least, and decided that it must be the actions of fate. There was no telling what strange combinations of events fate could put together, no foretelling them and no retracing their patterns and structures. And this, he thought, was the way that such things should be.
What made Virginia want him? Some previous trouble with Rowley, perhaps? Some fear of growing old and no longer desirable? Simply loneliness?
And Elaine. Why would she want him, that was even harder to figure? Although he was not effected overly by her beauty, he recognized it and appreciated it and knew that she could have most any man with a snap of her fingers. Perhaps she was a nymphomaniac, and wanted everyone, indiscriminately. That seemed possible.
And Susan, too, had shown an interest in him, completely different from the other two, but still an interest. And this, despite its milder form, was the one that made Earl feel the best, and the one he most wanted to pursue. Perhaps I have reached the point in my life where I am ready for one woman, even marriage-no, not marriage; btrt at least one permanent arrangement between a woman and myself. If so, I'd like it to be a girl who looks like Susan, one like she appears to be from my first impression. I hope things can work out for us; I've always thought that first impressions were perhaps the most important part of a relationship. After a while it's too hard to distinguish between affection and simply being accustomed to one another.
She is probably the type to want marriage, he thought, hoping it was not a necessity to her. It was not the sex angle that made him hope this. He just had an aversion to the idea of marriage, it offended his ideals. It made a woman a two dollar whore, he thought, with fairly accurate reasoning.
Earl resented all authority. The idea repelled him that a justice of the peace or a clergyman had the right to grant two people, for a two dollar license, something that true love without two dollars, could not grant them. It seemed to sum up all the worst and lowest and most immoral aspects of our society, in which nearly every aspect seems to be immoral and wrong-an infringement on personal liberty.
He thought about these things now, sitting in the lounge. He realized how far away from the average person these beliefs placed him; how difficult it made him to hope for a permanent arrangement with an obviously typical girl like Susan. She probably would not even believe him when he told her, truthfully, that his word would bind him to a woman much more effectively than a marriage license and all the desertion charges in the world.
Never, he told himself, will I prostitute my ideals; not even for the sake of happiness. This may have been a childish and naive outlook, but thinking about it in the greater sense, with more distance, it is hard to accuse it of being that way.
Earl suddenly realized how much he had been thinking about his beliefs. He knew that it was all in relation to Susan, and that he was weighing the possibilities of her accepting him, and hoping very much that she would do so.
This girl has certainly impressed me a great deal, he thought, considering I've only talked with her once. And he thought that while it was quite childish of him to react that way, he didn't care.
When the kitchen closed for the evening she came over and took a chair opposite Earl.
"You've been sitting here for a long while," she said, by way of starting a conversation.
"I've been waiting for you."
"Oh?"
"If you don't mind."
"Not at all," she told him.
After a while they left the lounge and went out to Earl's ancient car. He was not in the least apologetic for its age. Susan seemed to love it; making a wry face when it started and roared, and telling him how much nicer it was than the modern, personalityless automobiles.
"Where shall we go?"
"Wherever you say."
After a moment's thought Earl said, "Let's take a ride to town. I can spend a dollar on gas and two dollars on beer and still not be broke."
Susan laughed, and they roared off together in the bucking, howling, twenty year old monster.
It did not take long for them to realize that they were going to like one another very much; that they enjoyed being together more than either of them had enjoyed the company of another person.
It was not going to be one of those intense, tragic affairs about which plays, art films, and novels are written. It was going to be happy and carefree, a pure and happy affair. It would be going to movies, playing games, swimming, skiing, and having parties; not being alone, passionate, and sensual in dark rooms and deserted roads. They thought it would be better this way, without mentioning it; each knowing the other felt the same.
They stopped at the only tavern in the nearest tiny village and drank Ballantine Ale and played a few games of darts. She won, Earl threw them much too hard. Often he had trouble extracting them from the board and surrounding wall and even once from the ceiling, which was not very high above his six and a half feet. They danced twice to the juke box. She was surprised to find that Earl, despite his size, was not awkward at all.
There were several other people in the bar. They seemed to catch the spirit in which Earl and Susan had happily fallen, and struck up conversations and bought a few ales for them. This helped to stretch Earl's meager resources out considerably.
Earl and Susan were feeling gay and a little drunk by the time they left the tavern. They headed back up the highway to the side road that led to Eagle Mountain. Halfway up that road he pulled to a stop, left the car running, and put his arm around Susan. He wasn't sure whether he should kiss her or not. She closed her eyes and raised her face and he found that she was very eager and worked her lips against his passionately.
"I had a wonderful time," she told him, between kisses; then closed her eyes and offered her mouth again. Earl was surprised that she did not resist. He was happy about it too, and they necked like high school kids for a while. But he was hesitant to go further. After a while they started talking, still holding each other closely and kissing during lulls in the conversation.
Earl felt rather serious. He talked about how much he liked her, enjoyed being with her, and wanted to see more of her. They discussed future plans, and when she was going to return to college; eventually they got around to talking about their future together. Earl explained what he thought of marriage, being very explicit and definite about it. Susan agreed that, although she had never thought of it that way, it seemed sensible and logical. However, with the maddening persistance of many girls her age and with her previous ideals, she insisted it was not for her, that she wanted to get married. Earl couldn't understand how a person could admit that one thing was right in the first sentence, then say it was not right for them in the next; but he liked Susan too much to get angry about it and merely shook his head in minor annoyance.
"A woman needs security, Earl," she told him, snuggling a bit closer as if in search of it.
"Can't you understand that there would be more security in a person's love than in the silly ritual of marriage?" he asked. Then he said, "It's hard to talk of this. Although I'm being very truthful about how I feel, you can never be sure that I'm not just trying to seduce you with my words. But that's not so. Sure, I'd like to sleep with you, but not enough to lie to you. If we never do any more than hold hands and kiss, that's all right too. Can you believe me about that?"
"I think so."
"There is never any reason to really believe a person, I suppose. But somewhere there must be a beginning of trust before anything further can develop."
"I trust you," she said.
"Good," Earl said, thinking that it sounded somewhat like a high school game. How far up her leg could he proceed until she stopped trusting him? Did she trust him enough to let him in her pants? He had played those games too, but that was long ago. And any caresses bestowed on Susan were going to be of pure affection. Or almost pure, anyway, since passion is always there, ready to leap up and ruin the best of intentions.
In fact, sitting there with her close against him, kissing and embracing, Earl could feel desire stirring within him. He wished that it would not. He didn't want to ruin things with her by going to far, and he didn't want to do anything to destroy the trust that he had managed to convince her he was worthy of.
But, he thought, feeling the heaviness of her breathing as her breasts rose against his side, at least she seems to be feeling the same way.
"I'll never do anything you don't want me to do," he told her.
"I know," she said. "I believe you, Earl."
"But I like you very much, so maybe we'd better be going now. I don't want to have to fight with myself, and even less with you."
"Must we go? Right away, I mean. It's so pleasant being here with you on this lonely road. It's as if we're the last two people in the world."
"We can stay forever, if you like. I just said I wouldn't do anything you didn't want me to do, and I'm starting to feel that I might"
"If you do, I'll tell you," Susan said. "We can leave then. But you needn't be too timid, Earl. I'm a grown woman and I won't break."
Earl wasn't sure whether this was an invitation or not, and if so, he wasn't sure of what it was an invitation to. He didn't want to make an error in judgment right then, because he felt that their future relationship could depend on what happened that night.
Susan pressed closer to him, rubbing herself against him and moving her hands up and down his back, increasing his desires and seeming to increase her own. Earl pressed his lips to her neck and moved one hand slowly around to touch her breast. He cupped it, at first, not moving. Then, when she hadn't objected, he began to stroke her with his palm, moving in a circular motion; feeling the weight of her shifting through her sweater, rolling in his hand. She didn't seem to notice where he was touching her, but held him tightly to her and kissed his cheek and his ear.
"I don't mind having you touch me," she said, whispering the words directly into his ear. Hearing her say that was even more stirring than touching her. Earl was fully aroused then.
"I'll stop whenever you say," he told her, pressing her more firmly in his hand.
"I trust you. I don't want you to stop yet," she told him, her voice husky.
Earl was surprised, but pleasantly so. It felt good to have her in his hands, and he certainly didn't think less of her for permitting it. And it didn't seem as carnal as it had with Virginia or Elaine. Even touching her this way there was still a feeling of genuine affection and tenderness to temper the passion.
He pulled up the bottom of her sweater and slid his hands under the heavy wool, moving around her slender back to the clasp of her brassiere.
"Take it off, if you like," she said.
He already was, fumbling for a while with the catch and finally managing to undo it. The bra fell away, and Earl pulled it from under the sweater and tossed it on the seat. Then he rolled the sweater up farther, until she was exposed to his vision, and she moved away slightly so he could look at her.
Susan had heavy, full breasts, much larger than they appeared under her clothing. They covered her chest, touching together at the center and creating a deep cleavage between the globes. Her rosy tinted nipples were tipped upward, hardened by Earl's caresses. Earl looked at her for a long moment, admiring her. Susan watched him, seeming to be very content to have his eyes on her. Then she cupped her hands beneath her breasts, one under each, and lifted them to him, offering them to his touch.
Earl accepted the offering, bending to her and taking her boobs to his mouth. She continued to hold them up to him, and he caressed her with his lips, moving his face against her and sinking into the deep crevice between her breasts. She was very warm and smooth under his lips, squirming and panting as she grew more and more ready, more excited with every caress.
She was still wearing the nylon skirt of her uniform, and Earl could see the outline of her rounded legs straining beneath the sheer material. He placed one hand at the hem, his fingers playing lightly against her flesh. The skirt had pulled up so that half of her thighs were exposed, and his hand worked between them as they pressed together. At his touch she let them open so there was a ready access for his groping hand....
Earl brought his hand up slowly, touching both legs, feeling the tremors that he was causing through her flesh. He enjoyed the slight pressure as she squeezed against his hand for a moment. Her fingers were intertwined in his long hair, and his lips were still moving gently on her nipples. They were both heaving with the heavy breath of wanting, and Susan emitted low moans from time to time.
Then his sliding hand had reached the nylon of her panties, and he cupped her against his palm.
"Oh," she said and then, "Um."
These little sounds were pleasing to Earl. He worked his palm against her, and slid his fingers under the bottoms of the panties and touched her tenderly.
Susan reached down and grasped his hand, but she made no effort to take it from her, merely holding it as he caressed her.
"Shall I stop?" he asked, speaking with his lips pressed against her.
"No. No, don't," she said.
Her body was moving against his touch, and she was heaving and panting. Earl continued to caress her, and with his free hand he unfastened his clothing.
"W-what are you going to do?" she asked.
"Whatever you want."
"I don't want to go all the way."
"Then we won't."
"But I can't stop you. I want to, I want to. Please don't do it, I can't stop you."
Earl took her hand from his and moved it toward his body. She understood, and reached to him, taking him in her hand and holding him tenderly. After a moment she began to caress him, keeping rhythm with the motions of his own hand as it caressed her.
The Buick was idling, to keep the heater running. The rumble of the exhaust seemed to grow louder, and the heat within the car became intense. Earl wasn't aware of this; he thought the roaring was in his ears. Perhaps there was one there, too.
Caressing each other in the front seat they built to a height of intensity, heaving and panting. And the car heaved as the pistons stroked, up and down, rumbling, exploding on the downstroke. Trembling.
After a while Earl kissed her gently. The car seemed to be running more smoothly now.
"I never did anything like that before," Susan told him, looking steadily at him.
"I'm glad," he said, not really caring whether she had or not but thinking that it was the thing to say.
"You could have gone all the way, you know. I wouldn't have stopped you."
"I know."
"Why didn't you?"
"I told you why. I won't take advantage of you, Susan. Not by getting you too eager to resist any more than by lying to you."
"Thank you. I know that you'll think this is silly, but I want to be a virgin when I get married."
Earl shrugged.
"Although if I see very much of you I wouldn't place any bets on it." She laughed at this, and Earl was glad that she had said it.
They got themselves together and Earl sat behind the wheel. He put the clutch down and shifted into second, since there was no first gear. Working clutch and gas he started the car banging and bucking up the road, and after it had smoothed out he said, "I feel very good."
"So do I," she said. "I feel so-oh, I don't know. As if all my tension has been let loose, like steam. I feel relaxed."
Earl nodded and drove on up the mountain. She leaned her head against his shoulder and gently squeezed his bicep with her fingers.
When they got back to the lodge they went in together. Earl was relieved to see that neither Virginia nor Elaine were in the lounge. Rowley was there, talking to the short fat man named Cohen, and several other people were sitting by the fire. Earl and Susan crossed the room without speaking to anyone and went up the stairs.
Outside Susan's door they kissed good night. "I'd like to ask you in," Susan said, "But I'm afraid to. Afraid of myself. I hope you don't mind." That's all right-I'll see you tomorrow night, okay?" he asked, holding her against him. She came almost to his chin when she stood on tiptoes.
"Yes, I want to see you."
They kissed again and she went in and closed the door. Earl wondered if she wanted him to follow her, and was playing it coy to save her reputation. He would have enjoyed sleeping with her, just sleeping if it came to that. But he decided the best thing would be to go to his own room, for that night at least. He went down the hall and into his room, sitting on the edge of the bed to pull his boots off. When that was done he lit a cigarette and sat for a while, not thinking about anything in particular, but feeling rather good. After a while he thought about the two other women who were expecting to see him that evening, and that disturbed him somewhat.
He decided that, since he hadn't really had her yet, he would rather spend the night with Elaine than with Virginia. Whatever Virginia had to offer he had already sampled, while Elaine was new territory.
But Virginia was his boss. He wondered whether she would be angry if he failed to come to her room for the night, and decided she was the type that would be. She would also, probably, be jealous of Susan and Elaine. Earl didn't like that situation; it made him feel too restricted, saddled to a woman whom he didn't really want. He decided that if he went to her room that night it would just make things worse, that when the time came it would be harder to be independent and free from her. No, he wouldn't visit Virginia. The worst she could do would be to fire him, he doubted if she would go that far.
And should he go to Elaine? There was something about the woman that he didn't like. Perhaps it was that she was immoral. Earl didn't give a damn about morals, and amorality was fine. But he did believe that a person should live according to their own standards, and if a person really believed that something was wrong then he didn't think they should take such delight in doing it. And with Elaine, even in their brief encounter at the top of Eagle Mountain, he had the impression that her sensuality was derived as much from a desire to do wrong as it was from the immediacy of Earl's body.
There was no reason for thinking this, nothing that she had said or done, but just the look on her face. The gleam in her eyes for a moment, had given him the impression that she enjoyed being wicked, that the type of love he had made to her was delightful because it was perverted and unnatural. Earl himself, was too open-minded to think it unnatural at all, but he believed that Elaine did; therefore she enjoyed it more.
Elaine, he decided, could very well be an evil person, hiding in her beauty. Or perhaps an ill person. That was worse, from his point of view. Evilness was not really too bad, he could even admire her for it. After all, he admired Aleister Crowley, didn't he? Even identified with the man, although he had to stretch his imagination to do so, the same as when one identifies with Batman.
But, although he could admire her, he didn't like her particularly. He felt that she thought she was desirable enough to dominate any man, and he didn't like that feeling at all. If he had to become celibate for the lest of his life, it was better than being dominated by i woman.
Hell, he thought, here I go reasoning about things again. I'm probably all wrong, too, as people who reason generally are. What I really feel like is sleeping alone, and all I have to know is what I want to do.
Thinking that, he finished undressing and got in bed. He was stiff from his day's work, happy from his evening's love, and content with his peace of mind.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Bill Rowley felt very bitter and frustrated on several counts. The thing that angered and worried him most was that Earl seemed to have replaced him with Virginia. The uselessness of allowing this to happen plagued him. He blamed the whole thing on his interest in Elaine which had proven less that worthless; it had left him angry and unfulfilled. He thought that if he had not been so concerned with Elaine he wouldn't have permitted Virginia to go as far as she had with Wormwood.
Now that Elaine was out of the question as a source of physical pleasure, he wanted Virginia again for two reasons. The first, and ever present, was the fact that she had money and she paid him a good wage. His goals were set higher than so much per week, but now he sensed a danger of losing even that.
And the second was that he was a highly sexed man, who needed a woman to satisfy his physical demands. Since Elaine had served only to increase those demands he wanted Virginia for that too.
Rowley had been drinking all day and meditating upon his ill fortune, not feeling better in the least because he had brought it upon himself. Virginia had avoided him and he had not seen Elaine, nor did he want to.
Rowley did not think that the situation was hopeless. In fact, he was sure he would be able to work his way back into Virginia's good graces, and consequently into her bed. But to do so would take an effort on his part, and that effort would cause his pride to suffer.
Rowley had a fierce self-respect when it came to his relationships with women. He knew that women found him attractive and he had always used this to good advantage. However, through years of bending women to his will, making them do as he chose, he had developed an aversion to ever giving an inch in his dealings with them. When he was in the wrong he relied on his charm and desirability to straighten things out, even when it could have been much simpler to apologize to them.
He would say, "I'm wrong, and I know it. And I'll be wrong again. And if you want me, then you'll just have to take me for what I am. And I know you want me." And then, if they asked him if he was sorry, he'd laugh at them and say, "Why should I be sorry. It's you that wants me, Baby, not the other way around."
This way caused much more hassling as a rule, and sometimes a woman was too strong-willed to yield. But for Rowley it was easier that way than to offer a simple apology, or to admit that he liked the woman enough to be sorry.
He felt that if he told Virginia he had decided he really loved and needed her, if he met her half way; there would be no difficulty in getting rid of his competitor. He couldn't bring himself to do it, the words stuck in his throat as he tried to choose them.
It was not until after dinner that he finally decided to see her, and then he didn't know what he was going to say. Moreover, he was quite drunk by that time, and alcohol always clarified things in his mind and increased what he considered to be the potentials of his sex appeal.
Virginia was in her office. Rowley got up from the stool on which he had perched for so long and went unsteadily over to the door. He entered without knocking and went across the room to her desk.
"What do you want, Bill?" she asked, looking up from the papers which were scattered in front of her, her voice sounding annoyed.
"Want to talk to you."
"Yes?"
"Let's go up to your room, okay?"
"Why?"
"Why? You know why, damn it!"
"No, Bill. Sorry, but I don't need you any more," she said, with obvious pleasure.
"You rather have that damn scarecrow? I'll bet you would. You're just trying to make me jealous, Virginia, and it won't work,"
"Won't it?" she asked, looking back down at the papers as if terminating the conversation.
"No! Listen to me, damn you! I know that you want me, and that he's just a means to make me jealous. And I've decided that I want to spend more time with you. So there's nothing to argue about now, we both want the same thing. Now let's go upstairs." It was the biggest admission he would make. He thought it would be enough; that Virginia would come to him, asking if he really meant that he wanted to be with her alone, and all the other numerous and ridiculous things that women who want to forgive but are hesitant always ask in these situations.
Virginia, however, shrugged and said, "Sorry, Bill. I just don't feel like going to bed with you. Maybe tomorrow I will, if you want to wait."
Her indifference was much worse than if she had screamed or cried or argued or called him names and insulted him. It caused doubts to come much more strongly in Bill. Because she didn't even show anger, let alone hope, made him think that she must really not care whether they got together again or not. That was a very frustrating thought, and he could feel his stomach sink as he considered the possibility that things had progressed too far to return to their former status. And if so, they were bound to get worse, for he knew that his usefulness as a manager, aside from his duties in bed, was limited and expendable. Very much so, in fact. Perhaps she had plans to replace him with Wormwood and kick him out completely.
"I'm going to kick hell out of that long-legged baboon," he warned her.
"His legs are quite short, as a matter-of-fact," she said coolly. "And I don't want to hear of you touching him, Bill. I mean that."
"Has he got to hide behind your-stretch pants?" Bill asked.
"Perhaps not. It wouldn't surprise me if Earl was quite able to take care of himself. But that doesn't really matter, you know. I don't judge a man by how strong or brave he is, it's how big and capable he is that matters. And you needn't worry about Earl on that account."
"He's not better than I am," Bill said, certainly and not doubting it.
Virginia shrugged again. As a matter-of-fact, that was true. Earl was good in bed, but not nearly as good as Rowley. But his other good points, or rather Rowley's other bad points, more than made up the difference. Better to have a good man around whenever she wanted than to have a very good man when he was not busy with another woman.
"Well is he?"
"No, not quite. But he's good enough for me."
"But I just told you I was willing to spend more time with you. I'll sleep with you every night. Every day too, if you like. Just get rid of him."
"No, Bill. It's not a question of not believing you, I just happen to like Earl. You can share me, I don't mind having two men to service me." And she gave him a smile that was very irritating.
"Just like a goddamn cow," he said, bitterly. "A bitch in heat. You want a whole pack of dogs?"
"That would be nice," she said, as if really thinking about it, and not at all bothered by the insult. She was thinking how funny it would be to see a naked woman running through the snow, with half a dozen naked men in pursuit, their manhood very obviously preceding them. She wouldn't run too fast, though, she'd stop and wear them all out. Female dogs had a pretty good life, at that.
Rowley couldn't think of anything further to say. He was too angry now to reason, anyway, and if he kept talking it would only be insulting and emotional and just cause the gap between them to widen more. He stood for a moment, then turned and went out, slamming the door behind him, feeling very powerless to deal with events and situations, and feeling not at all drunk enough.
He went back to the bar and took his stool once more. Without waiting for his order Louie brought the brandy over and poured a glass. Bill lifted it in his palm, staring at the bar, and felt like hurling the glass at the wall, hitting something, screaming. He did none of those things, of course, and drank the brandy.
After a while Virginia came out and passed through the bar. She didn't speak to Bill. He turned on the stool and watched as she went over to Earl. He hadn't noticed that the other man was sitting there before, and he scowled now and watched as they talked for a few minutes. Then Virginia went away, upstairs to her room, and he continued to glare at Earl. Earl returned the stare, coolly but with no anger evident. If we stare at each other much longer, Bill thought, I'll go in there and hit the son-of-bitch right in the goddamn mouth. And it was not the time for that, not yet. He turned back to the bar, his insides twisting in frustration and anger. It was as though his guts were being wound around each other. Twisted into knots over a slow flame. And all over a woman that he didn't particularly care about and another woman that had proven to be a pervert, and the tall, ridiculous man sitting in the other room. Things like that had no business happening He couldn't even feel tragic, because his heart wasn't broken. The only things left to feel were frustration and anger. He felt them strongly, unpleasantly, and didn't know what to do about them except get drunk.
It was later, and several more brandies downed, when Cohen came over to speak to him.
"Good evening," he said. Rowley turned to look at him through squinted eyes. The top of the man's head glistened with sweat, and this was annoying Rowley very nearly told him to go away, and then he figured that at least it was someone to talk to, and nodded indifferently.
Cohen ordered a drink, talked about a few unimportant things, and quite obviously had something on his mind. After a while he asked, "I wonder-did you mention my, ah, offer to Mrs. Jenkins?"
It wasn't until then that Bill remembered Cohen was willing to pay for her. It made him angry to think that a woman beautiful enough to have men offer her large sums of money was so perverted. He hated her more than he had before, just then, and wanted to hurt her. The quickest way to do that, at the moment, was to let her secret be known to everyone. It would even be fun to tell this greasy little man about it, he thought, to watch him get excited at the description of what she wanted done to her. Perhaps Cohen would do it, even. He could picture the man waddling hurriedly up the stairs, clutching a bottle of wine, ready to do anything for Elaine, anxious to degrade himself as much as she wanted for the sake of being near her.
"Listen, I'll tell you about Elaine Jenkins," Rowley said, leaning toward Cohen.
"Yes?" asked the man, his voice squeaking in anticipation, his eyes shining almost as much as the top of his head. He leaned toward Bill, clutching his drink in trembling, pudgy fingers.
Bill told him, in every graphic and descriptive terms, exactly what had transpired between him and Elaine the night before. He left out no details, and as the story progressed Cohen squirmed in delight, and beads of sweat covered his entire face. When Bill finished Cohen took a long gulp of his whiskey and soda and rubbed the back of his arm across his brow.
"So that's the story of little Mrs. Jenkins," Rowley wound up, his eyebrows raised and a sardonic smile twisting his lips.
"Well," Cohen said, after a while, his voice unusually shaky, "I'll tell you. I don't see why you got so upset about the thing. Of course, I realize you're a much younger and handsomer man than I, and you can undoubtedly get many more women to do as you please, but to me the thought of doing what Mrs. Jenkins wants done to her is appealing, to say the least."
Rowley was disgusted for a second, then shrugged it off. Hell, a man like Cohen had to get what he could take. And he thought of the money that Cohen had offered.
"Would you be willing to pay to do it to her?" Bill asked him, thinking that a hundred dollars would come in handy just then, since he wasn't even sure how long he would be working for Virginia.
"Well ... not as much as I offered for the other, of course. But I'm sure the pleasures of gratifying her would be worth something to me."
"How much?"
"Well.. Jet me tell you about myself. My hobby, shall we say. You naturally thought I wanted to make love to Mrs. Jenkins when I mentioned the money yesterday. Of course I would like to do that, but there was something else that I had in mind when I wanted her to visit my room. I take pictures...."
"Pictures?" Bill wondered what the hell the man was getting at.
"Yes. I love to look at pictures of women. Especially in the various positions of love, and from the most scenic points of view. It's even better if I happen to be taking part in these scenes, of course, then it's a double thrill to look at them. I was hoping to have the chance to photograph Mrs. Jenkins, either with me or alone. Or with you, if that's possible. I really don't care which way, it's the pictures in which I'm interested, mainly. It was for posing that I was willing to pay the money."
"I see," Bill said, wondering how a man could prefer looking at pictures to actually making love. But then, all men were not as able as he.
"No one but myself would ever see them, of course, so she wouldn't have to worry about that. They would be strictly for my private collection. Do you think she would be willing?"
"Perhaps. Would it be possible to take the pictures without her knowing it?"
"I suppose so, although it would be harder to get the best viewpoint."
"Ummm. I think, Mr. Cohen, that you and I may manage to get a few pictures."
Delighted and hopeful, Cohen ordered more drinks and could scarcely sit still.
Rowley was forming a plan for revenge and possibly blackmail and also, incidently, whatever money he could get out of Cohen. Having a picture of Elaine in the act of being satisfied the way she wanted would be invaluable. He could use it as blackmail and force her to do whatever he wanted to, and there were many things he wanted to force her beautiful body to do.
Or he could use it as revenge on her, sending a copy to her husband. Or he could, if he felt particularly rotten, do both.
Suddenly, with his brandy glass halfway to his lips, Rowley was struck with another thought. Why, there were no limitations to what he and Cohen could do. He had remembered what he had seen through the keyhole of the two college girls room, and was thinking that a picture of that would prove as valuable as one of Elaine.
"Do you remember those young girls that were sitting with us the other day, by the fireplace?" he asked Cohen, turning on his stool to look down at the smaller man and grinning at him.
"Beverly and Patricia? Certainly. Cute young ladies, I wouldn't mind having a picture or two of them, if you'd like to know."
"Let me tell you about them first, if you like this kind of thing you may get a picture there too. A very erotic picture, by the way."
Cohen's eyebrows rose in interest.
"Last night, after I left Elaine, I went down to their room. I was very homey, you know, and ready to ball anything I could find. The light was on in their room, so I looked in the keyhole. There they were, on the bed without any clothes on, making love to each other. The same way that Elaine likes it, but they were both doing it at the same time."
Cohen looked startled for a second, and then a sinister and crafty light came into his eyes, and his lips worked eagerly.
"How would you like a picture of that?"
"Very much," said Cohen, "Very much."
"Well, you can have the picture and I'll have the two girls."
"How will you manage that? I mean, if they are the type that love each other...."
"I'm sure they would rather do anything than have a picture of them, together, sent to their families and to the school they attend," Rowley said, smiling and looking at the backs of his large hands.
"Yes, I see,"-Cohen said. His tongue ran over his lips, flicking a few beads of sweat off and making him look very reptilian.
"I can get the master key and we'll wait outside the door. Then, when they're making it, well go in and get the picture fast. After we have it there'll be plenty of time to dicker over what else we can get from them."
"The picture will be fine with me. You're welcome to the other delights."
"We," said Rowley, "are in business." They shook sweaty hands over the corner of the bar, exchanging looks exactly like villians in silent films.
"Tonight?" Cohen asked.
"I don't see why not. Providing the girls are feeling friendly toward each other. We'll have to wait until later, of course."
"Of course."
"Let's have another drink, Mr. Cohen."
"Let us, Mr. Rowley, drink to our mutual success," Cohen said, and both men laughed.
They spent the rest of the evening at the bar. Rowley continued to drink, but more slowly now so as not to be too drunk when the time came to act. Later on they went into the lounge to relax and wait. Rowley grew more calm as the time passed, but Cohen got more nervous and unable to sit still, squirming in his seat and chain-smoking, looking at his watch every two minutes. He was not as impatient to take the pictures as he was to develop and look at them at his leisure, in solitude.
When Earl and Susan came in, Rowley watched them and wondered where they had been and what had transpired between them, thinking that perhaps it was going to work to his advantage with Virginia. But he didn't think about this for long, being too occupied with the plans for the immediate future.
Approximately half an hour after Earl and Susan had gone upstairs, Rowley said, "We'd better not wait much longer or they might be asleep."
Cohen nodded his head in readiness.
"This is going to take perfect timing, too, and it'll be risky in the hall. I ... wait a minute!" he exclaimed, in a sudden flash of realization. He got up and went through the bar and into the office where he carefully checked the chart showing which rooms were occupied. When he was satisfied that he had been right he got the master key and returned to the lounge.
"No worries now," he told Cohen. "We can wait all night if need be. If only I'd though of this before."
"What's next?"
"The room next to the girls' is vacant. And there's an adjoining door. None of these doors have latches, so the master key will fit there as well as the hall. We needn't worry about anyone stumbling onto us while we wait."
"Excellent."
"We might as well go up now."
They went up to the second floor, stopping at Cohen's room while he selected a camera from his large collection. He also showed Rowley a few examples of his camera work, which proved to be very stimulating. Then they went down the hall to the girl's room.
A light shown under the door, and they could hear muffled voices. Bill smiled, winked at Cohen, and opened the door of the adjoining room as quietly as he could. They went in and closed the door. Bill lit a match to guide them as they moved over to the other door, the one opening on the girl's room, prepared to take turns at the keyhole throughout the whole night, if need be.
It was going to prove worth the effort.
Cohen sat on the bed and Bill took the first shift, kneeling on the floor and pressing his eye to the little hole of light. He was delighted to find this view of the bed even better than from the hallway; it offered a side view instead of from the foot.
The bed was unoccupied at the moment, but that was better than being too late and finding the girls already asleep. Bill settled as comfortably as he could and waited hearing Cohen's breathing behind him, heavy and puffing, and imagining the man sweating anxiously on the bed. He smiled to himself in the dark, and thought how lucky he was to be young and handsome and desirable.
"I saw you looking at that Jenkins woman again today," Patricia had said, as soon as the two girls returned to their room from dinner.
Oh, for God's sake, thought Beverly, here we go again. Why did I ever get mixed up with this girl? She lit a cigarette and didn't reply.
"Why must you be so cruel to me, Bev. You're never nice any more."
"You've brought it on yourself."
"I know, I know. But what can I do? I can't help it if I'm jealous and want to love you all the time. I love you, Beverly. But you act like you don't care about me at all any more. If only things could be the way they were when we first started."
"But they can't."
"Why not, honey? What's changed between us?" Now, thought Beverly, is as good as time as any to make the break. I'll have to do it sooner or later, this is as good a chance as I'll get. It's better to do it now instead of waiting until we're ready to go back to school. Pat'll have more time to get used to it this way. That means there'll be less chance she'll cause trouble over it when we go back. Good, I don't want any trouble at school or at home.
"Everything has changed, Pat. In fact, I've been meaning to talk to you about us."
"What about us?" Patricia asked, her voice sounding frightened and her expression twisting into a frown of worry and fear of what was to come.
"Pat, it has to end. After we go back to school I'm going to change rooms, get a different roommate. We won't be seeing each other again."
Patricia sighed, her expression changed now that she realized it was as bad as it could be. Now there was nothing to worry about, just be sad about it and to try and change. She had sensed that this was coming for quite a while, and it was better to have it out in the open; to have it definite, something concrete to fight against. A positive rejection of her love instead of the little annoying things that had been coming between her and Beverly, the minor troubles that had foreshadowed the big trouble. She looked at Beverly for a while, feeling her eyes grow damp as the tears started. She pretended she was trying to hold them back, although she was trying to force them to flow; being a great believer in the power of tears to effect the person who has caused them.
"Please, Bev. Bev, don't say things like that, yon don't know how much it hurts me."
"I don't want to hurt you, Pat, but that's the way I feel about it and it won't do any good not to tell you. You've go to face it eventually. You knew we couldn't last forever."
"Why can't we? What's to stop us from loving each other forever? I don't understand."
"For one thing I just don't love you. I'm sorry, but I don't."
The tears were flowing in earnest now, big glistening drops that hung at the bottom of her eyes for an instant and then rolled down her cheeks. Beverly felt genuinely sorry for her, but was determined not to yield now that she had made a start. She hardened her heart and took a drag on the cigarette, blowing smoke through her nose. It made her think of herself as Lauren Bacall, rejecting the love of her man, in some old black and white movie. Perhaps she was rejecting Humphrey Bogart. But Patricia's tears spoiled that, Bogart wouldn't have cried.
Patricia was so weak. That was one of the main reasons why Beverly had grown tired of her. Beverly, herself, felt very feminine and wanted a strong partner. With Patricia she had been forced to dominate, due to the other girl's weakness of character. Patricia belonged with some man, crying on his shoulder, not with another woman.
"I'll kill myself if you leave me. I mean it, I really will, Bev," she sobbed.
Would she? Beverly doubted it. She wasn't sure, but she thought a great deal of Patricia's emotions were put on. That a great deal of her tears were forced, even a great deal of her passion simulated. She had always had the impression that Patricia didn't enjoy making love for its own sake, for the sake of pure physical gratification as much as she did for something else. For some hidden need that was fulfilled by being held and caressed, by being close to someone and by doing what that person wanted. She thought that Patricia wanted security more than she wanted physical love. And, Beverly realized from experience, it was a very secure feeling to be held in the arms of another woman. A very warm and pleasant and secure feeling, as though the rest of the world, the normal world, could not hurt one as long as she remained in that embrace.
"Don't be melodramatic," she said, blowing smoke once more. It hung in a grey cloud above her, as though prognosticating a storm at the cloud. How symbolic I've become, Beverly thought, looking at the cloud. It would have amused her if Patricia hadn't been sobbing so near.
"I hate you!" Patricia said.
That was better. If she could get the other girl angry it would be better than the tears, and easier on both of them as far as that went. At least anger was a strong emotion, better than feeling sorry for oneself and trying to arouse pity.
Beverly shrugged. She said, "I thought we could still be friends."
"Leave me alone," Patricia told her, turning away. She went to the bed and fell on it, sobbing into the covers and lying on her stomach, her face buried into the bed, her back rising and falling with her sobs.
Beverly went to her seat by the window and sat looking out and smoking. Everything looked very stark and white and quite unreal. Her window faced away from the slopes and she looked out at the beginning of the forest; at pine trees and patches of snow next to darker patches where the soft earth showed through. The moon was almost full above the tops of the trees, very bright and illuminating the ground with its eerie light, lending to the mystery of the unreal. Or perhaps not so much unreal as it was untimely. Beverly imagined the same scene in times gone by and could picture Indians stalking through the silver light, forming a James Fenimore Cooper image in her mind, the way he might have described it. Or even further back in time it was possible to think of this scene without men at all, just some prehistoric beasts roaming about and minding their own business. That business might be to kill other animals, but at least it was their own business and they stuck to it. It might have been rather nice to live then, when the only worry was whether or not one was going to be eaten. Or did she have the same problem today? She smiled at the meaning of that, but her thoughts returned to the view outside her window; to the ideas that rushed in from looking out. The idea of how better it would be if life were once more reduced to the simple things and one needn't worry about the silly and vicious aspects of society, the foolish and wrong things that had become morals and laws through foolishness and wrongness.
The hassle she had just gone through with Patricia would have been unnecessary if it were not for the time and the stupidity that seemed to have grown with history. It seemed a shame that mankind, instead of getting wiser, had grown progressively more stupid and blind through the ages. Everyone was forced to yield to the stupid or else be an outcast or a criminal. Hell, everyone was a criminal, because every natural act had been made a crime of some sort. The only true crime, she thought, should be blindness. But here I am whipped about by those blind forces, the same as anyone else, afraid to be different. I'm not even as strong as Patricia in that respect. At least she would have the courage to make her tendencies known to the world, she doesn't need to hide behind locked doors the way I do. Perhaps she is stronger than I give her credit for being, and she only looks weak because she is struggling against all the blind but immensly powerful forces that rule us all within their changing, twisting grip.
Beverly, thinking this way, felt very tender toward Patricia. She looked at the pitiful figure sprawled on the bed and thought what a shame it was that she had been beaten down like all people who try to be true to what they want.
I'd like to go over and comfort her and tell her that everything is all right, Beverly thought. But I can't. I'm too weak and must break it off with her and now that it's done I can't let her start hoping again. It wouldn't be fair to her. I almost wish I loved her enough to say let the rest of the world go blindly by, bumping into everything but strong enough to push the objects aside or crush them. It's impossible to dodge the monster, even if it is blind. I wonder if there is any way to get behind it, to get on its back and ride it without being blind oneself? Well, I'll never find out, I'm too weak and to afraid to try. Patricia just might try, but she won't make it either, she's too naive and too insecure.
Beverly looked out the window once more, at the scene that had set these thoughts running through her mind so wildly and darkly. She wished she were out there alone, somewhere out in that dark forest sitting under the biggest pine tree, with a small fire to keep her warm and maybe a pot of coffee and a cigarette. What, she wondered, would be the thoughts instilled by looking from there to here and seeing this big red building with the lights in the windows, outlined against the white mountain behind it? Would they be anything like the thoughts that the reverse view set off? Probably not, I'm too damn civilized. I'd probably want to come in here where it's warm and where there are people. That's one of the big weaknesses. The blind monster of our time wouldn't be able to find people if they were alone in the woods. But they always ban together, that's how they get found, trampled on, and destroyed.
She could hear the wind as it began without, and see the trees stir and the shadows from the moonlight shift and falter. A little snow was blown against the window, and although the room was warm it made her shiver. She didn't want to look out any longer after that, and turned back to the room.
Patricia was sitting up now, looking at her. When Beverly turned to her the other girl said, "Can we sleep together tonight? It doesn't have to end right away, does it. Can we make love for the last time?"
And because she had been looking out at the forest and the snow and the wind and moonlight, Beverly said, "Yes, we can make love tonight."
"Do you want to? I don't want you to just for my sake, if you don't really want to."
"I want to," Beverly said, realizing that it was true, that she wanted very much to make love to Patricia that night. Maybe she, too, was seeking that security feeling and that warmth. Perhaps it was because the wind had blown a few flakes of snow against the window....
"I want to right now," she said, and Patricia smiled with her tear-stained face and waited for Beverly to cross the room to her.
Beverly didn't go immediately to her, but undressed first, slowly, standing, just aside from the window. Patricia watched her, her eyes filled with devotion and desire, and after a while she began to undress too, faster than Beverly in order to catch up. When Beverly had stripped to her panties and bra she came over to the bed and climbed in next to Patricia. Patricia finished sliding her slacks off and was dressed to the same degree. She held her arms out to Beverly and the other girl came into her embrace.
"I love you," Patricia said.
And Beverly, who didn't answer, was thinking that tonight was going to be the best night they had ever experienced together.
They kissed for a while, holding each other in their arms tenderly. Then, as the embrace became more passionate the tenderness gave way to urgency and they crushed their bodies together.
Beverly, for the first time in months, became the aggressive partner. She forced Patricia back to the bed, grinding her mouth down on the other girl's and pressing the length of their bodies with a moving pressure. It was very good this time, as good as it had been at first, when Patricia had been innocent and inexperienced and Beverly had carefully and slowly seduced her over a period of months until one night it had become to inevitable point of no return and Patricia, wide-eyed and scared but wanting it had submitted her body to Beverly's embraces. And after a time, aroused to unbearable need, she had plunged into the act willingly and done everything for Beverly that Beverly had been doing for her, enjoying it, wanting it, and knowing she had found something that she would want for the rest of her life.
And it was like that again this time. If only it could have always been like this, Beverly thought, working her lips against Patricia's mouth and neck.
"Undress me," Patricia urged, and Beverly's hands were already unfastening the bra and moving down to catch at the top of the panties. Patricia raised her hips to facilitate the action and the panties slid down and left her naked and ready for love.
Beverly removed her own underclothes then, kneeling beside Patricia, her thighs close to the other girls head. Both girls looked at each other, admiring the familiar but somehow new bodies, longing to touch them together and grow acquainted once more.
"Let's love each other one at a time," Patricia said, and her loins twitched at the thought.
"Yes. I want to love you first," Beverly said, and this was new too, this desire to give pleasure before receiving it. It was the way she had felt before they had become lovers, when she had watched Patricia undress and had pretended to be asleep, her hands cupped against her, and moving slowly under the covers. How she had longed to caress Patricia's slender body then, and how she longed to now. It was strange what passion had been aroused by looking out the window at a winter evening with a moon.
Beverly turned slightly and lowered her head to Patricia's breasts. They were small but upright, and seemed to rise to meet the touch of Beverly's lips. She kissed each one in turn, lightly, upon the very tip. And then she let them brush against her own breasts as she moved down to Patricia's belly, her hips, the vee of her thighs. Slowly she moved, and then at the last moment she couldn't restrain herself and threw her body down in reverse of Patricia's, burying her face in her lover.
Patricia gasped. She relaxed and enjoyed the sensation as long as she could, letting the pleasure waves flow from her.
She could never give Beverly up, she knew, she had to have her always. Only Beverly could bring this height of sensation coursing through her.
And for Patricia, too, it was the same as it had been that first time. The time she had lain back on the small single bed in their dormitory room and let Beverly touch her. She had been frightened then, not sure what was going to happen, not sure whether she wanted it and thinking how wrong it was. But then Beverly's mouth had moved on her and brought the thrills that rippled through her and she had known that she did want it and that anything this good could not be wrong. And after a few minutes of the unbearable sensation she had known that she must have it, and had felt the irresistible urge to do the same thing to Beverly. Shyly at first, unsure of what she should do, she had returned the other girl's caresses. And together they had loved, and Beverly had moaned and thanked her for doing it, and told her how much she loved her.
It was like that now, and Patricia felt the urge to love Beverly, the same urge she had felt the first time. She reached out and grasped the other girl's hips and tugged at her. Beverly understood and moved to her, throwing one leg across her face and then letting herself be pulled down to meet Patricia's striving tongue.
Together on the bed they thrashed and moaned, Beverly balanced on top, both of them working spasmodically in the throes of pleasure. It was perfect now; they reached a peak together. All thoughts of parting were lost, all Beverly's thoughts of rain clouds and impending doom. The only storm was the one welling savagely within them, threatening to break, breaking in one simultaneous cloudburst.
And lightning flashed.
They did not understand at the first second, the bright glare seemed to come from within themselves. Then it flashed once more, and the two girls rolled apart and looked stupidly and uncomprehendingly at the two men who stood beside them. The third flash bulb exploded then, as Cohen, his face covered with sweat, snapped the picture.
Patricia started to scream, but her voice wouldn't seem to work. Beverly just looked, mouthed open, unbelieving, not wanting to understand but merely to block this scene from her mind forever.
Patricia still was on her back, her legs hanging over the edge of the bed now, on the side nearest the two men. Beverly was kneeling, trying to cover herself, but she knew it was too late for that; there was nothing they could do to change things now.
Neither girl spoke. Cohen fumbling with a new bulb, wanting to get as many pictures as possible at the present opportunity. There was something very exciting, their bodies still glistening with the efforts of love. They made no efforts to stop him. It seemed senseless, it didn't matter how many more pictures were taken; the damage had been done.
Rowley spoke first. He said, smiling, "Surprised, girls?" It was a stupid thing to say, but the sound of his voice was not stupid but sinister, and it broke the spell. Beverly buried her face in her hands and began to cry with shame and fear. Patricia, much the stronger now, began only to hate.
CHAPTER EIGHT
"It could have been worse," Patricia said, trying to comfort Beverly. "At least the pictures won't be shown to our parents or to the school. They're just a couple of lechers who'll use them for their own amusement. No harm will come from it, except for the shame and embarrassment that we've already felt."
Beverly shook her head. "I'm afraid, Pat. The fat little man might be content with pictures, but not Rowley. And remember what he said when he left? He said he'd be back when the pictures were developed. I think he will, and God knows what he'll want."
Rowley and Cohen had left after taking the pictures, wanting to develop them and have the evidence at hand before they made any further moves. The girls, they reasoned, would be much more willing to comply when they could look at the evidence.
Beverly had cried for a long while, and Patricia had comforted her. Patricia didn't really think it so serious, but then she was not bothered so much by what anyone else thought, she would gladly have declared her perversion to the world for the sake of having Beverly. She even thought that it might work out better for her if their parents did become aware of what had been going on. Once discovered, there would be no reason for Beverly to worry about it any more and she might plunge deeper into homosexuality.
But Beverly was so genuinely stricken with grief and shame that Patricia felt very tender toward her, and hoped that nothing would happen to hurt her any more than she had already been injured.
Eventually they had slept, wrapped in each other's arms to drain every bit of security that could be had from the nearness and warmth. They slept fitfully, awoke early, but Beverly refused to leave the room. She was imagining that everyone in the building had seen the pictures by now. This was an unreasonable fear, and she knew it, but it was still hard to shake off. That's how it often is when one suffers from shame.
"I feel so dirty, so degraded," she said.
"Bev, darling, how can anything between us be dirty? Just because people don't understand doesn't make it wrong, does it? This shouldn't change things between us."
"It makes me need you more," Beverly admitted.
Patricia went to her and took her into her arms in a passionless embrace. She said, "Don't ever worry about anything, as long as we're together."
But Beverly, with all the tortured images and fears of her society-oriented and fearing mind to plague her, sobbed in anguish and actual pain. She felt as though her heart was about to explode, and she wished that it would. Death would end all worries.
"There's nothing they can do to hurt us," Patricia insisted. "Together we can be strong, Bev. We can laugh at them and say 'So this is how we are. What about it, you poor fools?' And they will be helpless. They probably won't even try to use the pictures after that, except in their bathrooms."
"We can't take the chance. We just can't," Beverly told her. "Well have to do what they want. I just hope it isn't too bad, too awful."
"I'll do whatever you want me to do," Patricia said, her mouth set in grim determination. "Let me do the things that they want. Maybe if I do, they'll leave you alone. I don't mind."
Beverly realized once more how strong Patricia had become, and loved her more for it. She sobbed against the other girl's breasts and wished that she were dead.
And Patricia stroked her hair and held her close and vowed that no one was ever going to hurt the girl whom she loved again.
At the same time that morning Cohen came downstairs and found Rowley at the bar. He had the finished pictures in his pocket and a crooked smile on his pudgy face. He took a stool next to Bill, looked around to make sure that they were alone, and handed the pictures over.
"They came out rather well," he said. "This is your set."
Bill looked at them carefully. The details were perfect, and the faces easily recognizable. He had been afraid that they would be too vague, but there was no doubt who these girls were.
"Good," he said, putting the pictures in his breast pocket. "I'll go pay the girls a little visit in a few minutes, and well see how they feel this morning."
"Should I come too?"
"I think I'd better go alone the first time. Won't make them so shy if there's only one guy. I wouldn't be surprised if they sort of like the idea of having a man, although they probably won't admit that to each other. You know how lesbians are."
As a matter-of-fact, Cohen had no idea of 'how lesbians are.' But neither did Rowley, for that matter, so it didn't make much difference.
"You won't forget about me? I mean, about taking more pictures?"
"Don't worry. What kind of pictures do you want the next time?"
"Oh, maybe some more of them together. And with you, too, if you don't mind. I'll keep your face out of them, of course."
"I don't mind. Tell you what, I'll cop them today, get them used to the idea. Then tomorrow we can both cop and you can take your pictures."
"Do you really think that they'll let us?" Cohen wanted to know.
"Hell yes! What choice have they got? Do yon think they want copies of these pictures sent all over? Besides, like I said, I'll bet anything they just can't wait to get a good man in the sack. I'll show 'em something that no woman ever can."
Cohen giggled and wiped his brow. Then he asked, "What about the Jenkins dame? Do you think we can still get some pictures of her?"
Bill shrugged. He had lost interest in that. Hell, it was much better with the two college girls, they were much more likely to comply with his demands. Elaine was too self-centered, too mature about things, and she might well cause trouble. Bill said, "You can try her, if you like. There's no way to sneak in on her, like we did with the girls, because we wouldn't know when she happened to be entertaining a man. Why don't you volunteer to perform that little act that she's so fond of if she will let you photograph her in return. I think she'd jump at the chance. Right on your face."
Cohen giggled again. "Perhaps I will," he said, imagining the double delights of loving her and getting pictures too. Especially loving her in a way that would have no possibility of showing his ineptness.
Earl entered then, after his morning class, and walked over to order a sandwich and talk to Susan. She seemed glad to see him and they talked for a while. Watching him from the bar, Rowley was again disturbed about Virginia, although Earl's concentration on Susan seemed to lessen his troubles somewhat
"That fellow seemed rather chummy with Mrs. Jenkins yesterday," Cohen said. "Oh?"
"Yes, I saw them come in from the slopes. I was out on the beginners run," he looked a bit embarrassed at this, not knowing that Rowley skied no better, "and they came down together and after they took off their skis she clung to his arm and kept looking up at him as though she were really in love. Perhaps he is an expert in the type of love that she wants, uh?" He gave a greasy smile and a wink, nudging Bill in the ribs.
"Very interesting," Bill said. A plan had flashed in his mind, one that would possibly take care of Earl and cause him some difficulty at the least. And make Virginia angry with him, which might prove the most important result in the long run. It seemed that Earl was following in his footsteps ... well, not quite footsteps ... with all the women at Eagle Mountain. It made him more angry, although he had no future plans for Elaine and himself, and more determined to cause trouble for Earl.
In fact, he thought, I'll set the wheels turning right this minute
"Excuse me for a few minutes," he said to Cohen, and went into Virginia's office. She wasn't there, and he drew the catch on the door behind him and went over to the desk. He checked the list of guests, found the right name and address, then picked up the phone and dialed long distance. In several minutes he was through to the person he wanted.
"Mr. Jenkins?" he asked.
"Yes. Who's calling, please?"
"That isn't important. But I have some news for you, something that you might be interested in. Something that you should know, at least."
"Who is this?"
"As I said, that isn't important. Now, would you like to hear what I have to say?"
There was silence at the other end of the wire. After a few moments Bill said, "Your wife is at Eagle Mountain isn't she?"
"Yes, what about it?" Jenkins sounded irritated and annoyed. "Get to the point, will you please? I'm a very busy man and I haven't time for this nonsense."
"I think you will have. Your wife, you see, has been sleeping with everyone around the lodge."
"What? That's ridiculous!"
"Is it? She's presently in bed with her current lover, one of the ski instructors here. His name is Earl Wormwood, if you'd like to know."
"You're lying."
"Am I? Perhaps you are aware of your wife's favorite pastime" ... Rowley took a chance here that Elaine wanted the same favors from her husband ... "The special way in which she likes to be ... shall we say, kissed?"
The silence at the other end of the wire proved to Bill that he had guessed right. He said, "Well she's getting plenty of that here. I just thought you'd like to know. That name, again, is Earl Wormwood. Good-bye now, Mr. Jenkins."
Jenkin's voice squawked protestingly over the phone, but Bill smiled and set the receiver into its cradle. Whether or not his phone call brought trouble for Earl, it would at least cause trouble for Elaine, and that would get even with her for the frustration she had brought upon Bill with her deception and her strange and incomplete desires. She deserved whatever she gets, he told himself.
Rowley returned to the bar and had a drink with Cohen. When he had finished one he said, "I think I'll go on up now. I'll see you later on and let you know how things turned out, and what we have planned for later."
"Don't forget about the pictures that I want to take," Cohen said again.
"I won't," BUI said, thinking what an obnoxious person Cohen was.
He got up and left the other man at the bar, crossing through the lounge and up to the second floor. He went directly to the girls' room and knocked.
After a long pause he heard a voice ask, "Who is it?" He couldn't tell which girl was speaking, but he didn't care. They both looked alike to him anyway, and he thought of them as having the same personalities and thoughts and desires. He had a stereotype image of what a lesbian should be and the thought that there might be variations within the breed hadn't occurred to him.
"Open up, it's the friendly photographer," he said, feeling quite humorous. He had no idea of the effect they had had on the two girls the night before. He could imagine his prototype lesbian being angry, but not shocked or hurt.
There was another long pause, then, "What do you want?" Bill scowled at that, and rapped on the door again, louder and more demanding.
"Let me the hell in," he said.
"What do you want?"
"I've got your pictures. Thought you might be interested in seeing them. Or would you rather I put them up on the bulletin board?"
"Go to hell!" said one voice.
Bill was about to use his master key on the lock when a second voice said, "Let him in, Pat. We have no choice," rather softly, and a moment later the door was opened and Bill stepped in, smiling at the girls.
"Good morning," he said.
"You bastard I" Patricia said. All the shock of the night before had vanished from her, she felt only hatred and anger. Beverly sat by the window, still a little stunned, and shocked anew at this proof that it had not all been a nightmare. She had actually, almost, believed that it had been, so badly had she hoped to suddenly awaken alone in her own bed at home.
"Want to see these? There are other copies, of course," he asked, extending the pictures. Beverly refused to look, but Patricia looked slowly at each one in turn, not at all ashamed of the positions in which she found herself. To Bill, watching her, it was a very sensual thing to see this girl look at the photographs which depicted her so accurately in an act of love.
"All right," she said, when she had finished, "So what?" And she looked unfalteringly at Rowley.
"Blackmail, of course."
"We have no money. Neither do our parents."
"Not money. You have your lovely, if somewhat used in the proper sense, bodies."
"And what are you planning to do with our bodies?" Patricia asked him coldly.
"All sorts of things. But don't worry, nothing that you won't enjoy. I won't hurt you at all, just show you a few ways to make love that are much nicer than those," and he nodded at the photographs. "Plus my friend would like to take a few more pictures. I'm sure you won't mind that, and hell even be willing to let you keep your faces in the shadows, although there's little more harm that can be done to you by being photographed."
Patricia waited to see if he was finished, then turned to Beverly. She said, softly, "It's up to you, honey. I'll do whatever you want. Although I think we should tell this bastard to get out and do whatever he wants to with the pictures. He could get in trouble to, attempted blackmail and such. Maybe we could claim that he got us drunk and we didn't know what we were doing until we saw the pictures later. We could get him in a lot of trouble, honey."
Rowley listened to this, surprised at the degree of scheming to which his stereotype was capable, and thinking that she might possibly be right, and be able to raise hell if he ever showed the pictures. But he managed to smile and look confident and that was enough to deceive Beverly about his degree of certainty.
"It wouldn't matter what we did in return," Beverly said, "Once those pictures are shown I'll kill myself. I couldn't stand to have my mother and father look at them, I just couldn't stand it."
Patricia asked, "Would it be better to let this beast take advantage of your body?"
Beverly, crying again, nodded in the affirmative. This affected Patricia much more than anything to date, and her mouth set in a grim line of determination. She had never been intimate with a man, and had never had any woman besides Beverly. Beverly, on the other hand, had had several affairs with men while in high school, before deciding that she prefered women. To her the idea was not so frightening, so new and terrible, although it was equally as disgusting as it was to Patricia.
Patricia pressed Beverly to her, holding the other girl's head against her waist, and faced Bill. She asked, "When do we have to do this?"
"Right now," he said, confident now and more dominating about his power. "Right now, with me. Tomorrow you have to pose for pictures with each other and with me."
"And that's all. You won't ever ask us to do it again, after these two times?"
"That's right," said Bill. He was thinking that he very well might ask them, might force them to, again. But he would wait until he had them one by one the next time. He felt sure that, after having him once, there would be no difficulty in getting either of these girls to submit again, without even threatening. Especially Beverly, she seemed more feminine, certainly more willing to comply. She probably wanted to, he reasoned, but wouldn't admit it in front of her friend. Well she'd have the chance to admit it later, in private, and he didn't doubt that she would.
"Do we do it here?"
"This is as good as any. We'll go to Cohen's room for the pictures, tomorrow."
"All right," she said, then, "I don't suppose that if I do everything you want me to, you'll let Beverly keep out of this?"
"No, baby. This is a big chance to have lots of fun, I'm not about to let it slip by. Both of you are going to get in on this little scene."
"It's all right," Beverly said, getting up from the chair. Without waiting for instructions and without looking at either Bill or Patricia, she began to undress. To Bill this was a sign that she was anxious to do it, but to Patricia it was a sign that she had lost all hope and wanted to get it done with.
"She's got the right idea," Bill said, "Why don't you undress too?" And he began to strip his own clothing off, looking at the girls.
Patricia did, feeling very self-conscious. She was ashamed to let a man see her body. Beverly didn't much care about that and matter-of-factly took everything off until she stood completely naked in the center of the room. In a few minutes Patricia was undressed too, and stood beside her. Bill looked them both over. There was little difference in their bodies, Beverly was a little taller and her breasts were slightly heavier and more developed. Both of them looked smooth and quite inviting. He had only his briefs on by then, and took them deliberately down, proudly letting them see his manhood, taking an unexpected pleasure in having them look at him. He was obviously ready. Patricia looked at him with disgust, Beverly with disinterest and not really paying attention, escaping into a semi-conscious world. If she could get through this thing without thinking about it, she knew, it would not be so bad.
Bill went over to the bed and got on. He said, "Come join me."
"Which one?"
"Both at once, of course. You're not taking turn., you're going to both love me at the same time."
Patricia hesitated and Beverly went over and crawled on the bed, fighting to keep her mind as blank as possible. She got on next to Bill and waited.
"You, too," he said, and Patricia came over and sat next to Beverly.
"I don't mind if you want to love each other a little, too, while we're at it," BUI said. "Just so I get all I want, you can use your spare hands and mouths wherever you like. It'll be a real orgy that way."
But neither girl felt any desire for that. It would not be any good to try and love each other while this man was there, and they just wanted to get rid of him as soon as possible.
Bill touched them both in turn. Patricia flinched and Beverly concentrated on not thinking. Then he took their hands and placed them on himself and moved his own hands over both of them. This went on for several minutes, and he felt that something was lacking. He said, "Now, girls, I want you to go all over me, one starting at the feet and one starting at the face. I want you to kiss me all over. Take your time about it, and do it nice. Like you kiss each other, huh? And when you get here, you can take turns on me. Sound like fun? Go ahead."
Beverly started without hesitating, kissing his lips first and starting down his neck. Patricia didn't move until Bill forced her head down, and then she began kissing her way up his legs. He relaxed and enjoyed the sensation, the thousand tiny kisses moving all over his body. Beverly's were better, she had her eyes shut and was pretending that nothing was real, and her mouth was much more stimulating. Patricia was stiff-lipped and cold. Then, as they neared the point where they would meet, all these little caresses merged into one lingering kiss that consumed his whole body and Bill could feel the tremors rippling through him, and feel his passion strain upward, impatient to be enclosed.
Beverly reach him first, and he placed his hands on her head and directed her to him. She did not resist, and her mouth seared at him, cooling the straining need for one long stroke, and then increasing it more and more as she moved on him, with him.
Patricia stopped kissing him, fascinated and watching as Beverly accommodated him. She couldn't take her eyes from Beverly's face as it moved up and down before her. Then Bill pulled her to him, bringing his face to her and imitating the embrace that was so wonderful when it was Beverly doing it to her. With him it seemed cold and hard and disgusting, but she let him do it while she watched Beverly do its counterpart to him.
It lasted a long time. Beverly was moving mechanically and unaware of what she was doing, really, merely working as if it were all a dream. She kept her eyes tightly shut and blocked out the world.
Then she felt a touch on her cheek, a soft hand that she knew was not Rowley's, and she knew that Patricia was touching her, trying to comfort her. But it worked the other way, serving to bring her closer to reality, and she tried to pretend that the hand wasn't there, that Patricia wasn't there. But she kept wondering what Patricia was doing, and wanting to open her eyes and look but not daring to do so, afraid to admit that this was reality.
Bill began thrashing beneath her now, rising to meet her face and then slowly withdrawing. She could hear his breath become very heavy and strained, although it sounded strangely muffled and far away. Perhaps this was because he was in the real world and she was in a world of her own, far away, nonexistent.
And then she became suddenly aware that they were in the same world. He heaved upward and held himself poised and the knowledge of their reality poured into her. She opened her eyes then, started back to life, and found herself looking directly into the shocked eyes of Patricia. And at that moment it was the worst of all, and she felt her face burn with the fires of complete shame and degradation.
CHAPTER NINE
That evening Earl met Susan once more when she got off work at the snack bar. She was very happy to see him, and this made Earl feel good, for he knew how women of the virginal and trying-to-be-pure type are often unpredictable and change moods and feelings with no apparent reason for doing so. He had half expected Susan to tell him that she had been thinking about what had happened the night before, and had decided it would be too dangerous to continue seeing him. That it would be better for both of them to break the relationship off before someone got hurt. He had met this illogical but typical reasoning before, and always in the girls in whom he felt a genuine and sincere feeling; it never happened with those girls in which the only interest he felt was physical. This was a sad but true paradox that he had discovered in his pursuit of love and sex.
But Susan didn't act this way, she was really happy and anxious to be with him, and he decided she must like him as much as he liked her. He felt that something was starting that, if not permanent, would at least last for a considerable time.
"Where shall we go?" he asked her.
"I'd like to change my clothes first," Susan told him. "I'll get glamorous for you."
Earl smiled. He said, "You couldn't be any more desirable. Unless you changed into nothing, maybe...."
"No chance of that," she said. But she was smiling to show that she didn't mind his remark. Earl walked to the stairs and up, passing Rowley and Cohen on the way. The two men were whispering together, Rowley smiling rather smugly and Cohen showing extreme interest, his hands clasped together and his eyes shining.
As they passed Earl heard Rowley say, "But I think that we'd better wait another day before we take more pictures. Get them a little used to the idea. They'll be ready for anything after another session with me."
Then Earl was passed and he failed to see the disappointment on Cohen's face. He felt a moment's curiosity about what Rowley could be talking about, but k didn't concern him and he forgot it a minute later.
He also failed to see the look of hate with which Rowley pierced him as he went up the stairs. Rowley should have been happy to see Earl concentrating on Susan, but for some reason it made him hate Earl more. Perhaps this was because he felt something in common with a man who played several women at once, and hated Earl more because of this slight identification. It didn't occur to his type of mind that Earl might intend to stick to one woman, and he figured that the other man would still be making it with Virginia. It enraged him to think he might be losing Virginia to another man who would treat her no better than he himself had. That took away the rationalization that saved his self-confidence.
Virginia, too, was looking at the two figures retreating up the stairs. She had just entered the lounge from her office, and stood by the door. Rowley saw her there, and got up from his seat and went over when Earl and Susan had passed from sight at the first landing.
He grinned at Virginia, feeling that he had a chance to get even with her for the smugness she had shown in telling him that he wouldn't be required to visit her that evening. She returned his look with a cold and hard expression. It was not an angry one, for she sensed that she might soon need Rowley once more. Earl bad not come to her room the night before, and she was not going to wait for him. She didn't like the idea of a man whom she couldn't handle, and Earl seemed worse than Rowley; although with more idealistic reasons for not being dominated.
"It appears," Bill said, keeping the sarcasm from his voice, "That your scarecrow has been charmed by another, wouldn't you say?"
"Perhaps-"
"I should tell you ... for friendship's sake only, of course," he said, "That he has also been quite interested in Elaine Jenkins."
"It seems he's taking all your women, doesn't it?" Virginia said.
Bill blinked. Then he grinned again, and said, "Touche, Virginia. But he's also playing you wrong. Let's both admit it, we can do very nicely without him."
Virginia didn't answer. She was thinking that Rowley was probably right, but didn't want to give him that satisfaction by admitting it. What she really wanted was to make Earl hers and then be able to choose between the two men. She was not accustomed to having men treat her badly, and she didn't like it at all. Virginia might have been incapable of real love, but she was very capable of jealousy and wounded pride. Even capable of hatred for anyone who didn't fall to her charms, or at least pretend to, which amounted to the same thing. She realized that her money was at least as charming as her body, and this didn't bother her; she had as much pride about being able to buy whatever she wanted as she did about being a good looking and sensual woman whose charms in bed were to be desired. Even more, perhaps, for she knew that her charms would diminish with years, but her money would increase proportionately, and this inverse ratio should keep her happy and satisfied as long as she cared to be.
Now she shrugged and turned away from Rowley, he started to walk away, then said, "I'll see you later, BiH,n without looking at him.
He pursed his lips in self-congratulation and said, "All right, Virginia. I'll see you later," as she walked away. Then he returned to where Cohen was sitting to continue exciting the man with the story of the adventures of the afternoon, while Virginia went up to her room. She paused at the door to Susan's room, but then went on down the hall with a disturbed frown.
On the other side of that door Earl was sitting casually on the bed and Susan was brushing her hair at the dressing table mirror. She had not changed from her nylon skirt and blouse yet, and he could see the outline of her firm buttocks beneath the sheer material. He was thinking how much more sensual a woman was with clothes on than she was naked, and admiring the ability of the male imagination. It was the same way that imagined sex was always more thrilling than it turned out to be.
"Shall I leave while you change?" he asked.
"If you're modest."
"I thought you might be."
"After last night I guess it would be sort of silly, wouldn't it? I mean there isn't much you haven't touched, so it would be very phony to pretend I was modest about you seeing me."
"You show rare good sense and logic for a woman," Earl told her, admiring her for it. Earl was honestly open-minded about women. He really believed in the double standard that most men lie about when attempting to seduce someone else's wife. If he had had a wife he wouldn't have minded if she were to sleep with another man, so long as it was only for physical pleasure and she loved only him in the other, non-physical sense. Many men claim to feel this way, but most of them are lying, due to natural, male pride and possessiveness and perhaps a few hidden doubts about their own ability to make love when compared to another.
In the same vein Earl also held a women as an intellectual equal, although not an equal in the sense of personality or domination. He felt that a woman should be able to reason as well as a man. Perhaps this was necessary in order to feel honestly about the double standard of sexual activity. It would be hard to trust a non-rational wife to approach an affair with the right frame of mind. He also believed that a woman should be completely obedient and dominated by her man.
And so, hearing Susan make a logical and unashamed comment such as she just had, Earl felt closer to her than he had before. He was sure that this was a woman whom he could love very much.
"Thank you," she said. "All virgins aren't really stupid, you see."
She slid out of the skirt and blouse and went to the closet in her underclothes. Her body was better than Earl had thought, and he felt excited. But he didn't want to do anything to disprove the trust she had in him and contented himself with watching her.
She said, "What shall I wear? Help me choose something."
Earl got up and went over to the closet. He stood beside her and looked at the various clothes as she separated them on their hangers. Her hip was pressed gently against his thigh and as she moved it rubbed against him. She seemed unaware of the contact. But Earl knew she must feel it with only her thin panties between them, and she made no effort to move away from him.
"Do you like this dress?" she asked, looking up at him and holding a dress away from the others, still on its hanger. Earl nodded. Then he turned to her and kissed her and she came easily into his arms, soft and warm and willing, and he knew that she had been expecting this and had wanted it to happen. He kissed her for a long while, keeping his hands pressed to her back.
"This is dangerous," he told her, when their lips had parted, "I'm serious about what I told you, and I'll not seduce you, but you're making it hard on both of us." He was quite proud of himself for being this honorable.
"I know, I'm sorry. But I wanted you to kiss me. You knew that, didn't you?"
"Yes."
"I wanted you to kiss me before I put clothes on, Earl. Do you think that's terrible?"
"I think it's nice. But dangerous. I want to keep my promise."
"And I love you for trying. But. .let's sit, Earl. I want to talk with you."
She moved away from him and went over to the bed and sat on the edge, curling her legs under her. Earl followed, wondering what was going to happen and what she wanted to happen and what she expected to happen. She might be testing him, he thought, but it didn't seem so. He sat next to her and put one arm around her, being careful to touch only her back with his hand.
"Earl," she began, "Am I foolish to want to be a virgin until 'I get married?"
"Yes, if you fall in love before you marry. Or even if you feel a physical need, for that matter. But when I tell you it appears that I'm trying to talk you into sleeping with me, and that's not true. That's something you must decide for yourself."
"I already have."
"Tell me what you want, Susan. Right out in so many words. I don't want to misunderstand you now."
"You're not misunderstanding. Earl, I think I was in love once before. I went with this man for a year, and I wanted to sleep with him. But I wouldn't, and he said it was all right, and that he was willing to wait until we were married. Then he met a girl who would sleep with him, he married her. At the time I convinced myself it was better that way if he was that kind of a man. But now I see it was my fault."
"Or," she continued, looking down, "was I right then, and wrong now? Perhaps I'm trying to justify giving myself to you by thinking this way."
"That's something you'll have to decide for yourself, Susan. You know I want you, but you also know I'm going to wait for you to say yes. And I'm not going to change my mind about waiting, whether someone else left you because of it or not. So you don't have to give me a damn thing to keep me."
"Don't be angry, I believe you, Earl. I was being silly to tell you stories from my past in order to justify what I want. Earl, I want you to make love to me. Right now, Earl, right here. Will you? And will you love me for a long time? I don't care about marriage, I just don't want to lose everything for one night."
"I'll love you for a long, long time, baby," Earl told her, moving toward her.
Susan came to him, into his arms with passion and readiness. They kissed and embraced, tongues lashing body between their mouths, hands moving over one another with caresses of fiery intensity.
"It's such' a good feeling to be touched and to do these things without worrying about being able to stop in time," she whispered. Earl agreed completely, and covered her lips with a thousand kisses as she began to unfasten his clothing, her hands trembling against him.
When they were both naked she lay back and pulled him to her. "I think I'm ready," she said.
Earl slid between her legs and opened a path with his hand. She was ready, throbbing and warm at his touch. Her arms pulled him tightly against her while her legs rose and spread to accept his love.
"Don't hurt me, please," she told him.
"I'll be very, very gentle," he told her. "Very gentle, darling."
Then he moved, slowly and easily at first, with a long stroke that carried him to her. Susan bit her lip and clung to him and whispered that she loved him in his ear, raising her loins to aid him, digging her nails into his hard back, and biting at his neck. He was very gentle, as he said, and she found it didn't hurt very much at all.
Then she found that it was very wonderful, and she had no regrets and no embarrassment and she made love to him with all the passion that she bad stored up over the years.
They did not go out that evening. Earl slept in Susan's room, held tightly in her arms, and they made love several times during the night, growing to know each other and to loye each other more and more.
In the morning they were awake early and stayed in bed, warm against each other, listening to the wind that had come up during the night.
"Are you sorry?" Earl asked her.
"No, oh no. I'm so very, very glad, Earl. I'm so glad I did it and that it was with you. You were awfully good to me, darling. I love you."
"I love you too," he told her.
Presently they arose and dressed. Earl was very hungry, as usual and especially after his efforts during the night. Susan was not at all hungry, filled with love and the excitement of a new phase of her life. They went down to the lounge together and she opened the snack bar and made an especially large breakfast which Earl ate by the window while she prepared things for the other guests.
Virginia was the first one down that morning, which was unusual for her. She too had spent a rather strenuous night, with Rowley. She came over and sat by Earl.
"I haven't seen much of you," she told him.
He nodded, his mouth full of ham.
"I'd like to see you tonight. The last time you didn't show up, and I don't like that. I definitely want to know if you will come by this evening."
"No," he said. "I'm sorry, you're a very attractive and desirable woman, but not for me."
"Susan?"
"I've been seeing her, yes."
"And you like her better than me?"
"That's an embarrassing question. It's a completely different thing."
"Oh, I know. True love and all that nonsense. Well, that's all right with me, but I want something different from you, and that won't interfere with whatever you feel for Susan. I'd like you to come to my room this evening, Earl, and I'll expect you to be there."
"Sorry, but no."
"I pay you, Earl. Are you forgetting that?"
"I told you once before, no one buys me. You pay me to teach skiing, and that's all."
"You are quite dispensable as an instructor, yon know," she said.
Earl shrugged. "As you will, I won't sell myself for money. The worst you can do is to fire me. My ideals are worth more than this job."
Virginia regarded him closely. It was a tempting thought to fire him, and he expected that she would. But she didn't want to lose the only thing she had to balance Rowley and keep him in line. Rowley had been good the night before, and she knew she really wanted him much more than she wanted Earl. And there was another way to approach this problem, she knew, a way that she would try.
She nodded to Earl and got up and left without saying anything else.
After a while the others started coming in. Earl took his plate and cup back to the counter and handed them to Susan, holding her hand for a moment as he did so and winking at her. Then he went out to wait for the first class to assemble.
Standing on the porch he looked up at the sky, behind the mountain, and was surprised at how black it was. And the wind, that had seemed so friendly an hour before while he and Susan had lain snugly together in bed, was cold and biting. A storm was coming, he thought, and it looked like a bad one. Well, if he was forced to stay in the lodge for a few days that would be all right, he and Susan could enjoy themselves together. It would be pleasant, he knew, to make love while the storm raged without the window and the snow piled deeply and the temperature fell. Being snowbound and in love was a charming combination. He smiled at the thought and walked toward the base of the slope, his skis over one shoulder, while the sky grew blacker each minute.
Virginia called Susan into her private office. She sat behind the desk and Susan stood in front of it and wondered what was the matter.
Virginia took her time about starting, lighting a cigarette and appearing to choose the words which, actually, she knew by memory. She had thought them all out a few minutes before. Finally she spoke, looking directly at Susan.
"I know what is going on between you and Earl Wormwood," she said. "I hardly expected such things from you, Susan. I'm very displeased."
Susan flushed. She was ashamed to have this woman know about what had happened.
"And I also feel that I must warn you about him, and forbid you to see him any longer."
This was a different matter, and Susan flushed more in anger now and said, "I hardly see how what I do with my own time is any concern of yours...."
"Then you don't understand the picture. Earl has been making quite a reputation for himself here at Eagle Mountain. You aren't the first woman he has slept with, and I doubt that you will be the last."
"Oh?" Susan said, not knowing exactly how she felt at learning this.
"Don't feel ashamed or deceived," Virginia continued. "I fell for his line myself, as a matter-of-fact. Yes, that's right, he's been sleeping with me too. But I'm not jealous, I'm telling you these things for your own good. He's also sleeping with Elaine Jenkins, for one, and possible a few that I don't know about. Why, after he left you the other night he went to Elaine's room. I don't care about her, she's nothing but a tramp with money. But I don't want to see you get hurt. Then, too, these things don't help the reputation of my resort, either. In short, what I'm getting at, is that you aren't to see him any longer."
Susan felt two strong emotions. One was hurt, for she felt that Earl had deceived her, although he hadn't lied about any other affairs. He simply had not mentioned them. And the worse part was Virginia's lie about Earl going to Elaine's room after leaving Susan.
The second emotion was anger that Virginia thought she could order Susan to do what she wanted. The only jurisdiction Virginia should have over her was in the realm of her job at the snack bar.
Perhaps she wouldn't see Earl any more, but she felt he should at least have a chance to explain before she made that decision.
"Agreed?" Virginia asked.
"How did you know about us?" Susan answered the question with one of her own.
"Earl told me, of course," Virginia lied. "Just this morning, when I stopped at his table, he told me about you two and boasted about how none of the women here could resist his charms. It made me feel disgusted. You're not the type to let yourself be made a fool of by a man like that I may be, but you're not Now promise me you won't see him again."
"I-I'll let you know," Susan said, and turning without another word she left the office. She returned to the kitchen, but once behind the counter she was struck by the futility of it all and the tears began to build up behind her eyes. She told the cook that she was leaving for the day and walked away without even hearing his protests.
Susan went to her room. It made her feel worse, however, to be in the room where the night before she had given so much of herself in what now appeared to be a useless cause. The thought that she had kept her virginity so long only to lose it to a man who boasted of his numerous conquests and who counted her only as another number made her feel actually sick to the stomach. She felt that everything he had told her was a lie. She had been taken completely and totally, lied to, deceived, and laughed at. What had happened could not be retracted, it was something that could affect the rest of her life.
She fell to the bed, sobbing, her fists clenched. The thought that she had to stay in the same building, on the same floor, as Earl seemed impossible. She wanted to get far away from him. What did her job matter now? And who was Virginia to order her around? The hell with Eagle Mountain, she had lost enough there as it was; wasn't going to lose her will power too.
She pressed her face into the bed that, hours before, had been so warm and friendly and cried and vowed to never be deceived again. No man was ever going to use her again. If she ever had anything to do with a man it was going to be she that did the using.
After a while she sank into a semi-conscious state of mind, almost sleep, filled with anger and humiliation; a dream world of people pointing at her saying, "Yes, that's the girl who gave her body to him. Isn't it a shame what these women will do, governed by their lust?" And in this state she continued to lie, feverish and sick, throughout the rest of the morning.
It was noon when there came a knock on her door. It opened and Earl entered, without waiting for her to answer because of the familiarity that he felt must now exist between them. Lovers do not lock doors on one another.
"What's the matter, honey?" he asked, sitting next to her. "Are you sick? I didn't see you downstairs and the cook said you were acting funny."
Susan rolled over, and he could see that she had been crying. She asked, "Is it true that you've been with Mrs. Tucker? And that other woman?"
"Yes, that's true. What has that got to do with us, Susan. That was before we met"
"And I'm just another girl?"
"No, baby. I don't understand what's the matter with you. I've never deceived you. And I have every intention of being faithful to you."
"Earl, I'm leaving Eagle Mountain. Pm going today, as soon as possible. I can't stay here where everyone knows what we did together."
"That's ridiculous!"
"I don't care, I've had enough of your logic and deceit. I'm leaving, and I never want to see you again."
Earl paused, watching her. Then he lit a cigarette and said, "All right, baby, that's up to you too. Just like last night was."
Susan misunderstood this, not sensing the hurt that she had inflicted and thinking that Earl was gloating by mentioning last night. She said, "There's a bus from town at five o'clock. Will you drive me to it?" She didn't mind asking this, she felt that it was, in a small way, using him. She added, "I think you owe me that much."
"I owe you nothing," Earl said. "I'll take you because I felt something for you, if only for one night. Be ready at four." Then he got up and strode from the room and slammed the door, while Susan began to cry again.
Had they talked, then, things might have been different. They would have discovered the fallacies in Virginia's story, at least. But neither was willing to make the necessary beginning. Susan was too hurt, too saddened, and she didn't think there was any more to be said. Earl was too proud to beg a woman to listen to his side of a story, especially when she had been angry without reason. He thought that Susan must be a much different person than he had thought her, and that she expected him to yield himself completely to her in return for the favors of her bed. Well, Earl Wormwood would yield himself to anyone or anything in which he didn't believe. It was just a shame that he had been fooled about Susan, because he had really loved her. He still did, of course, but no amount of love was worth begging for and falling to. If he had thought about it, he might have realized that Susan had a completely wrong story, but under his principle of never reasoning about important things he put it from his mind as well as he could for the rest of the day. And Susan, who would have yielded if Earl had made any effort toward reconciliation, took his action to mean he didn't really care at all; that was the final proof.
Earl saw Sam and explained that he could not be around for the four o'clock class. Sam didn't care, and said, "If this storm breaks there won't be anyone around, anyway."
Then Earl went to Virginia's office and asked for an advance on his pay. She gave him twenty dollars without question, trying to study his face to see what reaction her talk with Susan had had. But his features were a blank and impregnable facade. He nodded his thanks and went out to the bar where he drank several Bourbons straight, and cursed the attitudes of women.
By four the storm had begun. It did not, however, start suddenly, but began with an increasing wind and built up slowly. The top of Eagle Mountain was enshrouded in black clouds. It was impossible to see more than a few yards ahead. Earl went to Susan's room at exactly four and found her packed and ready.
"This storm may hit before we reach town," he said.
"Are you afraid to risk it? I can wait until tomorrow, if I must" She kept the emotion from her voice now, as though speaking to a casual friend.
"This place might be snowed in for days," Earl said. "You'd better go now, well make it."
"Fine," she said, thinking that he must want very badly to be rid of his last conquest. If only he had meant what he said, she thought, not realizing that a man who meant what he said was not a man who felt he must repeat it and prove it, over and over, and was not a man who would let his pride suffer to prove anything.
Earl carried her suitcases to the car. It took two trips. On the last one he met Sam, who had called off the class, and the man said, "You're not going anywhere now! This storm can hit any second."
Earl shrugged. "I'll make it to town," he said. "It's not the storms of nature that hurt a man."
Sam sensed that Earl felt very badly and he shrugged and walked away, not being the type to meddle in another man's affairs.
Susan, meanwhile, had gone to Virginia's office. She collected the pay due her and left. She didn't say goodbye, and Virginia did so with a cold voice and a frown. Susan went out and got in the old car and waited.
Earl started up and drove fast. He wanted to get off the side road before the storm came on in earnest. Susan sat against the opposite door and looked straight ahead, and found she had to fight an occasional tear.
Halfway down the side road everything was suddenly very still and unreal. The air was purple and the trees seemed like a painted background. This held for a moment as the ancient Buick rocked along the road. It was during this lull that a black Cadillac passed them, going in the other direction and traveling very fast.
Earl noticed the driver, a square head hunched forward on massive shoulders, a brow as black and wrinkled as the sky. The cars nearly collided as they passed, but the other man didn't even seem aware that he had passed another car. Must be frightened by the storm, Earl thought, not blaming him. Then the storm struck.
It tore wildly across the mountain, bending trees and whipping snow before it, nearly lifting the Buick from the road. It howled and screamed and raged with an intensity that Earl had never seen before, during many storms and many years. He could not see the road, and had to creep along, trying to keep his wheels in the ruts to avoid going off into the ditch.
Susan wanted very much to sit next to him, for warmth and security. And because she was scared and hurt and sad. and felt that nothing mattered much now. But she didn't, she stayed pressed to the other door, hunched against the cold that came through the makeshift canvas top, against which the heater was completely ineffectual.
"I'm scared," she said, at length.
"Well make it," Earl told her, his eyes glued on where he imagined the road to be. "You may miss your bus, but we'll make it. I know you won't want to spend another night with me in a snow bank. Besides, we'd freeze to death."
"Earl-"
"Unless maybe we huddled together for warmth. And that would be disgusting, wouldn't it?"
"I-nothing," Susan said, and cried more now, not trying to hold it back.
Finally they were off the side road. Earl saw the cross road and braked, skidding sideways and nearly leaving the road. But he pulled it out and wound up twisted across the main highway. From there he could not even see the side road, not the sign that pointed to it, and he thought they had been very lucky indeed.
The main road was better, although bad. He drove slowly, keeping in the middle, concentrating on keeping the car in control. After a few miles he saw lights ahead, red flashing lights, and pulled up slowly behind a snow-plow. It was a huge flashing roaring monster, as unreal as the night, but friendly and a means to keep safe. He followed the plow at creeping speeds, and drove behind it the rest of the way into town.
Susan's bus was there, late and waiting. It had chains on and was idling noisily in front of the tavern which served as a station in this town too small to have a building of its own to accommodate passers-through. The driver and several other passengers were inside, drinking coffee.
Earl went over to him and asked, "Are you going through tonight?"
"Have to, if I can. There's no place in this town to accommodate the passengers for the night, and besides this storm might last for days. AD the plows and sand trucks are out, it should be safe enough."
Earl nodded, and went back to tell Susan, She received the news without reply. It didn't seem possible, now, that she would really be leaving. She was no longer sure that she wanted to either. But what could she say to Earl, who didn't seem to care at all?
They had coffee to get warm. The man behind the bar remembered them from the evening when they had been there, and spoke friendly and familiarly to them. It seemed strange to be associated with Earl now, Susan thought, his man thinks we're in love. But that's like all the wrong ideas in the world.
"You won't be able to get back," Susan told Earl.
"No matter. I'm free and easy, baby, I can stay or go; live or die." And then, bitter and disillusioned, he added, "And that's just the way I like it."
Earl put her luggage on and saw her to the door. Then he said, "So long, Susan. It's been nice."
"Good-bye, Earl," she said, and went in and found a seat. She watched him go back in the tavern, and remembered that he didn't know her home address and she didn't know his; they would probably never meet again.
The driver noticed that she was crying, but he was a discreet man and looked quickly away. He had enough on his mind, anyway, getting the bus through to the next town, to worry about the personal problems of his passengers.
He started up and eased onto the road. There was a fresh layer of snow over the recently spread sand, but he had chains and plenty of weight and was confident in his ability as a driver. Some of the passengers, however, were worried and nervous. They sat on the edges of their seats and looked out at the wild night.
Susan, too, looked out. But she wasn't noticing the storm, she was looking at the reflection of her own face in the dark window, and thought that she hardly recognized herself. And that wasn't so strange, after all
CHAPTER TEN
The wires were down, and for a while Eagle Mountain Ski Lodge was plunged into blackness. Then Virginia found the lanterns and the place was lit by kerosene. She took a lamp to each room and put several in the lounge. Most of the guests had gathered there, worried and anxious about how long they would be snowed in. Several of them were far too concerned with private affairs to think about the storm at all. One of the latter was Cohen.
He was extremely disappointed about not being able to take his pictures that day. He was also disturbed, more pleasantly, over the fact that Elaine Jenkins was sitting opposite him; her skirt pulled enticingly high on her magnificent legs.
As he looked at the marble flesh of those legs it was impossible not to think of what Rowley had told him, and of how pleasant h would be to be there. She was smiling at him, aware that he was looking at her. Cohen, who was normally much too timid to approach a woman by himself, was too affected by her to think about the possible shame of being turned down. Because she had a special perversion that she enjoyed made it easier. He screwed all the courage possible into his fat little body and leaned toward her, conscious of the fact that he was sweating again, and that he was, at best, ugly.
"Quite a storm, uh?" he asked. "Quite."
"But things seem so-romantic-by the light from these lamps, do they not?"
"Yes, I think so," she answered. She continued to smile, and Cohen took heart.
"I was thinking how pleasant it would be to make love by this light"
"Yes," she said, "They've placed a lamp in every loom, too. In case you succeed."
"Yes." His mouth was dry, his fact hot. He knew he must appear very flushed, and thought it impossible that a woman of this beauty would do any more than laugh at him. But he had to try. He said, "Of course, rm not the type to make a woman fall in love with me."
"Oh? I hadn't noticed."
Was she making fun of him? It didn't seem so. He said, "But there are certain-favors-that a man can perform for a woman. Things that he can do to bring pleasure to her, without actually making love."
"Oh, and what are those things?"
He flushed more. "This is rather embarrassing," he said. How could he tell her? She saved him the need....
"I think I understand," she said. "But were you hinting that you would like to perform this act on me?"
He stammered, then blurted out, "Yes!"
"Don't be nervous. I won't eat you," she said, and smiled at that. "If you want something, why don't you ask?"
"Would you-could I?"
"It sound rather pleasant ... by kerosene lamp, especially," she told him. Cohen could scarcely believe it, he couldn't think that such a thing would happen to him with this beautiful woman.
"When?" he asked, leaning even closer and hissing the word from his throat.
"When? Shall we say ... now?" Her most charming smile at this. He couldn't know that she was thinking he had the ugliest face she had ever been close to. That it would be nice, in a very strange and perverted way, to enclose that ugly, disgusting face between her heavy thighs and use it for all it was worth.
"Could we? Right now?" His blood was jumping in his veins, his eyeballs bulged and his eyes were bright red at the rims. He looked like some rodent. Well, she had the place for him to burrow, this would be fun and disgusting both, and the thought charmed her.
Elaine stood op. She said, "Shall we go?" and turned toward the stairs. Cohen waited for a second, still not able to believe it Then he leapt up and hurried after her, almost running, a ridiculous figure. Everyone in the lounge looked after him, startled at this sudden flurry of activity. They weren't, however, aware of what was going on, with one exception. Virginia knew, and felt a great disgust to see that pathetic little man waddling after that beautiful woman. Some women, she thought, would stoop to anything. It made her feel as thought everything was wrong, suddenly, and distasteful. She didn't want to sleep with anyone that night, not after seeing that She waited for a few minutes after Elaine and Cohen had gone up the stairs, then she went up to her own room.
There was a bottle of sleeping pills on her dresser. She seldom used them, but right then she felt like sleeping very well, and alone. She took two pills and went to bed, knowing that nothing was going to wake her up for hours. When she awoke the world would be fresh, and she would be ready to continue her life.
Among the few guests not in the lounge were Beverly and Patricia. They were in their room. Beverly was at the window again, and Patricia was standing by the dresser. Both were silent and thinking.
Beverly, looking out at the storm, was thinking about how different the world looked from the last time that she had looked out, and thought about blindness and stupidity and time. These things seemed to be proven soup and made the world different in the same way the storm made the view different.
The storm did not seem forbidding, somehow. It seemed rather something that would shelter her from the eyes of the world, a blanket that would keep her secure and safe and alone. After a while, Beverly decided she would go out in the storm. Anything was better than staying in that room with her shame. And with Patricia, who had watched her as she suffered that shame, and who seemed to silently reproach her for it.
She got up and put her coat on.
"Where are you going?" Patricia asked. There didn't seem to be any real interest in her voice.
"A walk."
"In this storm?"
"I won't go far."
"All right," Patricia said. "I'll see you later, honey." There was still no affection in her voice, and Beverly thought that it must be due to what she had watched in those awful moments the day before. That was not true, really, although Patricia had been profoundly affected by the scene. Her silence was really a cold and thoughtful rage against the man who had forced Beverly to such degradation. And a disgust that Beverly had been weak enough to submit to it, to suffer that rather than risk the exposure of their real and pure love to the eyes of the world.
Beverly went down the stairs and out the front door. She looked neither to right nor left, not wanting to see anyone, her coat collar up against the cold of the world as much as the fury of the storm. She walked around the lodge, to the side upon which her window opened, and headed off into the snow. It seemed much better to be out there than to be in her room, and the cold wasn't bad at all.
But the snow was deep, and it was a struggle to walk. She plodded on, occasionally looking back to keep the lodge in sight. Each time it was dimmer through the swirling blinding snow, a distant shadow a bit deeper than the sky. But it was not far away, she knew she could get back to it whenever she decided to turn around.
Then she thought about what was awaiting her there. It was a very unpleasant thought, and she put it from her mind as best she could, affecting that semi-conscious dream state in which she had submitted to Rowley the day before. And once again this proved an effective way to avoid her sorrows.
It made her, however, forget about keeping the lodge in sight. In fact, she forgot about everything but the snow, the dark, and the effort necessary to keep walking through the deep drifts. She had even become too cold to notice it, and her hands and face grew numb, pleasantly.
Soon the lodge was lost to sight, and the dark storm enclosed and sheltered her; the solution to all her problems, all her fears.
To Patricia, the thought that Beverly would not return came as no shock; perhaps she had realized it all along in some part of her mind. She never contemplated getting someone to look for her, it wouldn't have been right, somehow, to interfere with what Beverly wanted to do. She went to the window and looked at the dark for a while, not blaming Beverly but thinking that what she had done was the weak thing. And she thought that she was much stronger, that there was another solution for her.
She went to the dressing table and found the razor blades that Beverly used to shave her legs. Single -edged blades, the kind that provided a place to grip them when cutting something. She put one of them carefully into the pocket of her blouse. It seemed right that they were Beverly's blades....
Patricia went out and down the hall, then up the stairs to the top floor. She knew which room was Rowley's, and she went there now.
"Who is it?" he asked, when she knocked.
Without reply she went in. He was lying on the bed, and grinned when he saw her.
"Well, well," he said, "And what can I do for you?"
She went over and sat by him. He put his arm around her, but she shrugged it away. Then she said, "I-I enjoyed what we did the other day. I never realized how good it could be to be with a man."
"I thought you'd feel that way. Although, to tell you the truth, I expected Beverly instead of you."
"I don't think she enjoyed it. But I did. I'd like to do it again."
"Sure thing," Bill said. He felt his old confidence again, more than he had felt in a long while. No woman could resist his charms after they had had them, once, he told himself. Why, he could straighten out every lesbian in the world, given the opportunity.
"I want to do what Beverly did for you," Patricia said, shrugging his arm off again. "Later, maybe, we can do the rest. But first I want to do that to you. I think it'll be easier to start that way."
Bill smiled and nodded.
"Will you undress?"
"Don't you want to undress me?"
"No, you do it."
"What can I do for you while you're doing this for me?" he asked, wanting to make sure that she was satisfied enough to come back for more.
"Just enjoy it Just lie back and close your eyes and let me do it."
Bill shrugged and unfastened his clothing. Patricia didn't look at him until he was exposed and ready. Then she bent to him, taking him in one hand, being very gentle about it. She shut her eyes as tightly as she could and opened her mouth to him. She had to get him ready, had to be sure that the time was right.
"That's right, that's the way," he said. He began moving beneath her, rising to meet her.
Patricia was surprised to find that she felt no disgust in this act. She felt nothing, in fact She understood then how Beverly had been able to do it.
Rowley was breathing harder, heaving more, watching her move on him in the flickering light of the lamp. He shut his eyes and strained toward completion.
Patricia sensed his readiness. With one hand she took the razor blade from her pocket and held it ready, while with the other she held him to her and stroked him. Then he was poised and she felt the tremor in him, and as he exploded in climax she brought the razor blade across him time and again, slashing sideways with all her strength and feeling the blade sink through the soft flesh and grow wet with his blood at the instant his passion was released.
Rowley, lost in his thrill, did not feel the blade at first. He did not know, in fact, until be opened his eyes. Then the pain hit him simultaneously with the sight and he screamed once in agony, heaving up and throwing her from her. But it was too late....
He was off the bed, staggering to the door, screaming soundlessly, holding what was left of his virility with both hands and feeling the blood seep through and spill to the floor. He fell against the table and went down, tipping the lamp over and the flames spread across the rug. But he had no thoughts to any fire but that which seared his body. He got up once more, as Patricia fled from the room, and made another attempt to reach the door, to get help. The agony was too great; he fell unconscious to the floor, midst the growing flames....
The black Cadillac pulled to the door and stopped. The driver got out, hunched and bulky in the snow, and went into the lodge.
Jenkins knew which room belonged to his wife. She had told him the room number. He looked around to make sure she was not in the lounge, and then went direclly up the stairs. At the second floor he nearly bumped into a young girl who was running down from the third floor. He stepped aside and she plunged down to the lounge. A moment later he heard the front door slam. At the same time he became aware of a scream from the top floor. A terrifying scream; one that seemed to be muffled, as though the throat that emitted it was filled with blood, or tight with pain. He looked up, saw nothing, and went down the hall. He was too engrossed in his own troubles to worry about someone else's.
Jenkins had driven all day, the last two hours through blinding snow, to get here. Nothing was going to stop him now. His hand, in his pocket, closed on the gun and found it very cold and hard.
He went down to Elaine's room and tried the door. It was unlocked, and he went in. The room was empty. Jenkins looked around, wondering where she could be. He knew she wasn't downstairs, and she wasn't here in her room. That meant she must be in someone else's room. It had better be another woman, he told himself, feeling the gun again. How would he know where to look? Hell, try every door, every room. If she's unfaithful to me, I'm damn well going to know. And then I'm going to....
He went out and walked to the end of the hall, starting there. He was a massive, square man, with a huge head, wrinkled in a black scowl. He knew that his wife was the type to like more men than one, and once before he had caught her. That time he had whipped the man savagely with his fists and then had beaten Elaine until she couldn't walk. He had warned her if she ever cheated on him again he would kill her. And he had meant it.
There was something about her particular desires that made it worse to be unfaithful. Even if she were to take a lover it wouldn't be so bad. But she didn't, she wanted many different men, and there was one thing that she always wanted them to do. Jenkins knew, for he had been begged often enough to do it to her. But he was a man who wanted his sex normal and would not settle for less, or more, depending on where one placed perversion.
He tried the first door and found it open, but the room was empty. The next door was locked, but he listened for a while and heard no sounds. If Elaine were making love, he knew, there would be sounds....
He moved on down the hall, listening at every locked door and looking in every unlocked door. He met no one, and was so preoccupied that he failed to smell the smoke that was beginning to seep down from above. He also failed to notice the increase in activity downstairs as someone insisted that they had heard a scream and someone else kept asking, loudly, where that girl had run off to without a coat.
Halfway down the hall he found another locked door, and there were sounds behind this door. He listened intently, until he was sure; then he hit the door once, with his heavy shoulder, and it flew open.
Jenkins stepped in, his face hard, but what he saw there in the flickering lamplight made his expression go limp and seem to hang in front of his head, like a melting plastic mask instead of a real face.
Elaine was sitting in a chair. A man was sitting on the floor, before her. He could not tell what the man looked like, because the man's head was not visible. It was buried between his wife's legs.
Elaine's eyes were shut and she was rocking in delight, cupping her breasts with her hands and crushing the man's face with her heavy thighs. She was too lost in passion to see him there at the door.
And the man could not hear him, for his ears were completely covered in this grip of strange love, this perversion that Jenkins found so horrible.
He was unable to react for a while. Frozen, he watched this scene in the flickering light from the lantern; light that cast shadows in moving patterns across naked flesh-his wife's naked flesh. A chiaroscuro of very black shadows and very white, trembling flesh.
As he watched Elaine moved faster, up and down, rubbing against that buried face. Her legs pulled up to her breasts and Jenkins could see the back of the man's head as it rolled against her. That made it even worse....
He knew that his wife was approaching the climax, and he knew lie could not bear to have her achieve that. His hand was still clenched on the gun; he withdrew it from his hip pocket and held it at arms length, pointing it across the room, aiming very carefully. Then he squeezed the trigger.
The thunder of the explosion struck his ears at the instant that the small red hole appeared in Elaine's breast, exactly at the nipple. Her eyes flew open, but whether she understood or not he could not tell. He fired once more, just missing the nipple of her other breast this time, as the hole appeared in her flesh. It was a black hole this time. Why, he wondered, should one hole be black and the other be red? But then they were both fluid red, and Elaine's lovely, dead body slid down from the chair.
Cohen did not understand. He turned around with his face frightened in the manner of one who fears an unknown terror in the dark, crouching in a little fat ball on the floor, and looked directly into Jenkin's eyes.
Jenkins might not have killed him, if he had not been so ugly. But he had. Even more so, with his face contorted in fear, covered with sweat, his lip trembling and his eyes wide in terror. It seemed this was a face that had to be destroyed, and Jenkins raised the gun to arm's length once more.
"No! My God." Cohen squealed, too petrified and stunned to move.
Jenkins shot him exactly in the center of the face, where he had aimed, and the man slumped back against Elaine's body. Once more Jenkins fired, to make sure every bit of that terrible face was destroyed; the bullet Jerked Cohen's head around so that he lay face down on Elaine, his head at the base of her torso. The blood from her breasts trickled down to mingle with his shattered face, looking very much like wine as it ran in twin rivers down her body. It seemed to be a very fitting position for the bodies to be in, symbolic even, Jenkins thought the haze into which his mind had been shoved.
Sam was the first into the room, closely followed by Louie. He took the gun from Jenkins' fingers without any difficulty and put it into his pocket. It was evident that Jenkins was past causing any trouble.
"My God!" Louie said. It was the first exclamation that anyone had ever heard him utter, and it was certainly justified at that time.
"Keep everyone else out of here!" Sam said. And he took Jenkins' arm and led him from the room, closing the door behind him. "Someone had better find Vhginia," be said.
But no one left immediately to go to her room, and the excitement was too great for anyone to notice immediately that the building was starting to fill with smoke, or to remember the girl who had run out without a coat. They went downstairs to the lounge and on the top Door the flames spread quickly and hungrily along the corridor, seeming to want to consume all the lust that was and had been there, to purify and cleanse this place with the antiseptic destruction of fire.
Two people were on the top floor. Rowley and Virginia. Rowley was dead, and Virginia was under the sound sleep which the sleeping pills had brought on her. The fire had crept nearly to her bed before she began to stir and start to awaken, and then it was too late as the smoke filled her lungs; she coughed and turned and never fully awakened....
When the people downstairs became aware that the place was on fire they panicked. But Sam and Louie managed to keep calm and direct the others. Sam made one attempt to get up the stairs; he found the way completely blocked by fire and was forced back, singed and seared, helpless against the flames.
"Get everyone to the shack at the base of the slopes," he told Louie. "At least we won't freeze to death there. The lodge is done for."
Sam waited until everyone had gotten out, and then he backed out, staring at the flames that by then were lighting the walls of the lounge. He paused on the porch, but then he heard the dangerous crackle of the timbers as they threatened to buckle and ran from the bunding to the shack, through the wind-whipped snow.
Everyone was assembled there. He attempted to take count, and found that Virginia and Rowley were missing. He knew where Cohen and Elaine were, and he forgot about the two young girls in the excitement of the moment. Everyone stood silently, now, and watched as the large red structure began to disappear into the inferno within. Even Jenkins watched, seeming to be fascinated. Perhaps he was glad that all the evidence of his wife's degradation was being destroyed for all time.
It was a strange sight, this burning building in the raging storm. They could feel the intense heat even at this distance and it kept them from being cold. Sam knew that the storm would outlast the fire, however, and he finally tore his eyes from the holocast and began to start a small fire in the stove, and to make coffee for the time when they would need it.
The fire did not rage long, although the burned out building smouldered throughout the night, and occasional flames shot out, braving the storm for an instant before being whipped out by the wind and snow. After a while everyone came into the shack and gathered around the stove No one seemed to have anything to say, and they sat looking at one another and occasionally at Jenkins, who was sitting in one corner with his head buried in his hands.
After a while Louie said, "My God." It was not an exclamation, this time, but was spoken in his normal, calm tone of voice. That didn't make it any the less meaningful, however, and everyone remained silent after that.
Earl said, "One more Bourbon, barkeep," and shoved his glass across the bar.
"Right," said the man, filling the shot glass.
"I'm getting drunk," Earl explained. "There being nothing else to do."
"You sure can't go back to Eagle Mountain. That mad may not be open for days. What you should have done was get on the bus with your girl."
"Yes," Earl said. There was nothing else to say that did not need further explanation. He was not the type of drunk to burden a bartender with his troubles. And, then too, maybe he should have gotten on the bus. It was hard to figure those things, especially for a man who refused to reason about them.
He drained the glass in one long motion and set it down. The bartender filled it again, saying, "Have one on me," and then he filled a glass for himself. Earl was the only customer in the tavern during that storm, and the man figured he might as well join him for the rest of the night. It was obvious that he, no more than Earl, would be able to drive home.
"Your girl is very pretty," he said, by way of making conversation. He was a married man with seven kids and a fat wife.
"Yes, I guess she is," Earl said.
"I'll bet you're gonna' miss her. Is she coming back soon?"
"No. No, I'm going to meet her after the season is over. In her home town." Better, he told himself, to lie than to explain. Best to keep one's mouth shut, however. I must remember that as the Bourbon flows down.
He stood up then, saying, "I think I'll take a look out," and crossed to the door, his usual long, arrogant stride just a little off center. He opened the door and went out on the porch, closing the door behind him.
The cold air cleared his head a little, although he was not at all sure that he wanted his head to clear. He stood at the railing and looked toward the mountain, at the point where he figured the lodge would he, but it was too dark and he couldn't see anything except the black sky and the white snow and the trees as they bent in the wind. Let the storm roar, he told himself. Storms are nothing to worry about. In fact, nothing is worth worrying about. Especially women; one must never be deceived into worrying about a woman, or about love, or about the future at all, for that matter. Right now is what counts, and I must get drunk. It's quite necessary to get very drunk now.
Then the part of the mind that is always sober laughed at itself for this drunken wandering, and Earl turned from the stinging wind and went back inside. His main worry was whether he had enough money to get sufficiently drunk, for he had remembered that he was a man who never worried about things which might affect his life.
