When Jim Benton got out of the Army he had one driving ambition ... to make it big in the world ... with lots of lovely broads along the way. At first Tom, his friend, wanted him to work as a partner in his under-the-counter book and movie business, but Jim preferred more stability ... something like his job with the Gotham Whisper. The Whisper was one of the foulest garbage-wrappers ever to be disguised as a sadist type newspaper. The page: were filled with thinly disguised ads from people seeking every imaginable shame and degradation ... and the staff was no different. Doreen, for instance, the receptionist ... ready for any proposal, no matter how wanton. Conklin, the boss, taking the money right and left. Until the ads became too tempting for Jim, luring him to answer some, opening the door wide for the ultimate sin....
CHAPTER ONE
Jim Benton checked the address on the face of the building against the scrap of paper he held in his hand. He nodded to himself, crumpled the piece of paper, and dropped it into one of the meshwork trash baskets which decorate the streets of Manhattan.
He stepped back to the curb to look up toward the roof of the building. Behind which one of those eighteen stories of windows, he wandered, was the office he wanted? It was one of the older buildings of the city with arched windows on the first floor above street level.
The windows of the upper stories were huge expanses of glass, some of them with gold leaf lettering on them.
Looking up like that he must look like a hick from the country, he knew, and he turned his head down once again, thrust both hands into his pockets, and hunched his shoulders.
In a minute he'd go in. In just a minute. He wanted time to collect himself, to prepare himself. This was going to be a very important day in his life.
He fingered a cigarette out of the pack in the inside breast pocket of his thirty-five dollar suit, and stopped with the paper cylinder halfway to his mouth to grin wryly. Taking out one cigarette at a time like that, without exposing the pack, was a gesture of habit which was no longer necessary.
The lighter with the transparent plastic body through which the fuel could be seen was in the side pocket of the jacket. He took it out, turned it over, and pressed the little button that fed fuel to the wick. Only one measly bubble worked up to the surface. His long, lean fingers snapped back the lid and flicked the wheel against the flint in one quick motion. The wick burst to flame and he lit the cigarette.
There was a lamp post a few steps away and he went over to lean against it. Five minutes, he told himself. In five minutes he would go inside, check the office directory, and take the elevator. Just five minutes to get over the nervousness.
It was a real New York fall day. The sky was leaden gray, its color blending, almost perfectly with the soot and dirt of the city. The air was clammy cool and there was just the tiniest hint of a breeze. The midtown sidewalks were jammed with people and he felt that most of them were looking at him.
Everyone was hurrying somewhere. They were all intent on some purpose, the men in business suits, some of them with light topcoats against the early fall chill, the women with their coiffed hair and smart dresses, the housewives with their shopping bags bumping against their hips as they scurried to or from a sale at one of the department stores.
Everybody was busy; even the dirty kids with their shoeshine boxes had a purpose. And there was Jim Benton lounging idly against the pillar of a street light. He was young and healthy-looking. Why was he idle when everyone else was so busy? He must be a bum!
Jim managed to prevent the grin that the word evoked. "Bum!" How many times in his life had he heard that word? From the beginning, ever since he'd been old enough to understand, that word had been in almost constant use in his house. The iceman who serviced the tenement buildings was a bum because he charged so much money for a little frozen water. All Jim's friends had been wild bums who would come to no good. The landlord was a bum. The neighbor's daughter was a bum. The neighborhood shopkeepers, the union representative in the plant where his father worked, the foreman, the owner, yes, even the wealthy owner of the paint company was a bum.
You had to go to school so you wouldn't be a bum.
In summer you couldn't go swimming in the river with the rest of the guys because it would make you a bum. If you asked for a little money you were a bum, but you couldn't take a job after school because delivery boys were all bums, too.
It was a funny word. There were rich bums and poor bums and middle-class bums. Everybody in the world but papa and mamma and little Jimmy were bums and somehow you must, at all costs, avoid becoming a bum.
And it was a pity, too, because everything that was fun would make you a bum. There were times when you actually wanted to be a bum deep down in your secret heart.
Then came the accident at the plant and papa was dead. The railroad flat was filled with shapeless women and squat, ugly men in shiny suits and unblocked hats. They consoled mamma in the thick, guttural tongue of the old country. They drank the fiery liquor, ate the platters of food, talked about the dead man, and each, in turn, warned Jimmy about becoming a bum.
Mamma didn't live too long after that. They had been old people to start with. Jimmy had been a late baby. Three previous children had perished in the old country. Mamma died and Jimmy went to live with his father's sister.
His mother had been in her late fifties. Aunt Kris-ten was in her late thirties. She'd been married twice. Her first husband had divorced her and her second husband hadn't even bothered with any of the legal technicalities. He'd simply disappeared one day, never to be heard from again.
Jimmy's parents had been, despite citizenship school and the environ mental influences, Europeans living in America. But Aunt Kristen had come to America while she was still a teen-ager. High school and business school had completely Americanized her. She had a job in an office. She never went to church. There were lots of men friends, a steady succession of them.
It was a complete change for Jimmy. He still had two more years of high school when he moved in with his aunt, and for those two years he never once heard the word, "bum."
She made him stop calling her aunt and it felt peculiar to call her Kris just like the men who came around. She encouraged him to get a job after school and she even let him keep half his earnings.
Jimmy worked hard and had fun in those two years. After graduation, it was his own decision to make application to the city college. Kris, Aunt Kristen, didn't care one way or the other. He could do as he pleased as far as she was concerned so long as he continued to bring a little money into the house.
He went to school days, worked evenings, and studied between midnight and dawn. It wasn't too bad the first year. The second year was really hell and by the end of the second semester of that second year his grades had fallen terribly low. The polite letter of dismissal from the Dean of Students came as no surprise.
Flunking out didn't upset Jimmy as much as he'd expected. In a funny way he felt actually relieved. College was okay if there was something definite you wanted to be. They could train you to be a lawyer, or a doctor, or an engineer. But for anything else you could learn much better from experience than you could from textbooks.
After college came the Army. Jimmy had a choice to make. He could enlist for six months and spend the next seven and one half years going to meetings once a month and doing two weeks of active duty every summer. He could volunteer for the draft for two years and let them do whatever they wanted with him for that time. He could wait for them to draft him with the same result. Or, he could enlist for three years and have his choice of schools in the Army-It was only one extra year. And at nineteen, when you had your whole life still before you, when you still believed in your own immortality, a year was a small thing.
They sent him to electronic repair school. The course took almost a year so it was still only two years of really being in the Army. After graduation from the school Jimmy was assigned to a small post in the middle of the Arizona desert. The closest he came to electronic repairs for the next two years was when he plugged in a lamp or a radio. Down at Fort Merriman they taught him to type and stuck him in an office and there he stayed until it was time for his discharge.
It was at Fort Merriman that Jim had become friends with Tom Guising. Tom was one of those people for whom the Army and the military way of life had been invented. He was an operator. Three days after he arrived on the post he was firmly entrenched in the money-lending business at a very profitable twenty per cent interest rate. Within a week he was selling government property. And within a month he was amassing a small fortune.
Tom needed a contact in the personnel section and that was how he and Jim met. Guising strolled into the office one day, sat down at Jim's desk, and blatantly offered him fifty dollars for a transfer to supply.
Fifty dollars was a lot of money and the transfer was easy enough. The officers were nominally in charge but it was the clerks, the pencil pushers, who ran the Army. Jim arranged the transfer and pocketed the money. But he didn't let it rest there. He had to find out why the transfer had been worth so much.
Guising didn't try to hide anything. Jim strolled over to the supply building one day and found Tom checking a shipment of materiel against a list on a clipboard. In the peacetime Army there is always too much time and not enough work. The sergeant in charge of the Supply section was over at the N.C.O. Mess swilling beer, which left Tom Guising in charge, which was what the young man wanted. He didn't mind doing most of the work.
Tom led Jim to the small office at the back of the warehouse. They sat down, lit cigarettes, and talked for a few minutes. Then Jim asked the question. Tom's answers shocked him.
Working in Supply was the easiest way to get your hands on merchandise. Somehow slip-ups were always made material was always being lost, or declared unfit. Forged requisitions could be sent through channels. Extra material in one unit could be traded with another unit. Somebody needed sheets while somebody else needed boots or trousers. Deals were made back and forth and Tom Guising had a piece of every deal.
In six months Guising had made more than three thousand dollars above and beyond his meager salary. And the more he made from his deals the more capital he had available for loan-sharking at twenty per cent.
But those weren't the only two angles. There were the payday dice and poker games which could be expected to yield a couple of hundred dollars. There was an employment service. The guys who went broke in the gambling games were willing to earn a little money by pulling K.P. and Guard Duty for the regularly assigned men for ten dollars a shift. Guising got a thirty per cent cut on those deals.
The money really started rolling in when Tom Guising decided to buy a car. Actually, he didn't buy it. When he decided he needed one he began to play cards only with those men who owned cars. It took almost two months for him to win a car in a card game, but it was better than paying money for one.
Guising used the car as a bus, charging five dollars a head for one way trips to the border nearly a hundred miles away. Just across the Mexican border was a small town which depended entirely upon servicemen tourists for its existence. All the guys wanted to get down there and sometimes Guising made ten trips on a week end.
And every guy who went down also had to come back. That was five dollars a head, too. Six passengers could be crowded into the car, which meant a gross of thirty dollars a trip, which could mean as much as three hundred dollars on busy week ends.
But Guising couldn't drive the car and play in the week-end card games, too. First he hired drivers, which freed him for the twenty-four hour gambling sessions; then, later on, he formed a syndicate of gamblers. He chose the four top poker players and the best crapshooter on post, financed them in their various games, absorbed the losses if there were any and took sixty per cent of the winnings.
Business grew by leaps and bounds. But the money really started to roll in when Guising began to import stuff from across the border. He brought back liquor by the case, willingly paid the import duty, and sold it for twice his cost.
The customs men at the border grew to know him. He always had a neat and accurate list of the things he was importing and he didn't mind leaving a bottle now and then as a little gift. The customs men never saw the packages of marijuana or the boxes of illicit books and pictures.
In the two years he spent there Tom Guising managed to make more than thirty thousand dollars! And this was tax free money! Only an idiot would declare that kind of income when he was in service. Nobody ever bothered auditing servicemen's tax forms.
Tom Guising and Jim Benton became fast friends. And when Guising was discharged two months before Jim they made promises to keep in touch. Guising was as good as his word. Three weeks later Jim received a letter from him. Guising was setting up business in New York and Jim was invited to look him up when he got out.
Jim contacted Guising the minute he hit town. They had dinner together that evening and Guising took Jim for a wild cruise through the nitespots of the town. There was much drinking and laughter. Sometime during the evening they collected a pair of pretty girls.
It was three days before Jim and Tom sat down to talk about the business venture. It was quite a simple and profitable thing, really. Guising had managed to lay his hands on an immense stock of illicit materials. There were books, pictures, eight and sixteen millimeter films, and assorted fetishist material.
Jim considered the proposition carefully before refusing. The risk was too great. Material like that couldn't be peddled for very long without the authorities becoming aware of it. And this was the sort of material for which there would be no legal defense. Then, too, there was no sure profit. If a customer skipped without paying they couldn't take him to court. They might make a thousand dollars one week and not one thin dime for fifteen weeks after that.
It was far too big a change for Jim even to consider. He had no compunctions about the morality involved.
He didn't see anything patently wrong in selling material which concentrated on describing all the forms and variations of bedroom encounters. It wasn't stealing. It wasn't murder. Just because some bluenose had managed to get a law passed against this stuff didn't make it morally wrong. Every red-blooded American male, and quite a few of the females, too, got a kick out of seeing that kind of stuff. There was nothing wrong with that.
What was wrong for Jim was the uncertainty of the thing. You would never know when the knock on the door was the long arm of the law. You could never be sure how much money you would make that day, or week, or month. And, at best, the business was limited in the sense of time. What would happen, what would they do, when the stock of material was gone? Was there more available? How risky was it to get?
It was too big a step for him from the secure, though stifling, military life to the uncertainty of this illegal existence. It was easy for Tom. Even in the Army he had lived on the thin edge of total disaster.
Tom understood Jim's refusal and didn't let it make any difference in their friendship. He even went so far as to arrange for this job interview for Jim. The job was on the staff of a weekly newspaper with nationwide distribution. The paper was called the Gotham Whisper. It was a scandal sheet that specialized in gory and perverted stories with headlines like: "I Hated My Baby."
It wasn't the New York Times, but it was a start. It was a place to learn the trade. If a guy had what it takes there wasn't any reason why he couldn't go on to more legitimate work.
Jim stirred himself from the lamp post, flicked away the stub of his cigarette, straightened his suit, took a deep breath, and went into the building. The building directory listed the Gotham Whisper offices on the ninth floor. Nine-twelve, to be exact.
The automatic elevator whisked Jim up to nine. He stepped out into the corridor, felt twinges of the apprehension return, and paused for a moment. Room nine-twelve was at the end of the corridor. The lettering on the opaque glass was gold leaf. Only the name of the company appeared. The other doors on the corridor were all blank, except for the one that said, "MEN."
Jim opened the door and found himself in a large, noisy office. A low railing separated a waiting area from the working area. There were several uncomfortable-looking wooden chairs, a water cooler, a stand of dogeared magazines, and many dirty ash trays.
Behind the railing, just beside the double-hinged gate, was the receptionist. She had a typewriter on the desk before her and a small switchboard at her side. A call was just coming in when Jim entered. The girl spoke into the receiver of her telephone for a moment, then went through the stylized routine of plugging in one of the jacks, dialing one number on her dial, speaking for another moment, then putting through the call.
She was not quite what Jim expected a Manhattan receptionist to be. Her voice had just a touch of whine to it. Her inflection was poor and the local accent quite strong. She was no kid, either. Jim placed her age somewhere around thirty, and at that he felt he was being generous.
Her face had a hard, used look. You knew, by watching her for a very few seconds, that this was a lousy job for any girl. Of course, you also knew that any job would be lousy for this girl. She seemed grudgingly efficient.
She wore a white, short-sleeved blouse which curved over her rounded bosom. The short vee neckline only hinted at the bounteous treasures beneath. Her legs could be seen through the open kneehole of the desk. They were acceptable. The short skirt had ridden above her knees to show the rolled tops of her stockings cutting deep into the soft flesh of her upper legs.
She saw Jim look at her legs but made no move to pull her skirt down. Her eyes flicked over him, taking in the cheap suit and the slightly nervous manner. The disapproving glance made careful inventory and her evaluation was evident in her tone and manner.
"Yeah," she almost snarled. "Whadda ya' want?"
CHAPTER TWO
"I have an appointment for an interview. My name is Benton."
The girl checked a notebook, found his name, and nodded her head. "Yeah. Here you are. You're on time but you'll have to wait. Old Scrooge has got somebody in his office right now."
Jim nodded, walked to a chair, and lit a cigarette before he sat down. The chairs were uncomfortable. He took several nervous puffs on his cigarette and let his eyes wander around the room. Deeper into the office, beyond the guard post of the receptionist's desk, were eight more desks. Beside each desk there was a typewriter on a stand. Five of the desks were occupied. All five of the occupiers were men. And they seemed to be quite an assortment. There was the young, smoothly-shorn Ivy Leaguer with narrow tie, crew haircut, and cuffless pants. There was the old timer who needed a shave, and whose clothes were so badly wrinkled even Goodwill would not have accepted them as a donation. The other three men fell somewhere between those two extremes. One of them looked for all the world like a bookkeeper who had wandered into the wrong office and had been hired by mistake.
Jim let his eyes travel on. Lining the walls of the room were head-high filing cabinets. Occasionally one of the men would rise from his desk, go to the files, rummage through them, and return with or without whatever it was he'd been seeking in the first place. The floor of the office was littered with papers and carbons and soggy coffee containers.
Somehow it wasn't quite the way Jim had pictured a newspaper office. There were no copy boys scurrying about, no reporters shouting, "Hold the presses." Everyone in sight was working all right, but that seemed to be the limit of it. They were all busy, yet no one really seemed to be doing anything.
Out of the corner of his eye Jim caught the movement of the receptionist's hand as she waved to him. He rose to his feet and went back to her. She'd just taken a cigarette out and he quickly produced his lighter.
"Thanks," she said after the first puff.
"It's all right. Where do I go?"
"Oh, you don't go in yet," she told him. "You've only been here five minutes. Wait until you've been here a couple of hours. Then get restless."
"Does everyone have to wait a couple of hours?" Jim asked.
"It all depends," she told him. "If you were a big shot you could go right in. But you ain't a big shot, are you?"
"Nope."
"You here looking for a job?" Jim nodded.
"Take a little advice. Find some place else to work."
"What's wrong with this place?"
"Nuthin'. If you don't mind working for peanuts. And it's lousy work, too."
She opened the top drawer of her desk and removed a copy of the newspaper.
"This is the kind of trash we print," she told him, showing him the screaming headline and the gory picture of a corpse lying in the gutter.
"I know," he said.
She shrugged. "Well, if you like this kind of stuff it's your own business. Actually, the work isn't so bad. I get the worst of it up here. You ought to see some of the creeps who walk in through that door. I tell you, it's enough to make your skin crawl the way they look at you. And the phone calls! You have no idea. Some of the nuts scream and holler and curse. Some others call up just because they like to talk dirty to a girl on the phone. The things they say. You wouldn't believe it if I told you. And every once in a while I'll get some special nut who spends all his time telling me I'll roast in hell because of this filthy, lying newspaper. Those are the worst ones of all. Sometimes they really scare me."
Jim waited until she was finished, then said, "If it's that bad why do you go on working here?"
The question caught her by surprise and she gaped open-mouthed for a moment. "That's a good question. Yes sir, that's a good question. I guess only a psychiatrist could answer that one. I really hate the job but I've been here five years already."
"Do they know I'm here, back there?" Jim asked, nodding his head toward the door behind the rail marked PRIVATE.
She shook her head. "Conklin's got somebody in his office and doesn't want to be disturbed."
Just then the door opened. At the sound Jim and the receptionist both turned to look. Two men came out. One was a short, balding, ruddy-faced man in his shirt sleeves. The other was a big, beefy character who looked like he used to play football. The second man wore a rumpled blue gabardine suit. The collar of his shirt showed a ring of grime and the knot of the tie was askew. He walked with a heavy tread, his body rolling from side to side. He was an ape, his beefy body bulging against the drape of the suit.
The two men shook hands in the open doorway and the ape came through the gate in the railing. The man in shirt sleeves started to turn back into the private office, saw Jim, and turned back again. He came over to the railing.
"Who're you?" he asked.
"I'm Jim Benton. I have an appointment to ... "
"Oh yeah," the other man interrupted. "You're the guy I got the call about. Come on in."
He turned his back and headed for the office without so much as an offer of a handshake. Jim pushed through the gate and followed him. The private office was no more luxurious than had been the outer office. Piles of papers littered every available flat surface. The walls were lined with more filing cabinets. There were scraps of paper all over the floor and the trash basket was overflowing.
Jim closed the door and walked across the private office to the desk. The man in shirt sleeves, Harry Conklin, waved him to a chair.
"So, you want to work for a newspaper," Conklin said.
"Yes sir, I do."
"You got a degree in journalism, or something like that?"
"No. No, I don't. But ... "
"That's good. I got one of those college kids outside isn't worth the powder it'd take to blow him to hell. Can you type?"
"Yes sir."
"Can you spell?"
"Yes sir."
"Stop with the sir crud, already. Just answer the questions. I don't give a damn how polite you are. A friend asked me to give you a job as a favor for a friend of his. I don't give jobs as favors. It just so happens I can use another hand around this office. If you can do the work you got the job."
Jim nodded.
"You ever read our paper?" Jim nodded again.
"I mean before you found out you might be going to work here."
This time Jim had to shake his head. "What did you think of it?"
"Uh ... it was...."
"It was crud. Let's get that straight between us right now. Nobody around here is fooling himself. We put out a paper full of crud. The gorier and dirtier the stories the more papers we sell. The more papers we sell the more we charge for advertising. We're here to make money, not to keep the public informed or to change public opinion. You ever worked for a newspaper before?"
"No."
"All right. The job pays sixty-five a week. It's five days, nine to five, with no overtime. You get an hour for lunch. If you work out we'll see about more money. Once you've learned which end is up maybe I'll let you try your hand at writing something, but at the beginning you'll be an office boy. You want it?"
Jim was slightly dazed. He'd been sitting in the chair for little more than a minute while Conklin threw words at him.
"We got no fringe benefits here," Conklin said. "No health insurance or any of that crud. And we got no union. I won't have no union in my place. If you want to work for me you don't join no union, understand?"
Jim nodded.
"All right. This is Friday. You come back here at nine o'clock Monday morning and I'll put you to work."
Jim was out of the office before he realized he'd been given the job without ever saying he would take it. The receptionist grinned at his dazed expression.
"He's like a hurricane, ain't he?"
"I'll say. It went so fast I'm not sure what happened."
"Did you get the job?"
"I think so. At least he told me to be here on Monday morning."
"You got the job. I hope you won't be sorry."
"If I don't like it I can always quit."
"Not if he don't want you to, you can't. Imagine going in there and trying to tell that man you want to quit your job."
"It is a frightening thought."
Jim stalled around the receptionist's desk. "Well," he said after a moment, "I guess I'll see you Monday morning. Tell me, what's happening around town? I've got the whole week end to kill and nothing to do."
The girl looked at him carefully, then let the corners of her mouth lift in a small grin. "You mean you're from out of town?"
"No. I was born and bred right here but I've been away for a couple of years and I don't know a soul. It looks like a long, lonesome week end."
"It doesn't have to be," she said. "A good-looking kid like you shouldn't have any trouble finding himself a girl."
"How about you?" Jim asked. "Are you busy this week end?"
"I think you're a little young for me," she said. Jim laughed. "What's so funny?"
"I was just thinking you were a little young for me."
"That sounds like a compliment," the girl said, smiling again. "But at least it's a new approach."
She picked up her pencil and scribbled something on a sheet of paper. Then she tore the paper from the pad and handed it to Jim.
"Here," she said. "Call me at this number after six o'clock. I've got another date but I'm going to break it"
CHAPTER THREE
At six o'clock that evening Jim dialed the number the receptionist had scribbled on the half sheet of paper. While he waited for the ringing phone to be answered a chilling thought struck him. He didn't know her name!
What if she didn't answer the phone? Or if he didn't recognize her voice? Who would he ask for? How would he ask for her?
But the problem never materialized. For when she picked up the phone-and he did recognize her voice-she said immediately, "I've been waiting for your call."
Jim floundered for a moment, her tone and her self-assured words taking him by surprise. "Uh ... ah ... how did you know it was me?"
She laughed. "Maybe I'm a witch. Want to change your mind?"
"Not on your life," Jim said.
"Good. I like a man who likes to take chances. Got a pencil handy? I'll give you the address."
Jim wrote the address on the back of the scrap upon which she'd written the telephone number. "What time should I be there?" he asked.
"Any time after right now."
"I'll be there before you finish hanging up the phone," he told her.
She laughed again and he was just about to return the receiver to the cradle when he remembered he still had not learned her name.
"Wait a minute," he yelled into the phone, thinking that on her end the phone connection was about to be broken.
"Yes, what is it?"
"Uh ... what name will I find on the letterbox?"
"Oh, that's right, you don't know my name, do you?"
"No. No, I don't."
"It's Doreen Wynne. And I'm in apartment four C."
"Right. Got it. I'll see you in a couple of minutes."
"If I don't answer the doorbell try the knob. I'll be in the shower so I'll leave the door unlocked. Just walk right in and make yourself at home."
The address was within walking distance of the drug store from which Jim had called. His pace, as he hurried along, was fueled by the mental image she'd evoked. He saw her in a small, neatly furnished apartment, probably three rooms. She was in the bedroom and she'd just finished talking to him.
She rose from the bed and began to remove her clothes. Jim walked faster now, feeling the pull in his legs, and seeing her strip right down to the buff. He pictured her body as lean and hungry for sensation, with flat, hollowed buttocks, pendant ivory breasts with large brown nipples, and strong short legs as a foundation for her long-waisted body.
Naked, she walked into the bathroom to start her bath running, then came back to the bedroom to put up her hair and don a shower cap. She walked gracefully in her bare feet, proud of her nakedness.
From the bedroom she walked through the apartment to the front door to open the lock. Then she went back into the bathroom and prepared herself for the immersion. The water temperature was just right but there wasn't yet. enough water in the tub.
She passed the time by posing herself before the mirror and checking her assets. Yes, the legs were still firm, the waist narrow and flat. Her hands slid upward along the front of her body and gathered her breasts with their palms. They were ripe, and full, and firm, like melons on the vine.
Carefully she inspected her breasts for flaws. They weren't as big as some she'd seen, and they didn't ride up around her collarbone as though they were meant to be inhaled through the nostrils. Still and all those breasts were quite attractive. The slight sag was a sign of maturity and experience and the size was more than adequate. Better to have them a little smaller, than soft and doughy and lumpy with fat.
She shivered with the pleasure of inspecting herself and covered the flaccid dots of her nipples with the tips of her index fingers. Tiny electric currents coursed through the nerve endings in her breasts. The circuits were always there, ready and waiting. All that ever had to be done was to close the switches of her nipples to complete the circuits and the current would flow. The longer those switches were caressed the more current there would be until sweet delirium would engulf her completely.
Jim roused himself from his walking reverie to discover that he'd already passed the address. The house was a small apartment building stuck smack in the middle of a row of brownstones. There were five floors with six apartments to the floor.
There were buzzer buttons on both sides of the outer vestibule, which meant, of course, that there were two elevators, one to each side. Jim tried the first bank of buttons and name plates and didn't find any Doreen Wynn. She was on the other side.
As he pressed the button he wondered how she would hear him if she was in the tub. It was necessary for her to press a button in her apartment which would release the lock on the vestibule door.
He waited for the answering buzz and was elated when it didn't come. That meant she really was in the bathtub. And if she was letting him, a total stranger, and a man, into her apartment while she was in the tub it meant she had no false illusions about what he wanted to happen later on in the evening. That meant she wanted the same thing.
At random Jim selected one of the top floor apartments and pressed the button. A moment later the vestibule resounded with the raucous answering buzz and he pushed through the door into the dark, musty lobby.
In anticipation of the excitement ahead the blood in his body began to flow faster. His heartbeat quickened. He breathed more deeply. Nerve fibers were beginning to pulse with life.
The brownstones on the street were at least sixty years old and the apartment building was at least half that age. The wood panels of the elevator cab glistened with wax and rubbing oil but he could see the gouges and marks of years of use.
The elevator creaked up to the fourth floor and the door slid back. Jim stepped out into the yellow-lighted corridor and looked for the correct apartment door. When he found it he hesitated for a moment, listening for any sound of activity from within.
He knocked. But lightly, so lightly that even if she weren't in the bath she wouldn't hear him. And when there was no response he tried the doorknob,, found it unlocked, and walked into the apartment.
"Hello," he called softly, almost in a whisper, smiling as he turned from the foyer into the living room.
The place was much as he'd imagined. From what he could see it seemed to be three rooms. The living room was to the right of the foyer, the kitchen was directly across the foyer, the bathroom was right next to the kitchen on the left, and the bedroom was to the left of the bathroom.
There was a light in the bedroom and the bedroom door was open. The foyer light was out. The fluorescent fixture was lit in the kitchen but there was no light in the living room.
Jim turned on a table lamp and took a seat which afforded him a good view of the bathroom and bedroom doors. There was no way Doreen could get from the bathroom to the bedroom without his seeing her.
In the living room there were two club chairs and a sofa, a coffee table, assorted end tables and lamps, and a monstrous television-stereo-radio combination which looked out of place because the cabinet was in Danish Modern style while the rest of the living room furniture was in Colonial style. On the floor there was an area rug and the borders of floor around the edges of the rug glowed with polish. There were draperies and curtains on both the living room windows.
All in all, except for the television set, the place was quite tastefully furnished. While not lavish, the individual pieces were sturdy and well made.
Jim found an ash tray, pulled it to his side, lit a cigarette, and settled back. His ears attuned themselves to the silence of the apartment and he found he could hear the swirl of water whenever she moved in the tub. Once there was the squeaky shriek of bare flesh rubbing against the porcelain surface of the tub, and there came faint sounds from other apartments.
He took a deep drag on the cigarette and compared this pleasant though unpretentious apartment with his own miserable hovel. He was living in what would be romantically described as a garret. It was actually the attic of what had once been a four story brownstone private dwelling. Through the years the building had been divided into four separate apartments, one to each floor.
His apartment, if you could call it that, was the fifth residence in the structure. It was crowded up under the roof and had one gabled window. The ceiling slanted in half a dozen directions to conform with the pitch of the roof. He had one large room, about twenty feet square, and a bathroom. His kitchen was in a closet with the door removed and a Venetian blind hung in the doorway. As you faced into the kitchen from the doorway the sink was one pace directly in front of you, the stove was immediately to the left, forming an el arrangement, and the small refrigerator was on the right, closing the el into a TJ.
The fixtures were decrepit, useless even to antique museums. The floors were scarred and gouged, the walls were stained and chipped and the paint was flaking off.
In the main room there was an old-fashioned iron bedstead with what felt like an iron mattress; there were a metal-topped table with spring controlled extension leaves at either end and three creaking wooden chairs with uneven legs; there were an old horsehair sofa with springs nearly bursting through two of the three cushions and one club chair upon which it was impossible to sit. Placed haphazardly about the room was an assortment of tables and dressers and chests which represented every style of furniture from the beginning of time.
It was a dark, dingy, foul-smelling hole. The only saving grace was that once you completed the breathless five story climb on those treacherous stairs you were too tired to give a darn what the place looked like or smelled like.
The neighborhood was too far gone even for urban renewal. Only a small atomic bomb dropped squarely in the center of the neighborhood would have made any improvement whatsoever. The streets, alleys, and back yards were littered with garbage and trash. The darkness of the night was filled with drunken brawling, wailing police sirens, and the nerve-wrenching screams of junkies desperate for narcotics.
Jim had been living there less than a week and already he'd been propositioned by the superintendant's fat, sloppy wife, by her better-looking sister, and by her fourteen-year-old daughter. He'd refused all three offers, but it had struck him as odd that the most attractive of the three females, the fourteen-year-old, had made herself available for the least amount of money.
What a difference between his place and this apartment! An insignificant thing like quiet streets seemed unusual after one week in his own place. He knew that the same desperate struggle for existence was going on here, too. But the difference lay in the nature of the struggle. Here, in this lower-middle to middle-middle class neighborhood the struggle was on an emotional plane. Here the fight was for recognition, for peace of mind, for success measured in a thousand ways.
In the other neighborhood the people were too busy fighting for enough money to provide an absolute minimum of food and clothing to worry too much about emotional factors. Each day, those with strength enough-and each day there were fewer and fewer of them-went out to do battle with the specters of race prejudice, and lack of education. Some of the vicious circle was impersonal. A man who was not dressed presentably could not get a job, and a man who had no job and no money could not dress presentably.
Still, there always seemed to be enough money for a small bet on the numbers, for a bottle of cheap whiskey, for a couple of sticks of marijuana or a packet of heroin. A man who couldn't afford to have his shoes resoled still had to have a knife hidden somewhere on his person. Shoe soles with holes in them would not kill you, but if you were caught somewhere in the darkness of the night without a knife you were a dead man.
A splash and the gurgling rush of water roused Jim from his thoughts. He crushed out his cigarette and straightened in his seat, his eyes fixed on the closed bathroom door.
The bathroom door opened and a square of yellow light splashed out into the darkened foyer. The shadow of a figure filled that square of light. Then Doreen was standing in full view. She was naked and a towel hung from her left hand, trailing on the floor behind her.
That took a moment before she saw him sitting there. In that moment he had time to assess her naked body. She was much as he'd imagined except for a slight puffiness of the upper legs and an unexpected softness of midriff.
She gasped when she saw him and whipped the towel up to cover her front.
"I didn't hear you come in," she said.
"I knocked. When you didn't answer I tried the door."
Her moment of surprise was past and now she gave him a saucy smile. "I'll bet you sneaked in here so you could get a look at me. I'll bet you even peeked through the keyhole."
Jim gave her an answering grin. "If I took both bets we'd break even. I did knock on the door. But if you'd been standing right on the other side of it you wouldn't have heard me. But I didn't peek through the keyhole."
Doreen laughed. "You're pretty young to be a dirty old man. There's liquor in the kitchen cabinet and ice in the refrigerator. You fix yourself a drink while I get dressed."
Still holding the towel to cover the front of her body, she turned to enter the bedroom, swinging the naked white globes of her buttocks in obvious invitation.
Jim had to fight the urge to follow her into the bedroom, rip away that towel, and throw her down onto the bed. She was teasing him. She'd been teasing him from the first moment he'd entered the office She'd seen him then, looking at her legs under the desk, and she'd made no move to pull her skirt down over her knees. Now there was this blatant display of nudity. She'd wanted him to be here when she came out of the bath. She'd wanted him to see her naked body.
He managed to keep himself under control. If she was all that eager there was absolutely no doubt about the outcome. That would be better if he didn't appear too anxious.
He found the liquor, chose a bottle of bourbon, and broke out two ice cubes from the tray in the refrigerator. He splashed a couple of ounces of bourbon over the ice cubes and swirled the glass around to cool the liquor.
"Hey!" he called. "You want me to mix one for you?"
"Okay," came her shouted reply. "Make it a gin and tonic."
He took down the bottle of gin and looked in the refrigerator for the tonic but didn't find it. After putting ice and gin in a glass he called out again, "Where's the tonic?"
"In the cabinet under the sink youTl find a six-pack of small bottles. I think there's one full one there."
He found the tonic water and a bottle opener, and mixed the drink. He carried it to the bedroom door which he found ajar a couple of inches. He could hear her moving about inside the room.
"Here's your drink," he said.
"Well, don't stand out there with the glass. Come on in."
CHAPTER FOUR
Jim pushed the bedroom door wide and entered. Doreen was standing before an open closet door. She was dressed only in a black net bra which did nothing to hide her breasts and nipples, and in a pair of lacy step-ins cut high on the hips to disclose the sides of the rounded white globes of her buttocks.
She held out her hand and he crossed the room to give her the drink. But his eyes were fixed upon her body, not upon her face.
"Sit down," she said, taking the drink and waving him to a seat on the edge of the double bed.
He stumbled over his own feet as he crossed the room to sit down. Doreen laughed and he felt himself blushing. He was trying his darndest to appear suave and sophisticated, but he knew he was making a bad job of that.
"Haven't you ever been in a girl's bedroom before?" she asked as she set her glass down and turned her back to select a dress.
"Sure I have. But not when she was doing her best to tease me."
"What makes you think I'm teasing?"
"If I thought you weren't teasing I'd walk over there and tear those clothes off. But you intrigue me. Tell me something. Do you always invite men into your bedroom when you've only known them for ten minutes?"
"Ten minutes or ten years, what's the difference? I only invite the ones I like."
"And how many of them sit right here like good boys instead of grabbing you and throwing you down onto the bed?"
"I only get thrown when I want to get thrown," she said in a more serious tone.
"And how often have you wanted to get thrown?"
"That's none of your business. But in case you're getting the wrong ideas, remember, I can take care of myself. You can't force a gal who really doesn't want to. You know what they say about a moving target?"
Jim let the challenge of her remark pass and sat quietly while she finished her selection and slipped into a quiet black dress that was neither too short nor too deeply cut in the bodice. She chose a garment which was not out of place with his own suit.
Once the dress was on, and she wore only step-ins and bra beneath, she picked up stockings and shoes and sat down on the vanity bench to put them on. She crossed her legs and hiked her skirt high on her leg to roll on first one stocking, then the other. She secured the stockings with old fashioned rubber garters which bit deeply into the softness of her upper legs. Next she donned the high-heeled pumps and turned around to face the mirror to put on her make-up and comb her hair.
"You know," she said, leaning forward toward the mirror to get her lipstick on just right, "it's a little silly for you to sit over there and feel uncomfortable about me dressing in the same room. After all, when I came out of the bathroom you saw all there is to see. Now that there's nothing to hide what have I got to be modest about?"
"What makes you think I feel uncomfortable or embarrassed?"
"The look on your face. You look like a little boy who's got his hand in the cookie jar when his mother is in the same room. You want the cookies and you hope she won't see where you're reaching."
Jim could not help laughing. The explosion of laughter relaxed him and he gave up all pretenses. "You're right," he said finally. "That's just the way I feel. I was trying very hard to be sophisticated, but I guess that just doesn't work."
"There," Doreen said, checking her appearance, giving her hair a final pat, and standing up. "I'm finished. Let's go into the living room. A young man like you shouldn't have too much bedroom exposure all at once."
He followed her into the living room and sat down beside her on the sofa. "I like your place here," he said. "Compared to the hole I live in this is a palace."
"It's not bad," she answered. "I've been here about five years now and I bought most of the furniture a little at a time."
"What's the rent on a place like this?" Jim asked. "I wonder how much more it is than I'm paying."
"This is a rent controlled building," Doreen told him. "I got this apartment from someone who'd been living here twenty years. They were paying sixty dollars a month. The rent control law says the landlord can only raise the rent fifteen per cent whenever a new tenant takes over. So I'm only paying sixty-nine dollars a month, plus gas and electricity."
"Wow! I'm paying eighty a month and you ought to see the joint. It's worse than a slum."
"Don't feel too bad," she said. "This is a real bargain. If this apartment wasn't under rent control it would probably go for a hundred and thirty or a hundred and forty."
"Are there any more like this around?"
"Oh, they come up every once in a while. The trick is to find somebody who's been living in a rent controlled place for a long time. And even then you'd have to pay off a couple of hundred to the superintendant and the renting agent to get the apartment."
"Even then it would be worth it. Of course, on my salary I won't be able to afford much more than I'm paying right now."
"How much did Conklin promise you?"
"Sixty-five a week."
"Don't feel bad," she said. "He must like you. The last guy we had in the office was only getting fifty. And he was married and had a kid. That's why he left. He couldn't get a raise out of Conklin. And he couldn't afford to quit, either, until he realized he'd be getting more money if he went on relief."
"Well, that won't happen to me. I've got no one but myself to look out for. If things don't work out the way I want them I'll quit so fast it'd make your head spin. But do me a favor, will you? Keep your ears open for an apartment like this."
Doreen smiled at him. "I'll do that. Who knows, you might be lucky and get a place right in this building. We've got a lot of people who've been living here a long time. If anything comes up I'll let you know."
The conversation died a slow and unnatural death at that point. Jim couldn't think of anything else to talk about and he was uncomfortable under Doreen's silent smirk. She was watching him over the rim of her glass with a cat-like expression on her face.
"Well," he said finally, "what are we going to do this evening?" He tried to cover his discomfort by making a big production of lighting a cigarette.
"You asked me out, remember?"
"How about dinner? Have you had anything to eat?"
"A single girl never turns down the offer of a free meal," she told him. "But you haven't really got a job yet. I mean, you haven't been paid. You can't have much money. If you're not too fussy I could throw something together here."
"That doesn't sound quite fair somehow."
"Don't be silly. The next time we go out you can make up for it by taking me to a real fancy place for dinner."
"You've got a deal. And after we eat we can go to a movie."
Doreen laughed again. "It sounds like a real cheap date."
Jim blushed.
"But I don't mind. Really!" she said quickly. "I know what it's like to be short of funds. A movie would be swell. I'll go and see what's in the kitchen."
They had a couple more drinks while she opened cans and threw together a hurried meal. It wasn't particularly good; but, then, they weren't seeking gustatory pleasure. The food satisfied their basic hunger and they let it go at that.
There was another kind of hunger building between them, a hunger which would be slaked much later in the evening. Jim talked about himself while Doreen prepared the meal and set the table. He sat on a kitchen chair and watched her move about between the stove, refrigerator and sink. He couldn't miss the sinuous movements of her body, the graceful way she walked or knelt down or bent forward. And he couldn't escape hearing the silken whisper her underwear gave with each step.
In his mind's eye he was seeing her without the clothes, as he'd seen her when she stepped out of the bathroom. And she seemed to sense the reaction she was having for him. She worked to increase that reaction, brushing against him every time she had cause to be near his chair, purposely arranging herself to give him views of her ample rear when she knelt and views of her generous breasts when she leaned forward.
Jim thought that slightly peculiar that he should be so aroused by her plays. After all, he'd seen her nude a little while ago. Why should he be so excited when she was walking around fully dressed?
He didn't trouble himself with that question for long. It was enough that he was aroused. There was pleasure in that and anticipation of greater pleasures ahead.
When they were sitting across the small table from one another their meal was often interrupted by the silent locking of their gazes. Their eyes would meet and hold for a long, breathless moment. Jim noticed little signs of excitement in her. There was the slight flaring of her nostrils, the widening of her eyes with their glints of eager flame.
This was a woman unlike any he'd ever met before. In appearance she seemed not very much above average. Her face and figure were acceptable; no more than that. Yet, it was as though she'd been created for a strictly physical purpose. The mere tilt of her head held a promise of extraordinary passion.
The more Jim thought about her the less sure he was of his ability to satisfy her. Surely a woman like this had had much experience. He knew he was a better than average lover, but she would require the very best to satisfy her.
He helped her clear the table and stack the dishes in the sink. They left them there, unwashed, and went out into the evening. It was cool. There was the brisk promise of winter on the black night air. She took his arm when they reached the sidewalk and he breathed deeply to quiet the throbbing excitement of his body.
There were two movie theaters several blocks away and they walked slowly, talking little, now more sure of themselves and one another. Their hips brushed lightly with each step and her arm hugged his against the soft side curve of her breast.
Neither of the pictures interested them and Jim made a suggestion.
"Look, I got by without spending any money for dinner. Let's go uptown to one of the big, Broadway movie theaters."
Doreen hesitated for a minute. "I don't care," she said. "It's your money. Remember, you won't be paid until next Friday. An uptown movie will probably run two-fifty or three dollars a seat."
"I can afford that much," he said casually. "As a matter-of-fact, if we take the subway uptown I'll even be able to afford a cab ride back here later on."
They took the subway uptown, got off at Times Square, and walked slowly up Broadway until they found a first run movie they both wanted to see. Doreen's estimate had been just about perfect. The tickets did cost three dollars apiece, but for that sum they got to sit in the lounge on a reclining love seat. It was like two seats put together with no arm rest between.
The short was on when they sat down and the theater was almost full. One of the things that had decided them upon that particular picture was that there was no long line outside the theater. That was probably because this was the last night this particular picture was being shown at this theater.
It was one of those Biblical spectaculars and it had been running at that theater for more than three months. Most of the people who came to midtown movies had already seen it.
When they sat down Doreen stuffed her coat and purse in the corner of the love seat and sat close to Jim. The short was a Technicolor promotional film lauding the glories of a Caribbean vacation. There were shots of boats and tropical forests and beaches, and there were plenty of shots of girls in bathing suits.
When the short was over there was a five minute intermission. Some people around them left and no new patrons came to take up the empty seats. When the main picture started they were surrounded by a small island of empty seats and they both liked it that way.
The picture didn't live up to its advance publicity. It was both dull and predictable, despite the opulent settings and scanty costumes, and despite the almost completely revealed breasts of the female star.
But Jim wasn't about to get up and leave. Not with that luscious bundle of womanhood tucked under his arm, he wasn't. Doreen was snuggled against him. His arm was around her shoulder and her body was twisted at just the right angle to permit the loosely draped palm of his hand to rest lightly on the thrust of her breast.
Both of them were more conscious of one another than they were of the picture being shown. After a while Doreen shifted on her seat and let her hand drop casually to Jim's leg. He tensed slightly but gave no other sign that he was aware of her hand.
He could feel the warmth of that hand seeping through the cloth of his trouser leg and penetrating his flesh. Her fingers were curled lightly on the top of his leg just behind the knee, and after a while she gave him a light squeeze.
He leaned his head down close to hers. "This is a lousy picture," he whispered.
She giggled softly. "Do you want to leave?"
"I don't care," he told her.
"I don't see why we have to waste all this darkness and these lovely seats," she said softly.
She turned her mouth up and he kissed her. Their lips touched, pressed, parted for a moment, then mashed together again. He felt her jaw go slack beneath his mouth. His lips parted and his kiss began a slow searching journey.
Her mouth was warm and sweet to him. Her kiss met his in fervor, working at his mouth. His heart began to race and his blood pounded in his ears.
Doreen reached up, took his wrist, and pressed his hand hard against her breast. Even through the several layers of cloth covering her he could feel the throbbing warmth of her. Her other hand moved along his leg from just behind the kneecap. The muscles in his leg knotted with delightful tension as her hand pressed firmly against him.
The lack of complete privacy hampered them severely. They were restricted to searing kisses and furtive gropings under cover of the darkness. They remained though there was no need for them to remain. By silent, unspoken agreement they stayed in their seats and worked at one another within the limitations imposed by their presence in the movie theater. That would have been perfectly all right for them to get up and hurry back to her apartment where they could have done anything they wanted in total privacy. But some perverse desire kept them where they were.
Doreen changed her position so Jim could slip his hand under the front of her dress and cup her naked breast. With thumb and forefinger he toyed with her exploding nipple. She put her lips against his ear and sighed softly so only he could hear. That sigh was almost as exciting as the groping of her hand.
He dropped his other hand to her knee and slid that beneath the hem of her skirt. The flesh of her leg was warm and smooth and dry, and she trembled beneath the light touch of his fingers.
Her lips were on fire against his own and they sank into an oblivious delirium of passion. She was a demanding thing as she twisted slowly in his arms. Her skirt slid up on her legs and her knees fell slackly away.
He touched!
She trembled, sighed, and bit at the lobe of his ear.
He stiffened with surprise when he felt her hand slip beneath his clothing and touch against his bare, excited skin.
Through this mutual manipulation of caresses they brought one another to the very brink of completion and backed off. Again and again they approached the ultimate delight. And each time they stopped their caresses just at the critical moment.
Finally Jim could stand that no longer. He jerked his hands away from her breast and her leg, grasped her by the shoulders, and held her firmly.
"Let's get out of here!" he whispered passionately.
"Yes," she answered. "Oh yes!"
They hurried from the theater, arms about one another. There were plenty of cabs on the street at that hour of the evening, but all of them seemed to be occupied. It was quite frustrating to stand there waving and whistling like an idiot while unslaked passion raged through him.
He wanted her so badly right then his body burned with a terrible fire.
Finally a taxi pulled to the curb before them and they got in. Jim gave the driver Doreen's address and they settled back for the ride. Once again he put his arm around her shoulders and they kissed. But with the driver sitting only a few feet away and watching them in his rear view mirror they couldn't do much more.
Doreen took advantage of the situation. The driver couldn't see her hands. She opened Jim's coat and put her hands on him. He shifted beneath her touch and pulled his mouth away from hers. When he felt her working at a button he grabbed her wrists.
"What are you doing?" he whispered.
She gave him a grin, a wink, and raised one finger to her lips in a gesture for silence while she rolled her eyes in the direction of the cab driver.
Slowly she opened the buttons. But her hands didn't go further. Instead, she opened his belt and bared the front of his body.
Her hands alternately gripped hard and stroked lightly and he had to grit his teeth to keep from screaming with pleasure. She was driving him mad with her teasing and he loved every minute of that.
When the cab stopped in front of the apartment house-Doreen leaned over as though to retrieve some article from the floor. She took advantage of the moment to bestow upon him a fleeting kiss which almost ended everything right then and there.
Jim fixed his clothing quickly while Doreen got out of the cab. He only buttoned the buttons, not bothering with the belt. His coat would keep him covered until they got into her apartment.
He paid the driver, overtipping the man outrageously in his haste, got out of the cab, and went into the building with Doreen. Once they were safely in the elevator he grabbed her, thrust her back against the wall, and pressed against her.
"You're a witch!" he said, his face only inches from hers.
She gave him a mock pout. "But didn't you like that?"
"I loved that," he told her, leaning against her to let her know his still-ready excitement. "But two more seconds like that and the top of my head would have blown right through the roof of the taxi."
She laughed deep in her throat. "If you think that was something wait until I get you upstairs."
"You wait," he told her. "I'm going to get even for all that teasing."
At the door to her apartment she fumbled with the key. Impatiently, Jim grabbed the key away from her and with trembling hands opened the door. They stepped into the darkened foyer and closed the door.
Before she could find the light switch he had her in his arms again. He held her with one arm about her waist and peeled her coat off her shoulders with the other arm.
The coat dropped to the floor and he crushed her against him.
"Wait," she said.
"Don't move," he answered. "This is my turn now."
She tried to pull away, but he held her fast. One of his hands found the zipper at the back of the dress and opened that. With three quick movements he hiked the dress up to her hips, over her shoulders, and off over her head.
Now, in the darkness, she was clad only in her shoes, stockings, and underwear, while he was still dressed in his topcoat. They kissed and his hands swept down from her shoulder blades to the sweeping curves of her buttocks. His palms filled with the delicious mounds and squeezed and she whimpered against him.
Her bra came off easily and her naked breasts crushed against the front of his coat. She leaned back away from him and he dropped his face to those soft, perfumed hillocks. In the darkness his lips traced the curves until he found the nipples. One after another he took those nipples to his mouth and bit at them until she was a trembling mass of flesh against him.
Those nipples were like bullets when he finished.
"Oh!" she groaned. "Oh, I love that."
Jim dropped to his knees before her in the darkness. She staggered half a step and bent over his back to keep from falling. He reached down, lifted one of her feet, and pulled off the shoe. Then the other foot and he pushed at her feet on the cold linoleum floor of the foyer.
His hands were big enough to completely encompass one solid upper leg when he reached for the top of a stocking. The leg muscle jerked and twitched beneath his purposely feathery touch. He rolled the stocking down and off and repeated the procedure with the other foot.
"Wait!" she gasped when he reached to hook his fingers under the elastic waistband of her panties.
"No," he said, jerking the panties down over her hips.
He slapped her hard on the upper leg when she refused to raise her foot so he could remove her panties.
"I told you I'd get even," he said.
When the panties were off she was completely naked and he, close to her in the darkness, was still fully dressed. His hands slid from her hips around behind to fill with the now-naked globes of her buttocks. He squeezed hard, his fingers digging at the soft flesh.
She groaned and swayed back and forth on her trembling legs. Both her hands were braced against him to help her maintain her position.
In the darkness he pulled her forward and pressed his face against the softness of her body. His lips touched her and fluttered over her bare and trembling skin.
"Wait," she pleaded softly. "Please wait. Let's go into the bedroom and turn on a light. I want to see you. I want to watch you."
He kissed her harder, letting his lips wander. His teeth nipped lightly.
"Oh God!" she groaned, shuddering, her hands moving to his head, her fingers twining in his hair and pulling hard in a vain attempt to make him stop those wicked and delightful kisses.
He ignored the painful yank on his hair and dropped his lips to the columns of her legs. He kissed her legs and let his mouth roll against the smoothness of her flesh.
"Are you sorry now?" he asked, rocking back on his heels.
"Yes ... oh yes. I'm sorry! I'm sorry I teased you in the taxi." She said the words all in a breathless rush.
Jim rose to his feet and let her pull him into the bedroom. He walked blindly in the darkness but she knew the way around her own apartment and they didn't bump into anything.
Once in the bedroom she let go of his hand and he waited while she fumbled around with the bedside lamp. There was a click and the lamp came on. They blinked in the sudden illumination.
He saw her standing naked beside the head of the bed. Her hair was mussed, her eyes were glazed, her mouth hung slack and her lips were dried from the panting excitement.
Once there was light she seemed to regain some control of herself. Now there was no longer any urgency between them. She straightened, smiled at him, and pressed her hands against her hips. He watched as she swept those hands upward to cup her breasts toward him.
"They like you," she whispered, flicking at the erect nipples with the tips of her forefingers.
He said nothing and one of her hands dropped to cover her navel.
"All of me likes you," she told him.
She stepped to him, wrapped her arms around his neck, and pulled herself against him. But when he tried to take her in his arms she backed away.
"Don't move," she told him. "This is my turn now. And this won't be teasing."
She drew his coat off his shoulders and followed that with his jacket. Both garments were draped carelessly across the back of a chair. His tie and shirt quickly followed and he was bare to the waist. That was but a moment's work to open his clothes. The belt was already opened and the trousers were pushed to the floor around his feet.
Doreen knelt before him, untied his shoelaces, and removed his shoes and socks. He stepped out of the pile of his trousers and watched her put them with his other things.
Now he wore only his shorts, and that was easy for her to yank his shorts down to his ankles and he had no choice but to lift first one leg, then the other, so she could pull the shorts off and toss them away somewhere behind him.
She attempted then to imitate the caresses he'd bestowed in the darkened foyer. But before she could really get going he bent forward and grabbed her.
Their arms locked about one another and they pressed together, naked, warm, demanding. Her body moved with slow sensuous motion. Her breasts flattened against his chest, the nipples digging at him. Her legs were against his.
They battled back and forth in a soul-searing kiss. He stroked her silken back and buttocks, let his hands rub the tops of her legs. Her body moved against him with rhythmic regularity.
Jim groaned with delightful passion, swept her up in his arms, threw her down onto the bed, and dropped down beside her. He tried to rolJ her over onto her back but she stopped him with a hand pressed flat against his chest.
"Not so fast," she breathed. "There's no hurry any more."
Her back arched and her breasts rose onto a line with his mouth. "Kiss me," she whispered.
He wrapped his hand around one breast as though that were a football and squeezed until the nipple threatened to pop right off the end. She groaned and her eyes slitted with desire.
He took the nipple to his mouth, worked with his lips, and bit gently with his teeth. She shifted her shoulders to offer the other breast and he did the same things there.
She curled one hand behind his head and crushed his face against her bosom, smothering him with the soft, silken, perfumed flesh. He twisted his face from side to side and kissed the flat space between her breasts while his hand slid down along her side, over the curve of her hip, to the length of her leg.
He stroked her legs, caressed her stomach, and reached behind to cup her buttocks, all the while his kiss was still busy at her breasts.
She was crying out continuously now. Her eyes were squeezed tightly shut and her passion-dried mouth bung slack. He knew when she could stand no more of his delightful caresses. She loosened her grasp on the back of his neck, rolled flat onto her back, and her arms reached for him.
He moved closer to her but did not take her. She was helpless then, completely lost in the grip of her passion and desire. He rose to his knees beside her and let his eyes travel the length of her lovely nakedness.
Now his hands traveled over her body. From neck to knees those hands searched and found every pleasure-giving inch of flesh. And when his hands had completed the journey several times, he allowed his lips to make the same trip.
She was mewing like a helpless kitten. A trickle of saliva ran down from the corner of her mouth and dampened the pillow beneath her head. Once her body had stiffened and jerked with completion but he'd continued with his kisses and caresses. She was twisting and twitching and sobbing now. Her eyes opened and stared sightlessly at the ceiling.
Finally Jim could hold back no longer. He threw himself at her and her arms twined about him. Until that moment he'd concentrated solely upon her pleasure. Now he let his own senses take over.
They pressed together and moved in unison and lightning bolts shot through him. The nerve endings in his flesh screamed with a surfeit of sensation. His heart hammered in his chest and his blood roared in his veins. His eyes were closed and behind the eyelids there was only a red haze of passion.
His spinal cord was like a lighted fuse and he could sense the fuse burning closer and closer to the dynamite charge which would explode him.
Doreen rocked and rolled with him. Her nails raked his back and her teeth clamped down on the flesh of his shoulder.
When the moment of ecstasy arrived, that was like a tidal wave breaking for him, rushing here and there, smashing and destroying everything in its path. His brain seemed to explode, and, like a short circuit in an electrical system, burned out the nerve pathways of his body.
At the same moment Doreen screamed. She went rigid against him, every muscle in her body locked tight.
They held that way for an eternity of seconds, then blissfully relaxed with twin sighs. Jim rolled away from her. He was weak and breathless, the major muscles in his body still trembling with exertion and fatigue. He was numb and tingly and deaf and sightless all at the same time.
It was many moments before his senses returned. He raised himself to one elbow, leaned over her, and gently kissed the tip of one of her breasts. She hummed softly at the contact, her eyes still closed.
"Thank you," he whispered. "You were wonderful."
"Umm," she answered. That was the only answer she could make.
Jim rose from the bed and searched through his clothing until he found his cigarettes. He lit two, stretched out beside her again, and placed one between her lips.
"Umm," she said by way of thanks, and inhaled deeply.
They didn't speak again until their cigarettes were smoked down and crushed out. Then she opened her eyes, grinned at him, and spoke.
"And I was afraid you were too young," she said in a voice full of wonder.
He laughed. "For a while I was afraid of the same thing. I didn't think I'd be good enough for you."
"Honey, you were good enough for any woman in the world. I'll give you references if you want them."
"I don't need references when I've got you," he told her.
She rolled to her side to face him. Her hand touched against his chest and traveled slowly over the front of his body. She held him gently, but firmly.
"Will we have to wait very long before we can do that again?"
"You just keep teasing like that and we'll be ready before you know that," he told her, his hand reaching over to cup one buttock and his face dropping to her breasts again.
That was a long and wonderful night and the sun was streaming in through the window before they fell into an exhausted sleep, their arms still entwined.
CHAPTER FIVE
After two weeks on the job Jim was beginning to understand Doreen's complaints. The salary was ridiculous. Jim was nothing more than an office boy. He ran errands, he picked up and distributed mail, he went out for coffee for the boss and the other employees, he swept the floor when there was nothing else to do for the moment.
He didn't really mind the menial tasks. His Army stint had accustomed him to the drudgery of housekeeping. In the Army the first hour of the day was always spent sweeping and mopping floors, making beds, cleaning bathrooms. Those were dull, dirty jobs that had to be done and you did them as quickly as possible. No, what bothered Jim most of all was the attitude of Conklin and the other men in the office.
Conklin was a cheapskate; perhaps the biggest cheapskate this side of Scotland. In Conklin's office you didn't just dump the wastebaskets. First you went through them in search of carbon paper which might be used again. Crumpled sheets of paper with only a few lines of typing on them had to be smoothed out and set aside to be reused as scrap paper, for making notes, and for the first draft of copy which would be rewritten anyway.
This was not the only sign of cheapness. The office fixtures were dilapidated relics. There were nine typewriters in the office, the youngest of which was more than twenty years old. And every one of them had at least one minor thing wrong with it. The desks were chipped, scarred, and burned from a thousand cigarettes laid aside in the heat of creation. Some of the desk drawers had no bottoms in them and the lighting was underpowered and flickering. The filing cabinets swayed from side to side in the draft when the door was opened. One solid thump on the floor would probably flatten every stick of furniture in the office.
That was Harry Conklin. He was editor-in-chief, publisher, and part owner. Jim never saw any of the other owners and neither had anyone else in the office ever seen them. Conklin seemed to have complete responsibility and total authority. And his only interest was in getting the paper out at the cheapest possible cost. Quality was a word which did not appear in his dictionary. A five dollar difference in cost could make up his mind for him.
Of course, the other employees used this characteristic as a basis for all their complaints. In the unguarded moments during a coffee break, or when Conklin was out of the office for one reason or another, the employees spent their time telling one another what a cheap louse Conklin really was.
Jim didn't like his fellow employees any more than he liked Conklin. They were a close-mouthed group and in the two weeks he'd been working there not one of them had made the smallest gesture of friendship toward him.
The only person in the office Jim really talked to was Doreen, and even she was much more formal in the office than she was after hours. In the two weeks Jim had seen her half a dozen times. Those six dates had been more expensive than he would have liked.
He would pick her up at her apartment, take her out to supper somewhere, and then take her dancing, or to a night club. Somehow it never cost him less than fifteen dollars for an evening's entertainment. Fifteen dollars was a lot of money when you were making the kind of money he was being paid. Still, it seemed worth it.
Every date ended the same way. They would go back to Doreen's apartment, have a few more drinks, and go to bed together. After six dates he had not tired of her charms. She was always eager, demanding, and inventive. Just when he thought he'd experienced every possible sensation, she would show him some new trick or technique. Actually, for fifteen dollars a night he was getting an education in the ways of love which was priceless. Doreen was more skilled and experienced than the most famous temple prostitute of ancient times. And she was more exciting.
Jim wondered how many of the other men in the office she'd been with. There was Turner, the Ivy League Kid, only a couple of years older than Jim and as phony as they come. He was supposed to have graduated from one of the big schools with a degree in journalism. But after watching him for two weeks Jim doubted it. Jim also doubted that Doreen had gone to bed with him.
Then there was Wilson, the nervous little man who looked for all the world like a bookkeeper. He was thin and fidgety and about fifty years old. Wilson always wore suits with vests. Steel-rimmed spectacles perched on the bridge of his nose and his head was bald except for a grizzled fringe around the sides.
Doreen couldn't have gone to bed with a thing like that.
Baxter, though, was another story. He was a heavy-set man in his early forties who wore rumpled suits and gravy-spotted ties. His shoes were badly scuffed and run down at the heels. And he always reeked of liquor. In the two weeks Jim had never seen him sober.
Baxter smelled of whiskey when he came into the office in the morning. The odor was stronger by noon and almost overpowering by five o'clock. When Jim brought him a container of coffee he would pour half of it out and refill the container with whiskey from a bottle he kept in the bottom drawer of the desk. Every couple of days Baxter would come in in the morning with a package which was unmistakably a fresh bottle for the desk drawer.
If he was drinking half a quart a day during working hours his total input for the day must have been somewhere around a quart and a half to two quarts. And he looked it, too. The skin of his face sagged in dull, lifeless folds. There were heavy, blackened pouches beneath his eyes. His nose was as red as a winter apple and his eyeballs looked like road maps.
Baxter was the broken-down old newspaper man from every other Hollywood movie made between nineteen thirty-five and nineteen forty-five. He kept his job only because the drunker he was the faster he could turn out copy. His specialty was the gory rape or murder case which led every issue. He had a way of writing the story up that always made it gorier than it really was.
Doreen had told Jim something about Baxter. He'd been a police reporter on one of the daily tabloids. One night when he was out chasing down a story his wife had been attacked, raped, and tortured to death. She'd left their apartment late in the evening to go down to the drug store for something or other. Three men had grabbed her, dragged her into a car, driven her into Central Park, and worked their evil with her. A suspect had been apprehended a few days later but had been released for lack of evidence.
So that was Baxter the Drunk. The only thing was that, after watching him for a while, Jim made up his mind that the old man was living up to the Hollywood image of the broken-down reporter.
It was entirely possible that Doreen had slept with him. She knew more about him than any of the others. And she was just the type to fall for that Hollywood image.
The other man in the office was Charlie Foster. Foster looked like the rising young executive. He was about thirty, slim and blond and handsome. He had a wife and kids and a house in the suburbs. He flirted jokingly with Doreen but Jim didn't think there was anything to that.
Despite his quick look through a copy of the newspaper before he'd come for the job interview Jim had been amazed by the content of the paper when he'd seen some of the material to be included in a future issue.
The articles and stories were as bad as could be expected, with the slant alternating between love and gore. On one page there would be a story about interracial orgies or fourteen-year-old prostitutes or incestuous relationships. On the next page there would be a story about blood, a murder, a violent rape, something like that. Of course, the best stories of all were the ones in which both love and gore could be combined.
This aspect was less shocking than it was disgusting. The Gotham Whisper, despite its name, had national distribution. It was a twelve or fourteen page weekly that sold for fifteen cents on newsstands. Supposedly only adults read this newspaper. Why would adults read such tripe?
The answer, of course, was that most of the readers weren't interested in the news stories and articles. No, most of them were interested in the advertisements. This was probably the only paper in the world that was bought by readers solely for access to advertisements.
There were all kinds of ads, pages and pages of them. The largest single product offered for sale was nude photographs. Probably sixty per cent of the ads concerned themselves with photographs of the unclothed human body in one form or another.
If your tastes were so inclined you could buy atrocity and oddity photos; a woman with three perfectly developed breasts, a woman with a third leg growing out of the middle of her spine, a man with no jaw, a man or woman with no buttocks. And somewhere, somehow, several people seemed to have gotten hold of pictures taken in the Nazi concentration camps. You could buy a picture of an entire family in the last stages of starvation. And they were nude of course.
But if your tastes were more normal, you weren't necessarily disappointed. You could buy pictures of Negro girls, Japanese, Chinese, Mexican, German, Philippine, Scandinavian, Balinese, Korean, or just plain old American girls. You could buy either pictures or films, or both. The girls posed singly, in pairs, and in groups.
You could buy pictures of lady wrestlers, boxers, football players. You could buy pictures of women in bra, panties and boots, all in black leather. And they all carried the most delicious little whips, or big whips if you didn't go in for subtlety.
If your desires went off on another tangent you would still do all right to buy the Gotham Whisper. You were a woman but you didn't like men? No problem. You could buy pictures of other women. There were handsome young girls posed with their abnormal muscles bulging all over the place. There were pictures of women dressed in men's clothes on the off chance you did go in for a little subtlety.
The ads, all of them, were very cleverly written. They were intended to give the impression that the material offered was illegal. Jim, of course, knew this not to be true. He didn't know it for an absolute fact, but he reasoned that illegal material would not be offered so blatantly.
And, in case you had very, very normal tastes, you could buy photos and films of nudists at play. The ads described shots of men and women and children cavorting about in the altogether in broad daylight.
Most of the ads had United States addresses, but there were plenty from foreign countries. You could buy pictures and books and films from Canada, Great Britain, France, Sweden, Denmark, Mexico, Japan, Nationalist China, and even South Africa, though the foreign advertisements only represented about ten or fifteen per cent of the total advertising. you didn't care for pictures or films or books you could still buy what was aptly termed "unusual products." There were creams and other assorted pharmaceuticals for specific purposes. Some ads stated only that unusual products could be obtained. All you were required to do was write to the advertiser and send along a dollar to cover the cost of mailing and handling. By return mail you would receive an illustrated brochure with pictures and descriptions of the ominous sounding unusual products, whatever they were. There were still more ads.
Several times on every page of advertising you were exhorted to join a correspondence club. These clubs were only for modern, liberal-minded individuals who were interested in the exotic and bizarre. Although it seemed that nothing could be more exotic and bizarre than the newspaper itself.
All this advertising, of course, was the main source of income for the newspaper. But there were other gimmicks. There was a Lonely Hearts page which contained names, addresses, and descriptions of persons advertising for husbands and wives. It cost a minimum of five dollars to place an ad on the Lonely Hearts page and there were at least a hundred and fifty of those ads. That one page in the newspaper brought in at least seven hundred and fifty dollars a week. The income from that page alone probably met the salaries for" the entire office staff.
But the sweetest little gimmick in the whole newspaper, the sweetest little moneymaking gimmick in all of publishing, was the personal advertisements. An individual who wished to contact other people and yet retain the maximum of privacy and discretion could place an ad at a minimum fee of ten dollars per issue. Everything but the advertiser's name and address would appear in the paper. Instead of the name and address there would be a box number. Any reader replying to one of those personal ads would write his reply, write the box number in pencil on a stamped envelope, insert the reply, and seal the envelope. Then he would take that envelope and put it in a larger envelope which would be addressed to the newspaper. He would include a dollar bill to cover costs.
When the newspaper received nn envelope like that the dollar was removed, the box number erased, and the true address written in. Then the enclosed, stamped, and now addressed, envelope would be dropped into the mail again. The Gotham Whisper guaranteed that the files of personal advertisers would never be opened to anyone for any reason whatsoever.
In this manner an advertiser could screen all replies and reject those which didn't appeal to him. The advertiser could continue a correspondence with someone for an extended period without having to reveal his address or phone number.
This kind of security was highly sought after because of the nature of the advertisements in the personals column. Bachelors advertised for free-thinking women interested in the pursuit of pleasure. Couples sought other couples for so-called "friendship" or "parties." Women advertised for women. Meek men sought dominant women, expressing a belief in the superiority of the female. Some couples looked for a single man or a single woman in order to form a menage a trois.
Even a fourteen-year-old idiot would have been able to read between the lines of those advertisements. To all intents and purposes this was advertising for bed partners right in broad daylight. Many of the advertisers even went so far as to delineate the specific spheres of their interests.
When Jim discovered the exact nature of the personal advertisements he was at first disgusted and repelled, then intrigued. This sort of thing was in direct opposition to the culture and morals which the country professed. Yet it was flourishing out in the open. The sheer numbers of the advertisements and the bulk of mail which came into the newspaper office every day convinced him that it couldn't be a gag or a con.
It was one of Jim's duties to go to the post office at least twice a day and pick up the mail that came into a numbered box there. There was never less than a full mail sack, and often there were two or three full sacks. This mail related only to the personal ads. All other mail to the newspaper came in the regular deliveries.
When Jim came into the office with the mail he took it right into Harry Conklin's office. There he would open the bags, dump the letters out on a long table, and take the empty sacks out with him. Conklin and Foster were the only ones who had anything at all to do with that part of the operation. They would remain locked in the office for at least an hour after the mail came.
When they were finished Jim would go back inside with the mail sacks, fill them with the envelopes to be mailed, and set them aside to wait for his next trip to the post office.
Perhaps the sweetest thing about the entire operation was that there was nothing illegal about it. A statement appeared in every issue of the paper saying that the correspondence service was not to be used for illegal, immoral, or obscene purposes. The publishers requested that anyone having knowledge of violation of that rule notify the newspaper so that proper action could be taken.
Of course, they'd never received such notification. The persons who corresponded weren't stupid enough to kill the golden goose.
In the middle of his third week on the job Jim got a phone call at the office. He was sweeping up when Doreen waved him over. He looked up at her and raised one eyebrow in a question. She pointed at the switchboard and then at him.
A phone call?
Who could be calling him at work? Who would be calling him at all, for that matter? He set his broom to one side and hurried up to Doreen's desk. "You sure it's for me?" he asked. She nodded.
"Hello," he said into the receiver. "Jim? This is Tom ... Tom Guising." Jim hadn't seen Guising since the week he'd started on the job. "Hiya, Tom. What's up?"
"I got a problem. I need help." His voice was in dead earnest.
"What happened?"
"I'm in jail."
"Jail I"
"Yes, jail. I got picked up late last night and I need somebody to come down and bail me out."
"What's the charge?"
"Look, I don't want to waste time talking about it over the phone. Can you come down here and get me out?"
"Gee, I don't know. I haven't got much money on me and the banks are already closed. How much is the bail?"
"It's five hundred dollars," Guising said. "But don't worry about the money. All I want to know is can you get off work and come down here?"
"Hold on a minute," Jim said. 'I'll find out."
He set the receiver aside and glanced at his watch. It was a little after four in the afternoon.
"What are my chances of getting out of here a little early?" Jim asked Doreen.
The receptionist shrugged. "It depends on how important it is and what kind of a mood Old Scrooge is in. But even if he lets you go he'll dock your pay for the hour."
"I don't care about that," Jim said, heading for the door to Conklin's office.
He knocked loudly and went inside. Conklin and Foster were working at the big table. The floor was littered with empty envelopes, several of the file drawers were open, and there was a big pile of money at the end of the table.
"Whadda ya want, Benton?" Conklin asked, looking up briefly, then turning back to his work.
Jim didn't approach too closely. "I need the rest of the afternoon off, Mr. Conklin. A friend of mine is in trouble and I have to help him out."
Conklin pushed a stack of envelopes to one side and looked up at Jim. "Say, whadda ya think this is, a hotel or something? You work here. If I didn't need you here I wouldn't have hired you. This isn't the Salvation Army, you know."
"This is something special, Mr. Conklin. This is the friend of the friend who recommended me for the job. It's a special favor and it won't happen again."
"Well, all right, Benton. But don't expect to get paid for time you aren't here working. And you better make darned sure it doesn't happen again. For the same money, you know, I could have somebody here the full eight hours a day."
"Thanks, Mr. Conklin."
Jim turned and left. Throughout the entire conversation Foster had never once looked up from his work. One after another, with machine-like regularity, he was slitting envelopes, removing the contents, and dumping the empties on the floor. Inside every envelope there was at least one dollar bill and one smaller, sealed envelope. Foster would add the money to the stack at the end of the table, check the front of the smaller envelope and put it with others. There seemed to be some sort of system to the placing of the envelopes. Jim guessed it had something to do with the box numbers.
Tom Guising was still waiting at the other end of the line.
"Tom? It's all right. I can get off. But what about the money?"
"Good man," Guising said. "I knew I could count on my old buddy. The money is at my apartment. You'll have to come down here to pick up the key first."
"Where are you?"
"I'm at the City Jail. And look, don't waste any time. Take a cab. I'll pay you back for it."
"Right," Jim said. "See you in a few minutes."
He hung up the phone and grabbed his coat.
"Fine friends you have," Doreen commented, a teasing smile on her face. "Are they all jailbirds?"
"You're a friend of mine," Jim shot back. "You tell me."
She laughed. "Sometimes I think that's exactly where I belong," she said as he hurried out of the office.
Cabs are pretty scarce in New York after four o'clock in the afternoon and Jim was fortunate to find one just discharging a passenger on the corner. He hopped in and slammed the door in the faces of two other men who'd been running for the same taxi.
"Where to, buddy?" the driver growled.
"Downtown," Jim said. "City Jail. And there's an extra couple of bucks in it for you if you don't waste any time."
The taxi darted forward like a jack rabbit, pulled into the line of traffic amidst the outraged shrieking of horns and the squeal of protesting tires of the vehicles behind.
They made the trip in less than five minutes and when the taxi pulled to the curb outside the municipal building Jim said, "Look, I'll be in there only a couple of minutes. Then I have to go to the upper East Side for a couple of minutes and come back again. I'll give you a five spot for yourself if you'll wait for me and make the entire trip."
"Sorry, pal. I've been had on that dodge before. You go in that building and I never see you again. I could wait till midnight and you'd never show up."
"Wait," Jim said, taking out his wallet.
He handed the driver a twenty dollar bill.
"You hold on to this until I come out again. If I don't show you're twenty ahead. How's that?"
"You got a deal, mac."
Jim hurried up the stone steps and went inside. A uniformed officer just inside the main door directed him. The office he wanted was at the back of the building and one floor down.
It was a squad room just like in the movies. There was a high desk behind which sat a uniformed sergeant. There were other desks and interrogation tables. And the place was as busy as a railroad station during World War II. Jim could see several drunks, a couple of juvenile delinquents, three or four streetwalkers, and a couple of peddlers.
He walked right up to the desk sergeant. "I'm here to bail out a Mr. Tom Guising."
The sergeant looked at him for a minute, grunted, leafed through several pages of a ledger, and said, "Bail's five hundred."
"I've got to get a key from him to go and get the money," Jim said.
"I can't release a prisoner's personal property."
"How about getting him down here and letting him give me the key himself?"
"All right," the sergeant said. "Wait over there." He waved his hand at a long bench nearby.
Jim walked over to the bench and sat down. He saw the sergeant pick up a phone, dial two numbers, and speak into the receiver. Jim lit a cigarette and leaned back.
A woman got up from one of the desks where she'd been talking to an officer. She looked around the room, spotted Jim, and strolled slowly over. When she got closer Jim found he could see beneath the heavy layer of make-up. She was a lot younger than she was trying to appear. She was a big, soft-bodied girl with wide, ample hips and mountainous breasts. Her brown hair was worn long, down to her shoulders. Beneath the hard set of her expression Jim could see her fear.
She sat down a few inches away from him. "Got a cigarette?"
He took out the pack and shook one loose for her. When it was tucked between her lips he struck a match. She took several quick, deep drags and sat back with a sigh.
"What'd they pick you up for?" she asked. "I'm just waiting for somebody," he told her. "How about you?"
"Soliciting!" she said in a disgusted voice. "The lousy fink cops. I'm minding my own business when this guy comes up and offers to buy me a drink. Why not? He buys me a couple of drinks and offers me twenty bucks for a quickee. When we get into the hotel room and I got my dress off he flashes his badge and hauls me down here. Soliciting, he says. He asked all the questions. I never even gave him the high sign. I wasn't even working that bar. It doesn't pay to start until around eight o'clock in the evening. The lousy fink cops."
"That's too bad," Jim said. "What happens to you now?"
"I hang around here for a couple of hours until night court opens. This is my second offense so it'll probably mean sixty days in the can. The lousy fink cops."
"Maybe you'll get off with a fine."
"Naw."
"Would a lawyer do you any good?"
"Not in this town. Not for a second offense. I'll give the judge a sob story. I might get lucky. I wouldn't mind the sixty days. The problem is once they throw me in a cell I'm going to need a fix. Once they find out I'm on the stuff it'll mean six months in the Federal Hospital at Lexington. You haven't got some junk on you, do you?
Just enough to hold me until I can make a contact in the Women's House of Detention?"
"I'm afraid not," Jim said, amazed. "You mean you can get narcotics while you're in jail?"
She looked at him for a long moment. "Narcotics! Say, how square can you get?"
Just then Tommy Guising came through a double set of barred and locked doors. He was flanked by two brawny, red-nosed policemen with tremendous paunches. Tommy looked like hell. His hair was mussed and his eyes were-rimmed with the red of fatigue. His tie and belt were both gone and he was forced to use one hand to hold up his trousers. His shoes, without laces, scuffled on his feet. His suit was wrinkled and his white shirt was soiled. Also there was a growing bruise on his right cheekbone.
Jim hurried over to him. One of the flanking cops stepped between them. Tommy grinned and winked and all four men approached the sergeant's desk.
"Give me your property receipt," the sergeant said.
Tommy pulled the receipt out of his shirt pocket and handed it across. The sergeant rose from his swivel chair crossed to a filing cabinet and came back with a large manila envelope which was both glued shut and stapled closed. He put the envelope down before Tommy and put alongside it a release form and a pen.
"Sign here that there's nothing missing," the sergeant said.
"I'll check it first, if you don't mind," Tommy retorted.
He opened the envelope and spilled out the contents: wallet, keys, ring, watch, tie, shoelaces, assorted papers, forty-eight cents in loose change.
"Sign," the sergeant said.
"Hold on there a minute."
Tommy opened his wallet and counted the money inside. "Hey! I had seventy-five bucks in here. Now there's only twenty-five. I want to know what happened to my money?"
"There must be some mistake," the desk sergeant said in a suddenly oily tone. "Your property list says there was only twenty-five." He hadn't even checked the typewritten sheet of paper which had been inside the envelope.
"I don't care what that piece of paper says. I know what I had in my wallet. I counted it right in front of you when you made me turn my stuff in."
"I don't remember any seventy-five dollars."
"You thieving louse ... uhhh!" Tommy began a tirade, but cut it off with a grunt of pain as one of the two flanking cops shoved a sharp elbow directly into his kidney.
"If you want to fill out a complaint we'll have to hold everything here," the sergeant said smoothly. "We can't release any property when there's a complaint filed."
Anger at his friend's predicament bubbled inside Jim. He started to say something, then thought better of it. If he blew his top they might just throw him in the same cell with Tommy. Then there'd be nobody to get either of them out.
"All right. All right," Tommy said at last. "Have it your own way. Keep the lousy fifty bucks."
He picked up his key ring and wallet and handed them both to Jim, telling him where to find the money in his apartment. The sergeant drew lines through both items on the property list and gave Tommy the pen. "Initial those two places," he said.
Tommy scribbled his initials. The sergeant put the remaining property into a new envelope, tore off the receipt tab, and sealed the envelope. "What about the other stuff I had with me when I was picked up?" Tommy asked.
"That's evidence. You'll have to talk to the D.A. about it. If you ask him real nice he might just give it back to you because you've been such a very good boy."
"Aw, you dirty...."
"Tommy!" Jim said, interrupting before his friend got another shot in the kidney. "I've got a cab waiting for me. I ought to be back here with the money in less than half an hour. Take it easy. Don't give them any excuses."
Tom Guising clamped his mouth shut and let his hate and frustration show only in his eyes. Jim hurried out of the municipal building and directly into the waiting cab.
"I thought you were serving a sentence," the cabby said when Jim slammed the door.
"Those lousy cops. Never mind, though.' He gave the driver Guising's address and settled back for the ride uptown. Traffic was quite heavy now and the going was slow. It took more than five minutes to go four blocks in the honking mass of inching automobiles.
"Say, isn't there a much faster way uptown?" Jim asked.
"We might make better time on the East Side Drive," the cabby said. "But I'll have to go ten blocks past the address before I could get off."
"I don't care. Try it."
CHAPTER SIX
The one way street was seven lanes wide from curb to curb with no parking during the rush hours. The cab was close to the left-hand curb and it was necessary to get all the way over to the right.
It took the driver only two blocks to cut across the seven lanes. Several times Jim was sure they were going to smash into another car and there was much honking of horns and shaking of fists.
They cut down a side street and swung onto the East River Drive. Traffic was quite heavy here, too. But there were no traffic lights nor any cross traffic and so the twenty-five mile an hour progress was steady.
"Going back it won't be so bad," the driver said as he drove off the highway and onto the street once again. "Most of this is suburban traffic. I don't know why these damned idiots have to drive their cars every day. Ought to be a law to make them leave their cars home and take trains and buses. Half of them shouldn't ought to have licenses, anyway."
Jim had been in Tom Guising's apartment before but he was still impressed by the quiet luxury of the building and the apartment itself. The corridors were thickly carpeted and softly lit, and there were soundproof ceilings. There were four self-service, high-speed elevators to serve the twenty-two stories. There was a doorman, a mail chute, a plush lobby. Tenants could even get maid service if they wanted it. And closed circuit television connected each apartment to the lobby so you could see your guests before admitting them to the building.
"Yes, sir. Can I help you?" the doorman asked quietly.
"No. I'm going up to Mr. Guising's apartment."
"He's not at home, sir."
"I know. I came over to pick something up for him."
The doorman hesitated, then said, "I guess it'll be all right, sir."
"I know it will," Jim said, brushing past the man.
One of the four elevators whisked him swiftly to the eighteenth floor. It took Jim several tries to find the right key and let himself into the apartment. The place was tremendous, five large rooms and a terrace. There were two bedrooms, a kitchen, dining room, and living room. Everything was carpeted from wall to wall, even the bathrooms.
Jim went into the master bedroom and found the money just where Tommy had said he would find it. There was an envelope tucked inside a pair of folded pajamas in the third drawer in the dresser.
It was a fat envelope and when Jim tore off one edge he counted more than fifteen one hundred dollar bills. When he reached fifteen he stopped counting, shoved the money back into the envelope, and thrust the envelope into his jacket pocket. If there was that much money, he'd better take the whole thing and turn it all over to Tommy.
Back in the City Jail there was another wait for the prisoner to be brought. Jim waited until Tommy was there before paying the bail and handing over the rest of the money.
Once legally free of the entangling arms of the law, and while he was putting in his shoelaces, Tom Guising launched a violent outburst against the minions of peace and safety. He called them every conceivable name, and threatened them with Supreme Court action.
The officers quietly ignored the outburst and Jim pulled Tommy out of there as soon as possible. The cab was still waiting and by now the meter read more than eight dollars.
"Where are we going now?" Jim asked.
"Back to my place," Guising said. "I've got a lot to do. If those monkeys think they can do this to me and get away with it they've got another think coming."
"All right," Jim said to the cabby. "Uptown again. Back to where we just came from."
"I'm getting to know this route pretty good," the driver quipped. "A couple more trips and I'll be able to drive it with my eyes closed."
"Just shut up and drive!" Guising snapped.
"All right! All right!" the driver said with a shrug. "Don't lose your temper."
Traffic was still heavy and this time the driver headed straight for the Drive without being told.
Jim and Guising settled back in their seats and lit cigarettes. "Thanks for helping me out," Guising said. "A couple more hours in that place and I would have been climbing the walls."
"Tell me what happened," Jim said.
Guising nodded toward the driver. "Wait 'til we get to my place. I don't know what I'd have done without you. A man gets arrested in this town and all of a sudden his new friends can't be reached by phone. I must have made fifty calls trying to find someone to come down and get me out. Don't worry, I'll fix all those so-called friends."
When the cab pulled up in front of the apartment house the meter read nine dollars and eighty-five cents. "You've still got the twenty," Jim said to the cabby. "Give me five bucks and we'll call it square."
The driver fished a five dollar bill out of his shirt pocket, handed it back, and said, "Thanks."
"Thank you," Jim said. "It would have been hell trying to find cabs every time I stopped somewhere."
The two men got out, with the doorman holding the door open, and the cab took off with a squeal of tires.
"I have a package for you, Mr. Guising," the doorman said. "Will you take it up with you?"
"No. Send it up with one of the porters when you get a chance," Guising told the man. "I know what's in it. It's not important right now."
"The night man will be on in half an hour," the doorman said. "I'll send it up with him."
"Good man."
Once they were inside the apartment and the door was locked again, Guising shucked out of his topcoat and suit jacket and headed straight for the bar. He poured himself one stiff shot and downed it at a gulp, then mixed two drinks.
"Come on inside," he said to Jim. "We'll talk while I get cleaned up."
In the bedroom Guising stripped down to his shorts, threw a towel around his neck, and stepped into the bathroom. He left the door open and Jim perched on the edge of the bed. Guising washed, brushed his teeth, then spread shaving cream all over his face.
"All right," Jim said. "Now tell me what happened."
"I got a couple of places in midtown that sell my stuff. About midnight last night I stopped by one of them to drop off some more. A damned plain-clothes cop picked me up before I even got into the store. I had the stuff on me."
"But why were you arrested out of a clear blue sky? Did somebody squeal on you?"
"Naw, nothing like that. It's stupid really. Some jerk pulled a liquor store stick-up a few blocks away and I answered the general description. Of course, once they found the stuff on me they arrested me anyway."
"How bad is it?"
"It could be worse. They can only get me for possession, not for intent to sell. It's lucky they got me on the street and not inside the store. I'll tell the judge I was taking the stuff to a party to show to some friends and I'll probably get off with a hundred dollar fine. They'll keep the stuff they took from me but that's no great loss. The whole batch cost me less than twenty bucks. The worst part about the whole thing is that now I've got a record and they'll be watching me pretty close. I'll have to be very careful from now on. Damned blue-noses have been screaming about this kind of stuff to the papers and there's a big drive on."
"If it wasn't this," Jim said, "it would have been something else. You can't expect to stay in this business for very long. That's why I didn't want to throw in with you."
Guising had finished shaving. "So you got a job for sixty-five a week instead. Where's that gonna get you? You know how much I made in the last three months? Fifteen thousand dollars! And that's peanuts. I'm only a middleman. I buy and I sell. When I get fully organized I'll be doing my own photography and processing.
I'll clear a hundred and fifty thousand a year, easy."
"Yeah? And how are you going to spend all that money in jail?"
"Sonny boy, when you're making that kind of money you don't go to jail. You pay off a little here and a little there and so long as you don't get involved in a federal rap they'll never touch you."
"You think about where you spent last night and tell me that again," Jim said.
"Look, I don't want to argue with you," Guising told him. "I've got to take a shower. Why don't you call down and have a meal sent up for us. That jail food was lousy. I couldn't eat a bite."
"All right. How long will you be?"
"About fifteen minutes. There's a delicatessen a couple of blocks away that delivers. Order me a couple of pastrami sandwiches and French fries. Get whatever you want for yourself. I've got plenty of beer in the icebox."
"What's the name of the joint?"
"I don't know. The number's in a little book by the phone in the living room."
Jim made the phone call and had another drink while he waited for Tommy Guising. An idea was beginning to form in the back of his mind. At that point the idea was hazy, tenuous. It had no real form. Something had clicked and his mental machinery was beginning to work.
He tried to pin it down with no success. So he ignored the idea. When it was fully formed it would pop up in his consciousness and he could then decide whether it was a good idea, or a bad one.
The food came and a minute or two later Tommy came out of the bedroom. Jim had the sandwiches and potatoes out on plates. There were glasses, napkins, and cold bottles of beer-imported beer, of course.
Before they ate there was an accounting of the money. Tommy already had the envelope so he knew how much was left of that bundle. The cab cost had been fifteen dollars, for which Tommy reimbursed him from the twenty-five that had been left in the wallet.
"All right, we're square now," Tommy said. "So here's an extra hundred for all your trouble."
"I'll tell you what you do," Jim said softly. "You take off the top slice of that sandwich there, put in that bill, and eat it. What kind of thing is that to do to a friend? I don't want any money for helping you out of a tight spot."
"Go on. Take it. If a guy can't be good to his friends, who can he be good to? Forget I'm a friend for a minute. Make believe it was a job. You'd do the same thing for a stranger for a hundred bucks, wouldn't you?"
Jim smiled. "Every day of the week and twice on Sundays." He folded the bill and shoved it into his shirt pocket.
They began to eat and Jim asked, "Where'd you get that bruise on your cheek?"
"I fell down."
"You really fell down, or is that what the cops are saying?"
"No. Really. I tripped going down a flight of stairs. As a matter-of-fact, the cop holding on to my arm fell with me. He got hurt worse than I did. They think his arm is broken. The other cops were going to tear my head off until that first one told them it was an accident. But that missing fifty bucks really makes my blood boil. If I was a big shot they wouldn't dare mess around Mke that."
"Aw, forget it. It's not worth the aggravation."
"I guess you're right."
While they ate Guising filled Jim in on the details of his racket. He explained the procedure for acquiring the films and pictures. Jim was amazed to learn that the racket, from coast to coast, was tightly controlled by the national crime syndicate.
Every once in a while an independent operator sprang up, but he didn't usually last very long. If you were in the business either you bought your stuff from them, or you paid them twenty per cent of your net profit. There were lots of ways they got to you if you didn't pay. Your material would get hijacked. Your delivery men would get arrested every time they showed their faces on the street. The retailers would be warned not to buy from you. There were all sorts of ways.
Still, despite the problems and the risk, there was a lot of money to be made in the business. Guising was selling fifteen hundred sets of pictures a month. There were five photographs to a set. They cost him fifty cents a set and he was selling them for two dollars and fifty cents apiece. And there was even more money to be made on eight and sixteen millimeter movies. The movies cost him ten dollars apiece. He sold them for thirty dollars and averaged around a hundred sales a month.
Jim whistled soundlessly. "You mean that many men buy that junk?"
"Hell, that's not even ten per cent of the market in this town alone. Of course, it's not all straight love stuff. Some of the junk shows whips and things like that. Then, there's always a big demand for shots of a couple of chicks making out together."
"You mean Lesbians?"
Guising nodded. "That's a big seller with men mostly. Funny thing, though. The dealers tell me twenty or thirty per cent of their business comes from women."
"I think you'd better change the subject," Jim said. "I just ate and I'm getting a little sick. Is everybody in the world that mixed up?""
Tommy laughed. "You don't have to be a mental case to go for the average stuff. What's wrong with looking at pictures and movies of guys and gals making out together?"
Jim thought for a moment, then shrugged his shoulders. "I don't know, really. I suppose there's nothing wrong with that. It's just a waste of time. Why watch two people making love when you could be making love yourself? And if you don't want to make love, why look at that kind of stuff at all?"
"I don't think even a psychiatrist could answer that one," Guising said. "But there are people who do get a kick out of watching. Hell, if you were walking along in Central Park say, and you found a guy and a chick making out behind some bushes, would you keep walking or would you stand there and watch?"
Jim blushed a little. "I guess I would watch, if you put that that way."
"See! And there's nothing wrong with you, is there?"
"I see what you mean."
"Sure. There's nothing sick about that at all. That's all propaganda put out by those anti-smut nuts."
"But it is illegal."
"Sure it's illegal, but just because some bluenose managed to get the laws ramroded through Congress. And forget all that crud about it makes rape maniacs. There are lots of countries in the world where this sort of thing is not illegal and they don't have any more maniacs than we do."
They talked on until nine-thirty. By then Tommy was yawning regularly. He pushed his chair back from the table and rose.
"I'm beat," he said. "Who could sleep in that lousy jail? I'm gonna grab a couple hours sleep, then go burn some ears about all the guys who couldn't be reached when I was in the clink."
"I guess I'll take off then," Jim said. "I'm still a member of the working class and tomorrow morning's going to roll around pretty quick."
"Yeah. Thanks again. And, remember, if you change your mind I've always got a spot for you."
Jim grinned. "Yeah, that way we can share a jail cell. I'm not interested. If you get into something more legitimate though, give me a call."
He left and took the subway and a bus back to his ratty room. Compared to Tommy Guising's apartment Jim's own place was like the city dump. The furnishings were worn and threadbare and should have been relegated to a junk pile years before. The entire building should have gone to the junk pile years before.
Once inside the apartment Jim stripped off his clothes and stepped into the shower. He shivered under the first blast of icy water and stepped out to wait for the hot water to begin to flow. But when, after several moments, there was no hot water, he cursed, clenched his jaws against the discomfort, and stepped back under the cold spray.
This wasn't the first time there'd been no hot water. In the month he'd been in the small apartment there'd been no hot water five different times. And he always found out when he was standing under the shower. Next time he'd test it first.
And every time he complained to the superintendent he got the same story. The boiler had broken down. It had to be expected in a building in such a sad state of disrepair. The landlord didn't give a damn. If you didn't like it you could move out. There were plenty of people to take the apartment even without hot water.
It wasn't so bad for Jim as it was for some of the other tenants. He only needed a little hot water to wash and shave; and, if need be, he could boil water for shaving. The families with kids were really in trouble. When there was no hot water there was no heat. When there was no hot water dishes couldn't be washed unless water was boiled. When there was no heat kids were sick all winter. And when there was no heat sick people didn't recuperate as quickly as they might have.
Jim didn't have to wash dishes. And he was only home to sleep. He didn't mind a cold room when he slept, so long as there were plenty of blankets. Pity the poor individuals who had to be around the cold apartments all day every day throughout the winter. They were the ones who suffered.
He didn't waste any time beneath the cold spray. He wet himself, soaped up, rinsed off, and got out of there. His body was tingling and invigorated when he finished drying off. He slipped into a pair of pajamas, arranged his cigarettes and ash tray beside the bed, turned off all the lights but the bedside lamp, picked up a copy of a paperback novel he'd purchased several days before, and climbed beneath the blankets.
He turned to his place in the book and tried to get interested in the story. But he wasn't in the mood for reading. He caught himself reading the same paragraph for the third time, dog-eared a page, and set the book to one side.
The people in the apartment beneath his were having their regular evening argument. And they always argued at the top of their lungs. It was very distracting. It wouldn't have been quite so bad if they argued in English. But no, they had to shout in something that sounded very much like French. Jim knew they were Negroes and guessed they were Haitians.
Such people were not uncommon in this neighborhood. It was an integrated area-really integrated. There were Puerto Ricans and Cubans and Negroes, and there were still some old Jews and Irishmen in a few of the buildings. In another sense, though, the area was strictly segregated. You couldn't live there unless you were poor. That was discrimination by income and was no less horrendous than discrimination by race.
Jim turned out the light and tried to will himself to sleep. But that failed, too. The argument downstairs was raging hot and heavy. Disgusted, he kicked back the blankets and sat up. Without turning on a light he rose, crossed the room to the alcove kitchen, and drank a glass of water.
Then he lit a cigarette and crossed to the single window in the apartment. His window faced the rear and the long narrow open area between the backs of the buildings on the side streets. The yards were littered with garbage and junk. Rats, mice, and hungry cats prowled down there twenty-four hours a day. Every once in a while you could hear the crash as a bottle was tossed from a window to shatter in the yard beneath. Or, sometimes, somebody would intentionally hurl one at a yowling cat.
Jim looked up at the sky, then down at the back yards again. A flash of light to his left caught his eye and he turned in that direction. The light had come on in the window of another apartment.
A girl came into view in the window. She was Puerto Rican and about seventeen. He'd seen her around the streets before. From his vantage point Jim could see well into the room. In his field of vision was a part of a dresser, a closet door, and most of a bed.
The girl walked to the closet, opened the door, and began to remove her clothes. She pulled her sweater off over her head and her breasts were bare beneath. Brassieres were luxury items to these people. Beneath the tight skirt she was wearing panties but no stockings. It took only a few seconds for her to strip down to the buff.
She had surprisingly large nipples for her small breasts, and her fine black hair hung in a shimmering cascade to her shoulders. But those were her only two attractive points. Her face was pockmarked. She was so skinny her ribs looked like a washboard. And her arms and legs were too bony to be attractive. She had almost no buttocks at all.
Jim's eyes widened and he gasped with surprise when, a few seconds later, the girl was joined by a man. He was a short man, about fifty, fat, red-faced, and obviously drunk. He threw his arms about the naked girl and crushed her against him.
She eeled out of his grasp and said something to him. He paused, took out his wallet, and handed the girl some money. She stepped out of sight for a moment, then reappeared without the money. This time there was no complaint when the man reached for her.
He held her with one arm about her waist and let his other hand roam over her nakedness. That hand looked like a fat white insect against her dusky flesh. The girl turned her face away from the man and tried to mask her disgust as his caress attacked one small breast.
They went on like that for a few minutes. Then the man shoved the girl back toward the bed. She stumbled and flopped back. The man staggered toward her, not bothering to remove his clothing.
Jim saw him kneel on the bed, grasp the girl's legs, and pull at them. Then the lights went out and he turned away. He hadn't been excited by the scene, yet he had watched until there was no more to see. Obviously the girl was a hustler. Judging from the appearance of her client, and from her own singular lack of real charm, her price couldn't be more than five dollars a throw. That was a heck of a start in life for a seventeen-year-old-even a seventeen-year-old Puerto Rican hustler. She would learn to charge a little more for the specialties but she'd never earn more than fifteen or twenty for a trick. Especially for hustling, those were starvation wages.
Jim got back into bed and let his mind wander. The argument downstairs had ended finally and now the only noise to disturb him was the too-loud radio in another apartment which was blaring Latin music. That could be tolerated.
He thought about this whole question of people getting their kicks watching other people making love. That wasn't really as sick as that had at first seemed to be. He imagined two attractive people, and himself watching, and he began to understand.
And then he remembered.
That had been a long time ago. He was only a kid then. That was right after he'd moved in with his Aunt Kris. She had only a small apartment and in the beginning he'd slept on a fold-away bed in the living room. Later on, when Kris had started bringing her boy friends home with her, Jimmy had moved into the bedroom and she'd taken over the living room.
Kris-she didn't like him to call her Aunt-was neither careful nor concerned about any glimpses of her body he might catch. Around the house she wore a light cloth house coat belted loosely at her waist. And she was particularly careless when she leaned over or crossed her legs.
Jimmy was just coming into manhood then and he remembered the flushes of excitement when he stole his surreptitious glances. Hers were the first breasts he'd ever seen, and that made his stomach tighten into knots to see those white rounded spheres and the pink tips.
One Sunday morning she sent him out to the store for milk. When he came back to the apartment Kris was stretched out on the sofa reading the Sunday paper. Her legs were crossed and the robe had fallen away, baring her almost to the hips. She was propped up with a cushion behind her and the neckline of the robe gaped away from her body to fully expose one coral-tipped breast.
Jimmy put the milk away in the icebox and went back to the living room. He picked up part of the Sunday paper and sat down in the chair across from the sofa.
He pretended to read but his eyes never left her body. He stared at her until his face was flushed and his hands were shaking so badly the newspaper crackled.
She looked up, caught him staring, and said, "What're you looking at?"
He tore his eyes away but couldn't conceal the furious blush.
"Look at me when I'm talking to you I" she snapped.
He looked up and tried to keep his eyes fixed upon her face.
"I asked you what you were looking at."
"Uh, nothing," he mumbled.
"Don't lie to me. I saw you. Haven't you ever seen a woman before?"
Jimmy shook his head and blushed more furiously. He was miserable with embarrassment.
"You think that's nice to peek at your own aunt like that?" Her voice was softer now, not so angry.
"I ... uh ... I guess not."
"Then why did you do that?"
"I don't know. I couldn't help that. I'm sorry. I'll try not to do that again."
Aunt Kris laughed. "Don't try too hard or you'll get yourself all messed up. I may be your aunt, but we're still strangers. If it's supposed to be all right to look at the bodies of strange girls you can't help looking at me. And I don't really mind. In a way that's a compliment that you'd want to peek at an old woman like me."
"You're not so old," Jimmy said quickly.
"Well, I'm too old to worry about that sort of thing," she said with a soft smile. "And, as your legal guardian, I guess I'm responsible for your education. Come over here."
There was something about the tone of her voice then, that made him feel all soft and mushy as he rose and walked slowly toward her. His eyes widened and bulged when he saw her hands go to the belt of the robe, pull that loose, and pull the robe wide.
"Take a good look," she said softly. "You don't have to sneak a peek now."
He looked.
His body began to shake and his legs threatened to buckle beneath him. He felt flushed and feverish. His mouth was dry and there was an ache deep within him.
Slowly, still keeping the robe open, Kris rose from the sofa. She let the robe slip from her shoulders and posed for him, turning in a slow circle to let him see everything.
Those parts of her which never saw the sun were starkly white. Just beneath the surface of the skin in places he could see a webbing of fine blue veins. Her breasts were big and soft with dark circles of pebbled flesh around the thrustings of the nipples. Her legs and buttocks were full and heavy and the skin was slightly puckered.
"Seen enough?" she asked softly.
He only nodded, his throat being too dry to permit speech.
She picked up the robe and slipped that on again, but left the front hanging open. And when she sat down again she said, "I'll make you a deal. Just so you won't have to sneak peeks all the time we won't worry about modesty around here. All right?"
He nodded quickly.
"But that means you, too. I mean, that wouldn't be fair for me to walk around showing everything if you always kept covered up, would that?"
Now he was blushing again and he was more miserable than before. He had no choice but to agree with her. She smiled and went into the kitchen to prepare Sunday breakfast.
With the whole subject out in the open like that it was no longer necessary for Jimmy to stare at her. He was still a little uncomfortable during that first meal with the nipples of those breasts staring back at him across the table like a pair of eyes. But by the next day he was completely accustomed to the sight of Kris's naked body.
A period of time passed before young Jimmy's interest in his aunt was rearoused. In that latent period Kris gave him every opportunity to see her. She slept in the raw and didn't mind if he walked into her bedroom. When she went to take a shower she walked naked through the apartment.
Jimmy was embarrassed the first time she demanded he uncover, too. He was getting ready to shower and he'd slipped on a robe. She made him take that off and put that aside and she made no bones about looking at him.
He had to fight the impulse to keep from covering himself with one hand. She made a statement which, at that time, he thought curious.
"You're a big boy," she said when she looked at him. "You're going to make some girl very, very happy."
He didn't know what she was talking about and he was too embarrassed to ask questions.
This period of latency ended, however, when Jimmy began to want to touch that lovely female body-the only one he'd ever seen. He looked at those breasts and those hips and he wanted to touch them, to kiss them. And the trembling excitement returned.
Only this time there was a difference in the excitement. That wasn't just a childish thrill. Now there were other signs of his excitement. And sometimes, when he was looking at her and thinking about touching her, he became so excited there was real, physical pain-a kind of ache that went through his body, right to the core of his being.
Lying in the dark in his room Jim paused in his thoughts to crush out his cigarette. He lit another and wondered why he hadn't remembered that particular period of his life.
He thought back again.
One evening Kris was just finishing with her shower and Jimmy was just getting ready to go in. They were both naked and she came out of the bathroom still rubbing the towel against her body.
He stared at the way she was flattening her breasts and rubbing her own stomach and he was dizzy with excitement.
And Kris noticed.
She looked at him, pointed, and said in a surprised tone, "Why Jimmy, look at you!"
He was so embarrassed he wanted to run and hide. He blushed all the way down to his shoulders.
"Oh, Jimmy, you don't have to be ashamed. I think you're wonderful. How old are you, anyway?"
"Sixteen," he stammered.
She shrugged and her wonderful breasts bounced. "I guess I shouldn't be too surprised then. It's a wonder that didn't happen earlier. I've just been thinking of you as a little boy. You're not really so little, are you?"
"I-I don't know. I guess not. I'm gonna take a shower."
"Why don't you take a bath instead," Kris suggested.
Timmy shrugged. "I don't care."
"I'll start the water running."
She went back into the bathroom and he heard the shower curtain beftg opened, then the sound of the tub filling. A few minutes later Kris called him into the bathroom. The tub was ready. She was still naked and he brushed against her breast as he stepped over the side of the tub.
His shoulder burned where he had touched against her. And even when he was easing himself down into the hot water he could feel that instant of contact, the soft smoothness of her breast and the surprising hardness of the nipple scraping across his shoulder.
Kris didn't leave fhe bathroom once he was seated. Instead, she knelt down beside the tub and said, "You're a man now and tonight we're going to celebrate. A real man shouldn't have to bathe himself. His woman should do that for him. Have you got a girl Jimmy?"
He shook his head
"Did you ever love a girl?"
He shook his head again. He'd heard the other fellows his own age talking about girls and he'd been excited by their talk, but he'd never even had a date with a girl.
"I guess then, I'll have to be your woman."
Jimmy squeezed his eyes shut and shuddered in the tub. He wasn't sure what was going to happen, but whatever that was, that had to do with the excitement and the ache of longing.
Kris soaped a washcloth and washed his face and ears and neck, his shoulders, and arms and chest. Then the rag went below the surface of the water to scrub.
Jimmy was sweating. His mouth was dry, his blood thundered in his veins.
Kris washed his back and Jim had a curious feeling. He wanted with all his heart and soul for her to touch him, and at the same time he was embarrassed about that. He hoped she would touch him and he was afraid she would.
His eyes shot open when her hand and the washcloth brushed against him. She was watching his face for a reaction and she smiled at his expression.
"Why is your face all screwed up like that?" she asked. "Does that hurt when I touch you like this?"
He shook his head quickly as the lightning bolts of pleasure shot through him.
"And like this?" she touched him a new way.
This time he couldn't even shake his head. His body was trembling and twitching. He looked at her hand against him. And he looked at her wonderful breasts hanging over the side of the tub and reaching almost to the surface of the water.
He reached out quickly and gripped one breast and that was like holding a live coal in his hand. His palm burned and tingled from the touch and he could feel the nipple scraping, pushing by his fingers.
He was even more thrilled when she made no protest. She didn't mind if he touched her! And he'd wanted to touch her so badly all this time!
Kris pulled the plug to drain the tub and helped Jimmy to rise. When he was standing she picked up a fresh towel and proceeded to dry him. The drying off was even more fun than the washing. And while she was drying him he touched both her breasts, traced the curve of her hip and the ridges of her spine all the way to her buttocks. She grinned up at him when he filled both his hands with the soft flesh of her behind.
When he was dry she helped him step over the side of the tub and led him from the bathroom directly to her bedroom. She motioned him to the bed, pulled the window shade down, but left the light on as she crossed to the bed and sat down beside him.
"Do you like to touch me?" she asked in a whisper.
He nodded. His first excitement had subsided, but now was reasserting itself. Kris stretched out on the bed and made him lay down beside her. He was turned on one hip to face her and she lay on her back. She picked up his wrist and smiled at him as she brought his hand against her breast.
"Go on," she urged in a voice suddenly going hoarse, the smile fading from her face. "Go on. Do whatever you want!"
He squeezed and kneaded the breast, flicked the nipple with the tip of his finger. He caught the nipple with his thumb and forefinger and pulled lightly, rolled that with his fingertips.
Kris groaned deep in her throat. For a moment he was afraid he'd hurt her. She shuddered, gripped him hard, and squeezed her eyes tightly shut. Her shoulders twisted and her other breast jounced. He moved his hand to that one and did the same things there.
"Oh!" she whisperer! "I love to be touched like this. Kiss them!"
He pressed a pair of pursed lips to the side of a breast. She caught the back of his head with one hand, took her breast with the other hand and directed the nipple to his lips.
"Bite me!" she groaned, her hand returning to his body. "Bite me!"
His heart was pounding so he could hardly hear her. Beyond the perimeter of the bed the world had faded from existence. Kris rolled on her side toward him. pressing against him from shoulder to knee. Her breasts flattened against his chest, the nipples boring. Her silken skin rubbed wondrously against him.
Her arms locked around him and she rolled again, drawing him to her. She made an adjustment.
A brand new sensation overwhelmed him. That was stupendous, magnificent beyond description. Her body moved and her hands on his hips urged him to move. Moving only made that better.
Kris grunted and groaned, muttered and cursed beneath her breath as they worked together. Sometimes she wanted him to go fast, other times she made him move ever so slowly. That was wonderful both ways.
Twice she gave short screams as her whole body stiffened and shuddered, but each time she relaxed after a moment and started moving with him again. She made him lean his head down to kiss her breasts while they continued to work together.
Then, suddenly, without warning, something happened to Jimmy. That happened to his body and his brain at the same time. For his body there was a kind of wrenching, tearing thing and his muscles clenched spasmodically. For his brain there was an explosion like that of the first atom bomb.
Afterward he was weak and dizzy. He slumped and rolled away from her. She took him in her arms, cuddled him, and crooned softly to him until he fell asleep.
When he awakened in the morning he was still on the bed with her. She was turned away from him and curled into a ball, still asleep. He kissed her shoulder and ran his hand down her back, down from the base of her neck, down over the taut curve of her buttocks.
She stirred in her sleep and he was immediately excited again. He had a feeling now of strength and power. Last night he'd given her much pleasure. That was wonderful to be able to do that for a woman.
He fitted himself to the curve of her back and reached over her side to caress the front of her body. She stirred again at his insistent touch.
"Umm," she said softly, smiling as she opened her eyes. "You learn fast."
They kissed and touched until they were both very excited, then repeated what they'd done the night before. That was even better in the morning. As soon as they were finished Jimmy wanted to start all over again.
Kris pushed him away with a laugh. "That's enough," she said, scrambling out of bed. "I've got to go to work this morning and you've got to go to school."
Reluctantly, he rose and dressed. In the kitchen, over breakfast, Kris was very serious as she spoke to him.
"What we did," she said, "was wonderful. You needed to learn all about that sort of thing. I wanted you to learn the right way, the best way. Sometimes boys get started badly and their whole lives are messed up. But now you've learned. You know what to do and how to do that. There are some other things I'll tell you about but that's just discussion. As far as you and I are concerned nothing will ever happen again. Besides being your aunt, I'm much too old for you. You're sixteen. I'm almost forty. When you want to make love you go out and find a girl your own age. There are plenty of them around. And once they find out how good you are you'll have to beat them off."
Jimmy was puzzled and hurt by her statement. To him it was a kind of rejection and he was sullen and bitter. No longer did they parade around the apartment in the nude. Twice he tried to get her to make love with him again and both times he got his face slapped.
Then he moved into the bedroom and she moved out to the living room and started bringing home boy friends. Lots of times he was awake when she came home late and he heard her and her boy friends, and that was agony.
And once she came home with a man and they were both drunk. Jimmy heard them in the living room and went to peek through the bedroom keyhole. They were sitting on the sofa, slobbering kisses over each other and taking off their clothes.
They made love once and rested. And while they were resting Jimmy heard Kris telling the man about the time she'd made love with her sixteen-year-old nephew.
And as he lay on his bed in his small apartment Jimmy knew why he hadn't remembered the incident before, why he'd never had much interest in girls. Oh, he'd had a few women in his years, but his drive for that sort of thing had never seemed as strong to him as that appeared to be for most other men his age.
He felt then the shock and rage and embarrassment he'd experienced when he'd overheard Kris betraying him. The memory had been too painful to be maintained. And the trauma had generalized to affect, at least partially, his relationship with other women from that day forward.
Now that he'd remembered that, he thought to himself, how would that affect all his subsequent relationships with women? He could understand now why he'd always been less interested in things like Guising sold. And yet the block hadn't been complete. With Doreen, and with the ether women he'd had, he'd always performed well and enjoyed himself, too. There'd never been any complaint from the women.
He shrugged off the thought, turned over on his bed, and dropped off to sieep.
CHAPTER SEVEN
At the end of two months on the job Jim Benton went in to see his boss. Harry Conklin was slumped in the swivel chair behind his desk, his nose buried in a copy of one of the competition papers. Conklin grunted when he saw who his visitor was.
"Yeah, whadda ya want?"
"I've been here two months now, Mr. Conklin," Jim said.
"Hooray! We'll have an anniversary party at the Waldorf. You think it's time to get a gold watch and retire?"
"No. Not that. But I do think it's time I did something else besides sweep floors and run errands."
"You think!" Conklin howled, straightening in his chair and putting the newspaper aside. "When you're the boss around here you'll do the thinking. Until then I'll do the thinking and if you don't like it I don't see any chains holding you down. You know where the door is."
Jim refused to be cowed by the older man's bluster. "I didn't take this job to be an office boy for the rest of my life. I could be a good reporter if somebody gave me the chance."
"Reporter! We have no reporters here. You want to be a reporter you go to work for the New York Times. Around here we got only hacks. And most of them are broken-down hacks, at that. You got a job pays sixty-five a week. You don't like that, go find yourself another one. See if you can get more money for less work anywhere else."
"I'm not afraid to work, Mr. Conklin. And it's not just the money. You're not giving me a chance to move ahead, to get anywhere."
"Maybe you want I should fire one of the other men and give you his job?"
"I don't say that. All I want is a chance to show you what I can do."
"You don't know anything about the way things are done around here."
"That's part of what I mean. Show me! Teach me! I learn real quick. You could let one of the others take some of the load off vonr shoulders and move me up a little."
Conklin was silent for a long moment. "All right, Benton. Let me think about it for a while. I'll let you know."
When Jim came out of the office Doreen waved him over to the switchboard. The relationship between the two of them had cooled somewhat as time passed. Their dates were fewer and they'd become slightly bored with one another. Through silent, buf mutual agreement, they were drifting apart. Their liaison had never been intended to have anything remotely resembling permanence. Things have been good, very good, between them; and now it was time for that to be over.
"What was going on in there?" Doreen asked when Jim came over.
"You heard?"
"I couldn't hear what he said, but the whole office could hear him yelling."
"I told him I was tired of being an office boy."
"Where're you going to look for a job now?" Jim smiled. "I wasn't fired."
"What!"
"He said he was going to think about it."
"Boy, that's the first time that ever happened around here. The last guy we had who had your job, he only asked for a small raise and he was fired on the spot."
"Well, if Conklin decides not to do anything for me I'm going to quit. Ht can take his office-boy job and sniff it up his nose. This is a job for some sixteen-year-old high school dropout."
Doreen grinned. "If I were you I'd start looking for another job right away."
"Ah, we'll see," Jim said, walking away.
He was quite confident. There was nothing tying him to this job. He baa no wife or children to worry about. Even if he got fired there would always be some kind of work to pay him enough to keep from starving. And, if worst came to worst, he could always throw in with Tommy Guising. That was a standing offer, good any time, and irrevocable.
The thought of that kind of business had become less and less reprehensible in the last few weeks. Jim had accepted Guising's reasoning that there was nothing inherently wrong with pictures of people engaged in the various acts of love. Oh, it might be bad if young kids were fed a steady diet of that material. But if you were in the wholesale end of the thing you had nothing to do with the final recipient. And the way Guising worked, only carefully screened adults could make purchases.
Jim knew there were some operators who sent their stuff through the mails, hoping it would fall into the hands of kids. A fourteen-year-old boy would spend his last nickel or steal to buy all the stuff he could get. But even there, who was really wrong: the man who supplied the need, or the society which fostered the need in the first place?
Three days later Jim got his first break. That morning Foster called in sick. When Jim brought in the first batch of mail from the post office Conklin told him to remain in the office.
"I'm going to teach you a little about the business, kid," Conklin said. "But don't let me catch you with sticky fingers. Inside all these envelopes there's money and more envelopes. The money goes into one pile at the end of the table and the envelopes go into other piles according to the numbers."
Jim emptied the mail bag and the two men set to work. The procedure was pretty much as Jim had thought; extract the money, stack the numbered envelopes, erase the numbers, and fill in addresses.
Conklin had the thing down to a science. The addresses were filed in sequence according to the box numbers. Once the letters were arranged Conklin stood at the file and Jim sat at the table. He could pick up an envelope, read off the number, and wait for Conklin to find the address. Then Jim would erase the number and fill in the address as Conklin read it to him.
It was dull, routine work, slow, boring, time-consuming. Some of the box numbers had drawn as many as a dozen replies. Many of the envelopes contained only a single sheet of paper. Others were thick and heavy. Some had instructions to the Post Office Department not to bend or fold the envelopes as they contained photographs.
The first time Jim ran across one containing photographs he was puzzled. Then he remembered that many of the ads, especially the ones in which couples sought other couples, requested that all repliers enclose photos and phone numbers. It made sense. Someone could describe himself as handsome and attractive in a letter, but if you sent along a picture you couldn't lie.
Every once in a while Jim would call out a box number and Conklin would tell him to put that letter aside. Jim was puzzled, but he did as he was told. When the last letter was properly addressed Jim sighed and lit a cigarette. Conklin closed and locked the file and sat down behind his desk He took out a fresh cigar, bit off the end, spat, and struck a light.
"Well," Conklin said, "you learn anything?"
Jim smiled at him "Not much. I had this part of the operation pretty well figured out just from reading an issue of the paper. The one thing that bothers me is this batch here on the side. What do we do with them?"
"Those I open, make a list of the return addresses, and sell to people who buy lists of names. The letters themselves get thrown out."
"But why don't you send them on to the advertisers?"
"Those are dead box numbers. Whenever we've got a short column I throw in some phony ads. There's no point in letting the space go to waste. It still costs us the same to print the paper. Any response we get for the phony ads is pure gravy."
"Don't these people get wise when nobody answers their letters?"
"We don't guarantee that advertisers will answer all letter?. How's anybody gonna find out? The files are confidential. Nobody can look in there and see which are the phony ads."
"How many dead ads do you run?"
"Not many, but there's at least one in every issue. In the last twenty issues I've probably run forty-five dead ads. And I've never had one that didn't bring in at least four responses. It's the ads that keep this paper going. Most people aren't really interested in the tripe we print. They want to know where to buy girlie pictures, or stag movies, or they're interested in the personals."
"What about the ether ads?" Jim asked. "Do they really sell illicit material?"
"Not straight off they don't. A lot of those are phonies, too. They don't have any real good stuff. The live ads are the ones from foreign countries. And even they're careful. A customer makes a first buy and he gets pretty tame stuff. But once they've got his name they send him a sample of the real merchandise from a different address. That way the postal inspectors don't get wise."
"But what's to prevent a postal inspector from answering an ad and then cracking down when he gets the second letter?"
Conklin laughed. "It's against the law to do anything that way. In order to get any real good stuff you've got to write them a letter stating exactly what you want. No punches pulled and you use the four-letter words. Now, a federal man can't do that and then arrest you for selling him what he asked for. That's called 'entrapment' and it's illegal. It's inadmissable evidence. And it works the same way with the wife-swappers. No entrapment. That's how we get to run ads like these in broad daylight The only way it can blow up is if one of the parties actually involved makes a complaint to the authorities. And the people are pretty careful about who they mess around with."
Jim laughed. "Now I'm learning something."
Conklin had been enjoying the discussion. Now the tone of his voice and his manner changed. "Yeah? Well, school's out for today. Get back to work. Run this batch of stuff down to the post office and bring back what-ever's come in."
Jim spent the entire day working on the mailing routine. And before quitting time that night Conklin told him he could expect five dollars a week more in his pay envelope from then on.
Foster was out of the office for more than a week with a very bad cold. By the time he came back to work Jim was firmly entrenched in the mailing job. And Foster didn't seem to mind. He'd always resented the drudgery of that part of his work.
Another month passed and Jim was working much more closely with Harry Conklin. The nature of the job had changed slowly and subtly. He was no longer merely an office boy. Every day he looked more and more like Conklin's assistant. There were some mumblings of resentment from the other men in the office but Jim ignored them and the men didn't have the courage to complain to Conklin.
After the box numbers Conklin introduced Jim to the procedures for handling the commercial ads. When a company contacted them about placing an ad they were referred to Jim. He was given a desk in the outer office and his own typewriter. Conklin raised him to ninety dollars a week, then. But Jim knew he'd really made the leap when Conklin hired a kid to fill the office boy slot. A few small suggestions on how to streamline and speed up the handling of the remailing without jeopardizing the security brought Jim a ten dollar raise and he was now earning a hundred a week.
Now, a hundred dollars a week is not a lot of money for the average white-collar worker. But when you are single, and when you were earning only sixty-five a week a few months before, a hundred a week is like all the riches of the Orient. And despite the additional money, Jim had managed to keep his expenses at their original level. Now he was banking at least thirty dollars a week and it gave him a good feeling to see the balance in the book increasing at such a steady rate.
Life was wonderful except for one thing. The affair with Doreen had come to an end completely and Jim had not yet found someone to take her place. He found it extremely difficult to meet people in this city. It wasn't just a matter of going out at night and picking up a broad in a bar somewhere. He wanted to have friends and acquaintances.
He was lonely.
It wasn't a new feeling. Jim had been lonely many times before in his life Way back in high school he'd been lonely; especially after the shame of overhearing Kris's betraying confession. He hadn't dated much in high school and he'd made no lasting friends. When he started college, of course, there'd been no time for social relationships.
Only in the Army had he escaped loneliness. And now his Army career was ended. But he did have one real friend in the city-Tommy Guising. And he realized that he hadn't seen Tommy in quite a while.
One evening he called Tommy at home.
"Jim!" Tommy exclaimed. "How the hell are you? I haven't heard from you in months."
"I've been busy working like a fiend."
"What's up? Anything I can do for you?"
"Nothing special. I've got a free evening and I wondered if we could get together."
"Sure. Why not? I'm not busy tonight. Why don't you hustle on over here and we'll see what we can scare up in the way of a little fun. Tell me, you still working for that newspaper for sixty-five a week?"
"Not any more. I'm still working there but I got a promotion. I'm the unofficial advertising manager at a hundred a week now. I'm getting up in the world."
"That's still peanuts," Guising said. "If you went to work for me you could be making a hundred a day. And it would be tax free!"
"Look, this is going to be a social evening," Jim said. "I don't want any more of that propaganda. I appreciate the offers but the answer's still no. And it will always be no."
"All right. All right. I'm sorry I mentioned it. Come on over. I'll expect you in about twenty minutes."
Jim showered, shaved, and dressed in a new suit, new shoes, and new overcoat. His old wardrobe had consisted of one cheap suit, a couple of pairs of beat-up shoes and one threadbare overcoat. It behooved a man earning a hundred dollars a week to dress a little more stylishly. The week before Jim had gone out and spent three hundred dollars on a new wardrobe.
But he took the subway uptown, rather than a cab. Taxis were not quite within his reach as yet. It took him forty minutes instead of twenty to reach Tommy Guising's plush pad.
The two friends shook hands warmly at the door and Guising ushered him inside.
"You look pretty good for a hundred a week," Guising said.
"Aw, come on now," Jim said. "I thought we agreed there'd be none of that."
"Just joking, pal," Guising said, slapping him on the back as he handed him a drink. "Take it easy. Relax."
Jim took a sip of the drink and sank into a chair.
"You had dinner yet?" Tommy asked.
"No."
"Good. I made a phone call. My chick is bringing a friend along for you. We'll grab a bite at one of the fancy restaurants, hit a couple of the clubs, then come back here for some fun and games. Okay?"
"Sounds swell," Jim said.
"I figured we'd eat at The Forum, then over to the Copa to catch the show there, and finish up at the Roundtable with a little of the dancing."
"Hold on," Jim said "It sounds a little rich for my blood."
"What're you worried about? The party's on me. If you won't let me give you a job the least you can do is let me treat vow to a night on the town."
Jim shrugged. "Go ahead. Throw your money away. See if I care."
Tommy laughed. "Money! What good is it if you can't spend it for a good time? I've been working my rear off for the last couple of weeks. I need a little relaxation. This broad I called, she's a show girl. Just finished fifteen weeks in the line at the Sahara in Vegas. A real knockout. And she knows the score. We ought to have a ball."
"I hope her friend turns out all right," Jim said. "I haven't been on a blind date like this in years."
"I guarantee it," Tommy told him. "One thing though."
"What's that?"
"Don't pull a bluenose on me. This is a wild chick. And I'm going to give her all the encouragement she'll take. I'm trying to talk her into coming to work for me."
"What do you need with a show girl?"
"Show giri, slimo siir! I need a beautiful body and this kid's got one of the best. I'm branching out now and I need a couple of models."
"Oh, you mean for your merchandise."
"Yeah."
"Does she know what it's all about?"
"She knows! She knows! She just can't make up her mind. Working for me she can make in one night what she makes now in a week. She says she doesn't mind the action, she just doesn't like the idea of an audience. We'll see what happens tonight. Maybe I can prove to her that an audience makes for bigger kicks."
"You don't have to worry about me," Jim said, gulping the remainder of his drink. He could feel a light tingling of anticipation beginning in the pit of his stomach. Tommy was planning on a four-way orgy, and that might be just what Jim needed to dispel his loneliness.
"What time do we pick them up?"
Guising grinned. "They ought to be here any minute now. This is not high school. Nobody picks up their dates any more. Either you meet them somewhere or they come to your place for a drink before you go out. Sometimes things get started so earlv you never go out at all."
Just then the phone gave a short buzz and Guising picked up the receiver. "Yeah," he said. He listened for a minute.
"Tell them to come on up," he said, then he hung up. Then, to Jim, "That was the doorman. The girls are here."
Jim waited in the living room while Tommy went to the door to admit the girls. He rose to his feet when they entered the room and was rocked back on his heels by their beauty.
Johanna Launay, Tommy's girl, was a redhead. But a redhead like Jim had never seen before. She was tall, probably around five feet ten inches. Her hair was like frozen fire. But she didn't have the fair complexion of most redheads. Her skin was almost olive colored, smooth and blemish free. She wore a white, sequined dress which fit tightly around her hips and upper legs and ended just at her knees. The bodice of the dress was held up by two thin silver straps which went over her shoulders. The material seemed to be gathered just beneath her breasts, pushing them up and out. The cloth swept around the sides to rise to the straps. In front her bosom was almost completely exposed There was a small panel of sheer material set into the bottom of the neckline which served to barely cover her nipples. It was quite evident that she was wearing no bra, and it was just as evident that she was wearing nothing else beneath the dress.
The other girl, the one for Jim, was named Rita Dennis. She was as tall as her friend, and as well built. Rita was wearing a black silk dress cut a little more demurely. There was plenty of cleavage showing, but there was plenty left covered. Where Johanna was a redhead, Rita was a brunette. And that seemed to be the only difference between them. Rita had the same slender figure with the out-thrust buttocks and the high, eager breasts.
Tommy made the introductions and mixed a round of drinks and Jim could see his friend was just as interested in the new girl as he was in Johanna. Jim didn't mind if Tommy wanted to play switch. With these two girls there was no good and bad. They were both perfection. A guy couldn't lose.
They finished their drinks and hopped a taxi to the restaurant. The girls wete suitably impressed by what was purported to be the most expensive restaurant in the world. It lived up to its reputation, too. Jim had a quick glance at the check when they were finished and the dinner for four, with wine and drinks of course, was one hundred and ten dollars. But, Tommy was paying and he didn't seem to mind.
Sammy Davis Jr. was appearing at the Copacabana. When Tommy and Jim and the girls got to the club the line was more than a block long, and the next show was due to start in ten minutes.
The girls were disappointed. With a crowd that big the President of the United States couldn't have gotten a table.
"No sweat," Tommy said, leading them right into the club.
The maitre d' approached them at the door. "Yes sir," he said smoothly, affecting a phony accent.
"Table for four, please," Tommy said.
"I'm afraid we have nothing right now," the man said. "You'll have to wait in line with the others."
"But we have a reservation," Tommy said, showing the man the corner of a fifty dollar bill.
"I'm sorry. Any other time your reservation ticket there would get you the best seat in the house. Tonight we're absolutely jammed. I couldn't give my mother a table tonight. Right now we're already two hundred over the fire department maximum."
The man started to turn away. Tommy caught his arm and leaned over to whisper something in his ear.
The change was remarkable. "Oh, yes sir," the man said. "Why didn't you say that right away? Of course I have a table for you and your party."
He snapped his fingers and two waiters hurried over. He whispered to them, they nodded and hurried off. A moment later Jim could see the two waiters carrying a table from a room in the back. They held it over their heads until they got right up to the edge of the low stage, then set the table directly on the stage while they moved the other tables around. They jammed and crowded the people who were already there until there was room for the small table and four chairs.
"Thank you very much," Tommy said to the maitre d', handing him the fifty dollar bill.
"No trouble at all," the man said. "Now, if you'll follow me please."
He led them to the table and Jim felt the stares and heard the whispers of the people all around them. Nobody knew who Tommy was, but they did know he had to be a big shot to get a table like this one when everything was so crowded.
Once they were seated and the waiter had taken their orders for drinks, Jim leaned over and asked, "What did you say to him to make him change his mind?"
Guising smiled. "I just mentioned a name. My business associates are very large behind the scenes in the entertainment business. Their organization owns a large piece of this club. It always pays to have friends in high places."
"I know one time your friends didn't do you any good."
Tommy laughed. 'Oh, I didn't know these people then. These are all new friends."
The drinks came but the girls were too excited to drink. They stared around them and whispered to each other as they spotted one after another of the top show business personalities. Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton were there with a small party. Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin were there with a very large party.
Jim was impressed by the celebrities, but he was more interested in the gowns on the women. It was as though each woman was trying to show more than the one before. The dresses, some of them, were cut so low there was practically no top at all. It was like a feast of bosoms. And there was one woman there, Jim didn't know who she was, who'd reversed the normal emphasis. Her dress was cut high in front, but in back it dipped all the way down. He could actually see the upper surfaces of the curves of her double-humped rear.
The lights dimmed and the hubbub died down. The band struck up a tune and the show began. For more than an hour the star danced and sang and cavorted about the stage, and it was a marvelous show. He quipped back and forth with friends in the audience, told jokes, played musical instruments. The man had more talent in his body than all the rest of the people in the room combined.
But when the act came to its normal end the audience wouldn't let the star leave. They whistled and cheered and yelled for one encore after another. The star was working and loving every minute of it. He took off his jacket, opened his tie, rolled back his sleeves, and performed some more.
Finally, when the show had run an hour overtime, he begged off with the excuse that there were a lot of fine people waiting outside to see him, too. He left the stage, the band stopped playing, and the lights came up. The waiters scurried around with orders for drinks and with checks and with money.
Jim and Tommy and the girls had had five drinks apiece in the two hours of the show. Tommy paid the check and the four of them joined the outward bound throng. They got their coats from the check room and joined the line waiting for cabs.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Once in a taxi, Tommy said, "Anything else would spoil a show like that. What say we go right back to my place?"
But the girls weren't about to let him get off that easy. They wanted to go dancing first.
The taxi took them to a quiet spot where there was nothing but a band and a bar. They got a table, ordered drinks, and got up to dance.
"I'm afraid I'm not much of a dancer," Jimmy said to Rita. "Especially not with a pro like you."
They danced a few steps and she smiled. "Don't worry about it. You're fine. You'd be surprised how bad some guys are. The more important the man the worse the dancer, and the better the dancer he thinks he is. Some of them step all over my feet. Nobody expects you to get fancy."
Jim returned her smile. "It's nice of you to say that. I'm surprised though, that two professional dancers would want to go dancing when they weren't working. I should think you'd get all the dancing you could stand."
"This is not the same thing. It doesn't count. I enjoy being held in your arms and making small talk like this. And best of all I don't have to think about the next step or the routine or if the director saw me miss that beat."
Jimmy tightened his arm around her and pulled her closer against him. She leaned her willowy body against his, letting her breasts flatten. He moved his lips to the lobe of her ear and nibbled lightly.
She shuddered and pressed harder against him. Encouraged, he blew gently at the pink shell. Her breath whistled between her teeth as she gasped.
"Take it easy," she whispered directly to his ear. "Don't get me started out here in public."
He dropped his hand from the small of her back to the rise of her buttocks and squeezed lightly. She moved against him in response. "Two can play at that game," she told him.
They danced the slow tunes and drank through all the fast ones but the twists. Rita was really something when she twisted. Every man in the place watched her and Johanna.
Finally the girls had enough dancing and agreed it was time to go back to Tommy's apartment. They'd all had quite a number of drinks by then and none of them was completely sober. Jim felt only a warm glow in his stomach and a wonderful euphoria. Tommy was a little more drunk. His tongue was a little thick and he wasn't too steady on his feet. Rita was quietly content and had a kind of peaceful glow. Johanna was loudly and riotously happy. She laughed at the top of her lungs and threw her arms about when she talked. And she seemed to have no reservations about the kind of language she used. Every statement she uttered had some risque connotation and she didn't care who might overhear. If they'd all been sober that might have been embarrassing.
Once back in Tommy's apartment, they turned on the hi-fi, turned down the lights, and continued dancing and drinking. Now there was no need to worry about getting too drunk. If need be they could all sleep where they fell. But no one was going to get that drunk and miss out on all the fun. The best part of the evening still lay ahead of them.
And the dancing, now, was less inhibited than that had been back at the night club. Here in the apartment Rita didn't care how much Jim nibbled at her ear, or where his hands strayed.
Tommy was giving Johanna the same treatment.
He was kissing her ear and the sid-; of her neck. He was pressing against her breasts. And his hands were straying all over her body.
Jim could see them over Rita's shoulder and he saw Tommy open the single zipper at the back of Johanna's dress. The redhead didn't seem to mind at all as the dress loosened and gaped in the back to show the upper slopes of her bare buttocks.
Jim had been right She wasn't wearing anything at all beneath the sequined dress, not even panties.
And Johanna made no protest when Tommy slipped his hand beneath the opening at the back and cupped her buttocks.
Just then Jim felt Rita's hand press against him and he turned his attention back to her.
She grinned as she squeezed him, and said, "Pay attention to me. I'm your date, remember?"
"How could I forget?" he said, putting one hand to her breast and returning her impish grin.
"If you like Johanna so much maybe you'll get a chance at her later. When she gets really bombed she goes for a little switch."
"And how about you?" Jim asked.
"Me? Why should I care? With me anything goes as long as that's kicks. When things start to drag, then is the time for little Rita to move on and look for something new."
While she talked her hand continued to be busy. "Now you're the one who's moving too fast," Jim said.
"Now's the time and this's the place," she answered.
"Let's sit down over there and talk about that."
He led her to the sofa and sat down. Rita dropped onto his knees, curled one arm behind his neck, and turned her face down for a kiss. He pressed his mouth to hers, felt her lips part and her kiss deepen. His own kiss answered as he pressed one hand to her breast and slipped the other beneath the hem of her skirt.
In short order he discovered she wasn't wearing any more clothing than her friend. His hand cavorted about on her smooth warm legs and she shuddered each time he touched her. Their kisses became more demanding, slack-jawed, with nipping teeth.
She nodded her head against him when he tentatively touched the zipper at the back of her dress. He opened the zipper and slid the straps down off her shoulders. The front of her dress fell away, baring her to the waist and he broke the kiss to lean back and stare at her breasts.
They were milk-white cones of flesh with raspberry tips trembling in the air. In the subdued lighting of the room her flesh gleamed dully. The breasts hung taut and full right before his eyes and Rita was watching for his reaction.
"You like?" she asked in a whisper.
"What's not to like?"
"I hoped for more than that," she told him in a pouting tone.
"I was teasing. They're beautiful, really. I've never seen better."
Now she smiled. "I like you to look at them."
"Just look?"
"Why don't you touch them and see what happens?"
He brought his hand up and moved that slowly toward her. She stared at that hand with fixed eyes. He stopped a fraction of an inch away from her body. Her eyes were slitted with anticipation.
He moved the hand again and touched lightly against her. Her breasts were on fire. The warmth seemed to sear his palm. He pressed harder and found the budding nipple.
Her jaws snapped shut and her eyes closed. A low groan escaped her lips and her head lolled back on her neck, pulling into taut relief the cords of her throat.
He squeezed now and her only reaction was another groan. He squeezed harde? and she groaned louder. His hand tightened on her breast until the fingers were digging at the soft warmth. When he let go his handprint reddened on the white skin.
She twisted her shoulders to offer the other breast for the same treatment. She groaned when he touched, groaned again when he squeezed, and grunted as he exerted all his strength.
"Doesn't that hurt?" he asked in a whisper.
"Of course. I love that like that. Squeeze as hard as you can. Pinch me."
He did as she bid him, squeezing, pinching the soft flesh and the thick, erect nipples. No matter how hard he pinched she made no complaint, Across the room he could see that things were progressing more rapidly between Tommy and Johanna. The two of them were sitting side by side, crowded together on one easy chair. The top of the redhead's dress was down around her waist, and the bottom was up around her hips. She was completely nude except for the narrow roll of cloth around her waist.
Tommy was caressing her bosom with one hand and with his mouth. His other hand was busy at her legs, stroking lightly along the muscular columns of ivory.
Tommy's jacket and tie were off and his shirt was open to the waist to bare a hairy chest. Johanna's hand had been toying with the tufts of hair and now dropped to Tommy's belt to work feverishly at the fastening of his trousers.
Jim turned back to the bundle of naked beauty. He leaned his head forward and touched her with his teeth, holding firmly. Rita's arm, behind his neck, tightened, and he was smothered by the rich warmth of her bosom.
He kissed and bit and touched, going from one breast to the other and back again, until she was lost in the grip of her desire.
She was limp and trembling in his arms as he transferred her from his legs to the sofa beside him. She raised her hips, then her legs when he tugged on the dress, allowing him to pull that down and off.
He touched her waist and her legs again, then pushed against her shoulder. She fell sideways and let him stretch her out flat on her back. Jim knelt on the floor beside the sofa and leaned over to press his lips against the sole of her bare foot.
Her entire leg twitched when he touched her. And she continued to twitch and tremble and jerk as his lips brushed along. He kissed the cunning curve of her calf to the magnificent sweep of her upper leg.
She found the back of his head with her hand and guided him with gentle pressures. Both her legs lifted, and now his lips had access to the backs of her legs and they took full advantage of the privilege.
From her legs his lips moved to her hips.
Her body was warm with promise as his kiss glided across the flat planes. She clutched violently at his head as his lips worked.
She wriggled on the sofa and her soft cry became a continuous wail of need. Her hands moved from the back of his head to his cheeks and pulled him to the hills of her breasts. His lips climbed both hills and both peaks, then moved on to her lips.
Her head twisted restlessly from side to side throughout the kiss and her carefully coiffed hair was mussed.
"Oh, lover," she groaned when the kiss was ended. "I want you. I need you so badly. Hurry, darling. Hurry!"
He hurried.
Ignoring the couple across the room, who were too busy with their own pleasures even to notice him, he rose, stripped off his clothes, and tossed them carelessly aside.
When he was naked he helped Rita down from the sofa to the floor. They might have been able to accomplish their purpose on the sofa, but there was more room on the floor and there was certainly no need for them to be crowded and uncomfortable.
"Oh," Rita said softly when her buttocks and shoulder blades settled against the thick carpeting. "This rug tickles me in the most delightful places. This is really going to be fun."
Her arms locked around Jim's body and pulled him to her.
"Oh," she said again when their desires met. "Oh."
She was a tigress, sleek and strong and wild. Her dancer's muscles stood her in good stead. She locked him at her embrace and was able to control his every movement. He felt helpless, tossed by the whirlwind of her desire and pleasure, able only to do what she wished him to do.
The prodigious amount of alcohol he'd drunk slowed his reactions. Her body worked wildly as he slid his hands along her sides until he could slip them over her buttocks and cup and squeeze.
Their faces were cheek to cheek, his lips near her ear and her lips next to his. Despite his roaring, boiling desire and explosive need he remembered her penchant for pain. He fastened his teeth around the lobe of her ear and bit hard.
"Aargh!" she screamed. Her back arched, and all her muscles clenched.
He bit harder, finding a salty trickle of blood, and waves of shudders ran through her. Her body twisted and shook violently and he was helpless in her grip. He felt like a toy with her embrace.
Then his own pleasure reached the critical point.
A hand grenade hit the pit of his stomach. A flame thrower seared his naked body from ankles to neck while his fingers and toes felt as though they were freezing. A rocket launcher fired a full charge in his brain behind his closed eyelids. There was an explosion of sound and sensation. Then ther? was nothingness.
When his senses returned Jim was flat on his back, his arms and legs limply out-flung. Rita was kneeling beside him, still beautifully naked, and she was pressing a cool damp cloth to his brow. Her face held a concerned expression.
"What happened?" she asked when he opened his eyes.
He smiled at her to allay her fears and shrugged his shoulders. "I guess I passed out."
"Do you feel all right?"
"Fine. Wonderful. Don't worry about me just because I fainted. Anybody would have fainted after an experience like that. You were magnificent."
She smiled and settled back on her heels. "You weren't so bad, yourself,' she told him. "I'm no innocent little girl and I should know. Mister, you're one of the best."
"Well, come here and show me how much you appreciate me," he said, patting the floor beside him.
She stretched out and rested her head on the crook of his arm. "You scared me half to death," she told him, kissing his shoulder and letting her hand wander over his body.
"You want to try again and see if we can improve, or you want to relax with a cigarette?" he asked.
"Let's have a cigarette," she said. "After all, there's no hurry. We've got all night."
"We've got all year as far as I'm concerned. I refuse to quit until I drop in my tracks."
She laughed as he rose to find his cigarettes and lighter and an ash tray. He found them, stretched out beside her again, and lit two cigarettes. She took one, inhaled deeply, and exhaled with a loud sigh.
"What happened to Tommy and Johanna?" Jim asked.
"They wanted a little more privacy. They went into the bedroom."
"Hey, that's not fair. We didn't care if they watched us. The least they could do is return the favor."
Rita screwed up her face. "That Johanna is a little bit of an oddball. She'll do the wildest things in the book but she's got this twitch about an audience. The only time she didn't care was once when we had a small apartment together. If I was home alone on the nights she brought a guy back with her she sort of liked that if I peeked in through the door."
"Well, what're we waiting for," Jim said. "Let's go peek through the door."
They rose and padded on bare feet to the door of the bedroom. Jim turned the knob slowly to keep from making an untoward sound and pushed the door open a crack, then a little wider.
Johanna and Tommy were locked in a tight embrace on the center of his tremendous bed. Their bodies were crushed together, their mouths were joined in a fiery kiss.
Their bodies were working at a furious pace. They broke the kiss and screamed as the peak of lust assailed them. When they fell away from one another on the bed Jim pushed the door wide and walked into the room.
He clapped his hands rapidly and shouted, "Encore I Encore!"
Rita followed him in, giggling and applauding, too.
Tommy rolled over on his back, displaying himself completely with no trace of shame. He gave them a weak smile and a quick wave of his hand. Johanna stared at them, frozen in mid-movement.
She was still quite drunk, and now, too, was filled with the lassitude of after pleasure. She looked as though she couldn't make up her mind whether or not she was angry and outraged.
Jim perched on the edge of the bed, maintained his smile, and looked at her. She was even more beautiful naked than she'd been dressed-which is something very few women could claim. Even in complete repose the muscles in her dancer's body could be seen beneath her fine skin.
She managed to regain her composure and said, "How long were you out there?"
"We got here for the grand finale," Jim said.
"Missed most of the good stuff. I wonder if we could impose upon you to put on a repeat performance."
She seemed to relax when he'd said they hadn't seen very much at all. "I don't do this kind of a show," she snapped.
"Why not? If you're all involved in the action you can't really care if there's someone watching. Besides, Rita tells me you didn't mind when she watched alone."
"I just don't do that, that's all," Johanna said sharply. "I guess you could say I just can't put my heart into things when I know I've got an audience. If I know there's someone watching I worry too much about how I look to really enjoy things."
"That's patent nonsense," Jim said. "You're a professional performer. You're supposed to thrive on audiences. Or are you afraid you're just not good enough?"
Johanna gave a shrill laugh. "I'm as good as you'll ever find," she said. "And that takes quite a hunk of man to keep me happy."
"Ah, I think you're all talk."
"If you don't believe me," she said, "ask your friend here how he rates me."
"Keep me out of this," Tommy said quickly, rolling from the bed. "You two started this argument. You finish."
He strolled over to where Rita was standing and tweaked one of the brunette's breasts. "I think this gal and I have some things to talk about in the other room."
"I think we do," she said with a smile, reaching out, grabbing him, and leading him out of the room.
"Close the damned door!" Johanna called after them. I .
An arm appeared around the doorjamb, caught the knob, and pulled the door shut.
"Ah, alone at last," said Jim.
"Yeah, if that will do you any good."
Jim moved up on the bed, propped himself on a pillow against the headboard, and stretched out his legs. "Okay," he said in a more serious tone, "I guess you win. Tommy told me he was trying to talk you into working for him. I was just trying to convince you that that didn't matter who was watching."
Johanna laughed loudly, tossing her red curls. "I guess I didn't explain this to him right, then. We're talking about two different kinds of audiences. Somebody standing in the room and watching bugs me, but not enough to make any real difference. No, my objection to Tommy's proposition has to do with the thousands of guys I'll never know who will be seeing me. You know, some bunch of fat businessmen out in the Midwest will have a smoker and they'll see me in all my glory. Then, later, one of them will go to a convention in a town where I'm appearing and see me in the line. That's all that has to happen."
"You have any idea what the odds are against something like that?"
"They're not as big as you think," Johanna said. "I make one film and maybe a thousand prints get distributed all over the country. One guy buys a print and he shows that to ten or twenty of his friends. Maybe he resells the film to somebody else. That's thirty or forty thousand guys. See what that does to your odds?
"But there's more than that. I've got real talent. Some day I hope to make it big in show business. I couldn't be a star ten minutes if there were stag movies of me around."
"Okay, okay. You've got me convinced. I never thought I'd be stretched out next to a naked and beautiful redhead and talking about the economics of the stag film business."
She laughed and moved closer. "You've got something else on your mind, maybe?"
"Well, there's these," he said, reaching out and touching her breasts. "I've got them on my mind. I'd like to have them some place else."
"Where?"
"Kissed!"
"Both of them? All at once? My, you are a greedy little boy."
He squeezed one breast and his head darted forward to kiss the other. She sighed at the contact of his lips and clutched at the back of his head. He grated his teeth against her.
"Easy, baby," she murmured. "Easy. I'm not like Rita. I like things slow and easy. Especially the second time around."
He heard her and eased up. There was no urgency between them. Each had had a fulfilling experience a short time before. Now they could go slowly and fully savor each touch, each kiss, each caress. In their mutual state of mind they each received as much pleasure from the preliminaries as they hoped to get from the finale.
There was no taking of turns. One didn't give caresses and then lie back to receive them. They worked together. No matter what position he assumed in order to kiss and caress her she always found a way to return the pleasure at the same time, with hands or lips against whatever portion of his anatomy was available.
Their need and desire built slowly. Beginning on such a firm foundation, they were able to reach fantastic heights before the pleasure-giving and pleasure-ending culmination burst upon them.
Johanna was as good as Rita. And she was different. She was calmer and her pleasure seemed to strike deeper. That seemed to rise from her very soul, not merely from nerve endings just beneath the surface of her wonderfully smooth skin.
And she was more subtle in indicating what she wanted done to her. She didn't come right out and demand caresses of a particular nature the way Rita had. Instead, Johanna twisted and turned her body in offering. She suggested with gentle pressures of her hands, with sighs and groans and gasps of delight. Sometimes she even made the necessary indications by first bestowing the corresponding caress and somehow Jim knew that she wanted him to do the same thing for her.
After that first experience together they fell asleep in each other's arms. They slept only a short while and when they awakened again, each was refreshed, with renewed appetite and desire.
The same caresses seemed brand-new as they each sought to give the other the maximum of pleasure. And when they neared the ending Johanna made a suggestion.
"Let's try a variation," she panted.
"I'm game," Jim said, nuzzling against her.
She rolled to her hands and knees, resting her cheek against a pillow. Jim understood immediately.
He rested against her and reached out to cup her breasts. She freed one hand and reached out with that hand to find him and guide him.
For Jim that was a brand-new sensation. He'd heard and read of this variation before, of course, but this was the first time he'd tried this. The sensation was magnificent, he decided a moment after he'd begun. He wasn't sure if that was because of the sheer novelty, or if that really was better that way. But he liked that. He liked that.
CHAPTER NINE
In the next three months Jim Benton grew to like his work more and more. And at the same time he was less and less satisfied with his salary. While it was certainly true that the work he was doing was not what he'd set out to do, it was still interesting and rewarding.
Perhaps it was for the best that his life had taken this particular tack. If he'd moved into some other phase of the newspaper's operation he might have rapidly become disgusted with the work. The writing of trash newspaper stories and articles was certainly less honorable and rewarding than was success as a businessman.
Conklin formally named him advertising manager. But the official title wasn't worth any more money in his pay envelope. And Conklin had been leaving more and more of the remailing service in Jim's capable hands.
The remailing was another thing Jim really enjoyed. Of course, the dull routine was still the same, but somehow it gave him a feeling of power to know that he was the instrument through which many people got together.
Out there in the world were lonely and sick souls whom he helped to bring together so they could share their miseries and their aberrations. At first he'd taken no moral position whatsoever. Then, later, he realized that there was no coercion, no seduction, here.
The people who corresponded and got together were adults. Whatever they did, and he guessed that some of the things were pretty wild, they did by mutual consent. That was no one's business but their own.
In a curious way Tim came to feel a benevolent and paternal interest in his correspondees. This interest evidenced itself in the way in which he read those letters sent in to phony box numbers.
That was the one part of the operation he didn't like. It was patently dishonest to lead people on like that. The poor souls who wrote those letters prayed that they would be answered. Sure, they were only out a dollar by answering the phony ads. But who could calculate the growing disappointment as day after day there was no reply awaiting them in the mailbox.
Most of the letters to the dead box numbers were only slightly less circumspect than the ads themselves. And a surprising number of the letters used the exact wording from the ads. People described themselves in broad and general terms and only hinted at the exact nature of their interests.
A few of the letters were surprisingly frank and Jim was amazed that people would bare themselves so totally to absolute strangers. After all, the repliers had no idea who had placed the ads in the first place. And they all included complete return addresses. Those people were inviting blackmail.
Jim often wondered how many of the real ads were leads for blackmail and other rackets. But, then, anyone stupid enough to write letters like that to complete strangers had only himself to blame. The smart ones said, right on paper, that they would be more frank once they knew the other parties better.
And in every batch of dead letters there was always bound to be one from a real screwball. These were usually frank letters, using four-letter words and sometimes even enclosing unusual photos. Jim wondered what sort of person got his kicks by taking a nude photograph of himself and sending that through the mails to a total stranger.
He was always glad to throw away those letters.
As advertising manager of the newspaper he took it into his head one day to run a little spot check on some of the-more questionable-appearing advertisements. He took an issue of the paper home with him one Friday afternoon and went over it carefully. He already knew which ads weren't worth bothering with.
The ads from concerns with which he had contact were not the ones he was interested in. He wanted the ads that came from out of town, with checks signed by people of whom he'd never heard. You could always tell by the letter, by the ad itself, and by the check, which was a legitimate business and which was some fly-by-night operator. He was interested in the fly-by-nights.
After supper that Friday night he sat down with the paper and made up a list. Two hours later, when the list was complete, he was surprised at the size of it. More than half the commercial advertisements were questionable.
He wasn't making this check with any intention of taking any action. It was simply that he was curious. He went through his list and cut it down. It was out of the question for him to write fifty or sixty letters. He eliminated the ads that had been running for quite a while, the ones that offered only girlie pictures or nudist films, and the ones which were bigger and more elaborate than the minimum size.
This cutting down still left more than twenty addresses on his list and it took most of the week end for him to get the letters written. He was careful to make each letter different and unique and in each one he posed as a prospective purchaser of whatever product or service the advertisement offered.
A good many of the ads required sums of money to be included in the initial letter, such sums ranging from twenty-five cents to five dollars. These fees supposedly covered the cost of mailing and handling catalogues and samples. Of the more than twenty letters, fully one quarter were to be sent to Canadian addresses. Four went to Europe, two to England and one each to France and Germany. And included in the list were three clubs whose ads stated that members were all interested in the unique, unusual, and bizarre.
One week went by before Jim received his first response. This was a catalogue of photo-fiction books designed to appeal strictly to transvestites. Ir the next two days there were no answers. Then, on the third day, there were four. The following day there were five.
The mail began to flood in. Most of the material was far less daring and unusual than the ads had claimed. However, there were two offers of stag films which appeared to be legitimate. In one offer, the letterhead included four illicitly suggestive pictures. In the other there was included a three inch strip of eight millimeter film. By using an eight millimeter splicer-editor Jim was able to view the sample strip of film. The few frames were part of a sequence in which a naked girl was about to climb up onto a bed upon which lay a naked man.
Jim made note of the addresses of those two firms, intending to talk to Tommy Guising about them the next time he saw his friend. The only other responses of any interest came from the clubs.
All three turned out to be correspondence clubs which offered a coding and remailing service much like the one offered by the Gotham Whisper. There were, however, several advantages in the clubs which the newspaper could not offer. All three clubs seemed to operate on a similar pattern.
There was a membership fee which entitled the member to place an ad and have all mail forwarded to him. The fee also covered copies of the club bulletin. And, if a member wished to reply to another member, he got a discount rate for handling.
The advantages of a club over the newspaper were these: It cost a lot less to run an ad in the club bulletin. Instead of five dollars per issue, the fee covered the full cost for the term of membership; for a small additional fee a member could have his picture published along with his advertisement. For attractive people this was a great advantage. And, perhaps most important of all, since this was a strictly private operation with direct mailing only-the bulletins were not sold on newsstands or anywhere else-members were assured of the maximum security.
Jim was even more curious now. He filled out an application and joined one of the clubs. The address was in a small town out in Illinois and he wondered what he was going to get for his five dollars.
While he waited for a further reply he noticed a curious thing. He'd sent out twenty-odd letters, and so far he'd received almost forty replies. There must be a great traffic in mailing lists in this business.
A week went by and when there was no response from the club Jim put it out of his mind. He was out five dollars. It wasn't .such a big deal.
In the office things were building toward a clash between Jim and Conklin. The old man was giving Jim more and more responsibility but he wasn't willing to give him any more money. The way it. was now Jim was practically running the paper. He handled all the advertising and was in complete charge of the remailing service.
Jim was dissatisfied about other things, too. For a while after that double date with Tommy Guising and the two show girls, and felt no loneliness. He'd seen Johanna several times after that-always with the most delightful results. And when she'd taken an out of town job he'd managed to get a few dates with Rita with equally satisfying results.
But then Rita had gone out of town, too, and he was back where he'd started from. For some unexplainable reason he didn't want to meet any more girls through Tommy, either. As Guising became deeper and deeper involved in his racket Jim came to like him less and less. There had always been an amusing and harmless charm about Tommy's dealings and manipulations. That charm was gone now, leaving behind only a coarseness and a toughness that Jim didn't like.
Yet he was frustrated and disturbed that after nearly a year in New York he had no social contacts. Female flesh was always available for someone who only required an evening's release, but for Jim that was too much like buying your groceries by the pound. He wanted more than that.
Friends, social contacts, meant more than just women and bed. There was no cameraderie with men, either. There was no one in the entire city with whom Jim could just sit and talk about anything under the sun. He missed an association with a family, something he'd had little of in his life. He wanted to be able to go to a friend's home for dinner, to play with the friend's children and joke with his wife.
Jim was beginning to feel the need for substance, for marriage and roots, though right then he would have settled for only friendship.
He remembered that the writing of the letters had not been an unpleasant way to spend the week end. The contact, even by letter, with other human beings, even for those doubtful purposes, had given him a good feeling.
So, one afternoon he went through the remailing files and picked out several names. When he got home that evening he sat down and wrote six letters. All were to people in the metropolitan area. Four of the letters went to couples and the other two went to single women advertisers.
In each letter he described himself truthfully and stated that he felt his interests were similar to those of the advertisers. He was polite, circumspect, and discreet. He wrote the letters, he told himself, because he was curious to know the kind of people who ran ads in newspapers.
While he was waiting for replies he received his membership in the club. He read the bulletin with interest, amazed to discover that the club had more than three thousand members. There were several ads which interested him but he wanted to hold off taking any action until he had gotten some sort of response from the first six letters. If he got no action, as long as he'd already paid for membership he just might run an ad in the club bulletin. He had nothing to lose.
At the end of another month Jim had received only one reply from the six original letters. But that one was promising. It was from a couple named Larry and Josie Brooks. They were a fairly young couple. He was twenty-nine and she was twenty-five. Larry was an engineer with a big company. They had no children and lived in Westchester County.
In their letter they told Jim they had a small circle of select friends and were interested in adding a few people to the group. And, as there were already a couple of Josie's single girl friends in the group, a couple of single men were needed.
The letter suggested that Larry and Jim meet one evening in the city and look one another over. Neither side would be committed and no decisions had to be reached immediately.
The Brooks's and their friends got together about once every two weeks. They were modern, uninhibited, free-thinking people who were interested in photography, nudism, and artistic things.
There was a phone number at the bottom of the letter and a postscript requesting Jim to call one evening to set up an appointment for the meeting. Or, if he didn't want to move that quickly he might wish to correspond further and perhaps exchange photos.
Jim was eager to meet these people and he phoned the same evening he received the letter. A woman answered. Jim introduced himself and asked for Larry Brooks.
"Oh," the woman said. "You're the fellow we wrote to. I'm Josie Brooks."
"How do you do."
"I'm sorry," she said. "Larry isn't home right now and I don't expect him until quite late tonight. Are there any questions you have that I could answer over the phone?"
"Well, I don't know. Your letter was pretty general. I'm not one hundred oer cent sure I understand what you mean when you state your interests."
"Oh! I guess you'd better talk to Larry about that. And that's much easier in person."
"I understand," Jim said. "Look, let me give you my phone number. Your husband can call me at that number any time up to midnight tonight and any time after five tomorrow afternoon."
"I think that would be best," the woman said. She left the phone for a moment to get a pencil, then took down the phone number. "Thank you very much for calling, Mr. Benton. Good night."
"Good night."
Jim was a little disappointed. He'd hoped to set up a meeting. He settled down for the evening with a paperback novel and read until nine o'clock when he was disturbed by the ringing of the telephone.
"Hello," he said when he picked up the receiver. "Hi, this is Larry Brooks."
"Oh, hello. I didn't expect to hear from you tonight."
"I just called home and Josie told me you'd called. She gave me the phone number. Since it was still early I decided not to wait until tomorrow."
"Good. I'm very anxious to meet you."
"Your letter gave us a pretty complete description," Brooks said, "but there if one thing I'd like to know."
"What's that?"
"What kind of work do you do?"
"I'm advertising manager for a ... uh ... for a sales corporation." Jim didn't want to tell the other man he worked for the newspaper. It might make him suspicious with no real cause. "I'll tell you the name of my company if you insist," Jim went on, "but I'd rather not, if you don't mind."
"No. Not at all. I understand A man has to be very careful. Look, when can we get together?"
"You name it. I'm free most every evening."
"Well then, how about tomorrow night?"
"Fine with me."
They arranged to meet for dinner at a midtown restaurant at six o'clock.
"I guess you're wondering why I asked about the kind of work you do," Brooks said when the arrangements had been completed "I was trying to find out if you're a college man. You know, we're much more likely to be compatible with one another if our backgrounds are similar."
"I did go to college but I never graduated," Jim confessed. "I had two years before I went into the service."
"That's what I wanted to know. It's fine. The degree doesn't really mean anything. Well, my train is pulling out in a couple of minutes. I'll see you tomorrow night."
Jim spent a restless night and was increasingly on edge as the next day wore on. After work he went home, showered, shaved, and changed into his best suit for the meeting.
At ten minutes after six he entered the restaurant. He gave Brooks's name to the waiter and followed the man to a table. Brooks was already there. He rose, they shook hands, and they both sat down. Jim ordered a cocktail and the waiter went away.
Brooks was a distinguished looking man, prematurely gray at the temples, tall, well-built, and with a rugged countenance. The black-framed glasses he wore could not disguise a nose that had been broken. He was a college man, but not any Ivy Leaguer. The Midwest, Jim guessed. And the twisted nose was probably a football injury.
Jim felt himself under a similar scrutiny and hoped he was making a proper impression. Brooks broke the silence.
"You're younger than we imagined," he said.
"I wrote my age in the letter."
"I know. But somehow you look younger than your letter sounded."
"Is that good or bad?"
Brooks laughed and both men relaxed. "I'll tell you a secret," he said. "I'm a little nervous, too. Tell me a little more about yourself."
"There's not much to tell," Jim said, taking the first sip of his drink. "When I left college I went into the Army for three years And when I got out of the Army I came to New York and got a job. I've been here a little more than a year now but I haven't made any real friends. I saw your ad. I wrote to you. And here we are."
"I know what you mean about friends," Brooks said. "That's the way Josie and I met most of the people in our little group. We were strangers here in New York and couldn't seem to get in with a crowd. We answered an ad, too. Since then, of course, we've had some friends move to New York and join the group."
The conversation was interrupted when the waiter came to take their dinner orders and they didn't pick it up again until the mea! was served. In the interim Brooks suggested a second round of cocktails but Jim begged off.
"I'm not much of a drinker," he said.
"Well, neither are we."
Once they were safe from interruptions by the waiter they began to talk again.
"Josie told me you had some question about our interests."
"Well, yes. The things you mentioned were pretty general. Could you be more explicit?"
"I'll try. Perhaps it would make things clearer if I made a few general statements first."
"All right."
"Good. To begin with, we're nonconformists. We have values and opinions different from most people. For instance, we don't believe people can grow and mature if they limit their relationships, physical and intellectual, only to their marriage partners. My wife and I love each other and the freedom we have keeps that love going."
"I understand," Jim said.
"Fine. Now to specifics. The people in our group are nudists. But not the nature camp, sun worshipping kind of nudists. We just like to take our clothes off with other people. And we like to take pictures of one another when we're undressed. We have almost a thousand feet of movie film and two full photo albums. Does anything so far shock you?"
"Not at all."
"Good. Basically, I guess, you could say we're hedonists. We believe in pleasure-in the pursuit of pleasure and in the enjoyment of pleasure. There's no petty, middle-class morality, no inhibitions. We get together and we have good times and that's about all there is to it. There's not much more I can tell you."
"How many people are there in your group?" Jim asked.
"About fifteen or so. We're very informal. There're no rituals, no set ways of organizing things. Not everyone shows up at every get-together. We just meet and let things happen. Now, what do you think?'"
"I'm very interested," Jim said frankly. "I'd like to join your group. And how do I measure up?"
"Oh, I made up my mind about that the minute I saw you. I liked you right off. You'll fit right into our group."
"Whew! That's a relief," Jim said, leaning back in his chair.
Brooks returned his smile. "Have you ever been a member of a group like ours before?"
Jim shook his head. "No Why?'"
"Well, sometimes it takes a little getting used to. If you like, I can arrange for a small party with only a few other people before you meet the entire group."
"You must be reading my mind," Jim said.
"I was the same way. Neither Josie nor I slept for two nights before our first party. I know what that can be like. I'll tell you what. I want to make a phone call. When the waiter comes by order me a cup of coffee."
Brooks left the table. Jim caught the waiter as he hurried by and ordered two coffees. When Brooks returned to the table Jim had already finished his coffee and was smoking a cigarette. Brooks was smiling.
"Everything's all set," he said.
"What's all set?"
"I just called Josie and told her I was bringing you home with me. She's going to make a few phone calls and get a couple of people to come over."
"Tonight!"
"Sure, Why not? You can take the train in with me in the morning. It gets you into town by a quarter of nine. We can be at my house by seven-thirty or a quarter of eight. We'll have the whole evening ahead of us."
Jim shrugged. "As you said, why not!"
Brooks insisted on paying for the dinner and also insisted that Jim call him Larry. They caught a cab to the railroad station and just managed to catch an outbound train.
CHAPTER TEN
When they were comfortably seated in the smoking car Larry Brooks noticed that Jim was a little nervous.
"Relax," he said. "Don't think about this too much. Once you get started, the water's fine. Think about something else. What branch of service were you in?"
The two men swapped Army stories for the remainder of the journey, but Jim's nervousness returned when they got off the train. Larry's car was parked in the station parking lot and they drove directly to the house.
It was a big colonial on a two acre lot on a country lane. The nearest neighbor was half a mile away. The house was in the sixty thousand dollar category and Jim was suitably impressed. Once in the house Larry whistled loudly.
"That you, Larry?" yelled a woman from another part of the house.
"Yes. Me, and Jim Benton."
"Nobody else?"
"No. We're alone."
"I'll be down in a minute. There's ice out in case you want drinks."
Larry took Jim's coat and suit jacket and insisted he remove his tie and roll up his sleeves. Then the two men went into the den where there was a fire going in the fireplace. Larry mixed drinks and there were several minutes of nervous small talk.
Then Josie came into the room and Jim almost fell over on his face. Josie Brooks was a pretty, petite, five foot blonde. She wore only a touch of lipstick and her hair hung down to her shoulders.
And she was nude, completely nude.
Larry laughed when he saw Jim's reaction. Josie laughed, too.
"I guess I forgot to tell you about Josie," Larry said. "We've been married six and a half years and I've become completely accustomed to her antics."
"But what about ... uh ... don't you ... uh . .
Josie and Larry laughed again.
"Don't look so shocked," Larry said. "I'm not jealous of you looking a; josie. We're still very much in love."
This was a little more than Jim could swallow easily. Things were happening just a bit too quickly for him.
Josie was completely unconcerned about her nakedness and continued as though she were fully dressed. She looked Jim over carefully, and said, "I approve. But then, Larry always did have good judgment. Why don't you sit down before you fall down."
Jim dropped into an easy chair
"Who's coming over?" Larry asked.
"Bill and Meg lackson, and Lucy Cattledge. I thought the six of us would be enough."
Larry nodded his agreement. He walked across the room and came back with two photo albums which he handed to Jim. "These are the albums I told you about. You look through them while I go upstairs and get out of these clothes."
"Uh ... shouldn't I ... well ... uh ... undress ... too?"
"If you want to, sure. But you don't have to. If you feel like doing so later on you can always shuck down. This will probably be easier for you if you keep your clothes on for a white."
Larry went out of the room and Jim opened the first album. The pages were filled with snapshots and in all the pictures everybody was nude. But that was all there was to them. They were simply pictures of naked people having a party. There were group shots and single shots and everybody was smiling for the camera. In none of the pictures did anyone show the slightest sign of sensual excitement.
That was a family album like any other in the world, except that all the people were naked.
Josie walked over and perched on the arm of Jim's chair. Her hip nudged his shoulder and her breast was only inches from his cheek. She leaned over to look at the album with him, chattering blithely away, naming the people in the pictures for him and telling little anecdotes about them.
One thing Jim noticed was that most of the crowd appeared to be older. Except for the Brookses and one or two of the other couples they all seemed to be well past forty.
"These weren't exactly the kinds of pictures I was expecting," Jim said when he turned the last page of the album.
"Oh, those are in the next one," Josie told him, taking the first album away and setting that aside.
He opened the second album. Here the pictures showed lustful, excited, passionate people. The first few pages were filled with snapshots of individuals only. Then there were pictures of couples and groups engaged in various forms of making love. A few of the pictures showed two women involved with one another.
Josie pointed herself out in various of the pictures. She was quite an attractive woman, and she appeared in more of the photographs than any other single individual. The album was a photographic record of her performing every imaginable deer) with man or woman. There was one shot of her with a naked man that particularly interested Tim. In the back of his mind he wondered if she would do that for him.
When Jim was through with the second album Josie put that aside and slid down, from the arm of the chair to his lap. She shifted around for a minute and grinned at him.
"I never like to wait too long to get started," she said.
Jim blushed, which brought gales of laughter from her.
Larry came back into the room just then and Jim felt a moment's panic. But Larry took no special notice of his wife's position. Larry was wearing only a light robe, which was belted loosely at the waist. And he carried still another robe and a pair of slippers in his hands.
"These are for you," he said, setting them to one side. "For later on. We always like to keep robes around in case the doorbell should ring."
And right then the doorbell did ring. Josie slipped from Jim's lap and donned her robe while Larry went to answer the door. H:; came back in a few minutes, followed by two women and a man, and made the introductions.
Meg Jackson was medium height and full-figured. She was on the wrong side of forty and she made no effort to hide her graying hair. Her husband, Bill, was close to fifty, short, and slim, and apparently in good physical condition.
Lucy Cattledge was around thirty-five. She was one of those tall, slender matron types who appear to grow more attractive with age. She was a brunette, with small breasts and hips, and an angular, patrician face.
The three newcomer? all wore overcoats, which they removed to reveal themselves nude. They tossed their coats to one side and Josie and Larry Brooks removed their robes.
Jim's senses reeled at the shock of so much nonchalant nakedness. He rose from his chair as the newcomers approached to shake his hand and smile at him. Larry took Bill Jackson over to the corner and engaged him in quiet conversation. The three nude women gathered around Jim.
"I see you've been looking at our albums," Meg Jackson said, pointing.
He blushed. The three women roared loudly with laughter.
"I like him," Lucy Cattledge said to the other women, speaking as though Jim weren't there. "Who's going to get him first?"
"I'll take him," Meg Jackson quickly offered.
"No, no," Josie howled. "I saw him first. And I'm the hostess."
"That's not fair," Meg complained. "You always seem to get the new ones first. You're a positive pig about that."
"I think I ought to get him," Lucy put in quietly. "I had to miss the last two meetings. I need him worse than either of you."
The other two agreed and Jim felt like he'd been auctioned off on a slave block. Meg and Josie went over to join their husbands Lucy sat down on the sofa and patted a place beside her
"Sit down," she said softly.
Jim moved like an automaton and dropped down beside her. Immediately she wrapped her arms about his neck and drew him close for a deep, thrilling kiss. When he began to respond she dropped one arm from about his neck and pressed that against him.
The warmth of her naked body burned through the layers of his clothing. He abandoned himself to the sensations of pleasure, touching her and kissing her while her skillful fingers fumbled with the fastenings of his shirt and trousers.
She had him completely bared by the time the kiss was ended and he no longer felt either shame or embarrassment. This sort of thing seemed to be quite normal around here and be decided to enjoy the gathering.
When he looked across the room Jim saw that the other four people had paired off. Larry Brooks and Meg Jackson were sitting together on an easy chair. Josie and Bill were lying on the floor before the roaring fire. Larry had his face buried against Meg's massive breasts. Bill was kissing Josie.
Lucy rose from the sofa and pulled Jim up to help him out of his clothes. Once he was naked they sat down again and embraced. Lucy's hands moved continually as they kissed. She kneaded his shoulders, stroked her palms along his sides, and trailed her nails across his hips.
Jim moved his mouth from her lips to the side of her neck. He kissed down to her shoulder and around to the swell of her bosom. He touched one nipple and then the other and suddenly the whole thing was too much for him.
The presence of the other people, the pictures, Lucy's caresses, all worked their magic on him. Just when they'd only begun he was ready with roaring, urgent desire.
Lucy gasped as he stretched her out and threw himself at her, but she wasn't too surprised to help him. Her body shifted and her arms locked tightly around him.
There was a roaring in his ears and a demanding pulse throbbed in the hollow of his neck. Lucy found that pulse as their bodies moved together. She fastened her lips on his neck.
Jim was beyond mere pleasure as he worked away. His love-making was like an act of vengeance for the discomfort they'd all made him feel earlier. He was brutal and vicious and strong.
He made not the slightest attempt to time his own pleasure to hers. Yet, when the shuddering peaks of ecstasy washed over him he felt her quiver with completion.
Before that long and wonderful night was over Jim had sampled each of the women alone once. And once he even made love to Josie and Lucy at the same time. Despite her age, Meg Jackson was an excellent partner She didn't have the most attractive body in the world but she'd reached a skill level, from years of experience, which was unsurprised in Jim's experience. There was about her love-making a calm acceptance which was somehow just as exciting as the eagerness of either of the younger women.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Two things happened which completely changed Jim Benton's life and the course of his development. Both occurrences were of equal strength and importance, but. each was in a separate sphere.
In his private life the important occurrence was the joining of the Westchester club-although Jim didn't think of that as a club now. Four days after that first night he met most of the other members of the group. By then, of course, he'd completely acclimated himself to their odd ways and no longer had the slightest compunction about appearing nude and making love before relative strangers. And, naturally, after one session with all the members none of them were strangers any longer.
Jim found that he limited his social contacts only to group members. At first he was like a fiend. He couldn't get enough. He couldn't do enough wild things. If someone jokingly suggested trying to make love standing on a hammock Jim was the one to make the actual attempt. Once his suggestion was that they all blindfold themselves and turn out the lights in the room. The lights remained off throughout the entire evening and no one was allowed to ask the name of the person whom he found in the dark.
Once the initial period passed, however, Jim calmed down. Spring and sumrnei melted away to autumn and his life was wonderful Several evenings each week, and every week end, Jim would go up to Westchester and join his friends. They were like one great big family and he was a member. Bed was no longer the prime motive. Sometimes members spent week ends together doing nothing more than talking and reading and sunbathing.
That was marvelous to be able to put a book aside, walk over to the nearest woman, smile at her, and make love with her on the spot. During the summer those members with children all sent their kids away to summer camp, so there was no worry in that department. One of the members had a fifty foot cabin cruiser and the group went cruising several week ends. Once they were out of sight of land they stripped away their clothing and enjoyed themselves.
Jim felt he had friends for the first time in his life. He was relaxed and comfortable in their homes and on their beds. Their children called him Uncle Jim. He knew them, and in turn was known by them, more intimately then most human beings ever know one another. Many husbands and wives never reach the state of intimacy that Jim had with every member of the group.
And it no longer became necessary for the group to have regular meetings as far as he was concerned. If he was overtaken by a sudden surge of desire all he had to do was make a phone call before he went to a member's house. Of course, this worked two ways. More than once his phone had rung late in the evening to warn him that a couple of the girls were on their way over. That always seemed to happen when two or three of them came into town to spend an evening at the theater. After the performance one or two of them would arrive at his place for some loving. And he gave willingly, even eagerly.
For the first time in his life he was almost content. The only area of complaint in his life was his job. He liked the work but the salary was atrocious. A man with his responsibilities should be earning a minimum of ten thousand a year and he was only earning five.
In this area was the second great occurrence. Actually, it was a combination of several small things happening at once. Cleaning up the apartment one day he ran across the material he'd received from the correspondence club He laughed to himself as he prepared to throw the papers away, then caught himself.
Once, long ago, an idea had been working in the back of his mind. Now that idea solidified and sprang to his consciousness. He spent the rest of the night shaping and altering the idea and the next day he was ready to put it into action.
The first step was to make a list of all the names in the remaining file at the office. Because he had to do it without anyone finding out, and because he wanted the list to include all advertiser'-for the past three years, both active and inactive, the project took more than three weeks.
During that period Jim also put to use his after hours time. He was so busy, in fact, that he had no time for his friends and several of them called to see if he was all right. He wrote many letters and made many phone calls and at the end of a month he was ready. His familiarity with printing and production costs had stood him in good stead.
On the day he was ready. Jim strolled into Harry Conklin's office, sat down, lit a cigarette, and leaned back in his chair.
"It's time we had a little talk," he told Conklin.
"What about?" the older man asked.
"About me and about more money."
"What!"
"Don't start with the shouting," Jim said quietly but firmly. "Let me finish first. In the last six months you've given me more responsiblity until now I'm almost running the whole show here."
"I'm still the boss," Conklin snapped.
"Hear me out! I'm going to make you one proposition and you have five minutes to give me a yes or no answer. Now, the responsibility I have and the kind of work I'm doing is worth at least ten thousand a year. That's what I want, and I want it in a five year contract."
Conklin was so enraged he couldn't speak for a moment. His face reddened and his cheeks puffed out and he bit right through the end of his cigar.
"You're crazy, you know that?" Conklin said when he had himself under control once again. "Out of a clear blue sky you walk in here and demand I double your salary and give you a contract to boot. Boy, you need a good psychiatrist."
"I'm not going to let you rant and rave and call me names," Jim said. "It's very simple. You say yes and I go back to work. You say no and I walk out of here."
"Then get out!" Conklin screamed suddenly. "I got along fine before you came along. You think you're such a big man all of a sudden? Who needs you? Go on, get out of here before they come for you with the nets and the straight jacket. You think you find hundred dollar a week jobs laying in the streets? Who in hell do you think you are, you can come in here and make demands like this?"
Jim refused to let himself become excited. He didn't say another word He nodded at Conklin, rose from his chair, and walked out of the office, making sure to leave the office door open.
The other employees had heard the shouting and looked at him as he made his way to his desk. He didn't say anything to any of them but only smiled as he began to remove his personal things from the desk drawers and pile them on top.
Conklin came to the doorway of his office and continued to scream at Jim. Jim worked at a slow and deliberate pace. When be had his desk cleaned out he stuffed the things into an attache case, put on his coat and hat, and walked out of the office without a word to anyone.
There was a moment's uncertainty when he reached the street, but he took a deep breath, squared his shoulders, and took a taxi back to his apartment. Secretly, he realized, he'd been hoping Conklin would turn down his request. He had all the necessary confidence that his plan would succeed.
His idea, his plan, was a relatively simple one. He was going to organize a correspondence club. In the preceding month he'd researched the project thoroughly. The initial capital required was minimal, about a hundred dollars for office equipment and supplies, the rental fee for a box at the oost office, a couple of hundred dollars for printing and mailing, another hundred and fifty to two hundred dollars for advertising, and enough money to cover his personal expenses while he waited for the thing to get rolling. Now, for the first time, he was glad he'd never moved out of the cheap apartment. And if things were a little slow in the beginning he felt sure he could borrow a little money from Brooks, or Jackson, or one of the others.
His opening campaign was two-fold. There would be advertising in the cheaper men's magazines and in the newspapers like the Gotham Whisper. These ads would offer free information and particulars to anyone interested enough to write, so he didn't expect any money immediately.
The other part of his plan concerned the three thousand names and addresses he'd stolen from Harry Conklin's files. He made up a form letter to all those people offering them charter membership in the organization at only two dollars per individual or three-fifty per couple. And he emphasized the advantages of the club over the newspaper.
The form letter was finished by early afternoon and Jim took it out to a printer to have four thousand copies made. On his way to the printer's shop he stopped at the post office and rented a box for three months. Then he went back to the apartment and worked on the several advertisments.
He'd done his research well and felt sure he could corner a big part of the correspondence market. His membership was cheaper, his remailing charges were only fifty cents a letter instead of a dollar, and he planned to issue a bulletin once a month instead of every two months, or quarterly, the way the other clubs did.
He finished the advertisements that evening, and the next day placed them with the various publications. Now there was nothing to do but wait. The ads wouldn't appear for a week and it would take at least that long for there to be any responses to his letters. After finishing with the advertising he picked up the material at the printer's and spent two days folding the letters and addressing envelopes.
When everything was in the mail, he locked up the apartment and went up to spend a few days with Larry and Josie Brooks.
CHAPTER TWELVE
He spent four days with the Brookses then went back into town to see if any mail had come in to the post office box. There were only three letters, all of them from people in the metropolitan area, but it was heartening to see that all three letters contained membership fees.
Jim sent out acknowledgements promising to get a copy of the bulletin to them as soon as possible. Of course, he couldn't put out a bulletin until the club had at least a hundred members. There was no more mail in the next two days and Jim used the time to set up a filing and indexing system.
Each member would be issued a code number consisting of one letter and four numbers. The letter of the alphabet would indicate the member's area of special interest. There were five individual categories and five couple categories. The first two numbers would indicate the month of the year they took out their membership, and the remaining numbers would indicate a specific member. If, for instance, a member joined during any of the first nine months of the year the second digit in the number would be zero, the first digit indicating the month and the last two being the identifying numbers. If he ran out of digits in any one period, Jim could always hyphenate and add suffix letters and number.
When that work was completed he went back to Westchester to spend the week end. At that time he broke the news of his venture to his friends. They were enthusiastic and happy for him and all of them wished him success.
The following Monday there were only a few letters waiting for Jim. But by the end of the week the tide of mail was building. In short order Jim had accumulated two hundred members for his club and had sent out a bulletin.
The two hundred club members broke down to one hundred and thirty-five singles and sixty-five couples. All of them had come from the stolen mailing list and Jim's gross take was four hundred and ninety seven dollars and fifty cents. After printing and mailing he had a net profit of three hundred and eighty-three dollars.
And this was only the beginning! There would be much more money when the responses to the ads started to come in. Those people would not be offered charter membership. It would cost them five dollars apiece to join.
Jim estimated he would require a minimum of six thousand members to make any real money once the club was going. For, once he was established, the main source of income would be the remailing fees. Fifteen hundred letters a month at fifty cents each was only seven hundred and fifty dollars. Printing, advertising, and mailing costs would eat up two hundred and fifty of that, leaving ony five hundred a month for profit. And with that many people he would have to hire office help. He wouldn't be able to do all the work himself. Salaries would cut his profit down to nothing. It looked like the only way the club could exist was by always attracting new members.
Jim estimated that it would cost approximately a dollar and a half per member for a full year of bulletins. This figure included all overhead, printing, mailing, post office box rental, rent on the apartment, and even a prospective salary for one typist. Viewed in that light, of course, the picture was much better. A portion of the initial membership fee was profit, and all of the remailing charges were profit, too.
Jim was pleased with himself. It looked like he just might be well on his way to his first million. He could kick himself whenever he thought about all the time he'd wasted working for Conklin at starvation wages. Then he realized the time hadn't been wasted at all. He'd gained invaluable experience in that office, and without the list of names he never would have been able to get his club started.
Hiring a secretary was a tricky thing. Jim needed someone he could trust completely to maintain the confidence of the files. But the work piled up on him before he could find a girl and he was forced to go to his friends for help.
Josie and Meg helped him out for a couple of weeks and then Lucy Cattledge found out about it. She had been working as a librarian in one of the Westchester towns. She could type. She had a good business head. She was perfect for the job.
Jim hired her at a hundred and fifty dollars a week, nearly double her librarian's salary and she was worth every penny of it. After only three days on the job Lucy made several suggestions which smoothed out the entire operation.
With the two of them working it wasn't very bad at all. For two and a half weeks out of the month all they had to do was handle the remailing service and correspondence with new and prospective members. For the other week and a half they were busy putting out the bulletin.
Inside of three months business was booming. He'd been contacted by several companies who wanted him to make sales pitches to his members. It was all the usual stuff, the girlie pictures, the transvestite and flagellant publications, the film companies.
Jim screened each offer carefully, accepting some but rejecting most. One innovation he did make was the offering of discreet and confidential photo finishing and film printing for those people who liked to take pictures and movies but had no way of doing their own processing. That one sideline proved a gold mine all in itself. Jim had had no idea that there were so many amateur photographers in the world.
He charged a substantial fee and the film lab worked at cut-rate prices because they made copies of the better films and pictures and put them into the commerical market. And Jim improved that angle when he switched his business to Tommy Guising. Guising would do the processing and finishing free, just to have the opportunity to make copies.
But the friendship between the two men was dead now. Their only relationship was through their mutual business interests.
In the spring Jim stopped racing around long enough to sit back and take stock of his progress. His bank balance was a comfortable sixty-three thousand dollars, and the club had sold more than twelve thousand memberships. Since its inception the club had remailed almost twenty thousand letters.
The figures were staggering!
At this rate, and with minimal continued expansion, Jim would have made his fortune in less than three years. Life was now a soaring sphere of joy. Jim had business success and the personal relationships he'd always wanted. He had a good apartment now, an expensive sports car, clothes, money. Tt was all more than he'd ever dreamed of. If things continued on like this he intended to move out of town, buy himself a house, hire a couple of servants. Being in business for yourself opened up a lot of tax advantages. Almost all his expenses could be written off as business costs. If the monthly net picked up any more he intended to incorporate.
Summer came and it was the best time of the year for the Westchester group. Their kids were away, the days were long and warm. The group's activities always stepped up in the summer.
The group made plans for a long Fourth of July week end. Jim and Lucy closed the office on Thursday afternoon. They wouldn't come back again until Tuesday morning.
The bash was to be held at George Carpenter's place. Carpenter was far and away the wealthiest man in the group. He was the one who owned the fifty foot cabin cruiser. He also owned a two hundred acre property upstate. The land was completely wooded and the main house was hidden from the road. There was a stream running through the property which Carpenter had had damned to make a swimming pond.
By Thursday evening the group had assembled. They were larger now, having added six additional couples since Jim had joined. In all there were approximately thirty of them.
The house was big but it didn't have fifteen bedrooms. But that didn't matter. No one intended to sleep unless they were physically exhausted. And with this group there was no requirement for privacy. Rooms could be shared-even beds. That was not at all unusual for two couples to be making love on the same bed at the same time.
Carpenter had a movie projector and screen and the evening's festivities began with a review of all the group's films. That was like watching ordinary home movies. There was chatter and conversation. People howled with laughter when they saw themselves and their friends. There were catcalls and wisecracks and much hilarity.
This was the first chance Jim had had to see himself on the screen. The first few moments were disturbing. At first he hadn't even recognized himself and then he'd been embarrassed. But those feelings passed quickly and he joined in the general commentary.
By the time the showing was finished several couples were already engaged in love-making. When the lights came on the others gathered around the performers urging them on and offering advice on techniques.
As time passed more and more people paired off. At these extended parties the initial affairs always involved only couples. Later on, toward the end, there would be threesomes and foursomes and more.
There were a couple of the new women whom Jim had yet to sample. He made sure he paired off with one of them. She was a short, busty blonde with curves that just went on curving forever.
Jim got her into a corner, pressed against her, and necked with her for a while. She returned all his kisses and caresses. She was a lively thing, with pneumatic hips and the softest skin imaginable.
After a while Jim took her hand and led her out of the house into the warm darkness of the night.
"Where are we going?" she asked.
"I thought you might like to take a swim in the moonlight," he told her.
"Oh," she squealed. "That sounds like fun. I haven't been skinny dipping since I was. in high school."
They went to the pond, dived in, and cavorted about like a pair of healthy young seals. They chased one another through the moonlit water, splashing, teasing, and ducking.
Then, when they'd had enough sport, Jim took her by the hand, led her to the shallow edge of the pond, and sat her down. The water was just deep enough to reach to their hips when they were sitting and shoaled sharply to the shore a foot or so behind them.
Jim pushed her back and when she was lying down the water came only to her throat. Her breasts were thrust up into the air and the water only covered her from the hips down.
They kissed and she guided his head to her breasts. He tortured the water-slick flesh as he kissed her breasts. All the time his hands were busy beneath the water, playing about. Her hands were equally busy.
When Jim rolled to her he discovered that the water added a new dimension to the pleasure of love-making. That impeded sensation enough so he could maintain full control at all times Under those circumstances he could have made love te the woman all night long if he wished without ever having to finish.
The mutual ending, however, was swift, devastating, and thoroughly satisfying. They lay together for a while afterward, languishing in the lassitude of after pleasure, then rose and went back to join the party.
There were more women after that. And drinks. And Jim gave himself up totally to the domination of his senses. When he was incapable of making active love he took his pleasure from the soft, undemanding caresses traded with, one of the women.
He slept for a rime, woke, made love some more, and slept again. Day came, then night, and day again. And all was sheer heaven.
By Sunday night the tone of the party had changed from individual participation to group participation. That began when Josie Brooks and one of the newer women members decided to put on a Lesbian show for the others.
They performed in the middle of the living room with the others circled around them. The other woman was tall and dark, offering perfect contrast to Josie's petite blondeness.
They began standing, facing one another. They embraced, kissed passionately, and sank slowly to the floor. Josie was the active partner during the preliminaries. She initiated the kisses and caresses. Toward the end, though, they were both kissing and caressing at the same time.
Josie knelt beside the brunette and swept her hands over her body from shoulders to hips. Her clever fingers manipulated the other woman's breasts, tweaking the nipples, teasing the soft flesh.
Then she leaned forward and kissed those breasts, spending much loving attention at each. The brunette sighed and yelled and twisted, and she made ineffectual attempts to carress Josie.
Then the small blonde moved around and knelt behind the brunette's head. From the position, when she leaned forward to kiss the brunette's breasts, her own smaller bosom hung right beside the brunette's lips. Now they could both work at the same time.
Very soon after that they were engaged in the classic Lesbian posture, both intent upon giving and receiving pleasure. It was then that one of the men made that a group affair. He moved out of the circle of spectators, knelt behind Josie, and began to make love to her.
Soon there were groups forming all over the big room. And there were always odd numbers of participants, sometimes an extra man and sometimes an extra woman.
Jim found himself in one group of five, with three men and two women. Everyone was occupied and the only contribution he could make was to give pleasure to the second woman. But then, by giving pleasure he was also receiving.
The groups broke up and reformed and this time Jim was part of a threesome. The two women were Lucy Cattledge and Josie Brooks. Jim and Lucy assumed a classic pose, her face a mask of intense lust as she sought the ultimate pleasure.
Josie leaned by him to offer her breasts to his lips and he accepted the delicious fruit. When her desire grew more demanding the small blonde moved around so that he could give her more delicate attention.
Suddenly there were several loud, startling noises, and shouts. Heads popped up, people sprang apart, women screamed.
The room was filled with strangers....
Uniformed strangers....
Cameras clicked, flashbulbs popped.
The uniformed men, state policemen, brought matters quickly under control. The place was surrounded. There was no escape. It was as though the world had exploded, had reached an end.
The officers allowed the members of the group to dress and hustled them off to the county jail. Later, from a reporter who was trying to interview him, Jim learned how they'd been discovered.
During the winter the Carpenter property was a favorite lovers' lane for the local high school kids. Early that Sunday evening a carload of them had driven up, seen the lights, and peeked in through the windows. After that there had only been the matter of making a report to the proper authorities.
Jim was unable to keep his name out of the newspapers. And one enterprising reporter had managed to uncover the business of the correspondence club. The state attorney general launched a massive investigation.
Before the investigation was over the lives of several hundred people had been ruined. The other members of the group got off with heavy fines and/or light prison sentences. In one sense the adverse publicity was enough punishment for most of them. The men lost their jobs, the families were ostracized in their communities.
Jim could not convince the authorities that he was not the organizer of the group. And because of his correspondence club things went badly for him. He hired the best available lawyers and the legal battle waged for more than three months.
By the time the trial was over Jim's funds were completely exhausted. The ironic thing was that it would have gone much easier for him if some smart investigator had not been able to trace a direct connection between Jim's club and the photography racket.
